Open Season. Israel Rescues 4 Hostages. Much More.

https://nypost.com/2024/06/06/opinion/democracy-dies-in-bias-blame-the-washington-posts-woes-on-its-blatant-political-slant/?utm_campaign=iphone_nyp&utm_source=mail_app

And:

This from a der friend and memo reader. He parallels my thinking.

+++

THE EMAIL I SENT THIS AM SHOULD BE SENT TO MANY OF YOUR LIBERAL CONTACTS ESPECIALLY THE JEWISH ONES. THIS SAME THING IS HAPPENING IN THE USA BUT HAS NOT REACHED THE PROPORTION AS IN ENGLAND YET. THE MUSLIMS HAVE NO TIME LIMIT ON THEIR TAKEOVERS JUST A 100% DIRECTION AND THEY ARE ON THE WAY IN THE USA.  

JEWISH AMERICANS SHOULD BE AFRAID AS HELL FOR THEIR CHILDREN,GRANDCHILDREN & GREAT GRANDCHILDREN AS WE ARE THE target OF DESTRUCTION. IF THIS NOT STOPPED NOW--COLD! PROGRESSIVE LIBERALS IN AMERICA SHOULD BE CLASSIFIED AS ASSASSINS NOT LIBERALS IF THEY CONTINUE  ON THEIR LIBERAL PATHS.

+++

HOOVER DAILY

Bragg's Conviction Against Trump Means It's  Open Season On Former Presidents

by John Yoo, Cully Stimson via Newsweek President Trump's enemies have been so busy celebrating his conviction in New York last week that they don't seem to realize what a double-edged sword they've unsheathed. Regardless of Trump's fate on appeal, one or more of the 2,300 elected district attorneys across the country may now feel liberated. They can now pursue former presidents, including President Biden, regardless of the merits of the case, purely for political gain or retribution. And: No guilt +++ Former AG Bill Barr Gives Trump Prediction – Here’s What Will Happen to Donald’s Case By Mick Farthing| Former AG Bill Barr Gives Trump Prediction – Here’s What Will Happen to Donald’s Case Bill Barr served Donald Trump as the U.S. Attorney General. He was a tough prosecutor who was especially hard on communist China. But after leaving office, he and Trump had a falling out. He refused to agree with Trump on the 2020 Election results. And the two haven’t seen eye-to-eye ever since. Despite that, Barr continues to provide a voice of reason in an increasingly chaotic legal system. He recently commented on the shocking guilty verdict rendered against Trump in New York. Barr is no friend of Trump’s, but he had always maintained that the trial was a sham. Now, he is making a big prediction. From Daily Wire: Former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr said this week that he believes the conviction in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s criminal case against former President Donald Trump is likely to be “overturned” because there was “no crime” committed. “I said from the very start that this was an abomination,” Barr said during an interview… “This case is going to be overruled because there are just multiple errors and violations of constitutional rights,” he said. Bill Barr predicted that the guilty verdict against Trump will be overturned. He maintained that there was “no crime” and that Democrats heavily slighted this case. Barr said that the entire thing was a “travesty” and that it harmed the “general health of the country. But, Barr seemed worried about how and when the case will be overturned. He thinks it will happen after the election. If there is a scenario where the election is close and Biden “squeaks through” to a win, half the country will believe the election was stolen. Barr fears the damage this entire trial will do to Americans’ confidence in our legal system and democracy. Many already believe Democrats are trying to steal our democracy through “lawfare” against Trump. They think Democrats don’t believe in the will of the people, opting instead to prevent voters from selecting the candidate of their choice. Given Biden’s terrible performance and polling, Democrats might be motivated to push even harder on this tactic. Barr believes the New York trial was a “grave injustice.” Should Biden win as a result, it could be very bad for the country. Key Takeaways: Former AG Bill Barr predicted Donald Trump’s guilty verdict would be overturned. Barr claimed the trial was damaging to the country and a “travesty.” He fears it could affect the election and convince Americans that it was stolen.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The real source of Hamas war disinformation

“The New York Times” claims that Israel used fake social-media accounts to influence Congress. But it’s the corporate media that continues to spread lies about the war.

By JONATHAN S. TOBIN (JNS)

If the story is true, then it’s a scandal. But even if the reporting of The New York Times and the leftist NGO source for the article about Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs creating fake social-media accounts to influence the U.S. Congress is accurate, what’s outrageous is the newspaper’s attempt to portray the Jewish state as the main source of disinformation about the war it is waging against Hamas in Gaza.

If it were interested in highlighting the places where the overwhelming majority of the lies and distortions about the conflict were found, then the Times would do far better to investigate its own reporting and that of most of its corporate liberal media colleagues than this small-scale operation. And if the newspaper’s editors were truly concerned about misleading propaganda campaigns aimed at deceiving Americans about the cause and conduct of the war, then they might devote more space to probing how a vast network of blatantly anti-Zionist and antisemitic groups have helped flood social media with the denial of Hamas atrocities and the terrorists’ intentions, as well as lies about Israel.

The piece, which led the Times’ website for a while this week, raised some serious questions about the judgment of some in the Israeli government, specifically in the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, which categorically denied the allegations. It allegedly involved the ministry contracting with Stoic, a Tel Aviv-based political marketing firm, to create “hundreds of fake accounts that posed as real Americans on X, Facebook and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments.”

The point of the effort, which was said to use ChatGPT technology to create posts and also manufactured fake news sites containing pro-Israel articles, was to influence members of Congress to maintain support for the Jewish state. Among those targeted were African-American Democrats such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), both supporters of Israel, as well as Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who is not.

A negligible effort

Even if we accept this as truth, the Times acknowledged that the scale of the project was relatively small, with the fake accounts only generating 40,000 followers across several social-media platforms. Since many of those were bots rather than humans, the scope of its influence was negligible. Though the expenditure amounted to $2 million (not very much when compared to most political or commercial campaigns), the money would appear to have largely been wasted.

But that didn’t stop the Times and its main source, Fake Reporter—an organization deeply hostile to Israel—from proclaiming that it put the Jewish state in the same category as “Iran, North Korea, China and Russia.” The newspaper did point out that U.S. intelligence plays a similar game when, as it often does, it seeks to intervene in the politics of other nations.

Still, no less a figure than Michael Oren, a widely respected historian who also served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2013, said he was appalled and asserted that if the story was true, it was “a flagrant violation of American law and an inappropriate interference in the internal politics of our most important ally.” Going further, he said that “the campaign causes strategic damage to the State of Israel in wartime. I call on the Government of Israel to immediately and thoroughly investigate the claim, to disassociate itself and denounce any such campaign, and to dismiss all the individuals involved.”

Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli is the man in charge of the ministry in question. His relative lack of government experience might have led his ministry to make such a mistake. Chikli has been a strong and articulate voice pushing for a more vigorous conduct of the war, and a better information policy from within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party. He’s also a particular target of Israel’s far-left.

Fake Reporter was founded by the so-called “Breaking the Silence” group, which has engaged in smears of the Israel Defense Forces and is bankrolled by the leftist New Israel Fund. That’s why many Israelis dismissed the accusation out of hand.

Chikli responded to Oren’s statement by saying there has been no engagement with the firm the Times said ran the operation. He also attacked Oren and noted that the former diplomat sits on a board that oversees such engagement at his ministry.

Nevertheless, Oren and others who care about Israel’s reputation aren’t wrong to take this seriously—and so should Netanyahu. Though the United States plays the same sort of games abroad, Israel is in no position to behave in the same manner. And if any of it rings true, it’s because it’s exactly the kind of hare-brained and ill-considered sort of project possible to imagine coming from well-meaning volunteers from the high-tech sector—who reportedly met in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 with government bureaucrats to consider how they could best help Israel win the information war—cooking up as an emotional response to the barbaric attack on their country.

Israel-bashers were delighted by the way the Times story seemed to discredit all efforts to make the case for the Jewish state. However, if serious debate is on the table about disinformation being spread about the fighting in Gaza, a project to create fake accounts that relatively few people saw isn’t the place to start or finish.

The real disinformation machine

Let’s start by noting that while the methods of the alleged Israeli project were illegitimate, the information it sought to spread about what Hamas has done and the efforts that Israel has made to avoid civilian casualties even while pursuing a just war against a ruthless enemy that hides behind non-combatants was clearly true.

That doesn’t excuse the creation of fake accounts, but taken in perspective in the course of a war that began with the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, it hardly rises to the level of importance that the Times gave it. Indeed, anyone who is outraged about this project but not about the systematic rape, murder, kidnapping, torture and wanton destruction deliberately employed by Hamas on Oct. 7—or indifferent to the denial of those crimes and the way the terror group has lied about casualty figures—has no moral authority to judge even the most foolish Israeli effort to counter them.

Indeed, a genuine interest in disinformation about the war would lead honest observers to concentrate on something far more consequential when it comes to altering the nature of public discourse about the war. Namely, it’s the way that some of the most respected sources for news in the world, including the Times, The Washington Post, CNN, the BBC and The Guardian have spent the last eight months often acting as Hamas’s stenographers rather than independent journalists.

Indeed, within 24 hours of Times readers being fed a lurid story about Israelis creating fake social-media accounts, the newspaper was promoting the latest edition in a series of Hamas propaganda stories involving Israel bombing a U.N. school complex. As with a host of other stories about supposed Israeli atrocities in which Hamas accounts are taken at face value before being ultimately debunked, the media again accepted and published the Palestinian talking points about who was targeted by the Israeli airstrike and the nature of the casualties without verifying the facts. Here again, it was only after publishing stories about grief-stricken, innocent Palestinian civilians that most of the media then covered Israel’s assertion that the U.N. facility was being used by Hamas fighters as a place to hide and plan future attacks.

The Israel Defense Forces has tried to get ahead of such misinformation being spread by the media and to publish the facts about its efforts in real-time. But the demonstrated anti-Israel bias of outlets like the Times has translated into a willingness to take the mouthpieces of a genocidal terrorist group at their word while regarding anything that comes from a democratically-elected government and an armed forces that acts with a higher degree of ethics and transparency than other nations with skepticism. That means the Israelis are often forced to respond and explain why the initial stories were wrong after the distortions have already been widely spread in a way that makes it difficult if not impossible to counter.

The information war matters

The kerfuffle about fake media accounts matters because the information war about Gaza is a crucial element in the battle for American opinion. It is precisely the sort of lies about Israel wantonly attacking schools and hospitals or the vastly inflated Palestinian casualty statistics that are not only inaccurate but ignore the fact that it is likely that as many as half of those killed were terrorists, not noncombatants. Indeed, this same week, the Associated Press published a report that admitted that the exaggerated numbers of Palestinian women and children that it has been reporting as having been killed by Israel have been wrong all along. And it is this media campaign built on falsehoods that creates the pressure on Israel to end the war before Hamas is completely defeated or even before all of the remaining hostages are released, a point often left out of the conversation.

The pro-Hamas mobs on American college campuses and in the streets of our cities chanting their support for Israel’s destruction and spewing lies about “genocide” are being fueled not just by the toxic myths of critical race theory and intersectionality that are forced down the throats of students by leftist professors. The distortions of the mainstream media—aided by the lies promoted on social media by far-left antisemitic groups like Students for Justice for Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace—have created a political environment in which President Joe Biden has adopted policies that will essentially ensure that Hamas wins the war it began on Oct. 7.

Those who rightly seek to counter these lies need to understand that they will be under far more scrutiny than those who promote the fake narratives that rationalize and justify Hamas atrocities, and that seek to delegitimize everything Israel does and act accordingly. Still, the effort to divert the world from the massive propaganda campaign that has been undertaken to falsely claim that Israel is guilty of “genocide” or “apartheid” does not alter the truth about who is really spreading disinformation about Gaza.

++++ 

Good riddance?
+++

Gantz set to leave government Saturday as ultimatum deadline approaches

Eliav Breuer Contributed

Gantz said on May 18 that his party would leave if Netanyahu did not adopt six objectives.

 Minister-without-portfolio Benny Gantz makes an announcement about the haredi draft law hearing, 

The deadline set by Minister-without-Portfolio Benny Gantz for his National Unity Party to leave the government if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not make the changes Gantz laid out in May will be reached on Saturday.

Gantz said on May 18 that his party would leave if Netanyahu did not adopt six objectives: Returning the hostages; demolishing Hamas and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip; providing a governing alternative in the Strip: returning residents of the North to their homes by September 1 and rehabilitating the western Negev; promoting normalization with Saudi Arabia; and adopting an outline for standardized national service in which all Israelis serve the country.

“If you choose to lead the nation to the abyss, we will withdraw from the government, turn to the people, and form a government that can bring about a real victory,” Gantz said.

Will Gantz take the win?

While Netanyahu publicly rejected the demands, the new Israeli proposal on a hostage deal with Hamas – which the entire war cabinet reportedly supported, and the details of which US President Joe Biden revealed in a speech on Friday – was not far from Gantz's demands, and therefore it is unclear whether he intends to quit the government at week's end.

 (L-R): Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, MK Benny Gantz (credit: MIRIAM ALSTER/FLASH90, YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)(L-R): Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, MK Benny Gantz (credit: MIRIAM ALSTER/FLASH90, YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

Earlier this week, the National Unity Party leader said that a proposed outline for service for an ultra-Orthodox draft will not lead to to the recruitment numbers needed by the state or promote national equality, and meeting this was another demand he made of Netanyahu.

Meanwhile, members of Gantz's party have begun to take steps in opposition to the government. MK Orit Farkash Hacohen last week put forward a bill to form a National Committee of Inquiry on the events leading up to, during, and after October 7. In addition, MK Pnina Tamano-Shata put forward a bill to disperse the Knesset, which would lead to an election.

++++

Bibi and the rescue operation makes Gantz look like a fool.

Furthermore, the IDF always have the commander lead and their troops this is why so may senior sergeants and officers are killed.

+++

Israel says it rescued four hostages alive from Gaza

Andrey Kozlov (C), 27, one of the four Israeli hostages who were kidnapped by Hamas from the Nova music festival on 

7 October, arrives by a helicopter at the Sheba Medical center in Ramat Gan. 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Saturday that it had rescued four Israeli hostages in a "complex special daytime operation" in Nuseirat, a refugee camp 

in the central Gaza Strip.  

By Ilia Yefimovich

The hostages were named as Noa Argamani, 25, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27 and Shlomi Ziv, 40.

The three men and one woman were kidnapped by the Palestinian Hamas terrorist organization from the Nova 

music festival in southern Israel on 

October 7, the IDF said.

"We are overjoyed to have you back 

home," Israel Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said, according to his office. He spoke of a "heroic operation."

The IDF, together with the Israeli 

Security Agency and the Yamam police counter-terrorism unit, carried out the operation involving hundreds of troops 

on Saturday morning, the IDF said.

They were freed from two different 

locations in the centre of Nuseirat.

The army had previously announced 

that it was attacking terrorist 

infrastructure in the area.

The four are in "good medical condition" and were taken to the "Sheba" Tel-Hashomer Medical Center for further medical evaluations.

The IDF said it will continue to make 

every effort to bring the hostages home.

New details emerge on heroic hostage rescue operation

Israeli forces entered Nuseirat in civilian vehicles, terrorists opened 

fire towards the vehicle in which the hostages were waiting to leave.

The forward forces of the Yamam and Shin Bet, who took part in the 

heroic rescue of Noa Argamani,

 Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv from the Nuseirat 

"refugee camp" in Gaza earlier on 

Saturday, were the first soldiers who entered Nuseirat for a ground 

operation.

Kan 11 News quoted Arab sources as claiming that the forces entered 

Gaza in civilian trucks, and within 

a few minutes, reached the buildings in which the hostages were 

held, and entered the buildings with open fire. Only at this stage, 

when the IAF was carrying out a widescale attack in Nuseirat, did 

additional Yamam and IDF forces, including tanks from Brigade 7 

of the Armored Corps, paratroopers,  and Kfir soldiers, arrive at the 

scene to aid the Yamam forces and help the hostages escape.

Deadly fire was opened towards the rescue vehicle holding three 

hostages, and paratroopers arriving  at the scene helped extract the 

hostages, and the forces returned back into Israeli territory.

ארבעת החטופים חוזרים הביתהדובר צה"ל

The hostages were held in Nuseirat, next to families and under heavy 

security. They were held in three- or four-story buildings, with 200 

meters separating the buildings from each other. The male 

hostages were held separate from Noa Argamani. The forces split into two 

and worked parallel to each other, with the understanding that if they 

worked together at one location, the hostages at the second 

location would be in danger.

Entry to the two apartments was done under heavy fire, in broad 

daylight. From within the buildings,

the terrorists opened fire at the rescue vehicle where Yamam officers 

were waiting, and the vehicle's tires popped. After the terrorists were

 eliminated, the forces succeeded in rescuing Noa and the other 

three hostages.

Yamam commander Arnon Zamora fell during the operation, which 

will be named "Operation Arnon" in his honor. Arnon was severely 

injured during the fighting, as he led the team which broke into the 

location where the three hostages were held. He battled with the 

terrorist who was in the room, and was evacuated to a hospital, where he later died.

An IDF spokesman confirmed: "The special forces did not enter 

Gaza via humanitarian aid trucks, and  did not use the US' 

humanitarian pier."

For Israel this has been the first bit of 

good news in weeks, as the country has 

come under severe international 

pressure over its operations in the Gaza Strip.

The Times of Israel reported that war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, who 

was expected to resign from the role in 

a speech on Saturday evening, cancelled

 his address after the news of the 

hostage rescue broke.

The war started on October 7 when 

Hamas launched a surprise attack in southern Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 people as hostage.

In November there was a temporary ceasefire in which Hamas released more than 100 hostages in exchange for Israel releasing Palestinians held in Israeli 

jails.

There are believed to be about 120 

hostages from Israel still in Gaza but it 

is unclear how many of them are still 

alive.

Tragically, one IDF member died in the operation.

++++

The Myth That Biden Had Nothing to Do With the Prosecutions 

of Trump

By Victor Davis Hanson

++++

War in Gaza Turns Out To Be Less Deadly Than Claimed

The Associated Press takes a deep dive into the numbers, 

and comes up with a startling report

It turns out that even the Gaza health ministry’s data no longer 

support Hamas propaganda. Yet many in America and around 

the world, including at the United Nations, are buying into the 

terror organization’s well-designed war strategy of defeating 

Israel by turning it into a global pariah. A headline Friday says 

fewer women and children than commonly believed are killed 

in Gaza — even as in another headline the United Nations is maligning Israel as a child killer.

That first headline comes from a deep dive by the Associated 

Press into Gaza casualty numbers. “The proportion of 

Palestinian women and children being killed in the Israel-

Hamas war appears to have declined sharply,” the AP reports. 

It’s important, it adds, because these figures are the “best 

available proxy for civilian casualties.” The findings are not 

based on some Israel-friendly website, but on figures provided 

by the health ministry in Gaza.   

In October, according to the report, 64 percent of Gaza 

casualties were women and children. In April it was down to 

36 percent. “Yet the shift went unnoticed for months by the UN 

and much of the press, and the Hamas-linked health ministry 

has made no effort to set the record straight,” the AP reports. Meanwhile Hamas figures lead one Hague-based court to 

accuse Israel of genocide, while another court calls to arrest 

Israeli leaders. 

Friday’s second headline has Israel’s ambassador to the UN, 

Gilad Erdan, saying that Secretary-General Guterres officially 

notified him that the Israel Defense Forces are blacklisted by t

he UN as a party that commits violations against children. It 

joins a list of countries like Afghanistan and Syria, and 

organizations like al-Qaeda and ISIS. Russia was added last 

year, and Hamas is in now too. Mr. Guterres apparently missed

 this morning the wire’s mea culpa. 

Israelis fear that as they’re added to the UN blacklist, 

Europeans could block ammunition sales. The pro-Hamas 

caucus in Congress often uses UN findings to beseech 

President Biden to end arms sales as well — and that is 

exactly what the terrorists want. “Hamas took every law of war 

and reverse-engineered it” to fit its strategy, the chairman of 

urban warfare studies at West Point, John Spencer, tells CNN. 

Civilian deaths are an essential component. 

In Mr. Spencer’s analysis of the Hamas health ministry figures, 

the death ratio in Gaza is one combatant to 1.5 civilians. He 

adds, “given Hamas’s likely inflation of the death count, the 

real figure could be closer to one to one. Either way, the 

number would be historically low for modern urban warfare.” 

The norm in similar combat is one terrorist to nine civilians. So 

the IDF better protects civilians while fighting terrorists than 

most, if not all, militaries.

It is not our purpose here to minimize suffering. Like every war, 

the one in Gaza is hell. Yet, unlike in other wars, every IDF 

move is put under an intense global magnifying glass. Hamas 

has made that scrutiny a cornerstone of its war machine and 

turned the deaths of women and children into its most prized 

asset. Inflated statistics of civilian deaths will lead to more 

casualties, and help Hamas. That strategy relies on outsider’s eagerness to spread a blood libel.

++++

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++