The West is complicit in Hamas’s torture of the hostages The recognition of Palestine is a sick reward for Hamas’s anti-Semitic atrocities. Brendan O’Neill

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/08/04/the-west-is-complicit-in-hamass-torture-of-the-hostages/

We know why Hamas would drag two Jews underground and starve them: because it is an army of anti-Semites founded with the express intention of persecuting Jews. We know why it would humiliate the Jews further by taunting them on film, forcing one to dig his own grave for the cameras and capturing the other weeping in ravenous pain: because it revels in the psychological torment of what it views as a ‘lesser people’. And we know why it would marshal these two skeletal men – Evyatar David, 24, and Rom Bravslavski, 21 – to the end of horrifying the people of Israel: because its sole motivation is to wound, ideally fatally, the Jewish State.

But here’s my question: how do we explain Hamas’s lack of shame over what it inflicted on those two Jews? What lies behind the pride with which it paraded its crimes before the world media? To mimic the Nazis and jail Jews for being Jews before reducing them to raw-boned shadows of their former selves – that’s one thing. But to boast about it, to publish the videos, to show the world the inhuman consequences of your fascistic delirium – that’s another thing entirely. Why is Hamas so content to revel in its aping of the racist hysterias of the past?

It’s because it feels emboldened. It senses that it enjoys a kind of moral impunity among the opinion-shaping classes of the West. It knows our activist classes and influencers have supped so giddily on the Kool-Aid of Israelophobia that even this, even these dystopic images of Jews half-starved by armed anti-Semites, will not be sufficient to steer them back to moral reason. It knows that this horror, too, will be blamed on Israel. The enslavement of young David and Braslavski to the twisted cause of hurting the Jewish nation is a testament to the evil of Hamas. Hamas’s cockiness in releasing sick images of their suffering is a testament to the moral disarray of us.

Christopher F. Rufo, Ryan Thorpe Is New York Ready for Jamaal Bowman as Schools Chancellor? The former congressman founded and served as an unlicensed principal of an academy that pushed radical ideology and yielded dismal student outcomes.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-city-schools-chancellor-jamaal-bowman

Jamaal Bowman, the scandal-plagued former congressman and fire safety enthusiast, is reportedly on the shortlist to become New York City’s next schools chancellor.

If Zohran Mamdani wins the mayoral race later this year, analysts believe Bowman is likely to be tapped to oversee America’s largest public school system, with nearly 1 million students in more than 1,000 schools.

But a new controversy, tracing back to his days as a school principal, should be enough to put such an appointment on pause: Bowman violated state education law.

Prior to being elected to Congress, a position he held from 2021 to 2025, Bowman was the founder of the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action, a public middle school in the Bronx, and served as principal from 2009 to 2019.

To legally serve as a public school principal, “an individual must hold a valid certificate authorizing such service,” according to the New York State Department of Education. State records indicate that Bowman was issued a School Building Leader Initial Certificate on February 1, 2009. But Bowman allowed the certificate to expire on Jan. 31, 2014, and did not reestablish his certification until Dec. 16, 2015.

In other words, for a period of nearly two years, Jamaal Bowman operated a public school without a license — a violation of New York law.

Bowman ignored multiple requests for comment.

Ezra Klein Peddles Old Progressive Disdain for Israel as New Progressive Jews once agonized over Israel’s survival—now many condemn its existence, mistaking provincial ideology for principled liberalism.By Peter Berkowitz

https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/05/ezra-klein-peddles-old-progressive-disdain-for-israel-as-new/

As in 2003, so too in 2025: The illiberal imagination nourishes progressive disdain for Israel.

Since 1897, when Theodor Herzl convened the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, Jews have divided over the significance of a Jewish nation-state in the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland. Seldom, however, have American progressive Jews shown so little sympathy for the challenges that Israel faces as they have in the 21st century or delivered themselves of such illiberal judgments in condemning Israel as they have in the aftermath of Iran-backed Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacres.

In Oct. 2003, amid the Second Intifada’s carnage, the late New York University history professor Tony Judt proclaimed in The New York Review of Books the death of “the Middle East peace process.” The then-common phrase referring to efforts to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict was highly misleading because the parties’ combined population – Israel, along with West Bank and Gaza Palestinians – totaled around 10 million, while the Middle East’s Muslim population stood at approximately 270 million. Not only did the conflict directly involve less than 4% of the Middle East’s population, but it also revolved around a contested sliver of territory that represented less than 0.5% of the land over which Arab states and Iran exercised sovereignty.

Identifying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the principal source of instability and violence in the Middle East casts doubt on Israel’s legitimacy as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

So does assigning Israel the lion’s share of the blame for the conflict. This Judt also did in “Israel: The Alternative.”

His New York Review of Books essay barely alluded to the Second Intifada, which erupted in fall 2000, a few months after then-Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat stormed out of Camp David negotiations over a Palestinian state. Over the next five years, Palestinians conducted more than 130 suicide-bombing attacks on primarily civilian targets in Israel, killing more than 1,000 and wounding more than 8,000. Furthermore, Judt understated the jihadists’ ideological hatred. He said nothing about the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. And he ignored the Palestinian insistence on a “right of return,” a right without foundation in international law that would allow the then-approximately 4 million descendants of some 700,000 Palestinian refugees from Israel’s 1948-49 War of Independence to take up residence in Israel and turn it into a Muslim-majority state.

The Latest Fed Ed Revisions President Trump’s education plans are in motion. Larry Sand

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-latest-fed-ed-revisions/

A few of the most recent developments:

School Choice 

On July 4, President Trump approved legislation allowing the federal tax scholarship program to proceed. The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) offers a tax credit that individuals can use to lower their tax bills by donating money for private school expenses for students. The program is set to begin in 2027. Individuals (not corporations) who donate can cut their tax liability by $1 for every $1 donated to accredited Scholarship-Granting Organizations (SGOs), up to $1,700. The SGOs must be federally recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations.

The program makes students eligible for the scholarship funds if their families’ income does not exceed 300% of the local median gross income—a large pool of potential recipients. For example, in Boise, ID, the median family income is $81,308. So, a family living there would qualify for scholarships if they earned less than $244,000.

The scholarships cover various educational expenses, including private school tuition, tutoring, educational therapies, transportation, and technology. They may also help cover additional costs for students enrolled in public schools.

Additionally, per the law’s final version, states can opt out of participating, meaning no students in those states would be eligible for the program. Politically, this could have consequences. It might be advantageous for Republicans because Democrats are divided on the issue.

While teacher union leaders and white progressives overwhelmingly oppose public support for private schools, school choice remains popular in black and Hispanic communities. In a recent poll, 63% of Hispanics and 68% of Blacks expressed support for a private option.

Nationally, only 39% of public school parents are satisfied with their child’s education, according to an Education Opportunity in America report by 50CAN in 2024.

It’s worth noting that statewide tax-credit scholarships are common. There are 22 such programs in 18 states at this time.

Coleman Hughes: The Simple Truth About the War in GazaHamas’s strategy is to maximize suffering on its own side—and then have the world blame Israel. Our moral confusion is its chief asset.

https://www.thefp.com/p/coleman-hughes-the-simple-truth-about?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Over the past few weeks, images of emaciated Gazan children have circulated the media. Global outrage has exploded over emerging evidence of widespread hunger that the pictures purportedly capture. The anger has led major U.S. allies, including France, Britain, and Canada, to say they will recognize a Palestinian state.

Amid these developments, it may seem cartoonish, even obscene, to say that in the war between Israel and Hamas, Israel is the good guy. But it’s the truth. And it’s a truth that’s incredibly easy to forget amid the day-to-day coverage of this terrible war.

If you need a reminder, consider what Hamas did on Saturday when the terrorist group released a video of Israeli hostage Evyatar David. Evyatar, who is 24 years old, has been held captive by Hamas for 667 days. He is shirtless, gaunt, and clearly starving. Or as his family put it: “a living skeleton, buried alive.” He tells the camera he hasn’t eaten in days.

In one section of the video, he is forced to dig a hole in the tunnel where he is being held. He says it will be his grave.

Hamas released this video because it wants to increase its leverage in negotiations. If the Israeli population becomes so heartbroken that they demand a hostage deal on any terms, then Hamas can go back to ruling Gaza, building up its forces using stolen aid, and preparing for the next October 7.

Another way to put it is that the terrorist group is running a highly effective campaign of information warfare, and Western media outlets are falling for it.

Take a recent article, by now much discussed, published by The New York Times. Relying on testimony from several doctors working in Gaza as well as the Gaza Health Ministry, the article states that deaths in Gaza from starvation are on the rise. One photo stands out: a mother holding an emaciated, skeletal toddler named Muhammad.

9/11-Islam won “Operation Enduring Freedom” War Diane Bederman

https://dianebederman.com/9-11-islam-won-operation-enduring-freedom-war/

Following 9/11 and the horror of it all, America, and her allies, went to war against Afghanistan, against Muslim terrorists, despite the fact that the majority of terrorists, the pilots who perpetrated the attack, had come from Saudi Arabia.

To what end?

How many Americans died in that 20 year war? Answer: 7,053 U.S. service members died in the post-9/11 wars: Operation Enduring Freedom. How many soldiers came home with severe, life changing wounds? Answer: Hundreds of thousands of U.S. and allied service members were wounded in combat and have died or been disabled as a result of injuries sustained in the war zones. Post-9/11 war veterans have far higher rates of service-connected disabilities than veterans of previous wars. Then, in 2021, President Biden withdrew from Afghanistan. And more American soldiers died and the Taliban came back in power. In the meantime, Biden had opened the southern border to anyone and everyone, including barbarians. In the past, barbarians had to break down the wall; not this time. They were welcomed into the country. To this day, Democrats are protecting these people.

Now look around America. After almost 25 years of war against Islam, Islam is in America. Firmly rooted. Muslims have infiltrated education, media and government. Much of that made possible by Qatar. Qatar has wormed its way into the West.

And now America, negotiating a ceasefire in Gaza – a war started by Muslim terrorists – is bending the knee to Qatar; holding peace talks with supporters of terror.

“Living in a Time of Political Hatred” Sydney Williams

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”   Sermon: “A Knock at Midnight,” 1958 Martin Luther King 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           “I hate you!” Who has not screamed that invective, or had it directed at them? It is generally short-lived, an intense, emotional response to an accusation, characterized by anger, contempt and/or disgust.

Such words are usually directed toward specific individuals, things, or ideas. In most cases those feelings are ephemeral. But I write about what I call ‘institutional’ (for lack of a better term) hatred, where an individual or group deliberately foments hatred toward a person, race, ethnicity, or nation. Time is a healer, even of ‘institutional’ hatred. Bill Clinton was despised by Republicans during the 1990s, and as Matthew Hennessey wrote in last Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal: “Hate is too mild a word for how Democrats felt about George W. Bush while he was in the Oval Office.” Today, in both cases, hatred has vanished.

But such hatred is not always transient. Blacks were hated by many in this Country for decades, culminating in the white-robed Ku Klux Klan, whose remnants still exist. The consequences were the killings – many by lynchings – of tens of thousands of black Americans. For more than ten years, from the mid 1930s through May 1945, Nazis maintained a nation-wide hatred toward Jews and others they classified as undesirable. The consequence was that between fifteen and twenty million civilians were imprisoned, tortured, mutilated and/or murdered, in a network of over 44,000 Concentration Camps scattered across occupied Europe.

Hatred clouds reason. Hatred of Jews is what the Nazis employed to get ordinary citizens to go along with their despicable extermination policies. Reason, on the other hand, is what permitted the Allies to ultimately defeat Nazism.

US speaker says West Bank belongs to Jews ‘by right’ in settlement visit by Jeremy Sharon

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/us-speaker-says-west-bank-belongs-to-jews-by-right-in-settlement-visit/
Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson says that the “mountains of Judea and Samaria” belong to the Jewish people “by right,” during a visit to the West Bank settlement of Ariel, according to a statement by the settlement’s municipal authority.

Johnson, who is among the most senior US officials to ever visit a West Bank settlement, speaks at a celebratory event attended by Ariel Mayor Yair Chetboun and the mayors of other West Bank settlements.

“Every corner of this land is important to us. It is an integral part of our faith, and therefore the significance for us is great… We stand entirely by your side,” says Johnson, according to the statement.

“Scripture teaches us that the mountains of Judea and Samaria were promised to the Jewish people, and they belong to them by right. But many people around the world do not see it like this, they label it the ‘occupied territories’ or the ‘West Bank’ or any other name,” he adds. “Every mayor here should know exactly where we stand regarding this issue — and we stand with you.”

His spokesperson does not respond to a request for comment.

Along with Johnson, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, his daughter, and Governor of Arkansas Sarah Huckabee-Sanders also participate in the US delegation, along with Republican congressmen Nathaniel Moran, Michael McCaul, Claudia Tenney, and Michael Cloud.

Is The BLS Corrupt, Or Just Hopelessly Incompetent?

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/08/05/is-the-bls-corrupt-or-just-hopelessly-incompetent/

As soon as President Donald Trump announced that he was firing Erika McEntarfer from her job as commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the wailing and gnashing of teeth began. This was part of an “authoritarian playbook,” it was “Orwellian,” it was “preposterous.”

The correct response is, “long overdue.”

Even for government work, the BLS has been breathtakingly bad at its job, something we’ve been reporting on this space for years.

Back in 2023, we noted that the BLS had been vastly overcounting jobs created since Joe Biden took office by as much as 77,000 a month.  
In the first five months of 2024, the BLS had exaggerated monthly job growth by a cumulative total of 250,000, we noted in July of that year.
Between January 2023 and October 2024, the BLS’s monthly estimate of jobs created was off by a total of 684,000, we pointed out last November.

And these figures don’t count the “benchmark” revisions issued by the BLS, in which they go back and reset all the data for a year. In its latest revision, it cut the number of jobs created from April 2023 through October 2024 by 598,00

NEW OLD LAND: POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

New/Old Land – Israel’s Positive News to 3rd Aug 25

PSALM 87- On the Holy Mount stands the city He founded. The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken oh City of God. 

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
Supporting those who lost homes. (TY UWI) Israeli charity Pitchon Lev (see here previously) provided life-saving assistance to more than 11,400 people during the 12-day war with Iran. Its 15,000+ volunteers delivered food parcels, baby food, diapers, clothing, etc. to many Israelis made homeless by Iranian missile attacks.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/pitchon-lev-responds-to-600-spike-in-aid-requests-during-operation-rising-lion/
 
Honoring the heroes of Operation Rising Lion. At the graduation of 37 new IAF pilots and navigators, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir praised all those involved in the 12-day war against Iran. From pilots and drone operators to intelligence analysts and technical crews. Ex-hostage Agam Berger played at the ceremony.
https://www.jns.org/zamir-iaf-chief-laud-iran-strikes-salute-new-aircrew-in-joint-ceremony/
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-860939
 
Israel’s largest supply operation. Since the beginning of hostilities, Israel’s Defense Ministry said that it has coordinated the transport of more than 100,000 tons of military equipment. It included 870 flights and 144 sea shipments, making it the largest air and sea supply operation in the nation’s history.
https://www.jns.org/us-d9-bulldozers-arrive-in-haifa-port-to-boost-israeli-forces/
 
Ex-hostage finishes the Tour de France. Former hostage Ofer Calderon rode in the Tour de France with the Israel Premier Tech cycling team and team owner Sylvan Adams on the final leg to the Paris Arc de Triomphe.
https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-former-hostage-ofer-calderon-rides-in-the-tour-de-france/
 
Filipino ex-hostage names baby “Israela”. Released Filipino hostage, Gelienor “Jimmy” Leano Pacheco, has welcomed a new daughter – and named her Israela, as a tribute to the people and the State of Israel. Pacheco was abducted by Hamas from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct 7 2023 and released after 49 days in captivity.
https://www.thejc.com/news/world/released-filipino-hostage-names-his-new-baby-daughter-israela-qbf3mquc
 
$1 million for Soroka. The US-based Merage Foundation (see here previously) has committed $1 million to support Beersheva’s Soroka Medical Center, less than a month after an Iranian missile slammed into the southern Israeli hospital. The article also mentions other vital activities in Israel that the Foundation supports.
https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-merage-foundation-commits-1-million-to-soroka-medical-center-after-direct-missile-hit-from-iran/
 
From trauma to triumph. Israeli charity Belev Echad (see here previously) takes wounded IDF soldiers on a trip to Manhattan as part of their recovery program. Co-founder, Shevy Vigler says, “In Israel, they fight to stand again. In New York, they remember how to live again. That’s the moment the healing truly begins.”
https://www.jns.org/wire/idf-recovering-soldiers-go-from-trauma-to-triumph/
 
Our home is gone, but at least we’re alive. Valery, 32, from Tel Aviv, who survived the impact from an Iranian missile strike, 20 meters from his building, said, “In the end, we will come out of this stronger,” A harrowing story, but one that highlights Israeli resilience.
https://www.jns.org/the-tribulations-of-surviving-an-iranian-missile-strike/
 
US college students support Israel. Dozens of American college students traveled to Israel with Jewish National Fund-USA on its alternative week-long summer-break program. In Kiryat Shmona, Akko and Ofakim they packed supplies, painted homes and playgrounds, planted trees and cooked meals for soldiers in the IDF.
https://www.jns.org/wire/united-for-israel-american-college-students-serve-and-support/
 
Young community hubs. As part of the post Swords of Iron War recovery, KKL-JNF is launching community hubs for young Mechina (IDF prep school) graduates in Israel’s northern and southern periphery. In the pilot, subsidized housing will be developed in Yeruham, Dimona, Arad, Kiryat Shmona, Shlomi, Acre and Nahariya.
https://www.jns.org/wire/kkl-jnf-to-launch-young-community-hubs-in-israels-periphery/
 
Parents of fallen soldier make Aliyah. After their son Ben was killed while saving lives at the Nova Festival, his Canadian-Israeli parents made Aliyah to walk the path he chose, turning tragedy into a living tribute.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-parents-of-fallen-soldier-killed-at-nova-festival-make-aliyah-in-his-honor/