Another day, another deal.
This has been going on since I’ve kept score…and it is usually Hamas that gets the final say.
All this time I thought, proudly, that Israel is the power-house of the Middle East. I still think so. But something is cockeyed.
Hasn’t Hamas already been defeated? Our IDF guys…heroes all…have gone cave to cave, tunnel to tunnel and emerged victorious.
Anyone who happened to amble by the downtown Manhattan courthouse in early December, just after a jury acquitted Daniel Penny—the former Marine who put Jordan Neely, a deranged and threatening fellow subway passenger, in a chokehold that led to his death—would have noticed something peculiar.
It wasn’t that the sidewalk was filled with protesters, or that they were chanting slogans that ignored the facts of the situation, presenting Neely—a mentally ill man with 42 previous convictions, including for violent assaults on the subway—as an innocent lynched by a malicious white vigilante for no reason other than his being black. It was, instead, that many of the protesters were wearing keffiyehs, the traditional Arab headwear popular with the pro-Palestine crowd, as well as pins or t-shirts featuring the Palestinian flag.
A ceasefire and hostage deal has been agreed upon by Hamas and Israel, a US official told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
An Israeli official later informed Israeli media that the differences in negotiations have been resolved and a deal has been reached.
Details are still sketchy
Israel and Hamas agree to hostage release, Gaza cease-fire deal after 15 months of war: reports
Israel and Hamas have reached a deal to halt the fighting in the Gaza Strip and free more than a third of the Israeli hostages, who have had to endure more than 15 months of captivity, officials say.
The breakthrough deal is the first of its kind in more than a year. It will create a 42-day cease-fire in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
The pause in fighting will allow Israel and the terror group Hamas to negotiate the terms to release the 97 hostages remaining in Gaza.
Attempts by the Royal Air Force to recruit graduates have been prevented by activists at universities, it has emerged, as a government adviser said “protests have gone beyond peaceful assembly”.
Footage posted on social media showed that RAF personnel were among those targeted at university careers fairs in recent months as protesters attempted to prevent students from signing up.
In one case, the RAF was forced to shut down its recruitment stall early and in another leave it temporarily amid security concerns, video footage and posts show.
Nothing a little carpet bombing couldn’t fix.
The Palestinians have finally discovered that Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television network — which has long been serving as a mouthpiece for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and virtually all other Islamic terrorist groups — is “broadcasting inciteful content, spreading misinformation, and interfering in internal Palestinian affairs, which [the Palestinian Authority Ministerial Committee] claimed stirred division and instability.”
Two Toronto area Kosher restaurant and caterer locations were broken into, ransacked, and one vandalized with antisemitic graffiti on Friday and Monday night, according to law enforcement, Jewish community groups, and Canadian politicians.
Update: Hostage families meet with Netanyahu: An agreement may be signed ‘within hours’
No final answer was given from Hamas regarding a hostage deal, an Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
Earlier, the Associated Press reported, citing two officials involved in the negotiations, that Hamas has agreed to the proposed ceasefire deal in Gaza and the release of numerous hostages.
According to the report, an Israeli official noted that while progress had been made, the final details were still under discussion.
Frequently, the small population of Jews are held responsible for geopolitical and other events far beyond their control.
This week, two American “far-left” anti-Israel groups — Code Pink and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), among others — actually blamed Israel for the ongoing California wildfires.
“When US taxes go to burning people alive in Gaza, we can’t be surprised when those fires come home,” Code Pink posted on Instagram.
One of the most pervasive myths of the Palestinian protest movement is that Israel has denied statehood to the Palestinian people. To the contrary, Israel agreed to Palestinian statehood in 1937-1938, 1947-1948, 1967, 2000-2001, and 2007. In each case, it was the Palestinian leadership that refused to agree to the two-state solution that would have created a Palestinian state, alongside a state for Jewish inhabitants.
In 1937 – in the midst of the terrorist revolt inspired by Adolf Hitler’s ally, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem – the British published the Palestine Royal Commission Report (also known as the Peel Commission Report).
The University of Exeter, one of the UK’s top 24 universities (and among the world’s top 100), has been warning undergraduates since January that they may “encounter uncomfortable views and content” in their studies of Homer.
Former prime minister Boris Johnson, who studied Greek and Latin, responded: “Is the University of Exeter saying their students are so weak-minded that they cannot appreciate Homer?” Yes, they are.
The Metropolitan Police has blocked a pro-Gaza march that was set to go past a synagogue in central London amid fears that Jewish worshippers would be harassed by protesters.
Pro-Palestine demonstrators were due to gather outside the BBC’s headquarters in Portland Place on Jan 18 before marching to Whitehall.
But on Thursday, Scotland Yard said it had imposed conditions under the Public Order Act to prevent the rally from gathering in the area as it risked causing “serious disruption” to a nearby synagogue on a Saturday, the Jewish holy day, as congregants attend Shabbat services.
The family of a Palestinian female journalist has accused the Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces of killing their daughter in Jenin Refugee Camp in the northern West Bank. Shatha al-Sabbagh, 22, was reportedly shot in the head by a PA sniper on December 29, 2024, as she walked out of her home. PA officials have denied the allegation and claimed that al-Sabbagh was killed by gunmen in the camp.
President-elect Donald J. Trump has warned that unless the hostages being held by Hamas are released by January 20, the day of his inauguration, “all hell will break out.”
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is already in Doha, Qatar, negotiating. Not very astonishingly, the negotiations keep breaking down….
Joe Biden has failed to secure the release of any hostages held by Hamas in Gaza since November 2023 with the release of Abigail Naftali, the great-niece of Liz Hirsh Naftali. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Naftali is a major Democratic donor, a key Biden campaign supporter, a Biden appointee, and one of the buyers of Hunter Biden’s artwork.
Authorities in Toronto are appealing to the public for assistance in identifying a male suspect after two potentially “hate-motivated” vandalism incidents at a city synagogue.
The Toronto Police Service received two calls in December of mischief at a synagogue in the Bayview Avenue and York Mills Road area, police said in a Jan. 6 press release.
It was reported on Dec. 2 that a suspect vandalized the signs on the front lawn of the synagogue before fleeing in a newer model dark grey Ford pickup truck, police said. A second sign vandalism incident was reported Dec. 20.
