Nobody has noticed Netanyahu’s deeply symbolic choice of the name “Rising Lion” for the operation he’s dreamed of for 30 years.

Iran, like Israel, has been a symbolized by a lion for 2,500 years. And now history comes full circle: it was Persia that, after 50 years of Israelite exile, enabled the restoration of Israel in Jerusalem. Now, 2,500 years later, Israel—reborn—repays the favor with perfect symmetry. Persia’s great civilization will be restored, and its occupiers vanquished, after 50 years. Isn’t that beautiful? So, Sinwar's attack will indeed achieve its stated goal: It will end the occupation... of Iran...

What did y’all think "globalize the intifada" meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays? 🧵

It meant this sweet young couple, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, gunned down at an American Jewish Committee event at the Jewish Museum by radicalized monster Elias Rodriguez, chanting “Free, free Palestine.” (1/20) We need to know how it came to this—how did Jew-hate become so normalized that the killer can be assured of widespread support from certain quarters? And what future awaits Jews in the West? TL;DR: It's grim. (2/20)

It took 23 years, but India has brought justice for Daniel Pearl. His last words, "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish."

https://x.com/Saul_Sadka/status/1920455379437199630?s=19

There's an easy way to know if someone has taken Qatari money: Have they said nice things about Qatar?

Qatar isn't Italy or Norway. It's just a little patch of sand with a few gaudy towers and 2,000,000 semi-slaves to serve its little theocratic tribal dictatorship with a population smaller than Lexington, Kentucky. So if you "like" Qatar, it's because they pay you.

Feel free to share examples of people saying nice things about Qatar in the comments. So, if someone goes to Italy, and comes back gushing about how great the food is, they did not necessarily get paid to do this. However, if they have the same reaction to Qatar, they did.

Why is Heinz Ketchup Called "Tomato Seasoning" in Israel—and How Trump's Tariffs could end up being great for Israelis.

The victims might be the monopolies, Netanyahu and the public might be the victors. This presents huge opportunities for the savvy. Here’s how: (1/8) When Israel announced a few days ago that it was cancelling all tariffs on American goods, it was essentially bluffing.

There have been virtually no tariffs on American goods for over 30 years. The total amount collected annually was around $40 million — about 0.02% of the Israeli government’s budget. (2/8)

We can learn some critical facts from the current clan-based protests in Gaza:🧵

1. The Gazans know they leaders failed.
2. How Israel has infiltrated the Hams command.
3. Why the clans are critical to the present and future.
4. How you can defeat ideas, actually. (1/5) 1. The people of Gaza fully understand that their Jihadi leaders have lost the war, and that their suffering continues only because they—and their children—are the final weapons in the arsenal.

This realization is crucial, as it is essential for both sides that the Gazan population—brainwashed into Jihad over decades—can never again be manipulated into believing that self-destructive attacks on their neighbors might somehow bring them joy. (2/5)

Ehud Olmert has revealed publicly for the first time the map of the peace offer that Mahmoud Abbas rejected in 2008 (the picture on the right is Abbas' sketch of it.

Abbas rejected this ridiculously generous offer and now there will never be a Palestinian state in any borders.
The best hope for the Arabs of the southern Levant is something modeled on the UAE, but demilitarized. Perhaps the "United Sheikhdoms of Palestine."

Each of the major cities (Gaza, Khan Yunis, Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Kalkilya, Nablus, Tulkarem, Jenin, Jericho), along with their hinterland villages, will decide how to run their own lives, and can federate to whatever extend they chose.

But the Israeli public is not going to be ready for anything more than that for a very very long time, and they have a veto.

These are the 24 hostages still held in Gaza who will not be among the four released on Thursday. The remains of 34 others, who have been declared dead by the IDF, are also being held.🧵

From top left:

1. Eitan Horn
2. Segev Kalfon
3. Bipin Joshi
4. Guy Gilboa-Dalal
5. Avinatan Or
6.  Yosef Haim Ohana
7.  Nimrod Cohen
8.  Rom Braslavski
9. Evyatar David
10. David Cunio
11. Tamir Nimrodi
12.  Bar Kupershtein
13.  Gali Berman
14.  Eitan Mor
15.  Edan Alexander
16.  Pinta Nattapong
17. Omri Miran
18. Elkana Buchbut
19. Alon Ohel
20. Matan Zangauker
21.  Ziv Berman
22.  Ariel Cunio
23.  Maxim Herkin
24.  Matan Angrest 1. Eitan Horn (37) was captured alongside his brother Iair, there are serious concerns for his heath.

Walls. What are they good for? And why Jordan should beg Israel to annex the Jordan Valley—and why it probably will soon.

Israel built two walls. One a complete success; the other a total failure. The Israel–Egypt border fence succeed while the Israel–Gaza one failed? (1/12)
Faced with an endless wave of drug smuggling and human trafficking from Africa toward Israel across the lawless Sinai desert, and increasing public unrest about the approximately 80,000 illegal immigrants (about 1% of Israel’s population at the time) who had arrived in previous years, Israel built a 150‑mile barrier along the border with Egypt in 2010.

It cost about $3 million per mile and took three years to complete across the mostly mountainous, arid terrain. (2/12)

An intractable and revealing tension:

On the left, a hostage release the way Hamas likes it, portraying a picture of victory.

On the right, the setting for today's release of Arbel Yehoud, Agam Berger and Gadi Mozes—after some production notes from Qatar—featuring a devastated landscape, to present a picture of victimhood.

Both are lies. They are defeated, and they are not victims. When you see images like this, of Palestinian flag bunting used as decoration for the celebration of war crimes aggaisnt Jews, can you blame Jews worldwide for seeing thst flag as a hate symbol? If Abbas was a leader he would protest this and tell Hamas to use their own flags.

The year 2025 marks 20 years since the BDS movement set out to bring about the defeat of Israel by isolating it geopolitically and boycotting it economically. So let's review the results of their campaign: 🧵 Over that period, Israel has overtaken all the major European nations in terms of GDP per capita and now boasts the 8th highest GDP per capita in the world, of all nations with 10 million population.

Since Hamas are now celebrating their “great victory” over Israel, let's review their many achievements over the last 15 months in the light of their initial goals:

1. They failed to conquer Jerusalem.
2. They failed to drive the Jews into the sea.
3. They failed to split Israeli society—instead they united them.
4. They failed to isolate Israel internationally—even the Abraham Accords remain intact.
5. They failed to harm Israel’s economy, which continues to grow.
6. They failed to prove Israel was fragile—if anything, they demonstrated the opposite.
7. They failed to make the Jews “flee back to Europe,” as Israel’s population has increased by 2.5%.
8. They failed to crash Israel’s currency, which is now stronger.
9. They destroyed their own “axis of resistance.”
10. They derailed the geopolitical plans of their backers, Iran, leaving them completely exposed.
11. Their once-fertile land is now devastated, requiring a generation to rebuild.
12. Most of their homes, booby-trapped and used as weapon caches, are destroyed. Clearing the rubble alone will take decades.
13. Their tunnel network is gone.
14. They have alienated almost all their own people.
15. They have lost 99% of their rockets and have no means to rearm.
16. Their leaders are either in hell or in Qatar—or both.
17. Most of their fighters are dead.
18. Over 5,000 of their men will face trial for war crimes.
19. They lost their fighters at a 50:1 ratio compared to Israeli troops.
20. More than 10% of their population has fled, and perhaps another million have lost everything.
21. They caused destruction and losses among their allies in Lebanon.
22. They are now boxed in by the IDF, with no hope of resupply and no means of harming Israelis.
23. They tarnished the reputation of their UNRWA allies.
24. Israel has established a presence in their territory and will maintain constant surveillance.
25. They are being extirpated from the West Bank by their own Palestinian brothers.

What other “great Hamas victories” can you think of? Happy Unvictory Day to Hamas!

It's not a miracle. It's called "concrete." To be honest, I don't really understand why people build beautiful new homes with timber adjacent to forests that combust at regular intervals. Concrete houses will still often get destroyed in fires, but not nearly as often. Particularly if the glazing holds up.

It can't really be to save money? On some of the most expensive building plots on the planet?

The final months of 2024 will be looked back on as a turning point. It was when the Western secured another few centuries.

A 3-pronged war—relics of the Cold War—has failed: Turning its values into weapons, deleting its softest parts (Israel first), & building up rivals. (1/13) It is all connected:

When living standards in the West made a proletarian uprising an unlikely vehicle for overturning the established world order and ushering in a New World, the focus turned to sowing social discord—turning every group against each other until the West, the USA first, fell apart at the seams. It nearly worked—until in November, it didn’t.

Even if Harris had won by a whisker instead of losing by one, it would have failed because of this graph: every group, including all those which were meant to be the tip of the spear of identity politics, moved in the wrong direction. (2/13)

How can Israeli intel be so brilliant and yet so stupid at once?

How did they carry out the most successful and consequential covert operation in living memory but be unable to recognize the obvious signs leading up to Oct 7 or make the right calls re. Hezbollah? (1/6) To understand why Israeli intel has had such epic wins on the tactical level but the worst failures possible on the strategic level, recall that the people doing all the clever practical stuff are in no way related to the to the upper echelons that interface with decision makers.

Parts of the old Israeli elite establishment, noting their marginalisation on the political level, have nevertheless maintained their grip on some of the reins of power within the IDF, and particularly the intel community. (2/6)

Imagine being Irish and accusing others of being "settler colonialists"?

But this explains why Ireland, with only 2,000 Jews, has nevertheless become a primary exporter of Jew-hate. If your brightest 50% escape every generation, for 10 generations, you are left with Ireland. There are 10 times more Irish people (people with predominantly Irish heritage) in North America than in Ireland.

There are more Irish people in Sydney than in Dublin.

They displaced the natives. They are settlers.

If the reports that Assad's forces have retreated from Hama, handing it the rebels, are true, they will be retreating to mount a last stand at Homs.

If the rebels capture the Homs area, it is all over for Assad. His Alawite coastal heartland and all the ports (circled in pink) will be cut off from the capital Damascus.

Iran would lose access to all but two border crossings into Lebanon (mountain passes that Israel can, and routinely does, control via airstrikes.

The Kurds are also pushing into Deir Az Zor (circled in yellow), and if they succeed, Iran will lose its primary supply route to Hezbollah (they will be forced to run the gauntlet across the Syrian desert, within easy reach of US bases).

The best case for Assad is that his poorly paid troops can hold Homs, allowing him to keep a rump state (the blue circled area). If he can't, expect huge bloodletting as the hated Alawites reap the whirlwind of their 50 years of oppression of all the other groups.

The future of Hezbollah, Lebanon, and Assad depend on what happens in Homs.

For Israel the safest result is probably that Assad holds the blue circled area in his hugely weakened state, while the Kurds take enough strongpoints in the desert to cut the Iran-Lebanon routes, or to funnel them such they become easy pickings and unsustainable. As for Iran, there is really no best case scenario for them. They have lost most of their ability to sustain or resupply their militias in Syria and Lebanon en masse, even if things stay as they are.

An hour after I posted this—predicting that calls for "Intifada" will inevitably lead to bloodshed in the West that will be blamed, as always, somehow, on Jews—the execrable Owen Jones got the ball rolling in advance.

Using an image of the Tavistock Square attack (where an Israeli woman and a Jewish woman, a family friend of mine, were among the 13 dead), this Big Lie blood-libel to ensure that when the Jihadis come, everyone knows who is really to blame...

His real message is "Jews, Western people: Stop supporting Israel or you'll deserve what the terrorist have planned."

Why does this "Root Cause Game" always end at "Jew"? The Jihadi/far-left playbook:

1. Spread propaganda about how evil Jews are.
2. People attack Jews.
3. Wait for Jews to fight back.
4. Paint Jews as aggressors.
5. Back to step 1.

Rinse and repeat. The smart ones keep their hands clean, but are just as critical to the plan.

Why would Israel sign a ceasefire with Lebanon when it has reduced Hezbollah from a mighty army to a disjointed rabble? Why not "finish the job"? The reason is simple: Israel’s primary goal—neutralizing Hezbollah as a strategic threat and thereby leaving Iran exposed—has been achieved to its satisfaction. The extra benefit is not worth the marginal cost—to Israel, but not to Lebanon.

Most Israelis oppose the decision and would prefer that Israel finish the job. The Lebanese—many of whom, including a significant number of Shia, now want Hezbollah gone—seem even more disappointed.

Hezbollah posed four major threats to Israel. Let’s break them down and examine if and how they’ve been neutralized. (1/6) 1. The Most Serious Threat: Border Breach and Mass Infiltration

Hezbollah had the capability to secretly amass up to 15,000 fighters near the border, ready to breach it in a surprise attack akin to the events of October 7. Such an operation, while suicidal for most attackers, would have inflicted massive damage on Israel. Tens of thousands of civilians could have been killed, and military bases overrun.

This threat has been completely eliminated. Hezbollah’s infrastructure in the first-line border villages, as well as its main forward bases in Khiam and Bint Jbeil, has been captured and systematically destroyed. These installations, which took 25 years to build, have been rendered unusable. Under total surveillance, Hezbollah has no chance of rebuilding them, making an asymmetric invasion impossible. (2/6)

Why can't the left podcast?

Tldr—it's because the left has been hijacked by a stultifying orthodoxy that forces its adherents to say things they don't believe, and nobody wants to listen to the obviously disingenuous. And insincerity kills charisma.

It's not for want of of billionaires, as billionaire-employed Taylor Lorenz argues, and the Republicans certainly didn't "build Joe Rogan" as she implies. (1/5) The left can't do long form because their ideology is an orthodoxy. Orthodoxies don't function via discussion and debate—the lifeblood of podcasting—it works via rules and creeds witch-hunts and heresies. There is nothing to talk about, just people to praise and others to pillory. (2/5)

Why, I wondered, was every blood-hungry antisemite and Hamas fan on this site suddenly citing a junior educator at a third-rate London college, claiming to be a "scholar of pogroms," Brendan McGeever?

Turns out it’s because the Pears family generously showers him with money to write books nobody reads about the "sociology of antisemitism." How strange, then, that he has become an overnight hero to antisemites! Why?

Unlike his newly found claque of jew-haters, I actually read his long, windy thread so you don’t have to.

TL;DR: What happened in Amsterdam wasn’t a pogrom, wasn’t antisemitic, and saying that it was is actually rrrrr-racist! (1/8) This is the argument:

1. Certain academics have (arbitrarily) defined the word "pogrom" in Marxist terms, such that the victim must be a racial minority "structurally exploited" by an oppressor racial/religious group. (You see, it’s settled: sociologists agree, that’s what the word means.)

2. The victims were Israeli Jews, not good—I mean, "vanilla" Jews! (In reality, it was explicitly a "Jew hunt," and people from dozens of nations were attacked as "suspected Jews.") (2/8)