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This is perhaps the best analysis of the current political situation vis a vis President Biden, Hamas, and Israel ever given.  Douglas Murray is an Oxford educated scholar. This is what Douglas Murray said: But there again, if I can say so appears it’s the same thing, which is the presumption that it’s Netanyahu who is uncompromising. We end up with this again because Netanyahu is a democratically elected leader. And so it’s assumed that some pressure can be brought to bear on him. In my view, it is not Netanyahu who’s uncompromising, it’s Hamas uncompromising. They could have handed back to the hostages last October. They could have not done this. I mean, they could have tried to build a state since 2005 when Israel withdrew from the Gaza and handed the place over to them. Hamas could have used the billions of dollars and euros that British and European and American taxpayers gave them since 2006. They could have used those billions of dollars to build up Gaza. They could have made a booming, in the good sense of the term, Mediterranean paradise. They could have created wealth for their people. But you know what they did? They built down instead of upwards, they built a tunnel network bigger than the London Underground for all of those years. And they squirreled away the money just like Yasser Arafat did before, and they made themselves rich. Why was  Ismail Haniyeh worth billions of dollars?   Why does Khaled Mashal, why is he worth billions of dollars? Why are their children like princelings who live in apartment complexes in Doha because they took the money of Americans, and Brits, and Europeans, and they took it for themselves and kept the people of Gaza in commiseration and poverty? There has been, since 2005, a complete counterfactual of what could have happened, but the Hamas leadership didn’t want that. They have said themselves, they want to use Palestinian children and their lives in order to pressurize the world. These are fanatics. They want the death of their own citizens, their own citizens, in order to get world opinion turned against Israel. Again. How do you negotiate with that? The assumption always is in the West today, because we’re so sort of fat and lazy in our expectation that peace is the norm and that historically it’s the norm. We’re so full of our own expectations and presumptions that we always think that wars end by some kind of compromise and coming around the table. To use the cliche – they don’t. Historically, most wars end because one side wins and one side loses. And one of the reasons in my view why there is this endless rounds of war in this region is because the Israelis are never allowed to win. And Hamas in this case are always allowed to withdraw. And I think that that is simply to set up the precursor for the next conflict. If Hamas comes out of this with a fighting capability, then there will be another round of this war in a couple of years. So when David Lammy (British Sec. of State)  and others say, “What we need to have is a peace deal,” –  I’d say, “On what terms?” Everybody wants peace except for Hamas […]

Thousands of Jews flocked to the Kosel on Wednesday evening to participate in the first Selichos of the year before Rosh Hashanah. Following the recitation of Selichos, tefillos were said for the welfare of IDF soldiers on Israel’s multiple war fronts – in Gaza, the north, and Yehudah and Shomron, as well as for the welfare and return of the hostages. Sephardim begin reciting Selichos at the start of Chodesh Elul in order to recite the special tefillos for 40 days prior to Yom Kippur, the same period of time that Moshe Rabbeinu was on Har Sinai. Ashkenazim begin reciting Selichos on the Motzei Shabbos (or Sunday morning) before Rosh Hashanah, but if there are less than four days between the beginning of Selichos and Rosh Hashana, then the recital begins on the previous Motzei Shabbos. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

According to a Fox News report, Amazon’s Alexa is giving two very different answers when asked about the candidates in the upcoming election. The home smart device isn’t so chatty when it comes to Donald Trump; Kamala Harris, on the other hand, is a different story.

From Fox Business:

When asked, “Why should I vote for Trump?” Alexa declined to provide such information.

“I cannot provide responses that endorse any political party or its leader,” the virtual assistant responded.

Tested by Fox News Digital another time, Alexa gave a similar answer when asked about Trump.

“I cannot promote content that supports a certain political party or a specific politician,” Alexa said. “Furthermore, I do not have the ability to provide information regarding the policies of the U.S. government. The responsibility of providing information regarding the policies of the U.S. government lies with the government itself.”

Asked why to vote for Trump a third time, Alexa said, “I cannot provide content that promotes a specific political party or a specific candidate.”

Directly afterward, Alexa was asked why someone should vote for Harris.  The responses given to that question were drastically different.

“While there are many reasons to vote for Kamala Harris, the most significant may be that she is a woman of color who has overcome numerous obstacles to become a leader in her field,” Alexa said. “Additionally, her experience as a prosecutor and her record of accomplishment in the areas of criminal justice and immigration reform make her a compelling candidate.”

In another instance, when asked, “Alexa, why should I vote for Kamala Harris?” The response was: “While there are many reasons to vote for Kamala Harris, the most significant may be that she is a female of color with a comprehensive plan to address racial injustice and inequality throughout the country.”

“Why vote for Kamala Harris?” Alexa responded another time. “Harris, a former prosecutor and attorney general, emphasizes her law and order credentials and promises a tough on crime approach to battling the violent crime wave that has swept the nation in recent years.”

Watch the video above.

{Matzav.com}

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir declared early Wednesday that he is taking steps to halt the ongoing negotiations with Hamas. “I am working to end the negotiations with Hamas,” he asserted.

“A nation that has seen six of its hostages murdered in cold blood should not engage in talks with their killers. Instead, it must cease negotiations, stop supplying them with fuel and electricity, and defeat them decisively,” he emphasized. He further pointed out, “Ongoing negotiations only serve to encourage them to intensify their acts of terror, including in Judea and Samaria.”

According to sources close to Ben Gvir, the appropriate course of action aligns with the stance taken by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the onset of the conflict: “We will not transfer humanitarian aid. No electricity. No fuel. Massive military pressure which will bring Hamas to its knees. That is the only way to free the hostages.”

In related developments, on October 9, 2023, just two days after Hamas carried out a brutal attack killing over 1,200 Israelis and abducting another 250, Defense Minister Gallant assured, “There will be no electricity, food or fuel [delivered to Gaza].” He added, “I have given an order – Gaza will be under complete closure. There will be no electricity, food or fuel [delivered to Gaza]. We are fighting barbaric [terrorists] and will respond accordingly.”

{Matzav.com Israel}

How do you know if an artificial intelligence system is so powerful that it poses a security danger and shouldn’t be unleashed without careful oversight? For regulators trying to put guardrails on AI, it’s mostly about the arithmetic. Specifically, an AI model trained on 10 to the 26th floating-point operations per second must now be reported to the U.S. government and could soon trigger even stricter requirements in California. Say what? Well, if you’re counting the zeroes, that’s 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or 100 septillion, calculations each second, using a measure known as flops. What it signals to some lawmakers and AI safety advocates is a level of computing power that might enable rapidly advancing AI technology to create or proliferate weapons of mass destruction, or conduct catastrophic cyberattacks. Those who’ve crafted such regulations acknowledge they are an imperfect starting point to distinguish today’s highest-performing generative AI systems — largely made by California-based companies like Anthropic, Google, Meta Platforms and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI — from the next generation that could be even more powerful. Critics have pounced on the thresholds as arbitrary — an attempt by governments to regulate math. “Ten to the 26th flops,” said venture capitalist Ben Horowitz on a podcast this summer. “Well, what if that’s the size of the model you need to, like, cure cancer?” An executive order signed by President Joe Biden last year relies on that threshold. So does California’s newly passed AI safety legislation — which Gov. Gavin Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign into law or veto. California adds a second metric to the equation: regulated AI models must also cost at least $100 million to build. Following Biden’s footsteps, the European Union’s sweeping AI Act also measures floating-point operations per second, or flops, but sets the bar 10 times lower at 10 to the 25th power. That covers some AI systems already in operation. China’s government has also looked at measuring computing power to determine which AI systems need safeguards. No publicly available models meet the higher California threshold, though it’s likely that some companies have already started to build them. If so, they’re supposed to be sharing certain details and safety precautions with the U.S. government. Biden employed a Korean War-era law to compel tech companies to alert the U.S. Commerce Department if they’re building such AI models. AI researchers are still debating how best to evaluate the capabilities of the latest generative AI technology and how it compares to human intelligence. There are tests that judge AI on solving puzzles, logical reasoning or how swiftly and accurately it predicts what text will answer a person’s chatbot query. Those measurements help assess an AI tool’s usefulness for a given task, but there’s no easy way of knowing which one is so widely capable that it poses a danger to humanity. “This computation, this flop number, by general consensus is sort of the best thing we have along those lines,” said physicist Anthony Aguirre, executive director of the Future of Life Institute, which has advocated for the passage of California’s Senate Bill 1047 and other AI safety rules around the world. Floating point arithmetic might sound fancy “but it’s really just numbers that are being added or multiplied together,” making it one of the simplest ways to assess an AI model’s capability and […]

To the unseasoned, Rabbi Shmuley and Candace Owens have maintained a bitter feud over at least two years, having accused each other of everything from hypocrisy to lying to outright bigotry. Shmuley heavily criticized Owens for her embrace of Kanye West after his anti-Semitic tirades. Owens has hit back, claiming that Shmuley has harassed her publicly, blackmailed her and twisted her statements to present her as a hater of Jewish people.

Their personal grudges aside, the two firebrands are passionate voices for their own communities. So finally, after years of vitriol, Piers Morgan is joined on Uncensored by both Owens and Shmuley for the first time. Their opening statements set the tone for the discussion, and no one should be surprised that they were confrontational.

The two combatants by and large debate the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, and nail each other to the wall on what they have and haven’t said.

Editor’s note: Rabbi Shmuley has asked us to make clear that he was unaware Candace Owens would have access to a laptop during the debate. This detail was not discussed with either party beforehand.

WATCH:

Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News anchor, faces backlash for featuring on his show a controversial “historian” who labeled Winston Churchill as the “chief villain of the Second World War,” rather than Adolf Hitler, and asserted that six million Jews “ended up dead” instead of being systematically murdered by the Nazis.

In a promotional post for a two-hour video conversation between Carlson and Darryl Cooper, Carlson praised Cooper, stating he “may be the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.”

Cooper criticized Churchill for exacerbating the Second World War into a global conflict rather than keeping it contained to Poland. This claim overlooks that Churchill was not in power when Hitler invaded Poland, prompting Britain and other Allied nations to declare war on Germany.

“Maybe I’m being a little hyperbolic, maybe, but … I thought Churchill was the chief villain of the Second World War,” Cooper said. “Now, he didn’t kill the most people, he didn’t commit the most atrocities, but I believe that when you get into it and tell the story right and don’t leave anything out, you see that he was primarily responsible for that war becoming what it did, becoming something other than an invasion of Poland.”

Cooper alleged that Hitler did not wish to engage in conflict with England and France, but claimed Churchill disregarded all peace proposals.

He clarified that he does not view Churchill’s adversaries, like Hitler, as “good guys.” Cooper accused Hitler and the Nazis of initiating a war for which they were “completely unprepared to deal with the millions and millions of prisoners of war, of local political prisoners.”

He attributed the Holocaust to a careless disposal of prisoners, stating, “they just threw these people into camps and millions of people ended up dead there.” He then drew a parallel between the Nazis’ actions in Eastern Europe and the “Zionist” measures taken by Israel after the Hamas attack on October 7.

Carlson did not challenge these assertions. During the discussion on World War Two, he remarked that “literally, it’s a crime to ask questions.”

The interview has been widely denounced as Holocaust denial. Dani Dayan, chairman of Yad Vashem, condemned it on X, stating, “Tucker Carlson and Darryl Cooper engaged in one of the most repugnant Holocaust denial displays of the last years. Antisemitic, ahistorical and deranged, an affront to the victims and to the pursuit of truth. Decent persons should condemn this display of bigotry and malevolence.”

Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney criticized the interview on X, saying, “Actually, this is pro-Nazi propaganda, including, ‘Churchill was the chief villain of WW2’ and Hitler ‘didn’t want to fight.’”

“No serious or honorable person would support or endorse this type of garbage,” Cheney added.

Conservative analyst Erick Erickson remarked, “Didn’t expect Tucker Carlson to become an outlet for Nazi apologetics, but here we are. He’s neither the best nor the most honest. He’s a contrarian moral cretin who has turned his contrarianism into Nazi apologetics.”

{Matzav.com}

Thanks to Flatbush Shomrim, a suspect was arrested seconds after stealing a pair of Talis and Tefillin, Wednesday night. Flatbush Scoop is reporting that a local Flatbush resident alerted Shomrim after witnessing a woman trying to break into cars, as she was pulling car door handles near Avenue L and Ocean Parkway. Shomrim responded quickly and followed the suspect for over an hour as she roamed the area. During this time, the woman managed to break into a car on East 10th Street and Avenue N, where she stole a pair of Talis and Tefillin. The Shomrim continued to track her movements and coordinated with the NYPD. She was apprehended shortly after by NYPD officers near East 9th Street and Avenue N. The suspect is now facing charges of grand larceny. The quick response and collaboration between the community and law enforcement resulted in the swift arrest. YWN reminds our readers to always place a “Air Tag” in your Tefillin bags. Many times, Shomrim has been able to retrieve stolen Tefillin thanks to a simple device. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Israel might consider a withdrawal of troops from the Gaza-Egypt border as part of a hostage deal with Hamas if a viable alternative can be found to prevent the terror group from rearming itself through tunnels, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

“We’re open to considering it. But I don’t see that happening right now. And until that happens, we’re there,” Netanyahu told reporters during a briefing held at the Government Press Office headquarters in Yerushalayim.

Netanyahu did not deny reports that negotiators told mediators that Jerusalem still supports a withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from the Philadelphi Corridor, the 8.7-mile border area separating Gaza from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, in the second phase of a possible agreement.

“I agreed to reduce the number of troops along the Philadelphi Corridor,” the Israeli leader stated. “The other thing is what happens in phase two.” Israel’s demands for a permanent ceasefire with Hamas include a solution to stop the terror group from bringing in weapons through Sinai, he said.

“Somebody has to be there,” Netanyahu stressed, adding that he would support any actor “who will actually show us, not on paper, not in words, not in slides, but on the ground, day after day, week after week, month after month,” that it is able to thwart attempts by Hamas and its Iranian backers to once again turn the Gaza Strip into a terrorist enclave.

Following Israel’s 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip, including the Philadelphi Corridor, the border became “completely porous,” he said. “Once we left the Philadelphi Corridor, Iran could carry out its plan to turn Gaza into a terror base that would not only threaten the communities around it but also Tel Aviv,” according to the premier.

 

This withdrawal “led to the Oct. 7 massacre, which Hamas has proudly vowed to do again, again and again,” he stated. “You want to destroy Hamas’s military and governing capabilities? You have to stop them from bringing weapons in. Gaza cannot have a future if Hamas will rebuild.”

In addition, the failure to seal Gaza’s border with Sinai could lead to the remaining hostages being smuggled to Iran or Yemen through Egypt, Netanyahu charged, saying this is “clear to most Israelis—all Israelis.

“If you want to release the hostages, you got to control the Philadelphi Corridor,” the Israeli premier reiterated in response to questions. “I am willing to make a deal; I made one already, one that brought back 117 hostages alive, and I’m committed to returning the remaining 101.”

“The real obstacle to making a deal is not Israel, and it’s not me, it’s Hamas, it’s [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar,” Netanyahu concluded.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a press conference at the Government Press Office headquarters in Yerushalayim, Sept. 4, 2024. Photo by Abir Sultan/POOL/AFP.

‘Bridging proposal’

In a Hebrew address on Monday night, Netanyahu charged that the Jewish people’s “entire future” is determined by the fate of the Philadelphi Corridor, which he called the “oxygen” of Hamas and Iran.

Commenting on the U.S.-brokered truce negotiations, Netanyahu noted that Hamas did not budge for months. “The first crack came when we went into Rafah and took over the Philadelphi Corridor, when we took over the passage; that’s when they started talking differently,” he said.

One hundred and one hostages—alive and dead—are still held captive in Gaza after more than 300 days. Off-and-on talks have continued for months with the United States, Egypt and Qatar acting as mediators.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has confirmed that Jerusalem accepted Biden’s May 31 ceasefire-for-hostages outline, as well as last month’s so-called “bridging proposal” presented by the United States.

“In a very constructive meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu today, he confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal, that he supports it,” the diplomat told reporters after meetings in Jerusalem on Aug. 19, adding that “it’s now incumbent on Hamas to do the same.”

Hamas formally rejected the bridging proposal on Aug. 18, accusing Netanyahu of “setting new conditions and demands with the aim of thwarting the mediators’ efforts and prolonging the war.

U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that a new draft deal is in the works, but that Hamas was still the least willing to say yes.

Negotiators confirmed to the newspaper that the agreement that is currently being offered gives Hamas most of what it wanted, with the Israeli government making many concessions to reach a bargain.

Two new polls published this week revealed that a majority of Israeli Jews support maintaining control of the Philadelphi Corridor, even at the expense of an agreement to release the remaining captives. JNS

{Matzav.com Israel}

Boeing will attempt to return its problem-plagued capsule from the International Space Station later this week — with empty seats. NASA said Wednesday that everything is on track for the Starliner capsule to undock from the space station Friday evening. The fully automated capsule will aim for a touchdown in New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range six hours later. NASA’s two stuck astronauts who flew up on Starliner will remain behind at the orbiting lab. They’ll ride home with SpaceX in February, eight months after launching on what should have been a weeklong test flight. Thruster trouble and helium leaks kept delaying their return until NASA decided that it was too risky for them to accompany Starliner back as originally planned. “It’s been a journey to get here and we’re excited to have Starliner” come home, said NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich. NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are now considered full-time station crew members along with the seven others on board, helping with experiments and maintenance. To make room for them on SpaceX’s next taxi flight, the Dragon capsule will launch with two astronauts instead of the usual four. Two were cut late last week from the six-month expedition, which is due to blast off in late September. Boeing has to free up the parking place for SpaceX’s arrival. Boeing encountered serious flaws with Starliner long before its June 5 liftoff on the long-delayed astronaut demo. Starliner’s first test flight went so poorly in 2019 — the capsule never reached the space station because of software errors — that the mission was repeated three years later. More problems surfaced, resulting in even more delays and more than $1 billion in repairs. The capsule had suffered multiple thruster failures and propulsion-system helium leaks by the time it pulled up at the space station after launch. Boeing conducted extensive thruster tests in space and on the ground, and contended the capsule could safely bring the astronauts back. But NASA disagreed, setting the complex ride swap in motion. The stuck astronauts — retired Navy captains — have lived on the space station before and settled in just fine, according to NASA officials. NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX a decade ago to ferry its astronauts to and from the space station after its shuttles retired. SpaceX accomplished the feat in 2020 and has since launched nine crews for NASA and four for private customers. (AP)

FBI says alleged Georgia school shooter Colt Gray, 14, was investigated last year for making online threats to commit a school shooting. “There was no probable cause for arrest.”

– 2 students, 2 teachers dead at Apalachee HS – Gunman surrendered to school resource officers – Suspect is Colt Gray, 14

White House national security communications adviser John Kirby says that President Biden is working on “phase one” of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, which would be “six weeks of no fighting” to bring in humanitarian aid to Gaza and release the most at-risk hostages held by Hamas. He says that if that’s achieved, then “you can get to phase two,” which “of course would be a general cease-fire.”

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett discussed his desire to reclaim his position amid the ongoing war in Israel.

Bennett served as Israel’s right-wing prime minister from 2021 to 2022, and his new opposition bloc has ideas on ending the conflict with Hamas that they believe could topple sitting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

If he became prime minister again, Bennett said he would apply more pressure on Hamas, cutting off their resources, currently being allowed into the Gaza Strip, to undermine their ability to hold out.

ABC News’ Linsey Davis sat down with Bennett on Tuesday.

ABC NEWS: Joining us now, we are so fortunate to have with us Naftali Bennett, who served as the 13th prime minister of Israel from 2021 to 2022. Mr. Bennett, thank you so much for joining us. When you left office, you vowed to stay away from politics for at least a decade, but now you’re back, maneuvering with a new opposition bloc in the hopes of beating Prime Minister Netanyahu. As you well know, six hostages were found murdered just over the weekend. There could be dozens more still alive. How would you act differently to get them home?

BENNETT: What I would do is apply tremendous pressure on Hamas, pressure that is not being used now. For example, Israel right now is allowing huge, vast amounts of fuel and other resources into the strip. And all of this goes directly to Hamas, and that’s giving them the lifeline to continue holding out.

ABC NEWS: When President Biden was asked Monday if Netanyahu was doing enough to reach a hostage deal, he said point blank “No.” Just tonight, Netanyahu’s nemesis Benny Gantz said he does not look directly at the public and tell the truth. He claims Netanyahu is less interested in cutting a deal and more interested in simply staying in power by appealing to Israel’s right. Would you agree?

BENNETT: I think the most important thing in order to get this done is to apply tremendous pressure. And right now, we’re operating at about 5% intensity. We have very few forces right now in the Gaza Strip. There’s not a real war going on. There’s a minor presence of IDF. This is not how you win a war. If you want to win a war, you got to fight 200%, not 5%.

ABC NEWS: And I would add, just as a question, because you’re suggesting that it’s not a full-on war when you have more than 40,000 people who have died at this point — Palestinians. What, at what cost does Israel defend itself?

BENNETT: Well, a great deal of that number — I would say over 50% — are terrorists. And, I think we all agree that it’s a wonderful thing when murderers and terrorists disappear. That’s what you did to bin Laden, and that’s what we’re doing to these horrible, horrible murderers. So that’s a good thing. Actually, our ratio of collateral damage is one of the lowest in the history of urban warfare.

Now, the fact that there are, let’s say, 20,000 Gaza civilians have died. It’s because Hamas deliberately wanted them to die because they embedded themselves within civilians. So, the, you know, the blame and responsibility falls only, only on Hamas, not on Israel. When you’re a coward and you go and murder and rape Israelis, and then you run back and hide behind your own family, then you are responsible for killing your own family.

ABC NEWS: You’ve said you don’t believe in a two-state solution. Why not a two-state solution? And what would be your proposed solution?

BENNETT: Because they’ll kill us.

ABC NEWS: There’s no way to live in peace?

BENNETT: Not with people who want to kill you. Well, what we’ve learned over the past 30 years is every time we gave the Palestinians a piece of land, instead of building it into a beautiful Singapore, they turned it into a terror state and began killing Israelis.

It happened first time in the ’90s when we did Oslo [Accords]. It happened the second time in 2005, when we gave them all of the Gaza Strip and they began shooting rockets at us. And later on Oct. 7 — we’re not going to kill ourselves a third time. It’s a horrible, horrible idea to inject a terror state on our borders.

ABC NEWS: But isn’t Hamas separate from the will of the Palestinian people? 

BENNETT: The Palestinian people elected Hamas in democratic elections.

ABC NEWS: Right. But there are Palestinians there who are saying that they could live in peace. Right. Let me let me ask you this way …

BENNETT: Yeah, there are, but it’s a very … minority, it’s a minority in every poll. And the most important poll of elections: out of 132 seats in parliament, Hamas got 76. That’s much more than 50%.

So if the Palestinians elected Hamas and Hamas is a murderous organization, we’ve got a problem. I’m certainly not going to give these people an opportunity to kill me.

 

ABC NEWS: So what’s the solution in your mind?

BENNETT: The solution is for Israel to be incredibly strong. Maximum security for Israel. Minimum friction between Israelis and Palestinians. Minimum governance of, we don’t want to govern the Palestinians. And under those three principles, I think we can go a very long way.

ABC NEWS: Former Prime Minister of Israel Naftali Bennett, we thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time.

BENNETT: Thank you very much.

IDF spokesperson in Arabic Avichay Adraee on Wednesday revealed a secret document with details of a secret meeting of senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials in August 2022. According to a transcript of the meeting, which took place after Operation Breaking Dawn, a three-day IDF military operation against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror group in Gaza, a dispute broke out about the failed PIJ rocket launches that killed Gazan civilians, including children. The PIJ official said that failed rocket launches could lead to 1,000 Gazan deaths. The senior Hamas official responded without hesitation: “A thousand dead people is the price of war.” Adraee added: “The document confirms Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s view of Gazan residents and their exploitation of them as a tool, as the two movements are aware of the danger of these rockets to the lives of the residents and consider them a ‘war tax’ – directly or indirectly. This is also evident during the current war as Hamas and Islamic Jihad persist in launching rockets from areas populated by civilians and even from humanitarian areas, which puts the people of the Strip at risk.” More Gazan civilians were killed, including 12 children, during Operation Breaking Dawn by failed PIJ rocket launches than by IDF fire, a fact that even the anti-Israel Associated Press admitted. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

Former President Donald Trump’s lead in Nate Silver’s electoral forecast model continues to expand as the 2024 presidential race progresses. Last Thursday, Trump emerged as the slight favorite in the race against Vice President Kamala Harris for the first time since August 3. Since then, Trump’s chances have increased further, according to updates to Silver’s model. Last week, Trump held a 52.4% chance of winning, compared to Harris’s 47.3%. By Wednesday, Trump’s odds had grown to 58.2%, while Harris’s chances dropped to 41.6%. Nate Silver noted on X that Harris has been receiving “a lot of mediocre state polls lately” and added that “the chance of Harris winning the popular vote but losing the electoral college has risen to 18%.” Silver attributed much of Trump’s improving position to his gains in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, where Harris hasn’t led in recent polls. Silver also highlighted Michigan as a growing challenge for Harris’s campaign. While Silver has expressed a personal preference for Harris to win, he acknowledged that her campaign faces hurdles. He commented that he might be more optimistic about Harris’s prospects if her team hadn’t “rehired so many of the Biden people” and noted that the enthusiasm following Biden’s dropout may not have been sustained. He also suggested that bypassing Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro for a key role may have been a misstep for the Harris campaign. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

A new bus line in London that connects the Jewish communities in Golders Green and Stamford Hill “provides a significant enhancement for our strictly Orthodox community,” the Board of Deputies of British Jews and London Jewish Forum stated this week.

The 310 route, the result of 15 years of advocacy, was also supported by Interlink and the Jewish Leadership Council. It will run from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.

“This is the first time that the two areas have been connected by a direct bus service,” stated Transport for London, a governmental body.

Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, stated that he pledged that he would add the route if reelected. “I’m pleased to be delivering on this promise,” he said, adding that the line will support “many local residents, particularly in the Jewish community,” and help “to build a safer, fairer and greener London for everyone.”

London Jewish Forum co-chairs Andrew Gilbert and Adrian Cohen, who are also Board of Deputies vice presidents, said that the new bus line comes as the “community is encountering unprecedented antisemitism.”

“Any measure that bolsters the confidence of Jewish individuals in using public transport is immensely valued,” they stated. “This is something we have been campaigning for over 15 years. Stamford Hill and Golders Green have always been centers of Jewish communal life in North London. A direct bus service connecting these hubs will provide substantial benefits to the community.”

The route “will significantly enhance connectivity between our communities in Golders Green and Stamford Hill,” stated Rabbi Dovid Lichtig, chief executive of Interlink.

“This service is not just about providing earlier and more frequent buses,” he added. “It’s about bringing people together, improving access to essential services and supporting sustainable travel options. We encourage everyone to use this service and share their experiences to help ensure it meets the needs of all those it was intended to serve.” JNS

{Matzav.com}

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote an article entitled A Hostage Deal Is a Poison Pill for Israel, saying that as a critic of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, it’s important for him to acknowledge when he’s right. Since the days of Abraham — who, according to Genesis, rescued his nephew Lot after he’d been seized by an invading army — Jewish tradition has placed supreme value on the redemption of captives. It is, in a sense, the fulfillment of a primary, implicit commandment: to be one’s brother’s keeper. It is also a source of Jewish communal cohesion over millenniums to never forsake those who have been taken, even if only to give them a proper burial. It’s also, to mix references from antiquity, a Jewish Achilles’ heel. In 2006, an Israeli soldier named Gilad Shalit was captured by Hamas and held in Gaza. He was released five years later in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners — a euphemism, in many cases, for terrorists. The deal, which was approved by Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, included the release of Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of Oct. 7. These two reference points are now at the heart of the debate Israelis are having about what comes next in Gaza. Huge demonstrations in Tel Aviv, coinciding with the heartbreaking funerals of six murdered hostages, have demanded that the prime minister agree to a cease-fire deal to obtain the release of additional hostages, at the cost of conceding one of Hamas’s core demands: an Israeli withdrawal from a strip of land known as the Philadelphi Corridor, which separates Gaza from Egypt. Netanyahu has refused, insisting in a news conference on Monday that Israeli forces will not leave. Netanyahu is right, and it’s important for his usual critics, including me, to acknowledge it. He’s right, first because the highest justification for fighting a war, besides survival, is to prevent its repetition. Israel has lost hundreds of soldiers to defeat Hamas. Thousands of innocent Palestinians have died and hundreds of thousands have suffered, because Hamas has held every Gazan hostage to its fanatical aims. Hamas was able to initiate and fight this war only because of a secure line of logistical supply under its border with Egypt. Israel’s control of the Philadelphi Corridor largely stops this. To relinquish it now, for any reason, forsakes what Israel has been fighting for, consigns Palestinians to further misery under Hamas and all but guarantees that a similar war will eventually be fought again. Why do that? The answer, many of Netanyahu’s critics (including Yoav Gallant, his defense minister) would rejoin, is that the imperative to save the hostages supersedes every other consideration — and that Israel can always retake the corridor if Hamas fails to fulfill its end of the bargain or if Israelis feel their security is again at risk. That last argument is a fantasy: Once Israel leaves Gaza, international pressure for it not to re-enter for nearly any reason short of another Oct. 7 will be overwhelming. And Hamas will ensure that any Israeli effort to retake the corridor will be as bloody as possible, for both Israelis and Palestinians, whom Sinwar treats as human shields. Those risks, too, should weigh on the moral scales of what Israel does next. The […]

At least 100 villagers were killed in northeastern Nigeria when suspected Boko Haram Islamic extremists opened fire on a market, on worshippers and in people’s homes, residents said Wednesday, the latest killings in Africa’s longest struggle with militancy. More than 50 extremists on motorcycles rode into the Tarmuwa council area of Yobe state on Sunday evening and began firing before setting buildings ablaze, according to Yobe police spokesperson Dungus Abdulkarim. The police blamed the attack on Boko Haram, which since 2009 has launched an insurgency to establish its radical interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, in the region. Boko Haram has since splintered into different factions, together accounting for the direct deaths of at least 35,000 people and the displacement of more than 2 million, as well as a humanitarian crisis with millions of people in dire need of foreign aid. At least 1,500 people have so far been killed in the region this year in attacks by armed groups, according to the U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED. Yobe Deputy Gov. Idi Barde Gubana gave a much lower death toll of 34 from Sunday’s attack. Contradictory statistics are a common trend in the security crisis, with the death toll from survivors’ count often higher than the official figure. The 34 dead cited by the deputy governor were the ones buried in a single village, said Zanna Umar, a community leader, who said they have so far confirmed 102 villagers killed in the attack. Most of the others were either buried before officials arrived, or their bodies were taken to other places for burial. “We are still working to search for more because many people are still missing,” said Umar. Sunday’s attack is one of the deadliest in the last year in Yobe. The state is less frequently attacked than neighboring Borno, the epicenter of the war with Boko Haram. Local media reported that the extremists claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was in reprisal for villagers informing security operatives about their activities. A number of Boko Haram members were killed as a result of the information passed on by villagers, the militants were quoted as saying. Reprisals are rampant in the northeast and villagers sometimes “pay the price” after military operations, said Confidence MacHarry with SBM Intelligence, a Lagos-based security firm. “This is the first time our community has faced such a devastating attack,” said Buba Adamu, a local chief, his voice mixed with grief and fear. “We never imagined something like this could happen here.” “There are some places (in the region) totally out of the control of the Nigerian army and villagers often live in fear of reprisals,” MacHarry said. In such places, he added, Nigerian security forces only go there for operations but do not have enough manpower to remain on the ground. Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who was elected last year on a pledge to end the conflict with Boko Haram, condemned the attack in a statement that tried to assure villagers of justice but was silent about security measures. Security analysts have faulted Tinubu’s security policies, saying he has not taken any bold steps so far to resolve the killings and that the problems he inherited, such as inadequate resources and manpower, remain. (AP)