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ISRAEL

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As Europe and Canada Plan To Recognize Palestinian State, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas Release Videos of Israeli Hostages: ‘Starved, Tortured, and Abused’ Matthew Xiao

By on August 2nd, 2025

https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/as-europe-and-canada-plan-to-recognize-palestinian-state-palestinian-islamic-jihad-releases-video-of-israeli-hostage-thin-skin-and-bone-crying/

Rom Braslavski, 21, and Evyatar David, 24, were both abducted during the October 7 terrorist attack

The Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups on Thursday released videos of Israeli hostages Rom Braslavski and Evyantar David—both frail after 664 days in captivity—as Canada, the United Kingdom, and France have announced plans to recognize Palestinian statehood.

Braslavski, a 21-year-old kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, from the Nova music festival where he was working as a security guard, appeared extremely weak and pale in the six-minute video, the Times of Israel reported. The PIJ, an ally of Hamas, said the footage was filmed days before it and Hamas cut off all contact with mediators, leaving Braslavski’s fate unknown.

“They broke my child, I want him home, now!” Braslavski’s mother told Ynet. “I know how he was beaten. I know that Rom does not cry, and if he is crying, it is because he was tortured. Look at him, he is thin, skin and bone, crying. All his bones are visible.”

Hamas on Friday followed suit in releasing a video of 24-year-old hostage Evyatar David, another Israeli who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during the October 7 attack.

The video shows David “looking almost like a skeleton,” wrote X user @VividProwess. “This is what real starvation looks like. The hostages are starved, tortured, and abused. Where is the world’s outrage for the hostages? Their silence is deafening.”

The chilling footage came a day after Canada joined France and the United Kingdom in backing Palestinian statehood. President Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu have condemned the endorsement, with Trump saying the recognition amounts to “rewarding” Palestinian terrorists.

The PIJ in April also issued a video of Braslavski, in which he appeared very ill. In that video, Braslavski said he was going through “hell” and appealed directly to Trump and Netanyahu to secure his release, the New York Post reported.

Hamas released a previous video of David as well.

Last week, Hamas rejected the latest U.S. ceasefire offer and refused to release the remaining Israeli hostages. The Trump administration in response recalled its diplomatic team from Qatar, ending two weeks of peace negotiations.

Israeli intelligence estimates that around 20 hostages are still alive in Gaza, along with the bodies of up to 50 others who died in captivity.

“The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Thursday.

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This is the Hezbollah-linked activist behind lawfare on Israelis By Canaan Lidor and David Isaac

By on August 2nd, 2025

https://www.jns.org/this-is-the-hezbollah-linked-activist-behind-lawfare-on-israelis/

Long before he perfected the use of lawfare to hound Israelis abroad, Belgian-Lebanese anti-Israel activist Dyab Abou Jahjah was already seen as “one of the most dangerous figures” for modern European Jews, according to a community activist from Antwerp.

Versatile, charismatic and persistent, Abou Jahjah, a 54-year-old Hezbollah supporter, has a track record of making antisemitic statements and calls to violence. Last year, he founded the Hind Rajab Foundation in Brussels to mount legal action against Israelis on disputed war crimes charges.

A newcomer among anti-Israel NGOs, HRF has brought passionate intensity to its legal campaign against Israeli soldiers, bringing charges against them when they travel to foreign countries.

To many, the ability of Abou Jahjah to hijack justice authorities and achieve a celebrity status despite his record is symptomatic of a broader bias that’s turning Belgium—and Western Europe—increasingly inhospitable not only to Israelis, but to Jews in general.  

Over his 20-year career, Abou Jahjah has skillfully used the language of human rights and international law to cast himself as a modern-day Che Guevara to Western audiences. At the same time, he has employed antisemitic rhetoric and glorified violence to gain Muslim support.

Abou Jahjah’s rise reflects “the multiple failures that now threaten the future of Belgium’s Jewish community, as well as the fabric of its society,” said Michel Kotek, head of Belgium’s Jewish Information and Documentation Center.

An alleged ex-fighter for Hezbollah who has admitted lying to obtain Belgian citizenship, Abou Jahjah has become a media-savvy intellectual there while also working as a high school teacher.

So far, HRF, though reaping a public relations windfall, has not persuaded any country to charge an Israeli. HRF’s most recent achievement was getting Belgian federal prosecutors to have police question two Israelis at the Tomorrowland music festival last month. They were released without restrictions, but prosecutors referred their cases to the International Criminal Court, the Belgian media reported on Wednesday.

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Democrats, Israel, and Trump Derangement Syndrome The left’s hatred of Trump—and now Israel—runs so deep, it’s willing to abandon decades of principle just to spite its enemies. By Stephen Soukup

By on August 2nd, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/02/democrats-israel-and-trump-derangement-syndrome/

A long time ago, long before he self-radicalized and became a parody of himself, Peter Beinart was the young liberal who wanted to save liberalism. Beinart was still in his twenties when he took the helm of the flagship journal of progressivism, The New Republic, and began speaking and writing about recreating the positive, muscular, America-loving liberalism of the post-war era. In 2004, Beinart penned a long essay for his magazine titled “A Fighting Faith,” in which he articulated the ideas that would become the foundation of the book, The Good Fight: Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again.

Although most of Beinart’s case—in the article and the book—was based on what he saw as the inherent righteousness of American liberalism, the underlying premise was that “conservative” leaders simply couldn’t win the war. Part of this was a flaw in conservatism itself, its practices and tactics, but another part of it was the belief that the conservative administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had squandered the world’s good faith and no longer possessed the moral authority necessary to shepherd the West to victory over the forces of radical Islam.

Although Beinart didn’t intend it as such, his case for liberal leadership in the War on Terror became a corollary to Charles Krauthammer’s theory of “Bush Derangement Syndrome.” The late, great Krauthammer described BDS as “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency—nay—the very existence of George W. Bush,” and used it to explain how otherwise moderate or sane people (usually Democrats) came to detest everything George W. Bush said or did, even if they knew, in their heart of hearts, that he was right. Because BDS was especially prevalent in connection with the War on Terror, Beinart’s theory that only a “liberal” could win that war became something of a truism. The left and the media (I know, I know…) would never allow Bush—or any conservative—to win the war because of their irrational hatred of him (them). As a result, if the war were ever to be won, a liberal would have to do it.

In short, then, the unified Beinart-Krauthammer theory held—accurately and with little credible opposition—that leftist irrationality and hatred of George Bush made the War on Terror essentially unwinnable. The left’s hatred was more powerful than any instinct it might have to do the right thing.

It’s worth keeping all of this in mind today, as the Democratic Party slowly but surely abandons its support for the state of Israel.

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The Truth Gets Its Shoes On Noah Rothman

By on August 1st, 2025

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-truth-gets-its-shoes-on/

Dozens of marginally curious media outlets and institutions had caught onto the lie promulgated by the New York Times long before the New York Times got around to acknowledging it.

Late Tuesday, the Times finally got around to clearing the caked and dried egg off its face.

NYTimes Communications@NYTimesPR

We have appended an Editors’ Note to a story about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a child in Gaza who was diagnosed with severe malnutrition. After publication, The Times learned that he also had pre-existing health problems. Read more below.

This was no minor error — a modest amendment to a fleeting aside in paragraph 25 of an otherwise airtight story. No, al-Mutawaq’s image was the feature art designed to illustrate the plight endured by all of Gaza’s 2 million people. It ran on the front page, stretching almost to the fold. And the Times wasn’t alone. This stricken child’s skeletal frame was picked up by the Times of London, The Guardian, the Daily Express, and more — all to morally blackmail Israel for pursuing its security priorities in Gaza, but not to pressure Hamas into surrendering in the war it launched and lost for the betterment of the people it supposedly serves.

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Radicals who blocked Israeli ship didn’t represent Syros, locals say David Isaac

By on August 1st, 2025

https://www.jns.org/radicals-who-blocked-israeli-ship-didnt-represent-syros-locals-say/

The island’s leadership calls it “the crisis.” The scene at Syros last week, when passengers from an Israeli cruise ship were prevented from disembarking at the Greek island by anti-Israel demonstrators, rose to the level of an international incident.

Israel’s foreign minister called his counterpart to intervene. The ambassadors of Israel and Greece became directly involved. Greece’s Minister of Citizen Protection promised to throw the book at anyone trying such a stunt again.

The stunt was tried again. On Monday, protesters, though fewer in number, gathered at the port in Rhodes to protest the arrival of an Israeli cruise ship. As it turned out, it was the same cruise ship that couldn’t stop at Syros—the MS Crown Iris operated by Mano Maritime, a Haifa-based shipping firm. This time, police were prepared, and the Israeli tourists disembarked peacefully.

Less reported is that the ship was received in a special ceremony by the mayor of Rhodes, the governor of the South Aegean Region, representatives of the Dodecanese Chamber of Commerce and other personages, who welcomed the passengers in a show of appreciation for Israeli tourism.

Greece is an enormously popular tourist destination for Israelis, to the point where many shopkeepers even speak some Hebrew.

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There Goes The West

By on August 1st, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/08/01/there-goes-the-west/

President Donald Trump has told Canada that if it recognizes Palestine as a state, it’s jeopardizing a trade pact with the U.S. The threat is more than leverage for talks. It’s a reminder that the West is giving up on civilization and needs to be rousted from its slumber.

“Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine,” Trump wrote Thursday on Truth Social. “That will make it very hard for us to make a trade deal with them.”

Canada is not the only Western nation that feels the need to recognize the terrorist-controlled Gaza Strip, which, with the Israel-occupied West Bank, is considered by some to be Palestine, a country that has never existed. Both France and the United Kingdom have said they will recognize Palestinian statehood next month. As loony as that sounds, there might be a practical reason for it. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron “are likely terrified of their local Muslim populations — and probably not without reason,” says Stephen Green.

It’s unfortunate, but more than 75% of the United Nations member countries already formally recognize Palestine. (But the U.N. doesn’t consider Hamas a terrorist group.) Now the holdouts in the West are beginning to surrender, even though Hamas, designated widely as a terrorist organization, governs the Gaza Strip.

Much of the West seems no longer interested in maintaining even a veneer of civilization. In the name of diversity, inclusion, and tolerance, and for the purposes of virtue signaling and assuaging their guilt for enjoying the benefits of civilization, Western “leaders” have actively imported migrants who have not just disrupted society but have taken it backward. They are ceding ground to those who actively despise everything about the West other than its wealth. The results have been appalling.

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Who’s Really Starving Gaza? The world deserves to stop being lied to. by Aynaz Anni Cyrus

By on July 31st, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/whos-really-starving-gaza/

The Hunger Narrative

“Israel is starving Gaza.”

That’s the line. You’ve seen it splashed across headlines, painted on protest signs, shouted from international stages. The UN calls it a “man-made famine.” Celebrities post black squares with #LetGazaLive. Social media reels show crying children with empty bowls, overlaid with dramatic music and a single, pointed caption: Genocide by hunger.

The accusation is explicit, and it’s powerful. What better way to cast Israel as a monster than to say it withholds food from children? No need to mention rockets, tunnels, or terrorists when you can show an empty plate and let the world assume who’s holding it back.

But there’s a problem.

That narrative has a kill switch. It’s called truth.

And the truth is this: yes, Israel has restricted aid into Gaza, especially during periods of intensified fighting. Prime Minister Netanyahu has publicly said that only “minimal” humanitarian aid will be allowed in—not zero, but not full access either. Tactical pauses have been announced to let trucks through. Convoys still move daily. Airdrops are happening. Israel even restored power to water pumps that serve Gaza civilians.

So no—this isn’t a total blockade. It’s a controlled, reduced flow of aid during a war against a terror regime that hijacks every resource it can. Israel’s goal, as stated, is military pressure—not civilian starvation.

But the global narrative ignores all that nuance.

Because the truth makes for bad propaganda.

Meanwhile, Hamas does everything it can to intensify the suffering, block the flow, and profit off the corpses. And that’s what the next section is about.

What Israel Is Actually Doing

Despite what you’ve been told, aid is entering Gaza.

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Diplomatic Terrorism?: France’s Recognition of an Imaginary Palestinian State by Drieu Godefridi

By on July 31st, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21788/france-recognizes-imaginary-palestinian-state

International law — particularly Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention — defines the criteria for statehood: a permanent population, a defined territory, an effective government, and the capacity to engage in relations with other states. Yet neither of the two Palestinian political entities meets these criteria.

By choosing to recognize a “Palestinian state” that clearly fails to meet these established criteria, France departs from any international law. Macron’s declaration is not a matter of legal recognition, but a political gesture — ideological and electoral — masquerading as diplomacy.

[T]his recognition serves as a reward for terrorism. It offers no humanitarian benefit. As US President Donald Trump put it: “What Macron says is irrelevant—it won’t change anything.” The sole concrete outcome is the political legitimization of a jihadist, anti-Semitic, genocidal movement.

On 24 July 2025, France announced its decision to recognize the existence of a “Palestinian state” in September. President Emmanuel Macron portrayed this move as an act of “justice” and “peace.” In reality, however, this recognition constitutes a geopolitical fiction — contrary to international law, flagrantly at odds with the facts on the ground, and laden with profoundly harmful moral implications.

1. What State?

International law — particularly Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention — defines the criteria for statehood: a permanent population, a defined territory, an effective government, and the capacity to engage in relations with other states. Yet neither of the two Palestinian political entities meets these criteria.

On one side stands the Palestinian Authority (PA), headed by Mahmoud Abbas—a feeble administrative remnant, ostentatiously corrupt, loathed by his people and devoid of democratic legitimacy. No presidential election has been held since 2005. The PA’s limited authority extends over only a portion of the West Bank, and even there, it operates with the conditional consent of Israel and under the close oversight of the Israeli military, on which it depends for its own security.

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POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on July 30th, 2025

 www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

 

Tikkun Olam, means “repairing the world”  a Jewish concept that refers to the responsibility to act in the world to improve it, whether through social justice, acts of kindness, or other means.

Alas, it is often used by ignorant hypocrites to legitimate anti-Israel rhetoric. Michael Ordman’s essential newsletters detail how Israel does “repair the world’ through its outsize contributions to technology, science and medicine that combat famine, drought, and epidemics throughout the globe. rsk

SOME HIGHLIGHTS:

Israel protects the Syrian Druze from genocide.

Read the truth about Israeli humanitarian aid.

New Israeli vaccine is even more effective against deadly bacteria.

Israelis are combating drought in Ukraine and Uganda.

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The”Palestine state” extermination gambit Today’s surrender to evil comes in the guise of a human rights lawyer Melanie Phillips

By on July 30th, 2025

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/thepalestine-state-extermination

Britain’s prime minster, Sir Keir Starmer, is widely thought to be boring but decent, technocratic but moderate, a bulwark of centrism against the crazies.

This is wildly mistaken. He is monstrous.

He said today:

The UK will recognise the state of Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly in September unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire and commit to a long-term, sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a Two State Solution. And this includes allowing the UN to restart the supply of aid, and making clear there will be no annexations in the West Bank.

Like French president Emanuel Macron who has also threatened to recognise “Palestine” at the UN in September, Starmer is thus rewarding Hamas for its barbaric and depraved pogrom in southern Israel on October 7 2023.

He is blaming Israel, not Hamas for the “appalling situation” in Gaza. This even though Hamas is responsible for the war by slaughtering 1200 Israelis and others on October 7; taking more than 240 of them hostage and still refusing to release around 50 of them after 22 months incarceration; and stealing food and other aid with the intention of starving Gazans to get patsies like Starmer to say what he’s just said.

Far worse, Starmer is now threatening the Israeli victims of Hamas. Like some mafioso who’s draped his sawn-off shotgun in a keffiyeh, he says that unless Israel stops the war by September he’ll recognise “Palestine”. He imposes no conditions, however, on Hamas. Israel alone gets the treatment.

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