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@jonfavs Seriously? Taking the side of Hezbollah vs Israel? The govt of Lebanon disagrees with you.

End U.S. aid to Israel

BILL MAHER: “Young people who learn everything about Israel on TikTok, they don’t know sh*t.” “And [Democrats] are not standing up and saying, ‘Kids, you don’t know what’s going on here.’” “Every war Israel has fought is a war of defense. Every war, they were attacked first.”

@DeanObeidallah Where was this outrage when the largest Reform Temple in Michigan was attacked and if successful, 140 Jewish children could have been killed???!

This should be headline news. I can 100% assure you if a Muslim had targeted a Pro-Israeli activist for death it would be. But when a Jewish extremist plots to murder a Palestinian activist it barely gets covered!! The NY Times makes it clear this was a pro-Israeli terrorist plot on US soil!

Robert Mueller died last night. He was 81 years old. He had a wife who loved him for sixty years. He had two daughters, one of whom he met for the first time in Hawaii, in 1969, on a few hours of military leave, before he got back on the plane and returned to Vietnam. He had grandchildren. He had a faith he practiced quietly, without performance. He had, in the way of men who have seen real things and survived them, a quality that is increasingly rare and increasingly mocked in the country he spent his life serving. He had integrity. And tonight the President of the United States said good! I have been sitting with that word for hours now. Good. One syllable. The thing you say when the coffee is hot or the traffic is moving. The thing a man who has never had to bury anyone, never had to sit in the specific silence of a room where someone is newly absent, reaches for when he wants the world to know he is satisfied. Good. The daughters are crying and the wife is alone in the house and good. I want to speak directly to the Americans reading this. Not the political Americans. Just the human ones. The ones who have lost a father. The ones who know what it is to be in that first hour, when you keep forgetting and then remembering again, when ordinary objects become unbearable, when the world outside the window seems obscene in its indifference. I want to ask you, simply, to hold that feeling for a moment, and then to understand that the man you elected looked at it and typed a single word. Good. This is not a country having a bad day. I need you to understand that. Countries have bad days. Elections go wrong. Leaders disappoint. Institutions bend. But there is a different thing, a rarer and more terrible thing, that happens when the moral center of a place simply gives way. Not dramatically. Not with a single catastrophic event. But quietly, in increments, until one evening a president celebrates the death of an old man whose family is still warm with grief, and enough people find it acceptable that it becomes the weather. Just the weather. That is what is happening. That is what has happened. The world knows. From Tokyo to Oslo, from London to Buenos Aires, people are not angry at America tonight. Anger would mean there was still something to fight for, some remaining faith to be betrayed. What I see, in the reactions from everywhere that is not here, is something older and sadder than anger. It is the look people get when they have waited a long time for someone they love to find their way back, and have finally understood that they are not coming. America is being grieved. Past tense, almost. The idea of it. The thing it represented to people who had nothing else to believe in, who came here with everything they owned in a single bag because they had heard, somehow, across an ocean, that this was the place where decency was written into the walls. That idea is not resting. It is not suspended. It is being buried, in real time, with 7,450 likes before dinner. And the church said nothing. Seventy million people have decided that this man, this specific man who has cheated everyone he has ever made a promise to, who has mocked the disabled and the dead and the grieving, who celebrated tonight while a family wept, is an instrument of God. The pastors who made that bargain did not just trade away their credibility. They traded away the thing that made them worth listening to in the first place. The cross they carry now is a costume. The faith they preach is a loyalty oath with scripture attached. When the history of American Christianity is written, this will be the chapter they skip at seminary. Now I want to talk about the men who stand next to him. Because this is the part that actually breaks my heart. JD Vance is not a bad man. I have to say that, because it is true, and because the truth matters even now, especially now. Marco Rubio is not a bad man. Lindsey Graham is not a bad man. They are idiots, but not bad, as in BAD! These are men with mothers who raised them and children who love them and friends who remember who they were before all of this. They are not monsters. Monsters are simple. Monsters do not cost you anything emotionally because there is nothing in them to mourn. These men are something more painful than monsters. They are men who knew better, and know better still, and will get up tomorrow and do it again. Every small compromise they made had a reason. Every moment they looked the other way had a justification that sounded, at the time, almost reasonable. And now they have arrived here, at a place where a president celebrates the death of an old man and they will find a way, on television, to say nothing that means anything, and they will go home to houses where children who carry their name are waiting, and they will say goodnight, and they will say nothing. Their oldest friends are watching. The ones who knew Rubio when he still believed in something. Who knew Graham when he said, out loud, on the record, that this exact man would destroy the Republican Party and deserve it. Who sat next to Vance and thought here is someone worth knowing. Those friends are not angry tonight. They moved through anger a long time ago. What they feel now is the quiet, irrecoverable sadness of watching someone disappear while still being present. Of watching a person they loved choose, again and again, to become less. That is what cowardice costs. Not the coward. The people who loved him. And in the comments tonight, the followers celebrate. People who ten years ago brought casseroles to grieving neighbours. Who stood in the rain at gravesides and meant the words they said. Who told their children that we do not speak ill of the dead because the dead were someone's beloved. Those people are tonight typing gleeful things about a man whose daughters are not yet done crying. And they feel clean doing it. Righteous. Because somewhere along the way the thing they were given in exchange for their decency was the feeling of belonging to something, and that feeling is very hard to give up even when you can no longer remember what you gave for it. When Trump is gone, they will still be here. Standing in the silence where the noise used to be. Without the permission the crowd gave them. Without the pastor who told them their cruelty was holy. They will be alone with what they said and what they cheered and what they chose to become, and there will be no one left to tell them it was righteous. That morning is coming. Robert Mueller flew across the Pacific on military leave to hold his newborn daughter for a few hours before returning to the war. He came home. He buried his dead with honour. He served presidents of both parties because he understood that the institution was larger than any one man. He told his grandchildren that a lie is the worst thing a person can do, that a reputation once lost cannot be recovered, and he lived that, every day, in the quiet and unglamorous way of people who actually believe what they say. He was the kind of American the world used to point to when it needed to believe the story was true. He died last night. His wife is alone in their house in Georgetown. His daughters are learning what the world is without him in it. And somewhere in the particular hush that falls over a family in the first hours of loss, the most powerful man and the biggest loser on earth sent a message to say he was glad. The world that loved what America was supposed to be is grieving tonight. Not for Robert Mueller only. For the country that produced him and then became this. For the distance between what was promised and what was delivered. For the suspicion, growing quieter and more certain with each passing month, that the America people believed in was always partly a story, and the story is over now, and there is nothing yet to replace it. That is all it needed to be. A man died. His family is broken open with grief. That is all it needed to be. Instead the President said good. And the country that once stood for something looked away 🇺🇸 Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

The real Israel that you won’t hear about in the news: An Israeli policeman protecting a Muslim family in Jerusalem, Israel, as red alerts sound while the Iranian regime continues to fire missiles toward civilian populations. No physical injuries were reported. Make no mistake: the Iranian regime is targeting and endangering everyone in the entire region. @israelpolice

.@davematthewsbnd just RTed Dave’s cover of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It's Worth” with recent images from Minnesota

HOLD ON TO YOUR CHAIR: Watch David Harris @DavidHarrisNY reveal the eye-watering numbers when it comes to Jews in America. Are we all awake yet to this epidemic? Pick up David Harris's must-read new book "Antisemitism (What Everyone Needs To Know)" on Amazon now! Link in comments 🔗 Video by JBS interviewed by Abigail Pogrubin #isgap #israel #antisemitism

Let me tell you a bit about modern Zionism so you don’t continue to make a fool out of yourself. People talk about it without knowing where it even came from. Let's of course start with Herzl. This man was not a religious Jew dreaming of a homeland for his "tribe". He was actually the opposite. He was completely assimilated. He dressed like a European intellectual, wrote like a European intellectual, lived like a European intellectual. He honestly believed that Judaism would eventually blend into “being French” or “being Austrian” and that this was a good thing. He pushed for Jews to blend in as much as possible. That was his whole worldview. He believed that Europe was the future of the Jewish people. He trusted Western values, Western society, Western culture. He was proud of it. He thought that if Jews just acted “European enough,” the hatred would go away. Then he found himself in the middle of the Dreyfus Affair in France. And he watched as thousands of so-called enlightened French citizens scream against Jews because one Jewish officer was falsely accused. Not “down with the criminal.” Down with the Jews. Straight to the oldest hatred in history. This was France, the country that bragged more than any place on earth about being modern and open minded. Yet the moment things got heated, all the fancy talk completely collapsed and the crowd went back to what Europe always knew how to do. Blame the Jews. That broke Herzl. Because if even he, a completely assimilated Jew, someone who barely thought of himself as part of a separate people, could stand in a European crowd and hear that, then the whole idea of assimilation protecting Jews was finished. He understood that no matter how “European” a Jew becomes, the crowd will always remind you that you are a Jew when it suits them. That is the moment modern Zionism was born. Not from religion. Not from nationalism. And not from tribalism. From a fully assimilated European realizing that Jewish safety cannot depend on other nations liking us. And this is why the argument “I don’t like some Israeli politicians” means nothing. A bad president in America does not mean America is a bad idea. It means people are flawed. Same in Israel. Leaders come and go. Zionism is not about who sits in office this year. It is about the basic right of Jewish people not to live at the mercy of whatever mood the crowd is in. Which brings me to the video. Calling Zionism “an attack on Western civilization” is completely backwards. Zionism exists because Western civilization, even at its most cultured and educated, could not protect the Jews. Herzl saw that with his own eyes. That is the real story. If someone wants to lecture about Zionism, at least know the basics before talking.

I met @ZohranKMamdani after the primaries. The reason he can't explain away his support for slogans like "Globalize the Intifada" is that they represent his core beliefs. He does not hide it; to the contrary, he is proud of it...

What if - hear me out - Hamas are exactly as evil as the Israelis keep saying? What if they’re exactly as oppressive, cynical and brutal as they appear? And because their goal isn’t independence but the destruction of Israel, what if they can only ever offer Palestinians more endless war? And what if Gazans know this and say it whenever they’re not afraid of reprisals? And (see below) would vote them out if given the chance? What would all that mean? Would it mean that the pro-Palestinian campaign has hurt Gaza by running a never-ending defense for Hamas’s crimes, such as their use of hospitals that suddenly, when only Gazans are being kidnapped, tortured and murdered in those hospitals, no one bothers to deny? Or by bullhorning their endless propaganda to the West, convincing Hamas they could hang on and retake Gaza after the war? Would it mean that if Trump can’t get his deal through, if Hamas can’t actually be crowbarred out of Gaza, then nothing you do for Gaza will matter because Hamas will only ever choose more war? Now that the hostages are back, Israeli public opinion doesn’t feel a desperate need to lose more Israeli soldiers’ lives in the effort to remove Hamas. Hamas is now mostly a Gazan problem, not an Israeli one. And none of the foreigners who only ever think about us through the lens of their little morality play have yet figured that out. Ending the war was important. Ending it with Hamas in charge was yet another enormous tragedy for Gaza.

Spot on and so depressing

Alon Ohel's mother shared a picture of him with his siblings, writing "The first Sabbath of a new light after two years of waiting. My three children are together again. Thank you for the miracle, thank you for life, thank you for the support. Shabbat Shalom." This is going to be the first time in a long time that the recently released former hostages get to celebrate Shabbat. I hope it's the most wonderful Shabbat of their lives.

@sethmoulton I’m embarrassed we are in the same party. I’d love to see the list of other PACs you refuse to accept $ from. I’m sure it’s zero. I’m looking forward to contributing time, money and effort to your primary opponent.

I am returning AIPAC donations and refusing to accept any donations or support from them. The FEC filing I made yesterday reflects that we are returning donations.

Two years. Two years passed since the last moment I saw Avinatan, the love of my life. Two years since the moment terrorists kidnapped us, put me on a motorcycle, and tore me away from Avinatan before the eyes of the entire world. From that moment, our journey in captivity was separated. I was held captive with children, women, and the elderly, while Avinatan was held alone. I was mostly kept inside houses, while Avinatan was only in the tunnels. Hamas released videos and signs of life from me, while there was no information at all about Avinatan. I was held captive by Hamas for 246 days, while Avinatan was held for 738 days. I came back in a heroic rescue operation, and Avinatan returned in a deal. But both of us, against all odds, came home and were reunited! I cannot put into words the range of emotions I felt when I saw him for the first time after so long. Each of us faced death countless times, and yet, after two years apart, we are finally taking our first steps together again in the State of Israel. At last, we can begin our healing together. The recovery will be long; we still haven’t truly processed what has happened here over these past two years. But we won. We won our personal war, and the war of all those who fought alongside us to reach this moment. And now, the time has come to begin our shared journey together. I want to say a huge thank you, first and foremost, to the @IDF soldiers and security forces who have been fighting for so long and risk their lives for us every single day. Thank you to our family, friends, and to the people of Israel, Am Yisrael, who raised their voices when we couldn’t speak. To the people around the world who embraced us, to all the incredible individuals who supported us through the hardest times and never lost hope throughout this long period. To the US government, which opened its doors to me and was always there to listen, especially @SEPeaceMissions Steve Witkoff, @jaredkushner, and the exceptional, President @realDonaldTrump. To all the people who too stood beside our hostages and understood that light must overcome darkness. We will never forget the fallen and the murdered, and we will not stop fighting until every fallen soldier and hostage is brought home for a proper burial in Israel. Thank you, thank you, thank you! This could never have happened without you. We are back ❤️

We hear Hamas and their supporters attempting to draw a moral equivalence between hostages stolen, some in their pyjamas from their beds, and Hamas terrorists convicted of mass murder or detained in the process of planning mass murder. It’s a lie, of course. Hamas kidnapped 251 people, tortured them, some for over two years. Israel is releasing some of the worst people in the world. Evil people who may go right back to trying to kill Jews. We do it because we worship life and want our family members back home. We’ll take the risk. Don’t buy the Hamas lie. There’s no equivalence. They’re evil. The hostages are innocent. This is about two opposites, not two equals.

Hamas is releasing 20 live hostages for about 2,000 Palestinians. That’s 100 Palestinians per hostage. On October 7th they murdered 1,200 Israelis. By their own “exchange rate,” that equals 120,000 Palestinians. So you can scream “genocide” all day, but the reality is clear, Israel has shown restraint like no other nation on earth.

You fought for us. You sacrificed for us. You defeated the enemy. You are our heroes. God bless the IDF. Am Yisrael Chai 🇮🇱

"If you walk away from these once in a lifetime peace opportunities, you can’t complain 25 years later." - @BillClinton to Yasser Arafat in 2000 after he walked away from a deal that would have given the Palestinians all of Gaza, a capital in the Eastern part of Jerusalem 96% of Judea and Samaria AND Israeli land to make up the remaining 4%. Here we are 25 years later.

🚨NEW: Bill Maher shares DISTURBING REASON corporate media covers Israel-Gaza War, but ignores Christian genocide in Nigeria — crowd *APPLAUDS*👏 "This is so much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza. They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country!" "[The corporate media isn't covering it] because the Jews aren't involved. That's why." @DailyCaller

Ezra Klein on Charlie Kirk: “You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion. When the left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and again to break it. Slowly, then all at once, he did. College-age voters shifted sharply right in the 2024 election. “That was not all Kirk’s doing, but he was central in laying the groundwork for it. I did not know Kirk and I am not the right person to eulogize him. But I envied what he built. A taste for disagreement is a virtue in a democracy. Liberalism could use more of his moxie and fearlessness. In the inaugural episode of his podcast, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California hosted Kirk, admitting that his son was a huge fan. What a testament to Kirk’s project.” “Kirk and I were on different sides of most political arguments. We were on the same side on the continued possibility of American politics. It is supposed to be an argument, not a war; it is supposed to be won with words, not ended through bullets. I wanted Kirk to be safe for his sake, but I also wanted him to be safe for mine, and for the sake of our larger shared project. The same is true for Shapiro, for Hoffman, for Hortman, for Thompson, for Trump, for Pelosi, for Whitmer. We are all safe, or none of us are.”