ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israeli Defense Minister to Hamas: Hand Over All the Hostages or Lose Land Permanently The terror group faces a stark choice. P. David Hornik

Posted By on March 21st, 2025

https://pdavidhornik.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=email-subscribe&r=8t06w&next=

Today, Friday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz stated:

If the Hamas terror organization continues to refuse to release the hostages, I instructed the IDF to capture additional areas, evacuate the population, and expand the security zone around Gaza for the protection of Israeli communities and IDF soldiers, through a permanent hold of the area by Israel.

As long as Hamas continues its refusal, it will lose more and more land that will be added to Israel.

Katz added that Israel would use “all military and civilian pressure, including evacuation of the Gaza population south[ward] and implementing US President Trump’s voluntary migration plan for Gaza residents.”

Katz also

affirmed Israel’s commitment to the US hostage deal proposal put forward by President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. The plan calls for the release of all hostages—both living and deceased—in two phases, separated by a temporary ceasefire. “We are fully committed to this proposal, which does not compromise Israel’s security interests,” Katz said.

This is a dramatic declaration that is now making headlines on Israeli sites.

I would feel more comfortable if it were Katz’s boss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, rather than Katz, making such a statement—clearly and publicly. The defense minister may be the second most powerful person in Israel, but a statement of this weight should come from the person at the helm. When it doesn’t, it creates a misgiving that Katz may be freelancing.

As it became clear that Hamas was merely stalling in the negotiations and using the time to rebuild and reorganize its forces, possibly build new tunnels, set up rocket launchers, and even plan new cross-border attacks, early Tuesday morning Israel launched heavy airstrikes against the Hamas leadership and terror infrastructure. Since then Israel has continued the military pressure, and by Thursday four separate IDF forces were operating in different parts of Gaza.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

John Roberts Is Responsible for the High Court’s Self-Delegitimization Josh Hammer

Posted By on March 21st, 2025

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/03/21/john_roberts_is_responsible_for_the_high_courts_self-delegitimization_152535.html

At his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing to be chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts famously invoked America’s national pastime in describing his view of the judicial role in our constitutional order: “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules, but it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire.”

If only!

Unfortunately, Roberts’ actual career on the high court has been one extensive repudiation of his lofty “umpire” proclamation. In exalting above all other concerns his personal conception of the institutional integrity of the Supreme Court, and by extension the entire judiciary, Roberts has ironically done more than anyone else to delegitimize the courts. His recent wildly out-of-line criticism of President Donald Trump’s call for impeachment of a rogue lower-court judge is just the latest example. For the court’s own sake, in these politically tense times, Roberts must change course immediately.

Roberts first showed his hand in the landmark 2012 Obamacare case, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. As was initially reported by CBS News’s Jan Crawford in the immediate aftermath of the decision and subsequently reported in later years by other court watchers such as CNN’s Joan Biskupic, Roberts initially intended to rule against the constitutionality of the health care law’s individual mandate — its most controversial feature.

But at some point during the court’s deliberations, Roberts changed his mind. He decided that he could throw a bone to the court’s conservative bloc by ruling against the mandate on Commerce Clause grounds, which the law’s drafters and the Obama administration alike had cited as its constitutional basis. But Roberts threw an even larger bone to the court’s liberal bloc, unilaterally opting to rewrite the statute so as to construe the mandate as a “tax” — which then-President Barack Obama himself had repeatedly told a skeptical public that it was not. Obama’s signature domestic achievement was thus upheld.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

UNRWA still operating in Israel despite laws barring agency By David Isaac

Posted By on March 21st, 2025

https://www.jns.org/unrwa-still-operating-in-israel-despite-laws-barring-agency/

Israel’s UNRWA ban went into effect on Jan. 30 but has been only partially implemented. That worries activists and Knesset members involved in the effort to shutter the terrorism-linked U.N. agency.

To help ensure the law is applied, Likud MK Dan Illouz, who sponsored one of the two bills to bar UNRWA (full name the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), formed the Knesset Lobby for Closing UNRWA. It held its first meeting on Feb. 20.

“We know and have experience that very often laws that are enacted in the Knesset are not necessarily applied,” Illouz told JNS.

Possible threats to the laws’ implementation aired at the lobby’s meeting included High Court interference and attempts by Israeli businesses enjoying commercial ties with UNRWA to sabotage the law.

The two bills, passed into law on Oct. 28, merged four separate private bills. “They were all put together and translated into two historic laws that are meant to put an end to UNRWA’s effective presence in any area controlled by Israel,” Illouz said.

The first law prohibits UNRWA from “operating any representative office, providing any service, or carrying out any activity, directly or indirectly, in the sovereign territory of the State of Israel.”

The second law prohibits any Israeli authority or public servant from dealing with UNRWA. “A government authority, including other bodies and individuals performing public duties according to law, shall not have any contact with UNRWA or anyone acting on its behalf,” the legislation states.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

A BRUTAL REALITY MELANIE PHILLIPS

Posted By on March 21st, 2025

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/

Hamas left Israel no alternative but to resume the war

The resumption of Israel’s war in Gaza has produced a predictable reaction in a world that remains determined to malign the Jewish state.

Western media declared that Israel had ended the ceasefire. In fact, the ceasefire had ended more than two weeks earlier. Although Israel had agreed to a further US-brokered deal, Hamas rejected it and refused to release any more hostages.

Hamas left Israel with no option but to resume the war, which it did with an aerial bombardment of Gaza.

The terror group instantly stated that the bombardment had killed 400 Gazan civilians. This was absurd because Hamas couldn’t have known the number of casualties so fast and, as usual, it omitted any Hamas operatives in the total. Yet in typically reflexive fashion, the western media parroted this incredible figure without questioning it.

No less predictable have been the Israeli protests that by resuming the war Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has abandoned the hostages —of whom 24 are said still to be alive.

The most bitter and agonising reproach has been voiced by some of the former hostages, who have accused Netanyahu of ignoring everything they’ve been telling the world about the horrific conditions in which the captives are being held.

There can hardly be a single person in Israel who doesn’t desperately want the hostages back home. And there’s no denying the genuine anguish at the failure to get them all back. Their plight is beyond horrific, and the profound emotionalism of the public response is entirely understandable.

Unfortunately, such emotion is a barrier to clear and unavoidably brutal thinking. The only way Hamas will return all the hostages is if Israel surrenders and leaves it in power. The reason it took the hostages in the first place was to ensure that Israel could never win against it.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Bangladesh’s Reign of Terror: Toward the Next Islamist Hub of South Asia? by Uzay Bulut

Posted By on March 21st, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21486/bangladesh-islamist-terror-hub

“Politics steadily worsens in Bangladesh. The economy is in free fall, law and order is in a cul-de-sac. The rule of law is under organised assault, with detained politicians, cultural activists and journalists unable to come by bail in court…. Bangladesh’s crisis is existential. All the values instrumen­tal to its emergence 50-plus years ago are systematically being jettisoned by a regime that lacks constitutional legitimacy.” — Syed Badrul Ahsan, veteran Bangladeshi journalist and commentator, December 6, 2024.

Some of the major groups, which were previously banned but, under Bangladesh’s new leadership of Muhammad Yunus, now encouraged, include: Hizb ut-Tahrir, Tawhidi Janata, Hefazat-e-Islam, at-e-Islami, and the Ansarullah Bangla Team.

Since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ouster in August 2024, the government under Yunus has freed convicted Islamic terrorists, downplayed mass violence against minorities (mainly Hindus), and let jihadist mobs take over the streets.

More than 2,200 cases of violence against Hindus in Bangladesh were reported for 2024 alone.

These radical Islamic organizations share the same main goal: a global Islamic Caliphate. If this Islamic takeover succeeds in Bangladesh, the country will become another Islamic terror state — like Afghanistan under the Taliban and Syria under its new terrorist leader, Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa.

On March 7, thousands of members of Bangladesh’s banned Islamist militant group, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, defying police barricades, marched through the streets of Dhaka to demand that the country’s secular democracy be replaced by an Islamic caliphate. Demonstrators chanting “Khilafat, Khilafat” – a direct call for Islamic rule — gathered for the “March for Khilafat” procession outside the Baitul Mukarram Mosque after Friday prayers. The mob at the march turned violent — complete with stone-throwers who clashed with police. The police, in turn, fired back with tear gas and stun grenades.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has been banned in Bangladesh since 2009 for posing a threat to national security, organized this rally in defiance of a government ban on public gatherings.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

A Reckoning for Higher Education? Are American colleges and universities finally getting their comeuppance? By Teresa R. Manning

Posted By on March 21st, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/21/a-reckoning-for-higher-education/

On Friday, March 14, Trump‘s Education Department announced an investigation into more than 50 colleges and universities for their continuation of racial preferences despite the Supreme Court’s 2023 opinion in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (“SFFA”) which found such practices both illegal and unconstitutional. The March announcement, which specifically mentioned race-based scholarships in a program called the “PhD Project,” was a follow-up to a February 14 “Dear Colleague Letter” by Acting Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights Craig Trainor, which told schools to get rid of diversity ideology (aka “DEI” or “diversity, equity, and inclusion)” or lose federal funds.

Things are getting real.

“Diversity” has been all the rage in business and academia for decades now. The word took hold in the 1990s when the prior terms “affirmative action,” “reverse discrimination,” “racial quotas,” and Critical Race Theory (“CRT”) were almost universally denounced as unjust and destructive. Though more pleasant sounding, “diversity” is actually just more of the same, the same wine in a different skin, as they say. A poisonous ideology that pits Americans against each other based on race or sex.

All these movements attack America, aiming to divide and conquer citizens by fomenting racial discord and creating a race industrial complex that enriches some—think the 6-figure salary of “White Fragility” author Robin DeAngelo or the million-dollar homes purchased by BLM founders—while leaving most others demoralized or puzzled. After all, obsession with race crowds out consideration of real aptitude and talent for jobs, scholarships, and school admissions.

With talent yielding to race politics, mediocrity becomes the norm. (Professional athletics, where champions like Tom Brady or LeBron James shine, would never put up with it!) Mediocrity then becomes ruin; the recent DC plane crash, for example, was immediately connected to “diversity hires.”  Ignoring or even penalizing real competence guarantees this result.

But Trump has other plans.

NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE Comments turned off

How President Trump Can Deploy a Missile Defense Shield to Defend America in Only Three Years Trump’s Golden Dome missile shield may take a decade, but deploying Israel’s Arrow system now could quickly bolster U.S. defense against missile threats. By Fred Fleitz

Posted By on March 21st, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/21/how-president-trump-can-deploy-a-missile-defense-shield-to-defend-america-in-only-three-years/

During President Trump’s address to Congress last month, he announced a crucial new initiative to defend the U.S. homeland—the Golden Dome, a next-generation missile defense shield to be “all made in the USA.”

Trump noted that President Reagan had wanted to build such a system, but the technology was not yet available. He said that we now have the technology. Israel has such a system, and the United States should have one too.

President Trump signed an executive order on January 27 stating that the threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles and other advanced aerial attacks is “the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.” The executive order directed the Secretary of Defense to prepare a plan within 60 days to develop a next-generation missile defense shield to defend our country from this threat.

The reaction to Trump’s call to develop a Golden Dome missile shield has been positive but cautious. Gen. Michael Guetlein, vice chief of space operations of the U.S. Space Force, said this project “will require a whole-of-government effort on par with the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb.” Other U.S. military officials raised concerns about legal, technical, and cultural hurdles, as well as the need to develop new and novel technologies.

Even with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency’s government reform efforts, it is hard to see how U.S. defense firms can deploy a Golden Dome missile shield in less than 10 years. Deploying a Golden Dome before President Trump leaves office is probably impossible.

However, there is a way that President Trump can defend our nation against missile attacks now and in the future. He can immediately start deploying Israel’s highly successful Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 missile interceptor systems and implement a longer-term project to build a next-generation Golden Dome missile defense system for the next decade.

The Arrow system is one of the most sophisticated air defense systems in the world. It is designed to intercept medium- and long-range missiles. The Arrow system employs an advanced radar system that detects incoming projectiles and destroys them with hypersonic interceptors.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Generalists Wanted By J.B. Shurk

Posted By on March 21st, 2025

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/03/generalists_wanted.html

Of all the pernicious concepts infecting minds today, perhaps none is more harmful than the belief that only “specialists” can tackle complex problems.  Strange as it might seem, “specialization” is a very recent human phenomenon.  Smart and capable people in the past did not limit their studies to particular subjects or avoid novel ideas emerging in unfamiliar fields.  Thinkers acquired and applied knowledge wherever they could.

Mathematician and Catholic cleric Nicolaus Copernicus not only developed the heliocentric model of the universe, but also formulated the “quantity theory of money” linking inflation directly to the amount of money in circulation.  The plays and poetry of William Shakespeare not only establish him as arguably the greatest writer to have ever lived, but also reveal his philosophical sophistication and proficiency in the modern fields of psychology and sociology.  Leonardo da Vinci was not only a master painter, but also an engineer, biologist, physicist, inventor, and military tactician.  We call these geniuses “polymaths” and “Renaissance men” today because they contributed so much to so many different subject areas.  As a critique against the twenty-first century’s obsession with subject-matter “specialists,” perhaps Copernicus, Shakespeare, and da Vinci should also be remembered as accomplished “generalists.”

Can you imagine one of today’s tenured “experts” from the mathematics or economics department of a modern university admonishing Copernicus for having published theoretical ideas well outside his canon law studies in the Catholic Church?  Or a political science or philosophy professor dismissing Shakespeare as a clever rhymer who was nonetheless out of his depth with regard to international relations and theories of the human mind?  Or an engineer or architect spurning da Vinci for being a mere portraitist?  Of course not.  All of these academic “specialties” and every other discipline with a department on a college campus stand on the broad shoulders of the great “generalists” of the past.  

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel has every right to eliminate Hamas A ceasefire with the Islamist terror group was never going to last. Andrew Fox

Posted By on March 21st, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/03/19/israel-has-every-right-to-eliminate-hamas/

Andrew Fox is a former British Army officer and an associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, specialising in defence and the Middle East.

The ceasefire in Gaza collapsed this week. IDF airstrikes have now resumed, targeting infrastructure and taking out senior Hamas officials. Israel has also issued an evacuation order for the entire Gaza border area, likely signalling a renewed ground invasion. When I was speaking with Israeli insiders in Jerusalem a few weeks ago, it was suggested to me that five entire divisions may be deployed. A deployment of this scale would likely mean the seizure of all of Gaza by the IDF.

The breakdown of the ceasefire in Gaza was predictable, inevitable and solely the responsibility of Hamas. Rather than acting as a genuine partner in peace, it has become evident that Hamas used the ceasefire as a tactical pause to regroup, rearm and prepare for the next wave of violence. Israel – confronted with Hamas’s failure to negotiate in good faith for the release of hostages and phase two of the ceasefire – is entirely justified in resuming efforts to dismantle Hamas as a military threat once and for all.

US president Donald Trump’s insistence on a ceasefire in Gaza posed significant challenges for Israel. When it was agreed in January, the job was only half complete. Hamas continued to hold power and hostages remained trapped in Gaza. However, after weeks of negotiations, one positive outcome of this enforced pause has been the reuniting of many hostages with their families.

The ceasefire has also exposed the truly monstrous nature of Hamas. The dire condition of the returned hostages – as well as the grotesque spectacle of hostage releases, in which the coffins of innocents were paraded before crowds and cameras – served as a stark reminder of Hamas’s barbarism. Meanwhile, seeing Israel return well-fed Gazans has dispelled notions of genocide or deliberate starvation for any sane observer.

Since then, phase two of the ceasefire talks has failed (despite the White House negotiating directly with Hamas, over Israel’s head). Hamas cocked a snook at both the Israelis and the White House, having been warned by Trump what would happen if it continued to stall on releasing the remaining hostages. Now, Trump has given the Israelis the green light to resume targeting senior Hamas members.

Trump’s ceasefire was never likely to be more than a temporary reprieve for Hamas. After all, the group remains fundamentally committed to the destruction of Israel – an aim baked into its founding charter. Any agreement with an organisation whose raison d’être is conflict can only ever be short-lived. Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas launched its unprecedented massacre against civilians in southern Israel, the terror group has repeatedly demonstrated that it does not recognise peace. Rather, it uses pauses in fighting to regain strength.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

New York Appeals Court Blocks NYC Noncitizen Voting Law, Siding with Republicans David Zimmerman

Posted By on March 21st, 2025

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/new-york-appeals-court-blocks-nyc-noncitizen-voting-law-siding-with-republicans/

New York’s highest court on Thursday blocked a New York City law that would have allowed noncitizens to vote in municipal elections, upholding lower court rulings that sided with Republicans who challenged the measure.

In January 2022, New York City became the first major city in the nation to grant municipal voting rights to noncitizens after the the City Council passed the law in late 2021. The measure, however, was never fully implemented due to a legal challenge led by Republicans. If the challenge failed, more than 800,000 green card holders would have been allowed to vote in local elections, such as mayoral races.

The historically progressive New York Court of Appeals struck down the law by a 6-1 margin, concluding the New York constitution only allows citizens to vote.

While Republicans argued all noncitizens are prohibited from casting ballots, Democrats said the law should be interpreted as a floor instead of a ceiling. From that perspective, local governments could hypothetically expand voter eligibility to whomever they wish. The appeals court disagreed with this argument.

“Under that interpretation, municipalities are free to enact legislation that would enable anyone to vote – including . . . thirteen-year-old children,” Chief Judge Rowan Wilson wrote for the majority opinion.