BLUF:
[Hot Air] This is our money they're handing out.
A left-wing group that serves as the lead contractor for a massive federal immigration contract claims the immigration system is "intentionally designed" to exploit "Black and brown people," opposes the use of police officers for "immigration purposes," and says "no immigrant should be detained."
Acacia Center for Justice, based in Washington, D.C., is one of the largest federal immigration contractors, overseeing a $769 million program that provides lawyers for unaccompanied alien children and adults in immigration court hearings and deportation proceedings.
The group says its aim is to provide due process rights for illegal aliens. But it also calls for a radical upheaval of the immigration and deportation system—goals that are starkly at odds with the Trump administration's objectives.
Launched in 2022, Acacia Center argues that "no immigrant should be detained" and that electronic surveillance to track illegal aliens "must be abolished." According to the center, "the use of local law enforcement for immigration purposes ... must be dismantled."
[JewishChronicle] The National Holocaust Museum (NHM) has been denied permission to run an exhibition in Westminster Hall on the grounds that it was too political.
In correspondence seen by the JC, authorities told NHM, who wished to set up the display for Holocaust Memorial Day, that "Westminster Hall is a politically neutral space and activity which could be perceived as campaigning/lobbying or trying to influence political opinions would not be permitted".
They were instead offered to apply for a space in the Upper Waiting Hall, a much less central location in the Palace of Westminster.
The exhibition tells the story of the Jewish communities in Berlin, Baghdad, Kielce (Poland), Aden (Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... ) and southern Israel and the pogroms that led to their ethnic cleansing in 1938, 1941, 1946, 1947 and 2023 respectively.
“How dare you claim that noble brown Moslems were ever mean to the Jews like eeeevil rightwing Nazis! And how dare you claim that there were native, brown Jews in the Middle East who were not white European colonizers!!” *hands over ears, eyes screwed shut* “Lalalalalalala — I can’t hear you!!!!!!”
Titled The Vicious Circle organisers also have plans to for international showcases in Tallinn, Berlin and the European Parliament in Brussels.
However,
the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... despite the claims of political neutrality, the JC understands that the controversial Paleostine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) was allowed to display the Paleostinian flag in Westminster Hall as they organised supportive activists to lobby MPs.
The JC has previously reported about signs on display at PSC-organised marches comparing Israel’s war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... with the Holocaust, displays of support for Hamas ..always the voice of sweet reason... and Hezbollah and suggestion that the BBC is controlled by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and "infested" with "Zionists".
It can’t be forbidden behaviour if the Labour staffers believe it to be a higher truth, no matter the fiddlin’ facts.
NHM Director Marc Cave told the JC: "On Holocaust Memorial Day, Britannia’s remembrance of the only industrialised, multi-country genocide ever known was extremely moving. Its support for our community of Holocaust survivors was heart-warming.
"Why does our desire to highlight the delusion that drives all murder of Jews so unsettle the Westminster Hall committee? The Holocaust is not finished business. It has been reopened by haters welcomed into Parliament — a group who play their part in driving the next turn of the Vicious Circle against Jews."
They don’t want to know. If they knew, they’d have to do something about it, when they really just want the Jews to stop making such a fuss.
He added: "A Parliament which does not therefore welcome an exhibition which presents an alternative view, based on hard facts and zero ’lobbying’ content — is not the democratic institution I believed it was.
"It is only fair that Westminster Hall accords us the same democratic opportunity it has granted to monomaniacs who absurdly pin all the world’s problems on 0.2 per cent of its population."
However,
the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... Parliamentary authorities insisted that the signs which the PSC were allowed to display in Westminster Hall were temporary and solely for the purpose of directing guests during their mass lobby event.
A mass lobby is when a large number of people contact their MPs in advance and all arrange to meet with them at Parliament on the same day to discuss a particular cause.
Both the Trades Union Congress and The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association were also allowed to display signage for the purposes of directing activists during their mass lobbies of parliament, and authorities said that these weren’t comparable to an exhibition.
A parliamentary spokesperson told the JC: "Requests for exhibitions in Westminster Hall are taken on a case-by-case basis, and many requests are made throughout the year. These are completely different to mass lobbies — signage is considered on a case-by-case basis for the sole purposes of directing individuals during a mass lobby."
Meanwhile,
...back at the shootout, Butch cautiously raised his hat over the edge of the horse trough on the end of a stick...... ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day, an exhibition put on by the Holocaust Educational Trust was on display in another prominent location in Westminster.
Testimony 360: People and Places of the Holocaust, located in Portcullis House — the newer part of the parliamentary estate where many MPs have their offices and routinely meet guests — features cutting-edge AI and virtual reality technology that allows MPs and visitors to Westminster to ask questions to a digital version of Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg BEM, and virtually explore the sites from his testimony.
Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who toured the exhibition with survivors featured in it, also hosted a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony in Portcullis House.
Last year, Westminster Hall featured a Chanukah reception and speeches by representatives of all three major political parties and Jewish communal leaders.
Lord Mann, the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, said that the occasion was the second time in the 800-year history of Westminster Hall that a Chanukah reception had been hosted there, and he confirmed it would now be "an annual event in Parliament".
[ZeroHedge] Iraqi refugee and anti-Islam activist Salwan Momika was rubbed out overnight on Wednesday, shockingly as he was in the middle of a live-stream in his apartment.
Five people had immediately been arrested in connection with the murder. Suspicion has been raised over the obvious likelihood that Islamic hardliners took his life, given Momika had become well-known for holding regular Koran-burning events. He would also upload videos of this ultra-provocative religious offense towards Islam to the internet.
It's unclear what specific evidence police had on the five suspects, for example whether they were actually apprehended at the apartment grounds where the killing took place. The speed at which they were arrested, within hours of Momika's death being revealed, strongly suggests they may have been linked to the scene.
But shockingly, the suspects who have not been named, have been released. "A Swedish prosecutor said on Friday he had decided to release from detention five suspects who were held over the killing on Wednesday of an anti-Islam campaigner," Rooters confirms.
Meanwhile the police are presenting it as a case of the evidence being thin:
While five suspects were initially apprehended by police, the suspicion against them had weakened as the investigation progressed, Senior Prosecutor Rasmus Oman said in a statement on Friday.
The five were, however, still subject to further investigation, Oman said.
Also interesting is that Swedish police have raised the possibility of foreign involvement in the killing.
[FoxNews] The newly-formed Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) subcommittee in the House of Representatives has invited the heads of NPR and PBS to testify on Capitol Hill to defend the federal funding they receive despite their "systemically biased content."
Fox News Digital obtained copies of the letters sent to NPR CEO Katherine Maher and PBS Paula Kerger on Monday morning from DOGE Subcommittee Chair Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who intends to address concerns about their "blatantly ideological and partisan coverage" at an upcoming hearing.
The letter sent to Maher cited NPR's decision not to report on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal in October 2020. NPR said at the time, "We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners' and readers' time on stories that are just pure distractions."
It also cited the April 2024 bombshell tell-all essay penned by veteran NPR editor Uri Berliner, who put a spotlight on the news outlet's far-left political bias that plagued the newsroom before being pushed out.
The letter quoted Berliner, who wrote "There’s an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed. It’s frictionless—one story after another about instances of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad, and the dire threat of Republican policies. It’s almost like an assembly line."
Additionally, the letter also included comments Maher herself made in 2022 as the Wikipedia CEO, who said "our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that is getting in the way of finding common ground."
The letter to Kerger invoked PBS' reporting last month that said billionaire and Department of Government Efficiency co-founder Elon Musk "gave what appeared to be a fascist salute." Greene wrote "The characterization was clearly false."
"This sort of bias betrays the principles of objective reporting and undermines public trust. As an organization that receives federal funds, both directly and indirectly through its member stations, PBS should provide reporting that serves the entire public, not just a narrow slice of like-minded individuals and ideological interest groups," Greene told Kerger, mirroring a sentiment also made to NPR's Maher.
"This hearing is an opportunity for you to explain to Congress and the American people why federal funds should be used for public television—particularly the sort of content produced by PBS," Greene continued, echoing a similar statement to Maher regarding public radio.
Both CEOs were asked for their availability to testify "during the week of Monday, March 3rd or the week of Monday, March 24th."
It appears both PBS and NPR are willing to comply.
PBS provided Fox News Digital with the following statement: "PBS and our member stations are grateful to have bipartisan support in Congress, and our country. We’ve earned this support from decades of noncommercial and nonpartisan work in local communities: providing all Americans with content they trust; offering a broad range of stories and programs that help citizens understand our past and shape our future; and helping children and families open up worlds of possibilities through educational programming. We appreciate the opportunity to present to the committee how now, more than ever, the service PBS provides matters for our nation."
NPR provided Fox News Digital with the following statement: "Since its inception, NPR has collaborated with local nonprofit public media organizations to fill critical needs for news and information in America’s communities. We constantly strive to hold ourselves to the highest standards of journalism, as evidenced by our publicly available standards and ethics guidelines, the presence of a Public Editor – a position relinquished by all other major news organizations – that allows the public to inquire directly about NPR’s journalism, and strong editorial processes that provide oversight of the entire newsgathering process, including a final review of the nearly 2,000 pieces of journalism aired or published by our newsroom every month. Today our President and CEO Katherine Maher received a request to testify before the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency in March. We welcome the opportunity to discuss the critical role of public media in delivering impartial, fact-based news and reporting to the American public."
According to NPR, 38% of revenue comes from corporate sponsorships, 31% comes from "core and other programming fees," 13% comes from "contributions of cash and financial assets," 7% comes from "other revenues," 5% comes from "PRSS contract, satellite interconnection and distribution," another 5% comes from endowments and NPR foundation board-designed support and 1% comes from net return on investments.
NPR’s own site goes on to admit that "station programming fees comprise a significant portion of NPR's largest source of revenue. The loss of federal funding would undermine the stations' ability to pay NPR for programming, thereby weakening the institution."
NPR’s finance page also insists the elimination of federal funding would result in less journalism.
So, while NPR publicly downplays its government funding, smaller stations that are funded by the government give cash to NPR. All of this occurs as NPR claims "federal funding is essential" while also pushing back on the notion that it is funded by the government.
PBS' website states it receives funding in part from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which receives roughly $500 million a year approved by Congress, saying "CPB allocates the appropriation mostly to public television and radio stations, with some assigned to NPR and PBS to support national programming."
"The News Hour receives about 35% of its annual funding/budget from CPB and PBS via national programming funds – a combination of CPB appropriation funds and annual programming dues paid to PBS by stations re-allocated to programs like ours. The remaining 65% is generated from individual donations, foundation grants and corporate sponsorships," PBS states.
PBS also receives money through the PBS Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and a 509(a)(3) supporting organization that seeks "philanthropic gifts and grants" to fund the outlet.
Last week, President Trump's FCC Chairman Brendan Carr launched an investigation into NPR and PBS over their commercial sponsorships despite them receiving taxpayer funds, suggesting they could be violating federal law."
"To the extent that these taxpayer dollars are being used to support a for-profit endeavor or an entity that is airing commercial advertisements," Carr wrote in a letter to NPR and PBS, "then that would further undermine any case for continuing to fund NPR and PBS with taxpayer dollars."
BTW: The US-Gov 2016 estimated of ILLEGAL POPULATION for LA was over 900,000. The BIDEN Era ☺ DATA ☺ naturally placed much it lower, at about 380,000 Illegals.
#5
These people are showing their true colors, which is the Mexican flag. They don't want to become Americans. They want America to become Mexico. Legitimate immigrants would try to assimilate into their adopted country. Only invaders would so brazenly wave the flag of their country of origin.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/03/2025 13:16 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Wiki AI cite for Reconquista and Atzlan: "Aztlán and the Reconquista are concepts related to the Chicano movement and the Mexican-American War. Aztlán is a symbolic homeland for Chicanos, and the Reconquista Movement is a political movement that seeks to create Aztlán as a separate nation."
#8
"Three cheers for the chic sacrificio!"
Si, Pancho sez, "A su servicio!
The heart of this mick
Bleeds for -----, on a stick!"
"Is you messing with us, San Patricio?"
"Claro que no! Um, can I have my heart back?"
[IsraelTimes] Turkey could take in some Palestinian security prisoners freed by Israel under the terms of its ceasefire deal with the Hamas terror group, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan says during a visit to Qatar.
Swanning around as if they really were the neo-Ottoman sultanate, actually important on the world scene — and could afford to pay for their pretensions instead of surviving on generous annual donations from the Gulf oil countries.
“Our president has declared that we are ready to take in some freed Palestinians… in order to support the agreement. Turkey, along with other countries, will do its part in this regard so the ceasefire agreement can remain in force,” he says at a press conference in Doha.
According to the deal, some inmates are being released abroad rather than to the West Bank or Gaza Strip to pose less of a security threat to Israel.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/03/2025 2025-02-03 04:00 ||
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Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[IsraelTimes] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu steps down the stairs from Wing of Zion on a chilly overcast day, where he is welcomed on a red carpet by Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter, UN Ambassador Danny Danon, and Consul General to NY Ofir Akunis.
An honor guard greets him as well, bearing American and Israeli flags.
So different than the insulting way he was treated by the Biden administration.
[IsraelTimes] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lands at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, ahead of his meeting with US President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
Netanyahu’s first high-level meeting will be on Monday with special envoy Steve Witkoff.
[IsraelTimes] Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....> has called for an emergency UN Security Council session on the "ongoing Israeli aggression against the Paleostinian people" in the northern West Bank, where the IDF is conducting a major counterterrorism operation.
According to the PA-affiliated Wafa news agency, Abbas’s request to the UNSC demands that it put an end to Israel’s "systemic destruction of the infrastructure" in the West Bank cities of Jenin, Tulkarem, Tamoun, and Tubas, and to the "policy of killing" that he asserts Israel has implemented throughout the counterterrorism operation.
Wafa reports that Abbas has also called on US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and whatever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th and 47th President of the United States... and his administration to intervene, and force the IDF to halt its operations in the West Bank.
Separately, the PA foreign ministry condemns the IDF’s destruction of buildings in Jenin earlier today.
The IDF said that the 23 buildings it demolished had been used by terror operatives.
The ministry "condemns, in the strongest terms, the bombings committed by the Israeli occupation forces... including their action today, Sunday, to blow up large neighborhoods of the Jenin camp," it says in a statement, describing it as a "brutal scene."
[Ynet] Members of parliaments from 14 European countries, including France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demanding "the removal of UNRWA as an official UN body."
I am shocked speechless.
This is against the backdrop of testimonies from survivors of captivity in Gaza about their detention in the organization's facilities.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said: "I support the demand to the UN Secretary-General, and in support of what we have long proven - Hamas has taken over UNRWA. Supporting UNRWA is supporting Hamas."
[IsraelTimes] Interior Minister Moshe Arbel meets Thailand’s Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa and tells him the five Thai hostages released from Gaza on Thursday will be granted permanent residency in Israel, according to a statement from Arbel’s office.
Arbel’s office adds that the meeting touched on broadening the cooperation between the two countries to more fields, adding that ministry officials are heading to Bangkok to discuss the matter.
On Thursday, Thenna Pongsak, Sathian Suwannakham, Sriaoun Watchara, Seathao Bannawat and Rumnao Surasak were released by Palestinian terror group Hamas, which held on to the foreign nationals for 482 days before letting them go.
One more Thai citizen, Pinta Nattapong, is believed to be held alive in Gaza. Two others, Sudthisak Rinthalak and Sonthaya Oakkharasri, have been declared dead by Israel, with their bodies held by Hamas.
[IsraelTimes] A secretive Hamas unit formed in 2006 after the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was largely responsible for guarding the hostages abducted during the October 7, 2023, terror assault on southern Israel, the Saudi Asharq Al-Awsat news outlet reports.
The so-called Shadow Unit was established in the months following Shalit’s abduction, the report states, as the Palestinian terror group required trained operatives to move him from place to place without detection as they evaded Israeli attempts to locate him.
According to the report, the unit’s operatives have been spotted at the site of hostage handovers in recent weeks, amid the ongoing hostage-ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, indicating that it has played a large part in moving the hostages from location to location, from apartments to underground tunnels, throughout the more than 15 months of war in order to evade Israeli forces operating inside the Strip.
Many of the freed hostages have recounted being moved from place to place at various points during the war.
Hamas largely keeps the Shadow Unit out of the public eye, and its existence remained a secret until 2016, when the terror group published footage of Shalit’s time in captivity to mark five years since he was released back to Israel in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners.
[IsraelTimes] Military prosecutors have filed an indictment against a Palestinian accused of carrying out a deadly shooting attack in the West Bank 17 years ago, after he was recently detained.
Ali Dandis, who was arrested in December, carried out the 2007 Nahal Telem shooting, in which two off-duty soldiers, Cpl. Ahikam Amihai and Staff Sgt. David Rubin, were killed while on a hike.
According to the indictment, Dandis planned the shooting attack with his friends Omar Taha and Basel al-Natsha.
On December 28, 2007, the trio arrived at Nahal Telem, a stream in the southern West Bank, in an attempt to locate and kill Israeli soldiers, the indictment says.
Dandis opened fire on Rubin, killing him, and moments later Taha opened fire on Amihai, killing him as well. Al-Natsha, the third assailant, was killed by the soldiers returning fire.
The two surviving gunmen turned themselves in to the Palestinian Authority security forces following the attack. In 2008, the PA sentenced them to 15 years in prison.
Dandis was detained on December 26, 2024, in Bethlehem by members of police’s elite Yamam unit.
[IsraelTimes] As US president repeatedly touts plan to ‘clean out’ Gaza, urges Jordan and Egypt to take in displaced Palestinians, kingdom has joined other Arab states in flatly rejecting idea
Jordan’s King Abdullah II has accepted an invitation to visit the White House and meet US President Donald Trump ...His ancestors didn't own any slaves... later this month, the Jordanian royal palace said on Sunday.
It will be their first in-person meeting since Trump returned to the White House and began floating the idea to "clean out" the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip and resettle Gazooks elsewhere, proposing Egypt and Jordan. Both states have flatly rejected any such proposal, as have others in the region, despite Trump’s insisting, "They will do it."
Trump said last week he had spoken with Abdullah, and had told the king, "I’d love you to take on more because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess, it’s a real mess. I’d like him to take people."
When asked if this was a temporary or long-term suggestion, Trump said: "Could be either."
"You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing. You know, over the centuries it’s had many, many conflicts, that site. And I don’t know, something has to happen," Trump said, in remarks to news hounds on Air Force One.
During meetings with European officials in Brussels on Wednesday, King Abdullah reiterated "Jordan’s unwavering opinion on the necessity of establishing Paleostinians on their land and gaining their legitimate rights, in accordance with the two-state solution."
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi similarly said on Monday that "any discussion on an alternate homeland [for the Paleostinians]... is rejected."
On Saturday, top diplomats from Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... , and Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... rejected any forcible displacement of Paleostinians during a meeting in Cairo.
"We affirm our rejection of [any attempts] to compromise Paleostinians’ unalienable rights, whether through settlement activities, or evictions or annex of land or through vacating the land from its owners... in any form or under any circumstances or justifications," the countries said in a joint statement.
Trump on Saturday spoke with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi for the first time since making the controversial remarks.
Neither of the countries’ read-outs of the phone call made any mention of the matter, speaking only about the ceasefire-hostage release deal between Israel and the Hamas ..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,... terror group, and the general goal of peace in the region.
HAMAS: JORDAN ’SOUGHT DEPORTATION’ OF AHLAM AL-TAMIMI
Separately, Hamas’s al-Aqsa TV reported on Sunday that Jordan had "sought the deportation" of infamous Paleostinian terrorist Ahlam al-Tamimi.
…she and her cousin-husband Nazir al-Tamimi are members of the infamous al-Tamimi clan from the village of Nabi Salih near Ramallah in the West Bank that has for several generations waged war, both kinetic and propaganda as opportunity and individual temperament require, against Israel’s Jews. Dear Ahlam regularly worked as a scout and escape driver for Hamas, then moved in front of a TV camera to report on the exciting events she had just been involved in. Possibly Nizar is also a Hamasnik, but other relatives belong to Fatah or the PLO in general, so there are lots of possibilities. Nizar was deported to Qatar the last time Donald Trump was president…
The short message on Telegram, citing "sources," did not include any further information.
Advocates for terror victims’ rights have long sought Tamimi’s extradition from Jordan to the United States for her role in the murder of two US citizens in the 2001 suicide kaboom of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, which killed 16 Israeli civilians, including seven children and a pregnant woman.
She has been living in Jordan since her release from Israeli prison in 2011, when she was among the 1,027 prisoners released in exchange for the release by Hamas of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
In 2022, Interpol dropped a warrant for Tamimi’s arrest, but the US still offers a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to her arrest or conviction.
[IsraelTimes] Citing Gaza war’s heavy Palestinian death toll, 69-year-old Mohammed al-Tous tells Arab outlets that he is warning his grandchildren against armed resistance
Recently released Paleostinian security prisoner Mohammed al-Tous spoke out against Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... ’s October 7 massacre in two separate interviews to Arab media this past week, citing the human cost of the ensuing Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... war.
"Today, I tell my grandchildren not to go down the path of attacks and resistance," the 69-year-old ex-detainee said in a Friday interview with the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya outlet. "We don’t want our freedom to come at the expense of our children’s’ lives."
Al-Tous is the oldest security prisoner freed so far as part of the Gaza hostage-ceasefire deal.
A member of the Paleostinian Authority’s ruling Fatah movement, he was arrested in 1985 for organizing attacks on Israelis in and around Jerusalem. He went on to spend 40 years in prison.
Israeli authorities deported al-Tous to Egypt upon his release in the second round of the exchange, which saw 200 security prisoners traded for four female Israeli hostages. He was one of 121 prisoners serving life sentences freed that day.
He was one of the few prisoners detained before the 1993 Oslo Accords not released as part of those agreements.
On Wednesday, al-Tous gave an interview to the Emirati al-Mashhad news outlet, in which he criticized Hamas leadership when asked about the October 7 attack that ultimately led to his release.
"If I had known the cost of my freedom, I would have stayed in prison... A leader who is thinking of carrying out a large attack must be aware of the cost. It is unacceptable that the cost of our release from prison is a drop of blood from a Paleostinian child," he said.
Al-Tous added that he encountered jugged Please don't kill me! Second Intifada leader Marwan Barghouti multiple times while in prison.
"I met Marwan Barghouti more than once, the last of which was two years ago. He was in good condition," he told the outlet.
Barghouti, a top figure in Fatah serving five life sentences for planning attacks during the Second Intifada, is envisioned by many Paleostinians as a potential successor to Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....> In another Friday interview with The Independent, al-Tous spoke in favor of political negotiations toward a two-state solution in order to "prevent bloodshed on both sides."
He urged unity within the Paleostinian national movement, calling on Hamas to reconcile with Fatah and accept the leadership of Abbas, now 89 years old.
[IsraelTimes] Report says freed soldiers worked as servants for captors, and observed Jewish holidays and even Shabbat in captivity; Ofer Calderon didn’t know his son survived Oct. 7 attacks.
As more hostages are released from over 15 months of captivity in the hands of gunnies in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , testimonies of their experiences have begun to emerge, painting a picture of consistent deprivation, solitude and abuse.
According to a report Sunday on the Ynet news site, the five freed IDF surveillance soldiers, Agam Berger, Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag, were frequently moved around the Gaza Strip from tunnels to apartments and were often separated from each other for weeks on end.
The report added that Naama Levy was kept in solitary confinement for much of her time in captivity, and said that some of the surveillance soldiers were forced to work in a sort of indentured labor for the families of their captors, including cooking, cleaning and childcare.
According to Ynet, despite significant deprivation of food and water, which forced them to even ration grains of rice, the hostage soldiers sought to preserve their Jewish identity and decided to fast on Yom Kippur and refrain from eating leavened bread on Passover.
Agam Berger, the last of the five soldiers to be released, was reportedly strict in her observance of Shabbat.
Freed hostage Daniella Gilboa wrote Sunday in her first Instagram post since she returned from Gaza eight days ago after 477 days in Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... captivity that her "last wish before I was kidnapped" was for people to not give up on her.
"What an insane year I have gone through," Gilboa wrote at the outset of the lengthy post, thanking the public for supporting her family, praying for her, not giving up on her and not believing the "horrible rumors" spread by the Hamas terror group about her supposed death.
"I didn’t want to despair and say goodbye, so instead I prayed and wholeheartedly believed that the end of me wasn’t there, in that bomb shelter," she writes.
"I prayed for all the girls with me for 30 minutes because I felt like I couldn’t do anything better at the time... I knew that the only thing that could save us was faith."
She says that on Saturday, she and the four other IDF surveillance soldiers released in recent days recited Birkat Hagomel, a Jewish blessing of gratitude said by people who have survived grave danger.
"This was the moment I was waiting for since surviving October 7," Gilboa says. "To thank God for saving me from the worst against all odds."
Former hostage Ofer Calderon, who was released Saturday from Hamas captivity after 484 days in Gaza, only found out a few weeks ago that his son Rotem survived the terror onslaught of October 7, 2023.
Ofer’s cousin Eyal was quoted by Ynet as describing details the freed captive has told family members.
"He was in great uncertainty in captivity, and then found out from a media interview that his son was still alive," Eyal Calderon said. "It’s unfathomable what he went through there, but at least yesterday he was in a very positive state.
"There’s a long path ahead, rehabilitation will be lengthy and will have ups and downs. It’s important for people to know that yesterday’s images are misleading and don’t reflect what Ofer has been through," he added, referencing Calderon’s show of strength during the Hamas hostage release ceremony and his spirited greeting of friends waiting outside the hospital.
"Captivity wasn’t a walk in the park," Eyal Calderon said. "He’s gaining strength now, breathing in his children and starting to fathom what he went through in this year and a half."
Ynet also reported that Calderon and Yarden Bibas, who was also released on Saturday, were held together in cages and tunnels in Khan Younis during the early days of their captivity, and were subject to physical and psychological abuse.
According to a report by the Kan broadcaster, freed Israeli-American hostage Keith Siegel thought his son Shai had been killed during the October 7 attack, and did not know he was alive until he heard him speaking on the radio during the war.
The report also said that Siegel, who is a vegetarian, was forced to eat meat and often went days without any food at all.
The Ynet report also detailed the conditions that the five Thai hostages who were released last Thursday were subjected to in captivity.
The five hostages, Pongsak Thenna, Sathian Suwannakham, Watchara Sriaoun, Bannawat Seathao and Surasak Lamnau, reportedly recounted long periods of severe hunger, difficulty breathing in underground tunnels, and being held captive in dark rooms for days on end.
The five were reportedly held in two separate groups, and learned to communicate in Arabic with their captors.
[IsraelTimes] Freed US-Israeli captive Keith Siegel was forced ahead of his release to write a letter thanking his Hamas captors for his treatment while being held in captivity for 484 days.
His family has asked that the letter he was forced by Hamas to write, dated January 18, not be published by the media.
“Hamas terrorists forced Keith to write them a detailed thank you letter while holding him captive,” his family said in a statement. “This is just one example of many that demonstrates Hamas’s cruel and cynical behavior, and highlights the urgency of bringing all remaining hostages back home.”
Siegel was released on Saturday in Gaza City. He and his wife, Aviva, were kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7, 2023. Aviva was freed during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023.
During his handover to the Red Cross, he appeared thin and pale but was able to walk, aided by masked and armed Hamas fighters. He was forced to accept two Hamas “gift bags” and a lanyard around his neck with a Palestinian flag and the insignia of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades. He was also forcibly paraded on a Hamas stage in front of a banner proclaiming “Nazi Zionism will not win.”
Four female soldiers who were freed from captivity a week earlier were forced to film a Hamas propaganda video thanking their captors in Arabic for the treatment they received in captivity.
Ahead of the November 2023 truce, Hamas also forced released hostage Danielle Aloni, who was held captive with her 5-year-old daughter Emilia, to write a lengthy letter thanking the Hamas terrorists for “extraordinary humanity” while they were held hostage in Gaza.
An excuse for those who insist on believing that Hamas are the noble savage natives to the Israeli colonizers, which gets it exactly backwards.
[IsraelTimes] The Hamas terror group publishes a letter that it claims was written by released hostage Keith Siegel ahead of his return to Israel, in which he purportedly thanks his captors for treating him well.
[IsraelTimes] Terror group chief Naim Qassem admits Hashem Safieddine had been chosen as successor before he was killed, calls on Lebanese authorities to pressure Israel over ostensible ceasefire violations
The funeral for Hezbollah leader His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...> will be held on February 23, the group’s current chief said on Sunday, months after his predecessor’s death in an Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... Nasrallah was killed in a huge Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 27, 2024, as Israel scaled up its campaign against the Iran-backed terror group following almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
After decades at the helm of the group once seen as invincible, the killing of the charismatic leader sent shockwaves across Leb ...The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. Only one of those statements is an exaggeration.... and the wider region.
"After security conditions prevented holding a funeral" during two months of all-out war that ended with a ceasefire deal reached on November 27, Hezbollah has decided to hold "on February 23 a grand... public funeral" for Nasrallah, Naim Qassem ... the Grand Vizier of the Hezbullies... said in a televised speech on Sunday.
"We hope that it will be a grand funeral procession befitting this great personality," he said.
Hezbollah officials had previously indicated that Nasrallah would be buried following the end of the initial 60-day ceasefire period with Israel, which ended on January 26. However,
there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened... the deadline for the IDF to withdraw was later pushed back by the United States and Lebanon to February 18, after Israel assessed that the Lebanese army had deployed too slowly across the region.
Qassem also confirmed for the first time that leading official Hashem Safieddine had been chosen to succeed Nasrallah before he too was killed in an Israeli strike in October.
Safieddine will be buried "as secretary-general" or leader of Hezbollah, because "we had... elected His Eminence Sayyed ...Arabic term meaning your/his lordship. Groveling in His Exalted Presence is encouraged... Hashem as secretary-general... but he was martyred on October 3, a day or two before the announcement," Qassem added.
The group will hold Safieddine’s funeral on the same day as Nasrallah’s. The deeply religious Safieddine, a holy man with family ties to Nasrallah, had been widely viewed as the most likely candidate for the party’s top job.
Nasrallah will be buried on the outskirts of Beirut "in a plot of land we chose between the old and new airport roads," while Safieddine will be buried in his hometown of Deir Qanun in southern Lebanon, he said.
Nasrallah was temporarily buried elsewhere due to security concerns, he said. Shiite Moslem rites provide for such a temporary burial when circumstances prevent a proper funeral or the dear departed cannot be buried where they wished.
Last October, a source close to the group told AFP that Nasrallah had been buried in a secret location, for fear Israel would target a large funeral.
During his speech on Sunday, Qassem also urged Lebanese authorities to pressure Israel to stop what he called violations of the ceasefire.
"The Lebanese state is fully responsible for following up, pressuring and trying to prevent as much as it can, through sponsors and international pressure, this violation and this Israeli aggression," Qassem said.
But the Hezbollah leader said his group will be "patient" and wait for the Lebanese state to fulfill its responsibility.
Qassem further acknowledged that Hezbollah did not achieve an "absolute victory," but said it has registered some gains and some losses. Its main achievement, he said, was to prove the steadfastness of the "resistance" and Israel’s inability to break it.
The Hezbollah chief praised the residents of southern Lebanon who have returned to their homes, saying that scenes of their return indicated a "popular liberation."
The IDF has warned Lebanese residents against returning to south Lebanon villages until they are authorized to do so.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
..always the voice of sweet reason...
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and whatever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th and 47th President of the United States...
[Ynet] Members of parliaments from 14 European countries, including France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demanding "the removal of 
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
...Arabic term meaning 
