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April 2025

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GOOD NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on April 10th, 2025

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

My first Passover in America was a somber affair. The Jewish people confronted the news that one in every three Jews in the world was exterminated by the Nazis. The gates of Palestine were tightly closed by the duplicitous British White Papers. From depression and shock Zionism gave us hope and energy. Only five years after the Warsaw ghetto uprising during Passover in 1943, when Jews took up knives and forks and homemade Molotov cocktails to resist the barbarians, on May 14, 1948 the Jewish State of Israel was proclaimed and the world’s displaced Jews joined their brethren in Israel in an epic rescue.

Fast forward to the present where Michael Ordman provides a weekly catalog of Israel’s incredible and outsize participation and contributions in science, technology, water conservation, agriculture, medicine, and social institutions in the world while remaining a freedom loving democracy in a geographic archipelago of modern-day pharaohs. Happy and sweet Passover to all who observe and a happy and peaceful Easter Sunday on April 27th to all our Christian friends.   rsk

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Good progress on pancreatic cancer treatment. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Silexion Therapeutics reported that its SIL-204 pancreatic cancer treatment effectively reduces primary tumor growth and secondary cancer spread. Silexion ‘s first generation LODER treatment already had good results in Phase 2 trials on “simple” cancers.

https://silexion.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/silexion-therapeutics-announces-completion-of1.pdf

New way to treat resistant cancers. Israel’s MitoCarex Bio has developed its MITOLINE™ algorithm and other advanced computational capabilities to identify small molecules that can fight cancer. MitoCarex has just been acquired by Israel’s N2OFF (see here previously) which is also injecting $1 million of investment.

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/n2off-inc-enters-agreement-acquire-mitocarex-bio-ltd-expand-cancer-therapeutics-portfolio   `https://mitocarexbio.com/

How cells respond to treatment. Researchers from Tel Aviv University have developed scNET that tracks gene expression at the single-cell level in response to various therapies. It has exciting implications for research into cancer treatments and their effect on the tumor, pro-cancer supporting cells, and anti-cancer immune cells.

https://www.gov.il/en/pages/novel-ai-based-method-reveals-how-cells-respond-to-drug-treatments-1-apr-2025

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-025-02627-0

What’s happening inside? Prof Hossam Haick of Israel’s Technion and his team have developed a new method for monitoring molecular processes deep within tissue. Their system uses chemical tomography to analyze volatile organic compounds (VOCs). It can help early cancer detection in many organs of the body.

https://www.technion.ac.il/en/blog/article/breakthrough-in-noninvasive-monitoring-of-molecular-processes-in-deep-tissue/

Real-time blood tests. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Inspira Technologies (see here previously) announced positive results from the clinical study at Sheba Hospital of its AI-powered HYLA blood sensor. Its real-time blood monitoring enables early diagnosis and personalized care without the need for intermittent blood draws.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/inspira-technologies-announces-positive-results-from-clinical-study-of-hyla-blood-sensor-achieving-96-accuracy-302391551.html

Combatting gum disease and more. (TY Nevet) Hebrew University of Jerusalem scientists have discovered how the bacteria Porphyromonas gingivalis causes periodontitis infection (gum disease). Preventing it binding to protein CD47 prevents periodontitis, and its correlation with cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, and cancer.

https://www.afhu.org/2025/02/24/new-approach-to-suppress-oral-bacteria-that-cause-periodontal-and-other-disease-symptoms-discovered-by-hu-researchers/  https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2405534121

US approves rotator cuff repair system. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Arcuro Medical (see here previously) has received US FDA clearance for its SuperBall-RC system for use in rotator cuff (shoulder) repair procedures. Arcuro’s SuperBall technology platform has now successfully been used in over 5,000 meniscus (knee) repairs.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/arcuro-medical-announces-fda-510k-clearance-for-the-superball-rc-for-rotator-cuff-indications-302387137.html

From cultivated meat to muscle therapy. Israel’s Profuse (see here previously) which specializes in the laboratory cultivation of muscle tissue for non-animal meat, has launched a new technology and program for preventing and restoring muscle lost by the growing use of weight-loss treatments, aging, and cancer.

https://startupsmagazine.co.uk/article-profuse-launches-drug-discovery-platform-prevention-muscle-loss

https://profuse-tech.com/drug-discovery/

Combining complementary and conventional medicine. Israel’s Treat Me (see here) has developed an AI-driven platform that allows practitioners to create tailor-made treatment plans that bridge Western medicine, complementary therapies (e.g. Chinese medicine, naturopathy, reflexology) and cutting-edge research.

https://www.israel21c.org/mom-turns-medical-nightmare-into-an-integrative-care-dream/ https://www.treatme.ltd/

Rehabilitation conference. (TY Yanky) Israel hosted the “Lifetime Partnership” International Rehabilitation Conference in Tel Aviv. It attracted medical and rehabilitation experts from militaries, defense ministries, and health departments in England, Thailand, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Brazil and Canada.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-hosts-first-ever-international-rehabilitation-conference-in-wake-of-oct-7/

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR

Woman of Courage. One of the seven International Women of Courage 2025 awarded by the US State Department was Israel’s Amit Sousanna. Amit uses her voice to courageously advocate for survivors by using her own lived example to describe the trauma she suffered as a hostage of the October 7th attack.

https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-former-hostage-amit-soussana-receives-us-state-departments-international-woman-of-courage-award/ https://www.state.gov/2025-international-women-of-courage-award/#amit-soussana

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPFKZG_J9YI

Gadi returns to Turner stadium. This scene was too emotional not to include in this newsletter. Ex-hostage Gadi Moses was welcomed back to Turner stadium, the home of his favorite soccer club Beersheva.  Also read his latest interview.  https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-released-hostage-gadi-moses-honored-at-soccer-game/

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-847026

Shot in the back but recovered. Female IDF soldier Stav Bachar survived Oct 2023 despite Hamas terrorists shooting her in the back, abdomen, and pelvis, and leaving her for dead. If you can access X, see her now.

https://www.jfeed.com/news-israel/s3ckd9  https://x.com/VividProwess/status/1906534415582339547

The most wounded soldier forges on. On Oct 7 2023, Alon Kaminer’s life changed forever when a premature explosion in combat left him clinically dead and with devastating injuries. He lost his leg, right arm, left hand, and an eye. He was clinically dead but he survived, and with unshakable courage and resilience, he fights on.

https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-the-most-wounded-idf-soldier-forges-on/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L49-PUlreA

Battlefield lessons save civilian lives. Israeli hospitals, such as Laniado in Netanya, have been applying many of the advanced methods developed by the IDF during the war. Whole blood is given to wounded soldiers before evacuation, and this technique is now used in Laniado if patients have insufficient platelets for surgery.

https://laniadosupporters.org.il/laniado-applies-advanced-idf-methods/

Donor’s lungs blew the shofar at his memorial. Last year, Kfir Zar received a double lung transplant from fallen IDF soldier Dor Zimel (see here previously). At the memorial to Dor, Kfir used Dor’s lungs to blow a shofar for him.  https://inspirationfromzion.com/2025/03/31/how-do-we-heal-from-the-trauma-of-this-war/

https://www.ynetnews.com/health_science/article/hknxtehzc

$1.3 billion for rebuilding Gaza envelope. Israel’s Knesset has approved a comprehensive recovery plan aimed at rebuilding communities located within 7 km. (4.3 miles) of the Gaza border that were severely impacted by the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023.

https://www.jns.org/knesset-approves-1-3b-recovery-plan-for-gaza-border-communities/

From evacuation to action. (TY Mara) Students from JNF-USA-supported Kiryat Shmona University have returned to clean up the battered city. And young educators from JNF-USA’s network of organizations including MAKOM (see here previously) have relocated to Israel’s North and South to revive the communities.

https://www.jnf.org/jnf-blog/post/blog/be-inspired–jewish-national-fund-usa-is-bringing-young-people-back-to-the-north-and-south   https://www.jnf.org/ways-to-help/support-israel

Volunteering led to romance. Rebecca Starr and Benjamin (Benji) Katz are among countless Diaspora Jews who immediately volunteered to join the war effort in Israel after Oct 7 2023. They met at the NGO Pitchon-Lev, which is providing aid to IDF soldiers and Oct 7 survivors. Rebecca and Benji are to be married in July.

https://www.jns.org/a-love-story-born-from-the-tragic-day-of-oct-7/

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Ten Tariff Questions Never Asked The real trade war wasn’t Trump’s—it was decades of lopsided deals, deficits, and double standards America tolerated while others profited. By Victor Davis Hanson

By on April 10th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/04/10/ten-tariff-questions-never-asked/

1. Trump’s So-Called “Trade War.”

Many call the American effort to obtain either tariff parity or a reduction in the roughly $1 trillion trade deficit and fifty years of consecutive trade deficits “a trade war.” But then what do they call the policies of the past half-century by Europe, Asia, China, and others to ensure asymmetrical tariffs, pseudo-health and security trade restrictions, and large surpluses?

A trade peace? Trade fairness?

2. Do Nations Prefer Surpluses or Deficits?

Why do most nations prefer trade surpluses and protective tariffs?

Are Europe, Asia, China, and others stupid? Are they suicidal in continuing their trade surpluses and protective or asymmetrical tariffs?

Is the United States uniquely brilliant in maintaining a half-century of cumulative trade deficits? Do Americans alone discover the advantages of a $1 trillion annual trade deficit and small or nonexistent tariffs?

Why don’t America’s trading partners prefer deficits like ours—given we supposedly believe they are either advantageous or perhaps irrelevant?

3. Would Our Trade Partners Prefer to Trade Places With Us?

Would our trade partners prefer to have America’s supposed benefits of a $1-trillion trade deficit? Would the United States then “suffer” like they do by running up $200 billion annual surpluses?

4. What if Wages Went Up at the Rate of the Stock Market?

What would now be the reaction of the stock market if over the last decade wages had increased at the rate of stocks—and the stocks at the rate of wages?

5. Is Wall Street’s Panic Based on What Might Happen—Or What Is Happening?

Is Wall Street’s meltdown a fear of what might happen in the future? Or is it reacting to March’s latest jobs report that there were 93,000 more jobs created than predicted? Was the Wall Street panic predicated on reports of much lower oil prices? Did the furor arise over the March inflation report that the annualized inflation rate dipped to 2.6% per year?

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Is Europe Still Fighting Lost Energy Wars? by Drieu Godefridi

By on April 10th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21523/eu-greenpeace-dakota-access-pipeline

The signal is clear: in the United States, no one any longer jokes with those who hinder the economy and trample on the rights of others under the guise of idealism.

Greenpeace would apparently like organizations such as itself to directly or indirectly cause hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage, while preventing any court from intervening.

The applicability of the EU anti-SLAPP directive to the judgment in question is doubtful…

It looks as if the EU, through this directive, once again is trying to dictate the law on American soil. Transatlantic tensions, already fuelled by trade disputes, issues of free speech, NATO funding and the war in Ukraine, would mount further.

In a spectacular decision, a court in North Dakota ordered the environmentalist organizations that comprise Greenpeace to pay $665 million in damages for “defamation, trespass, nuisance, civil conspiracy and other acts,” to Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The news came down like a thunderbolt. In a spectacular decision, the Morton County courthouse in Mandan, North Dakota, ordered the environmentalist organizations that comprise Greenpeace to pay $665 million in damages to Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. The figure appears a monumental slap in the face to Greenpeace, which was sued by Energy Transfer for “defamation, trespass, nuisance, civil conspiracy and other acts,” following demonstrations against the pipeline project in 2016 and 2017.

The North Dakota jury did not pull any punches. Greenpeace was declared liable; its methods illegal and its actions harmful. Greenpeace has already announced that it will appeal.

Beyond the legal wrangling, this ruling raises the question: what if this case marks the start of a major transatlantic rift between an America defending its energy interests and a Europe mired in its green romanticism?

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P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Paul du Quenoy The Met’s “Big Bet” on Contemporary Opera Looks Like a Loser General manager Peter Gelb’s gamble on new works has failed to fill seats—or steady the company’s shaky finances.

By on April 10th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/metropolitan-opera-ticket-sales-operating-costs-performances

“Hopefully we see the Met thriving artistically, and that we will have created a new artistic foundation that will help it continue to grow,” Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb told the New York Times in 2023, referring to his “big bet”: programming “new works” by living composers. That includes brand-new pieces premiering at the Met, very recent ones that premiered elsewhere, and contemporary works that have been around but are coming to New York only on Gelb’s initiative.

Just how well has this programming done? Sales for the recently completed 2023–2024 season are up slightly: 72 percent capacity versus 66 percent for 2022–2023. However, adjusted for steeply discounted tickets—as little as $25, including taxes and fees—the 2023–2024 season’s box office revenues reach only about 64 percent of their full-price potential. It’s hard to say that the “big bet” is paying off.

Part of Gelb’s approach is to stage one “new work” as each season’s opening-night gala performance. The Met kicked off this trend in 2022 with Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, a tedious adaptation of journalist Charles Blow’s oversharing childhood memoir. The Met, having just returned to live performance after the Covid-19 pandemic, touted Blanchard’s opera as its first by a black composer. Racial tokenism notwithstanding, Gelb congratulated himself in a Times op-ed last November for having “seized the moment for some wholesale change.”

Gelb has claimed that “new works” outperform traditional favorites. But this appears to have happened only once last season, with Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcom X, which sold 78 percent of seats. House premieres of Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, the Met’s first staged production of a Spanish opera in the original language, reached only 68 percent of seats sold. The respected composer John Adams’s new opera El Niño, a Latin-themed meditation on the birth of Christ, returned just 58 percent. The 2023–2024 season’s much-hyped opening-night new work, Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking—a preachy indictment of the death penalty—sold only 62 percent.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Is Syria’s al-Sharaa the Moderate He Claims to Be? An eyebrow-raising pick for Syria’s Mufti. Hugh Fitzgerald

By on April 10th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/another-sign-that-syrias-al-sharaa-is-not-the-moderate-he-claims-to-be/

Now there is another worrisome sign that Ahmed al-Sharaa may not be the moderate he claims to be. For he has appointed a most immoderate Sunni cleric to be the Grand Mufti of Syria. More on this appointment can be found here: “Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Pick for Syria’s Mufti Shows He Is No Moderate,” by Kamal Chomani, Middle East Forum, April 3, 2025:

Self-appointed Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s recent appointment of Sheikh Osama Al-Rifa’i to be Syria’s Grand Mufti and al-Sharaa’s announcement of the transitional Syrian government signals the new regime will continue to disregard Syria’s ethnic and religious diversity. Al-Rifa’i previously was head of the Syrian Islamic Council in Istanbul, which largely carried water for Turkey.

Al-Rifa’i’s appointment especially concerns minorities given his 2018 anti-Kurdish fatwa that greenlighted the Turkish invasion of Kurdish territories, and the Turkish forces’ subsequent ethnic cleansing and cultural eradication.

Al-Rifa’i’s fatwa began with a condemnation of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the largely Kurdish militia that allied with the United States against the Islamic State, for working with Americans and said, “Fighting the Syrian Democratic Forces is jihad in the way of God.” In its seventh point, the fatwa legitimized cooperation with Turkey’s military operations. “We do not see a legitimate obstacle to cooperating with the Turkish government in fighting criminals,” it explained….

The “criminals” Turkey claims to be fighting in Syria are the Kurds in the Syrian Democratic Forces who are fighting only to keep their autonomy in northeast Syria, while the Turkish army is trying to suppress them. Osama al-Rifa’i is in the pocket of Erdogan, who was no doubt delighted when al-Sharaa appointed him to be the Grand Mufti of Syria.

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Sudan’s ‘forgotten war’ exposes the inhumanity of Israelophobia Why are the influencers who said ‘black lives matter’ shamefully silent on the black lives lost in Sudan? Brendan O’Neill

By on April 10th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/04/06/sudans-forgotten-war-exposes-the-inhumanity-of-israelophobia/

They’re actually calling it ‘the forgotten war’. Following the fall of Khartoum to the Sudanese army last week, the global commentariat has been wringing its hands over this ‘overlooked’ tragedy. They’re inviting us, finally, to ponder Sudan’s ‘forgotten crisis’, to reflect on what some refer to as the world’s worst humanitarian calamity. Our reporters found ‘fear, loss and hope in Sudan’s ruined capital’, said the BBC this week. To which the only reasonable reply is: what kept them? This war’s been raging for years and only now do you deign to cover it?

It is an act of incalculable gall for the media elites to call Sudan’s suffering ‘the forgotten war’. For this war wasn’t forgotten, it was erased – by them. It was ruthlessly relegated down the hierarchy of human suffering by a media class so drunk on its obsession and animus with Israel’s war in Gaza that it became blind to every other horror on Earth. It wasn’t forgetfulness that led the West’s cultural establishments to so pitilessly neglect the suffering of the Sudanese people – it was Israelophobia.

Sudan has been ravaged by war since 15 April 2023. Yes, we will shortly arrive at the second anniversary of this brutal conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and yet which so few people in the West are aware of. The war pitted the army of Sudan against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful paramilitary force that has its origins in the Janjaweed militia that carried out unspeakable atrocities during the ‘Darfur crisis’ of 2003 to 2020. The Sudanese army and the RSF were allies once. They ruled Sudan on a joint military council following the populist ousting of Sudan’s dictatorial president, Omar al-Bashir, in 2019. But tensions between them grew and a merciless war for sole power exploded in 2023.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Johnny Rotten is right: Hamas is a gang of ‘Jew exterminators’ Never mind the bollocks – John Lydon knows the truth about Israel and Hamas. BrendanO’Neill

By on April 10th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/04/08/johnny-rotten-is-right-hamas-is-a-gang-of-jew-exterminators/

Johnny Rotten is revolting again. This time it’s not the monarchy or the music industry the sexagenarian Sex Pistol has in his sights. It’s the suffocating celebrity consensus that says Israel is the world’s nastiest nation and its war on Hamas is a crime against humanity. Actually, says Rotten, the Jewish nation is a pretty democratic one, and Hamas is nothing more than a bunch of ‘Jew exterminators’. And there it is, the truth, as only a punk could put it.

It was in an interview with the Irish Independent that John Lydon – as he’s now known – stuck two fingers up at today’s fashionable Israelophobia. The reporter reminds him that his band, Public Image Limited, played in Tel Aviv in 2010 and asks if he would ever do so again. The ‘right’ reply to such a query, of course, is to say: ‘No. Never. I swear. Please don’t cancel me.’ Rotten’s reply? Basically: yeah, why the hell not.

He says he had a hoot playing in Israel. ‘The country is more mixed than you’re led to believe, it’s not just “Jews only”, far from it’, he said. Cue pearl-clutching from every luvvie who thinks Israel is an ‘apartheid state’ because some tit at the Guardian told them it was. ‘There were lots of Muslims in the audience when I played there’, he said. Then his killer line: ‘That was special because no Muslim nation has invited me, not ever.’

I can’t get enough of this. Where celebs normally trot out whatever anti-Israel crap they’ve heard from TikTok’s time-rich white kids in keffiyehs, here comes Johnny with the truth.

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Trump is right to take on the free-trade fundamentalists The old order of globalisation and industrial decline has failed working-class Americans. Joel Kotkin

By on April 10th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/04/09/trump-is-right-to-take-on-the-free-trade-fundamentalists/

It’s easy to dismiss Donald Trump’s haphazard tariff barrage as silly and self-defeating, especially after so many days of global market turmoil. But critics among liberal Democrats and Republican free traders still need to address the overriding goal behind the seeming madness. The key strategic objective of Trump’s approach is simple: restoring American industrial power. Opponents of the US president ignore this at their peril.

It is true that the American economy continues to outperform those of Europe and the UK, especially in terms of tech, communications and finance. Yet the situation for blue-collar professions and working-class communities has not improved with the pace of globalisation. Between 2004 and 2017, the US share of world manufacturing shrank from 15 to 10 per cent. Since 2000, notes an Economic Policy Institute study, China’s export barrage has cost as many as 3.7million US jobs.

The ‘China shock’ is not just an American but a global phenomenon. Today, China boasts nearly as many factory exports as the US, Japan and Germany combined. Overall, Europe’s industrial sector continues to decline, losing 850,000 manufacturing jobs between 2019 and 2024. Germany could lose around half of its 800,000 auto jobs to Chinese competition by 2030.

To be sure, the early stages of globalisation reaped enormous benefits, both for Western consumers and for developing countries. But China’s admission into the World Trade Organisation in 2000 changed the dynamic. Here was a huge country, with enormous human capital, which adopted a highly mercantilist drive to dominate industries, first at the lower end of manufacturing and then, increasingly, in the most sophisticated sectors.

Wall Street bankers and tech oligarchs may be untroubled by the consequences of Beijing’s mercantilism, as they have little contact with America’s working and middle classes. The poorest have increasingly been forced to subsist on expanding welfare benefits which, in turn, subsidise the affluent for whom they work for a pittance as nannies, gardeners and day labourers.

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ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

I Was Called an ‘Inbred Swine’ at Princeton Last Night By Danielle Shapiro

By on April 10th, 2025

https://www.thefp.com/p/anti-israel-princeton-protest?utm_medium=email

Anti-Israel protesters shut down a campus event by pulling a fire alarm and hurling vile slurs. Will our college president finally act?

Last night at Princeton, Jewish students were called “inbred swine,” told to “go back to Europe,” and taunted with gestures of the Hamas triangle by masked protesters. Sadly, slurs like these have become commonplace at anti-Israel protests at my college in the months since Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, but university president Christopher Eisgruber insists he is “proud of the campus climate at Princeton.”

What would it take for him to question that belief?

The latest outrage was sparked by a visit from former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett. More than 200 students had turned up to hear Bennett talk about his time as prime minister from 2021 to 2022 and the current government under Benjamin Netanyahu post–October 7.

Days before Bennett arrived, the Princeton chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine had plastered posters all over campus, calling him a “war criminal,” and flooded listservs and social media with messages saying the college was “complicit in normalizing his murderous policies.” SJP students publicly declared that “Bennett should be in prison, not at Princeton.” Never mind that he was the first Israeli PM to form a coalition with the Arab party in the Knesset. Or that Princeton’s Hillel and four other organizations had invited him to the talk in good faith. All students who registered for the event were encouraged to submit questions in advance; only those with a Princeton ID were able to register.

Around 7 p.m. on Monday, anti-Israel protesters gathered at the campus’s flagship building, Nassau Hall, and then marched, while banging drums and shouting into microphones, toward McCosh Hall, where Bennett started giving his remarks at 7:30 p.m. I settled into a seat to hear him talk. About 20 minutes into his speech, around 25 students stood up in unison and shouted at Bennett, “War criminal!” “We charge you with genocide!” and other exclamations before walking out en masse.

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“Tariffs and Other Thoughts” Sydney Williams

By on April 10th, 2025

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

President Trump bears responsibility for the rout in the world’s equity markets. His tariffs, if used to raise revenues, as he claims, will cause a global recession, or worse. If they are used to negotiate lower tariffs on U.S. exports, which he also claims, they will strengthen the economy and may lead to global free trade. He is right, however, in his complaint that there is much in our politics and culture that has gone wrong over the past several years. We are a country, like much of the West, with a spending problem. Federal debt, as a percent of GDP, is higher than it was in 1945 (121% in 2024 versus 112% in 1945). Both political parties are at fault for excessive spending. As well, there has been a rise in anti-Semitism, fueled, in my opinion, by dislike for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and often masked as anti-Zionism. And, of course, our border was open throughout President Biden’s term in office.

In this age of technology, we must focus on ensuring access to needed raw materials. Over the past several years, we have let defense spending lapse, while permitting China unchallenged access to commodities and markets across Africa and South America. We have allowed unfettered (and illegal) migration into our country, and not just for those seeking political refuge from despotic governments, but for criminals and gang members, some of whom brought in fentanyl, a drug that has killed an estimated quarter of a million Americans since 2018. We have seen the Democratic Party take a sharp turn to the left, as it became increasingly patronizing in tone – do as I say, not as I do. The Party has focused on equity, not equal opportunity. In the name of diversity, it has encouraged racial division and allowed identity policies, rather than ability and diligence, to become the standard for admissions into colleges and businesses; it has let universities become beacons of “social justice,” rather than pinnacles of learning where students debate controversial subjects in a respectful and tolerant manner; it has encouraged sports venues to allow males to compete against females. Just last year, the Party knowingly nominated a man for President who was mentally unfit, and now we have a Supreme Court Justice who is unable to define a woman. In all of this, mainstream media has been complicit.

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