More of Israeli's version of God's love.... Nearly 100 people killed in Israeli attack on north Gaza, rescuers say 5 hours ago Rushdi Abualouf, Cairo; Yolande Knell, Jerusalem; Mallory Moench, London BBC News Reuters A mourner reacts during the funeral of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes at the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia Nearly 100 people, including children, have been killed in a large-scale Israeli ground, air and sea attack launched early Friday in north Gaza, the Hamas-run civil defence and residents have said. The civil defence said at least nine homes and tents housing civilians had been bombed overnight and it had received dozens of calls from people trapped. Witnesses also reported smoke bombs, artillery shelling and tanks in Beit Lahia. Israel's military said it was "operating to locate and dismantle terrorist infrastructure sites" in north Gaza and had "eliminated several terrorists" over the past day. This marks the largest ground assault on north Gaza since Israel resumed its offensive in March.
Support grows for Dutch call to review EU-Israel ties amid Gaza aid blockade Copyright SIERAKOWSKI FREDERIC/ By Mared Gwyn Jones Published on 14/05/2025 French President Emmanuel Macron has said the prospect of suspending cooperation with Israel is an “open question” for the EU. A Dutch proposal to review the EU’s trade and cooperation with Israel over the situation in Gaza is steadily gaining support among a group of member states before it is set to be formally discussed by foreign ministers in Brussels next week. Belgium, Finland, France, Portugal and Sweden have all publicly backed the initiative put forward by Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp – whose government is considered a firm ally of Israel – in a letter to the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas last week. In that letter, seen by Euronews, Veldkamp shares his view that the “humanitarian blockade” on Gaza, where critical supplies have not entered for more than ten weeks, is in violation of international humanitarian law and therefore of Article 2 of the so-called Association Agreement that governs relations and trade between the EU and Israel. Article 2 states that relations "shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this agreement." The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner. The idea of reviewing the agreement was first tabled by Ireland and Spain in a yet-unanswered letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen 15 months ago, but failed to secure the firm backing of any other EU country. Eight countries have now explicitly endorsed the idea ahead of talks next Tuesday. While this is far short of the unanimous support needed, it signals a shift in thinking among the 27. Speaking to French broadcaster TF1 on Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron described the situation in Gaza as “shameful” and said that the prospect of suspending cooperation with Israel was “an open question” for the EU. “We can't just pretend nothing happened,” Macron said. “We have to raise the pressure on these issues.” In response to the interview, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has accused Macron of choosing to “once again (...) stand with a murderous Islamist terrorist organization and echo its despicable propaganda.” EU countries still deeply split The EU’s position on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’ attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, has always been deeply divided. The Netherlands seems to have shifted its position amid the 10-week-long Israeli blockade on critical aid such as medicine and food, which Israel says is an effort to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages held captive since the 7 October attacks. Under plans agreed last week, Israel intends to expand its war on Hamas in Gaza and replace its current system for distributing aid to a privately controlled delivery operation, sidelining UN agencies. The UN has denounced the plan as a “deliberate attempt to weaponise aid.” In his letter, the Dutch foreign minister said these plans appeared incompatible with the “principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence”. Yet German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has since indicated support for a similar Israeli-backed US aid distribution plan, saying during his visit to Jerusalem earlier this week that aid would still flow “based on international humanitarian principles.” Given the unlikelihood of achieving unanimous support, non-profit groups have been calling on the European Commission to bypass the capitals by directly examining Israel’s compliance with Article 2 and proposing “appropriate measures” to the European Council. Former EU High Representative Josep Borrell personally tabled the prospect of suspending ties with Israel back in November, which ultimately led to the convening of a closed-door meeting between the Israeli foreign minister and his EU counterparts. In that meeting, chaired by Borrell’s successor Kaja Kallas, calls for reviewing Article 2 were completely muted as a ceasefire was in force in Gaza. Kallas said last week the Dutch proposal would be examined by EU foreign ministers on 20th of May and that other possible responses would be “brainstormed”. A European Commission spokesperson emphasised on Tuesday that the proposal to review the Association Agreement would require the unanimous backing of all EU member states.
Israeli PM Netanyahu accuses French President Macron of 'choosing to stand' with Hamas Copyright AP Photo By Euronews Published on 14/05/2025 - 14:42 GMT+2•Updated 15:48 During a three-hour televised interview on Tuesday night, the French president criticised Israel's actions in Gaza, labelling them as "shameful". Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has strongly rebuked French President Emmanuel Macron, stating he "once again chose to stand" with Hamas. "Instead of supporting the Western democratic camp fighting the Islamist terrorist organisations and calling for the release of the hostages, Macron is once again demanding that Israel surrender and reward terrorism," Netanyahu said in a post on X Wednesday. "Israel will not stop and will not surrender," he added. The Israeli PM's statement came in reaction to a televised three-hour interview with Macron on Tuesday night, in which the French president said Europe should consider sanctioning Israel over the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where hundreds of thousands are thought to be now facing starvation. “What he's doing is shameful,” Macron said of Netanyahu during his interview with TF1 television on Tuesday. This is not the first time the two have publicly sparred over the same subject in recent times. Netanyahu's criticism of Macron on Wednesday came a month after the French president angered the Israeli government by contemplating recognition of a Palestinian state "because at some point it will be fair" in another televised interview. Netanyahu then called Macron to express "fierce opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state, and said that this would constitute a huge prize for terrorism," his office said in a statement on 15 April. “A Palestinian state established a few minutes away from Israeli cities would become an Iranian stronghold of terrorism,” Netanyahu warned at the time, according to his office. Since renewing its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza in early March following a breakdown of further ceasefire talks, Israel has blockaded the Strip, with no food or medicine allowed into the territory for more than two months. As a result, food experts have said that the entire population of Gaza now faces a critical risk of famine. Human rights groups say Israel is using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war, something Netanyahu and his government deny. Israel has accused Hamas of profiting from its control of the humanitarian aid flow into the Strip and using it to strengthen its militants. The ongoing Israel-Hamas war started when the militant group staged an assault on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking some 250 others hostage.
Let's see what Trump's latest idiotic plan is... The Trump administration’s plan to send Gazans to Libya is as stupid as it is evil https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-gaza-israel-starmer-b2752966.html Donald Trump’s latest reported scheme to end the horror that’s unfolding in Gaza is to somehow dump one million of the enclave’s 2.5 million people in Libya in return for unfreezing $30 billion in frozen assets. The idea is as stupid as it is evil. (more at above url)
Gaza ceasefire talks resume as Israeli assault kills hundreds in 72 hours By Maytaal Angel and Nidal Al-Mughrabi May 18, 20251 JERUSALEM/CAIRO, May 17 (Reuters) - Israel and Hamas resumed ceasefire talks on Saturday in Qatar, both sides said, even as Israeli forces ramped up a bombing campaign that has killed hundreds of people over 72 hours, and mobilised for a massive new ground assault. Palestinian health authorities said at least 146 people had been confirmed killed in the third day of Israel's latest bombing campaign, one of the deadliest waves of strikes since a ceasefire collapsed in March. Many hundreds more were wounded in hospitals and countless others buried under rubble. Israel says it is mobilising to seize more ground in Gaza in a new campaign dubbed "Operation Gideon's Chariots", following a visit this week to the Middle East by U.S. President Donald Trump. It has halted all supplies entering Gaza since the start of March, leading to rising international concern over the plight of the enclave's 2.3 million residents. Reuters journalists saw Israeli tanks assembled on the outskirts of the enclave. Inside Gaza, people fled from the bombardment of northern areas, pushing their belongings on carts. "They are bombing houses, and the people are afraid. What should we do?" Imad Naseer, 50, fleeing his home in the face of the assault, told Reuters. "They treat us as if we are animals, not as humans."
Me thinks The New York Times deliberately made this article such a long read with the intention they didn't want people to read it. As well imo, it's poorly written. The Group Behind Project 2025 Has a Plan to Crush the Pro-Palestinian Movement Even before President Trump was re-elected, the Heritage Foundation, best known for Project 2025, set out to destroy pro-Palestinian activism in the United States. The Heritage Foundation headquarters in Washington, D.C.Credit...Jared Soares for The New York Times By Katie J.M. Baker May 18, 2025 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/us/project-esther-heritage-foundation-palestine.html In late April, the Heritage Foundation dispatched a team to Israel to meet with power players in Israeli politics, including the country’s foreign and defense secretaries and the U.S. ambassador, Mike Huckabee. The conservative Washington-based think tank is best known for spearheading Project 2025, a proposed blueprint for President Trump’s second term that called for reshaping the federal government and an extreme expansion of presidential power. Now the Heritage contingent was in Israel, in part, to discuss another contentious policy paper: Project Esther, the foundation’s proposal to rapidly dismantle the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States, along with its support at schools and universities, at progressive organizations and in Congress. Drafted in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel in 2023 and the mounting protests against the war in Gaza, Project Esther outlined an ambitious plan to fight antisemitism by branding a broad range of critics of Israel as “effectively a terrorist support network,” so that they could be deported, defunded, sued, fired, expelled, ostracized and otherwise excludedfrom what it considered “open society.” Project Esther’s architects envisioned outcomes that at the time might have seemed far-fetched. Curriculum it believed to be sympathetic to a “Hamas support” narrative would be taken out of schools and universities, and “supporting faculty” would be removed. Social media would be purged of content deemed to be antisemitic. Institutions would lose public funding. Foreign students who pushed for Palestinian rights would have their visas revoked, or be deported. Victoria Coates, a former deputy national security adviser and the vice president at the Heritage Foundation who oversees Project Esther.Credit...Jared Soares for The New York Times Once a sympathetic presidential administration was in place, the plan said, “We will organize rapidly, take immediate action to ‘stop the bleeding,’ and achieve all objectives within two years.” Now, four months after Mr. Trump took office, Heritage Foundation leaders are taking an early victory lap. Since the inauguration, the White House and other Republicans have called for actions that appear to mirror more than half of Project Esther’s proposals, a New York Times analysis shows, including threats to withhold billions in federal funding at universities and attempts to deport legal residents. In interviews with The Times — the Heritage Foundation’s first public comments since Mr. Trump took office about its blueprint for shaping U.S. public opinion on Israel — Project Esther’s architects said there were clear parallels between their plan and recent actions against universities and pro-Palestinian demonstrators on both a state and a federal level. “The phase we’re in now is starting to execute some of the lines of effort in terms of legislative, legal and financial penalties for what we consider to be material support for terrorism,” said Victoria Coates, a former deputy national security adviser to Mr. Trump and the vice president at Heritage who oversees Project Esther. Heritage officials said they did not know whether the White House, which has its own antisemitism task force, had used Project Esther as a guide. Administration officials declined to discuss it. But Robert Greenway, a Heritage national security director who coauthored Project Esther, said it was “no coincidence that we called for a series of actions to take place privately and publicly, and they are now happening.” Until now, key details about Project Esther, including the identities of its authors, had not been widely disclosed. The Times reviewed confidential records preceding Project Esther’s release and interviewed Heritage employees, members of the task force that inspired the blueprint and others associated with the initiative to present a clearer understanding of Project Esther’s genesis, aims and impact. “Project Esther changed the paradigm by associating anyone who opposes Israeli policies with the ‘Hamas Support Network,’” said Jonathan Jacoby, the national director of the Nexus Project. Credit...Alex Welsh for The New York Times Republican and Democratic administrations alike have long supported and funded Israel as a crucial ally. And there have been bipartisan efforts to counter criticism of Israel by labeling a range of speech and organizing in support of Palestinian rights as support for terrorism. But Project Esther aims to go further, equating actions such as participating in pro-Palestinian campus protests with providing “material support” for terrorism, a broad legal construct that can lead to prison time, deportations, civil penalties and other serious consequences. “Project Esther changed the paradigm by associating anyone who opposes Israeli policies with the ‘Hamas Support Network,’” said Jonathan Jacoby, the national director of the Nexus Project, a watchdog group that works to combat antisemitism and protect open debate. “It’s no longer about ideology or politics; it’s about terrorism and threats to American national security.” Heritage describes Project Esther as a “groundbreaking” national strategy to fight antisemitism that aims not to censor opinions but to hold people it deems to be supporters of Hamas, a designated terrorist group, responsible for their actions. But critics such as Mr. Jacoby say the think tank is exploiting real concerns about antisemitism to advance its broader agenda of radically reshaping higher education and crushing progressive movements more generally. Project Esther exclusively focuses on antisemitism on the left, ignoring antisemitic harassment and violence from the right. It has drawn criticism from many Jewish organizations amid increasing calls for them to push back against the Trump administration. “Trump is pulling straight from the authoritarian playbook, using tools of repression first against those organizing for Palestinian rights,” said Stefanie Fox, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace. “And in so doing, sharpening those tools for use against anyone and everyone who challenges his fascist agenda.” Her group is one of those described by Project Esther as a “Hamas Support Organization,” or an H.S.O. — a label Ms. Fox strongly rejected. An open letter from three dozen former leaders of major Jewish establishment groups, including a former national chair of the Anti-Defamation League, recently warned that “a range of actors are using a purported concern about Jewish safety as a cudgel to weaken higher education, due process, checks and balances, freedom of speech and the press.” It called on Jewish leaders and institutions “to resist the exploitation of Jewish fears and publicly join with other organizations that are battling to preserve the guardrails of democracy.” ‘The Gloves Will Come Off Very Quickly’ The months following the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza, saw college campuses descend into a state of chaotic division and turmoil, with endless protests and counterprotests. Pro-Palestinian advocates called for an end to the Israeli occupation and its retaliatory war campaign, while supporters of Israel defended the country’s right to self-defense and said they were harassed by their classmates and didn’t feel safe on campuses. Soon after, four well-connected, conservative supporters of Israel met virtually to address these events. Only one was Jewish: Ellie Cohanim, Mr. Trump’s former antisemitism envoy. She said she was grateful when the three men reached out to her and affectionately called them her “Christian friends.” Two were leaders of Christian Zionist groups: Luke Moon, executive director of the Philos Project, and Mario Bramnick, the president of the Latino Coalition for Israel and an evangelical adviser to Mr. Trump. The fourth was James Carafano, senior counselor to the president at the Heritage Foundation. Some evangelical Christians have increasingly aligned themselves with conservative political forces in Israel, supporting their claims of biblical dominion over contested Palestinian territories. Many feel a kinship with Israel because of shared religious heritage. But some also believe that supporting Israel will hasten biblical end times, or advance Christianity’s global influence. A pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University in November 2023.Credit...Bing Guan for The New York Times The think tank, which has influenced Republican presidential administrations since the Reagan era, has long supported Israel. In recent years, this support took on a new dimension, as the foundation blamed the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that gained prominence after George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, along with other progressive movements, for rising reports of antisemitism on campuses. The Biden administration had already released what it called the first national strategy to combat antisemitism, vowing to address the issue. (The A.D.L. counted over 9,000 antisemitic incidents across the United States in 2024, the highest number on record since it began tracking them 46 years ago.) statement of purpose that affirmed a definition of antisemitism that is hotly debated because it considers some broad criticisms of Israel to be antisemitic. Statement of Purpose Antisemitism: We recognize any attempt to delegitimize, boycott, divest, or sanction the modern [state] of Israel or bar Jews from participating in academic or communal associations must be condemned. We recognize that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are the different manifestations of the same hatred against Jewish people. Dozens of groups joined the task force, but an “overwhelming number” had something in common, Mr. Carafano said during a January 2024 meeting: They weren’t Jewish. A short list of initial members that Heritage posted online consisted mainly of conservative and Christian organizations. Heritage built on the task force’s recommendations to write Project Esther, which is named in honor of the biblical queen who is celebrated for saving the Jewish people. By summer 2024, Heritage had finalized a national strategy that aimed to convince the public to perceive the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States as part of a global “Hamas Support Network” that “poses a threat not simply to American Jewry, but to America itself.” It singled out anti-Zionist groups that had organized pro-Palestinian protests, such as Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine, but the intended targets stretched much further. In pitch materials for potential donors, Heritage presented an illustration of a pyramid topped by “progressive ‘elites’ leading the way,” which included Jewish billionaires such as the philanthropist George Soros and Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois. It asserted that philanthropic organizations such as the Tides Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund were backing the antisemitism “ecosystem.” Later, the Heritage Foundation added the names of what it called “aligned” politicians such as Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The pitch materials, which were first reported on by The Forward, included goals such as reforming academia (defunding institutions, denying certain pro-Palestinian groups access to campuses and removing faculty) and lawfare (filing civil lawsuits, identifying foreigners vulnerable to deportation). Other initiatives included plans to enlist support from state and local law enforcement and to “generate uncomfortable conditions” so that groups could not conduct protests. Esther’s Architects Ms. Coates said that her colleagues Mr. Greenway and Daniel Flesch were the co-authors of Project Esther. Mr. Greenway, a former senior National Security Council official, previously ran the Abraham Accords Peace Institute, a nonprofit founded by Jared Kushner that sought to normalize relations between Israel and other Middle Eastern countries. written about his experience as an American Jew who served in the Israeli Defense Forces. Project Esther also benefited from a private advisory committee that included unnamed former National Security Council members from the first Trump administration, Ms. Coates said. Their expertise “created a more compelling product” and gave the plan “a lot more grip and substance than we would have had otherwise,” she said. Ms. Coates holds three degrees in Italian Renaissance art history, and planned on being a professional academic until she grew uncomfortable with what she has described as a “very noxious anti-Western worldview” at her alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. The Heritage Foundation’s office in Washington, D.C.Credit...Jared Soares for The New York Times Blogging about missile defense led to a job for former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and then roles with other Republican politicians before she joined Mr. Trump’s transition team and held various national security roles in his first administration. Two months before Oct. 7, Ms. Coates became the vice president of a division of Heritage that focuses on foreign policy and national security. But her interest in Israel, and in fighting antisemitism, long predated that role, she said. She traces it back to her grandfather, who fought in the D-Day invasion during World War II. “I come from a line of Nazi hunters,” she said. In her recently published book, “The Battle for the Jewish State,” Ms. Coates, who described herself as “a Christian and a religious person,” wrote that “the biblical values on which our civilization rests have always promoted an alliance between Christians and Jews.” But she said her views on Israel were based on an “America-first” approach that recognizes Israel’s role in bolstering America’s security interests in the Middle East. She has visited Israel so often that she has “no idea” how many times she’s been there, she has said. Her office features a collection of Israeli prime minister figurines. In December, a little-known nonprofit that promotes foreign policy discourse on college campuses hosted Ms. Coates to speak about her new book. She revealed her own perspective on how the tactic of slashing federal funding to universities could be used to help bring them to heel. “As a former academic, I can tell you the one thing they care more about than parking spaces is federal funding,” she said. “The viciousness with which the other elements of the faculty will turn on the law schools and the Middle East Studies folk,” she added. “The gloves will come off very quickly.” The next month, Mr. Trump was inaugurated. His administration unfurled a series of directives, some of which closely resembled some of the actionable steps outlined in Project Esther. Necessary Conditions Evidence of HSOs’ criminal activity gathered. Despite acknowledging Heritage’s regular meetings with the administration and members of Congress, employees at the foundation said they didn’t know if White House officials had acted on their recommendations or had just come to the same conclusions about what needed to be done. “I don’t think it’s a great leap to look at the changing landscape since Esther came out, and to look at the actions that Esther calls for and to look at them taking place,” Mr. Greenway said. “But it’s not our place, and not really our purpose, to take credit for the actions that others are taking.” In line with Project Esther’s calls for state-level actions and “public-private” partnerships, a wider campaign is also underway. Heritage Action, the think tank’s grass roots advocacy arm, is helping states pass legislation that penalizes those who support boycotts against Israel. It has encouraged civil litigation as law firms have filed suits accusing various people and organizations of collaborating with Hamas. And Ms. Coates pointed to Heritage’s increased presence in Israel, a country which, Ms. Coates said when she was there recently, “deserves a peace prize for what they’ve done over the course of the last year.” Foundation employees were in Israel primarily to discuss Heritage’s new U.S.-Israel strategy, a copy of which, she said, they personally handed to Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs. But they also discussed Project Esther and concern over a decline in Israel’s public image among younger Americans, a trend that has accelerated since Oct. 7. It is reassuring for Israelis to hear that the largest conservative think tank in the United States is on the case, Ms. Coates said. Leading by Example Project Esther accuses “America’s Jewish community” of “complacency.” “There are multiple Jewish nonprofits that are dedicated to fighting antisemitism, and yet here we are today,” said Ms. Cohanim, the task force’s sole Jewish co-chair. Not everyone who Heritage hoped would join the cause felt comfortable doing so, including prominent Jewish and Christian Zionist organizations that members at the foundation assumed would be allies. Three people from such groups told The Times they did not want to associate with the plan because they found its failure to consider right-wing acts of antisemitism too partisan. Stefanie Fox, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, spoke during one of the group’s member meetings in May.Credit...Jared Soares for The New York Times Ms. Coates acknowledged that antisemitism was also a problem on the right and said that was why it was important for the Heritage Foundation to “lead by example” with Project Esther. “Our goal is to eradicate — or not eradicate, but to confront — what we consider a very noxious bigotry,” she said. But she and others at the Heritage Foundation also contend that the progressive groups that Project Esther charges with supporting Hamas pose a threat not just to Jewish people or Israel but, as the plan warns, to “the foundations of the United States and the fabric of our society.” “This isn’t just a battle for the Jewish state,” Ms. Coates told her audience in December. “It is also a battle for the United States.” Halina Bennet contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research. Katie J.M. Baker is a national investigative correspondent for The New York Times.
We should applaud this Heritage Foundation effort to stop pro-Hamas terrorist-supporting antisemitic violent protests in the U.S.
The deliberate intent of the October 7th murder spree by Hamas was to stop any type of peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. As outlined by the words of chief terrorist Yahya Sinwar in the recent Wall Street Journal article. Hamas invasion intended to thwart Israeli peace with Saudi Arabia, docs reveal - WSJ Yahya Sinwar was quoted in secret Hamas meeting notes that ISraeli-Saudi normalization would "open the door for the majority of Arab and Islamic countries to follow the same path.” https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-854372
The terrorist leader is definitively eliminated. Another Sinwar bites the dust. Hamas leader's body found as peace talks with Israel pick back up https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/05/18/hamas-body-found-amid-peace-talks/2501747579979/ Israel reported Sunday it found the body of Hamas' de facto leader, Muhammad Sinwar, in a tunnel in Khan Younis after he was killed in a series of airstrikes last week. At least 100 people have been killed in the latest series of airstrikes, and Sinwar's body was found as Hamas has offered to release nine hostages in exchange for a 60-day military stand down in an effort to slow down the fighting in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Israel reported Sunday it found the body of Hamas' de facto leader, Muhammad Sinwar, in a tunnel in Khan Younis after he was killed in a series of airstrikes last week. At least 100 people have been killed in the latest series of airstrikes, and Sinwar's body was found as Hamas has offered to release nine hostages in exchange for a 60-day military stand down in an effort to slow down the fighting in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Hamas made its hostage release offer on Saturday following a new round of peace negotiations in Qatar. Officials said there could also be a larger deal in the works to end the fighting that would include a Hamas withdrawal.