Essay And More

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I Remain Mystified 

Essay by Dick Berkowitz

This essay focuses on why Jews remain Liberal. even though they have been "shivved" 3 times by FDR, Obama and now Biden.  

Obviously there is no one reason.  I have consistently believed what Norman Podhoretz: wrote in his book "Why Jews Are Liberal."  His explanation is  the one I find most reliable.. Podhoretz maintains, most Liberal Jews do not understand their religion and mistakenly believe they were put on this earth to make the world better, ie,. Tikkun Olan.  However, Podhoretz asserts they have incorrectly  substituted/embraced politics for this commandment.

Furthermore, I  believe most progressives wake up each morning unhappy because they constantly seek change. and easily find fault with that which works.

For people who are avowedly considered  intelligent and have been immensely successful, I am bemused that their embrace of progressivism leaves them vulnerable. Virtually everything  they have chosen to believe has proven  wrong and destructive not only for the world but also for fellow Jews. 

How could they embrace Marxism when they have gained so much from capitalism? How they disregard the benefits freedoms and acceptance from our republic defies logic? ?

Jews also have significant visibility because they are predominantly engaged as professionals. They have achieved political power, think Schumer,Schiff, Nadler and political advisors, Kissinger etc.  In the entertainment world, think Streisand and Rob Reiner .As for current Cabinet members, think Mayorkas, Blinken and  AG Garland. and what about billionaire oligarchs like Schultz, Knight, Zuckerberg, Soros and Bloomberg etc.  Even in the world of unions, I submit the lady who Chairs Education, Weingarten, and it does not stop there because many college and university presidents are Jewish and are liberal types. As for lawyers we have the brilliant 

Because of Jews' visibility and  role as historical scapegoats. and now that anti-Semitism has risen from the sewer because Bidenomics has failed and inflation has impacted both the net worth and budgets of the middle class in America, Jews have again resurfaced as the most vulnerable.

Frankly, I always believed Jews would eventually become victims of anti-Semitism in America but was woefully early  in my prediction and obviously could not know what would trigger the circumstances but I always believed it would be due to a radical/liberal president or political type, ie. McCarthy.

I believe most Americans are not anti-Semitic but because of their reluctance to speak out they have allowed radical know-nothings,  led by neo-Marxists, to take over our college and university campuses.

When it comes to lawyers/ law professors one of the most recognized liberals is Alan Dershowitz. He also is one of the most courageous but he persists in remaining a Democrat.. We have e mailed each other and he remains a proud Democrat.

How liberal Jews can ignore the blessings and acceptances they have received and earned because of our republic's freedoms defies logic. I simply cannot understand 

their adherence to beliefs that expose them to defying the expression: 'if you are not liberal by 21 you have no heart and if you are not conservative from 21 on you have no brain.  

For a bookish people who no longer can enter a library without abuse simply mystifies me but then what do I know? I remain  a dimwitted conservative.

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If Raisi Is Dead: Implications for the Islamic Republic of Iran

by Shay Khatiri

Middle East Forum Observer

https://www.meforum.org/65899/if-raisi-is-dead-implications-for-the-islamic

State media report that a helicopter carrying Iran President Ebrahim Raisi had a "hard landing" amidst bad weather. Rescue teams reportedly are struggling to reach the mountainous and forested site. Raisi was returning from a visit to the Iran-Azerbaijan border. If Raisi is dead or incapacitated, there will need to be an emergency succession in Iran.

How Would Presidential Succession Occur?

Raisi's demise, if confirmed, would not the first death of a sitting Iranian president, In 1981, the Mojahedin-e Khalq of Iran assassinated President Mohammad-Ali Rajai. The Islamic Republic's constitution simply states that when a president dies, a new president "would be chosen." In 1981, authorities called a new election but, in 1989, an amended constitution gave the Supreme Leader, currently Ali Khamenei, further power to decide. Under the current constitution, there is no mandate for a new election. If the president is dead or unable to perform his duties for longer than two months, the first vice president, the speaker of the parliament, and the chief justice, with the consent of the Supreme Leader, form a council to choose the succession mechanism.

Continue reading the full article >

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Sherwin Pomerantz

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Understanding Israel in a Time of War

By Sherwin Pomerantz

Recently readers of my daily blog, which has been running non-stop five days a week since the start of the war, have asked me to back off the news focus for a moment and tell them what I think.  So, this blog will deal with some of the facts of life in Israel during war time and what I think needs to be done to get ourselves out of this mess not of our making that has gone on far too long, for sure.

Israeli reporter Avi Shavit summarized the current situation best when he wrote in an op ed last Friday: “225 days since October 7, this Shabbat, too, Hamas will fire rockets at the communities on the Gaza border. Hezbollah will send drones to the Galilee, and Israel will be left with no way to respond. Seven and a half months since the day of our defeat, there is still no victory.”

He continues, “With the hostages still suffering horribly in Gaza’s tunnels of evil and soldiers dying in fierce battles in Gaza, Minister of Defense Yoav Galant is not speaking to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Prime Minister is not speaking to the Minister of Defense. There is a great deal of friction between Israel and the United States and a conflict with Egypt, and Israel is being tried at the Hague. The world does not understand the State of Israel, the People of Israel do not understand the Government of Israel, and the Tribes of Israel are fighting again. The Great War is only in its beginning stages, but we’re behaving as if there is no war, as if 1,500 Israelis were not murdered or killed, as if hundreds of Israelis were not kidnapped and tortured, as if there is no Iran and there is no extremist Axis of Evil and as if there’s no knife hanging above our necks. This cannot go on.”

He is correct and, like many of us, he worries that while we sometimes flippantly refer to the war as the response to an existential threat to our survival as a nation, the threat is real and should not be taken lightly.

Who is to blame for where we are?

There are banners around the country as well as video clips on the internet trying to place the blame on the Prime Minister.  While he is not directly to blame for what happened on October 7th nor for the failure to achieve victory during the past seven months, as former US President Truman often proclaimed, “The Buck Stops Here.”  The chief executive officer of a country cannot claim to be blameless for what happens on his watch.  He cannot claim that he has no responsibility and that it was all the fault of others.  There is no doubt in the minds of any of us that if and when we are victorious, he will claim total responsibility for that success.  So too, when the chips fall the other way, he is similarly responsible.

What do we do next

Having said that, while I believe it would be in Israel’s best interests if the Prime Minister were to resign, massive demonstrations urging him to resign are futile.  The personality of the man is such that no demonstration in the country is large enough to force him to abandon his post as Prime Minister.  Those of us who are convinced that after 14 years in this position it is time for him to leave need to use the mechanisms of the democratic process that operates in a parliamentary democracy to make that happen.  In a word, if we believe that an extreme right-wing government is not what Israel needs right now, we must work on convincing certain members of the coalition who we know to be people of principle, to bolt that coalition, and, lacking a majority, dissolve parliament and force the government to go to new elections. 

I believe (and hope) that there are people like Yuli Edelstein, Nir Barkat, Avi Dichter, Amir Ohana, Danny Danon, Yoav Galant, Chili Tropper and others who, deep in their heart, know that new leadership must be found to change the country’s direction.  Who can convince them?   The young people who this government sent to war and who know that the country cannot return to the level of internal strife we experienced in the first nine months of 2023 during the judicial reform battle. 

These miluimnikim as they are called in Hebrew, people who were called to reserve duty on October 8th and showed up at a level of 130% of the numbers required, many of whom are now missing limbs or have other injuries they will carry with them forever. are the people who should force those with a conscience to leave the coalition.   As many of them have already correctly opined, the country needs to be worthy of the sacrifice made by almost 300 members of the IDF who gave their lives to secure the future of Israel.

Once the coalition disintegrates and the parliament is dissolved, we can go legally to elections and hope that the same people in power today are not returned to power.  I hesitate to even contemplate what might happen if the leadership is not changed.  This effort should begin immediately.

The Hostages

What many people abroad do not understand about Israel is our rock-solid commitment to doing everything we can to bring the hostages home, dead or alive, but preferably alive.  This is a value that every citizen of Israel shares with every other citizen and one that is based on Jewish law and tradition.  Redeeming the captives is mandatory according to the Torah and Israel has made some incredibly unbalanced past trades in order to observe that dictate.

I know that to the people who don’t live here, trading 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom have blood on their hands, in order to redeem 1, 2 or 3 hostages seem ludicrous.  But there is a covenant here between the government and the people, based on Jewish tradition, that demands that we do all we can to bring them back.  Doing so may prolong the war, it may cause longer periods of grief for the families of those who are in battle on the front lines, but it is something we owe to each other which we dare not abandon….neither the hostages nor the principle involved.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell once said “War does not determine who is right – only who is left.”  Those who are left now bear the responsibility to ensure that their sacrifice and those of their compatriots who gave their lives for the state were not in vain.  Those presently in power owe their allegiance to these young people who proved their mettle and did so to ensure the successful continuation of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, the land which the good Lord entrusted to all of us for eternity.   May they be successful in their endeavors and may Israel be sustained.

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Sinwar in Exchange for Rafah

Why is the Biden administration dangling the Hamas chief in exchange for stopping the Gaza war? Because the terror group’s survival is key to the administration’s larger project in the Middle East.

The Biden team’s offer to trade Yahya Sinwar, the man believed to be the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack, for guarantees that the Israeli military stay out of Rafah points to two disturbing truths about the current conflict in the Middle East. The first is that the U.S. knows plenty about what the Hamas terror group is doing and has done. The second is that Washington has been keeping key information—like the terror leader’s whereabouts—from the Israelis, thereby prolonging the war that it claims to decry.


The implications of the administration’s offer, relayed in a recent Washington Post article, has Israelis and U.S. pro-Israel activists livid. Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, for instance, posted on X, “I am shocked and sickened by reports that the U.S. is withholding from Israel vital information on the whereabouts of senior Hamas leaders in Gaza. Is the administration still our ally?”

The Biden administration is making the offer because all its efforts to end Israel’s war have failed and if Rafah falls, Hamas is likely to fall, too. It seems there’s no other way to preserve a pillar of what the White House calls “regional integration”—a euphemism for the U.S.-Iran alliance system that Barack Obama has tried to impose on the Middle East for the last decade.

Leaks that the Biden administration is withholding actionable intelligence on Hamas’ paramount leader in Gaza confirm that, as Tablet reported shortly after the Oct. 7 massacre, the administration had a wealth of intelligence on the terror group and its plans. If U.S. intelligence agencies are confident that they know where Sinwar is squirreled away now, in the chaos of wartime, they also knew what he was doing in the lead-up to the massive attack.

Biden and his aides have formulated their scenario: Hamas ‘technocrats’ will constitute the Iranian-backed component in a unity government with the U.S.-backed faction that now rules the West Bank. Hamas is a pillar of the U.S.-Iran condominium.

The administration’s efforts to disclaim any foreknowledge of the attack were always absurd. The U.S. has not only its own unrivaled collection of signals intelligence but also significant intelligence channels in Qatar, where Hamas leaders are based; in Lebanon, where Hamas fighters trained under the supervision of Iranian officials; and Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza and allows Hamas to smuggle weapons through the terror group’s extensive tunnel network. Further, detailed open-source reporting, especially in The Wall Street Journal, months prior to the attack showed that top Iranian officials were visiting Lebanon to coordinate major operations with Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.

And yet, according to reports shortly after Oct. 7, there was no evidence U.S. spy services shared with Jerusalem their intelligence on Hamas. The Biden administration rationalized its failures by claiming there was nothing exceptional about its findings, much of which was gathered in areas where the U.S. prevented or discouraged Israeli intelligence from operating. As one U.S. source told the press, “I think what happened is everyone saw these reports and were like, ‘Yeah of course. But we know what this will look like.’” In other words, the Biden administration knew there was something big in the works; the only question is whether it had any indication of the full scope of the Oct. 7 operation.

The Washington Post article is best understood in connection with two recent New York Times articles. The first alleges to explain why Biden lost his patience with Ιsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and turned against Israel—because Rafah was a step too far. The piece describes a Feb. 11 phone call between an “exasperated” U.S. president and Bibi during which “for the first time, the president who had so strongly backed Israel’s war against Hamas was essentially threatening to change course.”

The narrative that the Times report means to push is false. There was no “evolution” of Biden’s position. In reality, the administration has been trying to deter Israel from Day One. Less than 24 hours after the Oct. 7 attack, Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted his support for a cease-fire, before Israel even began its counterstrike.

What the article really shows is how the administration has become increasingly frustrated that its efforts to derail Israel have failed. Starting in the earliest days of the war, Biden helped resupply Hamas by requiring Israel to “surge” fuel, food, and other “aid” into Gaza even while public reporting made it clear that much of the aid was going directly to Hamas, which shoots at Gazan civilians to protect its Biden-sponsored bounty.

As the Israelis prepared to move on Rafah in early February, the White House told Israel to present plans to protect civilians, allow Hamas to control aid convoys, and arrange for moving hundreds of thousands of Gazans out of harm’s way—measures designed to limit Israel’s warfighting capacity while strengthening Hamas’ will and ability to resist. But for Biden, changing the rules of war beyond those ever observed by the U.S. and other Western forces still wasn’t enough. The administration joined Hamas’ propaganda efforts by raising daily alarms about a nonexistent “famine” in Gaza, citing the terror group’s baldly falsified casualty numbers as fact, and threatening Israel with prosecution for war crimes at the International Criminal Court.

Acting as defense counsel and PR firm for an Islamist organization that massacred over 1,200 people and still holds U.S. citizens hostage is psychopathic—or evil, if you prefer—but it wasn’t enough to satisfy the White House. The administration’s latest demand, retailed by Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and other Biden aides, is that Israel must come up with plans for the “Day After”—i.e., must be responsible for how its enemy will conduct its political arrangements after it’s routed. This Biden demand appears to be a variation of Colin Powell’s so-called “Pottery Barn” rule—if a military power breaks a society, it’s obliged to own it.

The most generous reading of Powell’s rule is that the ex-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who served two combat tours in Vietnam, intended to make American policymakers think very hard about using military force. In practice, worrying about how to fix unfixable places cost thousands of American lives and trillions of U.S. dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq. By seeking to impose the same perverse strategy on Israel, the White House’s intent is to hobble a traditional American ally fighting an existential war on its borders.

U.S. policymakers who have proved repeatedly over the last half century that they are incapable of winning wars now insist that Israel must not win them. “Sometimes when we listen closely to Israeli leaders, they talked about mostly the idea of some sort of sweeping victory on the battlefield, total victory,” State Department official Kurt Campbell said recently. “I don’t think we believe that that is likely or possible.” Nonetheless, despite all the administration’s efforts to save Hamas, Israel is winning its war—or else Biden aides and allies wouldn’t be going all out to stop them.

In further support of the Biden administration’s program of deterrence, Obama faction oligarchs, like George Soros, Bill Gates, and the Pritzker family, spent millions of dollars funding pro-Hamas demonstrations throughout the United States. These rallies were designed in part to echo the anti-Netanyahu protests in Israel organized by Biden officials and allies, whose goal was first to topple the government and then, after war broke out, to end it leaving Hamas intact.

More on Oct. 7 and U.S. Policy

In America, the purpose of mass demonstrations, still ongoing after several months, is to indicate grassroots support for saving Hamas, and thus frame Biden support for Palestinian terrorists as a response to “public pressure.” If some of the youthful demonstrators appeared to be at odds with the White House—“Genocide Joe,” the protesters chanted—the fact is that their desired outcome was the same as the administration’s. And compared to mobs of frenzied kids calling for spilling Jewish blood “from the river to the sea,” the White House’s efforts to impose a cease-fire indeed seem measured and moderate.

But the propaganda campaign messaging that the dynamic and fearless pro-Palestine youngsters had turned America against the evil Zionists hit a wall with New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Angry to have his patriotism tested by demonstrators replacing the American flag with the banner of a terror enclave, the former policeman learned that outside forces, including foreign governments, were funding the protests. No NYC law enforcement official could afford to tolerate the disruption of the city’s life for months by violent, antisemitic, flag-burning protesters seizing control of bridges, highways, commuter rail terminals, airports, and now universities.

When the NYPD started making arrests at the Columbia, NYU, and CUNY campuses, they found that half of the demonstrators were not students but paid agitators—many of them in their 30s and 40s. In other words, while terrorizing a traditional Democratic Party constituency, middle-class Jews, the protests showed there was in fact no organic support for demanding Israel back off an Ιranian-backed terror group that killed 30 Americans and is holding another five hostage. In fact, according to an April Harvard/Harris poll, support for Israel, which has been waning under a concerted publicity campaign led by the White House in concert with its activist allies, skyrocketed back up to 80% once Americans saw kaffiyeh-clad activists hoisting terror banners and calling for genocide.

Biden’s last instrument of deterrence was to stop supplying arms to Israel, which would at last, presumably, bring Netanyahu to heel. Instead, the Israeli public rallied around the prime minister when he vowed to go into Rafah regardless and finish the job, even if Israelis had to fight with their fingernails.

With the White House all out of sticks, it had no other option but to offer Jerusalem a carrot, Sinwar. After all, Israeli officials swore that the war wouldn’t be over until they had Sinwar in chains or had buried him. By handing over the top terrorist, Biden could end the war and keep the Israelis from going into Rafah.

The second Times article, published Sunday, sourced to U.S. officials and Hamas operatives, shows how Sinwar has become expendable. It presents him as a rogue at odds not only with the Palestinian public but even his own organization. According to the article, “U.S. officials say that Mr. Sinwar has shown disdain for his colleagues outside Gaza, who were not informed about the precise plans for Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7.”

After Oct. 7, the administration was determined to distance Iran from any operational role in the attack. But now Biden officials are claiming that Hamas leaders based in Qatar, like Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshaal, were also in the dark. Accordingly, compared to Sinwar, Haniyeh and Meshaal are moderates.

“While the outside leadership has at times been more willing to compromise,” a Biden aide told the Times, “Mr. Sinwar is less ready to concede ground to the Israeli negotiators.” Indeed, according to a colleague of Sinwar’s, “other leaders might not have instigated the Oct. 7 attack, preferring to focus on technocratic matters of governance.” The Hamas man continued: “If someone else had been in his position, things might have gone in a calmer way.” As it turns out, the moderates in Hamas didn’t even know about Oct. 7—and surely, they would have done things differently.

Israel’s plans for the “Day After” are clearly irrelevant, since Biden and his aides have formulated their own scenario: Hamas “technocrats”—i.e., the leadership in Doha—will constitute the Iranian-backed component in a Palestinian unity government in tandem with the U.S.-backed faction that now rules the West Bank, Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.

Hamas, therefore, is a pillar of the U.S.-Iran condominium in the Middle East. This includes Lebanon—where Washington funds the army and intelligence services, which are run by Iran’s asset, Hezbollah—as well as Iraq and Syria, where U.S. forces are deployed to protect Iranian allies and proxies from the regional Sunni majority.

If Israel finishes off Hamas, the Biden administration’s efforts to complete Obama’s Middle East security architecture will collapse. From that perspective, Team Biden prefers to sacrifice Sinwar and save Obama’s most important strategic initiative, which aims to override the traditional U.S.-led order of the Middle East and give birth to a new and unholy anatomy, tying America to an anti-American terror-state that embodies Jew hatred.

The problem for Biden is that he is trying to realize a vision that is fundamentally unstable, not to mention insane. Iran is weak, and so are its proxies—or else the White House wouldn’t have to expend so much energy deterring Israel.

It can hardly be lost on any careful reader of this recent White House information operation that the powers now being attributed to Sinwar belong rather to the American government. Sinwar, writes the Times, “has emerged not only as a strong-willed commander but as a shrewd negotiator who has staved off an Israeli battlefield victory while engaging Israeli envoys at the negotiating table.”

But Sinwar hasn’t been near any negotiating tables; he’s been hiding in tunnels inside Gaza. Rather, it is the White House that has prevented an Israeli victory, and it is Biden aides who have thwarted Jerusalem with their diplomatic entreaties to formulate a plan for feeding Palestinians, moving them to safety, and ensuring their political rights with a plan for the “Day After.” Were it not for Biden’s repeated interventions, Hamas might have been destroyed months ago—and many lives on both sides might have been saved.

The most important takeaway from Biden’s offer of Sinwar in exchange for Rafah is that Barack Obama’s vision of a new Middle East, which the Biden administration has insisted on following, entails tying the U.S. not only to an obscurantist anti-American and Jew-hating terror regime but to a military force and its proxy armies that, like U.S. policymakers, can’t win wars. Like his former boss, Biden is intent on saddling America with a deadly loser. Israel’s decision then isn’t just about whether to take Sinwar or forfeit Rafah, but whether to crash Obama’s project, or to let Hamas survive along with the programmatically apocalyptic delusions of its superpower backer.

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I Can’t Stand These Democrats, Part 1 

By Derek Hunter

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The Biden Re-Election Strategy

By Victor Davis Hanson

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Merrick Garland Torched His Position on the Biden Tapes...And Didn't Even Recognize It

By Matt Vespa

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Consul update (Edited.)

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Operational Updates

Entire Gaza Strip

The IAF struck approximately 80 terror targets over the past day throughout the Gaza Strip, including weapons storage facilities, launchers, terrorist cells, military structures, and other terrorist infrastructure. Below is footage of the strikes:

Northern Gaza Strip

IDF troops are continuing to operate against terrorists in the area of Jabaliya, locating weaponry in an UNRWA facility and eliminating terrorists in close-quarters combat. Additionally, an IAF aircraft eliminated operatives who had fired anti-tank missiles at the troops. No IDF injuries were reported. Moreover, during one activity in the area, terrorists armed with RPG launchers who were identified on their way to attack IDF troops were eliminated in an aerial strike.

Central Gaza Strip

Operations continue in the central Gaza Strip, where IDF tanks struck several terrorists and destroyed military structures in which explosives were planted and other weapons were stored

Southern Gaza Strip A Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) tactical-level commander was eliminated in an aerial strike in the eastern Rafah area along with three other terrorists from the organization who were operating against IDF troops in the area.

Below is footage of recent IDF operational activity in the Gaza Strip:

Northern Arena

Overnight, IAF fighter jets struck Hezbollah military structures in the areas of Blida, Jibbain, and Odaisseh, as well as an observation post belonging to the terror organization in the area of Chihine in southern Lebanon.

PM Netanyahu Meets with US National Security Advisor Sullivan Yesterday (May 19), Prime Minister (PM) Benjamin Netanyahu met with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem.   The two discussed the continuation of the fighting in Gaza (with emphasis on Rafah), the humanitarian assistance to the residents of the Gaza Strip, the return of the hostages, and events in the northern arena.   Also participating in the meeting were Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, National Security Council Director Tzachi Hanegbi and US Presidential Envoy and National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk.   After the meeting, an inter-agency dialogue – led by Strategic Affairs Minister Dermer and National Security Council Director Hanegbi – was held with the American delegation led by US National Security Advisor Sullivan. The continuation of the war in Gaza and strengthening the humanitarian effort in the Strip, were discussed at length.

Israel Responds to International Criminal Court's "Outrageous" Request of Arrest Warrants for Israeli Leaders

Today, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Kahn, announced that he has requested arrest warrants for three top Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza, Mohammed Deif, the terror group's military head, and Ismail Haniyeh, the Chairman of Hamas's Political Bureau, on charges of committing war crimes. Shockingly, in an outrageous display of false equivalency, Kahn also requested arrest warrants for Israel's Prime Minister (PM) Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant. In response to this outrageous announcement, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, stated: "The announcement of the prosecutor at the ICC is beyond outrageous, and shows the extent to which the international judicial system is in danger of collapsing. Taken in bad faith, this one-sided move represents a unilateral political step that emboldens terrorists around the world, and violates all the basic rules of the court according to the principle of complementarity and other legal norms. Hamas’s leaders are oppressive dictators guilty of launching mass murder, mass rape, and mass kidnappings of men, women, children and babies. Any attempt to draw parallels between these atrocious terrorists and a democratically elected government of Israel - working to fulfill its duty to defend and protect its citizens entirely in adherence to the principles of international law – is outrageous and cannot be expected by anyone. We will not forget who started this war, and who raped, butchered, burned, brutalized, and kidnapped innocent citizens and families. We will not forget our hostages whose safe return should be the main concern of the international community. We expect all leaders in the free world to condemn outright this step and firmly reject it." The following is the statement issued by Israeli Foreign Minister (FM) Israel Katz: "The outrageous decision by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague is an unrestrained frontal assault on the victims of October 7th and our 128 hostages in Gaza. While Hamas murderers and rapists commit crimes against humanity against our brothers and sisters, the Prosecutor mentions in the same breath the Prime Minister and Defense Minister of Israel alongside the vile Nazi-like monsters of Hamas – a historical disgrace that will be remembered forever. I have instructed the immediate establishment of a special command center at the Foreign Ministry, with all professional entities, aimed at fighting against the decision intended primarily to shackle Israel's hands and prevent it from exercising its right to self-defense. I intend to speak with foreign ministers of leading countries around the world to urge them to oppose the Prosecutor's decision and declare that even if warrants are issued, they do not intend to enforce them against Israeli leaders. No power in the world will prevent us from bringing back all our hostages and toppling the Hamas terror regime."

IDF Troops Recover Body of Hostage Ron Benjamin from Gaza

On Saturday (May 18), the IDF announced that Israeli troops had recovered the body of 53 year-old Ron Benjamin, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7th and then taken to Gaza, where his body was held. Below is a statement from IDF Spokesperson RADM. Daniel Hagari on the matter: "Tonight, we are sharing the tragic news that the Israel Defense Forces, together with the ISA, rescued the body of the Israeli hostage, Ron Benjamin, and brought him home to Israel. Ron, who was 53 years old, married to Ayelet, and father to Shai and Gil, went out for a cycle ride with friends near Be’eri on the morning of Saturday, October 7th. On that terrible day, Ron was brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists, and his body was abducted into Gaza. On October 7th, the cruelty of Hamas was directed against anyone who stood in the way of the murderous terrorists - women, the elderly, adults, children, whether they were Israeli or foreign nationals. On Friday [May 17], we announced that our troops had rescued the bodies of three other Israeli hostages murdered and abducted on October 7th: Shani Louk, Amit Buskila, Yitzchak Gelernter. Our thoughts are with all their families at this very difficult time. Our mission is to bring home every single one of the one hundred and twenty-eight hostages who are still being held in Gaza." May Ron's memory be a blessing for all eternity.

IDF Locates Footage of Hamas Terrorists Abusing Child Hostages Yesterday (May 19), the IDF announced that Israeli troops operating in Gaza discovered footage taken by Hamas showing the terrorists abusing Israeli child hostages, shortly after their brutal abduction to Gaza on Oct. 7th. In the video (which can be viewed HERE), 8-year-old Ela Elyakim is seen in Gaza several days after she was abducted her father's house in Nahal Oz. Ela's family has requested that the video be viewed and shared widely, as to expose Hamas's barbaric crimes. In the above photo, Ela is seen with her 15-year-old sister, Dafna Elyakim, who was abducted with her. Below is a statement by IDF Spokesperson, RADM. Daniel Hagari, regarding the matter: "During our ground operations in Gaza, our troops found raw footage filmed by Hamas for their psychological terror videos. Today, we showed the footage to the family of 8-year-old Ela Elyakim, who was taken hostage into Gaza on October 7th. Ela was released from Hamas captivity together with her sister Dafna during the hostage release agreement. The video, which is being released today for the first time, was intended to be used by Hamas for psychological terror. But Ela’s family asked us to share it with the world to expose Hamas's terror, to expose Hamas's cruelty, to expose Hamas's barbarism. 8-year-old Ela Elyakim told us that Hamas terrorists forced her to read from a script, forced her to change her clothes, and forced her to re-film this terrifying scene over and over and over again. Our hearts go out to Ela, her family, and all the hostage families. Please help us respect the wishes of Ela’s family by sharing this video far and wide. We will continue doing everything in our power to bring our hostages back home."

Israeli Air Force Eliminates Top Hamas Operatives in Precision Strikes

Yesterday (May 19), the IDF and ISA operation conducted a joint operation in which Israeli Air Froce (IAF) aircraft struck and eliminated the terrorist Zaher Huli (also known as "Abu Hamed"), who held roles in Hamas's Military Wing and the Hamas Police. Huli leveraged his position to foster connections with other Hamas terrorists and promote terror attacks against the State of Israel. Below is footage of his elimination: During an additional operation on Saturday (May 18), the terrorist Rami Khalil Faki, who also held roles in Hamas's Military Wing and the Hamas Police, was targeted in a precision aerial strike. Faki commanded armed terrorists who carried out attacks against IDF troops. His deputy and four additional Hamas terrorist operatives were eliminated together with him. Below is footage of the elimination of the terrorists:

Operation: Swords of Iron Humanitarian Update Click HERE for today's updates regarding the IDF's humanitarian efforts during Operation: Swords of Iron. ++++ Israel Should Get The Weapons It Needs To Win By Lawrence Haas   Senator Lindsey Graham attracted lots of overheated headlines in recent days when, in blasting the Biden administration for delaying some weapons for Israel to use in Gaza, he drew an analogy to President Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II. Graham said that, just as Truman used all the firepower at his disposal to end the war with Japan as soon as possible, Washington should give our close ally in Jerusalem what it says it needs to do the same with Hamas. Anything less, he suggested, would send the “wrong signal” to Hamas, Hezbollah, and their backers in Tehran, encouraging them to continue pursuing their stated desire of destroying the Jewish state. Graham’s analogy evoked predictable outrage, but the South Carolina Republican raised an agonizing question of long standing in the world of U.S. foreign policy: what’s the best way to wage war, limit casualties, and deter future aggression? On the question of whether Washington should give Jerusalem what it says it needs, he’s got the better of the argument. To be clear, war is a ghastly business. People die – some in uniform, some as civilians in the crossfire. Today, they die due to aggression by a revanchist Russia and a genocidal Hamas. And they die in Ukraine as Kyiv defends its homeland, and in Gaza as Jerusalem seeks to prevent another October 7 Laudably, Washington wants Jerusalem to limit civilian casualties in Gaza as much as possible. Jerusalem, in turn, has no reason to want anything else; as casualty numbers rise, Israel risks more global isolation. But the real question revolves around the best way to limit casualties (both Israeli and Palestinian), not just now but over the long run. Not surprisingly, Washington and the wider world are focused on the here and now: the war, the casualties, the potential for greater bloodshed, and the resulting political pressures that U.S. and other leaders face. President Biden has been pressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to invade Rafah, Hamas’ last stronghold, while Secretary of State Antony Blinken in recent days blasted Jerusalem for lacking a plan to protect civilians in Gaza. Washington even offered to help Israel gather the intelligence to pinpoint the whereabouts of Hamas officials if Jerusalem abandoned its invasion plans. If the U.S. goal is to limit casualties not just now but over the long run, however, Washington should adopt a different posture. Hamas didn’t just slaughter 1,200 Israelis on October 7. Inspired by their success, the group’s leaders vow to mount as many more such attacks as needed to destroy the Jewish state. That would mean more deaths of not just innocent Israelis but, when Jerusalem responds to each attack (as any government would), more deaths of innocent Palestinians – especially because Hamas will continue hiding among civilian populations for the explicit purpose of boosting casualty numbers. Wouldn’t total civilian casualties on both sides be lower over the long run if Israel has the weaponry to destroy Hamas now? Moreover, U.S. efforts to rein in Jerusalem as it seeks to destroy Hamas cannot help but embolden Hezbollah, which continues to fire rockets into Israel from southern Lebanon, as well as Iran, which crossed an important threshold in April when it mounted its first direct attack on Israeli territory. Wouldn’t total civilian casualties across the region be lower over the long run if, with full U.S. backing, Israel deters Hezbollah and Iran from mounting larger-scale aggression by finishing off Hamas? In the late summer of 1945, Truman faced the same basic question that Biden faces today: how to end a war as quickly as possible, with as few casualties as possible then and for the foreseeable future. Truman had two choices – to drop the ghastly bombs, which killed more than 100,000 innocents and finally convinced Tokyo to surrender, or mount a U.S. invasion of Japan that would cause the deaths of not only hundreds of thousands of U.S. military personnel but also millions of Japanese civilians. Two years later, Secretary of War Henry Stimson wrote, “[D]eath is an inevitable part of every order that a wartime leader gives. The decision to use the atomic bomb was a decision that brought death to over a hundred thousand Japanese…  But this deliberate, premeditated destruction was our least abhorrent choice.” Biden, too, has two choices – to give Israel what it needs to eradicate Hamas, or limit the aid and continue pressuring Jerusalem to back off. In a war that Hamas initiated and Israel seeks to end, giving the latter what it needs is once again “our least abhorrent choice.” Lawrence J. Haas is a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and the author of, most recently, The Kennedys in the World: How Jack, Bobby, and Ted Remade America’s Empire (Potomac Books). https://www.19fortyfive.com/2024/05/israel-should-get-the-weapons-it-needs-to-win/ ++++  My very dear friend Avi Jorisch's son has serious health issues.  Pray for his complete recovery. Me +++ Coming to Terms with Parenting a Child with a Rare Condition By Avi Jorisch Our doctor called about a year ago with news that no parent ever wants to hear. “The good news is that your son doesn’t have cancer.” I looked at my eight-year-old in the car’s rear-view mirror, and I suddenly couldn’t breathe. “The bad news is that whatever he has is incredibly rare and I don’t know how to treat this. From this moment forward you need to be your son’s biggest advocate.” I felt like I was kicked hard in the head. I was so shocked I thought I would get into an accident. The roller coaster started twenty-four hours earlier after my son took a hearing test. He had sudden (?) “profound” hearing loss in his right ear – in other words, was completely deaf in that ear. He also has minor facial weakness and is speaking to some degree out of one side of his mouth. Our doctor had called me earlier in the day and instructed me to go immediately to Children’s Hospital in Washington DC. At my son’s intake examination, the physician assistant went completely white. “You know what I am worried about, right?” I nodded. “A tumor.” Over the next eight hours, we saw dozens of doctors and capped off the experience with a “scary and loud” MRI machine. As we waited for the results, I felt dread. It showed nothing unusual. I spent the next few months working my network and navigating the system. We ultimately started seeing one of the world’s top ENTs. Utterly perplexed, he told us quietly, “I am not going to sugarcoat this. His hearing in that ear isn’t coming back.” Our job was to rule out as many potential horrible diseases as possible, and determine if his facial weakness is degenerative. The ENT felt it would take about six to nine months to be seen by various specialists. Ophthalmology to rule out vision issues; rheumatology (I admit, I had to look this up) to rule out autoimmune diseases; and genetics to see what my son – and most likely his mother and I – carries in his DNA. I thought to myself, “Are you kidding me? Ill see you again in a few weeks.” I begged, called repeatedly, pushed, pleaded and used all of my chutzpah to get the appointments in record time. I wish I could say that was the hard part. I read The Unexpected Gift of Trauma, by Dr. Edith Shiro, a leading expert on posttraumatic growth. She promotes a framework to transform the human mind (and soul) through radical acceptance, followed by adopting new narratives. She encourages readers to view life’s challenges as gifts that can shape and metamorphize us into more resilient, even thriving, human beings. Shiro was pushing on an open door. I have been very transparent with my son about what we know and what we do not. I watched his eyes go wide when I told him life’s greatest challenges also unlock our greatest superpowers. And this journey would give him the strength to navigate whatever comes his way. I shared with my son some of the challenges I experienced as a child his age. I would often joke that I learned how to write property in college and think deeply in graduate school. “Baba, are you saying that even you are still learning new superpowers?” I smiled, leaned in and shared one of life’s most important secrets: if we are lifelong learners, we continue to unlock new and amazing capabilities for as long as we walk the Earth. My son liked that a lot. I have seen my son transformed, becoming quite articulate for his age. When we go into doctors’ offices, I encourage him to lead and speak his mind. I watch with tremendous joy as he answers questions and banters with the doctors. I find myself watching from the side and seeing his blue eyes twinkle as my eight-year-old learns how to own the room. Some of the insights the doctors have shared haunt my sleep and cause me tremendous heartache. Whatever he has is “sashimi rare”; “There is a chance what your son has is ahead of science”; and “All you want to hear is that I’ve seen this a million times and know how to treat this. I won’t lie to you, Avi.” Hearing this, I remain composed on the outside, but often feel terror inside. What parent wouldn’t?! We have determined that the hearing in his ear won’t come back until there is a major breakthrough in modern medicine – and we are beyond grateful that he hears perfectly out of his other ear. The doctors cannot say with accuracy what caused this condition. To remain calm and make ‘reality my friend’, I go through my daily meditation practice and try to integrate radical acceptance, coupled with new potential narratives. I look for the superpowers that my son (and I?) will get as a result of this journey. I know that there is more to be revealed and that this is also part of life. Deep inside we all know James Baldwin was right: “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Avi Jorisch (www.avijorisch.com) is the author of NEXT: A Brief History of the Future (Gefen Publishing) and a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council ++++

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