(JNS) -- The Associated Press released a report on Friday undercutting its own reporting of Hamas’s claim that more than two-thirds of the Palestinian casualties in Gaza have been women and children.

According to the AP’s new analysis of Hamas’s figures, the terror group’s “detailed reports” of casualty statistics reveal a much lower number of likely civilian casualties than Hamas claims.

“Among those fully identified, the records show a steady decline in the overall proportion of women and children who have been killed: from 64% in late October, to 62% as of early January, to 57% by the end of March, to 54% by the end of April,” the report says. “Yet throughout the war, the ministry has claimed that roughly two-thirds of the dead were women and children.”

Read the full story ›

(FOX NEWS) -- Vice President Harris mourned the Palestinians who were killed in a successful Israeli hostage rescue operation this weekend during an address delivered Saturday.

The Israeli operation retrieved four hostages who were taken into Gaza by Hamas on Oct. 7. Harris, speaking before the Michigan Democratic Party, celebrated their retrieval but spent more time lamenting the deaths of Palestinians killed in the operation, many of whom Israel has described as terrorists.

"Before I begin, I just say a few words about the morning which I know weighs heavily on all of our hearts," she said.

Read the full story ›

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

(JNS) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address a joint session of Congress on July 24, congressional leaders announced on Thursday.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) extended the invitation late last month, and now the date has been set.

In a statement published by McConnell’s office on Thursday, the four men said the invitation “symbolizes the U.S. and Israel’s enduring relationship and will offer Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu the opportunity to share the Israeli government’s vision for defending their democracy, combatting terror, and establishing just and lasting peace in the region.”

Read the full story ›

Benny Gantz

(JNS) -- War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz on Sunday night announced his National Unity Party’s departure from the government set up in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre and the ensuing Gaza war.

Speaking at a press conference in Ramat Gan, Gantz said, “It was an easy decision to enter the government, but the decision to leave was very difficult.”

"Don't let our people be torn apart."

Politician Benny Gantz accused Israel's PM Netanyahu of mismanaging the war in Gaza as he quit the war Cabinet and called for new elections. pic.twitter.com/8hOp2W8S7I

— DW News (@dwnews) June 9, 2024

“Unfortunately, Netanyahu is stopping us from reaching a true victory,” continued Gantz. “Therefore, we are now leaving, today, the unity government. With a heavy heart, but wholeheartedly.”

Read the full story ›

Pro-Palestinian protesters at White House

(THE BLAZE) – Pro-Palestinian activists demanding an end to the war in Gaza staged a massive protest that surrounded the White House, and there were smoke bombs ignited. Progressives vehemently demanded that President Joe Biden be arrested for war crimes for the U.S. involvement in the Israel-Hamas War.

Thousands of demonstrators descended on Washington on Saturday to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. The crowd chanted: "Hey Joe Biden, you’re a sellout! Pack your bags and get the hell out! Biden you're a liar! We demand a ceasefire! How many kids have you killed today!"

Anti-Israel protesters surrounding the White House march chanting “Kill another soldier now. Hezbollah, hezbollah, kill another Zionist now”. pic.twitter.com/Npn2hnUrZj

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) June 8, 2024

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WATCH:

Journalist Julio Rosas reported from the ground that the protesters "formed a mob and chased U.S. Park Police and Secret Service out of Lafayette Square after officers apparently tried to arrest someone." He noted that law enforcement was forced out of the park and retreated to "the boundaries of the protest."

Read the full story ›

Pro-Palestinian protesters

Jason Cohen
Daily Caller News Foundation

A state judge ordered on Friday thousands of striking academic employees at the University of California (UC) to pause their weeks-long effort protesting the Israel-Hamas war.

The strike commenced on May 20 at UC Santa Cruz and expanded to include six UC campuses, according to the university system’s website. Orange County Superior Court Judge Randall J. Sherman granted the restraining order request by UC lawyers who claimed the strike would inflict irreparable damage to students with finals approaching.

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“We are extremely grateful for a pause in this strike so our students can complete their academic studies,” associate vice president for Systemwide Labor Relations Melissa Matella said. “The strike would have caused irreversible setbacks to students’ academic achievements and may have stalled critical research projects in the final quarter.”

UC Santa Cruz Picket enters its 3rd day. #StandUpUC pic.twitter.com/O6hC7j9tKF

— UAW 4811 (@uaw_4811) May 22, 2024

The strike was carried out by the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), which represents over 40,000 employees throughout the UC system, according to its website. The union wants better treatment of its members who it says have been arrested and attacked while protesting “in solidarity with the people of Palestine.”

UC sued UAW and other union defendants on Tuesday, asking for the restraining order and alleging the union breached their contract.

“UAW’s rank and file members have … emphasized that their core objective for voting to strike is UAW’s political and social position,” the filing states. “For example, one member noted on X (Twitter) the international focus of the strike and made clear that the vote was about divestment and Palestine. Another pushed their department to vote for the strike stating ‘[T]he top demand that matters here is disinvestment. This is about Palestine first and our ability to work comfortably at UC second.’”

Universities have been facing pro-Palestinian protests for weeks, including students erecting encampments and taking over buildings in a bid to push schools to divest from Israel.

UAW did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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(FOX NEWS) – A teachers union that represents employees in the Portland Public Schools (PPS) released a guide on how to teach anti-Israel views in schools.

Oregon Educators for Palestine, in association with the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT}, released the handbook, titled "Know Your Rights! Teaching & Organizing for Palestine Within Portland Public Schools," allegedly in response to teachers being censored and facing "discrimination and harassment" at "the hands of PPS District leadership." The handbook alleges that teachers were censored for "teaching about Palestine, posting pro-Palestine sentiments in schools, and even those wearing Pro-Palestine messages."

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They list examples of district censorship including of "student work on the topics of Settler Colonialism and Zionism" and staff members "wearing clothing with the phrase 'From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free,' claiming the phrase constituted hate speech and threatening to write up staff for insubordination if worn again."

Read the full story ›

(DAILY WIRE) – Far-left commentator Briahna Joy Gray, a former staffer for socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (VT), was fired by The Hill on Thursday, which comes after she generated significant backlash this week for rolling her eyes at a survivor of Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack.

Gray, now a former co-host of The Hill’s “Rising,” posted a screenshot of the email that she claims she got that informed her she would no longer be employed by the company.

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“It finally happened. The Hill has fired me. There should be no doubt that @RisingTheHill has a clear pattern of suppressing speech,” she claimed.

Read the full story ›

(Pixabay)

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]

By Susan Crabtree
Real Clear Wire

After an impressive close second-place finish in the women’s 400-meter medley at the World Aquatics Championships in Qatar earlier this year, Israeli swimmer Anastasia Gorbenko acknowledged the emotional weight of representing her country amid global turmoil over the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and Israel’s counter-offensive in Gaza.

“I’m just so happy to be here and represent my country in this hard time. Being here with the Israeli flag means a lot to me and to my country, so that’s the best I can do,” Gorbenko, whose parents are from Ukraine but was born and raised in Israel, said in an interview that was amplified to the crowd.

Some boos rained down from the crowd when Gorbenko crossed the finish line, but louder heckling began at the swimmer’s first mention of Israel in the interview. Others in the crowd quickly tried to drown out the jeers and boos with applause and cheers. It was the first time Gorbenko has medaled in the World Championships in the 400-meter medley, though she’s been a strong competitor in the past, finishing the 2021 World Championships with a gold in both the 50-meter breaststroke and the 100-meter medley.

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The meet’s organizers provided more security for the medal ceremony and the victory walk, and the crowd wasn’t allowed as close to the ceremony as usual. The award presentation went off without a hitch, but the anti-Israel message was delivered, making international headlines on CNN, the Associated Press, Reuters, and numerous other news outlets.

The incident came as no surprise to parents and supporters of the Israeli Olympic swimming team, who had spent months urging the World Aquatics Federation to relocate the February meet planned for Doha to a more neutral location.

They argued that failing to do so would risk the Israeli team’s security and subject the young athletes to a predictable intimidation campaign that could impact their performances. Nearly all of those who didn’t attend were training on U.S. college campuses, including the University of California at Berkeley, Northwestern University, and Stanford University, where intense antisemitic protests have been roiling campuses for months, with many Jewish students expressing outrage and fear over being targeted for their faith and Jewish and Israeli heritage.

But the federation didn’t budge and moved forward with the World Championship in Doha as planned.

That event typically would have determined who qualifies for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Gorbenko obviously qualified, and several others on the team are well positioned to make the cut. But those supporting the Israeli team argue that the athletes who decided to sit out the Doha meet are no longer operating on a level playing field with their peers in other countries.

Even the three Israeli women’s team members who decided to compete in Doha took precautions by traveling with extra security and covering any logos mentioning Israel on their clothing and gear.

Now, some of the team’s supporters are pressing the International Olympic Committee and the World Aquatics Federation to provide more Olympic qualifying opportunities for the Israel athletes who decided to stay home and not risk competing in Doha.

Those supporting the Israeli swim team are pressing the federation for answers – Why should the athletes who decided not to attend the Doha event out of concern for their safety and ability to compete at their highest performance levels while under duress be punished when there’s such an easy fix?

The IOC and World Aquatics could easily allow make-up qualifying opportunities during the team trials in Netanya, Israel, scheduled this week from June 5-8, or at the European Championships in Belgrade June 10-23, advocates of the accommodation argue. Adding time trials, which are routinely conducted in connection with major meets, wouldn’t require extra costs or logistical issues.

Proponents argue that any qualifying Israeli relay could easily be added to the roster as a 17th team, and the athletes could swim in an unused lane in each of the added preliminary heats during the Olympics.

“I urgently request the IOC allow the Israel team to implement time-trials during their own Olympic trials in Netanya [this week] – where they can try to qualify for three additional relay events,” said Eric Spitz, a Jewish tech and sports businessman whose daughter is a dual citizen of Israel and the United States and an Israeli women’s swim team member. “This would allow Israeli athletes who could not compete safely in Doha a fair chance to chase their Olympic dreams.”

In his letter to the IOC, Spitz also referenced the 1972 Olympics massacre that occurred in Munich’s Olympic Village more than a half-century ago. Attackers affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization infiltrated Munich’s Olympic Village and carried out the attack, which would eventually leave 11 Israeli athletes dead, along with a West German policeman and five of the eight assailants.

After the death of his Olympic teammates, legendary swimmer Mark Spitz (no relation to Eric Spitz), who won seven gold medals and set seven world records at the 1972 Munich games, was forced to flee Germany in haste, hidden under a blanket and fearing for his life.

During a 2022 event in Tel Aviv, IOC President Thomas Bach demonstrated a keen awareness of Jewish athletes’ security concerns. During a 2022 event in Tel Aviv, he apologized for waiting 50 years to commemorate the Israeli victims of the Munich Massacre “in a dignified way,” labeling the event one of the “darkest days in Olympic history.”

Earlier this year, Bach also acknowledged the need for “special measures” to be taken to protect Israeli athletes, given the “heinous attack” on the Israeli team in 1972.

“The 1972 Munich Olympics serve as a tragic reminder of what happens when Olympic values are compromised, so let us not repeat those mistakes,” Eric Spitz wrote in his letter, addressed to IOC members.

The IOC declined to comment on whether it would provide more qualifying opportunities for the Israeli swimmers and suggested to RealClearPolitics that World Aquatics would be better suited to respond to questions about the need for more qualifying times for relays. World Aquatics did not provide a response to RCP’s repeated inquiries.

Deciding not to move the World Championship out of Qatar rankled advocates for fair treatment of Jewish and Israeli athletes in all sports. The country has recently tried to burnish its image, hosting the World Cup in 2022 despite an avalanche of criticism from human rights groups, but the comments of its minister of foreign affairs blaming Israel for the Oct. 7 assault drew intense international condemnation.

Other efforts to discriminate against or treat Jewish or Israeli athletes differently this year have sparked international controversy. The International Ice Hockey Federation earlier this year banned Israeli athletes from international competitions as a way to protect their security but then abruptly reversed that decision after a fierce backlash.

The Israeli hockey team won the silver medal last year in its division. After the Oct. 7 attacks, the IIHF decided to move a portion of a competition, originally to be held in Israel, to Bulgaria. But the move to ban Israeli hockey players from all international competition did not sit well with the National Hockey League, which expressed “significant concerns” about the decision.

FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, in mid-May postponed a decision on whether to temporarily suspend Israel over its offensive in Gaza and the West Bank, saying it would seek legal advice before considering a request by the Palestinian Football Association to expel the Israeli team. The motion called for Israel’s suspension over what it characterized as “international law violations committed by the Israeli occupation in Palestine, particularly in Gaza.”

Iran made a similar request in February to bar Israel’s national and club teams from competing in international play. Palestine Football Association Jibril Rajoub formally submitted the request, urging FIFA to “stand on the right side of history.” But Rajoub is hardly an ideal spokesman for the cause, as David May, research manager for Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, points out in a recent article.

Rajoub earned a life sentence from Israel in 1970 for throwing a grenade at an Israeli military truck – though Jerusalem released him 15 years later in a prisoner exchange. Rajoub has continued the open public threats, declaring in 2013 that he would drop a nuclear bomb on Israel if given the opportunity.

“Intimidation and harassment of Israeli athletes, sadly, is nothing new,” May told RealClearPolitics in an interview. “While young Israelis face the greatest competitors in the world, they must also contend with hostile venues.”

“Fortunately for Anastasia, she was wearing earplugs, which helped drown out the jeers as she earned the silver medal, but the hostile, inhospitable environment added for her another layer of adversity,” he argued. “Qatar – and any other prospective host – should ensure that all athletes can compete fairly. Ensuring fair play is the bare minimum for hosting athletic events, which should bring people together, not serve as stages for discrimination and hostility.”

The IOC and World Aquatics is obligated, May said, to provide Israeli swimmers with opportunities to qualify “that don’t require them to travel to one of the main patrons of Hamas, a terrorist group committed to Israel’s destruction.”

Spitz argues it’s only fair to allow the Israeli swimmers, including his daughter, who sat out the Doha meet, a chance to qualify for the summer Olympic games at a location where she and others feel secure and can fully concentrate on their performances.

“[Anastasia] Gorbenko’s unfortunate experience is a testament to the resilience and spirit of Israeli athletes,” Spitz said. “It also serves as vindication for the decision of those athletes who declined to attend.”

“The IOC must step up and show the courage to do what is right,” Spitz implored. “You have the responsibility and the power to make a decision that prioritizes the safety and well-being of all athletes.”

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TerrorMoniter ASA posted this photo on Twitter, claiming it shows ISIS terrorists throwing a 15-year-old boy off a rooftop after they accused him of engaging in homosexual relations with a top ISIS officer (Photo: Twitter/TerrorMonitor)

Ever since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror against Israel, when soldiers from Gaza invaded Israel's territory and butchered some 1,200 people, often in horrific fashion like burning whole families together, there's been a growing movement for "Gays for Palestine."

Those groups have held protests, lobbied Congress and international leaders, staged events and more, all in their pro-Hamas, anti-Israel campaign.

And in support of Palestine. They chant "From the river to the sea," adopting the terrorists' demands that they eradicate Israel and control all of the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

But the work of that group, and that of "Queers for Palestine" is on shaky footing.

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It's because prominent Palestinian Islamics, both cultural and political figure heads, are joined in one opinion: Homosexuals "should be thrown head first from the rooftop of the tallest building."

According to the Middle East Media Research Institute, it is Jenin Islamic scholar Abd Al-Rahman Al-Zayoud who confirmed that in an Islamic society, "What is the local culture? The Islamic culture. If this call clashes with the local culture, the laws and covenants of the United Nations – which call for homosexuality – must be followed. So what do they want from us? What do they want from this society that follows the Islamic culture, which sees homosexuality and lesbianism as punishable by death? They want us to respect this and strip us of our religion."

Added Islamic scholar Youssef Makharzah on America's campaign of "perversion." "Your cows, your sheep, and even your donkeys, have never stopped to the level of perversion that America designs for you."

In fact, the Joe Biden administration has insisted on promoting the LGBT lifestyle choices, which offend Islamic traditions, around the globe, making such promotions mandatory where U.S. money is involved in projects.

And Makkharzah referenced monkeypox, charging, "This [variation] of smallpox afflicts monkeys, as well as their homosexual lookalikes. Since you behave like animals and beasts, Allah wanted to afflict you with the maladies of animals and beasts. After this disease appeared, they ran some tests and concluded that it is caused by homosexuality."

Samir Zaqout, an official for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said, "Most of the organizations of the homosexuals and most of the institutions that bring about economic destruction are to be found in that foundling of a country."

And Mohammed Saleem Ali, an imam at Al-Aqsa mosque, said, "Our Muslim Palestinian people will not accept a single homosexual openly declaring his abomination. Will you allow a single homosexual on the land of Jerusalem and Palestine? Will you allow that? No. Our people will not allow there to be institutions that promote this abomination, on the blessed, and pure land of Palestine."

Sheikh Yousef Abu Islam, a Palestinian Islamic scholar, threatened, "Allah punished male and female adulterers [only] with flogging or stoning, but when He decided to punish homosexuals, He said that they should be thrown head first from the rooftop of the tallest building, and then they should be stoned from the top."

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Harold Hutchison
Daily Caller News Foundation

Israeli military forces rescued four hostages taken during the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, according to a statement from the Israeli Defense Forces.

Israeli forces freed Noa Argamani, 25, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40, in raids on two locations in Nuseirat, the IDF said in a Saturday post on X. The four had been kidnapped during the Nova music festival during the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that killed over 1,200 people.

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“Israeli special forces conducted a complex hostage rescue mission and successfully rescued four of our hostages from Hamas captivity in Gaza,” IDF spokesman RAdm. Daniel Hagari said in a video released Saturday.

WATCH:

Watch IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel Hagari’s statement regarding our operation to bring Noa, Almog, Andrey and Shlomi back home: pic.twitter.com/Tt2wtE9121

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) June 8, 2024

“They are back home in Israel. They are alive, they are well,” he added.

Noa Argamani (25), Almog Meir Jan (21), Andrey Kozlov (27), and Shlomi Ziv (40) were rescued in a special operation by the IDF, ISA and Israel Police from 2 separate locations in the heart of Nuseirat after being kidnapped by Hamas from the Nova music festival.

They are in good… pic.twitter.com/PnkjL4GRQz

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) June 8, 2024

The operation took place around 11:00 Saturday morning, Hagari said. It occurred “in daylight, in two separate buildings deep inside Gaza, while under fire.”

The four are in “good medical condition and have been transferred to the ‘Sheba’ Tel-HaShomer Medical Center for further medical examinations,” the IDF wrote, noting that they will “continue to make every effort to bring the hostages home.”

The IDF announced in June four Israeli hostages held by Hamas had died.

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(JERUSALEM POST) – Adam Silas, a London-based Jewish tattoo artist, shared with the Jewish Chronicle on Wednesday that a client had cancelled their appointment upon discovering that Silas is Jewish.

“It has come to my attention that you are Jewish. Is this true?” the former client asked Silas in the message. “If so, I’m afraid I will have to cancel our appointment as I can’t in good conscience be tattooed by you at the moment, given the current political climate. I’m sure you understand. I wouldn’t be so bold as to ask for my deposit back but I would humbly ask that you donate it to a humanitarian cause. Hopefully there will be a permanent ceasefire soon so we can reschedule.”

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Silas confirmed to the Jerusalem Post that he blocked and deleted the former client, spending her deposit on Falafel – which is a Middle Eastern delicacy recognized as Israel's national dish.

Read the full story ›

(JERUSALEM POST) – The Biden administration made it clear to Israel that the US does not believe that a "limited war" in Lebanon or a "small regional war" are realistic options, as it would be difficult to prevent them from expanding. The U.S. warned of a scenario in which Lebanon would be flooded with terrorists from pro-Iranian militias coming from Syria, Iraq, and even Yemen.

The Biden administration advised Israel in recent weeks against the idea that a "limited war" could be waged in Lebanon and warned that such a move could push Iran to intervene – this is what two senior American officials and an Israeli official briefed on the talks told Walla.

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The exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah, which has been going on since October 7, has escalated dramatically in the last two weeks, which has caused senior officials in the IDF and the cabinet to call for a significant expansion of the fighting against Hezbollah.

Read the full story ›

(NEW YORK POST) – Israeli troops discovered an entrance to a Hamas tunnel inside a child’s bedroom in Rafah on Thursday. The IDF says it recovered a trove of weapons and explosives from the tunnel. The operation is the latest of what Israel calls its “precise, intelligence-based, targeted operations” inside Rafah.

“This week, the troops located a tunnel shaft inside a child’s room, and a butcher’s knife next to it. In addition, the troops identified six terrorists near a school in the area of the troops. The terrorists were eliminated by a UAV and tank fire,” the IDF said in a statement.

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Images released by the IDF show troops operating in the dense urban environment of Rafah. Images also show the cache of weapons, explosives and other equipment troops retrieved during the operation.

Read the full story ›

(ISRAEL 365 NEWS) – During a recent interview on Steve Bannon’s War Room, Israeli Knesset member Ohad Tal delivered a message to American Jewish voters. “When you’re going to vote in November, remember to ask yourself: Who does Hamas want you to vote for? Who would Hamas want you to support?”

As the 2024 U.S. presidential election approaches, Tal’s message is clear: the future of Israel and the Jewish people worldwide hangs in the balance, and the American Jewish vote will have profound consequences.

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Tal emphasized the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship but explained that its effectiveness depends on strong leadership in the White House against the countries’ shared enemies. To that end, he criticized the current administration’s policies, claiming they undermine Israel’s security and support America’s enemy, Iran.

Read the full story ›

(HEADLINE USA) – Two Republican lawmakers have proposed extending benefits meant for U.S. veterans to Americans who served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Reps. Max Miller, R-Ohio, and Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa., suggested the bill aims to protect Americans defending Israel from Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

The targeted services are the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) and Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), which currently benefit only American veterans who served in the U.S. armed forces.

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Over 20,000 Americans are serving in the IDF as the Jewish state battles Hamas following the terror group’s invasion in southern Israel on Oct. 7. “This legislation will ensure we do everything possible to support these heroes who are standing with Israel, fighting for freedom, and combating terror,” Reschenthaler stated.

Read the full story ›

Biden's $320 million Gaza pier has detached

Jake Smith
Daily Caller News Foundation

The Biden administration’s Gaza aid pier will cost $22 million to repair after it was damaged by bad weather last week, two Pentagon officials told The Washington Post on Thursday.

The causeway pier, meant to serve as a channel for aid delivery to Gaza via the Mediterranean Sea, was broken apart by tumultuous weather and sea conditions in late May. It will cost at least $22 million to repair the pier before it can become operational again, but the costs could balloon to as high as $28 million, the officials told the Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

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The pier is currently being rebuilt at the port of Ashdod in Israel, and officials hope to re-anchor it to the shores of Gaza by the end of the week so that the flow of aid via the Mediterranean maritime route could continue, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters on Wednesday. The repair costs will come out of the hundreds of millions of dollars the Biden administration is dedicating to the pier.

The Pentagon initially set budget expectations for the pier at approximately $320 million, but now believes the total cost will be closer to $230 million, Singh told reporters.

“This estimate does include some of the costs associated with the repairs and rebuilding of the pier,” Singh said. “And just as a reminder, these are estimates and initial assessments, and the cost could fluctuate depending on the length of the mission and future costs, an example of that being additional repairs.”

The pier — part of the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) system that includes a separate floating pier off the coast of Gaza — can only be operated in favorable sea conditions, with waves not exceeding more than a few feet and wind speeds not higher than 15 miles per hour. Reconstruction efforts similarly cannot be conducted during poor conditions, adding the risk of further delays.

The pier and JLOTS system was already facing several setbacks prior to breaking apart in May. A day before being rendered non-functional, a separate stint of bad weather unmoored four U.S. Army JLOTS support vessels and sent them drifting away; two ended up on the shores of Gaza, and the other two in Ashdod.

All ships have been recovered, but a video from the incident appeared to depict U.S. troops stranded on the beaches of Gaza while awaiting rescue, despite the Biden administration’s promise that there would be no boots on the ground in the region. The Pentagon has previously admitted that there is a risk that Hamas fighters in Gaza may try to engage U.S. forces working on the JLOTS system.

Days before that, three U.S. troops were injured in a non-combat incident during JLOTS operations. The exact cause of the injuries is not known, but one U.S. servicemember was injured so seriously that he was evacuated to an Israeli hospital for emergency care. Singh told reporters on Wednesday that the servicemember was flown to an Army medical center in Texas on Tuesday, but “remains in critical condition.”

Over 1,000 metric tons of aid were delivered to Gaza in the week that the pier was operational, Singh told reporters on Wednesday; the Pentagon is aiming to deliver 150 truckloads of aid to Gaza per day once the pier is operational again. A United Nations official previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that 300 to 500 trucks of aid total are needed to address the humanitarian needs of the Palestinians.

Defense experts and former U.S. officials previously told the DCNF that the pier was a “horrible” idea and that there were far better ways to get aid to Gaza.

“It was never a sound plan to begin with… whether it’s accidents, or logistical hurdles, or risk to our troops and all these problems that have come to fruition. I don’t think that there should be any effort to try to continue this, or salvage it, or fix it,” Michael DiMino, senior fellow at Defense Priorities and former CIA official told the DCNF. “I think now is an opportunity to say this failed. Let’s wrap this up before we continue to tempt fate.”

The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Benjamin Netanyahu

By Jake Smith
Daily Caller News Foundation

Top Israeli officials are warning that Israel is ready to take dramatic action against an increasingly aggressive Hezbollah, raising the specter of a conflict that could further unbalance an already chaos-ridden Middle East.

Israel’s primary military focus over the last year has been destroying Hamas, the terrorist group that invaded Israel on Oct. 7 and killed roughly 1,200 people. But conflicts between Israel and Hezbollah have escalated in recent weeks, prompting Israeli officials to declare that Israel is reaching a crossroads — one that could include “very intense action,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

“Whoever thinks he can hurt us and we will respond by sitting on our hands is making a big mistake,” Netanyahu said on Wednesday. “We are prepared for very intense action in the north. One way or another, we will restore security to the north.”

While all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah may not be immediate, tensions between the two sides have ratcheted up in recent weeks with an increase in attacks.

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Netanyahu’s comments come the same day as a gunman opened fire on the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, prompting a swift response from security forces. Six people, including the gunman, were arrested in connection to the attack; one Lebanese guard was injured in the shooting but no one was killed.

It is not immediately clear whether the criminals are tied to Hezbollah or what their motives were in the attack, but U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Wednesday that the shooter was wearing “what appeared to be ISIS insignia,” though a full investigation has yet to be completed.

Miller noted that the U.S. is “incredibly concerned” about the Israel-Hezbollah standoff along Israel’s northern border.

“It is an untenable situation for Israel right now,” Miller told reporters during a press briefing on Wednesday.

Hezbollah is one of many Iranian-backed groups located throughout the Middle East and arguably the most militarily capable. Israeli forces and Hezbollah have been engaged in low-level skirmishes since Oct. 7 out of support for Hamas, with both sides launching aerial attacks or engaging in ground firefights across the Israel-Lebanon border.

But there has been a spike in hostilities in recent weeks, officials from both camps say; Hezbollah has increased its drone and missile launches against Israeli military installations, while Israel has similarly ramped up attacks against forces and senior group leaders in southern Lebanon, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“This uptick, like what Hezbollah succeeded in doing since Oct. 7, is to drive home the point that the Israeli national psyche internalized after that date — just because the threat is quiet on the border does not mean that threat has gone away,” David Daoud, senior fellow on Middle Eastern affairs at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “And Hezbollah’s threat to Israel is an implacable one.”

Hezbollah rocket attacks this week set off massive fires in northern Israel, consuming hundreds of acres of land, destroying houses and infrastructure and prompting a massive containment response from the Israelis. While examining the fallout of the fires on Tuesday, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Major General Herzi Halevi said that Israel is approaching a crossroads with Hezbollah, according to the Times of Israel — signaling a shift in how the country will deal with the terrorist group going forward.

“We are approaching the point where a decision will have to be made, and the IDF is prepared and very ready for this decision,” Halevi said. “We are prepared after a very good process of training – up to the level of a military exercise – to move to an attack in the north. Strong defense, readiness to attack, we are approaching a decision point.”

This sentiment was echoed by other senior Israeli officials this week. War cabinet minister Benny Gantz said Tuesday that Hezbollah will be dealt with by Sept. 1, warning that Israel “can’t lose another year” of allowing the terrorist group to attack, according to The Times of Israel. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir took it a step further, declaring Tuesday that Hezbollah needed to “burn” and Israel needed to launch a “war,” per the WSJ.

A full-scale war with Hezbollah Israel could create a “level of destruction that will be unprecedented in Israeli history,” former deputy national security adviser in Israel Chuck Freilich told the WSJ on Wednesday.

“In the event that an all-out war breaks out, the Israeli front will absorb a volume of fire it has not ever been seen – including what was seen in 2006 (referring to the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war),” Tal Beeri, head of research at the Alma Institute, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

Israel could try and strike a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah, something that the U.S. and international mediators have been negotiating for months, according to the WSJ. The deal would demarcate the Israel-Lebanon border and require Hezbollah to move further north so it couldn’t launch attacks or a full-scale invasion.

But Hezbollah has said that it would not commit to a ceasefire deal until Israel halts all military operations in Gaza, which Netanyahu has said will not happen until Hamas is defeated entirely, according to the WSJ. Hezbollah has also long threatened it would invade Israel and seek its destruction, which is the group’s primary goal.

And such a deal would have to be accepted by the Lebanese state — which has little ability to contain Hezbollah — making such a solution likely unattainable, Daoud told the DCNF.

“This leaves Israel the option only really of acting militarily because there are no alternatives. And it would be hard for me to imagine that the Israeli government did not recognize this on some level months ago,” Daoud said. “They understand that any diplomatic solution that’s going to rely on the Lebanese state, either for enforcement or guarantees, is a non-starter. And that leads you to the military solution.”

For the time being, both Israel and Hezbollah are calibrating their responses to avoid such a conflict. The Israeli War Cabinet, headed by Netanyahu, convened on Tuesday to discuss the Hezbollah threat in the wake of the fires started by the group’s recent attacks.

“Both sides are preparing and ready if something will happen,” an Israeli Air Force intelligence officer told the WSJ.

This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Violence erupts at UCLA amid anti-Israel protests on Tuesday, April 30, 2024.

College campuses in the United States became the scene of pro-Palestinian "protests" starting immediately after Hamas terrorists from Gaza invaded Israel and butchered some 1,200 civilians, often through horrific torture like burning whole families together, last Oct. 7.

Now two of the organizations that orchestrated those "protests" are being sued.

For being propagandists for those Hamas terrorists.

A report from CBN explains the lawsuit filed in Virginia accuses American Muslims for Palestine and National Students for Justice in Palestine, both of whom espouse anti-Semitic views, of collaborating with Hamas terrorists to be their "propaganda division" in America.

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Arsen Ostrovsky, of the Jerusalem-based International Legal Forum, told CBN, "These groups are the primary drivers of what we're seeing happening across campuses in the United States, which have effectively become a second front Hamas since October seventh."

He is working in conjunction with Greenberg, Traurig, a U.S. legal team, and the National Jewish Advocacy Group.

"They are acting and serving in collaboration and coordination with Hamas, essentially as propagandists and collaborators on campus to try and promote the Hamas extremist ideology," he said.

Anti-Semitic "demonstrations" began at Columbia University right after Hamas' terror attack on Israel, and have spread from coast to coast.

Anti-Israel protests at Columbia University on Sunday, April 21, 2024

"Hamas issued a call to action. And the very next day, SJP and their affiliates throughout the United States – they answered that call. They answered that directive. They created a toolkit, a manifesto for chapters across the United States, echoing the language, the terminology, the instructions by the Hamas terror group, and propagated that across campuses," Ostrovsky explained to CBN.

The cases charges that those groups have become foot soldiers for Hamas.

"There are nine plaintiffs, including Americans and Israelis as well," Ostrovsky said, seeking compensation for the damages done.

They include victims and survivors of the Nova massacre.

The legal fight includes the goal of shutting down the groups by documenting their violations of the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act.

"They are the ones fomenting the hatred, the anti-Semitism, the harassment of Jewish students," Ostrovsky said. "We need to shut them down. And we can do that legally by branding them as a terrorist organization, as a collaborator of the Hamas terror group, and making sure once and for all they cannot be active on campus."

Muslim terrorists with Hamas fire a barrage of rockets against Israel on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023

He said ultimately the fight will be not only on physical battlefields, but also in courtrooms.

"Today what we're seeing is that the state of Israel is being demonized and vilified and delegitimized and painted as a pariah. Where we're seeing the international law not only being misused but being turned into an act of lawfare against us for the simple act of defending our citizens, trying to bring back our captives," Ostrovsky stated.

He said not only to terrorists in Hamas need to be held accountable, so do those who enable the agenda, that support them.

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(THE COLLEGE FIX) -- The president of Sonoma State University retired after a suspension for cutting a deal with pro-Palestinian activists.

President Ming-Tung “Mike” Lee agreed to “divestment strategies,” in order to end an encampment on campus. However, he did so without proper approval, leading to his suspension for “insubordination,” according to Chancellor Mildred Garcia.

“That message was sent without the appropriate approvals,” the announcement stated.

Read the full story ›

Tens of thousands gather at the Western Wall for Jerusalem Day on Wednesday, June 5, 2024

(JNS) -- Tens of thousands of Israelis gathered in Jerusalem on Wednesday to celebrate the anniversary of the reunification of the holy city under Jewish rule.

“We are gathering today in Jerusalem, the capital of united Israel. Fifty-seen years ago, in the Six-Day War, we experienced a historic miracle. We returned home, to the holy city, to the heart of our people,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a ceremony marking the day at the Bible Lands Museum.

WATCH: Jerusalem Day Flag March Concludes with Mesmerizing Unity at the Western Wall! pic.twitter.com/yIN7BSsAbu

— Adam Albilya - אדם אלביליה (@AdamAlbilya) June 5, 2024

“Then, as today, we were surrounded by enemies. They thought to suffocate us, to wipe us off the map. But we are an ancient people, a people of brave warriors, we stood up as one man and defended ourselves.”

Read the full story ›

(JNS) -- Nathan Weeden, 24, was sentenced to 26 months in prison and three subsequent months of supervised release on Tuesday for conspiring to discriminate against Jews and black people and for vandalizing a synagogue.

The Houghton, Mich., man, who is a member of the white supremacist gang The Base, did more than just destroy property, stated Larissa Knapp, executive assistant director of the FBI’s National Security Branch.

“The FBI will not accept hate-driven threats of violence intended to emotionally and/or physically harm victims and will rigorously investigate anyone conspiring to vandalize houses of worship and intimidate others from safely practicing their religion,” she said.

Read the full story ›

(ALGEMEINER) -- In May, the Zine club at North Carolina’s Carrboro High School made a post on social media celebrating their display in the school’s library that included the Do-It-Yourself Occupation Guide, which reads as a training manual for criminality and domestic terrorism.

The guide provides advice on how to disable alarm systems, break into buildings, and barricade doors. It calls for “organized looting” and “the seizing of buildings.” With accompanying pictures, the guide explains how to use tools such as an angle grinder, bolt cutters, and a crowbar to break into buildings. It advises, “A group may decide it is better to destroy or vandalize a space than to return it to its usual role in good condition.” In its first paragraph, the guide accuses Israel of “genocide” against the Palestinians.

The guide was removed from the library.

Read the full story ›

U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Israel, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (Official State Department photo by Chuck Kennedy)

JERUSALEM – In the not-so-distant past, information about wars and potential peace negotiations was sparse at best, and relied upon in-situ correspondents telling their audience, with broad brushstrokes, the outlines of what was occurring. In Israel’s war against Hamas, which is being fought in cyberspace as much as in the turbulent Gazan coastal enclave, the ubiquity of information, claims and counter-claims can be as confusing as the lack of data from decades past.

What is uncontested is that the final road would always lead to Rafah, and that the beginning of this end-game started with Israel’s partial encirclement of that city starting May 6. Beyond that, there are two political leaders – U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who are attempting to use the Gaza conflict as a way of shoring up their domestic bases, and each using the other figure to do so. And all that’s before even addressing Hamas – and by extension, Iran, and all its other regional proxies.

So what’s going on?

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The Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, entered Hamas’s final stronghold of Rafah, where it is believed the terror organization has at least four battalions of fighters, amounting to more than 10,000 combatants. It is also thought to be the location of the remainder of more than 120 hostages – snatched from their homes, beds and military bases – the fate of whom is still uncertain. What is clear, however, is that as the IDF has pushed further into Rafah, it is uncovering the remains of hostages whose immediate fate on Oct. 7, 2023 was unknown. For example, on Monday, June 3, the body of Dolev Yehud, from Kibbutz Nir Oz, was identified.

The body of Dolev Yehud was found and identified on Kibbutz Nir Oz, the IDF confirmed Monday morning.https://t.co/Xo5Njqc0zi

— The Jerusalem Post (@Jerusalem_Post) June 3, 2024

On May 26, while targeting two high-profile Hamas marks – one of whom was active in the West Bank – the IDF used lighter missiles to liquidate their foes. What followed has been mired in accusation and counter-accusation, claim and counterclaim, and – as has become customary in the information war – outright deceit. This was both on account of the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which published casualty figures, and the compliant corporate media, which duly ran with this version of the story. Several salient points can now be gleaned from this incident:

Avi Mayer, formerly editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, wrote a precis of events on his ‘X’ account. He said the principal canard leveled against Israel – that it specifically targeted civilians – is neither backed up by the evidence nor by a real-time intercepted message from Gaza, which acknowledged that weapons were stored nearby the strike zone.

The facts about the Israeli airstrike in Rafah and the fire that followed are starting to become clear, and they totally change the story:

The Israeli airstrike that targeted senior Hamas commanders in Rafah was more than a mile away from the safe zone for Palestinian… pic.twitter.com/RiLjyS7Bvc

— Avi Mayer אבי מאיר (@AviMayer) May 28, 2024

CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting & Analysis published a useful thread on ‘X,’ in which it individually debunked recent statements, including those emanating from the United Nations.

THREAD

After the tragic recent deaths in Tel as-Sultan in southern Gaza, misinformation spread rapidly, even among journalists.

As CAMERA's @dmlitman explained for @JNS_org, 50+ UN “experts” released a statement riddled with factual errors.

Let's unpack it... pic.twitter.com/2hBvzchdQq

— CAMERAorg (@CAMERAorg) June 3, 2024

A cross-border skirmish between the IDF and the Egyptian military on May 27, in which an Egyptian soldier was killed in an exchange of fire, has also added to the confusion about the picture that emerges from Rafah. Tensions between Cairo and Jerusalem have ratcheted up over the last few months, and have spiked as the IDF has moved deeper into Rafah. The discovery of dozens of cross-border smuggling tunnels, which Egyptian criminal elements control – and very lucratively at that – has shown that the longest-lasting peace deal between Israel and an Arab country is under stress. Egypt has huge internal issues, which include growing food insecurity and increased Islamization … and pretty much everything in between.

However, on a macro level, the last few days have crystallized the widening gap between Washington and Jerusalem.

Israeli forces operating in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, Feb. 18, 2024. (IDF photo)

Not content with meddling with U.S. elections – including by widespread Justice Department lawfare against his political opponents – President Biden and his administration have made it clear on more than one occasion that they seek the ouster of Israel’s democratically elected prime minister. Indeed, the open policy of the current U.S. administration is to exert pressure on a reliable, democratic and friendly country in the Middle East that is fighting an existential war for its very survival. This should not come as a total surprise, however. It’s not a great leap for a president whose family's corrupt actions have caused many to liken it to a crime family to then use the same levers of power to behave in such an egregious way toward an ally.

The outline of what Biden said on Friday – during the Jewish Sabbath, a time when official Israeli government communication is rare because of the religious sensibilities involved – is highlighted below:

The text is illuminating, both for what it says, and for what it leaves out. The Biden administration leaked over the weekend that Israel had already green-lighted what the president laid out on Friday. The most salient omission, however, is that nowhere does it categorically say Hamas should be removed from power in Gaza. As one of the Israeli government’s specifically stated aims upon its declaration of war against Hamas was that at the end of the hostilities – whenever that may occur – the Sunni Islamist terrorist organization would no longer be in control of the coastal enclave, it is difficult to countenance their signing off on this apparent deal.

Indeed, while Israel’s government hinted that parts of what Biden said might have been somewhat true, it pushed back strongly against the bulk of what the U.S. president announced. On June 1, the official Israel PM account on ‘X’ rejected the supposed change of conditions outright.

The Prime Minister's Office:

Israel's conditions for ending the war have not changed: The destruction of Hamas military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) June 1, 2024

Biden revealed that the new Israeli proposal for a ceasefire and hostage deal had been submitted on Thursday to Hamas via Qatar, also maintaining the pressure into this week, and claiming that “Netanyahu will do almost anything to free the hostages.”

The current U.S. administration wants Israel’s democratically elected prime minister gone from the political scene. It is trying to box him in by creating division between the coalition partners and stoking the ire of Israel’s electorate by making oblique suggestions regarding how Netanyahu has allowed his indecision to guide him as a way of elongating the war – and by extension, prolonging the agony for the hostages and their families. By publicly claiming that this so-called deal emanated from Netanyahu and the war cabinet, Biden is attempting to make Israel’s government take ownership – and to make it exceptionally difficult for Netanyahu, once considered either one of the smoothest or slipperiest of political operators, depending on one’s point of view – to distance himself from it.

Wars are conducted on three fronts: the tactical, the strategic and the political. The first two, evidenced by the IDF’s conduct on the ground, are actually working quite successfully. Israel’s military succeeded in moving some 1 million Gaza residents out of Rafah and into temporary refugee camps. This was achieved in fewer than four weeks, when the U.S. defense establishment had questioned whether it could even be done in four months. These are the same people who thought spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a floating pier in the Mediterranean Sea would provide additional aid to the Palestinians … who are already getting it via the various crossings. And, of course, everyone knows the pier sank.

However, it is the latter arena of the three, the political, where there is significantly less surety and which is, in part, a result of indecision at the highest levels of Israel’s government – up to and including the current prime minister. And into this combustible mix, increased rocket attacks from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon have set much of Israel’s northern forests ablaze. The window for continued inaction on that front is closing rapidly, and fosters the impression of a besieged prime minister who is quickly running out of options.

More than a dozen fires have broken out in northern Israel and the Galilee as a result of Hezbollah rocket fire.

We will take every measure to protect Israelis from those who try to harm them. pic.twitter.com/aIo4j42PVk

— Israel ישראל (@Israel) June 3, 2024

If President Joe Biden – who as vice president urged former President Barack Obama not to give the green light to Seal Team 6 to take out Osama Bin Laden when his whereabouts were known, and who quarterbacked the epically disastrous Afghanistan pull-out – gets his way, it is possible to imagine a scenario where Hamas de facto retains its position as the government in Gaza.

More than that, the extreme pressure currently being exerted upon Israel will likely not give Oct. 7 terror architect Yahya Sinwar much compelling reason to come to the negotiating table, despite noises from the U.S. administration that “this is Hamas’ last chance.”

If Sinwar in particular is allowed to emerge from whichever dark corner of Rafah in which he is allegedly hiding, and hold up a V for Victory sign as he comes blinking into the sunlight, he will be lauded – even more than he already is – as a tactical genius who was able to avoid exile and also cow the lion of Judah. It will bode extremely ill for Israel.

Not only will there be ambiguity, at best, as to the outcome of the war, it will only further embolden the terrorist “ring of fire” that Iran, via its proxies, has established in the states – all of them failed or failing – surrounding Israel. If the so-called international community has been critical of Israel for how it has conducted hostilities with Hamas, wait until its back is really against the wall and it is in a tooth-and-nail scrap for its very existence in the war with Hezbollah.

The one outcome yet to be mentioned is potentially the most likely anyway: Netanyahu’s ouster.

If the war’s result is inconclusive and there is a failure to return all the hostages, whatever condition they may be in – and some half-dozen corpses have been found this week as the IDF has pushed deeper into Rafah – it is difficult to see how Netanyahu retains power.

The world could, therefore, be looking at a scenario wherein the IDF has to largely pull out of Gaza, Hamas remains in power with Sinwar at its head, some of the hostages are likely not returned, an all-out war erupts against Hezbollah, and the Netanyahu government falls.

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Anti-Israel protests at Columbia University on Sunday, April 21, 2024

By Kate Anderson
Daily Caller News Foundation

A Columbia University alum has decided to ditch his alma mater by giving a $260 million donation to an Israeli university as protests continue to plague the ivy league college’s campus, according to a Monday announcement.

The donation was given to Bar-Ilan University in Israel, a public research university, by an American Jewish donor who was active in World War II, according to the announcement from Bar-Ilan’s President Prof. Arie Zaban during a Board of Trustees meeting. The donor, who wished to remain anonymous, formerly attended Columbia, which has been rocked by weeks of pro-Palestinian protests that have led to arrests and violent clashes with police.

“The donor, a man of broad academic education, believed that the development of Israel’s technological resilience relies primarily on breakthrough science,” Zaban said in the announcement. “During his visits to Israel, he recognized the significant impact Bar-Ilan University has made in key areas thanks to its science-based infrastructure and deep connections to all sectors of Israeli society.”

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The donation will be used to develop “Deep Tech sciences” in the “energy, environment, cryptography, bio-convergence, quantum, AI, and natural language processing” fields, according to the announcement.

“We have a mission,” Zaban told the university’s board, according to the announcement. “Today, more than ever, Israel needs support and investment in its science and human capital. Our research-driven technological resilience is the key to a thriving society and economy.”

Amid weeks of tension on American university campuses, centering largely around Columbia, pro-Palestinian protesters have demanded that the university completely divest from Israel in opposition to its war with the terrorist organization Hamas. Columbia was forced to cancel their main commencement ceremony in May due to safety concerns and ongoing protests and police just recently broke up another encampment on school grounds over the weekend.

Other universities have also been chastised by donors for allowing the protests to get out of hand. Barry Sternlicht, a real estate mogul, called out his alma mater, Brown University, in May for conceding to protesters by agreeing to discuss divestment options, according to The New York Times.

Top donors to Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania also threatened to pull donations in protest of the universities’ administrations’ tepid response to the protests, according to CNN.

Columbia declined to comment.

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Joe Biden participates in an expanded bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Hotel Kempinski in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. (Official White House photo by Cameron Smith)

By Jake Smith
Daily Caller News Foundation

President Joe Biden called into doubt Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s motives in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, during a late May interview with Time released on Tuesday.

The Biden administration has spent months urging Netanyahu and the Israeli government to limit its military operations against Hamas in Gaza as Biden’s supporters and voters increasingly call for a ceasefire. With Israel showing no signs of stopping until Hamas is defeated, Biden told Time that people have “every reason” to believe Netanyahu is intentionally prolonging the conflict for his own political self-preservation.

“There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion. And I would cite that as — before the war began, the blowback he was getting from the Israeli military for wanting to change the constitu— change the court,” Biden told Time, referring to a law passed by Netanyahu’s coalition in July 2023 to limit the Israeli Supreme Court’s oversight of government, which was struck down in January. “And so it’s an internal domestic debate that seems to have no consequence. And whether he would change his position or not, it’s hard to say, but it has not been helpful.”

Asked whether he believed that Netanyahu was responsible for the intelligence failures that allowed Hamas to attack Israel on Oct. 7, Biden said that no “one person” was at fault, then segued and said he had a “major disagreement” with Netanyahu on the plan for Gaza after the war ends, shutting down the idea of Israeli forces taking control of the region.

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“I don’t know how any one person has that responsibility. He was the leader of the country, so therefore, it happened. But he wasn’t the only one that didn’t pick it up,” Biden told Time. “He wasn’t the only one that didn’t pick it up. That’s why there’s got to be — my major disagreement with Netanyahu is, what happens after, what happens after Gaza’s over?”

“Do Israeli forces go back in? I’ve been talking to the Egyptians and been talking to the Saudis. I’ve been talking to the Jordanians, I’ve been talking to the Emiratis. The answer is, if that’s the case, it can’t work,” Biden said. “There needs to be a two-state solution, a transition to a two-state solution. And that’s my biggest disagreement with Bibi Netanyahu.”

Biden and Netanyahu, both political veterans, have known each other for decades but have had an increasingly strained relationship amid disagreements on how Israel’s war against Hamas should be carried out. Biden is now advocating for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza amid humanitarian concerns affecting the millions of Palestinians living in the region, but Netanyahu and his coalition believe a ceasefire can only be achieved once Hamas is degraded beyond repair, citing concerns that the terrorist group would never accept true peace.

Defense experts and former U.S. officials previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that a ceasefire now may allow Hamas to regroup, resurge and eventually attack Israel again in the future. Israel has killed thousands of Hamas fighters but thousands more remain, mostly in southern Gaza but also in the central and northern regions.

The two world leaders have had several tense phone calls about the war since Oct. 7, with Biden sometimes becoming confused or upset with Netanyahu’s plans and remarks, even abruptly hanging up on Netanyahu out of anger on one occasion. Netanyahu, for his part, has apparently become upset with how the Biden administration is trying to mitigate Israel’s war aims, reportedly declaring during a war cabinet meeting in May that Israel is not a ” vassal state of the United States.”

The White House and the Israeli Embassy to the U.S. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Israel Defense Forces soldiers conduct activities in the Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. (IDF photo)

By Jason Cohen
Daily Caller News Foundation

President Joe Biden’s newest Gaza ceasefire plan could hand Hamas a much-needed window to rebuild its battered ranks and potentially launch another Oct. 7-style attack on Israel, defense experts and former U.S. officials told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Israel, the U.S. and international negotiators have been working for months to strike a deal with Hamas for a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages in the terrorist group’s captivity and the delivery of aid to Gaza. On Friday, Biden presented what he claimed to be a new Israeli proposal for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, rather than a temporary one, as part of a three-phase plan to fully end the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

“Israel has offered a comprehensive new proposal,” Biden told reporters on Friday. “It’s a roadmap to an enduring ceasefire and the release of all hostages.”

This is a decisive moment.

Now is the time to raise your voices and demand that Hamas comes to the table, agrees to this deal, and ends this war that they began. pic.twitter.com/ugWZYmaWuJ

— President Biden (@POTUS) May 31, 2024

But a permanent ceasefire at this stage of the war could allow Hamas, which has not been fully defeated and retains forces throughout Gaza, to regroup, return and eventually stage an attack against Israel, similar to the Oct. 7 attacks in which Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 people, experts told the DCNF.

“If this war ends now and Israeli forces withdraw, let’s say within six weeks or two months, then the nucleus of Hamas’ presence remains, and that is going to allow the group to rearm — and they’re not just rearming on their own,” David Daoud, senior fellow on Middle Eastern affairs the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the DCNF. “They have allies in the region, from Iran to Hezbollah, that are going to help them rearm and regroup. And what we’re going to end up with is a situation where, you know, five, definitely, 10 years, Hamas might be ready to commit another Oct. 7.”

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“This only perpetuates the cycle of violence as Hamas regroups and attacks again,” Victoria Coates, Heritage Foundation executive and former White House national security advisor, told the DCNF. “The only way there could be an end to all military operations in Gaza right now is if Hamas lays down their arms.”

Israel has now offered a roadmap to an enduring ceasefire – and the release of all the hostages.

Yesterday, this proposal was transmitted by Qatar to Hamas.

Today, I want to lay out its terms for the world. pic.twitter.com/0cdypBP9wb

— President Biden (@POTUS) May 31, 2024

It is difficult to determine the exact number of casualties Hamas has sustained since it started its war against Israel on Oct. 7. Hamas was estimated to have roughly 30,000 fighters located throughout Gaza before that date; eight months into fighting, the IDF has killed more than 14,000 fighters, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most recent estimate.

A bulk of the fighters are believed to be located in Rafah, the southernmost region of Gaza and the last large-scale theater for a conflict between the IDF and Hamas. Hamas and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled into Rafah after the IDF seized control of the northern and southern regions.

The Biden administration and the international community have pressured Israel not to launch a full ground assault in Rafah, citing the disproportional impact it could have on civilians. Additionally, the Biden administration believes that Israel has crippled Hamas enough to a point where massive military operations are no longer needed, a position Biden reiterated on Friday.

“At this point, Hamas no longer is capable of carrying out another Oct. 7,” Biden told reporters on Friday. “I know there are those in Israel who will not agree with this plan and will call for the war to continue indefinitely.  Some — some are even in the government coalition… Well, I’ve urged the leadership in Israel to stand behind this deal, despite whatever pressure comes.”

Even with the damage Hamas has suffered, experts warned that too many fighters remain to ensure that the terrorist group could never stage another “Oct. 7,” in Biden’s words. Aside from the Hamas battalions that remain in Rafah, fighters have resurged in northern and central Gaza and attacked IDF forces who took control of those regions.

“Biden is focused on this idea that Hamas doesn’t have to be destroyed, that it needs to merely be degraded into that carried out another Oct. 7 style attack, and that’s good enough. I think that’s preposterous,” Gabriel Noronha, executive director of Polaris National Security and former State Department official, told the DCNF. ” It’s consistent with what policy, which is this obsession with preventing the destruction of our enemies. So that’s what he’s trying to do.”

Noronha compared Biden’s proposed end to the war to his approach to Afghanistan, in which he claimed that “al-Qaeda would not” come back to the region after U.S. troops withdrew in 2021. Yet, Al-Qaida has since returned to Afghanistan and has established several military training camps and safe houses, maintaining a close relationship with the Taliban for protection.

“Just like in Afghanistan, Biden is trying to do a timeline, political-based end to the war, to sequester involvement in the war, and not a conditions-based end,” Noronha told the DCNF. “It’s a copy-paste into a new battlefield and environment with the same principles.”

There’s also confusion over whether the plan Biden presented on Friday was fully an Israeli proposal, as he claimed it was. Netanyahu’s office said on Friday and Saturday that the “actual” proposal that Israel had presented would allow for a permanent ceasefire only after the “destruction” of Hamas.

Netanyahu said until that condition is met, a ceasefire is a “non-starter.”

“Biden should be releasing a plan that supports our ally Israel’s objective of completely destroying Hamas, but his administration unmistakably has sought to undermine it,” Michael Bars, former White House senior communications advisor and National Security Council official, told the DCNF. “Israel has continually maintained that it won’t let terrorists off the hook in Gaza, but the proposal appears to be yet another public pressure point to achieve an outcome closer to that.”

It isn’t clear why Biden’s and Netanyahu’s proposals differed, but some experts mused that Biden could have been interpreting the deal in a way that favored a permanent ceasefire, which a large portion of his voting bloc has demanded he call for.

The Biden reelection campaign has been working to shore up support from Muslim communities and groups who have become increasingly frustrated with his handling of the conflict, especially in battleground states like Michigan, which has a high Arab population. Only 26% of voters approve of Biden’s performance in the Israel-Hamas war as of May, compared to 60% who disapproved, according to a Yahoo/YouGov poll from May 10.

“Is this a good proposal, no. The kind of deal where Hamas accepts Israel’s existence, and commits to never violate its sovereignty again, and follows through with that? Anyone who thinks that’s going to happen is living in a very alternate version of reality,” Daoud said. “Hamas is ideologically committed to Israel’s destruction. There is no possibility that, as long as Hamas exists, a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Gaza will ever exist.”

The White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Mike Pompeo

Among Joe Biden's failures in the White House is the southern border, which he ordered wide open to allow the entry of millions of illegal aliens, possibly including terrorists.

And the nation's economy, which saw inflation as high as 9% under his leadership.

And his campaign promise to bring the nation together, as his policies have created divide after divide after divide.

And his green campaign, which has produced, so far, stratospheric levels for energy prices.

Now there's a new one, where Biden's plan for a $320 million pier in Gaza has fallen apart, prompting even leftists formerly at MSNBC to blast him.

"What a bloody s------," said onetime MSNBC anchor Mehdi Hasan.

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"Let's be clear: if this had happened on Trump's watch, we would all be mocking and denouncing him," Hasan said on social media. "It's super-embarrassing that it happened on Biden's watch…"

The pier was assembled as a temporary means to deliver tax-funded aid to Palestinians in Gaza after the Hamas terrorists based there attacked Israel and killed some 1,200 innocent civilians.

The pier broke up shortly after it was opened for use.

In fact, reports reveal it lasted "roughly a week."

Now, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, at the online site for the American Center for Law and Justice, where he is a senior counsel for global affairs, charged Biden was able to embarrass America, help terrorists and waste tax money – all with the one "sinking Gaza pier" project.

Biden's $320 million Gaza pier has detached

"This pier – which is now reportedly sinking – perfectly encapsulates the Biden administration’s failed, nakedly political approach to foreign policy," said Pompeo, who was working with the Trump administration at a time when there were stunningly successful negotiations establishing relations involving Israel and several of its longtime Arab foes, under the "Abraham Accords."

Pompeo noted, first, Biden's pledge to build the pier brought American soldiers to the site, "even though Biden had pledged there would be no 'boots on the ground' in Gaza."

Then, he said, such aid never could reach civilians without "falling into the hands of Hamas."

Further, he said it was "unconscionable for American aid to end up helping a terrorist organization that was still holding Israeli and American hostages."

Why not, he said, send the aid through an already-proven delivery channel, through Israel?

He warned regarding Biden's pier, "It is highly likely that this pier is merely facilitating the delivery of American aid right into the hands of Hamas. What a disgrace."

Pompeo explained Biden's real reason for the pier was to advance his "two-state solution – not the creation of a Palestinian state, but to garner votes in the states of Michigan and Minnesota, where far-Left, radical communities have been extremely vocal in their criticism of Biden’s support for Israel, lukewarm though it may be."

Pompeo said Biden's "political" weaponization of such a project "perfectly displays the rot that has plagued his decision-making throughout his time in office, but particularly since the brutal attacks of October 7th. Increasingly desperate to placate far-Left voters ahead of an election, President Biden has put U.S. troops in harm’s way and aided our enemies just to win a few votes."

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U.N. envoy Francesca Albanese speaks at a U.N. Human Rights Council press conference in July 2023.

(JNS) -- The U.N. Watch NGO on Thursday accused the Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories of “gross violations of U.N. rules and professional ethics.”

In a complaint filed to U.N. Secretary General António Guterres and High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, U.N. Watch alleges that Francesca Albanese accepted honorariums and payments from activist and advocacy groups, in violation of the U.N. code of conduct.

Albanese has a documented history of making antisemitic comments and justifying terrorism against Israel. Her denial that Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre was based on the terrorist group’s hatred of Jews was rebuked by the French government, which called the remarks “scandalous” and “a disgrace.” The German government called her comments “appalling.”

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Joseph's Tomb in Israel restored in April 2022 after vandalism by Muslim rioters (Photo courtesy Naftali Bennett/X)

(JNS) -- A haredi Jew sustained minor wounds in a Palestinian attack overnight Sunday as he tried to enter Nablus (Shechem) in Samaria to pray at the Joseph’s Tomb site on the outskirts of the city.

The man, who was part of a group that had attempted to reach the site without approval of the Israel Defense Forces, was rescued by Palestinian Authority police, who released him into IDF custody.

The victim was treated on the spot for wounds to his face and evacuated to Rabin Medical Center’s Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikvah.

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Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomes Joe Biden at Ben-Gurion Airport, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo by Avi Ohayon/Israel GPO)

(JNS) -- U.S. President Joe Biden’s portrayal of Israel’s proposal to Hamas was inaccurate, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday.

“I am not willing to stop the war. I will not describe the details of the deal, but what the president of the United States described is not accurate,” Netanyahu said during a closed-door session, the Kan News public broadcaster reported.

“We can stop the fighting for 42 days in order to return hostages, but we will not give up on total victory,” he was said to have told lawmakers.

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(JERUSALEM POST) – A house in Metulla was heavily damaged by two anti-tank missiles fired from Lebanon Sunday evening, Kan News reported.

Earlier, Israel Air Force (IAF) jets attacked a Hezbollah weapons storage facility in the area of Mis al-Jabal, southern Lebanon, the IDF announced shortly after hostile aircraft intrusion alerts sounded across northern Israel, including in Nahariya and Acre around 3 p.m. The Fire Brigade of Division 91 and the IAF collaborated to target the facility, also killing a terrorist at the facility. After the attack, secondary explosions sounded, indicating the presence of numerous weapons in the warehouse.

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Several fires broke out in the Galilee during the afternoon strikes, according to the Fire and Rescue Authority. The IDF reported that these fires were the result of fifteen rockets landing in open areas. There were no casualties.

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(ZEROHEDGE) – In the wake of a deadly Israeli strike at a tent camp in Rafah last week which produced horrific viral footage of charred corpses, days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to immediately halt military operations, and miles beyond Biden's 'red line' (using US bombs, no less), pro-Palestine, anti-war activists are taking to the White House one week from today.

ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), an anti-war group founded three days after the September 11, 2001 attacks, has launched an event to "Get on a bus to DC" and "Surround the White House for Palestine."

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"June 8 marks 8 months of US-Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people, and marks the 54th anniversary of the occupation of Gaza. A month ago, Biden said that the invasion of Rafah was a red line. But now, the invasion of Rafah has continued for weeks, has expanded to the entire Gaza Strip, Biden's red line is nowhere to be seen," ANSWER wrote on its website. The group continued, "Biden can't draw the line, but we can. On June 8, we will come together from across the country and surround the White House."

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Benjamin Netanyahu

Robert Schmad
Daily Caller News Foundation

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Hamas must be destroyed before the war in Gaza can end, pushing back against President Joe Biden’s proposed ceasefire proposal.

Biden on Friday proposed a three-part deal to end the Middle Eastern conflict that would require Israel to withdraw its forces from densely populated areas of Gaza, with the president adding that Hamas is “no longer capable” of carrying out large-scale attacks against Israel, The Associated Press reported. Netanyahu disagreed with this assessment, calling the proposed agreement a “non-starter” and asserting that “the destruction of Hamas military and governing capabilities” is necessary before Israel winds down its assault on Gaza.

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“The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent cease-fire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter,” he continued.

In exchange for leaving Gaza, the first phase of Biden’s ceasefire agreement would have required Israel to give up Palestinian prisoners in exchange for American, female, wounded and elderly hostages captured by Hamas, the AP reported. Humanitarian assistance to Gaza would also ramp up as part of the first phase.

The second phase would require Israel to totally withdraw from Gaza in exchange for the release of all remaining hostages and the third phase would divert resources to Gaza to help it recover from the war, according to the AP.

Israel says around 100 hostages are being held in Gaza, ABC News reported.

The Prime Minister’s Office:

Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: The destruction of Hamas military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) June 1, 2024

While Israel is skeptical, Hamas seems more eager to engage with the deal.

“Hamas confirms its readiness to deal positively and in a constructive manner with any proposal that is based on the permanent ceasefire and the full withdrawal [of Israeli forces] from the Gaza Strip, the reconstruction [of Gaza], and the return of the displaced to their places, along with the fulfilment of a genuine prisoner swap deal if the occupation clearly announces commitment to such deal,” the U.S.-designated terrorist group said, according to Reuters.

Biden, who faces a tough reelection battle, is under pressure from domestic activists to end the war in Gaza.

The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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NYC Israel Day Parade

(NEW YORK POST) – The NYPD is taking no chances with Sunday’s Israel Day Parade in Midtown Manhattan, ordering cops to arrest any protesters without hesitation if they cross the police perimeter.

An internal police memo obtained by The Post shows that New York’s Finest are being ordered to bust any intruders on the parade route for trespassing but being careful not to violate protesters’ free speech. “Any spectator who attempts to enter the frozen zone between the barriers or who attempts to go on to the parade route must be immediately arrested for trespass,” the memo said.

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“There will be no warnings and officers should not wait for the Legal Bureau personnel to arrive.” However, it adds, “The extent a spectator is conveying a message that is offensive. to participants in the parade or to other spectators, this is protected speech and MAY NOT be the basis for enforcement.”

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(INDEPENDENT SENTINEL) – The daughter of The View” co-host Sunny Hostin celebrated her graduation from her $63,000-a-year New York City prep school, wishing for the complete destruction of Israel. She was mocking her Jewish peers. For a member of the Democrat elite who always scream about alleged Republican hate, this is the real hate.

“Now that I got my diploma: FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE,” Paloma Hostin wrote in a Snapchat post obtained and shared on X by StopAntisemitism. That expression clearly calls for the destruction of Israel and the death of any Jew to make it happen.

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“And to all the mfs who screenshotted my stories and showed them to your parents trying to get me suspended or expelled, look at me now,” she continued.

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(NEW YORK POST) – A Jewish-American World War II hero who stormed Utah beach on D-Day and went missing after being ambushed in the Battle of Cherbourg has finally been found — in a German mass grave where he was buried with Nazis. Now, eight decades after his death on June 23, 1944, Lt. Nathan Baskind will finally receive a proper burial.

Baskind, the son of Lithuanian and Russian immigrants who settled in Pittsburgh and owned a wallpaper business, was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942 at the age of 26, according to Raugh Jewish Archives.

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“He came from a successful family, he could have gotten out of [the war] if he wanted to,” said Shalom Lamm, co-founder of Operation Benjamin, a non-profit that identifies Jewish U.S. war veterans buried under mistaken religious designations at American military cemeteries.

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Brooklyn Museum taken over by anti-Israel demonstrators

(RVM NEWS) – A large group of anti-Israel protesters stormed the Brooklyn Museum on Friday evening, setting up an encampment during a significant demonstration. According to police sources, the intruders scaled the building and descended inside using climbing gear.

Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters gathered both inside and outside the Brooklyn Museum, marking another event in a series of city-wide protests that have disrupted major events, including the Thanksgiving Day Parade, over the past several months. Social media posts allegedly show the crowd heckling officers earlier today.

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In response to these ongoing demonstrations, the NYPD plans to enhance security measures at the upcoming Israel Day Parade in NYC due to the potential risk of disruptions. Meanwhile, Congressional leaders have extended an invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deliver a speech on Capitol Hill.

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(HEAD TOPICS) – A lawsuit filed this month against National Students for Justice in Palestine offers an important window into how Hamas terrorists are allegedly using the campus group to recruit America’s future leaders into its 'terrorist cult,' according to two lawyers involved in the case. Anat Alon-Beck of Case Western Reserve University School of Law and Mark Goldfeder of the National Jewish Advocacy Center both spoke to Fox News Digital about the lawsuit filed on behalf of survivors of the Oct. 7 attack.

Goldfeder noted that the major purpose of the lawsuit is to differentiate those being misled from those extremists who are allegedly working toward the same ends as the terrorist group. 'We might actually save a generation of Americans from accidentally walking into a terrorist cult,' he said.

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Alon-Beck and Goldfeder say to 'believe' these groups when they say they want to destroy Israel and not brush it off as just idle talk. The tagline for this lawsuit is: When someone tells you they are trying to provide material support to terrorists, believe them,' Goldfeder said. 'And we do.'

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(ALL ISRAEL) – The ongoing war in Gaza with the terrorist organization Hamas is expected to become the financially most expensive war in the history of the modern State of Israel.

Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron announced on Thursday that the Gaza war is estimated to cost a whopping $67 billion in military and civilian costs during the period between 2023 and 2025. By comparison, Israel’s annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2023 amounted to more than $500 billion, with its typical annual defense budget amounting to over $20 billion.

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Yaron assessed that the total accumulated cost of the war would be “significant” and warned it would place a serious burden on the national budget. “The government needs to make sure that it makes the right balances and budget adjustments in light of growing permanent security expenses,” the bank chief said.

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Cops storm Columbia University university, bust 100 anti-Israel protesters

(NEW YORK POST) – Students at Columbia University set up a new anti-Israel encampment on campus Friday night as the school hosts alumni weekend.

The defiant demonstrators — members of Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine — set up camp on the Manhattan campus’ south lawns alongside a giant white party tent already in place for the alumni event festivities that end Saturday. “We’re back b****es,” declared one sign the protesters put up, video from the New York Times shows.

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Another banner redesignated the area – for the third time – a “Liberated Zone.” Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine confirmed the latest encampment at the Ivy League school in a Friday night social media post.

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(JERUSALEM POST) – Israel has proposed a new three-phase ceasefire deal and plan for the day after the war, President Joe Biden said on Friday afternoon during a special address from the White House.

Biden laid out the terms for the agreement which would begin with six weeks of ceased hostilities in which women, children, elderly and injured hostages would be released.

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In the first phase, Israeli forces would withdraw from densely populated areas in Gaza. Some American hostages would be released in the first stage. At this time Palestinians would also return to their homes in all areas of Gaza, including the north. Humanitarian aid would surge to 600 trucks carrying aid into Gaza per day.

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(ZEROHEDGE) – Israeli media is reporting on a dangerous escalation after the military announced it shot down an inbound projectile which came "from the east" – which is a phrase typically used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to describe attacks from Iraq.

Time of Israel is describing "cruise missiles" fired from Iraq and shot down over northern Israel on Thursday. The inbound projectiles were initially thought to be drones. Other Israeli outlets pointed to a single cruise missile inbound over Israel and possibly accompanied by drones, however.

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There were no injuries, nor were there any claims of responsibility, but Israeli officials are eyeing the Iran-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which is a coalition in Iraq associated with the country's Popular Mobilization Forces.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech to open the World Economic
Forum's virtual summit Jan. 17, 2021

(BREITBART) – Chinese dictator Xi Jinping used a speech to Arab leaders on Thursday to demand the establishment of a state of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and pledged $3 million in funding to a Hamas-affiliated U.N. agency.

Xi opened the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF) in Beijing, attended by some of the Middle East’s most influential leaders, including the leaders of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain. The summit is primarily intended to expand Chinese economic influence in the Arab world – Xi prominently promoted China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) during his remarks – but the Communist Party has also proven eager to support the anti-Israel cause in the Middle East, going so far as to engage in talks with the Hamas terrorist organization. In addition to Xi’s remarks, China signed onto a joint statement against Israel by participants at the CASCF.

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Hamas triggered a war with Israel by invading the country on October 7, killing an estimated 1,200 people, taking another 250 hostage, and engaging in wanton acts of gang rape, infanticide, torture, and desecration of corpses. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responded by engaging in self-defense operations in Hamas’s stronghold of Gaza, from where the terrorists invaded, that are ongoing to this day. China has adamantly opposed the self-defense operations and bolstered Hamas, including by claiming to host “unity” talks with Fatah, the Palestinian party in charge of the West Bank. China has also leveraged its permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council to rally anti-Israel sentiment at the international body.

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez addresses an environmentalist march in New York on Sunday. (@FordFischer / X screen shot)

(JERUSALEM POST) – Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expressed agreement with a claim by Twitch streamer Hasan Piker that the October 7 massacre carried out by Hamas was a 'direct consequence' of the Abraham Accords, saying that this was "absolutely" the case in a stream with Piker on Friday.

The two were reacting live to a rally by former president Donald Trump in the Bronx. Trump claimed in the rally that October 7 would have never happened if he had been president.

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Piker responded that the attack was a "direct consequence of the Abraham Accords and many of Jared Kushner's and Donald Trump administration's actions like moving the embassy to Jerusalem." Ocasio-Cortez responded "10,000%."

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(NEW YORK POST) – A maniac tried to mow down Orthodox students and a rabbi outside a Brooklyn Jewish school Wednesday while allegedly yelling “I’m gonna kill all the Jews” in a shocking antisemitic attack, sources told The Post.

Video footage supplied by the Flatbush Shomrim Safety Patrol shows the crazed driver revving his engine and mounting the curb as he swerved toward Orthodox Jews milling around a yeshiva in Canarsie at about 11:25 a.m.

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Police and sources identified the alleged attacker as 58-year-old Asghar Ali, a Pakistani immigrant livery cab driver with a history of mental illness. The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the case, and detectives were interviewing the driver Wednesday night.

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Israel Defense Forces soldiers conduct activities in the Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. (IDF photo)

(ZEROHEDGE) – Israel is warning that its military operation in Gaza will continue through at least the end of the year, in an assessment which is sure to shock and anger the growing chorus of international critics and countries.

Israel’s national security adviser and top Netanyahu aide Tzachi Hanegbi stated Wednesday: "We are now in the fifth month of 2024, which means we expect another seven months of fighting to deepen our achievements and achieve our goal of destroying the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and Islamic Jihad."

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The same official stressed that the war cabinet had defined 2024 as "a year of combat" in the wake of the Oct.7 terror attack by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

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IDF soldiers during operational activity in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza on Monday, May 20, 2024. (IDF photo)

(NEW YORK POST) – Israeli forces have taken control of a buffer zone along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, the country’s military said on Wednesday, giving Israel effective authority over the Palestinian territory’s entire land border.

Israel also continued deadly raids on Rafah in southern Gaza despite an order from the International Court of Justice to end attacks on the city, where half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people had previously taken refuge.

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In a televised briefing, chief military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Israeli forces had gained “operational” control over the “Philadelphi Corridor”, using the Israeli military’s code name for the 9 mile long corridor along the Gaza Strip’s only border with Egypt.

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Sen. Fetterman in Harvard hood

(NEW YORK POST) – Sen. John Fetterman told Yeshiva University graduates Wednesday that he was “profoundly disappointed” in Harvard University’s inability to address antisemitism on campus before removing the ceremonial crimson academic hood representing his alma mater.

The Pennsylvania Democrat expressed his disapproval of the Ivy League school during his commencement address at the private Orthodox Jewish university, which bestowed on him its “Hero of Israel” award, the institution’s highest honor.

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“I have been profoundly disappointed [in] Harvard’s inability to stand up for the Jewish community after Oct. 7,” Fetterman, 54, told the new grads at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens.

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Houthis

(ZEROHEDGE) – A bulk carrier in the southern Red Sea was struck by missiles for the second time this week, according to an X post by the UK Maritime Trade Operations. These highly contested waters near the Bab al-Mandab Strait are controlled by Iran-backed Houthis, who have been targeting commercial and Western warships since late 2023.

UKMTO reports that the vessel's "Master" indicated missiles struck the ship for the second time approximately 33 nautical miles northwest of Al Mukha in Yemen.

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"The Master of an MV reports a further missile attack. The vessel has sustained further damage. The crew are safe, and the vessel is proceeding to their next port of call," UKMTO wrote on X.

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Pro-Israel demonstrators march in New York City on Thursday, April 25, 2024

(PJ MEDIA) – Staffers at the Seattle Wing Luke Museum walked off the job when an exhibit “Confronting Hate Together" displeased the employees. Apparently, the exhibit tried to connect "anti-Zionism" with antisemitism, and the employees, who all hate "Zionism" didn't like being called antisemites. If the shoe fits.

“Zionism has no place in our communities and being anti-Zionist goes hand in hand with our own liberation as AA/NHPI,” (Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders) wrote the disgruntled staffers. Wing Luke Museum is the only pan-Asian art and history museum in the United States. “Our solidarity with Palestine should be reflected in our AA/NHPI institutions.

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Hitler was an anti-Zionist, as are most people who hide behind the term so they can still mingle with decent people. "Anti-Zionism" might have been a legitimate political argument before 1948. Some conservative Jews argued against establishing a Jewish state based on their interpretation of the Bible, but once the state of Israel came into being, it was no longer a political movement and became instead an attack on Israeli sovereignty and the right of the Jews to a homeland.

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Biden's $320 million Gaza pier has detached

(NEWS BUSTERS) – Across the dial, the Regime Media’s network evening newscasts showed mixed interest in covering an embarrassing blow to the Biden administration’s efforts in Gaza: the partial collapse of the temporary pier built at President Biden’s behest, in order to expedite the delivery of relief supplies to the civilian population – known derisively as “Port Biden.”

The partial collapse of Port Biden, broken by rough surf, could have been its own story on NBC Nightly News, as we see from Sanchez’ additional reporting on NBC News Now. But we won’t quibble. This is more coverage than the story drew anywhere else.

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The most through reporting comes via NBC’s Raf Sanchez, who filed this dispatch within his Rafah recap: "Meanwhile, NBC News has learned the U.S. military has been forced to halt aid deliveries into Gaza by sea, after three officials said bad weather damaged its temporary pier. This video showing part of the causeway floating away from the beach. It’s the latest setback for the American aid effort, after military boats washed up on the coasts of Israel and Gaza over the weekend, while a U.S. service member remains in critical condition after an accident on the pier last week."

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(ALL ISRAEL) – Pro-Hamas groups throughout the United States are now openly calling for an “intifada” in “every capital and city” around the world, including in Israel. Intifada, meaning "uprising" or "rebellion" in Arabic, refers specifically to two Palestinian campaigns against Israel and its citizens.

An organization calling itself the Gaza Group issued a statement declaring: “Escalate protests to an open intifada in every capital and city in order to deprive the world of its heavy slumber that comes at the expense of the bodies and remains of those that survive; disrupt all facets of daily life until our people can breathe freely without the taint of the Israeli, American, and European war machine.”

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The call for action was reportedly shared and distributed by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee, Princeton’s Students for Justice in Palestine, Penn Students Against the Occupation and Writers Against the War on Gaza.

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By Jake Smith
Daily Caller News Foundation

The U.S. military has halted aid shipments into Gaza after the Biden administration’s floating pier was damaged by bad weather, according to multiple reports.

The $320 million pier, formally labeled the Joint Logistics Over-The-Shore (JLOTS) pier, aimed to serve as a vessel to deliver aid to Gaza via a maritime corridor in the Mediterranean Sea. Less than two weeks after becoming operational, U.S. aid shipments have been halted fully after bad weather damaged and compromised the JLOTS pier, U.S. officials told multiple outlets on Tuesday.

The bad weather damage is the latest in a slew of issues the pier has faced since it became operational less than two weeks ago. Initial aid shipments through the pier last week were stolen almost immediately onshore by crowds of hungry civilians, raising concerns with aid distribution groups responsible for dolling out the aid properly.

Joe had a pier installed at Gaza

$320 million of your dollars

pic.twitter.com/CBakneazlI

— Phil Holloway (@PhilHollowayEsq) May 25, 2024

Three U.S. troops were injured in a non-combat incident on the floating pier last week during aid transfer operations, though the exact cause of the injuries has not been disclosed. One of the three troops suffered critical injuries and was evacuated to an Israeli hospital, where he is currently receiving emergency care.

Four U.S. army vessels helping stabilize the pier became unmoored in choppy waters and bad weather over the weekend, which broke off part of the pier’s support system. Two of the vessels floated north and landed on a beach in Ashdod, Israel. The two other vessels were anchored to the beach near the pier.

President Joe Biden announced the pier as a signature project of his administration during the 2024 State of the Union (SOTU) in March.

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“A temporary pier will enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day,” Biden said during his remarks at the SOTU.

More broadly, the pier itself can only play a small role in delivering the aid needed in Gaza, even when fully operational. The Biden administration hopes to deliver 90 trucks worth of aid to Gaza per day via the JLOTS pier in the interim, eventually up to 150 trucks once initial problems are smoothed over. But 300 to 500 trucks of aid per day is required to satisfy the humanitarian needs of the millions of Palestinians who have been displaced by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war; the majority of the aid is being delivered by truck convoys through border crossings in Israel and Egypt.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

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(JNS) -- Hamas on Monday published footage of masked terrorists opening fire with automatic weapons at Bat Hefer, an Israeli village east of Netanya that borders the Green Line with Samaria, Channel 12 News reported.

הזרוע הצבאית של חמאס מפרסמת תיעוד של מחבלים ממחנה טולכרם יורים צרורות לעבר היישוב בת חפר. לא היו נפגעים pic.twitter.com/Hd0IRUJvx2

— Carmel Dangor כרמל דנגור (@carmeldangor) May 27, 2024

In the footage, two Palestinians wearing Hamas headbands declare their allegiance to the Gaza-based terrorist organization. The video also includes a photo of the weapons they used to carry out the attack.

30 פלסטינים (שב"חים) חצו הבוקר את חומת ההפרדה מהכפר שוויכה (גזרת טול כרם) לעבר הישובים בת חפר ובחן בעמק חפר pic.twitter.com/IzhtQAZMfe

— yishai porat - ישי פורת (@yishaiporat) May 27, 2024

The alleged shooting towards central Israel did not cause any casualties, according to Channel 12. Hamas said it committed the attack in response to Sunday night’s Israel Defense Forces airstrike in Rafah, which targeted Yassin Rabia, the head of Hamas’s Judea and Samaria headquarters, and Khaled Nagar, a senior official in the group’s Judea and Samaria wing.

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U.S. and Israeli aircraft approach a KC-10 Extender to refuel during Exercise Enduring Lightning II over southern Israel, Aug. 2, 2020. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Patrick OReilly)

(JNS) -- IDF inspectors posing as thieves succeeded in infiltrating a sensitive Air Force site and simulating the theft of ammunition and weapons.

Military officials criticized the facility’s lapse in security and the lack of discipline of the soldiers stationed there, saying that the lessons of Oct. 7 have not been learned.

“We all learned that adherence to routine procedures is important. You never know when the tide will turn,” an IDF spokesman said.

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U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. (Courtesy X/@RepRashida)

(JNS) -- Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) on Saturday accused President Joe Biden of supporting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom she referred to as a “genocidal maniac” and “murderous war criminal.”

Speaking at the People’s Conference for Palestine at the Huntington Place convention center in downtown Detroit, Tlaib said, “You are an enabler, President Biden.”

U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib at People’s Conference for Palestine: By Attacking the Authority of the ICC, President Biden Is Enabling, Shielding Genocidal Maniac Netanyahu and Senior Israeli Officials pic.twitter.com/LmBKsUDpja

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) May 26, 2024

She accused Biden of attempting to prevent Netanyahu, and other senior Israeli officials, from being held accountable for “crimes against humanity” by interfering with the International Criminal Court.

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(JNS) -- Two senior Hamas terrorists were killed on Sunday night in an Israeli airstrike on a Hamas compound in the area of Tel Sultan in northwestern Rafah, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Eliminated in the precise airstrike in northwest Rafah: Hamas Chief of Staff in Judea and Samaria and an additional senior Hamas official.

Terrorist #1: Yassin Rabia

Rabia managed the entirety of Hamas' terrorist activity in Judea and Samaria, transferred funds to terrorist… https://t.co/iaGrw8WJ4f

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 26, 2024

The IDF was investigating Palestinian media reports that dozens of noncombatants were killed and wounded in the strike.

מוקדם יותר היום בוצעו שמונה שיגורים מאזור רפיח לעבר שטח הארץ. זמן קצר לאחר זיהוי מקור הירי, מטוסי קרב של חיל האוויר בשיתוף כוחות אוגדה 162 תקפו והשמידו את המשגר אשר מוקם בסמוך לשני מסגדים>> pic.twitter.com/Abp4ox7l9P

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) May 26, 2024

The targets of the strike were named as Yassin Rabia, the head of Hamas’s Judea and Samaria headquarters, and Khaled Nagar, a senior official in the terror group’s Judea and Samaria wing.

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(JNS) -- Air-raid sirens sounded across Tel Aviv and Israel’s central region on Sunday afternoon, warning of incoming Hamas rocket fire from the Gaza Strip for the first time in four months.

The Israel Defense Forces’ Iron Dome aerial-defense system intercepted several projectiles, with blasts being reported across Tel Aviv, Petach Tikvah, Herzliya and Ramat Hasharon.

הירי להרצליה: רסיס רקטה פגע בבית וגרם לו נזק@hadasgrinberg pic.twitter.com/2xbaT8L5U5

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) May 26, 2024

Sunday’s rocket fire reached as far north as the Sharon region, sending residents in the city of Kfar Saba running for shelter for the first time since the war started on Oct. 7.

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Anti-Israel protests at Columbia University on Sunday, April 21, 2024

By Mary Lou Masters
Daily Caller News Foundation

Democrats who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation are concerned that the optics of the expected anti-Israel protests at the party’s nominating convention in August could harm President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign.

Biden has received criticism from his left flank over his support for Israel following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack, which killed roughly 1,200 people. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is reportedly weighing options to minimize the effects such protesters could have on the convention, as dozens of organizations are set to join the “March on the DNC” when the event begins Aug. 19.

Several Democratic operatives are worried such demonstrations could resemble the 1968 convention, also in Chicago, where Republican Richard Nixon went on to defeat Democrat Hubert Humphrey months later.

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“The anti-war protests in Chicago, fairly or unfairly, reinforced the reputation of the Democrats as the party of chaos, and reinforced Nixon’s pitch to the American people as the law and order candidate. And so I think those who ignore history are at risk of repeating it,” Len Foxwell, a Democratic strategist based in Maryland, told the DCNF.

“To the extent that people look at the images on their TV screens, or on their electronic digital devices, and see these rather unsympathetic protesters and associate them with the Democratic Party, it’s hard to see how it could have anything other than a deleterious effect on the campaign,” Foxwell added.

Violent riots broke out during the 1968 Democratic convention with individuals protesting the Vietnam War, while Nixon, who pledged to crack down on crime, quietly secured the GOP nomination in Miami, Florida. Nixon handily won the White House by a 20-point margin.

A Democratic pollster and redistricting consultant focused on working class racial minorities, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about his concerns, is skeptical former President Donald Trump could capitalize off of the protests like Nixon did. Still, the pollster said Democrats are concerned, telling the DCNF the historical context of the convention is “sort of eerily reverberant.”

“It’s not that these people stopped the war in Vietnam, they elected Richard Nixon, who ran very specifically against them,” the pollster said. “This is exactly the context that everybody is worried about with the optics for the convention.”

Steve Shurtleff, a Democratic New Hampshire lawmaker and former speaker of the state House, told the DCNF that while the pro-Palestinian activists have a right to protest, he hopes it “won’t turn into Chicago of 1968.”

“A bump that the president might get from the convention could be impacted by what’s happening on the streets, and I think of the ‘68 election, how close it was between Nixon and Hubert Humphrey … and I’ve often wondered if it had been a more peaceful convention, if [Humphry] could’ve gotten his message out to more people across America,” said Shurtleff.

Those close to Biden are pushing for bringing back parts of the 2020 convention, which was largely virtually-held due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Politico. The DNC is reportedly considering limiting in-person speeches; pre-taping the delegation roll-call; and moving some party business off of the convention floor.

Adolph Mongo, a Democratic strategist based in Michigan, told the DCNF that the party “should be concerned” about the optics of such protests, arguing that Biden already “has a lot on his plate.”

“He has folks in the black community not feeling it like they always used to feel for the Democratic candidate. He’s got students, they’re not feeling it. The Arab population is not feeling it. Then he’s got the immigration [issue],” said Mongo. “Man, he’s fighting several fronts.”

Biden has been losing ground with crucial voting blocs that typically back Democratic by large margins, including black and youth voters, according to polling this cycle. For instance, a New York Times/Siena College survey released May 13 found black voters supporting Biden over Trump 70% to 18%, and the president only held a four-point lead among 18-to-29-year-olds.

Black voters backed Biden at 87% in 2020 compared to only 12% who supported Trump, while the president won those aged 18 to 29 by 24 points, according to Edison Research exit polling.

Pro-Palestinian protests and encampments popped up on college campuses across the country before the school year ended, including at Columbia University, Emory College, Yale University, George Washington University and the University of California at Los Angeles. Various colleges cancelled classes or moved them online as the demonstrations broke out, with some making changes to graduation ceremonies, as well.

Trump has blamed Biden for the protests ensuing on college campuses, and accused him of being “nice” to Hamas while abandoning Israel.

Foxwell noted that the protests are not an issue to Republicans, as they “don’t need this constituency.”

“They actually benefit from the perception that they have a hostile relationship with this constituency, because so many of these protesters do come across as privileged complainers, and many of whom just are interested more in performance art than a legitimate policy discussion,” said Foxwell. “The Democrats do not have that luxury.”

Some of Biden’s primary victories this cycle have been marred by protest votes, with significant campaigns like the Uncommitted National Movement, formerly Listen to Michigan, and Abandon Biden encouraging those who disagree with the president’s handling of the war in Gaza to vote for nameless ballot options.

Over 100,000 Democratic primary voters in Michigan at 13.2% supported the “uncommitted” ballot option, as well as roughly 19% in Minnesota, nearly 10% in Washington, approximately 8% in Tennessee and 6% in Alabama, according to The Associated Press estimates. Other nameless ballot options secured 12.7% support in North Carolina, 9.4% in Massachusetts, 9% in Colorado and 8.4% in Wisconsin.

Conversely, Democratic strategist Andres Ramirez isn’t concerned about the optics of such demonstrations, and argued that “protests are nothing new to Democratic conventions.”

“We’ve seen very little impact that conventions or coverage of conventions have played on an actual outcome of an election,” Ramirez added. “I think what matters most to me, again, is where candidates and campaigns and their messaging will be, come September, when voters decide to tune in.”

Biden has yet to lead in the RealClearPolitics average against Trump since September 2023, and is currently down in every battleground state.

Neither Biden’s campaign nor the DNC responded to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

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Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]

By Brett Schaefer
Real Clear Wire

For more than two decades, supporters of the International Criminal Court (ICC) have urged the U.S. to ratify the Rome Statute and join the court. But multiple U.S. administrations of both parties refused, concerned that the ICC lacks safeguards against political manipulation and violates national sovereignty by claiming jurisdiction over the nationals and military personnel of non-party states.

The ICC has just validated those concerns with its decision to seek warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.

The politicization of the ICC and other international organizations regarding the Israel-Palestinian situation is not new. It’s part of a broad based effort by the Palestinian Authority to weaponize international organizations in its dispute with Israel and seek recognition absent a negotiated peace. In the case of the ICC, the Palestinians submitted a declaration to the ICC in 2009 accepting the court’s jurisdiction in its “territory.” The ICC rejected the declaration because it was not a state recognized by the United Nations.

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Rather than negotiate with Israel and achieve statehood through a peace process, the Palestinians sought recognition in the United Nations. After the Security Council rejected a Palestinian bid for U.N. membership in 2011, the General Assembly granted the “State of Palestine” non-member observer state status in 2012 over the opposition of the Unites States. The U.S. has opposed efforts by the Palestinians to become full members of the U.N. because, as reiterated this month, “We also have long been clear that premature actions here in New York, even with the best of intentions, will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people.”

Nonetheless, based on its elevated states in the UN General Assembly, the ICC recognized Palestine as a state and accepted its accession to the Rome Statute in 2015. This opened the door to an ICC investigation of “past, ongoing and future crimes within the court's jurisdiction” within the territory of the “State of Palestine,” which the Court sought to define as “the Palestinian Territory occupied in 1967 by Israel, as defined by the 1949 Armistice Line, [which] includes the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.”

The ICC opened an official investigation into the situation in Palestine in 2021. The ICC prosecutor confirmed it would cover

“crimes committed since 13 June 2014 in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It is ongoing and extends to the escalation of hostilities and violence since the attacks that took place on 7 October 2023. In accordance with the Rome Statute, my Office has jurisdiction over crimes committed on the territory of a State Party and with respect to the nationals of States Parties.”

The U.S. opposed the investigation, asserting that the ICC lacks jurisdiction because Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute and the Palestinians “do not qualify as a sovereign state and therefore, are not qualified to obtain membership as a state in, participate as a state in, or delegate jurisdiction to the ICC.” In addition, the prosecutor’s statement is objectionable as it implicitly endorses Palestinian territorial claims outside of a negotiated agreement with Israel.

There is also the principle of complementarity, under which the ICC is supposed to investigate only if national authorities are unwilling or unable to prosecute genuinely. Israel has demonstrated repeatedly, including during the current conflict in Gaza, that it will investigate and punish its soldiers for crimes or negligence.

In defiance of this evident willingness of Israel to hold its soldiers accountable, the ICC yielded to pressure from the Palestinians, NGOs, and a few other governments to seek arrest warrants against Israeli leaders. This is the latest stratagem in a multipronged – multilateral, bilateral, rhetorical, military, economic, and legal – effort to pressure Israel to end the current conflict and make concessions to the Palestinians.

The ICC prosecutor is also seeking warrants for Hamas leaders relating to the killing, raping, and kidnapping of hundreds of Israeli civilians on October 7. But the ICC ignores Hamas’s responsibility for much of the suffering of Palestinian civilians due to theft of humanitarian aid, use of civilians as human shields, and misusing civilian and UN facilities, including hospitals and schools. Instead, the Court blames Israel of willingly causing suffering and starvation even though Israel gone to extraordinary lengths to evacuate Palestinians from harm’s way and facilitate humanitarian aid including over 500,000 tons of food, water, medical supplies, and shelter.

In short, the ICC has enabled Palestinian lawfare efforts against Israel, damaged prospects for peace by recognizing Palestinian statehood (and, implicitly, its territorial claims), asserted jurisdiction over Israeli citizens even though Israel has rejected ICC jurisdiction, and ignored Israel’s demonstrated ability and willingness to investigate crimes.

Of course, the ICC has not just targeted Israel. The ICC has also launched an investigation into American actions in Afghanistan. Like the Israel investigation, the court proceeded even though the U.S. is not a party to the Rome Statute and has rejected its jurisdiction. In response, the U.S. sanctioned ICC officials and applied political pressure that contributed to the ICC deciding to deprioritize its investigation into alleged U.S. crimes and, instead, focus on alleged crimes committed by the Taliban and the Islamic State-Khorasan.

The U.S. should be willing to similarly protect its ally, Israel. A condemnation by President Biden falls woefully short. Legislation introduced in Congress would apply sanctions to ICC officials if the court is conducting a preliminary examination or investigation against the U.S. or allies that have not consented to ICC jurisdiction or is pursuing charges against a U.S. persons or protected persons from U.S. allies that have not consented to ICC jurisdiction. At a minimum, the U.S. should cease all cooperation with and support of the ICC and its investigations.

Additionally, however, the U.S. should not neglect the instigator: the Palestinians. Annual appropriations legislation includes a provision to suspend Economic Support Fund aid to the Palestinians if they “initiate an International Criminal Court judicially authorized investigation, or actively support such an investigation, that subjects Israeli nationals to an investigation for alleged crimes against Palestinians.” Although imprecise language allowed previous administration to dodge this requirement, it is past time to apply this prohibition.

Rewarding bad behavior ensures more of it. To protect sovereignty and preserve incentives for future peace negotiations, the U.S. should signal its strong objection to this illicit attempt by the ICC and the Palestinians to hobble Israel’s efforts to defend itself.

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Biden's $320 million Gaza pier has detached

(ZEROHEDGE) – A section of the $320 million floating pier built and erected off Gaza's coast has broken off and floated onto an Israeli beach. The Saturday mishap is the latest setback for the US humanitarian aid project, after three US troops were reported injured aboard the pier two days prior, including one critically.

The Times of Isreal's military correspondent Emanuel Fabian has reported that "An American vessel used to unload humanitarian aid from ships into the Gaza Strip via a floating pier disconnected from a small boat tugging it this morning due to stormy seas, leading it to get stuck on the coast of Ashdod, eyewitnesses say."

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The recovery operation has not gone well either, as "Another ship was then sent to try and extract the stuck vessel, but also got beached," Fabian writes.

Read the full story ›

(MIDDLE EAST EYE) – The Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza has been closed indefinitely since the Israeli military seized the crossing on 7 May, a closure which has left thousands of Palestinians in limbo.

Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza in October, and the subsequent closure of all other crossings, the Rafah crossing with Egypt has been the only passageway for civilians fleeing the conflict. An Egyptian company with exclusive control on exits and transfers via the terminal had been charging Palestinians at least $5,000 per adult and $2,500 per child to cross to the Egyptian side.

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In April, Hala Consulting and Tourism Services, a firm owned by Sinai tribal leader and business tycoon Ibrahim al-Organi, made at least $2m per day from Palestinians, Middle East Eye has revealed. Now, those who were due to travel in May after paying thousands of dollars in advance have no clear means of getting a refund.

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(NEW YORK POST) – Jewish author Talia Carner thought she’d seen the worst after hundreds of anti-Semitic trolls review-bombed her new novel a few months back in retaliation for a pro-Israel video she posted on Instagram in the aftermath of Hamas’ attack on Israel last Oct. 7.

But Carner was shocked anew earlier this month after discovering her name on a now-viral “Is your fav author a zionist?” Google doc, which attempted to blacklist authors they believed were either supportive of Israel – or had failed to condemn the nation in the wake of its ongoing war in Gaza. The spreadsheet’s level of detail, comprehensiveness and unbridled malice was chilling.

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It included not only source links but color-coding that ranked each author’s level of allegiance, or opposition, to the Jewish state. The document’s creator, an X user named Amina, called on readers to boycott both “Pro-Israel/Zionist” authors like Carner, as well as writers who’ve yet to take a stand on Israel “until more evidence is out.”

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(NEW YORK POST) – A much-anticipated internal report about anti-Semitism at elite Collegiate prep school admitted that some faculty members blamed “wealthy and influential” Jewish parents for tensions at the school following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack.

Finger-pointing faculty, parents and students skirted close to “one of the oldest and most pervasive anti-Semitic tropes,” the report, obtained by The Post, conceded. The report was compiled in March and released on May 17.

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The findings came in the wake of a November 2023 letter to head of school David Lourie and Board of Trustees president Jonathan K. Youngwood – and signed by more than 100 Jewish parents – which said the school’s internal response to the Hamas butchery “did not meet the moment.”

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Israel Defense Forces activity in the southern Gaza City district of Zeitoun, Sunday, March 3, 2024. (IDF photo)

(ZEROHEDGE) – Facing immense pressure at home and internationally, the Netanyahu government said Thursday that Israel's war cabinet has approved the resumption of indirect truce and prisoner talks with Hamas.

Israel media says that the country's negotiating team has been issued directives to seek a breakthrough in talks to get the hostages back. The announcement comes the day after families of the hostages released a harrowing video of several female IDF troops being abducted and held on Oct.7. The families are hoping the footage puts their cause back in the spotlight, so that the government will prioritize their return.

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The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has issued a new statement confirming a team has been ordered to "continue negotiations for the return of the hostages."

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Houthis

(ZEROHEDGE) – Yahya Saree, the military spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, associated with the Iran-backed Houthis, announced a broad military operation targeting three vessels linked to either the US and/or Israel: one in the Red Sea, one in the Arabian Sea, and one in the Mediterranean Sea.

Details are scant at the moment, and Western MSM has yet to confirm these attacks. If it is confirmed, it might be seen as unprecedented and underscore broadening spillover risks.

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Earlier this month, we penned a note titled "Houthis Warn Drone & Missile Attack Coverage Expanding To Mediterranean Sea." We specified, at the time, how Yahya Saree warned about new targeting strategies for "any ship heading to Israeli ports in the Mediterranean."

Read the full story ›

(NEW YORK POST) – The bodies of three more murdered Israeli hostages were recovered overnight from Gaza, Israel said Friday – including the boyfriend of Shani Louk, the tattoo artist who became a symbol of the horror of Oct. 7 when her body was paraded through Gaza by Hamas terrorists.

Louk’s 30-year-old boyfriend, Oryon Hernandez Radoux, was found along with Hanan Yablonka, 42, and Michel Nisenbaum, 59, a week after Louk’s own body was located, the Israel Defense Forces said. All three are thought to have been killed during the Oct. 7 slaughter, with their bodies then brought to Gaza.

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Louk, Hernandez Radoux and Yablonka – a father of two – had all been at the Nova music festival when gunmen stormed in and started killing indiscriminately.

Read the full story ›

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., at the Twin Cities Pride Parade in Minneapolis on June 24, 2018.

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

By Tyler O'Neil
The Daily Signal

As three college presidents testified about antisemitism amid anti-Israel protests and riots on their campuses, a prominent House Democrat brushed off concerns about a Jewish student’s inability to walk on a path at the University of California at Los Angeles and went on to fault UCLA for not protecting anti-Israel protesters.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., responded to a video in which anti-Israel protesters blocked a Jewish student wearing a Star of David necklace from walking on campus.

Omar asked UCLA Chancellor Gene Block whether the student would still be able to access the campus via other routes.

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“Chancellor Block, just for clarification, that video we just watched, we saw people moving around,” she said. “Was it possible, do you think, for that student to be able to get into campus? Was that student actually being blocked from entering campus?”

“Well, that was in the middle of campus,” Block responded. “They’re not being blocked from being on campus, maybe being blocked from a pathway on campus.”

“He should be allowed to pass,” the chancellor added. “I mean, any part of campus is open to students, so blocking him was really inappropriate.”

Omar went on to condemn Block’s administration, claiming UCLA failed to adequately protect the anti-Israel protesters.

Anti-Israel protesters had established an encampment outside UCLA’s Royce Hall for a week until authorities declared it an unlawful assembly and arrested more than 200 people.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., slammed UCLA’s leaders for having “allowed their campus to become a severe and pervasive, hostile environment for Jewish students, standing by as students, faculty, and affiliates were assaulted and harassed.”

“For days, the unlawful encampment’s checkpoints illegally denied students access to campus buildings,” the North Carolina lawmaker added.

Foxx claimed that “Jewish students were attacked, harassed, and intimidated for walking on their own campus” and students were “denied a safe and uninterrupted learning environment.”

Omar referenced reports that UCLA campus police failed to intervene in an April 30 incident between the encamped protesters and a group that attacked them. The assailants reportedly beat protesters, hitting them with poles, spraying chemical irritants, and setting off fireworks.

CNN claimed it identified two of the assailants, who support Israel. The day after the attack, the UCLA chapter of the Jewish student group Hillel denounced “fringe members of the off-campus Jewish community,” urging them to “stay off our campus,” and warning that their “actions are harming Jewish students.”

Block announced on May 6 that a UCLA campus safety officer had launched a law enforcement investigation to identify the perpetrators of the violence and to hold them to account. The Los Angeles Police Department assigned a detective to assist those efforts, and the FBI may also help. The chancellor also said UCLA spoke to Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, asking him to help ensure “that the instigators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Block also announced that campus safety officers would conduct an overall analysis of “all acts of violence over the last 12 days, including those against counterprotesters.”

UCLA reassigned John Thomas, the campus police chief, on Wednesday. Critics faulted Thomas for failing to intervene during the April 30 attack.

“You could have prevented this by protecting the diverse groups of pro-Palestinian students that were peacefully gathered on campus to share meals set in solidarity against the brutal genocide,” Omar said Thursday. “You could have prevented this by protecting these students’ First Amendment right to assemble.”

Omar also faulted UCLA for failing to act “when there was an anonymous group funded, [which] constructed a giant video with loudspeakers to play vile and disturbing footage,” an apparent reference to pro-Israel counterprotesters who set up a screen playing footage of the brutal Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7.

“You could have prevented this when you saw an angry mob on campus on the night of April 30th, but you did not,” the Minnesota Democrat added. “Instead, you, the UCLA leadership and law enforcement, stood by for hours as the mob of agitators gathered near the encampment with a clear intention to cause violence.”

Omar concluded her remarks by asking, “How did you fail the students at many critical points where you could have intervened?”

“Thank you for the question, but I’m sorry, I reject the premise,” Block responded.

Omar interrupted him, asking, “Are these pictures lying? Are any of these people in jail?”

“Can I finish my statement?” he asked.

“No,” Omar replied. “Are any of these people in jail?”

The Los Angeles Police Department is “working on trying to identify the people who were assailants that evening,” the chancellor said.

He noted that “this encampment was against policy, this violated time, place, and manner.” Even so, he said, “We tried to get police there as quickly as possible.”

Block testified alongside Michael Schill, president of Northwestern University, and Jonathan Holloway, the president of Rutgers University.

Anti-Israel protests have taken place at campuses throughout the country, often involving reported harassment of Jewish students.

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

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(JERUSALEM POST) – Facebook and Instagram have removed numerous videos from the Order 9 movement’s social media accounts, and their activity was suspended on Instagram, the organization revealed Thursday.

Order 9 has been the primary organization responsible for blocking trucks carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip from reaching their destination. The organization is comprised of hostage family members, IDF reservists, family members of terror attack victims, and additional Israelis who support the cause.

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After attempting to publish a video featuring family members of hostages demanding to stop aid from reaching Gaza, the movement discovered that their social media accounts were restricted.

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According an Al Jazeera correspondent who is present at 'Freedom Square' where memorial events are taking place, "The streets are completely closed to the traffic, [with] heavy security measures here, several security checkpoints, and you can see thousands and thousands of people are already pouring into this area."

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On Tuesday, before Hebestreit’s announcement, Prosor wrote on X in both German and English, “This is outrageous! The German 'Staatsräson' is now being put to the test – no ifs or buts. This contrasts with the weak statements we hear from some institutions and political actors. The public statement that Israel has the right to self-defense loses credibility if our hands are tied as soon as we defend ourselves.”

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