LLX News

Former US presidential candidate says the administration “has been anything but supportive of Israel.”

By: Amelie Botbol – Israel Today; israeltoday.co.il

Former US senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum told JNS that US President Joe Biden is willing to abandon Israel to secure victory in the 2024 presidential election.

“To him, it’s all about winning elections, and he is willing to throw Israel under the bus,” Santorum told JNS at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest, Hungary on Friday.

“The Biden administration has been anything but supportive of Israel. It has done the bare minimum to keep some sort of lid on the outrage that would come from America if it didn’t support Israel,” he added.

The US State Department’s top Middle East diplomat Barbara Leaf reiterated on Wednesday that contrary to reports, the Biden administration has not given approval to an IDF military operation in Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, where four of Hamas’s six remaining battalions are entrenched.

“Absolutely not,” Leaf, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, told reporters. “We have not done any such thing. We have not green-lighted a military operation. I want to be very clear on that point.”

The deadlock in negotiations for the release of Israeli captives, coupled with American accusations against the group, has paved the way for the offensive.

By: Meir Ben-Shabbat – Israel Today; israeltoday.co.il

As signs of an imminent IDF operation in Rafah intensify, there is growing concern that Israel will unnecessarily exercise self-imposed restraint by acting with insufficient force, so as not to upset the Biden administration, the Egyptians, or the ICC prosecutor at The Hague.

Meanwhile, Hamas is exploiting the prolonged waiting period and preparing well for the ground operation in this sector, which will undoubtedly pose complex operational challenges for the IDF. Despite the political pressures, Israel’s decision-makers must make it a top priority to attain the objectives with minimal risk to the lives of our forces.

The deadlock in negotiations for the release of Israeli captives held by Hamas, coupled with American accusations against the terrorist group, has paved the way for Israel to launch the Rafah offensive.

The recent de-escalation with Iran allows Israel to shift its focus, without forfeiting political gains made, while continuing the fight against Hezbollah and dismantling terrorist networks in Judea and Samaria.

https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/rafah-operation-must-take-place-even-in-defiance-of-the-us/?mc_cid=10245b983b&mc_eid=90fbf7be68

By: Samantha Kamman – The Christian Post; christianpost.com

An official with the Palestinian terror group Hamas and the supreme leader of Iran have praised the growing college campus protests in the United States against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, including pro-Hamas demonstrations at Columbia University that have driven fear into the hearts of Jewish students. 

Columbia University in New York City announced a shift to hybrid classes after protestors set up a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” last Wednesday. This led to the arrest of more than 100 people after Columbia University President Minouche Shafik authorized police to clear the camp. The demonstrators resettled the encampment, and there have been multiple reports of Jewish members of Columbia’s community feeling unsafe due to the encampment. 

The demonstration has prompted calls for the Biden administration to take away the school’s federal funding and discipline the demonstrators, which some say should include revoking the visas of the students expressing support for terrorist groups.

On Wednesday, Izzat Al-Risheq, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, accused the Biden administration of violating student and faculty rights, claiming that they are only rejecting “the genocide that our Palestinian people are the subjected in the Gaza Strip at the hands of the neo-Nazi Zionists.”

cont’d…

https://www.christianpost.com/news/hamas-iran-praise-anti-israel-college-protests-in-us.html

A coordinated effort on April 15 (tax day) aimed to shut down economic activity at sites throughout the United States and in other countries.

As part of a coordinated effort of “blocking the arteries of capitalism and jamming the wheels of production,” anti-Israel protesters disrupted traffic at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Chicago O’Hare International Airport and the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, among other locations in the United States, on Monday.

Called A15 and centered on tax day in America, the effort involved a “multi-city economic blockade” in “solidarity with Palestine,” per the group’s site. It listed participating cities in multiple countries as well as major U.S. cities.

In San Francisco, where protesters blocked traffic for almost five hours, some “were linked together using a ‘sleeping dragon’ maneuver, in which protesters connect their arms inside PVC piping that must be cut through to separate them,” Gabe Stutman reported in J. The Jewish News of Northern California.

Sharing a news report that referred to “pro-Palestinian” protesters, Marc Levine, the Anti-Defamation League’s Central Pacific regional director, wrote that “a day after Israel is attacked by Iran, the media continues to get it wrong. These are not pro-Palestinian protestors. They’ve always been anti-Israel.”

cont’d…

https://www.jns.org/anti-israel-protests-at-brooklyn-bridge-chicago-ohare-golden-gate-bridge-many-other-sites/

‘Pro-Palestine people need to go to a mental asylum,’ says Hamas defector Mosab Hassan Yousef

By: Hannah Grossman – Fox News; foxnews.com

Pro-Palestinian activists were left seemingly dumbfounded after Dr. Phil brought a former Hamas member on his show to dismantle their arguments. 

One student tried to accuse the former Hamas member, who originally hails from Ramallah, of peddling “colonial rhetoric.”

“Dr. Phil Primetime” invited Palestinian activists — Salma and Zaynab from the University of Michigan — to debate the issues with Mosab Hassan Yousef, a Palestinian ex-militant who defected to Israel in 1997. Yousef, the son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, worked as an undercover agent for the Jewish state’s Shin Bet intelligence wing.

“It’s very disappointing to see Americans supporting Hamas and thinking that Hamas is a cool thing, while Hamas does not respect any of those followers, while those followers don’t know that Hamas would torture them and massacre them with no mercy. They call them useful idiots. They don’t know that Hamas is a dark black hole,” Yousef said on an April 2 episode of “Dr. Phil Primetime.” 

“[Pro-Palestinians are] absolutely idiots because they don’t know what they are supporting. They are supporting a monster that has been hijacking an entire society and endangering the entire Middle East, pushing the world towards a global war. … What’s happening is insanity. Those pro-Palestine people need to go to a mental asylum.”

cont’d…

https://www.foxnews.com/media/hamas-defector-tells-pro-palestinian-activists-they-belong-in-a-mental-asylum-in-brutal-debate

An individual who was briefed by Iranian regime leadership stated “no final decision has been made” as attack plans have been discussed.

By: Jerusalem Post Staff – jpost.com

Iran is expected to attack Israel between the next 24 to 48 hours, with an exclusive Thursday report by the Wall Street Journal saying that the Jewish state is “preparing for a direct attack” on the north or south of the country.

The report cited an individual who was briefed by Iranian regime leadership stated, “no final decision has been made” as attack plans have been discussed.

The attack is in response to the alleged Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, which killed several members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force. Tehran then publicly threatened to respond to the attack.

A previous Wednesday report from Bloomberg, citing US intelligence reports, said that the US and allies predicted that an Iranian attack on Israel “could be imminent.” However, the WSJ cited a source saying that the attack could be “within Israel’s borders.”

cont’d…

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-796680

Rev. Peter Fast: “The world is forgetting the events of Oct. 7 and minimizing them. We must speak up.”

By: Etgar Lefkovits – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org

Rev. Peter Fast’s remarks during the Christian Holy Week come as public opinion polls have shown a drop in support for Israel, including among young evangelicals as the war in Gaza grinds on, and as the oldest Black Protestant Church in the United States has gone so far as to call for a halt to American aid to the Jewish State.

“The Evangelical Church is at a crossroads now,” Fast, who heads the Bridges for Peace Ministry in Jerusalem, told JNS in a pre-Easter interview. “The Church is being tested.”

The evangelical leader said that it was critical for Christians to make their voices heard at a time of darkness when the world is minimizing the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, which triggered the nearly six-month-old war against the Islamist terror group, and denying the Biblical roots of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland.

cont’d…

https://www.jns.org/most-evangelical-christians-intimidated-into-silence-on-israel-hamas-war-pastor-says/

By including open supporters of terrorism in its new government, the Palestinian Authority is making a mockery of the U.S. demand for “revitalization.”

By: Itamar Marcus – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org

The Palestinian Authority has announced a new government as part of its fulfillment of the U.S. demand that it “revitalize” ahead of taking power in Gaza after the elimination of Hamas. However, for the P.A., “revitalization” does not preclude religious incitement to terror and demonizing Jews as “apes and pigs,” supporting terror and terrorists or rejecting Israel’s legitimacy as a state.

Muna al-Khalili, the P.A.’s new Minister of Women’s Affairs, is an outspoken terror supporter, having publicly glorified the murder of 37 Israeli civilians. As chairwoman of the PLO General Union of Palestinian Women, al-Khalili spoke at an event in 2018 honoring Dalal Mughrabi, who led the most murderous terror attack in Israel’s history prior to Oct. 7. On March 11, 1978, Mughrabi led a team of PLO terrorists who hijacked a civilian bus and murdered 37 civilians, including 12 children and American photographer Gail Rubin.

In her speech, which was reported in the official P.A. daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on March 12, 2018, al-Khalili praised the murders as a “quality resistance operation.” She also praised the decision to appoint a woman to lead the massacre, calling Mughrabi the “head of a squad of self-sacrificing fighters [fedayeen]” and saying that she “proved that Palestinian women are capable of carrying out the most difficult missions.”

Three weeks after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, al-Khalili brazenly supported Palestinians’ right to “resist”—the P.A. euphemism for terror and murder. She also denied Israel’s right to exist in any borders, calling Israel an “occupation for the past 75 years,” i.e., since Israel’s founding.

cont’d…

https://www.jns.org/revitalized-pa-includes-brazen-terror-supporters/

Just so you know the focus of Ramadan prayers. Op-ed.

By: Barry Shaw – Israel National News (Arutz Sheva); israelnationalnews.com

Just so you know.

This is what they have been chanting on the Temple Mount during their devout Ramadan prayers…

Cries in praise of Hamas:

“Khyber Khyber Ya Yehud Jish Muhammad Suf Ya’ud” translation – Jews, remember the battle of Khyber (of Prophet Muhammad against the Jews of Khyber)… Muhammad’s army will return.

Additional chants:

“We are the descendants of Ahmed Yassin (founder of Hamas-AA)”

“Raise a sword against a sword, We are the people of Muhammad Deif.” (Currently hiding underground with Yehiye Sinwar, protected by the human shields in the form of Israeli girls and Jewish mothers and children they snatched as hostages on 7 October.)”

“We will sacrifice our lives for you Sinwar…”

Of course, our Israeli police must not disturb them. It might cause a global backlash against Israel if they do.

The progressive Western world may take our reaction to be racist and Islamophobic. Heaven forfend.

So, better to let them shout out their Jew hatred, bigotry and threats, than we be considered racist.

Oh, the global hypocrisy!

Courtesy of Abu Ali Express and shown around the Arab speaking world, including to those living in the West.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/387849

By: Chris Mitchell – CBN News; cbn.com

JERUSALEM, Israel – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back on comments by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calling for him to be replaced. Over the weekend, President Joe Biden stood behind Schumer’s statements, intensifying the face-off between Israel and the United States.

Netanyahu went on multiple U.S. networks to respond to Schumer and the White House.

“I think (Sen. Chuck) Schumer’s statements are wholly inappropriate,” Netanyahu stated. “I think we’re not a banana republic. The people of Israel will choose when they’ll have elections, who they elect, and it’s not something that will be foisted upon us that, you know, it’s wrong to try to replace the elected leaders of a sister democracy and a staunch American ally at any time, but especially during the time of war.”

On CNN, Netanyahu compared the call for new elections during Israel’s war with Hamas to America’s war with Al Qaeda.

“It’s like after 9/11 – you’re in the midst of fighting the war against Al-Qaeda, and an Israeli would say, You know, what we need now is either new elections in the U.S., or if your system doesn’t allow it, then President Bush should resign and we should have an alternative leader. You don’t do that to a sister democracy, to an ally.”  

Last week, an Israeli poll showed U.S. hostility has actually strengthened Netanyahu and his coalition against his political rivals, with the majority of Israelis supporting his wartime goals.

https://www2.cbn.com/news/israel/white-house-doubles-down-pushing-netanyahus-removal-israel-approves-rafah-military-plan