JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
TODAY COULD BE ALEX JONES LAST DAY ON THE AIR.HE HAS BACKUP TO GO IF SO.
A FALSE PROPHET COMES FROM THE VATICAN ALSO AT THIS TIME.
ISAIAH 23:15-17
15
And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten
seventy years, according to the days of one king: after the end of
seventy years shall Tyre sing as an harlot.
16 Take an harp, go
about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten; make sweet melody,
sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered.
17 And it shall
come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the LORD will visit
Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with
all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.(COULD THIS BE
70 YEARS AFTER ISRAEL BECAME A NATION IN 1948)(IF SO THIS SATANIC ONE
WORLD WHORE CHURCH WILL MINGLE TOGETHER BY 2018)(AND NOW ISLAM AND
CHRISTIANITY AND ALL RELIGIONS ARE MINGLING AS ONE PEACE-LOVE-JOY-GET
ALONG RELIGION LEAD BY THE VATICAN RIGHT NOW 4 YEARS FROM THE 70 YEAR
TIME WHEN ISRAEL BECAME A NATION).AND IN CONTROL OF JERUSALEM.
REVELATION 13:11-18
11
And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth;(FALSE VATICAN
POPE) and he had two horns like a lamb,(JESUS IS THE LAMB OF GOD) and he
spake as a dragon.(HES SATANICALLY INSPIRED,HES A CHRISTIAN DEFECTOR
FROM THE FAITH)
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast
before him,(WORLD DICTATOR) and causeth the earth and them which dwell
therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.(THE
WORLD DICTATOR CREATES A FALSE RESURRECTION AND IS CROWNED LEADER OF THE
NEW WORLD ORDER).
13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
14
And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those
miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to
them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the
beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
15 And he had
power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the
beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the
image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth
all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a
mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the
beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred
threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
REVELATION 17:1-18
1
And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and
talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the
judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:
2 With
whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication,(VATICAN IN
POLITICS) and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the
wine of her fornication.
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into
the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast,
full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
4 And
the woman (FALSE CHURCH) was arrayed in purple and scarlet
colour,(VATICAN COLOURS)(ANOTHER REASON WE KNOW THE FALSE POPE COMES
FROM THE VATICAN) and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls,
having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of
her fornication:(THE VATICAN GOES AGAINST A PRIEST MARRING A WOMAN-LIKE
THE BIBLE SAYS-AND WHATS AN ABOMINATION AGAINST GOD-HOMOSEXUALITY AND
PEDOPHILIA JUST LIKE THIS SCRIPTURE SAYS-FORNICATION IS THE SINGLE
HOMOSEXUAL PRIESTS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAVING UNMARRIED FORNICATION
OR SEX WITH SINGLES-IN THIS CASE ITS SEX WITH CHILDREN OR PEDOPHILIA)
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
6
And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the
blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great
admiration.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou
marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that
carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
8 The beast
that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless
pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall
wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the
foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is
not, and yet is.
9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven
heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.(THE VATICAN IS
BUILT ON 7 HILLS OR MOUNTAINS)
10 And there are seven kings: five are
fallen,(1-ASSYRIA,2-EGYPT,3-BABYLON,4-MEDO-PERSIA,5-GREECE) and one
is,(IN POWER IN JOHNS AND JESUS DAY-6-ROME) and the other is not yet
come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.(7TH-REVIVED
ROMAN EMPIRE OR THE EUROPEAN UNION TODAY AND THE SHORT SPACE IS-THE
EUROPEAN UNION WILL HAVE WORLD CONTROL FOR THE LAST 3 1/2 YEARS.BUT WILL
HAVE ITS MIGHTY WORLD POWER FOR THE FULL 7 YEARS OF THE 7 YEAR
TRIBULATION PERIOD.AND THE WORLD DICTATOR WILL BE THE BEAST FROM THE
EU.AND THE VATICAN POPE WILL BE THE WHORE THAT RIDES THE EUROPEAN UNION
TO POWER.AND THE 2 EUROPEAN UNION POWER FREAKS WILL CONTROL AND DECIEVE
THE WHOLE EARTH INTO THEIR DESTRUCTION.IF YOU ARE NOT SAVED BY THE BLOOD
OF JESUS.YOU WILL BE DECIEVED BY THESE TWO.THE WORLD POLITICIAN-THE
EUROPEAN UNION DICTATOR.AND THE FALSE PROPHET THAT DEFECTS
CHRISTIANITY-THE FALSE VATICAN POPE.
11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
12
And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received
no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.
14
These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them:
for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him
are called, and chosen, and faithful.
15 And he saith unto me, The
waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and
multitudes, and nations, and tongues.(VATICAN-CATHOLICS ALL AROUND THE
WORLD OVER 1 BILLION)
16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the
beast,(WORLD DICTATOR) these shall hate the whore, and shall make her
desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.(GOD
HIMSELF GIVES THE OK TO NUKE THE VATICAN)
17 For God hath put in
their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom
unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.(VATICAN)
Scientist
turned deacon urges faith leaders to implore followers to act on
climate-At annual UN climate confab, speakers at event organized by
Jerusalem-based interfaith group say scientific proof of crisis is
necessary, but it’s not motivating humanity to change-By Sue
Surkes-Today, 5:27 am-NOV 13,24
BAKU, Azerbaijan — Religious
figures must use their moral authority to convince their followers and
world leaders to act on the climate crisis, because calls by the secular
world and climate scientists are falling on too many deaf ears,
speakers at a meeting at this year’s UN climate conference said
Tuesday.At an event hosted by the Jerusalem-based Interfaith Center for
Sustainable Development, Lisa Graumlich, President of the American
Geophysical Union, described how last year she became one of the first
climate scientists in the US to be ordained as a deacon of the Episcopal
Church, driven by a conviction that religious institutions are uniquely
placed to push for climate action.Graumlich said she had spent years
going to conferences like the two-week United Nations COP29 confab,
which this year is being held in Baku, Azerbaijan, until November
22.Having begun to study climate change in the 1970s, she explained, “I
was convinced that if the scientific community just assembled more data
and analysis, and wrote even thicker reports, then skinnier reports,
then presented more Powerpoint presentations, that the public and
especially world leaders would wake up and take action. I did that for
40 years.”“I discovered that scientific understanding is necessary but
insufficient to create the motivation for the kinds of transformative
changes humanity needs,” she continued.Faith leaders have several
advantages, she went on. Climate change presents profound moral
challenges. All religious traditions were founded with the principles of
compassion and justice, which resonate with the need to care for the
earth as a shared creation. Religious leaders could inspire, mobilize
and serve as role models for communities by, for example, cutting
emissions, saving energy and using renewable energy in their public
spaces. They could help protect communities vulnerable to the effects
of climate change, such as drought, flooding, and sea level rise.
Religious institutions were usually “trusted voices” with the power to
educate and shift public attitudes, she said.Noting how climate change
had become politically divisive in the US, Graumlich, who lives in
Tucson, Arizona, said faith leaders could “diffuse the sharpness of that
boundary.” She cited ranchers in Arizona who were finding it harder to
manage with the weather because of climate change. She said it was
important to “start the conversations, setting the politics aside and
using the values of stewardship of the earth to build an awareness of
climate action as an antidote to what’s being seen on the ground by
these individuals and communities.”Noting the international community’s
inability to halt rises in global gas emissions over the past 50 years,
Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of
Alexandria and All Africa, said, “We come here to remind leaders that
the only way to protect humanity and the planet is to behave like
responsible adults.”“As faith community members, we challenge our
leaders to hold dialogue and solve the problems and not waste money
every day on killing people, on military spending, on (behaving) like
Cain fighting his brother Abel,” said Kykotis, who serves in Zimbabe and
was one of the most senior clerics at the conference. ” After the
suffering of the Second World War and the genocide of Jews and other
communities, we established the UN to offer peace and security. The
climate change crisis is related to our security and peaceful
coexistence.”Rabbi Yonatan Neril, founder and director of the Interfaith
Center for Sustainable Development, said that while 85 percent of the
world’s citizens were affiliated with a religion, “in democracies
worldwide, most religious voters choose candidates who oppose climate
action.”Quoting the late Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, who said God gave
humanity the ability to take responsibility, Neril suggested that
religion could help people in despair over climate change by giving hope
— “not blind hope that God will wave a magic wand, but hope that we can
change.”The conference, attended by just under 66,800 people, according
to the UN, is hosting a Faith Pavilion for the second year, featuring
40 events with around 200 speakers, including Neril.
WARN THE PEOPLE-WW3
EZEKIEL 33:1-6
1 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2
Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them,
When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man
of their coasts, and set him for their watchman:
3 If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;
4
Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not
warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon
his own head.
5 He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not
warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall
deliver his soul.
6 But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow
not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and
take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but
his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.
DANIEL 11:40-45 (WW3 BREAKDOWN)
40
And at the time of the end shall the king of the south( EGYPT) push at
him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) and the king of the north (RUSSIA AND MUSLIM
HORDES OF EZEK 38+39) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with
chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter
into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
41 He shall
enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be
overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab,
and the chief of the children of Ammon.(JORDAN)
42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43
But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and
over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the
Ethiopians shall be at his steps.
44 But tidings out of the
east(CHINA 2ND WAVE OF WW3) and out of the north(RUSSIA, MUSLIMS WHATS
LEFT FROM WAVE 1) shall trouble him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) therefore he
shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away
many.( 1/3RD OF EARTHS POPULATION)
45 And he shall plant the
tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy
mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.
ISAIAH 24:1
1
Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste,(NUKES
USED) and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants
thereof.(WORLD IMMIGRATION)
GENESIS 16:11-12
11 And the angel
of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a
son, and shalt call his name Ishmael;(ARAB/MUSLIM) because the LORD
hath heard thy affliction.
12 And he will be a wild
man;(RIOTS-BURNING-MURDEROUUS RAGE) his hand will be against every
man,(ISLAM WANTS WORLD DOMINATION) and every man's hand against
him;(DEFENDING THEMSELVES) and he shall dwell in the presence of all his
brethren.(ARAB/MUSLIMS LIVE WITH ISRAELIS)
ISAIAH 33:1,18-19 Woe
to thee that spoilest,(destroys) and thou wast not spoiled;(destroyed)
and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee!
when thou shalt cease to spoil,(destroy) thou shalt be
spoiled;(destroyed) and when thou shalt make an end to deal
treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee.
18 Thine heart shall meditate terror. Where is the scribe? where is the receiver? where is he that counted the towers?
19
Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech than
thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue, that thou canst not
understand.
JOHN 16:2
2 They shall put you out of the
synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think
that he doeth God service.(ISLAM MURDERS IN THE NAME OF THEIR MOON GOD
ALLAH)
ISAIAH 14:12-23
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O
Lucifer, (SATAN) son of the morning! (HEBREW MEANS CRESCENT MOON
ANGEL-ISLAM OVIOUSLY)(SATAN IS THE GOD OF ISLAM) how art thou cut down
to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said
in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in
the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
Ecclesiastes 9:10
10
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the
realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor
planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.
EZEKIEL 31:10-17
10
Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast lifted up thyself
in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his
heart is lifted up in his height;
11 I have therefore delivered him
into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal
with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness.
12 And
strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left
him: upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen,
and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the
people of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him.
13 Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches:
14To
the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for
their height, neither shoot up their top among the thick boughs, neither
their trees stand up in their height, all that drink water: for they
are all delivered unto death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the
midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit.(HELL).
15Thus
saith the Lord GOD; In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a
mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods
thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mourn
for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.
16 I made
the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to
hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the
choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in
the nether parts of the earth.
17They also went down into hell with
him unto [them that be] slain with the sword; and [they that were] his
arm, [that] dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen.
18To
whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of
Eden? yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the
nether parts of the earth: thou shalt lie in the midst of the
uncircumcised with [them that be] slain by the sword. This [is] Pharaoh
and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.
EZEKIEL 32:17-32
17
It came to pass also in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth [day] of the
month, [that] the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
18 Son of
man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, [even] her,
and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the
earth, with them that go down into the pit.
19 Whom dost thou pass in beauty? go down, and be thou laid with the uncircumcised.
20
They shall fall in the midst of [them that are] slain by the sword: she
is delivered to the sword: draw her and all her multitudes.
21 The
strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with
them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised, slain
by the sword.
22 Asshur [is] there and all her company: his graves [are] about him: all of them slain, fallen by the sword:
23
Whose graves are set in the sides of the pit, and her company is round
about her grave: all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which caused
terror in the land of the living.
24 There [is] Elam (IRAN) and all
her multitude round about her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the
sword, which are gone down uncircumcised into the nether parts of the
earth, which caused their terror in the land of the living; yet have
they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit.
25 They
have set her a bed in the midst of the slain with all her multitude: her
graves [are] round about him: all of them uncircumcised, slain by the
sword: though their terror was caused in the land of the living, yet
have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit: he is put
in the midst of [them that be] slain.
26 There [is] Meshech,
Tubal,(RUSSIA) (GERMANY, TURKEY) and all her multitude: her graves [are]
round about him: all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, though
they caused their terror in the land of the living.
27And they shall
not lie with the mighty [that are] fallen of the uncircumcised, which
are gone down to hell with their weapons of war: and they have laid
their swords under their heads, but their iniquities shall be upon their
bones, though [they were] the terror of the mighty in the land of the
living.
28 Yea, thou shalt be broken in the midst of the uncircumcised, and shalt lie with [them that are] slain with the sword.
29
There [is] Edom,(JORDAN) her kings, and all her princes, which with
their might are laid by [them that were] slain by the sword: they shall
lie with the uncircumcised, and with them that go down to the pit.
30
There [be] the princes of the north, all of them, and all the
Zidonians, which are gone down with the slain; with their terror they
are ashamed of their might; and they lie uncircumcised with [them that
be] slain by the sword, and bear their shame with them that go down to
the pit.
31 Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted over all
his multitude, [even] Pharaoh and all his army slain by the sword, saith
the Lord GOD.
32 For I have caused my terror in the land of the
living: and he shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised with
[them that are] slain with the sword, [even] Pharaoh and all his
multitude, saith the Lord GOD.
EZEKIEL 38:1-23
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2
Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA)
the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy
against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against
thee, O Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and
Tubal:TOBOLSK)
4 And I (GOD) will turn thee back, and put hooks into
thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee
forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with
all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields,
all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6
Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY) of
the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with
thee.(AFRICAN MUSLIMS,SUDAN,TUNESIA ETC)
7 Be thou prepared, and
prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto
thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be
visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is
brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against
the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is
brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of
them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a
cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with
thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall
also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy
mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt
say,(RUSSIA-ARAB-MUSLIMS) I will go up to the land of unwalled
villages;(ISRAEL) I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely,
all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12
To take a spoil,(OIL IS IN SPOIL) and to take a prey; to turn thine
hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the
people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle
and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
13 Sheba, and
Dedan,(SAUDI-ARABIA) and the merchants of Tarshish,(SPAIN) with all the
young lions thereof,(ENGLAND,AND ALL ITS ASSOCIATES-CANADA,AUSTRALIA-NEW
ZEALAND, USA, AND WESTERN ENGLISH SPEAKING NATIONS) shall say unto
thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to
take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and
goods, to take a great spoil?(OIL IS IN SPOIL-I BELIEVE THATS WHY
RUSSIA,ARAB/MUSLIMS MARCH TO ISRAEL)
14 Therefore, son of man,
prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my
people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?
15 And
thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many
people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a
mighty army:
16 And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel,
as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I
will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I
shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.
EZEKIEL 39:11-22
11
And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog
(RUSSIA/ARAB/MUSLIMS) a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of
the passengers (EAST OF THE DEAD SEA IN JORDAN VALLEY) on the east of
the sea: and it shall stop the noses of the passengers: and there shall
they bury Gog (RUSSIAN) and all his multitude:(ARAB/MUSLIM HORDE) and
they shall call it The valley of Hamongog.(BURIEL SITE OF THE 300
MILLION,RUSSIAN/ARAB/MUSLIMS)
12 And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land.(OF ISRAEL)
13
Yea, all the people of the land (OF ISRAEL) shall bury them; and it
shall be to them a renown the day that I (GOD-JESUS) shall be glorified,
saith the Lord GOD.
14 And they shall sever out men of continual
employment,(NUCLEAR ATOMIC BOMB EXPERTS) passing through the land to
bury with the passengers those that remain upon the face of the earth,
to cleanse it: after the end of seven months shall they search.
15
And the passengers that pass through the land, when any seeth a man’s
bone, then shall he set up a sign by it,(WON'T TOUCH IT) till the
buriers have buried it (PROPERLY) in the valley of
Hamongog.(RUSSIA/ARAB/MUSLIMS NEW BURIEL SITE)(EAST OF THE DEAD SEA IN
THE JORDAN VALLEY)
16 And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land.(OF THE ISRAEL-GOD HATERS)
17
And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD; Speak unto every
feathered fowl,(500 MILLION MIGRATING BIRDS THREW ISRAEL EVERY
SPRING,FALL) and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and
come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do
sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel,
that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood.(OF THE RUSSIAN/ARAB/MUSLIM
ARMIES)
18 Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood
of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of
bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan.
19 And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you.
20 Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord GOD.
21
And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall
see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon
them.
22 So the house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God from that day and forward.
REVELATION 19:17-18
17
And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice,
saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and
gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;(AGAINST ALL
NATIONS ARMIES THAT COME AGAINST JERUSALEM AND ISRAEL)
18 That ye
may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of
mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and
the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.
PROOF HALF ON EARTH DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD (8 BILLION ON EARTH)
REVELATION 6:7-8 (8 BILLION- 2 BILLION = 6 BILLION)
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8
And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that
sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given
unto them over the fourth part of the earth,(2 BILLION) to kill with
sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE
DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
REVELATION 9:15,18 (6 BILLION - 2 BILLION = 4 BILLION)
15 And the four(DEMONIC WAR) angels were loosed,
18
By these three was the third part of men killed,(2 BILLION) by the
fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their
mouths.(NUCLEAR ATOMIC BOMBS)
HALF OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION.(THESE VERSES ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)
LUKE
17:34-37 (8 TOTAL BILLION - 4 BILLION DEAD IN TRIB = 4 BILLION TO JESUS
KINGDOM) (HALF DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD JUST LIKE THE
BIBLE SAYS)(GOD DOES NOT LIE)(AND NOTICE MOST DIE IN WAR AND
DISEASES-NOT COMETS-ASTEROIDS-QUAKES OR TSUNAMIS)
34 I tell you, in
that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken,(IN
WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other shall be left.(half earths population 4
billion die in the 7 yr trib)
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
37
And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto
them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered
together.(Christians have new bodies,this is the people against
Jerusalem during the 7 yr treaty)(Christians bodies are not being eaten
by the birds).THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-NOT RAPTURE
SCRIPTURES.BECAUSE NOT HALF OF PEOPLE ON EARTH ARE CHRISTIANS.AND THE
CONTEXT IN LUKE 17 IS THE 7 YEAR TRIBULATION OR 7 YR TREATY PERIOD.WHICH
IS JUDGEMENT ON THE EARTH.NOT 50% RAPTURED TO HEAVEN.
MATTHEW 24:37-42 (THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-SURE NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)(50% OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE)
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38
For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and
drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe
entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.(ON EARTH)
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.(ON EARTH)
42 Watch therefore:(FOR THE LAST DAYS SIGNS HAPPENING) for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12
And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the
people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume
away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and
their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)
and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM
ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD
PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that
day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they
shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand
shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN
WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 32:18-29 (NOTICE ALL THE COUNTRIES LAND PROMISED ISRAEL BY GOD ARE IN THE JORDAN VALLEY BURIED)
18
“Son of man, wail for the multitudes of Egypt, and consign her and the
daughters of the mighty nations to the depths of the earth with those
who descend to the Pit:
19 Whom do you surpass in beauty? Go down and be placed with the uncircumcised! (IN HELL FIRES)
20 They will fall among those slain by the sword. The sword is appointed! Let them drag her away along with all her multitudes.
21
Mighty chiefs will speak from the midst of Sheol about Egypt and her
allies: ‘They have come down and lie with the uncircumcised, with those
slain by the sword.’
22 Assyria (SYRIA) is there with her whole company; her graves are all around her. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword.
23
Her graves are set in the depths of the Pit, and her company is all
around her grave. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword—those who
once spread terror in the land of the living.
24 Elam (IRAN) is there
with all her multitudes around her grave. All of them are slain, fallen
by the sword—those who went down uncircumcised to the earth below, who
once spread their terror in the land of the living. They bear their
disgrace with those who descend to the Pit.
25 Among the slain they
prepare a resting place for Elam with all her hordes, with her graves
all around her. All of them are uncircumcised, slain by the sword,
although their terror was once spread in the land of the living. They
bear their disgrace with those who descend to the Pit. They are placed
among the slain.
26 Meshech and Tubal (RUSSIA) are there with all
their multitudes, with their graves all around them. All of them are
uncircumcised, slain by the sword, because they spread their terror in
the land of the living.
27 They do not lie down with the fallen
warriors of old, who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, whose
swords were placed under their heads, whose shields rested on their
bones, although the terror of the mighty was once in the land of the
living.
28 But you too will be shattered and lie down among the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword.
29
Edom (JORDAN) is there, and all her kings and princes, who despite
their might are laid among those slain by the sword. They lie down with
the uncircumcised, with those who descend to the Pit.THIS IS RIGHT FROM
93:
SECOND ANGEL: MIDDLE EAST
Then I saw that the second angel
had a sickle in his hand, such as is used in harvesting.The second
angel said: "Harvest time has come in Israel and the countries all the
way to Iran."I saw those countries in a few split seconds."All of Turkey
and those [inaudible] countries that have refused me and refused my
message of love shall hate each other and kill one another."I saw the
angel raise the sickle and come down on all the Middle East countries. I
saw Iran, Persia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, all of Georgia - Iraq, Syria,
Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, all of Asia Minor - full of blood. I saw blood
all over these countries. And I saw fire; Nuclear weapons used in many
of those countries. Smoke rising from everywhere. Sudden destruction –
men destroying one another. I heard these words:"Israel, Oh Israel, the
great judgment has come." The angel said, "The chosen, the church, the
remnant, shall be purified. The Spirit of God shall prepare the children
of God."I saw fires rising to heaven.The angel said: "This is the final
judgment. My church shall be purified, protected and ready for the
final day. Men will die from thirst. Water shall be scarce all over the
Middle East. Rivers shall dry up, and men will fight for water in those
countries."The angel showed me that the United Nations shall be broken
in pieces because of the crisis in the Middle East. There shall be no
more United Nations. The angel with the sickle shall reap the harvest.
PSALMS 83:1-8 (GODS LAND PROMISED TO ISRAEL)
1 O God, do not remain silent;do not turn a deaf ear,do not stand aloof, O God.
2 See how your enemies growl, how your foes rear their heads.
3 With cunning they (ARAB,MUSLIMS) conspire against your people;they plot against those you cherish.(ISRAELIS)
4 “Come,” they say, “let us destroy them as a nation, so that Israel’s name is remembered no more.”
5 With one mind they plot together;(TREATIES) they form an alliance against you—
6
the tents of Edom (JORDAN) and the Ishmaelites, (EGYPTIAN ARABS SO
CALLED PALESTIANS) of Moab (JORDAN) and the Hagrites,(EGYPT)
7 Byblos,(HEZBOLLOH) Ammon (JORDAN) and Amalek,(SYRIAN ARABS IN THE SINAI) Philistia,(ARABS) with the people of Tyre (LEBANON).
8 Even Assyria (SYRIA) has joined them to reinforce Lot’s descendants.
GENESIS 6:11-13
11
The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with
violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)(HAMAS IN HEBREW IS VIOLENCE)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13
And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the
earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM)(HAMAS) through them; and,
behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
1 OF 3 GOD GAVE THEM OVER TO
1-PROMISCUOUS SEX AMOUNG EACH OTHER.
ROMANS 1:24
24
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of
their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: (THE
60S FREE SEX)
2 OF 3 GOD GAVE THEM OVER TO
2-SODOMITES - MEN LUSTING MEN, AND WOMEN LUSTING AFTER WOMEN.
ROMANS 1:26-27
26
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their
women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned
in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is
unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error
which was meet.
3 OF 3 GOD GAVE THEM OVER TO
3-A DEPRAVED MIND-ANY SIN GOES.
ROMANS 1:28-31
28
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God
gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not
convenient;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication,
wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate,
deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER GOD GAVE THEM OVER TO THESE 3 DEPRAVED ABOMINATION SINS?
OH OH NOAHS DAY. WHAT HAPPENED IN NOAHS DAY. THE WHOLE WORLD WAS JUDGED BY WATER.
GENESIS 6:7,17
7
And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face
of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the
fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
17 And,
behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy
all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every
thing that is in the earth shall die.
GENESIS 7:4
4 For yet seven
days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty
nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from
off the face of the earth.
GENESIS 8:16
16 And the bow shall be in
the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting
covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is
upon the earth.
WELL THE SODOMITES PICKED THE RIGHT SIGN OF A RAINBOW
FOR JUDGEMENT. THE SODOMITES TRYED TO STEAL GODS SIGN THAT THE WHOLE
EARTH WILL NEVER DIE FROM FLOOD WATERS AGAIN. BUT THE JUDGEMENT THIS
TIME IS GOING TO BE BY FIRE.NOT WATER.
2 PETER 3:7
7 But the
heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in
store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of
ungodly men.
EZIKIEL 38:12-13
13 Sheba, and Dedan,(SAUDIA
ARABIA) and the merchants of Tarshish,(ENGLAND) with all the young lions
thereof,(USA,CANADA,AUSTRALIA,NEW ZEALAND,EU,ENGLAND,ENGLISH SPEAKING
shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered
thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away
cattle and goods, to take a great spoil? (AGAINST ISRAEL)
14
Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, (RUSSIA AND HER
MUSLIMS HORDES)Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of
Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?
ISRAEL SATAN COMES AGAINST
1 CHRONICLES 21:1
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
GENESIS 12:1-3
1
Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from
thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I (GOD) will
shew thee:
2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3
And I will bless them that bless thee,(ISRAELIS) and curse (DESTROY)
him that curseth thee:(DESTROY THEM) and in thee shall all families of
the earth be blessed.
And here are the bounderies of the land
that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the
future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have
every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east
of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The
southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the
Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num
34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE
FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE
FUTURE.(ALL THESE ARAB, MUSLIMS ARE OCCUPYING ISRAELS LAND. GET OFF
IMMEDIATELY. BECAUSE YOUR DEATH CULT DAYS ARE NUMBERED)
ISLAMIC DEATH CULT AND FAKE MOHAMMAAD AND FAKE MOON GOD ALLAH WHICH IS SIMPLY SATAN IS THE LEADER OF ISLAM.
LEVITICUS 26:16
16
I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you( sudden)
terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes,
and cause sorrow of heart:(WARS AND DEATH) and ye shall sow your seed in
vain, for your enemies shall eat it.(CHINA CONTROLS AMERICAS ECONOMY BY
BUYING UP DEBT)
ISAIAH 33:1,18-19 Woe to thee that
spoilest,(destroys) and thou wast not spoiled;(destroyed) and dealest
treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! when thou
shalt cease to spoil,(destroy) thou shalt be spoiled;(destroyed) and
when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal
treacherously with thee.
18 Thine heart shall meditate terror. Where is the scribe? where is the receiver? where is he that counted the towers?
19
Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech than
thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue, that thou canst not
understand.
JOHN 16:2
2 They shall put you out of the
synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think
that he doeth God service.(ISLAM MURDERS IN THE NAME OF THEIR MOON GOD
ALLAH)
GENESIS 16:11-12
11 And the angel of the LORD said unto
her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call
his name Ishmael;(ARAB/MUSLIM) because the LORD hath heard thy
affliction.
12 And he will be a wild man;(RIOTS-BURNING-MURDEROUUS
RAGE) his hand will be against every man,(ISLAM WANTS WORLD DOMINATION)
and every man's hand against him;(DEFENDING THEMSELVES) and he shall
dwell in the presence of all his brethren.(ARAB/MUSLIMS LIVE WITH
ISRAELIS)
The Family Tree of Ishmael
12 This is the family tree of Ishmael son of Abraham, the son that Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s maid, bore to Abraham.
13-16
These are the names of Ishmael’s sons in the order of their births:
Nebaioth, Ishmael’s firstborn, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah,
Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah—all the sons of Ishmael.
Their settlements and encampments were named after them. Twelve princes
with their twelve tribes.
(ISLAM CLAIMS MOHAMMID IS A OFF SPRING OF
ISHMAEL THE FIRST BASTARD CHILD OF THE ARABS WITH A SLAVE MOTHER TO THE
ISRAELIS.DOES ANY ONE SEE THE NAME OF MOHAMMID IN ISHMAELS FAMILY TREE.
BECAUSE I SURE DON'T. I DOUBT MOHAMMID EVEN EXISTS. AND SATAN IS THE
LEADER OF ISLAM HHIMSELF. SO ISLAM IS NOT A RELIGION AT ALL. ISLAM IS
NOTHING BUT A DEATH CULT THAT WORSHIPS DEATH. AND WILL BURN IN HELL
FIRE, THEN THE FINAL JUDGEMENT IN FRONT OF JESUS.ONLY TO BE THROWN IN
THE LAKE OF FIRE FOREVER WITH THEIR NEVER DYING BODIES.ISLAM EXPOSED AS A
FRAUD SATAN LIE AND MURDER DEAT CULT.
ISAIAH 14:12-14
12 How
art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,(SATAN) son of the
morning!(HEBREW-CRECENT MOON-ISLAM) how art thou cut down to the ground,
which didst weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said in thine
heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars
of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the
sides of the north:
14 I (SATAN HAS EYE TROUBLES) will ascend above
the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.(AND 1/3RD OF
THE ANGELS OF HEAVEN FELL WITH SATAN AND BECAME DEMONS)
JOHN 8:44
44
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will
do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth,
because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of
his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
The
Telegraph-Revealed: How Pro-Palestinian mob organised via WhatsApp to
‘Hunt Jews’ across Amsterdam-Gordon Rayner-Fri, November 8, 2024 at
12:45 PM EST
The most famous and revered stop on Amsterdam’s
tourist trail is the four-storey house on the Prinsengracht canal where
the diarist Anne Frank lived in hiding for two years.Now a museum, it is
one of Europe’s most powerful reminders of the Holocaust, with a
near-sacred status as a memorial to Jews like Anne who were exterminated
by the Nazis.On Thursday night, a terrible echo of the “Jew hunts” that
took place during the German occupation played out just a few hundred
yards from Anne Frank’s House as Israeli football fans were pursued
through the streets and attacked.The parallels were too obvious to
ignore, prompting the Dutch king to say his country had failed Jewish
people just as it did during the Second World War.A pro-Palestinian
demonstration had coincided with a European football match between the
Maccabi Tel Aviv, the Israeli side, and Ajax, the local team whose fans
refer to themselves as the “Super Jews”. The result was as shaming as it
was foreseeable.Videos posted on social media showed fans of the two
teams being punched, kicked and humiliated as pro-Palestinian marchers
shouted anti-Semitic slurs at them.Now it has emerged that the attacks
on the Jewish football fans were planned in advance and co-ordinated
using WhatsApp and Telegram.The Telegraph has seen messages from a group
chat called Buurthuis, a Dutch word for a type of community centre,
which were posted on Wednesday, the day before the match.One message
says: “Tomorrow after the game, at night, part 2 of the Jew
Hunt.“Tomorrow we work them.”Another member of the group says: “Who can
sort fireworks?” adding, “We need a lot of fireworks”. Participants
refer to “cancer dogs”, a particularly vile insult in the
Netherlands.The previous day had some skirmishes, which the Jewish fans
escaped by going into a local casino. One of the messages sent by the
pro-Palestinians said: “They won’t go to the casino any more.”Tensions
had been running high before the match because Amsterdam was in the
midst of a week of pro-Palestinian protests.Interesting Engineering-The
demonstrators had wanted to protest at the Johan Cruyff Arena, home of
Ajax, but Femke Halsema, the city’s mayor, ordered police to keep them a
kilometre away from the stadium.Some demonstrators tried to get to the
stadium anyway but were stopped.Police were given stop-and-search powers
within areas deemed a security risk and riot police patrolled the
streets. Yet, they failed to prevent violence that has attracted
condemnations from around the world.One piece of footage posted online
shows a man who had jumped into a canal in a desperate attempt to escape
his attackers.As he thrashes around in the water, a pursuer shouts:
“Say Free Palestine, and we’ll let you go,” and spits out a vile Dutch
phrase that means “Cancer Jew”.The person who posted the video on X
commented: “This coward jumped into the canal, afraid of getting
beaten.” It was accompanied by “crying with laughter” emojis.Another
video shows a man who appears unconscious on the street being repeatedly
kicked as he lies in the fetal position.A third film shows a young
Israeli football fan cornered in a narrow alley where he ends up
crouching on the floor. He begs for mercy but his assailants knock him
out with a punch to the head.There is little wonder why one Israeli
diplomat described it as “a pogrom”.Ben Myers, a British-Israeli living
in Amsterdam, said injured football fans were rushed to safe houses by a
group of Israeli men and women who mobilised on WhatsApp groups.Mr
Myers, who helped coordinate the rapid response, said the Jewish
community had been failed by the Dutch police.He added: “It really was a
testament to the power of the women, organising a mini Dunkirk and
getting Israelis to safety.“There were definitely people being pushed
into canals. They must have known it was going to kick off. One of the
biggest gripes was the lack of police action. A lot of Israelis were
saying they didn’t see police for hours.“Even when they did, they were
driving nonchalantly by. It was definitely a failure by the Dutch police
to protect the football fans.”Two Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, Aviv and
Harel, told the Kan public broadcaster: “There was a police force
standing on the side, not doing too much when there was some kind of
protest. Each of us had been to the Netherlands four times; we had never
felt like this before.”Violence flared when a group gathered at the
National Monument in Dam Square – the country’s cenotaph – started
chanting pro-Palestinian slogans at passing Israeli fans.One Maccabi Tel
Aviv fan dressed in a blue and yellow dressing gown gestured at the
protestors and shouted “f--- you” and others joined in by shouting “f---
you Palestine”.Maccabi fans descending into the Amsterdam metro sang:
“Let the IDF win, we will f---* the Arabs” and “f--- you Palestine.”What
appeared to be a visiting fan was filmed being hoisted up to a
first-floor window where he grabbed a Palestinian flag and tore it
down.Soon the football fans were being chased through the streets by
locals.The victims included a man wearing the yellow strip of Tel Aviv
crouching on the ground as his attackers kicked him and shouted: “It’s
for the children motherf------.”“Please take all my money,” he responded
in desperation, in a video posted on social media.The attackers
responded: “Free Palestine now.”Further video footage showed a man being
kicked to the ground as fireworks went off around him.He was dragged
along the street and then tried to escape as a pro-Palestinian assailant
filmed the scene and said: “Now you know how it feels.”He shouted:
“That’s Gaza. That’s Palestine. That’s Gaza motherf-----.”Others had
narrow escapes.Amit Amira, a Maccabi fan, said: “Three people approached
me on the street and asked where I was from. I said, ‘Greece.’ One of
them grabbed my hand and told me to show my ID. I pushed him away and
went into the casino.“We stood at the entrance to the casino, and no one
wanted to help us. They told us, ‘Why did you come here?’ In the end,
an Arab Israeli helped us. He said, ‘No one will mess with you. You’re
with me.’ He ordered two taxis for us, and we escaped.”Amsterdam was
known as the Jerusalem of the West before the war because of its
thriving Jewish population, many of whom supported Ajax, whose stadium
was close to the Jewish quarter. Giant Israeli flags are a common sight
at Ajax home games.Today, Amsterdam also has a large Arab population,
including more than 77,000 Moroccans who live in the Dutch capital.In
the aftermath of the attacks, many shaken and traumatised Maccabi fans
said they were the victim of what some said were pre-planned attacks
that could have ended in fatalities as they sought to leave the
Netherlands on the first available flight.One shaken Israeli woman who
spoke to Dutch media NOS from Amsterdam’s Schipol airport: “It seems
like it was organised. There were a lot of people. They saw everyone in
yellow.“They jumped on us. They stabbed people. They beat them. They did
horrible things. We hid in the hotel until it was safe outside.”Others
said they would not return to Amsterdam and were even scared to take
taxis to the airport for fear of being attacked by drivers, some of whom
apparently took part in the clashes.In all, five people were
hospitalised and 62 were arrested, according to local police.Rescue
flights were sent to Amsterdam to get the Tel Aviv fans home safely. As
one flight waited on the runway, passengers posted social media videos
of everyone on the plane punching the air and shouting with
relief.Dozens of armed police officers stood guard at the check-in desk,
cornered off passengers travelling on the last flight from Schiphol
airport to Tel Aviv on Friday evening.Outside, still wearing his navy
Maccabi Tel Aviv tracksuit, Ofek Ziv’s voice begins to break as he
recalls being ambushed by the pro-Palestinian mob.The 27-year-old
financial advisor was hit by a rock as he and other fans were attacked
by a gang of ski-masked men.He told The Telegraph: “We have been let
down by the police and the country. They did nothing. I was frightened, I
was in shock. It was a very intense moment because you don’t expect to
get attacked in this country – they accept all cultures.”The ambush
echoed that of October 7, in which he lost a close friend, he said.He
added: “My friend was killed in Nova on October 7. It’s the same feeling
today – you see all these people attacked without any help and you can
do nothing.”
Hard-right Dutch MP calls to deport ‘Moroccans’
involved in assaults on Jews-Head of anti-immigrant party says ‘Muslims
hunt[ed] Jews on the streets of Amsterdam,’ urging that they be
prosecuted on terror charges; comments spark parliamentary backlash-By
AP and ToI Staff Today, 5:25 pm-NOV 13,24
THE HAGUE, Netherlands —
Hard-right Dutch political leader Geert Wilders on Wednesday joined
others blaming “Moroccans” for attacks on Israeli soccer fans in
Amsterdam last week, saying during a parliamentary debate that they
“want to destroy Jews” and recommending deporting those convicted.While
lawmakers condemned antisemitism and agreed that perpetrators of the
violence should be tracked down, prosecuted and handed harsh
punishments, opposition legislators accused Wilders of “pouring oil on
the fire” and said his statements were not conducive to “a better
society.”Violence erupted in the Dutch capital before and after
Thursday’s soccer match between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv,
with Jewish fans hunted down and attacked by gangs of masked assailants
shouting pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel slogans.Israeli officials said
10 people were injured in the attacks and hundreds had to flee The
Netherlands on special flights after being forced to huddle in their
hotels for hours amid complaints of weak police protection. Many
Israelis said that Dutch security forces were nowhere to be found, as
they were ambushed by local Arab and Muslim gangs who hunted, beat and
harassed them.Amsterdam police said five people were hospitalized for
injuries in the violence, which also saw groups of men on scooters
engaged in “hit-and-run” attacks on Maccabi fans in areas of the
city.Police, who said the assaults were sparked by antisemitic messages
online, detained dozens of people before the match, including 10
Israelis, but there were no immediate arrests for violence after the
game.All but four of those arrested before the match have been released,
according to a 12-page report on the violence issued by Amsterdam
authorities earlier this week.Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema and other
Dutch officials have said the attacks were driven by antisemitism.
“Jewish Israeli supporters were guests in our city and they were sought,
hunted and attacked via antisemitic calls on social media and on the
streets,” Halsema said on Tuesday, though she said that Maccabi
supporters had also taken part in violence ahead of the game.Reports of
antisemitic speech, vandalism and violence have been on the rise in
Europe since the start of the war in Gaza, and tensions were high in
Amsterdam ahead of the soccer match. According to Dutch authorities and
accounts on social media, Israeli fans sang anti-Arab songs and ripped
down a Palestinian flag ahead of the game.The violence badly tarnished
Amsterdam’s long-held image as a haven of tolerance and sparked
soul-searching across the country.Wilders, whose anti-immigration Party
for Freedom won elections last year and now is part of a four-party
ruling coalition government, said Wednesday that the perpetrators of the
violence against Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were “all Muslims” and “for the
most part Moroccans.”Noting the proximity to the anniversary of
Kristallnacht, the 1938 anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany, Wilders said
“we saw Muslims hunting Jews on the streets of Amsterdam,” and blamed
”Moroccans who want to destroy Jews.”He called for the attackers to be
prosecuted “for terrorism” and advocated canceling the Dutch passports
of people convicted of involvement in the violence — if they have a
double passport — and deporting them.In this image taken from video,
people march with Palestinian flags near the Ajax stadium in Amsterdam,
November 7, 2024. Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were targeted by anti-Israel
rioters in what victims and witnesses said was an organized attack by
Arab and Muslim gangs following a soccer match. (AP Photo
InterVision)“For the first time since the Second World War there was a
hunt on Jews,” Wilders said, adding “I am sick of being criticized when I
tell the truth.”He added that it was “a miracle that there were no
deaths during this roundup, this jihad in the streets of the beautiful
old Mokum that last week looked more like Islamic State territory,” he
added, using a nickname for Amsterdam derived from Yiddish.Wilders, who
is sometimes described as the Dutch Donald Trump because of his fierce
anti-immigration rhetoric, has lived under round-the-clock protection
for 20 years because of death threats from Islamic extremists. He has
also long been a staunch supporter of Israel.Some lawmakers warned that
his comments in the aftermath only served to deepen divisions in Dutch
society.Rob Jetten, of the centrist D66 party, said Wilders’ rhetoric
“does not contribute in any way to healing. In no way does he contribute
to bringing our country together, but he throws oil on the fire and
thus does not bring solutions against antisemitism and for a better
society any closer, but only further away.”Frans Timmermans, who leads
the biggest center-left bloc in parliament, agreed.“What you are doing
is just stirring things up, dividing this country when this country
needs politicians who bring people together, who bring solutions
closer,” Timmermans said.Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof indicated that
the government would present concrete steps to tackle antisemitism on
Friday.Some in Amsterdam have placed blame for the violence on youths
from the city’s large Morrocan-Dutch population. The report by Dutch
authorities, signed by Halsema, noted the suspicions against Moroccans,
but called for police to determine the exact identify the perpetrators
to avoid collective blame.“Antisemitism cannot be answered with racism
against others,” the report read. “Jewish Amsterdammers do not become
safer if Moroccan and Muslim Amsterdammers become less safe and less
free. On the contrary, Moroccan and Muslim Amsterdammers are also
disgusted by the violence for which the entire group now seems to be
held responsible.”AFP contributed to this report.
Amsterdam mayor
condemns the ‘antisemitism, hooliganism’ behind attacks on
Israelis-City officials say 10 Israelis were arrested ahead of
Thursday’s soccer match; Dutch police warn of fresh calls for rioting
after anti-Israel protesters set fire to tram car Monday-By ToI Staff
and Agencies 12 November 2024, 9:16 pm
The attacks on Israeli
fans by local Arab and Muslim gangs after a soccer match in Amsterdam
last week were a “poisonous cocktail” of antisemitism and hooligan
behavior, mayor Femke Halsema said on Tuesday, as a report showed that
ten Israelis had been arrested ahead of the soccer match that preceded
the attacks.Halsema was speaking at an emergency meeting of the
Amsterdam city council days after the Dutch capital was rocked by
violence last Thursday following an Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv match.Israeli
officials said 10 people were injured in the Thursday night violence
carried out by local Arab and Muslim gangs against Maccabi Tel Aviv
soccer fans. Hundreds more Israelis huddled in their hotels for hours,
fearing they could be attacked. Many said that Dutch security forces
were nowhere to be found, as the Israeli tourists were ambushed by gangs
of masked assailants who shouted pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel
slogans while they hunted, beat and harassed them.“Jewish Israeli
supporters were guests in our city and they were sought, hunted and
attacked via antisemitic calls on social media and on the streets,”
Halsema said on Tuesday. “But Amsterdammers were also attacked by
Maccabi hooligans who chanted racist and hateful slogans in our city,”
she added.Some video footage on social media showed Israeli fans singing
anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian chants, apparently prior to the riots,
pointing to high tensions and unrest even before the
attacks.Pro-Palestinian activists claimed the Israeli fans were the
first to engage in harassment and violence, although those claims were
not verifiable. Dutch broadcaster NOS reported that a Palestinian flag
was ripped off a building in the center of the city.City officials said
Tuesday that ten Israelis had been arrested ahead of the soccer match
that preceded the antisemitic attacks.According to the report from the
city’s mayor, police chief and top prosecutor, which offered a
blow-by-blow account of events leading up to the match and in their
aftermath, all but four people of the 62 arrested around the match have
been released. Of the four, three are suspected of attacking police and
one is accused of “public violence.”The post-mortem said that city
officials considered calling off the match the morning before it was
played Thursday, but decided instead to simply open the soccer stadium
early and herd Israeli fans there rather than allow them to remain in
the city center.Officials had expressed concerns “due to the aggression
of Maccabi supporters” who had vandalized a taxi in the city Wednesday
night, sparking online calls for taxi drivers to head to a casino where
hundreds of Israeli tourists were gathered, though police managed to
largely head off the clash.The report also revealed that Amsterdam city
officials were unable to reach Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof at 3
a.m. on Friday after Israel’s ambassador said Israeli government
officials were planning to fly to the Netherlands in reaction to the
attacks.The report said police prevented many incidents, but struggled
to track down perpetrators carrying out hit-and-run attacks and so
around 1 a.m. decided to instead round up Israelis and take them to
hotels.The document noted that police were continuing to make arrests,
while also sounding alarms on an uptick of anti-Muslim violence in the
city.Newly appointed Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told reporters in
Jerusalem on Monday that Israel deemed the number of arrests over
clashes in Amsterdam last week “very low.”Dutch authorities appeared to
express annoyance at Sa’ar in the report, writing that they went to
great lengths to quickly organize a stop for him at the Anne Frank
House, only for Sa’ar to skip the visit.Schoof on Monday condemned the
actions of the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, but stressed that there was no
excuse for the “deliberate hunting down of Jews.”“There is a big
difference between destroying things and hunting Jews,” Schoof
said.Schoof was meeting with community leaders Tuesday afternoon to
discuss antisemitism.Halsema told the press Tuesday that after
Thursday’s match, groups of men on scooters engaged in “hit-and-run”
attacks on Maccabi fans in areas of the city.She said the situation
after the game at the Johan Cruyff Arena, to the southeast of the city,
“was under control until these hit-and-run incidents.”“Then a situation
developed which the police could not tackle with the current force
available,” she said.That is also when the first reports appeared on
social media calling for the specific targeting of Israeli Maccabi
supporters and a “Jew hunt.”Halsema said Jewish institutions in the city
including synagogues were not targeted and the attacks were “purely
aimed at Israeli Maccabi supporters.”Asked by some council members why
the game was not canceled because of the given security considerations,
Halsema said, “We have taken all possible measures ahead of the game”
based on security assessments.“But what you ask me then is to forbid a
team because it’s Israeli,” she said.Police also said the attackers were
mobilized by calls on social media to target Jewish people.Police warn
fresh riots may still break out-Tensions remained high in Amsterdam over
the weekend, and police enforced a week-long ban on protesting in the
city, leading to the arrest of several people on Tuesday who defied the
measure.A Reuters eyewitness said that the protesters were arrested
while holding up white banners in front of city hall. A police
spokesperson confirmed that six people had been arrested.Also on
Tuesday, senior Amsterdam police officer Olivier Dutilh warned of calls
for continued rioting after fresh violence broke out on Monday night.“We
have signals that there are calls for similar” unrest in the west of
the city,” Dutilh said in a court hearing.Dozens of rioters threw
fireworks at a tram car on Monday night, causing it to catch fire, while
chanting antisemitic slogans. No one was hurt, although the windows of
the tram were shattered.Footage from the scene caught at least one of
the participants shouting, “Cancer Jews,” indicating that the violence
was an extension of Thursday’s attacks. Another video showed a
Palestinian flag hung near one of the main points of friction during the
clashes.Police said it was not clear who started the Monday night
unrest and whether it was related to what happened last week.Several
suspects were arrested following the rioting on Monday after police said
earlier in the day that they had arrested an additional five people in
connection to last Thursday’s attacks.The latest suspects were men aged
18 to 37 and living in the Netherlands, Dutch police said in a
statement.Four other men arrested last week remain in custody amid the
ongoing investigation. Two of those are minors, a 16-year-old and a
17-year-old from Amsterdam. The other two men are from Amsterdam and a
nearby city.Police said they have identified over 170 witnesses and have
taken forensics evidence from dozens.
Students occupy Italian
defense firm Leonardo’s Turin headquarters to protest Gaza
war-Anti-Israel activists say Italian weapons firm is complicit in
alleged ‘genocide;’ Italy’s defense minister slams demonstrators as
‘dangerous subversives’ By Reuters and ToI Staff Today, 7:11 pm-NOV
13,24
MILAN — Around a hundred students occupied Leonardo’s Turin
headquarters to denounce what they say is the Italian defense group’s
complicity in Israel’s military operation as it battles against
Palestinian terror group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.The students, who
unfurled a Palestinian flag from the roof of Leonardo’s offices, said
the company was supporting Israel by providing remote technical
assistance and spare parts to Israel’s air force.Leonardo declined to
comment.Images released by the students showed them in Leonardo’s
offices waving Palestinian flags and carrying spray cans. Outside they
hung banners on the buildings saying “no arms to Israel” and accusing
the group of complicity in “genocide.”They also clambered on top of a
plane in the grounds of the company’s headquarters. Video broadcast by
the Corriere outlet showed police clashing with the protesters at the
plant.Blitz di attivisti pro Palestina nella sede di «Leonardo» a
Torino: «Complici del genocidio di Gaza» https://t.co/PtC586gNSD—
Corriere Torino (@CorriereTorino) November 13, 2024-Israel rejects
accusations of genocide in Gaza, says it seeks to minimize civilian
fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human
shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals,
schools, and mosques.Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto condemned
the protest, saying on X that the students were “destroying and
defacing” the offices where an “important meeting with the staff of the
defense ministry” was taking place.“These people must be treated for
what they are, dangerous subversives. Criminals have no political color,
they are just criminals,” he said.Crosetto said in March that Italy had
continued to export arms to Israel, despite government assurances last
year that it was blocking such sales following the Israeli army’s
campaign in Gaza triggered by the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on
Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.In March, the minister
said only previously signed orders were being honored after checks had
been made to ensure the weaponry would not be used against Gazan
civilians.Through its US subsidiary, Leonardo provides Israel with
aircraft and owns an Israeli radar company called RADA.The company has
sold to Israel trainer jets and utility helicopters. It is also involved
in the manufacture of parts for the F-35 jet flown by the Israel Air
Force.Under Italian law, arms exports are banned to countries that are
waging war and those deemed to be violating international human rights.I
pro Pal occupano la Leonardo: “Complice del massacro a Gaza”. Crosetto:
“Delinquenti eversivi” https://t.co/lzFSXaFco1 — La Stampa (@LaStampa)
November 13, 2024-In July, anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protesters
blocked the entrance to a Leonardo factory in Edinburgh, Scotland, local
outlet The National reported at the time.The Hamas-run Gaza health
ministry says more than 42,000 people in the Strip have been killed or
are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be
verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle as of
November and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
US
federal worker charged over classified docs leak on Israeli plans to
strike Iran--Asif William Rahman arrested in Cambodia, set to appear
before court in Guam; documents circulated on social media over a week
before Israel’s Oct. 26 airstrikes-By AP and ToI Staff Today, 6:12
pm-NOV 13,24
WASHINGTON — A man who worked for the US government
has been charged with leaking classified information assessing Israel’s
earlier plans to attack Iran, according to court papers filed
Wednesday.The man, identified as Asif William Rahman, was arrested by
the FBI this week in Cambodia and was due to make his first court
appearance in Guam.He was indicted last week in a US court in Virginia
on two counts of willful transmission of national defense information —
felony charges that can carry significant prison sentences.It was not
immediately clear whether he had a lawyer or which federal agency
employed him.No further details were available on Rahman.The New York
Times was the first to report his arrest.The leaked Pentagon documents
circulated on social media ahead of Israel’s October 26 airstrikes on
Iranian military sites, which came in response to the Islamic Republic’s
ballistic missile barrage on October 1.My Colleague, Middle East
Spectator, has leaked some documents relating to an NGIA analysis done
by the Pentagon in recent activities in Israel relating to a response
against Iran.The documents are probably real. https://t.co/vkACSN1Lo5
pic.twitter.com/5qIllcvDtL— MedManOG (@MedManOG) October 17, 2024-The
documents, attributed to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and
National Security Agency, noted that Israel was moving military assets
in place to conduct its military strike, based on satellite imagery from
October 15-16.They were shareable within the “Five Eyes,” an
intelligence alliance comprised of the US, Great Britain, Canada, New
Zealand and Australia.Marked top secret, the documents first appeared on
the Telegram messaging app in October and quickly spread among Telegram
channels popular with Iranians.Tehran launched some 200 ballistic
missiles at Israel on October 1, sending most of the population rushing
to bomb shelters and safe rooms. The assault — Iran’s second direct
attack on Israel, after a drone and missile strike in April — caused
relatively minor damage to military bases and some residential areas in
Israel and killed a Palestinian man in the West Bank.Iran said its
October 1 attack came in retaliation for the killing of Tehran-backed
terror leaders and an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander.Iran
has threatened to strike Israel again after Israel retaliated last month
with airstrikes on Iranian air defense batteries and military sites
protecting crucial energy facilities.
Trump’s choice of Fox News
host for defense chief post shakes Pentagon, US military-Selection of
Pete Hegseth raises questions about TV figure’s ability to handle
world’s largest military, its $800 billion budget, millions of
personnel, and global crises-By Lolita C. Baldor and TARA COPP Today,
5:25 pm-NOV 13,24
WASHINGTON (AP) — US President-elect Donald
Trump stunned the Pentagon and the broader defense world by nominating
Fox News host Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary, tapping
someone largely inexperienced and untested on the global stage to take
over the world’s largest and most powerful military.The news was met
with bewilderment and worry among many in Washington as Trump passed on a
number of established national security heavy-hitters and chose an Army
National Guard officer well known in conservative circles as a co-host
of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend.”While some Republican
lawmakers had a muted response to the announcement, others called his
combat experience an asset or said he was “tremendously
capable.”Hegseth’s choice could bring sweeping changes to the military.
He has made it clear on his show and in interviews that, like Trump, he
is opposed to “woke” programs that promote equity and inclusion. He also
has questioned the role of women in combat and advocated pardoning
service members charged with war crimes.In June, at a rally in Las
Vegas, Trump encouraged his supporters to buy Hegseth’s book and said
that if he won the presidency, “The woke stuff will be gone within a
period of 24 hours. I can tell you.”The 44-year-old Hegseth, a staunch
conservative who embraces Trump’s “America First” policies, has pushed
for making the military more lethal. During an interview on “The Shawn
Ryan Show” podcast, he said allowing women to serve in combat hurts that
effort.“Everything about men and women serving together makes the
situation more complicated, and complication in combat, that means
casualties are worse,” Hegseth said.And while he said diversity in the
military is a strength, he said it was because minority and white men
can perform similarly but the same isn’t true for women.By opening
combat slots to women, “we’ve changed the standards in putting them
there, which means you’ve changed the capability of that unit,” Hegseth
said in the podcast interview.Since then-defense secretary Ash Carter
opened all combat roles to women in 2016, women have successfully passed
the military’s grueling tests to become Green Berets and Army Rangers,
and the Naval Special Warfare’s test to serve as a combatant-craft
crewman — the boat operators who transport Navy SEALs and conduct their
own classified missions at sea.While Trump lauded Hegseth as “tough,
smart and a true believer in America First,” others were quick to point
to the TV personality’s lack of experience. Some suggested he could be
Pentagon chief in name only as the Trump White House runs the
department.A number of other names floated as possible defense choices
had included Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Alabama, chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee; retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg; Sen. Joni Ernst,
R-Iowa; and Robert Wilkie, a former Pentagon official who was head of
the Department of Veterans Affairs in Trump’s first term.“There is
reason for concern that this is not a person who is a serious enough
policymaker, serious enough policy implementer, to do a successful job,”
said Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the House
Armed Services Committee.Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies, said Hegseth’s lack of senior
national security experience makes it more difficult to get Senate
confirmation.“I think Trump was tired of fighting with his secretaries
of defense and picked one who would be loyal to him,” Cancian
said.Military officials said the choice came out of the blue. A senior
military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were
not authorized to talk to the media, said Hegseth’s selection is raising
concerns about whether he has the practical experience to manage a
large department with an enormous budget.The Defense Department has a
budget exceeding $800 billion, with about 1.3 million active-duty troops
and another 1.4 million in the National Guard, Reserves and civilian
employees based worldwide.If confirmed, Hegseth would face a daunting
array of global crises, from the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and
the expanding alliance between Russia and North Korea to the growing
competition with China. There is also the need to upgrade the complex US
missile and nuclear defense apparatus and ensure the defense industry
can keep up with America’s need for weapons systems.Smith said that
while Hegseth’s combat experience is a plus, running the Pentagon
requires a lot of other skill sets, and his nomination will need some
time for consideration.“What’s your plan? What are you going to do?… How
can you assure us that that lack of experience, you know, isn’t going
to make it impossible for you to do the job?” Smith said. “I think those
are questions that need to be answered over the next couple of
months.”Even some Republicans in the Senate, who would vote on his
nomination, had a subdued response.North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis
called the choice “interesting.” Indiana Sen. Todd Young, who served in
the Marine Corps, said, “I don’t know much about his background or his
vision, so I look forward to learning more.”North Dakota Sen. John
Hoeven said he’s not surprised that Trump chose Hegseth because Trump is
“close to him and likes him and trusts him.”“The guy’s obviously
tremendously capable, a great communicator,” Hoeven said. “I look
forward to getting to know him better.”House Speaker Mike Johnson,
R-Louisiana, said Hegseth brings a lot to the table and will be
“reform-minded in the areas that need reform.”Hegseth has been a
contributor since 2014 for Fox News, developing a friendship with Trump,
who made regular appearances on his show. He is the author of “The War
on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.”“With Pete
at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice — Our Military will be
Great Again, and America will Never Back Down,” Trump said in a
statement. “Nobody fights harder for the Troops, and Pete will be a
courageous and patriotic champion of our ‘Peace through Strength’
policy.”
Op-Ed: Day 404 of the war-The ultra-divisive Netanyahu
and the consequences for an Israel fighting for survival-Again and again
the questions are asked, mainly by people abroad who love Israel: Don’t
Israelis realize how extraordinary a leader he is? And why are so many
so mistrustful and critical of him? By David Horovitz-Today, 5:07 pm-NOV
13,24
This Editor’s Note was sent out earlier Wednesday in ToI’s
weekly update email to members of the Times of Israel Community. To
receive these Editor’s Notes as they’re released, join the ToI Community
here.People constantly ask me — almost all of them lovers of Israel
living overseas, some of them politely, many of them not — why many
Israelis so mistrust and, yes, loathe, our Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu.He exudes such confidence and competence, they note,
accurately. He’s so plainly intelligent, sharp and worldly. He’s
Israel’s most successful politician, manifestly its most popular, a
giant among rival political nobodies. And, most of all, he’s so
stunningly articulate in English, the supreme advocate for Israel on the
world public stage and doubtless behind closed doors with world
leaders, too. Again and again, the questions are asked: Don’t Israelis
realize how extraordinary a leader he is? And why are so many so
critical of him?I think it’s important to explain, taking no pleasure in
doing so, and at the risk of prompting more opprobrium and accusations
of disloyalty. I should stress that domestic opposition and mistrust
vastly predates October 7, 2023, and indeed has risen and fallen
throughout Netanyahu’s three decades at the top of Israeli politics,
most of which he has spent as the electorate’s chosen prime minister.
Partial list: 1. Because he has refused to take personal responsibility
for the greatest disaster to have befallen modern Israel, when Hamas
invaded the south and massacred some 1,200 people, most of them
civilians, and abducted 251 — even though he was the prime minister that
day and had been for almost all of the preceding 16 years in which
Hamas ran Gaza and built up its war machine. Because he had presided
over a policy that allowed Qatari funding to help Hamas maintain its
hold. Because he had accepted the defense establishment’s unfathomable
assessment that Hamas was not single-mindedly bent on harming and
ultimately destroying Israel. And because he did not heed the alarms
sounded by some in the intelligence community in the final years,
months, days and even hours before 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists burst
through a flimsy high-tech border fence unprotected by actual troops. 2.
Because they don’t quite understand what the IDF is doing in Gaza right
now, under his direction, when Hamas has been defeated as an organized
army, and soldiers’ lives are being lost to Hamas’s guerrilla attacks;
when a ceasefire could enable the release of the 101 hostages held
there, more of whom are dying as the weeks go by; and when a
hostage-ceasefire deal will yield either an opportunity for the creation
of the deradicalized Gaza all Israelis and the world seek, or, more
likely, sooner or later see Hamas provide deadly reasons to necessitate,
justify and legitimize a resumption of IDF operations against it. 3.
Because they fear for Israeli democracy, given that Netanyahu spent the
first nine months of this government’s lifespan attempting to bulldoze
legislation through the Knesset that would turn Israel’s independent
judiciary into a politicized tool of the governing majority, plowed
ahead with that effort even as it bitterly divided Israel, has never
indicated that this goal has been abandoned, and is now challenging the
authority and legitimacy of the government’s chief legal adviser,
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara. 4. Because he just fired his
principled, experienced and straight-talking defense minister, Yoav
Gallant, in the middle of a multifront war. Netanyahu says this was for
words and deeds that contradicted government decisions and benefited the
enemy. Gallant says it was for the triple crimes of prioritizing
efforts to free the hostages, demanding that ultra-Orthodox males do
military service, and insisting on the state commission of inquiry
Netanyahu resolutely opposes to probe the October 7 failures and thus
help ensure there can be no repeat. And Netanyahu then replaced that
defense minister with an inexperienced yes-man. 5. Because while he is
assured, polished and fluent in his numerous English-language
appearances and interviews, in Hebrew he seems incapable of exuding a
sense of empathy; he almost never speaks at length to Hebrew media,
least of all to non-sycophantic Hebrew media; and his Hebrew press
conferences are marked by hostility to provocative questions and
derision for those who pose them. 6. Because under his watch, the plight
of the hostages is not a cause of national unanimity but a divisive
issue. Families and ordinary Israelis pleading publicly for greater
efforts for their release are implied by him and his loyalists to be
dupes of Hamas and even enemies of the state — a designation he even
intimated could be applied to Gallant. Families of the hostages spoke at
both the US Republican and Democratic national conventions and were
unanimously applauded and supported by the tens of thousands at both
those events. By contrast, in the divisive climate engendered at home by
Netanyahu, and also by the overt affiliation of some of the families
and their supporters with anti-government protests, there is almost no
sizable gathering in support of the hostages that passes off without
heckling and confrontation by opponents, not to mention the heavy-handed
intervention of a police force that is becoming increasingly brutalized
under hoodlum minister Itamar Ben Gvir. 7. Because he insists on
maintaining the unjustifiable exemption from military and national
service of army-age ultra-Orthodox males — at the height of a multifront
war, with the standing army under immense strain, and even the heroic
reservist forces starting to wilt, although he knows full well the
consequences for the national psyche, economy and basic resilience of
this abiding inequality — rather than risk destabilizing his coalition.
8. Because he has refused to visit some of the communities most
devastated on October 7 — notably including Kibbutz Nir Oz, where even
his deeply divisive Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had the guts to
make a lengthy and emotive visit on Tuesday; selects convenient
representatives of the hostage and bereaved families with whom to meet;
reliably speaks to the nation when there are military successes to
highlight and doesn’t when things go wrong. 9. Because amid a welter of
new allegations concerning the theft and leaking of IDF materials to and
through the Prime Minister’s Office, and regarding efforts to rewrite
the minutes of key meetings to reflect his stewardship of the war in a
better light, his PMO on Tuesday implicitly turned on both the police
and Shin Bet for daring to investigate, accusing them of “destroying the
lives of young men with baseless claims in order to harm right-wing
governance,” including by detaining suspects “for 20 days in a basement…
in order to extract from them false claims against the prime minister.”
10. Because he mainstreamed the far-right Jewish supremacists Smotrich
and Ben Gvir, and gave them central ministerial responsibilities. And
because many Israelis worry that he will now capitulate to pressure from
those two far-right leaders and their parties for ongoing Israeli
control of Gaza and the resumption of Jewish settlement there — a demand
that would place untenable strain on the army and require Israel to
provide for two million hostile Palestinians, with unsustainable
demographic and economic consequences. And that he might also now seek
to dramatically expand West Bank settlement, including into areas that
the previous Trump administration earmarked for limited Palestinian
independence, further reducing any future potential for viable
separation from the almost three million Palestinians there.11. Because
people they do trust to some extent, and who have been with him at key
moments behind closed doors — including the likes of Gallant and
opposition MK Gadi Eisenkot, an ex-IDF chief, bereaved father, and
former war cabinet observer — accuse him of putting personal political
interests above the good of the country.12. Because he seems to believe
that he and he alone can and should advocate for Israel on the
international stage, and has failed to establish a competent government
public diplomacy organization capable of responding to events in
real-time and strategically disseminating Israel’s broader narrative to
traditional international media and via social media, and to other
shapers of world public opinion.I am going on about all this in part
because it also goes to explain the debilitating dichotomy that Israel
faces in this era of unprecedented national crisis, with its resonant
implications for Jews around the world.Coordinated by Iran — which has
now twice directly attacked Israel and is advancing a nuclear weapons
program — terrorist armies and other proxies are targeting Israel from
every point of the compass, with devastating effect. Antisemites
worldwide are pitching in. Israel is also the victim of abysmal media
misrepresentation.And at the same time, Israel has a bloated, largely
dysfunctional, partly anti-Zionist government under Netanyahu that is
tearing the country apart from within, radicalizing parts of the public,
failing to effectively convey to the world what’s going on, and
exacerbating that global hostility.How many Israelis share all or some
of those highly negative views of Netanyahu, his character, leadership
and policies that I’ve cited above? Many, maybe most, though I’d say the
number is dwindling the further October 7, 2023, recedes, and in the
absence of any remotely convincing political opposition. Many, many
Israelis love, even revere him. As I noted near the top, the fact is
that, when push came to shove, the Israeli electorate has empowered
Netanyahu to lead Israel for 17 of the past 28 years and 14 of the last
16.And were Netanyahu, no longer a young man, to be incapacitated, it is
highly likely that he would be succeeded by somebody less restrained,
less competent and still more divisive and threatening to Israeli
democracy, internal harmony and resilience.**It starts with the
Israelis-The violence against Israelis in Amsterdam last week was not
Kristallnacht 2024 — not an open display of murderous thuggery by the
governmental power in the Netherlands. And neither, at the other extreme
of misrepresentation, was it a familiar if unusually violent eruption
of soccer hooliganism.It was rather, organized, widespread violence by
Arab and Muslim gangs targeting Israelis because they are Israelis. And
it was achieved because the Dutch authorities failed to effectively
protect the Israeli visitors — some of whose behavior before the soccer
match was unacceptable — to their capital.It means Israelis, already
wary about advertising their nationality in much of Europe and the rest
of the world, will be even more fearful and defensive. It deepens
abiding concerns for the Jewish communities in Holland and other
countries in Europe and beyond for their wellbeing amid the antisemitism
— led by local Muslim and Arab extremists, but certainly not limited to
them — that has surged worldwide since Israel was invaded by Hamas 404
days ago.And it presents an immense, historic test for the government
and law enforcement authorities of the Netherlands and every other
country where Israelis and Jews are targeted for being Israelis and
Jews: Are these nations going to be cowed, intimidated and ultimately
prove impotent in the face of violent extremism, or are they going to
face down and defeat the racist thugs? The initial indications in
Amsterdam are not encouraging. As of this writing, few if any of the
alleged perpetrators of Thursday night’s concerted attacks have been
arrested. And lower-level violence has been continuing — a case of
Israelis being targeted even when they are no longer there.The hatred
continues to erupt, and will simply focus on new targets, unless or
until its inciters and perpetrators are deterred.It starts with the
Israelis. But those who are tempted to indulge it should know that it
doesn’t end there.
IDF: ‘New Hezbollah targets’ reached in
expanded south Lebanon ground operation-Rockets, drones target swaths of
northern Israel as fighter jets strike buildings in Beirut after
evacuation warnings; IDF says several Hezbollah field commanders killed
recently By Emanuel Fabian-and Agencies Today, 2:17 pm-NOV 13,24
The
military said Wednesday that it has further expanded its ground
operation in southern Lebanon, as it continued to carry out airstrikes
in Beirut while Hezbollah fired rockets and drones at northern
Israel.The Israel Defense Forces said that its 91st Division was
reaching “new targets” belonging to Hezbollah. It said commandos
operating with the division raided several new areas, as other brigades
continued “defensive and offensive activities in the area.”A day
earlier, the IDF said that the 36th Division has also expanded ground
operations in southern Lebanon.Meanwhile, Israeli fighter jets continued
to strike Hezbollah targets in the southern suburbs of Beirut after
issuing an evacuation warning for six buildings in the area. AFPTV
footage showed a plume of black smoke rising over the area that was
struck, about an hour after the army told residents of parts of the
southern suburbs to leave. There were no immediate reports of
casualties.Separately, an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in
the town of Aramoun, just south of Beirut, killed at least six people
and wounded 15 others, Lebanon’s health ministry said.The state-run
National News Agency reported that there were children missing after the
strike and it wasn’t clear if they were under the rubble or had been
taken to a hospital. There was no warning issued before the strike, and
it was not immediately clear what the target was.Swaths of northern
Israel were targeted by drone and rocket attacks throughout Wednesday
morning, with the IDF saying that at least three drones were intercepted
without causing any injuries. Rockets also set off sirens throughout
the Upper Galilee, including a barrage of around 20 rockets. Some
impacted, including on a home in Ma’alot-Tarshiha, causing damage but no
injuries.The IDF said Wednesday that it struck dozens of rocket
launchers in Lebanon, including ones used in a deadly attack on Nahariya
and long-range fire on central Israel on Tuesday.Overnight, Israeli
fighter jets struck Hezbollah weapon depots and command centers in
Beirut’s southern suburbs, the IDF added. The Hezbollah sites were
located “in the heart of a civilian population,” the military said,
accusing the terror group of using human shields.The IDF also revealed
on Wednesday that several Hezbollah field commanders were killed in
recent airstrikes in southern Lebanon.According to the IDF, in early
October, a strike carried out by fighter jets killed Muhammad Musa
Salah, identified as the commander of Hezbollah’s forces in the Khiam
region of southern Lebanon. (Another Hezbollah commander responsible
specifically for the town of Khiam was killed earlier this month).Salah
was responsible for over 2,500 rocket launches at the Golan Heights,
Upper Galilee and Galilee Panhandle during the war, as well as attacks
on IDF troops in south Lebanon, the military said.Another strike on
Sunday killed Ayman Muhammad Nabulsi, whom the IDF identified as the
commander of Hezbollah’s anti-tank missile unit in the Hajjar regional
unit, which is responsible for attacks on northern Israel’s Ramim Ridge
region. (Another commander of the anti-tank unit was killed late last
month in a separate strike).Separate strikes killed Hajj Ali Yussef
Salah, the commander of Hezbollah’s forces in the village of Kfar
Tebnit, and another unnamed commander responsible for the Ghajar area,
the military added.Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel since October
2023 have resulted in the deaths of 43 civilians. In addition, 62 IDF
soldiers and reservists have been killed, including 36 slain during the
ground operation that Israel began in September.More than 3,300 people
have been killed in Lebanon since the clashes began last year, according
to the Lebanon Health Ministry, the majority of them since late
September, a figure which does not distinguish between combatants and
civilians but is likely to be incomplete, with Hezbollah ceasing to
update its death toll with the escalation of violence. The IDF estimates
that some 3,000 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in the conflict
over the past year.
UN nuclear watchdog chief heads for Iran,
stresses need for diplomatic solution-Rafael Grossi says IAEA must have
more access to nuclear program, warns Tehran has a large amount of
nuclear material that can be used for a bomb-By AFP and ToI Staff Today,
10:24 am-NOV 13,24
International Atomic Energy Agency chief
Rafael Grossi is set to visit Tehran on Wednesday for crucial talks on
Iran’s nuclear program, warning just ahead of his trip that room for
maneuver is narrowing.His visit comes only two days after Defense
Minister Israel Katz said that the Islamic Republic is “more exposed
than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities.”Israel and other
countries have long accused Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, a
claim Tehran denies.Iran has launched two missile attacks on Israel,
one in April in response to an airstrike on Damascus that killed a top
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander it blamed on Israel, and
another in October, in response to Israel’s killing of Tehran-backed
terrorist leaders and an IRGC commander. Israel retaliated last month
with an airstrike on Iranian air defense batteries and military sites
protecting crucial energy facilities.Iran backs armed proxies throughout
the region, including terror groups Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in
Lebanon, and its leaders have called for the destruction of Israel.“The
margins for maneuver are beginning to shrink,” Grossi said in an
interview with AFP ahead of his visit to Iran, adding that “it is
imperative to find ways to reach diplomatic solutions.”While the IAEA is
allowed to carry out inspections in Iran, Grossi stressed the need for
“more visibility” into Iran’s nuclear program, given its scale and
ambition.“They have a lot of nuclear materials that could be used
eventually to make a nuclear weapon, the IAEA chief told CNN on Tuesday,
adding: “They do not have a nuclear weapon at this point.”Trump’s
warning-Grossi’s trip comes after Donald Trump — who pulled out of a
hard-won nuclear deal with Iran negotiated under Barack Obama — was
voted back into the White House.Trump said last week that he was not
seeking to harm Iran and instead wanted its people to have “a very
successful country,” while insisting “they can’t have a nuclear
weapon.”In 2015, major world powers including the United States reached
an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program after 21 months of
talks.The text provided for an easing of international sanctions on Iran
in exchange for guarantees that it would not seek nuclear weapons.But
Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and re-imposed US sanctions on
Iran.A year later, Iran started to gradually roll back its commitments
to the nuclear deal, which only allowed Tehran to enrich uranium to 3.65
percent purity.The IAEA says Iran has considerably increased its
reserves of enriched uranium to 60%, close to the 90% needed to develop
an atomic bomb.It is against this backdrop that Grossi is schedule to
visit Iran for the first time since May.In a statement, the IAEA said it
would hold “high-level meetings with the Iranian government” and
conduct “technical discussions on all aspects.”Cameras unplugged-Iranian
President Masoud Pezeshkian, who came to office in July with hopes of
improving ties with the West and having sanctions lifted, favors a
revival of the nuclear deal.But all efforts to get the nuclear agreement
off life support have so far failed.The IAEA chief has repeatedly
called for more cooperation from Iran.In recent years, Tehran has
decreased its interaction with the UN agency by deactivating
surveillance devices needed to monitor the nuclear program and
effectively barring its inspectors.The foundations of Iran’s nuclear
program date back to the late 1950s, when the United States signed a
civil cooperation agreement with Iran’s then-Shah Mohammad Reza
Pahlavi.In 1970, Iran ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which
requires signatory states to declare and place their nuclear materials
under IAEA control.But with Iran threatening to hit back at Israel for
its latest missile strikes, some lawmakers in the Islamic Republic have
called on the government to revise its nuclear doctrine to pursue
nuclear weapons.The parliamentarians called on Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate authority in Iran, to reconsider his
long-standing religious edict or fatwa banning nuclear weapons.The
Islamic Republic has maintained its policy against acquiring nuclear
weapons, insisting its nuclear activities were entirely peaceful.
TULSI
GABBARD TRUMP NAMES AS DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELIGENCE.AND MATT GAETZ
GETS THE ATTORNY GENERAL POST. I WISH TRUMP WOULD HIRE MARK LEVINE AS
HIS CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER.
Trump taps Elon Musk to
co-chair advisory body on government efficiency-Controversial head of X,
Tesla to share newly created role with former GOP presidential
candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, with recommendations set to be presented by
July 4, 2026-By Daniel Trotta and Eric Beech Today, 9:10 am-NOV 13,24
Reuters
— US President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named Elon Musk to a role
aimed at creating a more efficient government, handing even more
influence to the world’s richest man who donated millions of dollars to
help Trump get elected.Musk and former Republican presidential candidate
Vivek Ramaswamy will co-lead a newly created Department of Government
Efficiency, an entity Trump indicated will operate outside the confines
of government.Trump said in a statement that Musk and Ramaswamy “will
pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy,
slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure
Federal Agencies.”Trump said the new department will realize long-held
Republican dreams and “provide advice and guidance from outside of
government,” signaling the Musk and Ramaswamy roles would be informal,
without requiring Senate approval and allowing Musk to remain the head
of electric car company Tesla, social media platform X and rocket
company SpaceX.The new department would work with the White House and
Office of Management & Budget to “drive large scale structural
reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach” to government never seen
before, Trump said.The work would conclude by July 4, 2026 — the 250th
anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.Musk,
ranked by Forbes as the richest person in the world, already stood to
benefit from Trump’s victory, with the billionaire entrepreneur expected
to wield extraordinary influence to help his companies and secure
favorable government treatment.With many links to Washington, Musk gave
millions of dollars to support Trump’s presidential campaign and made
public appearances with him.Adding a government portfolio to Musk’s
plate could benefit the market value of his companies and favored
businesses such as artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency.“It’s
clear that Musk will have a massive role in the Trump White House with
his increasing reach clearly across many federal agencies,” equities
analyst Daniel Ives of Wedbush Securities said in a research note. “We
believe the major benefits for Musk and Tesla far outweigh any negatives
as this continues to be a ‘poker move for the ages’ by Musk betting on
Trump.”The move was criticized by Public Citizen, a progressive consumer
rights NGO that challenged several of Trump’s first-term policies.“Musk
not only knows nothing about government efficiency and regulation, his
own businesses have regularly run afoul of the very rules he will be in
position to attack in his new ‘czar’ position,” Lisa Gilbert,
co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement. “This is the
ultimate corporate corruption.”Trump likened the efficiency effort to
the Manhattan Project, the US undertaking to build the atomic bomb that
helped end World War Two, while Musk promised transparency.“All actions
of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for
maximum transparency,” Musk said on X, inviting the public to provide
tips. “We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending
of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely
entertaining.”Musk said at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in
October that the federal budget could be reduced by “at least” $2
trillion. Discretionary spending, including defense spending, is
estimated to total $1.9 trillion out of $6.75 trillion in total federal
outlays for fiscal 2024, according to the Congressional Budget
Office.“Your money is being wasted and the Department of Government
Efficiency is going to fix that. We’re going to get the government off
your back and out of your pocketbook,” Musk said at the rally.The
acronym of the new department — DOGE — also references the name of the
cryptocurrency dogecoin that Musk promotes.In August, Musk and Tesla won
the dismissal of a federal lawsuit accusing them of defrauding
investors by hyping dogecoin and conducting insider trading, causing
billions of dollars of losses.Dogecoin has more than doubled since
Election Day, tracking a surge in cryptocurrency markets on expectations
of a softer regulatory ride under a Trump administration.Shares in
Tesla fell on Wall Street ahead of the announcement but are up about 30%
since the election.Ramaswamy is the founder of a pharmaceutical company
who ran for the Republican presidential nomination against Trump and
then threw his support behind the former president after dropping out.In
his 2021 bestseller “Woke, Inc.,” Ramaswamy decried decisions by some
big companies to base business strategy around social justice and
climate change concerns.Ramaswamy said the appointment means he is
withdrawing from consideration for the pending US Senate appointment in
Ohio, where Governor Mike DeWine will appoint a replacement for JD
Vance, who will become Trump’s vice president when they are inaugurated
on Jan. 20.
Settler leader congratulates Huckabee in phone
call-Trump picks settlement backer Mike Huckabee as next US ambassador
to Israel-Ex-Arkansas governor has visited Israel often since 1973;
slammed Biden’s pressure on Israel to moderate war in Gaza, opposes
Palestinian nationalism; Steven Witkoff named Mideast envoy By Jacob
Magid and Agencies 12 November 2024, 10:40 pm
US President-elect
Donald Trump announced his decision on Tuesday to nominate former
Arkansas governor and longtime backer of the settlement enterprise Mike
Huckabee as the next US ambassador to Israel.“He loves Israel, and the
people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will
work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!” Trump said in
a statement.Huckabee, 69, has been one of the evangelical Christian
community’s most ardent supporters of Israel. He is the first non-Jew
nominated for the post since James Cunningham was tapped by then-US
president George W. Bush in 2008.Huckabee, who first visited Israel in
1973, has gone on to lead several tour groups in the years that
followed, frequently advertising the missions on conservative-leaning
news outlets.In December, he toured Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of the
communities near the Gaza border that were shattered during Hamas’s
October 7 onslaught when some 1,200 people were killed, most of them
civilians, and 251 people were kidnapped to Gaza.Huckabee described the
experience of walking through the kibbutz — where dozens of the
residents were murdered during Hamas’s brutal attack — as a “gut punch”
that reinforced his resolve to express solidarity with the Israeli
people.He has called Israel’s claim to the West Bank stronger than
American ties to Manhattan and laid bricks in 2018 as ground was broken
on a new housing complex in the settlement of Efrat.During a 2017 visit
to the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, Huckabee told reporters: “There are
certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank —
It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement — They’re
communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such
thing as an occupation.”— Noam Ihmels | נעם אימלס (@NoamIhmels) November
12, 2024-More recently, he has criticized outgoing US President Joe
Biden for pressuring Israel to moderate its conduct in the resulting war
against the terror group in Gaza.“If a person is pro-Israel, how can
you be pro-Biden because the Biden administration has made it very clear
they will make concessions to Hamas,” Huckabee said in an interview in
March on News Nation.Huckabee is also a bitter opponent of Palestinian
nationalism. “I have to be careful saying this because people get really
upset, there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” Huckabee, a
former Baptist minister, told a rabbi in Massachusetts in 2008,
according to the New Yorker. “That’s been a political tool to try to
force land away from Israel.”In 2015, in a similar vein, he told the
Washington Post, “The idea that they have a long history, dating back
hundreds or thousands of years, is not true.”Huckabee also takes a
hawkish view on Israel’s archnemesis Iran, which in 2015 he referred to
as a “snake” that cannot be trusted and should be “killed.”Huckabee
served as Arkansas governor from 1996 to 2007. He fell short in bids for
the Republican nomination for president in 2008 and 2016.His daughter,
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is the current governor of Arkansas. She served
as Trump’s White House press secretary from 2017 to 2019.David Friedman,
who served as Trump’s ambassador to Israel in his first term, said
Tuesday he was “thrilled” by Trump’s selection of Huckabee.Samaria
Regional Council mayor Yossi Dagan spoke with Huckabee after the news
broke, and congratulated him on his nomination.“The US has won and the
State of Israel has won too. Mike Huckabee is a true leader, a smart
man,” Dagan said in a statement that highlighted the nominee’s
cooperation with the settlement movement.Special envoy Witkoff-Later
Tuesday, Trump announced the appointment of real estate investor Steven
Witkoff to be his special envoy to the Middle East.Witkoff has been
Trump’s regular golf partner and was seen as a conduit to the Jewish
business community during his winning presidential campaign.“Steve is a
Highly Respected Leader in Business and Philanthropy, who has made every
project and community he has been involved with stronger and more
prosperous. Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us
all proud,” Trump said in a statement.Witkoff will fill a role that did
not exist in the current administration, as US President Joe Biden
believing that the conditions weren’t in place for another high-stakes
Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative and instead sought to prioritize
other foreign policy issues.Witkoff is not known to have any diplomatic
or Middle East experience, but those have not been criteria for previous
Trump appointments. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who similarly
lacked such experience, managed to broker the Abraham Accords during the
Republican politician’s first term as president.Huckabee and Witkoff
are the latest in a series of appointments announced by Trump this week,
including New York Rep. Elise Stefanik for the role of ambassador to
the UN and Rep. Mike Walz for the role of national security adviser.
GOP
projected to hold onto House majority-Now in control, Republicans pick
South Dakota’s Thune to lead Senate majority-Lawmaker, who has broken
with Trump in past but has since patched things up, to replace
long-serving Mitch McConnell after defeating Texan John Cornyn in secret
ballot-By MARY CLARE JALONICK and STEPHEN GROVES Today, 11:15 pm-NOV
13,24
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans have elected South Dakota
Sen. John Thune as the next Senate majority leader, completing a
momentous shift in their leadership that elevates a top deputy of Mitch
McConnell into a key position as US President-elect Donald Trump returns
to the White House.Thune, 63, is in his fourth Senate term and has
promised to work closely with Trump, despite differences the two have
had over the years, and will be a crucial part of the incoming
president’s efforts to push through his policy agenda.In a statement,
Thune said he was “extremely honored to have earned the support of my
colleagues.”“This Republican team is united behind President Trump’s
agenda, and our work starts today,” he said.Thune beat out two other
competitors, Sens. John Cornyn and Rick Scott, by gaining majority
support from GOP senators in a secret ballot vote in two rounds of
voting. Scott was eliminated in the first round and the final vote
between Thune and Cornyn was 29-24, according to several people who
requested anonymity to discuss the private meeting.Republicans are
replacing McConnell, the longest-serving Senate party leader, as they
prepare to take majority control of the Senate with the 53 seats they
won in last week’s elections.Republicans were also projected Wednesday
to retain a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives, giving
them control of the executive and legislative branches of government.
But the selection of Thune over Scott, a Trump loyalist, indicated that
lawmakers may try to retain some independence from the incoming
president.Much of the campaign centered around the candidates’
relationship with Trump. Thune has worked to smooth his over after
breaking publicly with Trump over the effort to overturn the results of
the 2020 presidential election, which he called “inexcusable.”In recent
months, Thune has realigned with Trump, visiting him in his Florida
home, and the two have been consulting on how to implement the incoming
president’s agenda.Thune told The Associated Press over the summer that
he views their potential relationship as a professional one. If they
both win their elections, Thune said, “we’ve got a job to do.”As he made
his case, Thune also made clear that he would take Trump’s demands into
account. When Trump posted on X Sunday that the new leader “must agree”
to allow him to appoint Cabinet members and others when the Senate is
on recess, avoiding confirmation votes, Thune responded that the Senate
must “quickly and decisively” act to get nominees in place and that “all
options are on the table to make that happen, including recess
appointments.”Well-liked and a respected communicator, Thune has been
perceived as a front-runner for much of the year. Like McConnell, he
hails from the Republican Party’s more traditional wing.He is a former
chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and has held the Republican
whip position — no. 2 in party leadership — since 2019.He took over for
McConnell for several weeks last year when he was on a medical leave, a
move that was widely seen as an audition of sorts as speculation
surrounded McConnell’s future.The Republican Jewish Coalition applauded
the choice, calling him a “longtime friend” of the group.“We are excited
to work with Majority Leader Thune and the Republican-led Senate to
course correct from the failed policies of the Democrats and deliver
real solutions and results for the American people,” the RJC said in a
statement.Thune’s win is all the more extraordinary because of his 2004
election to the Senate – defeating then-Senate Majority Leader Tom
Daschle after arguing during the campaign that Daschle had lost his
South Dakota roots during his years in Democratic leadership. Twenty
years later, Thune will become majority leader himself.As he geared up
to run for leader, Thune spent much of the year campaigning for his
colleagues.According to his aides, he raised more than $31 million to
elect Senate Republicans this cycle, including a $4 million transfer
from his own campaign accounts to the Senate’s main campaign arm.The
election was difficult for many in the conference who saw Thune and
Cornyn as similar choices. They are alike on policy, voting generally in
step with the conference but working with Democrats at times. Cornyn is
a longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who took a leading
role on bipartisan gun legislation two years ago.But the two differed on
whether the leader should be term-limited — a key demand from some in
the conservative wing. Cornyn pushed for limits, while Thune did
not.Scott, the former governor of Florida, was elected to the Senate in
2018 and quickly positioned himself as a foil to McConnell, running
against him for leader in 2022 and aligning with Utah Sen. Mike Lee and
others who have been highly critical of the current leadership.As Thune
and Cornyn wooed their colleagues one by one all year, Scott spent most
of the year tied up in his own reelection race. He handily defeated
Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell by more than 10 points.After his
re-election last week, Scott aggressively stepped up his campaign for
GOP leader, campaigning publicly as the candidate closest to Trump and
winning endorsements from people who are close to the former and future
president, such as billionaire Elon Musk. But some questioned whether
that strategy might backfire.Rounds said that he prefers the way that
Thune and Cornyn have “handled it one-on-one with everybody,” but that
he had talked to Scott as well. “We’ve got three qualified individuals,”
he said ahead of the race.Times of Israel staff and Reuters contributed
to this report.
Federal judge temporarily halts Louisiana law
requiring Ten Commandments in schools-Law obligated state schools,
universities to hang posters laying out biblical laws; case brought by
coalition including three Jewish families claims it violates first
amendment-By jacob gurvis Today, 8:39 am-NOV 13,24
JTA — A
federal judge temporarily blocked a new law in Louisiana that would have
required public schools to display the Ten Commandments by January 1,
2025.The ruling by US District Judge John W. deGravelles in Baton Rouge
follows a lawsuit brought by a coalition of parents, including three
Jewish families, arguing that the law violated the First
Amendment.deGravelles found that the law is “unconstitutional on its
face.” His preliminary injunction means the state cannot implement the
new legislation until the litigation concludes. The judge also ordered
the state’s attorney general to “provide notice to all schools that the
Act has been found unconstitutional.”The law, signed by Louisiana
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry in June, would require every public K-12
school and state-funded university classroom to display posters that are
at least 11 inches by 14 inches with the text of the Ten Commandments
and accompanied by a four-paragraph “context statement” explaining how
the Ten Commandments “were a prominent part of American public education
for almost three centuries.”The complaint — filed on the families’
behalf by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the
American Civil Liberties Union, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation
— said the law specifically violated the Constitution’s prohibition
against the establishment of an official religion and constituted an
infringement on the free exercise of religion.The suit, for which
deGravelles heard arguments on October 21, said the law “sends the
harmful and religiously divisive message that students who do not
subscribe to the Ten Commandments … do not belong in their own school
community and should refrain from expressing any faith practices or
beliefs that are not aligned with the state’s religious preferences.”The
lawsuit also took issue with the specific wording of the Ten
Commandments that would be used, arguing that the text of the Ten
Commandments mandated by the law is a Christian version and “does not
match any version or translation found in the Jewish tradition.”The
version in the bill leaves out sections of the commandments’ text,
including part of the first commandment in Judaism, which speaks of God
bringing the Israelites out of Egypt.While proponents of the law have
argued that families who object to the posters could simply “Tell your
child not to look at them,” as Landry said in August, deGravelles in his
ruling flatly rejected that argument.“In short, the Act is coercive to
students, and, for all practical purposes, they cannot opt out of
viewing the Ten Commandments when they are displayed in every classroom,
every day of the year, every year of their education,” deGravelles
wrote.While similar laws have been proposed in Texas, Oklahoma, and
Utah, Louisiana was the first to enshrine its version into law. Some
view the law as a test case for the future of church-state separations
in the US: While the US Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that a Kentucky
state law requiring the Ten Commandments to be shown in all classrooms
was unconstitutional, the Conservative supermajority on the Supreme
Court appears sympathetic to those seeking to elevate the role of
religion in public life.“We strongly disagree with the court’s decision
and will immediately appeal,” Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth
Murrill told the Associated Press.The Louisiana law, and similar Ten
Commandments requirements being proposed in other Republican-led states,
are just one example of a slate of efforts to incorporate religion into
public schools. In Florida, a bill signed this year would allow school
districts to have volunteer chaplains counsel students. Oklahoma’s top
education official ordered public schools to include Bible lessons for
fifth through twelfth graders.And President-elect Donald Trump, who had
endorsed the Louisiana law in June, included a promise to “fiercely
protect the First Amendment right to pray in public schools” in his
campaign’s list of “ten principles for achieving great schools.” This
year’s Republican platform also promises to “support a new Federal Task
Force on Fighting Anti-Christian Bias.”
Inside story-Though
ham-handed, report on Gazan anger at Hamas appears to reflect waning
support-Individuals in Strip say Palestinians no longer cheer rocket
fire and some express happiness with defeat of terror organization, but
say it’s time for Israel to end the war as well-By Gianluca
Pacchiani-Today, 8:25 am-NOV 13,24
For the first time since war
broke out over a year ago, Israel’s military permitted a journalist in
Gaza to speak to Palestinian civilians there last week. The result,
aired by Channel 12 news on Sunday, offered a significantly filtered
peek into the mindset of displaced Gazan women and children from Jabalia
in northern Gaza.Against a backdrop of debris, dust and armed Israeli
soldiers, some residents speaking to the channel’s Palestinian affairs
reporter Ohad Hemo vented their frustration at Hamas, shouting and
cursing the terror group ruling Gaza for the devastation it wreaked on
their lives.“I swear I was happy when you killed [Hamas leader Yahya]
Sinwar, who caused destruction and killed our children,” one woman was
filmed shouting. “God willing you’ll destroy them.”For over a year,
Israeli and foreign journalists have only been able to enter Gaza from
Israel under IDF oversight and were taken solely to areas devoid of
civilians to document the military’s activities. CNN’s Clarissa Ward
appears to have been the sole Western journalist who independently
crossed into Gaza, speaking to Palestinians inside a field hospital in
December.Hamas also strictly controls reporting out of Gaza and has
threatened journalists who report on the group’s terror activities. For
the past year, the only major outlet allowed by Hamas to operate inside
the Gaza Strip has been Al Jazeera, which is known to have close ties
with the terror group, portraying it as a “resistance movement.”To some
observers, Hemo’s report appeared to be a piece of clumsy propaganda,
portraying a sanitized view of Gazans supposedly welcoming the Israelis
as liberators rather than capturing a balanced view of Gazan sentiment.
Many of the comments dovetailed neatly with claims the army has made of
evacuating Gazan civilians expressing anger at Hamas.Even if you don't
speak a word of Arabic, you can understand what these Gazans are
expressing: deep, visceral rage.But it's not Israel they're enraged
about— it's Hamas. pic.twitter.com/9rF5LmYI7y— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig)
November 10, 2024-Given the famine and devastation many Gazans have gone
through, some have concluded that respondents were speaking under
pressure, and might have directed their rage toward Israel as well for
bombing their homes had they not been speaking to an Israeli journalist
in front of Israeli soldiers as they traversed an Israeli-administered
evacuation zone to escape Israeli fire.“In vain I waited for the frame
to open up a bit and for Hemo to show Israelis the incomprehensible
scope of destruction, which would perhaps explain why a line of
desperate, tired, thirsty and hungry refugees were standing in front of
his cameras, willing to say exactly what the soldiers standing outside
the frame wish to hear,” wrote Haaretz’s Shany Littman.Even those on the
far-right were unimpressed, complaining that the comments did not
reflect their view of all Gazans as Hamas supporters undeserving of
sympathy. “Tonight in reality: the abhorrence of the propagandist media
and the understanding of the Israeli public that there is not a single
person [in Gaza] who is innocent,” tweeted one prominent settler
extremist in response to a promo for the report.Yet the comments
captured by Hemo did accurately reflect the view of at least some inside
Gaza, according to three individuals who recently spoke with The Times
of Israel. (Their names have been changed for safety.)-Polls by the
Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research also point to waning
support for Hamas among Gazans, with only 39 percent in the Strip
reporting a positive view of the group in September, down from 64% in
June.Mark, a European aid worker managing logistics for a large
humanitarian organization in Deir al-Balah, reported that when Hamas
fires rockets, a rare occurrence these days, only teenagers seem to
cheer on the street.“Adults then invariably tell them there is nothing
to cheer about. Every rocket that is fired causes trouble,” he said. “It
will elicit an Israeli reaction and bombings for the following
week.”“People have come to see Hamas as a problem. I have yet to come
across any adult who openly supports Hamas or claims it can bring a
solution,” Mark added.Khaled, a 30-year-old Palestinian man living in a
crowded encampment for displaced Gazans in the south of the Strip,
depicted general frustration with the terror group. His conversation
with The Times of Israel was facilitated by the US-based Center for
Peace Communications, which has sought to broadcast the sentiments of
anti-Hamas Gazans to the world. (In January 2023, The Times of Israel
published a series of shorts produced by the center.)“People hate Hamas
more and more,” said Khaled, who was an opponent of the group before
October 7 and has been jailed by Hamas in the past. “What they need now
is peace.”Khaled’s sentiments were echoed by Rashid, an anti-Hamas
activist from Deir al-Balah who was previously jailed by the group for
his participation in the 2019 “We want to live” protest movement.“Most
people in Gaza are against Hamas; they want a future without it,” he
said. “One good thing about the war is that they can now curse it openly
on the streets without fear of retaliation.”“There was some optimism
after Sinwar’s killing, with people hopeful that a ceasefire was near
and normalcy would return – even among some Hamas supporters,” Rashid
noted.Despite the decapitation of the Hamas leadership, a ceasefire
still seems elusive, extending the hardship of Gaza’s civilians.
“Without an Israeli decision to end the conflict, no one can put an end
to the insane situation in the Gaza Strip. Following the collapse of
Hamas governance, Gaza’s future rests in Israel’s hands,” Rashid
said.Power vacuum-While Hamas still attempts occasional attacks on IDF
troops to create “victory images,” as one senior IDF officer recently
told The Times of Israel, conversations with Gaza civilians indicate
that the group is focused solely on survival, lacking the means to
control the Strip.“They’ve lost the people entirely, along with their
authority over minds and words,” Rashid observed.“Hamas has completely
collapsed,” Khaled concurred. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t trying to
regroup. It will keep trying indefinitely.”According to Mark, Hamas’s
remaining authority in the Strip consists of members of the Hamas-run
Civil Defense agency in balaclavas managing traffic at some
intersections with rifles.The breakdown of its governance has forced the
group underground, with the IDF reporting nearly 19,000 fighters
killed. Local families and clans have since filled the power vacuum,
some exerting control over entire areas through force.Large family clans
are a traditional feature of Gazan society. With the displacement of
hundreds of thousands from the Strip’s north to the south, many of the
clans also relocated, and tried to assert their authority over new areas
or take control of certain trades, entering into turf wars with
existing clans.Gunfights between clans are not rare, Mark said, and
sometimes result in casualties and deteriorate into bloody retaliatory
feuds.The chaotic situation has significantly hampered the work of aid
organizations that need to deal with the clans, forcing them to
negotiate with multiple chieftains, he added.Rashid said that Hamas had
allied with gangs connected to the clans, who act as its “mafia” within
Gaza. These clans dominate the informal markets, where they enrich
themselves by selling food and essential goods to civilians at inflated
prices due to scarcity. Some clans also extort organizations and traders
for payoffs in exchange for safe passage through areas they
control.Channel 12 reported in September that Hamas had raised $500
million by reselling stolen humanitarian aid, and that the money was
partly used to recruit new gunmen.Rashid confirmed that the terror group
is attempting to recruit, but said that very few people were
responding.Over and out? In September, then-defense minister Yoav
Gallant said that Hamas was finished as a military organization, and was
only engaged in guerrilla warfare.Two months on, the situation appears
largely the same.“In central Gaza, where I live, we don’t even feel like
we’re at war anymore. There’s a sense of clinical death,” Rashid said.
“Israel’s operations such as the ongoing one in Jabalia are merely an
excuse to prolong the conflict. After all, Israel’s goal was to
dismantle Hamas as a governing force, not eliminate every single Hamas
member.”While predicting that Hamas would attempt to declare victory the
moment the IDF leaves Gaza, Rashid believes that “the center and the
south of the Strip are ready for the ‘day after.”Khaled agreed that
Israel had nobody left to fight, calling for the IDF to ease up on
suffering Gazan civilians.“There is no justification to prolong the war.
Israel has defeated Hamas and can end the conflict now, conducting
targeted operations if necessary. There is no need to maintain the
pressure on the civilian population. On the contrary, Israel needs to
show goodwill toward civilians by establishing safe zones,” he
said.Khaled has advocated for “safe zones” within Gaza through
discussions with unnamed Israeli “institutions.” These zones would allow
“peace-minded” civilians to administer themselves away from Hamas and
clan control. “What is needed now is political will from Israel.
Unfortunately, there has been no response from Israeli authorities,”
Khaled said.On October 28, the Knesset passed two laws essentially
barring the UN agency for Palestinian refugees from operating in Israel,
and severely curtailing its activities in Gaza and the West Bank,
despite widespread international opposition.UNRWA – short for the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
– provides education, healthcare and food aid to millions of
Palestinians across Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.Mark,
the aid worker in central Gaza, warned that the shutdown of UNRWA will
severely disrupt relief work.“Many assume another UN organization can
just replace UNRWA, but it’s not that simple,” he said. “UNRWA was
massive, running schools, clinics and food distribution. Without it,
these responsibilities now theoretically fall to Israel, as the
occupying power.”In contrast, Khaled, who grew up in a refugee camp and
attended UNRWA schools, expressed little concern over losing the
agency’s aid.“Since the start of the war, UNRWA was supposed to
distribute food, but all I have ever received was one bag of flour – and
I have to feed a family of ten,” he said.“We don’t want to live off aid
forever,” he added. “We want to live like people in the Gulf, Europe or
America. We want to develop a private economy, to work and be able to
buy things. We don’t want to depend on UNRWA forever for a bag of flour
or rice.”
US says it won’t withhold weapons to Israel, as
deadline to address aid crisis passes-Lacking leverage after election,
Biden aides say Israel took sufficient steps to comply with US law, even
if Jerusalem didn’t meet all the demands it was given 30 days to act
on-By Jacob Magid-Today, 3:55 am-NOV 13,24
The Biden
administration announced on Tuesday that it would not withhold weapon
shipments to Israel, as a 30-day deadline for Jerusalem to significantly
alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza expired.US State Department
spokesperson Vedant Patel acknowledged during a press briefing that
Israel implemented some — but not all — of the steps demanded by the US
in an October 13 letter giving Jerusalem a month to act or risk being
deemed out of compliance with US law, which bars offensive weapons from
being transferred to countries that block aid from reaching
civilians.Nonetheless, Patel stated that the US has not, at this time,
“made an assessment that there that the Israelis are in violation of US
law.”The determination came less than a week after Donald Trump won the
presidential election, significantly slashing the Biden administration’s
leverage over Israel, given that the president-elect would surely
reverse any decision to withhold weapon shipments to Israel upon
returning to office in just over two months.Patel pointed to steps taken
by Israel over the past 30 days, including reopening the Erez Crossing
into northern Gaza; opening the Kissufim Crossing into central Gaza;
waiving certain customs requirements for aid organizations; opening new
aid delivery routes within Gaza; resuming aid delivery to northern Gaza
after a near-month-long siege; expanding the the coastal Muwasi
humanitarian zone inland; and instituting periodic humanitarian
pauses.“The ultimate hope is that through these steps, some conditions
have been created in which we can see things like additional aid,
additional food trucks, additional measures being taken that ultimately
will be beneficial to the Palestinian people in Gaza,” Patel said.The
State Department spokesperson stressed the US will continue monitoring
Israel’s compliance with American law and will act accordingly if it
deems that Jerusalem has failed to do so.Patel was hammered repeatedly
by reporters questioning how the Biden administration could determine
that Israel has not violated US law if it was not meeting the standards
set out in the letter.Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense
Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote in the October 13 letter that the US wanted
to see 350 aid trucks enter Gaza every day. October ended seeing fewer
trucks enter Gaza than any other month this year, with an Israeli
military body putting the daily average at 57. Patel revealed that from
November 1 to November 9, just 404 trucks crossed into Gaza.“What
matters most is not just a specific action or a specific item, but the
totality of progress,” Patel claimed, while saying the humanitarian
situation in Gaza remains “dire.”The State Department spokesperson added
that had it not been for US intervention, the handful of steps Israel
did take over the past month would not have happened. Moreover, he noted
that the US remains the world’s largest provider of aid to the
Palestinians.Earlier Tuesday, aid groups issued a report requested by
the Biden administration, which determined that Israel had failed to
meet the vast majority of the requirements laid out by Blinken and
Austin in their letter.The report listed 19 measures of compliance with
the US demands. It said that Israel had failed to comply with 15 and
only partially complied with four.The report was co-signed by Anera,
Care, MedGlobal, Mercy Corps, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam,
Refugees International and Save the Children.In the October 13 letter,
the US gave Israel 30 days to, among other things, allow a minimum of
350 truckloads of goods into Gaza each day; open a fifth crossing; allow
people in coastal tent camps to move inland before the winter; and
ensure access for aid groups to northern Gaza. It also called on Israel
to halt legislation that would hinder operations of the UN agency for
Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, which has come under fire after
several of its employees were found to have participated in Hamas’s
October 7 onslaught that sparked the ongoing war.Aid levels remain far
below the US benchmarks. Access to northern Gaza remains restricted, and
Israel passed the legislation against UNRWA into law.Israel launched a
major offensive last month in the north, where it said Hamas had
regrouped. The operation has displaced tens of thousands and killed
hundreds, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, whose unverified
figures don’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.Through
October and the first days of November, Israel allowed no food to enter
several towns in north Gaza, where despite evacuation orders tens of
thousands of civilians have stayed.Last week, Israel allowed 11 trucks
to go to Beit Hanoun, one of the north’s hardest-hit towns. But the
World Food Organization said troops at a checkpoint forced its trucks to
unload their cargo before reaching shelters in the town.On Tuesday,
COGAT — the military agency in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza —
announced it allowed a new delivery of food and water to Beit Hanoun the
day before. The WFP said that while it tried to dispatch 14 trucks,
only three made it to the town “due to delays in receiving authorization
for movement and crowds along the route.” When it tried to deliver the
rest on Tuesday, Israel denied it permission, it said.Aid into all of
Gaza plummeted in October, when just 34,000 tons of food entered, only a
third of the previous month, according to Israeli data.UN agencies say
even less actually gets through because of Israeli restrictions, ongoing
fighting and lawlessness that makes it difficult to collect and
distribute aid on the Gaza side.COGAT said 900 truckloads of aid are
sitting uncollected on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing in the
south.“Before the organizations give out grades, they should focus on
distributing the aid that awaits them,” COGAT said in response to the
aid groups’ report.Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, said the
military was not coordinating movements for aid trucks to reach the
stacked-up cargos. “If we are not provided a safe passage to go and
collect it … it will not reach the people who need it,” she said.COGAT
blamed the drop in October on closures of the crossings for the Jewish
high holidays and memorials marking the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7
onslaught. An Israeli official also pointed to theft by Hamas and
organized crime families in Gaza.The United States has rushed billions
of dollars in military aid to Israel during the war while pressing it to
allow more aid into Gaza.“There must be no forcible displacement, nor
policy of starvation in Gaza,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda
Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council on Tuesday.She also said
“thanks to intervention by the United States, Israel has taken some
important steps” toward addressing “the undisputed humanitarian crisis”
in the Strip.“Still, Israel must ensure its actions are fully
implemented — and its improvements sustained over time.”Agencies
contributed to this report.
'No American should receive tax
benefits for funding terror' US House set to vote on bill targeting
nonprofits accused of supporting terrorism-Proposed law would streamline
government’s ability to strip tax-exempt status from charities
suspected of funneling money to terror groups; critics fear it can be
abused-By Asaf Elia-Shalev 12 November 2024, 10:52 pm
JTA —
United States law prohibits nonprofits from providing support to
terrorist organizations, but enforcing that prohibition requires the
government to furnish proof of a violation, triggering a judicial
process that can be lengthy and arduous.In the more than two decades
since the current law was enacted following the 9/11 attacks, the law
has rarely led to penalties: nine charities have lost their tax-exempt
status under its terms.A bipartisan bill slated for a major vote on
Capitol Hill Tuesday aims to create a new way to achieve that goal
without the existing legal hurdles. The bill would give the treasury
secretary new powers to independently classify any nonprofit as a
terrorist-supporting organization and revoke its tax-exempt status
almost immediately.A version of the bill was introduced following the
October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion of Israel and passed the House in April,
amid a wave of anti-Israel protests on college campuses, which many
pro-Israel groups labeled as “pro-Hamas.” The bill advanced with broad
bipartisan support, 382-11, but stalled in the Senate.Now, the new
version of the bill is dividing Jewish groups. Centrist and conservative
groups support the bill as an urgent measure to curb support for
terrorism. Progressive organizations oppose it as a threat to political
dissent — and worry that the powers it affords will be abused by the
incoming Trump administration to go after groups that oppose its
policies.At a September hearing, Robert Harvey, an expert at Congress’s
nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, explained that the government
would not be required to disclose how it reached its determination or to
provide any evidence of wrongdoing.“As I understand it, all the
Treasurer has to do to deny tax exemption is to mail a notice to the
organization involved saying: ‘You’re a terrorist-supporting
organization, we have found you are providing material support, and
you’re denied your exemption?’” Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett asked
Harvey, according to The Intercept.“That’s correct, Mr. Doggett,” Harvey
replied.Lawmakers sponsoring the bill say the government needs a better
tool to prevent terrorist organizations from being subsidized by
American taxpayers. Their position is endorsed by the Anti-Defamation
League, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the Republican
Jewish Coalition.The bill would allow the Treasury Department to act
against the US-registered charities that it determines have provided
support to groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United
States, including, for example, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both based in
Gaza, and the Lebanese Hezbollah.After making the determination, the
Treasury would notify the charity, giving it 90 days to file a court
challenge before losing its tax-exempt status. Republican Rep. David
Kustoff of Tennessee, one of the bill’s two Jewish cosponsors along with
Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois, says the problem isn’t
theoretical: He claims tax-exempt donations are currently flowing to
terrorist organizations, though neither he nor any other proponents of
the bill have named specific examples.“To put it plainly, domestic
financiers of terrorism are currently being subsidized by US taxpayer
dollars,” Kustoff said earlier this year. “Let me be clear: No American
should receive a tax benefit for funding terrorism.”The RJC said the
bill should be used to ensure that Hamas and other terrorist
organizations are not receiving any funds from US nonprofits, and framed
it as a tool against groups that attack American Jews and
Israel.“Congress is right to address the threat of organizations using
tax-exempt funds to support Hamas and other terrorist groups,” RJC said
in a statement. “In case last week’s election results didn’t make it
clear: The days of impunity for antisemitic extremists who target the
Jewish state and Jewish Americans are over.”Critics of the bill say it
grants too much power to the government and that it could be used to
silence political dissent — particularly from pro-Palestinian
organizations that don’t have ties to terror groups but may nonetheless
be branded as supporters of Hamas. The language of the bill prohibits
providing “material support or resources,” a category defined in law
that, opponents say, could still be interpreted broadly. They also worry
that the incoming Trump administration could use the bill to penalize
groups focusing on signature progressive issues such as reproductive
justice, the environment, and promoting immigration.The American Civil
Liberties Union has been spearheading opposition to the bill with
support from voices on both sides of the political spectrum. The
libertarian Cato Institute and Reason magazine, for example, have come
out against the bill. So have several progressive American Jewish groups
such as Bend the Arc and the New Israel Fund.“This bill is as dangerous
as it is extraneous,” the New Israel Fund, which donates to civil
society groups in Israel, many of them left-leaning, said in a
statement. “The United States already has a meticulous process in place
to determine whether a group is providing material support for
terrorism. What this would do is strip that system of due process and
enable willy-nilly terrorist designations.”The bill is scheduled for a
full vote in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, after which it
would have to be approved by the Senate and signed by the president.The
current version of the bill is identical to the one that passed in
April, except that it’s been combined with another bill that aims to
give American hostages and political prisoners held abroad relief from
tax deadlines and penalties. The ACLU believes the pairing with an
unobjectionable bill is a ploy to weaken the likelihood of opposition.
Israel
unveils its latest submarine - 'Dragon' Netanyahu to Iranians: Another
attack on Israel would ‘cripple’ Iran’s economy-In second message within
months, PM says regime fears its own citizens more than Israel; looks
to future of blossoming ties, freedom and prosperity for Iranians-By
Lazar Berman 12 November 2024, 8:59 pm
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said Tuesday that a third Iranian attack on Israel “would
simply cripple Iran’s economy,’ in his second English-language video
statement addressed to the Iranian people within months.“A few weeks
ago, I spoke directly to the people of Iran. Millions of people around
the world, millions in Iran itself saw that video. And after they saw
it, many Iranians reached out to Israel. So today, I want to once again
address the people of Iran,” Netanyahu said.“It would rob you of many
more billions of dollars,” he said of a potential additional attack,
after claiming that the October ballistic missile attack on Israel cost
Tehran $2.3 billion.A Netanyahu spokesperson later clarified that $2.3
billion represented the cost of the more than 200 ballistic missiles
fired at Israel.His warning that another attack would “cripple” Iran’s
economy could also be interpreted as a threat that if Iran attacks
again, Israel will seek to cause significant economic damage to
Iran.Netanyahu last addressed the Iranian people just two days before
Tehran launched some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1,
sending most of the population rushing to bomb shelters and safe rooms.
The assault — Iran’s second direct attack on Israel, after a drone and
missile strike in April — caused relatively minor damage to military
bases and some residential areas in Israel and killed a Palestinian man
in the West Bank.Iran said its October 1 attack came in retaliation for
the killing of Tehran-backed terror leaders and an Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps commander.Iran has threatened to strike Israel again after
Israel retaliated last month with an airstrike on Iranian air defense
batteries and military sites protecting crucial energy
facilities.Netanyahu said that the October attack “did marginal damage
to Israel.”“But what damage did [it] do to you?” he asked. “That sum
could have added billions to your transportation budget. It could have
added billions to your education budget.”“But instead, Khamenei exposed
the regime’s brutality and turned the world against your country. He
robbed you of money that should have been yours,” the prime minister
said.Netanyahu argued that Iranians’ lives would be transformed if the
regime spent money on education, infrastructure and health care instead
of on wars with Israel.“I want you to imagine — just imagine — how your
life could be different if Iran was free. You could speak your mind
without fear. You could make a joke without wondering if you’d be carted
off to Evin prison. Close your eyes. Picture the faces of your children
— beautiful innocent souls. Think of the endless potential they would
have. Their entire lives are ahead of them,” he said.”Imagine how your
children’s lives would look if billions of dollars were invested in them
instead of being wasted on wars that can’t be won. They would receive
world-class education. You would receive beautiful roads. Advanced
hospitals. Clean water. You know, Israel has the world’s most advanced
desalination system and we’d be happy to help rebuild Iran’s collapsing
water infrastructure. These and so many other things are the things that
you could have,” he stated.“But that’s what Khamenei’s regime denies
you every single day. They obsess about destroying Israel, rather than
about building Iran. What a shame,” Netanyahu continued. “Another attack
on Israel would simply cripple Iran’s economy. It would rob you of many
more billions of dollars.”“I know that you don’t want this war,”
Netanyahu said. “I don’t want this war either. The people of Israel
don’t want this war. There is one force putting your family in grave
danger: the tyrants of Tehran. That’s it.”While the Iranian regime gets
weaker, Netanyahu said, Israel gets stronger. “The world has seen but a
fraction of our power,” he said.“Yet there’s one thing Khamenei’s
regime fears more than Israel. You know what it is? It’s you — the
people of Iran. That’s why they spend so much time and money trying to
crush your hopes and curb your dreams.”“Well, I say to you this: don’t
let your dreams die. I hear the whispers: Women, Life, Freedom,” he
said, referencing the slogan of nationwide Iranian protests in
2022.Looking to a future in which there is peace between Israel and
Iran, Netanyahu said: “Don’t lose hope. And know that Israel and others
in the free world stand with you.”“The regime wants to destroy your
future as they seek to destroy our state. Well, we won’t let that
happen. I have no doubt that one day in a free Iran, Israelis and
Iranians will build together a future of prosperity and peace,” he said.
“That is the future Israel deserves. That is the future Iran
deserves. Together, let us turn this beautiful dream into a reality.”In
his video in September, Netanyahu said that “Israel stands with them”
and “they will be free sooner than people think.” An Iranian dissident
who lives in Isfahan interviewed by The Times of Israel last month
called the statement a “farce.”“Who does he think he is? We don’t need
his help. We’ve been fighting this regime on our own for years, and
we’ll continue to do so without outside intervention,” she said.Israel
unveils the Dragon-Shortly before Netanyahu’s comments, the military
unveiled its latest submarine.Israel’s submarines are seen as a key
strategic asset for the Jewish state. According to foreign reports, the
vessels are able to carry nuclear missiles and grant Israel a “second
strike” capability, meaning the ability to launch atomic weapons even if
the homeland is attacked. This is meant to serve as a deterrent toward
the country’s enemies.A ceremony was held earlier Tuesday in Germany to
officially name the Israeli Navy’s sixth submarine, INS “Drakon” — or
Dragon — though the vessel will not be delivered until 2025, the
military said.The Dolphin 2-class submarine is still undergoing tests
and manufacturing at the Kiel shipyard in Germany.The INS Drakon is to
be “equipped with unique systems, including groundbreaking technologies
that expand the range of the IDF’s capabilities across various arenas,”
the military said.The originally proposed name was Dakar, after an
Israeli submarine that sank in 1968. Dragon is meant to be a compromise
after some of the families of the fallen sailors from the original Dakar
protested the proposal to recycle the name.The Navy notes that, in
Hebrew, Drakon contains the letters that make up Dakar and thus
preserves the sunken submarine’s memory.“Dakar” will instead be reserved
for the name of the overall class of the Navy’s future submarines,
which are scheduled for delivery at the beginning of the next
decade.Gianluca Pacchiani and Emmanuel Fabian contributed to this
report.
Space Systems Command concludes Tetra-1 satellite mission-by Clarence Oxford.
Los
Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 13, 2024-Since its launch on November 1, 2022, the
U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command (SSC), in collaboration with
Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing Company, has successfully wrapped up
the Tetra-1 mission.Tetra-1 marked the first in a series of small
satellites designed to showcase how SSC collaborates with
non-traditional vendors to enhance on-orbit capabilities for the Space
Force. Part of SSC's Innovation and Prototyping Directorate, the
satellite was developed by Millennium Space Systems and deployed into
geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) within an 18-month period. Tetra-1
provided essential training for over 250 Guardians and Airmen, allowing
operators to engage in diverse tactics, techniques, and procedures.The
capabilities delivered by Tetra-1 are vital for space operators as they
enhance their proficiency in managing small satellites, shaping the
potential future roles of such assets in USSF missions at GEO.Throughout
its service, Tetra-1 participated in various advanced training sessions
and experimental exercises. A highlight of its mission was its
involvement in SCARLET STAR, a comprehensive testing and training
campaign conducted by the 98th Space Range Squadron and the 57th Space
Aggressor Squadron under the Space Training and Readiness Command
(STARCOM). This campaign required extensive coordination across all
three USSF Field Commands to execute multiple live on-orbit
events.Eighteen months post-launch, Tetra-1 transitioned into a phase of
residual operations, surpassing its original one-year mission
expectancy. This shift was accomplished in under five months by a team
from various organizations, facilitating the swift transfer of the
Tetra-1 satellite and its ground station to a mission partner and its
ground facility.Instead of retiring the satellite, the continued
residual operations of Tetra-1 serve as a test platform for assessing
the longevity of satellite components for future missions. Though
Tetra-1's primary mission has concluded, its operational value will
persist, greatly benefiting the USSF and the Department of Defense's
space initiatives.Space Systems Command, as the field command of the
U.S. Space Force, is tasked with acquiring, developing, and delivering
resilient space capabilities that safeguard the nation's strategic
advantage. SSC oversees a $15.6 billion space acquisition budget for the
Department of Defense and collaborates with joint forces, industry,
government bodies, academia, and allied partners to counter emerging
threats. The command's efforts today lay the foundation for a secure
space environment tomorrow.
Sierra Space completes PDR for Missile Tracking Satellites.by Clarence Oxford.
Los
Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 13, 2024-Sierra Space has announced the successful
completion of the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for missile warning
and tracking satellites under a significant $740 million contract with
the Space Development Agency (SDA). This contract, awarded in January
2024 through an Other Transaction Authority (OTA), includes the design,
development, delivery, and maintenance of 16 missile warning and
tracking satellites, plus two additional satellites with enhanced
missile defense capabilities and two operational ground stations.These
satellites are integral to the SDA's Proliferated Warfighter Space
Architecture, part of the Defense Department's Low Earth Orbit
constellation, known as the Tranche 2 Tracking Layer. This effort
focuses on strengthening missile detection and tracking capabilities
against a variety of threats, including hypersonic systems.Tom Vice, CEO
of Sierra Space, highlighted the company's commitment, stating, "In
response to the evolving threat environment, we are retooling our
commercial capacity to focus on revitalizing the U.S. defense industrial
base through innovative satellite and spacecraft systems technology.
Our company is focused on innovation at speed to support an entirely new
era in National Security Space - at Sierra Space we care deeply for
this planet and have the responsibility to protect it."Sierra Space's
technology is designed to provide comprehensive, global missile threat
detection and tracking. The system incorporates advanced sensors capable
of delivering fire control quality data, supporting missile defense
operations and enhancing warfighter capabilities.Since 2023, Sierra
Space has secured contracts totaling $1.5 billion for 30 satellites,
including those for the Tranche 2 Tracking Layer. The company has also
advanced its spacecraft systems segment, managing over 20 contracts
related to solar arrays and space components.Production, integration,
and testing of these satellites will be carried out at Sierra Space's
facilities in Colorado.
Kongsberg secures major Naval Strike Missile contract with US valued at NOK 12 billion by Robert Schreiber.
Berlin,
Germany (SPX) Nov 13, 2024-Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace (KONGSBERG)
has been awarded a significant multi-year contract by the US Navy to
supply Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) over a five-year period. The
fixed-price contract is initially valued at NOK 10 billion, with options
that could increase the total to NOK 12 billion."This contract is the
largest missile contract in KONGSBERG's history and an important
milestone for us. We are pleased the United States has selected
KONGSBERG as an industry partner and look forward to continued
cooperation to support US defence capabilities and create value for
important stakeholders in Norway and the US," stated Geir Haoy,
President and CEO of KONGSBERG.The NSM is central to the US Navy's
Over-the-Horizon Weapons System (OTH-WS) Program, being deployed on
Littoral Combat Ships and CONSTELLATION-class Frigates. Additionally,
KONGSBERG is supplying the NSM to the US Marine Corps for its Navy
Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) Program."This
contract is an example of the strong demand we see for our strike
missiles across NATO and allied nations, which is why we this year have
opened a new missile factory in Norway and announced two facilities in
Australia and the US. The multi-year procurement contract vehicle
provides KONGSBERG and all our sub-suppliers stability into the entire
supply chain and workforce," said Eirik Lie, President of Kongsberg
Defence and Aerospace.In response to growing global demand for the NSM
and JSM (Joint Strike Missile), KONGSBERG recently revealed plans to
establish a new missile production facility in James City County,
Virginia.Originally developed by KONGSBERG and deployed by the Norwegian
Navy in 2012, the NSM is renowned for its effective operational
performance and resilience against advanced enemy defense systems. This
missile system is integral to the Norwegian Navy's fleet and has been
adopted by numerous international defense forces, including the US Navy,
US Marine Corps, Poland, Romania, Canada, Germany, Australia, Malaysia,
Spain, the UK, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Latvia.
China achieves full real-time satellite data reception nationwide by Clarence Oxford.
Los
Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 12, 2024-China now has real-time satellite data
reception covering its entire national territory and 70 percent of
Asia's land area, following the completion of a high-altitude ground
station in Yulong Naxi autonomous county, Lijiang, operational since
September."In other words, when a satellite passes over China, the data
it collects is received by the ground station and transmitted in
real-time to the Beijing headquarters for distribution to relevant units
or research departments, enabling them to access the data promptly,"
explained Tang Mengyue, head of the Lijiang Satellite Ground Station at
the Chinese Academy of Sciences Aerospace Information Innovation
Research Institute.The milestone follows the establishment of China's
first ground station in Miyun district, Beijing, in 1986. The network
now includes stations in Kashgar (Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region),
Sanya (Hainan province), Lijiang (Yunnan province), and Mohe
(Heilongjiang province), strategically positioned to cover all key
directions.Real-time data transfer is crucial for various applications,
particularly in monitoring environmental disasters like forest fires,
earthquakes, and oil spills. Such rapid data availability enables timely
and precise assessments and responses, minimizing potential damage and
ensuring quick action by relevant authorities."These aspects may not be
directly noticeable in our daily lives, but they are indispensable for
the smooth functioning of society and our livelihoods," Tang
emphasized.China's remote sensing satellites, equipped with different
payloads, support an array of applications, including resource
exploration, urban development, environmental monitoring, disaster
management, and space research."Before 1986, scientists who needed to
use remote sensing satellite data had to purchase it at a high cost from
countries such as the United States," Tang noted. "But now, China's
satellite ground station receiving technology has full independent
intellectual property rights."
Poland opens long-awaited US missile base.
Redzikowo,
Poland, Nov 13 (AFP) Nov 13, 2024-Polish and American officials on
Wednesday opened a US missile base in northern Poland originally
intended to defend the West against threats from the Middle East, but
now aimed at confronting Russia.The Redzikowo base, 230 kilometres (143
miles) from the Russian border, has been operational since July but was
officially inaugurated only on Wednesday."A US destroyer on Polish soil
has become a fact," Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz
said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, describing it as "of historical
importance for the security of Poland, the United States and
NATO"."Through the conflicts which are ongoing right now, the conflict
in Ukraine or in the Middle East, we can see how important air defence
and missile defence is," he added.First announced in 2009, the project
was plagued by delays, and Russia has since emerged as the main security
concern for the military alliance's eastern flank.NATO chief Mark Rutte
told reporters in Warsaw the base "significantly enhances our ability
to defend against the growing threat of ballistic missiles from outside
the Euro-Atlantic area".Despite NATO stating that the Redzikowo facility
and a similar system in Romania are purely defensive, Moscow has
frequently labelled it a threat.The new base "constitutes an advance of
US military infrastructure in Europe towards our borders", Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday.The inauguration comes
as Warsaw and its regional allies brace for the US presidency of Donald
Trump, who in the past has voiced admiration for Russian President
Vladimir Putin.But US Ambassador Mark Brzezinski said at the ceremony he
was "confident that this close partnership between our two nations will
continue".On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski welcomed the
project in a post on social media as "proof of the geostrategic
consistency of the United States".- 'Ever more aggressive' enemies -The
base is part of a broader NATO missile shield -- dubbed "Aegis Ashore"
-- which includes a system of radars that could intercept short- and
medium-range ballistic missiles.Admiral Stuart Munsch, commander of the
US naval forces in Europe and Africa, said "building our defences now is
vitally important"."Global adversaries are becoming ever more
aggressive, challenging the international order," he said at the
ceremony."While the threat of ballistic missiles is concerning, the
technology and the highly skilled operators of this Aegis Ashore site
give us confidence in our defence."Polish general Mieczyslaw Bieniek, a
former high-ranking NATO official, told the Polish news agency PAP there
was potential to further develop the base's capabilities."There is
technological possibility for this system to also be equipped with
missiles of a different type that could counter cruise missiles, which
would further reinforce our security," he said.But defence expert Marek
Swierczynski questioned "to what extent the base or the anti-missile
system was adapted to the threat of Russia and Belarus".He said that the
initial conception of the long-delayed project was to counter "threats
mainly from Iran"."This base is in a way a relic, a remnant of a
previous system of thinking about European security which is not very
compatible with the threat represented by Russia for example," he told
AFP.NATO chief Rutte called the base's opening "an important milestone"
but said the alliance would work towards "the full development of a NATO
ballistic missile defence"."NATO must have the means to address threats
from any direction... So we will work on this, step by step," he told
reporters after talks with Polish President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw late
Wednesday.More than 10,000 US troops are currently stationed in Poland,
one of the staunchest supporters of neighbouring Ukraine, which is
struggling to fend off a Russian invasion since 2022.
Vietnam looks to restart nuclear power projects.
Hanoi,
Nov 13 (AFP) Nov 13, 2024-Vietnam wants to restart nuclear power plans
to meet its rapidly expanding energy needs, the government has said,
after it scrapped two multibillion-dollar projects in 2016.Rapidly
industrialising Vietnam, with a population of 100 million people, relies
mostly on coal and hydropower to power its fast-growing economy.Despite
its dependence on fossil fuels, the communist nation has committed to
reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, supported by a Just Energy
Transition Partnership -- under which wealthier nations help developing
countries switch to clean energy faster.On Tuesday, Prime Minister Pham
Minh Chinh told the National Assembly in Hanoi that his government had
asked authorities to restart nuclear power projects.He said this was to
"ensure enough power for fast and sustainable socio-economic development
in the long run"."If we aim at building an economic growth scenario
with double digits, power needs will increase by 1.5 times," he added.In
late 2016, Vietnam scrapped plans for two multibillion-dollar nuclear
power plants, citing environmental and financial reasons. They were
slated to be the first in Southeast Asia but were halted after cost
estimates doubled to $18 billion.The two plants in central Ninh Thuan
province with a combined capacity of 4,000 megawatts were to be
developed with assistance from Russian state company Rosatom and the
Japanese consortium JINED."The project was suspended not due to
technological reasons, but the country's current economic situation,"
the government said at the time.
WEEK OF DANIEL 9:27 WE KNOW ITS 7 YRS
The
King of Jerusalem[1] was the supreme ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem,
the Crusader state founded by Christian princes in 1099 when the First
Crusade took the city.Godfrey of Bouillon, the first ruler of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem, himself refused the title of king, and instead
chose the title "Defender of the Holy Sepulchre". Thus, the title of
king was only introduced for his successor, King Baldwin I in 1100. The
city of Jerusalem was lost in 1187, but the Kingdom of Jerusalem
survived (also known as the "Second Kingdom of Jerusalem"), moving its
capital to Acre in 1191. The city of Jerusalem was re-captured in the
Sixth Crusade, during 1229–39 and 1241–44. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was
finally dissolved with the fall of Acre and the end of the Crusades in
the Holy Land in 1291.After the Crusader States ceased to exist, the
title of King of Jerusalem was claimed by a number of European noble
houses descended from the kings of Cyprus or the kings of Naples. The
(purely ceremonial) title of King of Jerusalem is currently used by
Felipe VI of Spain. It was claimed by Otto von Habsburg as Habsburg
pretender, and by the kings of Italy until 1946.
Heres the scripture 1 week = 7 yrs Genesis 29:27-29
27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week:(7 YEARS) and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.
JEREMIAH 6:14
14 They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
JEREMIAH 8:11
11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
1 THESSALONIANS 5:3
3
For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction
cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not
escape.
ISAIAH 33:8
8 The highways lie waste, the wayfaring
man ceaseth: he hath broken the covenant,(7 YR TREATY) he hath despised
the cities, he regardeth no man.(THE WORLD LEADER-WAR MONGER CALLS
HIMSELF GOD)
JERUSALEM DIVIDED
GENESIS 25:20-26
20 And
Isaac was forty years old (A BIBLE GENERATION NUMBER=1967 + 40=2007+)
when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of
Padanaram, the sister to Laban the Syrian.
21 And Isaac intreated
the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was
intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.
22 And the
children (2 NATIONS IN HER-ISRAEL-ARABS) struggled together within her;
and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went
toenquire of the LORD.
23
And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner
of people shall be separated from thy bowels;(ISRAEL AND THE ARABS) and
the one people shall be stronger than the other people;(ISRAEL STRONGER
THAN ARABS) and the elder shall serve the younger.(LITERALLY ISRAEL THE
YOUNGER RULES (ISSAC)(JACOB-LATER NAME CHANGED TO ISRAEL) OVER THE
OLDER ARABS (ISHMAEL)(ESAU)
24 And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.
25 And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.(THE OLDER AN ARAB)
26
And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's
heel; and his name was called Jacob:(THE YOUNGER-ISRAELI) and Isaac was
threescore (60) years old when she bare them.(1967 + 60=2027)(COULD BE
THE LAST GENERATION WHEN JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED AMOUNG THE 2 TWINS)(THE 2
TWINS WANT JERUSALEM-THE DIVISION OF JERUSALEM TODAY)(AND WHOS IN
CONTROL OF JERUSALEM TODAY-THE YOUNGER ISSAC-JACOB-ISRAEL)(AND WHO WANTS
JERUSALEM DIVIDED-THE OLDER,ESAU-ISHMAEL (THE ARABS)
ISAIAH 28:14-19 (THIS IS THE 7 YR TREATY COVENANT OF DANIEL 9:27)
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15
Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell
are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through,
it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under
falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord
GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a
precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not
make haste.17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to
the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the
waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with
death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not
stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be
trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall
take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by
night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
DANIEL 8:23-25
23
And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are
come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and
understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT) shall stand up.
24 And
his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and
he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall
destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy
also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify
himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also
stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken
without hand.DANIEL 11:36-40
36 And the king shall do according to
his will;(EU PRESIDENT) and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself
above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of
gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that
that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God
of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS A EUROPEAN JEW) nor the desire of
women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
38
But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(HES A MILITARY
GINIUS) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold,
and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus
shall he do in the most strong holds (CONTROL HEZBOLLAH,AL-QUAIDA
MURDERERS ETC) with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and
increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY
LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.
40 And at the time of
the end shall the king of the south(EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR
PROTECTING ISRAELS SECURITY) and the king of the north(RUSSIA) shall
come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and
with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall
overflow and pass over.
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall
be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have
fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they
stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,
and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
13 And it shall
come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be
among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his
neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his
neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)
MATTHEW 24:37-42 (THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-SURE NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)(50% OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE)
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38
For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and
drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe
entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
42 Watch therefore:(FOR THE LAST DAYS SIGNS HAPPENING) for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
DR SAMUEL DOCTORIANS VISION - SECOND ANGEL: MIDDLE EAST
Then
I saw that the second angel had a sickle in his hand, such as is used
in harvesting.The second angel said: "Harvest time has come in Israel
and the countries all the way to Iran."I saw those countries in a few
split seconds."All of Turkey and those [inaudible] countries that have
refused me and refused my message of love shall hate each other and kill
one another."I saw the angel raise the sickle and come down on all the
Middle East countries. I saw Iran, Persia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, all of
Georgia - Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, all of Asia Minor - full
of blood. I saw blood all over these countries. And I saw fire; Nuclear
weapons used in many of those countries. Smoke rising from everywhere.
Sudden destruction – men destroying one another. I heard these
words:"Israel, Oh Israel, the great judgment has come." The angel said,
"The chosen, the church, the remnant, shall be purified. The Spirit of
God shall prepare the children of God."I saw fires rising to heaven.The
angel said: "This is the final judgment. My church shall be purified,
protected and ready for the final day. Men will die from thirst. Water
shall be scarce all over the Middle East. Rivers shall dry up, and men
will fight for water in those countries."The angel showed me that the
United Nations shall be broken in pieces because of the crisis in the
Middle East. There shall be no more United Nations. The angel with the
sickle shall reap the harvest.
DANIEL CHAPTER 9:24-27 EXPLAINED.
24
Seventy weeks (70X7=490 YEARS) are determined upon thy people (ISRAEL)
and upon thy holy city,(JERUSALEM) to finish the transgression, and to
make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to
bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and
prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.(JESUS ANNOINTED WITH HOLY OIL AS
KING OF JERUSALEM FOREVER).
25 Know therefore and understand, that
from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build
Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, (7X7=49
YEARS) and threescore and two weeks:(62X7=434 YEARS) the street shall be
built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.(490-49-434=7 YR
PERIOD WERE GOD DEALS WITH ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM (NOT THE CHURCH-THE TRUE
CHURCH IS IS IN HEAVEN WITH JESUS FOR THAT LAST 7 YEAR PERIOD.)(DANIEL
9:26-27 IS IN THE FUTURE WHEN GOD DEALS ON EARTH WITH ISRAEL AND
JERUSALEM FOR THAT FINAL 7 TEAR PERIOD. WHEN ALL OF ISRAEL WILL BE SAVED
BY MESSIAH JESUS.)(AT THE END OF IT)
26 And after threescore and two
weeks (69X7=483 YEARS)(ONE 7 YEAR PERIOD UNTIL PROPHECY IS FULFILLED)
shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the
prince (ROMANS) that shall come shall destroy the city and the
sanctuary;(2ND TEMPLE AND JERUSALEM) and the end thereof shall be with a
flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.(NOW THE
FINAL ISRAEL-JERUSALEM COUNTDOWN FOR MESSIAH JESUS RETURN THE LAST 7
YEARS)
27 And he (HE WHO? HE HERE IS THE REVIVED ROMAN EMPIRE LEADER
THAT MAKES THE FINAL 7 YR CONTRACT WITH ISRAEL AND MANY MUSLIM COUNTRIES
FOR A 7 YR PERIOD, AND THE EU WILL GUARENTEE ISRAELS SECURITY FOR THIS
LAST PERIOD) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: (7
YEARS) and in the midst of the week (3 1/2 YEARS IN) he shall cause the
sacrifice and the oblation to cease, (THIS FALSE MESSIAH OR ROMAN LEADER
STOPS THE ANIMAL SACRIFICES IN THE 3RD TEMPLE AT THE MIDPOINT OF THE 7
YR DEAL. A JEW MURDERS HIM WITH A SWORD WOUND AND HE HAS A FALSE
RESSURECTION-SATAN INCARNATES IN HIS BODY. AND BRINGS HIM BACK TO
LIFE.AND HE THEN SITS IN THE 3RD TEMPLE CALLING HIMSELF GOD AS THE WORLD
SAYS HES JESUS REINCARNATED. AND BY THIS FALSE RESURRECTION GOD SENDS
THIS STRONG DELUTION ON THE EARTH THAT ALL THE LOST WILL WORSHIP THIS
ROMAN LEADER AS GOD AND ACCEPT HIS NAME, NUMBER OR NUMBER OF HIS NAME IN
THEIR MICROCHIP IMPLANT. THAT THEY MIGHT BE DOOMED, DAMNED TO THE LAKE
OF FIRE FOREVER. WHO WORSHIPS THIS ROMAN LEADER AS GOD.) and for the
overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the
consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the
desolate.(WARS NON STOP DURING THE LAST 3 1/2 YEARS OF THE 7 YEAR
PERIOD. HAMAS DEATH CULT HOSTAGE RELEASE.
Trump ambassador pick
Huckabee says administration could back West Bank annexation-Former
Arkansas governor, an ardent settlement supporter, cautions that he will
not be the one to set policy; does not rule out resettling Gaza
Strip-By ToI Staff Today, 8:17 pm-NOV 13,24
US President-elect
Donald Trump’s pick to be the next US ambassador to Israel said the
incoming administration could support the annexation of the West Bank,
though such a decision would be out of his hands.Mike Huckabee, a
politician and Evangelical Christian leader with a history of strong
support for Israeli building in the West Bank, was named Tuesday as
Trump’s nominee for the post, drawing plaudits from settlement
leaders.Speaking to Israel’s Army Radio Wednesday morning, Huckabee was
asked whether annexation would be a possibility after Trump takes office
in January.“Well of course,” Huckabee answered. “I won’t make the
policy, I will carry out the policy of the president.”He said no other
president had been as “helpful in securing an understanding of the
sovereignty of Israel,” noting Trump’s support for recognizing Israel’s
claims on the Golan Heights and Jerusalem.Trump recognized Jerusalem as
Israel’s capital, moving the US embassy there, though the administration
said the move did not amount to recognition of the city’s borders,
which were expanded in 1981 to include East Jerusalem as part of a
de-facto annexation move.“No one has done more than President Trump and I
fully expect that will continue,” Huckabee said.The former Arkansas
governor also did not rule out the possibility of Israel rebuilding
settlements in the Gaza Strip when asked.“Well I haven’t had time to
process that,” he said. “I don’t want to make any comments about policy
because those won’t be mine to make.”Support for annexation of the West
Bank or the return of settlements in Gaza would mark a significant break
with the current US administration, which has repeatedly spoken out
against settlement activity as a barrier to a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The administration has also warned
repeatedly against resettling Israeli civilians in Gaza, which Israel
evacuated in 2005.Trump’s first ambassador to Israel, David Friedman,
was also an ardent supporter of West Bank settlements, and the
administration largely shied away from criticizing Israeli building in
the West Bank.A peace plan rolled out by Trump toward the end of his
term was interpreted by Friedman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
as a green light to annex the West Bank, though the effort never got off
the ground.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, US Ambassador to
Israel David Friedman, center, and then-tourism minister Yariv Levin
during a meeting to discuss mapping extension of Israeli sovereignty to
areas of the West Bank, held in the Ariel settlement, February 24, 2020.
(David Azagury/US Embassy Jerusalem/File)-Friedman said Tuesday he was
“thrilled” by Trump’s selection of Huckabee.Israel captured the West
Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. The territory, home to some 3
million Palestinians and around 500,000 Israeli settlers, is widely seen
as a future Palestinian homeland with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Since Trump’s election last week, pro-settlement forces in Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition have repeatedly
raised hopes that Israel will annex the territory and win Washington’s
backing for the move.On Monday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich
declared that 2025 would be “the year of sovereignty in [the West
Bank],” thanks to Trump’s return to office, and National Security
Minister Itamar Ben Gvir last week said that “this is the time for
sovereignty.”However, at least two officials in Trump’s previous
administration have warned senior Israeli ministers not to assume that
the president-elect will support Israel annexing the West Bank in his
second term, three sources familiar with the conversations told The
Times of Israel.Huckabee has called Israel’s claim to the West Bank
stronger than American ties to Manhattan and laid bricks in 2018 as
ground was broken on a new housing complex in the settlement of
Efrat.During the Army Radio interview, he noted that he was “a frequent
visitor to Judea and Samaria,” using a Biblical term for the West Bank
favored by those on the right wing.“I also very much believe that the
people of Israel deserve a secure and safe country and anything I can do
that will help accommodate that is going to be a great privilege for
me,” he said.Aside from backing settlements, a term he says he abhors,
Huckabee is also a bitter opponent of Palestinian nationalism.“There’s
really no such thing as a Palestinian,” the former Baptist minister told
a rabbi in Massachusetts in 2008, according to The New Yorker. “That’s
been a political tool to try to force land away from Israel.”Among the
first people to speak to Huckabee following the announcement of his
nomination was Yossi Dagan, who heads the Samaria Regional Council in
the northern West Bank.“The US has won and the State of Israel has won
too. Mike Huckabee is a true leader, a smart man,” Dagan said in a
statement that highlighted the nominee’s cooperation with the settlement
movement.Huckabee is the first non-Jew nominated for the post since
James Cunningham was tapped by then-US president George W. Bush in 2008.
If confirmed, he will replace Jack Lew, who has served as Biden’s
ambassador to Israel since November 2023.Jacob Magid contributed to this
report.
Analysis-Despite optimism around chances for Lebanon
deal, immense obstacles remain-US and Israeli officials laud progress
toward ending fighting between Hezbollah and IDF, but the Iran-backed
group is unlikely to accept Netanyahu’s core demands-By Lazar
Berman-Today, 4:45 pm-NOV 13,24
An air of optimism has emerged
around the chances for a negotiated end to the fighting between Israel
and Hezbollah in Lebanon in the coming weeks.On Tuesday, US special
envoy for Lebanon Amos Hochstein told reporters at the White House that
“there is a shot” to secure a ceasefire soon and that he is “hopeful”
about the deal’s prospects.Israeli officials have sounded similar
notes.Speaking to reporters on Monday, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar
said there has been “certain progress” on a ceasefire in Lebanon.Another
official told The Times of Israel that progress had been made, and now
Israel was speaking to the US about letters “to anchor our ability and
legitimacy to operate against any threat from Lebanon.”“If there are any
attempts to fire at us, to build up their military, to bring in weapons
through Syria, we will act,” promised the official.The fact that the US
Joe Biden administration and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
government see eye-to-eye on the parameters of a ceasefire in Lebanon is
undoubtedly a positive development.Yet there will be no deal if a
central player in the fight doesn’t accept the terms — Hezbollah.Any
arrangement will officially be signed between Israel and Lebanon. At the
same time, everyone knows that Beirut will not agree to anything that
Hezbollah does not consent to.And it is hard to imagine the Shi’ite
terror group accepting one of Israel’s core demands — that same freedom
of action to operate in Lebanon to counter threats and stop the
rebuilding of Hezbollah’s military.Israel isn’t about to relent on this
point either. It wants the Lebanese Armed Forces to move into southern
Lebanon in force and for countries like the UK and France to train the
rather lackluster LAF. A massive deployment of Lebanese soldiers along
Israel’s border is part of a solution, but they are not about to take on
Hezbollah militarily when it decides the time is right to start moving
assets toward Israel again.UNIFIL, which has unequivocally failed in its
raison d’être of keeping Hezbollah from moving thousands of fighters
and massive weapons caches to the border with Israel, would still be
part of a settlement, in Israel’s eyes. The force would have to be
overhauled, with more capable and assertive militaries making up a
larger proportion of UNIFIL.France, which currently contributes 665
troops to the peacekeeping effort, is sure to become an even more
central country to UNIFIL. Its forces have taken peacekeeping efforts in
Africa seriously, and Paris understands that the situation on the
Lebanon-Israel border cannot return to the pre-October 7 reality.Still,
that wouldn’t be enough for Israel. It will not rely entirely on the
weak military of an enemy state or international peacekeepers who have
already let Hezbollah build up a formidable force on Israel’s borders
once before.Nor would it likely satisfy the tens of thousands of
displaced Israelis who would look with understandable suspicion at yet
another negotiated document that is supposed to convince them that no
Hezbollah anti-tank missile will strike their homes after they move
back.Further, deeper-It may be that Hezbollah is eager to end the
fighting, after losing its leadership, military positions, and thousands
of operatives, and will ultimately accept the deal that Israel and the
US put on the table.If it isn’t, however, then Israel has no other cards
left to play other than expanding its ground operation in Lebanon.An
Israeli official told The Times of Israel that if Lebanon turns down the
latest US-Israeli offer, the IDF is ready to drive further into the
country.As negotiators — including Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer
— continue their work this week in Washington, the IDF is already
pushing ahead. The military announced that the 91st Division has reached
“new targets” belonging to Hezbollah, as commandos raided several new
areas.Yesterday, the IDF said that the 36th Division has also expanded
ground operations in southern Lebanon.Though senior officials, including
novice Defense Minister Israel Katz, are calling for Israel to keep
attacking Hezbollah until it achieves all of its goals, that option
comes with considerable problems.Israel’s ground operation in Lebanon
was conceived as primarily an engineering effort — a war on Hezbollah
infrastructure in the border area. The IDF said that the “limited,
localized, and targeted ground raids” would be focused on border
villages that posed an immediate threat to Israeli towns.IDF forces have
completed that task, but northern residents still aren’t in their
homes.Expanding the operation could mean that Israel will destroy
Hezbollah weapons caches and fighting positions in villages further away
from the border. That is unlikely to push Hezbollah into a ceasefire,
nor will it make Israelis more comfortable about returning home. The
minute the IDF leaves, Hezbollah can infiltrate the area with missile
teams and fire at Israeli towns if it so chooses.If the operation starts
focusing on defeating more of Hezbollah’s fighting units, then the way
it is being carried out violates basic military principles. Instead of
taking advantage of the IDF’s mobility to rapidly confuse and encircle
enemy units, Israeli forces are moving slowly from a predictable
direction, presenting Hezbollah with few dilemmas on the field.In the
meantime, Hezbollah seems to have found its footing again. It was
knocked off balance in September, when Israel detonated thousands of
pagers and walkie-talkies in the hands of terrorists, assassinated
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and took out most of the elite Radwan
force leadership.But the terror group is recovering. It maintains
consistent rocket fire on northern Israel, and Hezbollah attacks have
killed 36 IDF soldiers in the month-and-a-half since Israel began its
ground operation. It has also managed to carry out high-profile drone
attacks, including on the Golani Brigade’s training base and Netanyahu’s
house in Caesarea.It seems prepared for a war of attrition against IDF
forces if they stay in Lebanon, a form of conflict that offers
advantages to the guerrilla force. Though Hezbollah will lose many times
more men than the IDF, Israel is far more sensitive to casualties, and
as the death toll slowly ticks up, domestic pressure is likely to do so
as well. That strategy worked for Hezbollah in the 1990s, when an
Israeli protest movement successfully pushed political and military
leaders to accept the need for a withdrawal from the security zone in
southern Lebanon.For all that, there remains a quick way out of the
fighting in Lebanon. Hezbollah has repeatedly said it would stand down
if the war in Gaza came to an end.Though Netanyahu would like to see a
successful end to that campaign as well, Hamas has no incentive to
accept anything less than victory in a deal that sees the hostages
released from captivity. That would mean that the group remains in Gaza,
and is in a position to slowly recover its governing and military
capabilities.Israel is not about to accept that, and the fighting will
go on.The Trump factor-Still, there is an upcoming event that could
change the dynamics in Lebanon.US President-elect Donald Trump will take
office on January 20, and is expected to be much more aggressive
against Iran and its axis than Biden was. He selected Iran hawks to his
cabinet, and employed a maximum pressure sanctions campaign against the
Islamic Republic in his first term.Iran is sure to be nervous about
Trump’s return, and will be looking to dial down tensions with the US
until it gets a read on the direction of Trump’s policy in the
region.Threats from Trump to Iran about the price it will pay if its
proxy Hezbollah refuses to accept a ceasefire could well make the cost
of continued combat too high for Tehran.But that message has yet to be
issued. In the meantime, Biden’s top aides are throwing their full
weight behind the effort to help Israel wrap up the fighting before
Trump returns to the White House.
Archaeology'Natufian perforated
stones are 1st wheels in form and function' 12,000-year-old Stone Age
site in Israel reveals first evidence of wheel technology-Over 100 small
stone objects from Neolithic period are the earliest instance of
‘spindle whorls,’ used to spin fibers into yarn, predating previously
known textile tools by 4,000 years-By Gavriel Fiske-Today, 9:05 pm-NOV
13,24
Researchers have determined that a collection of
12,000-year-old tiny stone objects found at a Stone Age site in the
Jordan Valley were likely used to spin fibers into yarn, a discovery
that pushes back the use of the technique by thousands of years, the
Hebrew University said in a Wednesday announcement.The objects, called
spindle whorls, are small, weighted circular objects made of limestone
or other soft rock that feature a “circular shape perforated by a
central hole” that when attached to a stick, form a “wheel-and-axle-like
device to help the spindle rotate faster and longer, enabling it to
efficiently gather up fibers such as wool or flax and spin them into
yarn,” the university said.“This discovery marks the earliest known
evidence of this fast-spinning technology in the Levant, predating
previously known textile tools by 4,000 years and highlighting an
important stage in human innovation,” the researchers said.The
researchers analyzed more than 100 of the objects, which were scattered
around the Nahal-Ein Gev II site, a few kilometers south of the Sea of
Galilee. The site is associated with the Natufian period, a time in the
late Stone Age when humans had settled in permanent villages but had not
yet developed agriculture or domesticated farm animals.Because the
objects “are simple limestone pebbles that don’t stick out at first
glance, it was a surprise” to determine their probable use, said
researcher Talia Yashuv, speaking to The Times of Israel by
phone.Yashuv, along with Professor Leore Grosman from the Computational
Archaeology Laboratory at the Hebrew University’s Institute of
Archaeology, authored a paper on the subject, “12,000-year-old spindle
whorls and the innovation of wheeled rotational technologies,” published
on Wednesday in the peer-reviewed online journal PLOS and based on
Yashuv’s MA thesis.The “Natufian perforated stones” are in fact “the
first wheels in form and function,” the researchers said, round objects
“with a hole in the center connected to a rotating axle, used long
before the appearance of the wheel for transportation purposes.”The
technology is considered a precursor to “wheel-based rotational
innovations” such as the potter’s wheel and the cartwheel, “key
advancements that revolutionized human technological history” that
appeared many thousands of years later, the researchers said.“When we
started the research, we really didn’t know… we thought maybe they had
to do with fishing or some other craft,” Yashuv said. The Natufians at
the site had developed “a new innovative technique of fast drilling” —
essentially attaching a hard, carved stone to the end of a stick, which
could then be rotated quickly between the hands — and also had “a
beautiful bead industry,” she said.But the spindle whorls “were
different,” Yashuv said. They weren’t beads and weren’t stone weights
used in net fishing, which were made of harder material and of a totally
different shape.To confirm their hunch, the researchers scanned the
whorls and then analyzed them using customized software to determine
that the objects uniformly had “the morphological characteristics
similar to the ones that you need if you want to use them for spinning,”
Yashuv said.All the objects were determined to have a certain “kind of
symmetrical shape… [meaning] the relation between the width and the
length and the location of the center of mass, which is a signature to
how you use the tool,” she said.But because the spinning whorls were
dated from 12,000 years ago, some 4,000 years before other known
instances of the technology, further proof was needed.“After we
suspected that they would have been spindle whorls, we went to a
specialized craftswoman, Yonit Kristal,” Yashuv explained.Kristal was
able to use the replicas to spin flax into yarn, and determined that
using the whorls was a more efficient method to do so than just
“twisting the fibers between your thigh and your fingers,” or rubbing
between flat stones, both theorized methods for creating yarn among
Stone Age societies, Yashuv said.Image showing various spinning methods
for producing yarn: a. ‘manual thigh-spinning,’ b. Spindle-and-whorl
‘supported spinning’ [68, and c. ‘drop spinning.’ d. shows the
experimental spindles and whorls and below, 3D scans of the pebbles. The
bottom pictures show Yonit Kristal experimenting with spinning fibers
using replicas of the perforated pebbles, using both supported spinning
and drop spinning techniques, photographed by Talia Yashuv. (courtesy
Hebrew University/PLOS One)-The whorls represent an “initial stage of
invention” in the development of textile technologies, part of the
general advancement of the Natufian period, which lasted for several
thousand years, Yashuv said.The Nahal-Ein Gev site was a village with
“architecture, houses and cemeteries… Their art expanded and they made
heavy stone tools and had close relations with animals, but not
domestication yet. It was a culture in transition between being nomads
and hunter-gatherers and becoming an agricultural society,” she
explained.The Natufians used stone tools and didn’t have pottery, but
were able to manipulate their environment and made lime plaster, a
significant advance in building technology. They also developed more
complex social structures and religious rituals. The string produced by
the spindle whorls would probably have been used “for everything,”
including clothing, weaving, beading and making fishing nets and ropes,
Yashuv said.“Traditionally, ethnographically, women are associated with
textiles and crafts, and we know at Nahal-Ein Gev there was an
intensification in specialization and the division of labor,” but “we
can’t say for certain” who exactly in Natufian society was using the
whorls, she said.The Nahal-Ein Gev village was inhabited for about 500
years, from around 10,500 to 10,000 BCE. The spindle whorl technology
then disappears from the archaeological record before popping up again
about 4,000 years later at a site only 10 kilometers away, perhaps
indicating a continuation of “cultural tradition” in the area, Yashuv
said.After this, spindle whorls were “found everywhere” in the Levant
and were often made of ceramic materials, Yashuv said. By that time,
around 6,500 BCE, the Neolithic revolution was in full swing,
agriculture had long been developed and diverse animal species had been
domesticated.The Natufians at Nahal-Ein Gev were still part of the Stone
Age, Yashuv said, and were “a Paleolithic culture. However, they were
the last ones.”
MICROSOFT
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Google, Amazon set to compete in tender for Israel’s AI
supercomputing platform-Tech giants are set to bid on a NIS 240 million
tender to build supercomputing infrastructure for Israeli tech startups
and academia to advance AI technologies-By Sharon Wrobel-12 November
2024, 8:22 pm
Leading technology companies Google and Amazon will
compete in a closed tender to provide data infrastructure for Israel’s
supercomputer, aimed at equipping the high-tech industry and academia
with faster computational power to train large artificial intelligence
models.The tender, led by the Israel Innovation Authority, which is in
charge of setting out the nation’s tech policy, is part of the NIS 1
billion ($266 million) National AI Program, geared to help Israel
maintain and strengthen its position as a global leader in light of the
fast-evolving technology.“We want Israeli companies to push for this big
revolution of AI by collecting relevant data, uploading them to the
cloud, and start training them to get insights in order to supply
services and new products,” Aviv Zeevi, head of the technology
infrastructure division at the Israel Innovation Authority told The
Times of Israel. “We don’t want Israeli companies to be delayed by the
fact there is not enough infrastructure or it’s too costly for them to
train the data.”Supercomputers are next-generation machines that can
process exponentially more data than classical computers with a
number-crunching capability to perform calculations at blazingly fast
speeds. They use a significant number of graphics processing units
(GPUs) — which offer high processing and computational abilities that
ordinary computers cannot achieve — to run complex simulations, address
questions about nature and climate change, and develop new AI-driven
technologies in areas from transportation and medicine to drug
discovery.Israel still ranks among the top 10 ecosystems for artificial
intelligence, but it is far from unlocking the full potential of
revolutionary technology as competition in the global AI race
intensifies.Over the past year, industry leaders and tech entrepreneurs
have raised concerns that Israel is missing the AI wave and needs to
implement a long-term strategy to allocate money and resources to boost
education and academic research, encourage startups, and provide the
infrastructure and computational power needed to run AI models.The
Israel Innovation Authority is concerned that the lack of local AI
supercomputing infrastructure is limiting the Israeli high-tech
industry’s competitive advantage. That’s as many governments worldwide
are providing the needed supercomputing infrastructure to academia and
local industry.The forthcoming supercomputer with cloud-based access is
intended to address this gap by making it available for researchers and
companies at a reduced cost.“With this tender, we are targeting a very
specific need for a GPUs-based platform,” said Zeevi. “We are hoping to
build an infrastructure with at least 2000 GPUs, which are dedicated
specifically for the training of AI models and will be accessible for
the Israeli industry and academia, as the ones that already exist are
either in specific companies like Intel or Nvidia, or accessible from
outside of Israel.”As part of the NIS 240 million ($64 million)
government tender to build the supercomputing infrastructure, Google and
Amazon will need to submit their proposals over the next two weeks. The
Israel Innovation Authority is hoping to choose the winner of the
tender in December and sign a contract at the beginning of next
year.Back in 2021, Google and Amazon were selected as the winners of a
government tender to build and provide cloud-based regional data centers
and services to local public entities as part of the Nimbus
project.Israel is home to about 9,000 startups, out of which more than
2,200 are AI-based tech firms in finance, healthcare, food, energy,
agriculture, transportation, manufacturing and construction. With 73
startups, Israel ranks third in the world after the US and the UK in the
field of firms developing generative AI technologies.