Yair Lapid vacations on Holocaust Memorial Day

Something the MSM is deliberately ignoring, it would seem. Leftist Lapid goes overseas at a time like this:

MK Yair Lapid, chairman of the Yesh Atid party and candidate for prime minister, on Wednesday night flew to the US for vacation.

Wednesday night marked the beginning of Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, which continues until Thursday evening.

As a result of his flight, Lapid, the son of Holocaust survivor Tommy Lapid, was absent from the official Holocaust memorial ceremonies at both the Knesset and Yad Vashem.

His spokesman told Arutz Sheva: "Be strong, he's coming back for Independence Day."

He should be ashamed of himself, as should his spokesman. There were people on social media who found this offensive too:

"The State of Israel is dealing with existential challenges and a challenging post-coronavirus period, and what does Yair Lapid do? He travels to the US. The audacity of a 'leader,'" wrote Dr. Haim Misgav.

One person tweeted: "I read this last night and I couldn't believe it. On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yair Lapid flies off to vacation? Especially because of his family history, I can't believe it."

Another tweeted: "I understand that the memorial day for the Holocaust isn't important. For some reason I have the feeling that if this were [Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu, we would see an offensive and insulting campaign about this disrespect."

Lapid gets away with this because of his politics. Absolutely repellent. It proves he's simply not qualified for being a premier.

A French city with only one Jew left is under Islamic siege

Giulio Meotti's written about the sad case of the French city of Trappes, which is now suffering from Islamic sharia:

They call it the "bunker"- a few windows, all screened, a flag on the roof. "It looks like a foreign embassy in a hostile country". In July 2013, following a police check on a veiled woman, 400 residents stormed the building. The siege lasted several hours and required, from the police, 700 stun grenades and tear gas. A helicopter was mobilized.“It looked like a war scene,” a policeman said at the time.

The attacks have continued since then. The latest dates back to Saturday 27 March. Eight mortar rounds with fireworks hit the front of the building.

What building? It is the police station of Trappes, a French town of 35,000 inhabitants, at the center of a long investigation by the weekly Valeurs Actuelles.

The "brigades" go around the city. Those so called are the followers of the Islamic fundamentalist movement Tabligh who, all dressed in white, enforce the religious prescriptions on the inhabitants. Sharia law, Islamic law. They intervene against those who drink, against a lightly veiled woman ...

Hostility becomes palpable and very visible on certain occasions, such as September 11, 2001, the day of the attacks on the World Trade Center. A policeman recalls this chilling scene: “I was driving a scooter in the city center of Trappes. The residents cheered and shouted for joy ”.

Even if this is only one part of the city, it's still a terrible tragedy it's come to this, and many Jewish residents have long left. The way things are going now is definitely poisonous for the country as a whole.

Sudan's government votes to annul anti-Israel boycott

It looks like there may be good news in Sudan, as the government is repealing their 63-year-old law forbidding ties with Israel:

Sudan's Cabinet voted on Tuesday to repeal a 1958 law that forbade diplomatic and business relations with Israel, it said in a statement, the latest development in relations between the two countries.

The move needs the approval of a joint meeting of Sudan's sovereign council and Cabinet, which serves as Sudan's interim legislative body, to come into effect, the Cabinet said.

While Sudan's civilian authorities have maintained that the decision to initiate relations with Israel would be left to the yet-to-be-formed transitional parliament, Tuesday's vote is seen as a step that could pave the way for official visits and further diplomatic ties.

So it appears they're following through with what was arranged when Donald Trump was POTUS, and making a more official agreement with Israel after all these years. And that's very thankful news indeed.

Why I can't feel sorry to see the social justice advocates turn against Geoff Johns

Geoff Johns is a very divisive figure. He's also one of the reasons I stopped reading superhero comics in the mid-2000s, because of the jarring violence he put into his scripts. In all that time, he went on to become a showrunner for TV adaptations of the DC cast members he'd written stories for in the past 2 decades. A most decidedly undeserved career, if you ask me, and as I've noted in past years, he is a leftist himself, little different from other such ideologues in the field. Now, it would seem that, following allegations made by Ray Fisher last year that Johns caused a lot of trouble for him on the set of the Justice League film when he was more involved, the chickens have come home to roost. Let's take a look at this current item from the Hollywood Reporter (via Indiewire), where Fisher goes on with what are admittedly questionable allegations, mainly because of the following:

Fisher was raised by a single mother and his grandmother in Lawnside, New Jersey — a community that he notes was the first self-governing Black municipality north of the Mason-Dixon Line. He says he felt a new sense of urgency to speak out when the pandemic hit and the Black Lives Matter protesters took to the streets.

To Fisher, who had few screen credits, playing the half-man, half-machine Cyborg — the first Black superhero in the DC film universe — was both a huge career break and a major responsibility. (Justice League was released in 2017, the year before Marvel broke ground with Black Panther.) He was mindful that the film was overseen almost entirely by white executives and filmmakers.

While Fisher has dropped details and named names, outsiders have struggled to understand: How did Whedon incur his anger? Did Fisher really decline to participate in an investigation that was launched in response to his own complaints, as Warners claimed in September? Was Fisher fighting a righteous battle or a quixotic one when he set out on a path that appears to have cost him a place in the DC film universe?

The allegations made by Fisher, IIRC, were that Johns was one of Joss Whedon's enablers (reportedly, Gal Gadot also had problems with Whedon, and according to this report, even some Buffy performers accused him of harassment). And in that sense, yes, he could've been, or at least, did nothing to get Whedon to cut out any irrational behavior on his part. That said, it's irritating to think Fisher's raising this whole subject based on BLM, since, as any realistic coverage makes clear they're a movement built on some of the most reprehensible ideologies around, not the least being antisemitism, acceptance of Islam, and even LGBT ideology (which, as noted before, is still considered anathema to the Religion of Peace), and if Fisher accepts BLM in any way, he's only making it difficult to give him backing. Yet that's not saying I care what's happening to Johns' reputation now, if the very same PC crowd he was more or less a part of is throwing him under the bus. Still, the following is interesting:

Multiple sources tell THR that the show's creators were passionate about doing some nontraditional casting and that Regé-Jean Page, who would go on to become a breakout star of Bridgerton, had auditioned for the role of Superman's grandfather. But Johns, who was overseeing the project, said Superman could not have a Black grandfather. The creators also wanted to make one superhero character, Adam Strange, gay or bisexual. But sources say Johns vetoed the idea.

"Geoff celebrates and supports LGTBQ characters, including Batwoman, who in 2006 was re-introduced as LGBTQ in a comic-book series co-written by Johns," says Johns' rep in an email. Johns also pitched Warners on developing a television show around the first LGBTQ lead DC superhero television series, he adds. As for the role of Superman's grandfather, the rep says Johns believed fans expected the character to look like a young Henry Cavill.

Why specifically Cavill, but not a dark-haired white guy who could be 6'3 in height? Granted, it would've been embarrassingly bad if Adam Strange were changed to suit a LGBT agenda - quite possibly at Alanna's expense - for the sake of these politicized TV shows and films now in store, especially after Tom King put out such a horror story co-starring the 2nd Mr. Terrific, and that's an act of potential race-slighting nobody in the MSM thinks to consider. But let's also consider Johns was one of the DC contributors who supported the retcon to Roy Thomas' creation, Obsidian/Todd Rice from Infinity Inc, who'd been changed to homosexual as far back as the mid-90s, and did Johns ever do anything to prevent such agenda exploitation, or reverse it? Nope, nor did he ever try to keep James Robinson from shoving Alan Scott into a similar situation. Oh, and lest we forget, Johns was a co-writer of Countdown to Infinite Crisis, the 2005 crossover-precursor that saw white Ted Kord violently murdered by abruptly changed to baddie Max Lord, all so they could clear a path for putting in a diverse replacement as Blue Beetle, the Mexican-American character Jaime Reyes. If they hadn't resorted to such extreme methods, I'm sure there'd be a lot less objections to having a character of different race take over the role. Instead, under the pseudo-guidance of Dan DiDio, they treated the white originators of the roles and their co-stars like crap on their way out. And they wonder why the comics lost so much of their audience over 15 years ago?

If Johns' approach to live action films and TV differed in any way from his comics writing, there is a possible explanation to that: commercialism, and the apparent belief among people of his ilk that nobody in the wider public could give a crappy damn about the comics proper. That was one of the reasons why David Goyer's live action contributions to Superman a decade ago may have differed from what he was doing in the comics, making Supes forfeit US citizenship. Back then, the entertainment industry was still considerate to some extent of whether the wider public appreciated patriotism, a situation that's drastically changed now. And yet, not only has Johns has been involved with almost every live action adaptation to come out of WB, many of these productions do involve left-wing politics, and SJW themes. He was an executive producer on the Birds of Prey movie, as well as being a co-writer for Wonder Woman 1984, both films which build on current liberal ideologies that're pretty noxious. This being more recent, you could probably argue that in the past, there was a time when Johns wasn't quite that sold on SJW themes in commercial filmdom, yet here we are years later, and now he certainly is, if his recent efforts say something. His listings on the IMDB indicate he's part of the production staff for the upcoming Green Lantern show on HBO Max, and if it follows through with the plans to depict Alan Scott as homosexual, what does that say about his own positions? One sure thing, whether he's still writing comics on a regular basis, he's not doing anything to repair a bad situation getting worse there with social justice themes.

Since we're on the topic, here's a related interview with Johns from Arab-American News about the comic he's writing at Image titled Geiger, which says the following:

Set in a post-apocalyptic U.S., where a nuclear attack has left the continent’s surface unlivable and has pushed life underground, the comic’s release this week is fitting for the grave realities of a global pandemic.

But the main character, Tariq Geiger, is also half-Arab, like Johns. In fact, this is the second time Johns has penned an Arab comic book character. He had previously written an Arab American from Dearborn, Simon Baz, into DC’s Green Lantern canon. Dearborn is no stranger to Arab American heroes in comics, of course, with other notable works from author Saladin Ahmed.

First, let's be clear: an Arabic protagonist is fine. It's the applied religious/ideological beliefs that aren't, namely, Islam, and that's what the Baz character goes by, which unsurprisingly goes unmentioned here. However, there are hints where Geiger's going towards the end:

“When I was at the Arab American Museum (in Dearborn) back in 2012, kids were so excited to see an Arab American character in Green Lantern,” Johns said. “I’ve spent my career trying to diversify the comic book universe and introduce new characters from all sorts of backgrounds in different ways.”

Johns contributions adding new identities to the series Shazam made their way to the screen as well. Geiger, like Simon Baz in Green Lantern, is also unwittingly sent down his path through careless and cruel acts of people acting on stereotypes about Arabs.

Strange, don't they mean Islamists? Because that's pretty much what the GL stories where Baz first appeared seemed to emphasize, and that's why Johns' lurch to something more politically blatant than when he first began his career is so disturbing. He himself may not be an adherent to the Religion of Peace, but he sure seems pretty sympathetic to it. To the point where he cannot spotlight an Arab character who's a non-Muslim/Judeo-Christian adherent, or just simply secular. If he wanted to diversify the universe he's working with, he missed a huge opportunity with Arab characters as well, and something tells me he won't take it now. Heck, if he wants to diversify comicdom, how come no Armenian characters who could serve as a nod to Mannix? How come no Slovakian protagonists either? Such a hypocrite. If Geiger serves as a propaganda vehicle for the Religion of Peace, I won't be wasting money on it. No surprise they're sugarcoating Ahmed's terrible conduct either.

And now, Johns is being shunned by the very SJWs who lauded his agenda-driven tale with Simon Baz a decade earlier. Based on all the harm I feel he brought to the comics industry, that's why I find it hard to feel sorry he's now becoming persona non grata with PC leftists he's been pandering to in Hollywood. I have no idea how valid Fisher's allegations against Johns are, but this is pretty much a case of leftists turning one against the other, and Johns is the next leftist in line on the receiving end of their liberal ideological rants over live action adaptations those outside the industry proper likely won't bother to view on TV and in theaters anyway.

Some info about left-wing novelist Dorit Rabinyan

I'd been taking a look at some information about the left-wing novelist Dorit Rabinyan, whose book "All the Rivers" was the subject of controversy several years ago, because it was said to promote intermarriage between Jewess and palestinian, and the now embarrassingly bad Naftali Bennett, as education minister, initially barred it from classrooms. I found a New York Times item about it, predictably wallowing in a lot of leftism, and it says the following:

The couple find that their similarities and differences are very complicated. Liat, a high-minded, educated woman of the left, sees the only solution as two states, fair but in the end separate. Hilmi thinks there is no dividing the two people on the same land. (This argument, of course, has only intensified.)

One problem with the article itself, if not the novel, is that - you guessed it - there's no mention of Islam here, and whether that's the elephant in the room being ignored. Another, mentioned above, is that the female protagonist of the book is a leftist who upholds the two-state solution propaganda that's absolutely ruined discourse even more than LGBT indoctrination. And just look how they imply a leftist is the "educated" one. I'm betting they'll say the only good type of religious Judaist is one of an extremist Haredi clan like Satmar. Disgusting. That the Hilmi character ostensibly doesn't think there should be division is no alleviation if leftism is ultimately the viewpoint driving the tale. However, the article does have something amazing to tell about what happened after the education ministry eased up on its initial position:

The ministry backed off slightly, allowing some teachers to use the novel in classrooms. What Ms. Rabinyan found disturbed her: It was the students, amid the nation’s palpable drift to the right, who did not want to read the book, which had generally been popular.

“Nowadays kids in Israel and in Palestine are so swept up with this wave of nationalism, exploitative of their instincts,” she said. “The kids themselves rejected the book. They said: ‘It’s a lefty book. I don’t want to read it.’”

If Rabinyan really did say "in Palestine", that certainly confirms what kind of person she is, who clearly despises the Judean/Samarian part of her own country, and may see nothing wrong with the Religion of Peace. Simultaneously, you could wonder if she believes "palestinians" shouldn't be shunning her book's vision, if they are.

I also took a look at this UK Guardian article about Hassan Hourani, the paramour whom the Hilmi character is based on, and it says:

The depressing weather broke me on June 10. It was still raining. I booked myself a plane ticket and told you that in another five days I was going back to Israel. You asked enviously: "You're going home?" I trembled, as usual, when we spoke that word. I do not know which of us started it, when it happened that we stopped saying "Israel" or "Palestine". We simply said home, but we meant the same place. Through your messianic gaze, it was always one place. In my eyes, from a distance of thousands of kilometers, it was the conflict ripping these two places apart that made them, paradoxically, one. From that distance, Abu Mazen seemed to be a brave new leader and Ariel Sharon was quoted as saying, "An end to the occupation." The renewal of talks towards negotiations joined rumours of a rare spring that was sweeping the region after a blessed winter and I, filled with hope and with a physical need for the warmth of the sun, wanted to go home.

So more of the Israel-invalidating propaganda of a palestinian state, I see. And if memory serves, "Abu Mazen" is a nickname for Mahmoud Abbas, the same one who was involved in funding the terrorist attack in Munich. If Rabinyan's got an accepting view of such a monster, that's the real issue with her politics, not intermarriage.

I guess the elephant in the room is whether stories like these take positions viewing Islam as legitimate, including at Israel's expense. On the other hand, I will say that, if Bennett really didn't read the novel from front to back, that was incredibly dumb, and undermines positions I doubt he still has. That said, this review in the Forward reveals a most eyebrow raising detail about the characterization in the book:

“All The Rivers” is an impassioned record of what Liati, the narrator, calls “these mad and beautiful days,” her intense love affair with a talented stranger whom she, a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces, has been conditioned to regard as hostile, or at least treyf. Hilmi has, in fact, spent four months in an Israeli prison for painting anti-Zionist graffiti on a wall in Hebron. The effort to keep their taboo relationship secret from friends and family puts a strain on the couple, as does the fact that Hilmi favors a single binational state and Liati a two-state solution. However, eros overcomes wariness, at least for their November-to-May romance. The realization that on May 20 Liati will return alone to her Jewish life in Tel Aviv concentrates their liaison. “How can you love with a deadline,” a friend asks, “with a stopwatch running?”

Anti-Zionist grafitti?!? Well that's saying something. Basically, the novel must take a position on the word Zionist without even knowing its exact meaning, making it out to sound like it means evil conquestor, not patriotism/nationalism. Also note how this is an affair between a Jewish woman and an Arab man, not a Jewish man and Arab woman, which basically means Rabinyan is playing things pathetically safe. Something tells me you wouldn't see people like this writing a story about a lesbian affair between Jew/Arab either. If anything, Rabinyan is cheap and pathetic in the symbolism this ends up embodying. Of course, Bennett also showed weakness by failing to make clear the specific problem with the book is that it may normalize relations between a Muslim man and a non-Muslim woman.

And actress Gal Gadot's production company, most sadly enough, decided to cash in on this propaganda by adapting it. If the production does go ahead, it'll remain to be seen just how far to the left it'd lean in its vision, one that excuses Islam - which should be the real reason for concern - in its quest to push a propaganda vision. This kind of news is what soured me on Gadot as a country representative, realizing she's apparently a leftist, her army service notwithstanding. I'm sure there's some irony in that, but there you have it when it comes to those who're now in Hollywood.

Moroccan artist uses MeToo label for more valid purposes

France 24 tells of a lady artist from Morocco who's using the #MeToo movement hashtag for promoting comics with more sincere purposes than what US counterparts have been to date, although the channel covering this - wouldn't you know it - omits a certain Religion of Peace from the narrative:

Young Moroccan cartoonist Zainab Fasiki draws on a whiteboard in a Casablanca studio where she is holding a workshop that mixes art with a homegrown illustrated #MeToo campaign.

"We are here to change this rape culture, which says the victim deserves what they get while the criminal is innocent," says Fasiki, 26, her eyes flashing with indignation.

A dozen students and professionals have joined forces with Fasiki, a pioneer in comics and illustration in Morocco, in response to a web series titled #TaAnaMeToo that depicts women's real-life ordeals.

As part of the series -- "Ta ana" means "Me Too" in Moroccan Arabic dialect -- she illustrated the harrowing testimony of a 22-year-old woman who for years was raped by her brother, to the indifference of her parents.

Unlike in the broader #MeToo movement, the Moroccan women who have agreed to share their stories for the campaign have preferred to remain anonymous.

Series producer Youssef Ziraoui says rape victims in Morocco not only have to deal with a sense of "shame" and the risk of being cast out by their families, but can face charges for sex before marriage under Moroccan law if they go to the police.

But why no mention of the Religion of Peace, and how the verses in the Koran influence this kind of behavior? Do they really expect to change anything if there's no knowledge to ensure defense? The sad part of this news, much like the TV station's own political correctness, is that "codes of silence" on ideology are what make it difficult to cease rape culture in an Islamic country, if nobody's willing to acknowledge the belief systems that led to this. In fact, is anybody in the US backing the MeToo campaign even willing to acknowledge news like this from north Africa? Probably not, because unlike what's happening now in the US, where half the allegations made against certain individuals have been false or exaggerated, the cases involving Islam have a lot more validity.

I think the webcomic series the Moroccan artist came up with is a good idea in itself, but if she hasn't acknowledged Islam's indoctrination leading to such culture, then it's bound to be more of a failure. Evil acts don't just simply come out of nowhere; they have to stem not just from bad education but also from bad ideologies. And that's why, while this Moroccan artist's work makes better use of the MeToo label, it'll still fall way short of its intended goals if there's no mention of the Religion of Peace.

SJW themes appearing in Teen Titans Academy

There seem to be a few of the now common problems with identity politics turning up in the pages of the new Teen Titans Academy series, as seen in these 2 panels coming from Inside Pulse:

Let's see, we have here an apparently Muslim adherent named "Summer Zahid", and it should be noted the last name means "devout", "ascetic", "one who renounces the earth and fully devoted to allah", for example, in the Arabic language. So in other words, the writer in charge of this volume is using it as an excuse for Islamic propaganda. And then, as also seen in the 1st panel to 2nd panel, there's a mutant-like creature named Stitch who's non-binary, or "genderqueer".

And it all demonstrates a very sad comedown for a franchise that used to be considered very admirable when originally published during 1964-96, degenerating as it clearly has into a quagmire of identity politics, normalizing bad ideologies and even putting two contradictory ones in the same book while obviously pretending that's not the case. (Islam is opposed to homosexuality, and by extension to the transsexual ideology that grew out of it.) Yet another example of how current DC editor Marie Javins is little different from her predecessor, Dan DiDio, under whom much of this propaganda push first began in past years. I also noticed that the character design for Donna Troy and Starfire does seem fairly muted, especially when you consider the latter's costume, for some reason, isn't what it used to be when she first debuted in 1980. A terrible shame. It's even worse in some ways than Geoff Johns and Mike McKone's dreadful take on Teen Titans in the early 2000s.

When Israel aided Japan after the tsunami disaster of 2011

Some important history of an Israeli medical delegation's aid to a Japanese fishing village, Minamisanriku, following a horrible tsunami that occurred on March 11 of 2011:

This was the worst calamity his town has ever been hit with. Things were on the verge of despair. Roads were either blocked or just destroyed; the power grid and cellular network were down, and the water supply was disrupted. Japan's armed forces brought as much help as they could but the terrified residents who had lost their homes faced a predicament of epic proportions.

Masafumi Nishizawa, a local physician, was the only medical doctor in the city's evacuation center in the immediate aftermath. "Only after a week did more medical teams arrive, totaling 20 specialists; the problem was that all the medical facilities had been decimated. We had no equipment to examine people or to operate." The local leaders were eager for help, and this came from the other end of the earth: Israel.

An Israel Defense Forces delegation in the area some two weeks after the waves hit. It was the first foreign relief delegation to arrive at the site. The government of Japan made any foreign assistance contingent on having the teams bring their own equipment, and Israel was the only country that could meet that requirement in such short notice. The Japanese parliament also held a special session to issue the Israeli delegation members with a special permit that would allow them to treat the locals. Eventually, after passing through many hoops and dealing with many concerns – including worries over being exposed to radiation from the reactor in Fukushima that had undergone a meltdown – the delegation landed. It comprised doctors, nurses, X-ray specialists, and all the necessary equipment. They immediately began setting up a field hospital.

"We required that they be able to conduct tests, but we could not imagine that they would have so much equipment and be so skilled at what they do," Nishizawa recalls in a conversation with Israel Hayom. "Their expertise was amazing and they had everything up and running at record speed." Among the first patients to be admitted to the hospital was Sato's own staff, and he got an X-ray. "They were courteous, they smiled and I was very grateful to get treatment," he recalled.

The Israeli medical team also aided a lot of pregnant women:

The Israelis won over the locals with various gestures that underscored just how dedicated they were to help them. "Pregnant women faced particular duress because they lacked proper equipment. They had to travel long distances just to get checkups or for giving birth," Nishizawa says. "But the Israeli delegation had a doctor trained in delivering babies, and after he had learned of the situation he began making house calls with patients, accompanied by a local female nurse. This level of dedication and their willingness to extend a helping hand to the community was really touching for me," Nishizawa says with admiration.

This is something you may not read about in US/European press sources, which is a terrible shame, because here, you have people who care about life, yet so many anti-Israelists would rather invalidate it for the sake of their prejudices. The Japanese will always remember this fine service, and those who recognize its importance should do what they can to let other countries know about it too.

Why it would be bad for Raam to be part of a coalition

Avi Bareli makes a valid case why the Islamic-led Raam party could be bad for Israel, following last week's election:

For Likud to form a coalition with the Arab Ra'am party means that the Israeli government would consist of a political entity the aim of which is to include Israel in the Islamic caliphate and the ideology linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ra'am spokespeople have expressed support for Hamas in the past, and the party is committed to settling descendants of Palestinian refugees in Israel and erode the very character of the Jewish state.

A government whose very existence depends on such a party will not take the fundamental ethos of the state into account or the main interests of its citizens.

Such a right-wing government might be a temporary event, but it will create legitimacy for a permanent alliance between most Arab Knesset members and the Left, as is the aspiration of Yesh Atid, Meretz, and the Labor Party.

The deniers of Israel will be given the status of permanent "arbitrators" between the Zionist parties, and their arbitration will always lean towards eroding the Jewish state.

It is crucial to differentiate between relying on an Islamist, anti-Israeli party and wanting to appeal to Arab Israelis out of a desire to strengthen the standing of non-Jewish citizens in the democratic Jewish state and bridge the socio-economic gap between them and the Jewish citizens.

Seeing what Raam is really like, that's why, if the Likud doesn't form a coalition with them, it'll be for the best. It's the Arab-Israelis we should seek in backing, but not delegates like Mansour Abbas, what with his repellent acts of the past, if he hasn't abandoned them.

That said, it's terrible that mindless, ungrateful politicians like Gideon Saar and Naftali Bennett led to a situation like this, and now we have a badly divided Knesset that could wind up a dire situation thanks to their efforts to undermine right-wing coalitions.

Update: while we should all be wary of Raam, this news clip is decidedly still worth taking notice of:

Mansour Abbas, the leader of the Islamist Ra’am party, intends to make a high-profile press statement in the coming days, once again pledging support for cooperation with Israel’s Jewish majority, seeking to further legitimize the option of the Arab party to be part of a ruling coalition, Channel 12 news.

However, it is unclear how such a statement would change things when Abbas has been advocating for such cooperation for months.

Many key politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Yamina party leader Naftali Bennett, New Hope leader Gideon Sa’ar and Religious Zionism head Bezalel Smotrich, have in recent weeks ruled out any cooperation with Ra’am.

Presumably, he understands the benefits of maintaining good relations with the Judaist parties. But to really prove himself, Abbas would do well to prove he can jettison his more extreme positions, and that way, better trust can be forged. We'll see how this turns out.

Turkey could interfere in next year's French election

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is warning about the possibilities:

French president Emmanuel Macron has warned that Turkey’s government, led by Islamist president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will make attempts to interfere in next year’s presidential elections.

“Obviously, there will be attempts at interference for the next election. They’re written, and the threats are not veiled,” President Macron said in a television interview, which is part of a documentary on President Erdogan.

Macron went on to criticise Turkey for “a policy of state lies relayed by press outlets controlled by the Turkish state”, according to Le Figaro, and mentioned “some major channels controlled by Qatar”.

The French and Turkish presidents have been at odds for months over several issues, such as Macron’s crackdown on political Islamist groups in the wake of teacher Samuel Paty’s beheading by an Islamist Chechen refugee in October.

It wouldn't be the least bit shocking if Erdogan sought ways to interfere there. And that's exactly why steps should be taken to banish their embassy from France, for example. There's a serious need for an emergency situation, and it will have to be taken as soon as possible.

Awesome Trey Gowdy May 'Get the Call' to Host Fox News' 4:00pm (Pacific Time) 'Fox News Primetime', And I'm Digging It! (VIDEO)

Cross-posted, here: "Trey Gowdy Has the Clear Lead in Viewership for Fox News' 'Rotating' Fox News Primetime, Which Airs Daily, at 4:00pm Pacific Time (VIDEO)."

*****

The news is at Outkick, "MARK STEYN TO RETURN TO HOST FOX NEWS PRIMETIME AS NETWORK SETS NEXT 3 WEEKS DURING SEARCH." 

And Steyn is a worthy host, and he's even more hilarious than Tucker is at the 5:00pm show, "Tucker Carlson Tonight" (which, right now is the highest rated cable program out of all the cable networks, and it's no surprise, because he's just been killin' it).

Here's the list of ratings leaders for the 4:00pm "Primetime" program: 

In order of viewership:

3/8, Trey Gowdy: 2,057,000

2/1, Trey Gowdy: 1,988,000

1/1, Brian Kilmeade: 1,960,000

1/25, Maria Bartiromo: 1,877,000

3/22 (Mon-Wed), Brian Kilmeade: 1,777,000

3/15, Maria Bartiromo: 1,767,000

2/8, Mark Steyn: 1,759,000

2/15, Rachel Campos-Duffy: 1,728,000

3/1, Lawrence Jones: 1,713,000

2/22, Katie Pavlich: 1,647,000

Now, I'm a little surprised that Rachel Campus-Duffy beat out Katie Pavlich, who, I think, is 100 times smarter than Ms. Campus-Duffy, but who knows? Ms. Katie did look a little "green" in the role as "host" of an hour-long show, and, I don't recall, but perhaps Ms. Campos-Duffy is just more experienced. And Ms. Bartiromo's a freakin' pro, in any case, and I wish I saw her on T.V. more often, because I'm rarely up at 3:00am (Pacific) to watch her "Wall Street" program, although I do remember reading she got into a little "hot water" with her aggressive promotion of the "voter fraud" allegations being pushed by Team Trump. (And while there was fraud, and probably monumental fraud, I just wanted personally to "move on," and just gear up for the Georgia special elections, which Republicans lost, not just because of the hypocritical idiot Kelly Loeffler, but because all of those invovled, in the Washington G.OP. [the RNC], and folks down in the "Peach State," just refused to coordinate a wining electoral strategy down there).

Biden uses ISIS sypathizer's attack in Colorado as excuse for blaming guns

Daniel Greenfield wrote about fraudulently elected Biden using the jihadist attack in Boulder, Colorado as another excuse for pushing gun control propaganda:

Two years ago, Ahmad Al-Issa shared a post titled, “Why refugees and immigrants are good for America.” On Monday, the Syrian Muslim immigrant shot up a supermarket killing ten Americans.

Biden declared that he was "still waiting for more information regarding the shooter, his motive, the weapons he used. The guns, the magazines, the weapons, the modifications that have apparently taken place to those weapons that are involved here."

Why do the modifications to the Syrian immigrant's weapons matter more than his motive?

Obama joined in, demanding that it is, “long past time for those with the power to fight this epidemic of gun violence to do so.”

Guns don’t kill people. Muslim terrorists do.

Ahmad Al-Issa spent much of his time in America accusing his classmates and everyone around him of being ‘Islamophobes’. He repeatedly got into furious confrontations with the Americans whom he claimed were disrespecting his Islamic religion.

The media is spinning this as a mental illness, but if hating non-Muslims is a mental illness, then it’s a common one in his home country.

Definitely. And now, Biden's opening of the floodgates is bound to lead to even more attacks like this, after all the hard work Donald Trump did to prevent these horrors from occurring.

Justus Weiner, RIP

The Algemeiner reports on the passing of a scholar who significantly exposed the lies of the late anti-Israel propagandist Edward Said:

Justus was an astute writer. In his 1999 Commentary article that deservedly gained widespread attention, he eviscerated the spurious claim by Columbia professor and Palestinian advocate Edward Said that his family (himself included) had become refugees in 1948 when Zionists forced them to abandon their elegant home in the Talbieh neighborhood of Jerusalem.

But what gave away the lie by Said was:

On Said’s birth certificate (1934) his parents had identified Cairo as their permanent address. Throughout his boyhood, Said’s immediate family — parents, sister, retinue of servants, and Said himself — resided in Cairo, where his father, who had lived in Egypt since 1926, owned a lucrative office supply business. Family photographs showed young Edward in the Mena House gardens in Cairo; on the Alexandria beach and visiting the Giza pyramids with his father; and wearing his double-breasted Gezira Preparatory School blazer, neatly pressed shorts, and knee socks.

As Justus discovered during his meticulous research, the Said family “home” (“my beautiful old house”) in the elegant Talbieh neighborhood of Jerusalem never was “his” house nor was it owned by his parents. Title, Justus found, had passed from Edward’s grandfather to his aunt and her children. (Ironically, the philosopher Martin Buber, who rented an apartment in the Said house, had been evicted by Said’s aunt.) Said’s lament, Justus wrote, was belied by the reality that his affluent family enjoyed annual three-month summer respites in the hills of Lebanon, where his mother was born and grew up.

Although Said would claim that “I lost — and my family lost its property and rights in 1948” in Jerusalem, his lament more accurately described the family plight in Cairo, where revolutionary supporters of Gamal Abdel Nasser destroyed the family business in 1952 and nationalized Said family property. In sum, Justus concluded, Edward Said’s “parable of Palestinian identity,” forged in the suffering inflicted by Israelis on his family, was “an artful lie; a skillful lie; above all a very useful and by now widely accepted lie — but a lie.” It was nothing more than myth shading into mendacity.

Said was quite the liar and inciter for many years, and thankfully, his fabrications were exposed. For this, we should all be grateful to Weiner, for doing a good service for Israel to expose lies by its enemies.

If Biden's bunch is sabotaging Israel's relations with the UAE, that's obviously troubling

Lee Smith wrote on Tablet that it looks like fraud-in-chief Joe Biden and his staff are in the process of sabotaging the Abraham Accords:

Media reports on March 18 revealed that that the United Arab Emirates has suspended its plans for an Abraham Accords summit in Abu Dhabi with Israel, the United States, and other Arab signatories to the historic peace agreements brokered by the Donald Trump administration. Supposedly, the Emiratis are angry with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for using the UAE’s de facto leader Mohammed bin Zayed as a “prop in his election campaign.”

In fact, as the theme of “election interference” should make clear (the UAE doesn’t have elections), and as has been substantiated by Israeli reporting, the source of the upset isn’t in Abu Dhabi but in Washington. In other words, the Biden administration is interfering in Israel’s upcoming election by strong-arming the Emiratis into publicly distancing themselves from Bibi.

This is entirely possible, and what makes it bad is that as a result, relations with the UAE could be damaged, after all the trouble Donald Trump went to in order to get the Abraham Accords worked out in the first place. Another example of the dismal downhill cascade the US now finds itself on.

Biden predictably wants to reset relations with the PLO

As expected, fraud-in-chief Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and their crew want to return to the failed leftist examples of dealing with Israel, such as the "two-state solution", and condoning the PLO:

The Biden-Harris administration is looking to hit the reset button with the Palestinian Authority, including the return to a more traditional (and consistently failed) position on a two-state solution, while rolling back several significant Trump administration positions on Israel.

The four-page memo, titled, “The U.S. Palestinian Reset and the Path Forward,” was obtained by The National, an English-language news outlet based in the United Arab Emirates. It was reportedly presented to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on March 1 by the acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs Joey Hood, and drafted by deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs Hady Amr and his team.

According to the memo, the Biden administration will seek to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace under a two-state solution framework “based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps and agreements on security and refugees.” [...]

It also suggests rolling back some Trump administration policies favorable towards Israel, such as country of origin labels on products manufactured in Israeli-controlled areas in Judea and Samaria. The Trump administration permitted them to be labeled “Israel,” “Product of Israel” or “Made in Israel” when exported to the United States.

Naturally, this is bound to soon cause serious trouble, not the least being the violence it could encourage coming from Islamofascists like the PLO and Hamas. And it goes without saying that "mutual" agreements are only bound to be a pure joke. Even if they don't try to remove the embassy in Jerusalem, they'll still cause disaster, mainly because they want to.

Bible fragments found in Dead Sea cave

Here's some great news in the archaeological medium:

In a stunningly rare discovery, dozens of 2,000-year-old biblical scroll fragments have been excavated from Judean Desert caves during a daring rescue operation. Most of the newly discovered scroll fragments — the first such finds in 60 years — are Greek translations of the books of Zechariah and Nahum from the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, and are written in two scribal hands. Only the name of God is written in Hebrew in the texts.

The fragments from the Prophets have been identified as coming from a larger scroll that was found in the 1950s, in the same “Cave of Horror” in Nahal Hever, which is some 80 meters (260 feet) below a cliff top. According to an Israel Antiquities Authority press release, the cave is “flanked by gorges and can only be reached by rappelling precariously down the sheer cliff.”

Along with the “new” biblical scroll fragments from the Books of the Minor Prophets, the team excavated a huge 10,500-year-old perfectly preserved woven basket — the oldest complete basket in the world — and a 6,000-year-old mummified skeleton of a child, tucked into its blanket for a final sleep.

Since 2017, the IAA has spearheaded an unprecedented rescue operation to salvage ancient artifacts from caves throughout the Judean Desert against the rampant looting that has occurred in the area since the much-heralded — and lucrative — discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Bedouin shepherds some 70 years ago. On Tuesday morning, a sample of the dazzling discoveries were unveiled for the first time.

It's always great when vital discoveries like these are made, especially since we have to make sure they don't fall victim to Islamists who'd want to destroy them.

The jihadism in WW1 must not be forgotten

Foreign Policy Research Institute wrote about the jihad legacy of the first world war in 1914-18, a very important subject to consider.

Interpol drops warrant for jihadist Tamimi

Interpol's caused severe offense by canceling a warrant for the arrest of Ahlam Tamimi, one of the jihadists who committed murder at the site of a Sbarro pizza store in Jerusalem 2 decades ago:

Outrage erupted on Sunday after it was revealed that Interpol had dropped its international warrant for Palestinian terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, who was involved in the 2001 suicide bombing at the Sbarro pizza parlor in Jerusalem that killed 15 people, including American citizen Malki Roth.

Tamimi was serving over a dozen life sentences in an Israeli prison when she was freed in 2011, as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange. She lives in Jordan, which has refused to extradite her to the United States for trial.

She remains listed as a “most wanted terrorist” by the FBI.

The Times of Israel reported on March 12 that Interpol had dropped the international warrant, saying Tamimi was no longer “subject to an Interpol notice.” Tamimi’s picture was also taken off Interpol’s most wanted list. [...]

Malki Roth’s father Arnold called Interpol’s move “blunt and unwelcome” on the family’s blog, and said the international group had “succumbed to pressure from the fugitive’s family, lawyers, and clan in Jordan.”

“My wife and I will not give up in our efforts to see this loathsome person — the embodiment of murderous bigotry — eventually brought to justice to answer for her crimes,” he pledged.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, sent a letter to Interpol’s secretary-general urging him to reverse the decision, noting that Tamimi “has publicly shown lack of remorse and claimed her pride for this attack.”

I'd say this is another example of the loss of morale the world's undergoing after Donald Trump was sadly robbed of reelection last year. Now, even Interpol's caving to the distasteful monsters who committed heinous crimes years before.

Algerian Islamofascist in Quebec threatened to kill his daughters if they didn't wear veils

An Algerian Muslim in Canada's Quebec province was arrested for child abuse and making death threats against his daughters for not wearing veils:

A Muslim migrant from Algeria living in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec is said to have repeatedly threatened to kill his daughters if they refused to wear the Islamic veil.

The 47-year-old, who lived with his family in Montreal, was convicted of threats and violent acts toward his four daughters, with the incidents taking place between 2016 and 2018.

“They were forced to wear the veil, and he regularly threatened to kill them if he saw them ‘like Quebec women,'” Judge Josée Bélanger said, Canadian newspaper Le Journal de Montreal reports.

According to the newspaper, the crimes began in 2016, shortly after the man and his family moved to Canada from Algeria, with the girls being beaten when they refused to obey their father.

The father’s abuse of the girls came to the attention of the teacher of one of the girls, who reported the 47-year-old to police.

During the trial, the Algerian migrant claimed that he was the victim of a conspiracy. He will remain in custody until he is scheduled to be sentenced. The man’s wife has also separated from him, and the man is said to have lost custody of his daughters.

Cases of “honour” violence have been seen in several Western countries in recent years, such as Sweden, where a man is said to have beaten his daughter with a kebab spit and forced two of his children to wear the Islamic veil.

I'm glad the teacher in Canada alerted authorities. But who knows if US officials would've taken the same steps as they did to stop the barbarian? I'd heard in past years that the US is one of the worst offenders in political correctness, and it's certainly a relevant topic now.

Saudi Arabia prefers Netanyahu

The Saudi Arabian government made a most amazing statement in Benjamin Netanyahu's favor:

A source connected to the Saudi royal family explained to i24NEWS in an exclusive exchange that they are closely monitoring Israel's upcoming elections and hope that its government will not change.

The source, who asked to be unnamed, stressed that Saudi Arabia knows and appreciates Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and backs his policies with regard to ties to the Gulf states and his high-pressure tactics on Iran.

"[We] ... not only like Netanyahu but love him. He is terrific. He has the necessary charisma and he knows what he is doing. We are really worried the leader of the opposition will replace him, and change things", he said, referring to Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, head of Yesh Atid faction.

i24NEWS contacted Lapid's office for a reaction but was met with a firm, "No comment."

A separate source, similarly connected to the royal family expounded further on Saudi Arabia's preference for Netanyahu. We see him as "the spearhead in the fight against Iran," they maintained.

Well this is certainly getting somewhere. As I'd noted before, the country has made some improvement over the past few years, that women no longer are obligated to wear niqabs, and can learn to drive cars. So this does suggest another step in improved foreign relations in Arabia.

The real image of Khashoggi: he was pro-jihadist

Caroline Glick reveals some most interesting details about the assassinated "journalist" Jamal Khashoggi, explaining the real reason the Obama administration, and now Joe Biden's fraudulently elected one, are against Saudi Arabia:

MBS and MBZ from the UAE were big problems for Obama, Robert Malley and their ilk. They appeared out of nowhere.

Young and vigorous, they seek to liberalize their conservative societies. They are deeply opposed to Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. They are open to peace and cooperation with Israel. They support Israel in its campaigns against Hamas and Hezbollah. And they are certainly “authentic” Arab Muslims. When the UAE declared the Muslim Brotherhood, and Obama’s key supporters and ideological allies at CAIR terrorist organizations, Obama and his comrades were so angry they could barely put together a coherent sentence.

This brings us to Khashoggi. As Lee Smith reported after he was found dead in the Saudi consulate in Turkey, there were a lot of things about Khashoggi that made him a strange hero for Americans of any stripes. He was a Qatari agent of influence. He was a former Saudi intelligence officer who sided with the Wahabist jihadists in the royal family who supported al Qaeda. He was friends with Osama bin Laden and mourned his death. The al Qaeda, ISIS, Iran and Hamas supporting Qatari regime was essentially writing his columns in the Washington Post.

Khashoggi’s receipt of a green card made no sense. His gig as a columnist at Jeff Bezos’s paper made no sense unless seen as an effort of Obama’s deep state friends, particularly former CIA director John Brennan, who opposed MBS from the outset. And then it made perfect sense. In other words, Khashoggi, a terror supporting Qatari agent against a modernizing, pro-American, anti-jihadist and pro-Israel Saudi Crown Prince was an important political warfare asset for Obama’s clique. His job was to discredit MBS and legitimize the terror-supporting Qataris while making pro-jihadist progressives feel good about themselves.

I’m not saying his murder was justified. I am saying he doesn’t deserve the tears of anyone who opposes jihadist terror and jihadist regimes, cares about human rights or wants to avoid a major war in the Middle East.

Whatever Khashoggi’s ties were with Obama’s clique during his lifetime may have been, the way they responded to his murder made clear what they hoped to do with his death. They wanted the old, bad Saudi Arabia back. They wanted the Muslim Brotherhood funding, al Qaeda-spawning Wahabists of Riyadh back. The Prince Bandars and Prince Turkis of the days of yore, not the guy that gave women drivers licenses.

While I don't think bin Salman should be allowed to invest in certain foreign businesses, as he's been doing, and even now, it's always possible there's reasons to distrust him on specific issues, Glick's right that we shouldn't be sympathizing with Khashoggi, because he was a jihadist sympathizer himself, and I almost forgot that a few years ago, I'd mentioned the dark side of the man. Somebody so monstrous definitely deserves no shed of tears.

Anyway, where bin Salman is doing the right thing is if he's lifting requirements for women to wear niqabs according to Islamic sharia, and allowing them to drive cars and trucks, among other things. Though we should still make sure not to turn the other cheek, because if he still adheres to Islam, that's concerning, as he's sticking with the very Religion of Peace the Iranian and Qatari regimes are, and those who complain about the nuclear warfare conducted by Iran yet remain nailed on the same religion their beliefs stem from is not going to solve the problem.

Yair Lapid's crookedness can't be overlooked

Leftist Lapid, if it hasn't been discussed enough, poses a serious threat for Israel, based on the likelihood he'll end up getting the most votes on the left end of the spectrum for Knesset, and Benjamin Netanyahu made a related point the other day:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu derides right-wing rivals Gideon Sa’ar of New Hope and Naftali Bennett of Yamina, claiming they will partner with the centrist Yesh Atid and its leader Yair Lapid after the election to form “a left-wing government.”

“It’s the eve of Purim, and Bennett and Gideon keep wearing costumes. They say all day ‘We won’t sit with Lapid.’ You ask them about the weather and they say ‘We won’t sit with Lapid.’ They’ve got to deny it, but they have no way of forming a government without it being a left-wing government headed by Lapid,” Netanyahu says.

Notably, neither party has said it will not sit with Lapid in a coalition, only that he will not lead that coalition.

Bennett may have belatedly said he won't sit in a coalition with Lapid, but that doesn't mean damage wasn't done. What if Lapid is willing to form a coalition with the anti-Israeli Arabic parties in the Knesset? That's something that can't be ruled out as a possibility. And if that happens, Bennett is unlikely to admit he's guilty of causing trouble that could've been avoided by being divisive. If somebody as awful as Lapid regrettably is takes over the premiership, Bennett will owe a considerable apology.

Update: Caroline Glick also wrote in Newsweek about why Lapid will spell disaster if he manages to become prime minister, the danger posed by Bennett, and also noted how one of Lapid's potential allies, Saar, was associating with members of the anti-Trump activist group, the Lincoln Project, whose leader has been accused of sex offenses:

...Sa'ar's party is now polling between 11–14 seats. Pollsters assess that around 30 percent of Saar's voters come from Likud's base. By pledging not to join a Netanyahu-led government, Sa'ar's party is the only one moving votes away from the right-wing bloc to the left-wing bloc. Sa'ar hired NeverTrump political consultants from the Lincoln Project to run his campaign. While he was forced to suspend the Lincoln Project's consultancy following embarrassing disclosures about the group's decision to suppress criticism of their colleague John Weaver despite his well-known online sexual harassment of young men, Sa'ar is following the group's NeverTrump playbook. His campaign is based on personal attacks against Netanyahu, whom Sa'ar insists is destroying the moral fabric of Israeli politics.

All Saar does is demonstrate what an ingrate he truly is. And what a disaster for the political scene he's bound to become, along with Lapid.