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Dear Dick,
Earlier today, Secretary Blinken publicly urged Hamas to accept Israel’s latest "extraordinarily generous" proposal to pause the fighting in Gaza and release hostages.
"Hamas has before it a proposal that is extraordinarily, extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel," Blinken said in Riyadh. "And in this moment the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas."
Blinken is among several top diplomats in Saudi Arabia, along with his counterparts from the U.K., France, Jordan and Egypt, focused on the Gaza war and opportunities to broaden regional peace and normalization.
Meanwhile, President Biden spoke yesterday with Prime Minister Netanyahu and will speak today with the leaders of Qatar and Egypt, as he pushes for the latest hostage deal.
An Israeli delegation is expected to travel to Cairo tomorrow for talks with Egyptian mediators over the deal.
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IRGC official killed as its proxies continue attacks
An Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) official was killed today in Iran, according to Iranian media reports. The official was reportedly planning to execute a terror attack on Jewish targets in Germany.
Meanwhile, Iran’s proxies continued to attack Israel from all directions.
In Gaza, Hamas launched rockets at Sderot and Ashdod, forcing Israeli civilians into bomb shelters yet again. Two IDF soldiers were killed during a battle in central Gaza, while another was seriously hurt.
In the north, Hamas in Lebanon launched dozens of rockets into Israel. The IDF responded by striking terrorist targets in Lebanon.
In Yemen, the Houthis launched three missiles at a Malta-flagged container ship in the Red Sea, reportedly "due to its listed operator’s ongoing trade with Israel."
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Seriously doubt any of the know nothing rioter's know about this:
This is a lengthy but excellent and historical analysis of the situation in the Middle East. Jordan Peterson sits down for an interview with Mosab Hassan Yousef, whose father is Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a co-founder of Hamas. Mosab Yousef said that his doubts about Islam and Hamas began forming when he realized Hamas' brutality, and that he hated how Hamas used the lives of suffering civilians and children to achieve its goals.
Peterson and Yousef discuss the ongoing conflict, the chaos created by Yasser Arafat, how Palestine has globalized their radical cause, Mosab's time as a prisoner, how he was raped as a child, what set him free, and the far-from-paved road going forward. Mosab Yousef is a Palestinian ex-militant who defected to Israel in 1997 where he worked as an undercover agent for the Shin Bet until he moved to the US in 2007. Yousef was considered the Shin Bet's most reliable source in the Hamas leadership, earning himself the nickname "The Green Prince.” The intelligence he supplied to Israel led to the exposure of many Hamas cells, as well as the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Jews.
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Anti-Semites cut off their noses?
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Israeli researchers see major drop in international cooperation since October 7
After nearly seven months without a plan, the Innovation, Science and Technology Ministry says it will form a panel to deal with the boycott led by academics in European countries
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Illustrative: Micro algae samples used in research on June 11, 2020, in Tel Aviv. (Jack Guez/AFP)
A recently released report by the Innovation, Science and Technology Ministry points to a sharp decrease in willingness by academic researchers from some European countries to cooperate with their Israeli counterparts since October 7.
Among the countries leading the boycott are Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Ireland. Also on the list are Italy, which has a long and important history of academic cooperation with Israel, as well as Belgium, a leader in the European research community.
According to a summary of the report published Thursday by Channel 13 news, 38 percent of Israeli research is conducted in cooperation with European academics, with 2023 reaching the highest level of cooperation in Israel’s history.
However, since October 7 and the beginning of the war sparked by the Hamas onslaught, there has been a reduction in funding of joint research ventures, as well as fewer exchanges of Israeli and European academics.
Access to laboratories and research infrastructure in Europe is now more limited for Israelis. In addition, Israelis’ participation in professional conferences has been either canceled or prevented by organizers.
The boycott primarily, but not exclusively, affects research in the fields of medicine, biology, physics, space and computer science.
At this point, the Israeli government does not have a plan to address the crisis.
Then-intelligence minister Gila Gamliel at a conference in Jerusalem, on February 25, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Newly-appointed Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel said that she will work with the Foreign Ministry and appoint a committee after the Passover holiday, which ends Monday night, to deal with the matter.
The Times of Israel reported last December about boycott concerns in an article about a solidarity visit by a delegation from the Max Planck Society, Germany’s leading non-university research organization comprised of 85 different institutes.
Two months into the war, Max Planck Society president Patrick Cramer said that some of his Israeli colleagues had already shared that since October 7, they had been shunned by international collaborators, conference organizers and important research publications.
Cramer told The Times of Israel that he found this unacceptable and that his society had offered colleagues from the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot a venue in Berlin to hold a planned conference.
Members of Max Planck Society delegation with presidents and vice presidents of Israeli universities at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, November 28, 2023. (Renee Ghert-Zand/Times of Israel)
While acknowledging the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population that would result from the war, the official statement issued by the Max Planck Society was unequivocal in its strong condemnation of the brutal October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.
Cramer was also resolute in his stance against antisemitism, which has reared its head on many university campuses globally.
“In democracies, you can criticize political decisions, a political party or a government. This criticism is often required. But there must be no tolerance for antisemitism and we are making that clear,” Cramer said.
Such support of Israeli research is very much lacking in other quarters.
In November, The Marker reported that previously existing latent animus toward Israel among international researchers had risen to the surface.
That article quoted Prof. Rivka Carmi, former president of Ben-Gurion University and head of Science Abroad, an organization that supports Israeli scientists working and studying abroad.
She said that studies involving Israeli researchers were being refused for peer review and that universities and institutes abroad were refusing to look at Israelis’ curriculum vitae submitted for the possibility of hiring and career advancement.
Former Ben-Gurion University president Rivka Carmi. (Dani Machlis/Ben-Gurion University)
Dr. Udi Sommer, an associate professor in the political science department at Tel Aviv University and currently a research fellow at John Jay College of the City University of New York, told The Marker that he had encountered researchers who had cut off contact with Israel and Israeli colleagues.
“This is disappointing emotionally, and on the professional level, this is worrisome. Israel needs to devise a strategy to deal with the current crisis and foresee the next one,” he said.
Prof. Ido Wolf, director of the oncology division at Ichilov Hospital and head of the Tel Aviv University Medical School, told the Ynet news site that he was especially concerned by the effects of the boycott — hidden or not — on Israeli medicine, pharma and patient health.
Wolf said he foresees major problems if international investors stop investing in Israeli med tech and biotech. It took only a short time after the war’s outbreak for him to notice pharma companies who usually cooperate with Israeli scientists and compete to enroll Israeli patients in clinical trials, coming up with excuses why not to.
Prof. Ido Wolf, director of the Oncology Department at Sourasky Medical Center. (Courtesy: Sourasky Medical Center)
Earlier this month, Haaretz‘s weekend magazine ran an article based on testimonies of 60 Israeli researchers from all fields. Their experiences summarize what so many of their Israeli colleagues have faced since October 7.
They told of international colleagues abruptly ending communication and giving every possible excuse for doing so. Some messages were couched in terms seemingly meant to avoid excessive offense, such as “This is not the right time to invite an Israeli lecturer,” “This is an uncomfortable situation, but the government is not allowing Israelis to participate in the conference” and “I am unable right now to cooperate with any Israeli institution.”
Others did not hide their anti-Israel and anti-Zionist stance in messages such as, “I can no longer be connected to an institution committed to Zionism,” “Because of atrocities committed by Israel, thousands of professors call for blocking all cooperation,” “I don’t feel comfortable working with citizens of a state that is committing war crimes” and “Our students demanded from us that we stop supporting genocide.”
Senior researchers told Haaretz that they had never faced a situation like the current one during their careers. It’s perhaps even more upsetting for younger academics trying to establish themselves.
One such young researcher in the social sciences reportedly tried to refrain from crying as she told Haaretz that she saw her career going down the drain.
“I invested 20 years of study in my field,” she said. “But now my future looks very limited. A relationship with an Israeli researcher has become illegitimate.”
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American Thinker posts another of my essays.
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Could Democrats find a back door to putting Obama on their presidential ticket?
By Richard Berkowitz
Normally, I have an opinion about America’s future.
Today, I am confused about the future, but predicting scenarios of what will happen is easy.
If the radical haters win, our republic is over. However, if the radicals lose, our republic will never return to what it was meant to be and once was because too much water has been spilled, inflation remains a canker, and our deficits will only grow.
It is ludicrous to believe the world will follow our nation as before. The mass media is untrustworthy; education, at all levels, has been destroyed; and every institution has either been corrupted or taken over by neo-Marxists. Corporate America has given up on capitalism, and America’s upbeat attitude has been crushed.
Tornados prove how quickly what takes decades to construct can be destroyed in the blink of an eye. Ben Franklin has been proven omniscient because we thought we could defy the phrase: “Getting and Spending, we lay waste our powers.” This phrase starkly highlights the modern tendency to expend our energy and potential in the pursuit of material gain. This observation emphasizes how individuals channel their time, effort, and creativity into accumulating wealth. In this sense, Wordsworth showcases the paradox of materialism.
Consequently, I worry that desperate young Americans will drive Democrats to knit together a Biden-Obama ticket allowing Obama to become president for a third term because there are no constraints on Obama serving as vice president and then becoming president by way of the office of the vice president, should Biden win and then resign or succumb to the 25th Amendment.
Wild? Yes. But Democrats will stop at nothing, and with Obama on the ticket, he could change the election results by beating Trump.
Basically, Obama is already running the White House through his staff surrogates.
Today’s youth believe “the American Dream” is dead. Their chance of becoming middle class, owning a home, being able to retire, is not within their grasp. They have given up on capitalism and are naive enough to embrace socialism.
Consequently, they will demand the government provide them a tax-free income, which places them in the middle class, and what they earn above this income source will then be subject to a tax.
Obama will campaign on a series of attractive “government giveaways” that will appeal to young voters who have already been spoiled by “COVID munificence.” Obama became president, won the Nobel Peace Prize, and had a political record of achievements thinner than a paper napkin.
The man is a charlatan, but he is “cool,” and young voters have proven they are easily swayed because they are educationally shallow.
Obama also is not above playing the race card and using intimidation to quiet “whitey,” and he already has campus discord which he can manipulate.
When matters get desperate, and the cost of food and gas are beyond the reach of millions of families, radical change becomes possible. We no longer have the stable foundation upon which our republic rested when religion was woven into the fabric of our society and law and order reigned. Most of what Trump had as resources that would help him “Make America Great” have been purposely erased by Biden.
Obama’s transformation of America was successful. The “Manchurian Candidate” won.
Now, will he be allowed to return through the back door?
Stay tuned and pray I am wrong.
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And American Thinker posted another of my essays.
If my roll continues, I will begin to feel like what Rex Harrison said about Liza: "I think she's got it. By God she's got it."
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No, the government is not to be trusted
By Richard Berkowitz
I listen to an untold number of videos relating to Congressional and Senate hearings, Investigations of witnesses, etc.
In each instance, and maybe more in the ones taking place in the Senate, I find them to be a lot of blowhard but overly courteous discussions where nothing truly is accomplished.
Sometimes, I am sure, legislation results from the information gleaned but it seems to me, that while the world is burning, they are more engaged in drinking water than hosing out fires.
Frankly, the British are, in my opinion, far more eloquent and humorous, though Sen. John Kennedy, from Louisiana, (who incidentally was educated at Oxford where British parliamentarians learn their skills) is a hoot. He is our equivalent of the great humorist from Oklahoma, Will Rogers.
The second thing I notice is when agency heads are called upon to tell why information requests are constantly ignored, withheld, or blacklined, the answer usually given is due to an ongoing investigation we cannot comment on. FBI Director Christopher Wray is particularly evasive in these ways.
The consequences are mostly dispiriting and continue to validate the comment 'you don't want to see how sausage and laws are made.'
The critical issue is how do we get trustworthy candidates for Congress; people who care deeply about the nation, who put the nation's interest first, and who are willing to take the slings and arrows public service subjects one to in today's highly politicized environment?
It takes a great deal of money to campaign and the last thing we need or want is to be governed by elite oligarchs like Mark Zuckerberg, or Bill Gates or those who engage in public life for the purpose of self-enrichment, such as Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Bob Menendez, or, worse still, those who crave power to bring about our nation's transformation like Obama or those of their ilk.
Politics historically attracts some interesting and equally dangerous characters.
I have always believed anyone running for a significant political position should be given a Rorschach Test and/or undergo a mental evaluation that is publicly disclosed.
The public needs to be informed, particularly since we no longer can rely upon the mass media's objectivity.
As for limited terms, time and again I know how popular it is, but unless the bureaucracy can be fired or their own service limited, they present the highest of all risks.
Christopher Rufo's book: "America's Cultural Revolution," devotes a significant amount of discussion to how those who work in government, at all levels, " ... fortify power and privilege while waging grievous harm which eventually becomes the pretext for domination."
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Sen. Elizabeth "Pocahontas" Warren shoved down America's throat, expanded its demands and power far beyond the benign intent upon its claimed initial language. It went from a legislative squeak to an omnipotent roar.
And what of the IRS, the FBI, the Department of Education, etc? I could go on and on as every one of these benign well-intended agencies have morphed into abusive ones, which at times, have threatened our freedoms and even our Bill of Rights.
If you do not believe me, ask FISA judges how they were exploited by the FBI.
No, if you're here from the government, you are not here to help me. Lamentably, you are not to be trusted. You can be terribly harmful and often are.
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