Who are the Terrorists Whom Israel is Freeing? Grotesquely lopsided exchanges.Hugh Fitzgerald

https://www.frontpagemag.com/who-are-the-terrorists-whom-israel-is-freeing/

Israel has committed itself to freeing 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, including many who are serving life sentences for multiple murders. And for these 1,900, Israel is getting back a mere handful of hostages — likely no more than fifty remain alive of the 98 hostages Hamas supposedly still holds — all of them innocents. Perhaps you’d like to see what 80 of those prisoners are guilty of, to begin to appreciate the danger inherent in this grotesquely lopsided exchange. How many of these terrorists will use their freedom to murder again? 82% of the 1,027 Palestinians who were freed in order to obtain the release of one soldier, Gilad Shalit, in 2011, went right back to murdering Israelis. More on these arch-criminals — their names, their crimes, their victims — can be found here: “The names and crimes of 80 dangerous terrorist murderers being released by Israel,” by Itamar Marcus and Ephraim D. Tepler, Palestinian Media Watch, January 24, 2025:

As Israel celebrates the release of three of the hostages kidnapped on October 7, 2023 and anticipates the release of 30 more over 42 days, every Israeli dreads the consequences of the dangerous price extorted from Israel by Hamas.

Israel has agreed to release over 1,900 terrorists, including many murderers, such as Wael Qassem, who is serving 35 life sentences.

General Security Service Director Ronen Bar told Israel’s security cabinet last week that 82% of the 1,024 terrorists released in exchange for Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit in 2011 “returned to terrorism.” The leaders of Hamas who planned and led the October 7 massacre were released terrorist prisoners. Thousands of Israelis have been murdered as a direct result of previous terrorist-hostage exchanges.

To display the nature of the danger, Palestinian Media Watch has prepared a list of the names of 80 of the terrorist murderers to be released with descriptions of some of their crimes.

Note that among those being released are terror commanders who planned and organized murders by suicide bombing, shooting, and stabbing; bomb builders; and terrorists who murdered with their own hands by stabbing and shooting. As in the past, the majority of those being released now will return to their former positions and be the leaders and foundation of Palestinian terrorism for years to come.

Trump Has an Opportunity in Asia Central Asia has long been a blind spot in U.S. foreign policy. by Ivan Sascha Sheehan

https://www.frontpagemag.com/trump-has-an-opportunity-in-asia/

Marco Rubio’s confirmation for Secretary of State is most noteworthy for its bipartisan acceptance. While his confirmation hearing did not feature clickbait shouting matches, it did include a unique vision for furthering American interests in a region that the United States has largely neglected: Central Asia. During his testimony, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) discussed the region’s potential for realizing President Donald Trump’s policy priorities, especially with regard to energy and containing China.

Central Asia – which includes the countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – must be a strategic focus of American policy. The region offers a wealth of existing and untapped energy resources, both hydrocarbons and the critical minerals vital for high-tech and green energy. It is bordered by China, Afghanistan, Iran, and Russia – making it crucial to many of America’s core foreign policy priorities.

However, Central Asia has long been a blind spot in U.S. foreign policy. Within the labyrinthine bowels of the State Department, it has been repeatedly shuffled between different bureaus. American diplomats and experts working on the region often do so as a byproduct of prior education in Soviet studies, insufficiently grasping the region’s needs and challenges. U.S. policy in the region needs a shakeup.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States focused on the region’s most urgent necessities. Relations with Central Asia initially focused on denuclearization, economic liberalization, and arms control. After 9/11, the focus shifted towards removing the Taliban in Afghanistan, rooting out al Qaeda, and the Global War on Terror. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and other Central Asian states supported these security efforts by working alongside the United States.

Central Asia remains receptive to American foreign policy. When the trade war with China began, Central Asian states did not help China avoid tariffs. Many states in the region are eager for trade and investment, not handouts, and even when the United States erected tariffs, they maintained a low-tariff regime and welcomed American exports. This is not just for economic reasons but geopolitical ones: to reduce dependency on Russia and China.

Democrat Leader Wants Leftists to Fight Trump’s Policies ‘in the Streets’ The leftist lust for violence appears yet again. by Robert Spencer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/democrat-leader-wants-leftists-to-fight-trumps-policies-in-the-streets/

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has called upon people to fight the “extreme MAGA Republican agenda” not just “legislatively” and “in the courts,” but “in the streets.” The Trump White House has demanded that Jeffries apologize, but so far he has not done so, and it is unlikely that he will. It makes sense that he wouldn’t. After all, how can he apologize for echoing a call that numerous leftists have made in recent years?

According to a Friday report in the New York Post, Jeffries and Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-Race Hatred) were criticizing Trump for his handling of the helicopter/plane collision in Washington when a reporter asked Jeffries about New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has been showing dangerous signs lately of not showing the unremitting hostility to Trump that the left requires.

That was not a question Jeffries wanted to address. He said: “I’ll have more to say about the future of the mayorship of the city of New York at the appropriate time.” Jeffries then changed the subject, and began expatiating on how leftists should be responding to this moment of deep crisis for their socialist internationalist agenda.

Jeffries continued: “Right now, we’re going to keep focused on the need to look out for everyday New Yorkers and everyday Americans who are under assault by an extreme MAGA Republican agenda that is trying to cut taxes for billionaires, donors, and wealthy corporations and then stick New Yorkers and working class Americans across the country with the bill. That’s not acceptable. We are going to fight it legislatively. We are going to fight it in the courts. We’re going to fight it in the streets.”

This was the minority leader of the House of Representatives, someone who is supposed to want to be invested in the safety and wellbeing of Americans, issuing an open call for violence. White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai declared: “While President Trump remains focused on uniting our country and delivering the mandate set by the American people, the House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, incites violence calling for people to fight ‘in the streets’ against President Trump’s agenda. This unhinged violent rhetoric is dangerous. Leader Jeffries should immediately apologize.”

RealClearFoundation Launches the Journal of the Academy of Public Health

https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2025/02/05/realclearfoundation_launches_the_journal_of_the_academy_of_public_health_1089515.html

The RealClearFoundation announces today the launch of the Journal of the Academy of Public Health, a revolutionary new scientific journal publishing cutting-edge, peer-reviewed and open access research from the world’s leading scholars of epidemiology, vaccinology, global public health, health policy and related disciplines.  

The Journal was co-founded by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, formerly of Harvard University. Their shared vision is presented in Dr. Kulldorff’s inaugural paper, “The Rise and Fall of Scientific Journals and a Way Forward.” 

The Journal of the Academy of Public Health is led by Dr. Kulldorff and Dr. Andrew Noymer, of UC Irvine, as co-Editors-in-Chief. Drs. Kulldorff and Noymer are joined by an Editorial Board of leading public health scholars from a diversity of countries and research specialties, including Dr. Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, Dr. John Ioannidis of Stanford, and Dr. Peter Gøtzsche of the University of Copenhagen. Dr. Bhattacharya is on leave from the JAPH.  

The inaugural issue of the Journal of the Academy of Public Health, published online today, includes original peer-reviewed research as well as essays on the state of public health as a global discipline and a review of previously published vaccine literature. 

A ‘Sputnik Moment’? Majority Fear Losing AI Lead To China, Back More Gov’t Investment: I&I/TIPP Poll

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/02/10/a-sputnik-moment-majority-fear-losing-ai-lead-to-china-back-more-govt-investment-ii-tipp-poll/

Americans mostly want smaller, more effective government that spends less of their money while still doing essential things that only governments can do. But, in the latest I&I/TIPP Poll, there’s one area where people see a definite role for government: The ongoing U.S.-China battle to dominate the global artificial intelligence (AI) market, estimated to be worth trillions of dollars.

America had a kind of “Sputnik moment” recently, as tech author Charles Hugh Smith put it, after claims were made that China’s “DeepSeek” R1 AI software had leapfrogged other global AI versions and that it did so with an unbelievably parsimonious development cost of only $6 million.

That seemingly innocuous announcement sent stock markets plunging around the world, leading to such headlines as Chinese AI threat triggers $1 trillion market crash, DeepSeek sends a shockwave through markets, and Did China’s DeepSeek Just Pop The AI Stock Bubble?, among many, many others.

Does this bother average Americans? Quite a bit, it seems. In February’s national online I&I/TIPP Poll, taken Jan. 29-31 from a sample of 1,478 adults, survey participants were asked three questions about the booming field of artificial intelligence.

The first question: “How concerned are you about China potentially surpassing the U.S. in artificial intelligence development?”

‘The Palestinian People Does Not Exist’ by Nils A. Haug

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21374/the-palestinian-people-does-not-exist

“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism.” — Senior PLO official Zuheir Mohsen, interviewed by James Dorsey, Trouw, March 31, 1977.

Jordan… actually was in possession of Jerusalem, if illegally, between 1948 and the 1967 Six-Day War. Jordan nevertheless, the first day of the war, insisted on joining the other Arab countries in attacking Israel, even though General Moshe Dayan had warned Jordan’s King Hussein at the time to stay out of it….

The Al-Aqsa Mosque would therefore have been constructed six years after Muhamad’s death: c. 570- June 8, 632 CE.

While Islamism can be understood as an extremist political and ideological facet of Islam, Palestinianism comprises a narrow ideological expression of such Islamism. In particular, Palestinianism can be regarded as a subset of the broader jihadist Islamist agenda; one of its “action-arms” so to speak.

On the world stage and promoted by the legacy media, the Palestinian issue is relentlessly and often callously exploited by ruthless jihadist Islamists and their sympathizers, despite the immense suffering of many innocent civilians from both parties to the conflict. It is the gross misuse of the Palestinian people’s predicament for tactical purposes that has led to the fabricated ideology of Palestinianism. Admittedly, the Islamist propaganda “machine” has been partially successful in persuading the West as to the justice, however fabricated, of the Palestinian cause.

GOOD NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

Beyond the headlines of hostage releases, and new paradigms for the future of Gaza, there is a nation of start-ups, scientists and researchers that develop new technology to improve every aspect of beneficent human endeavor. After work they can enjoy cafes, bistros, restaurants, concerts, theater and dance, in a democracy that protects their civic lives. Michael Ordman details the foregoing . Read all about it. rsk

No one can now deny the evil that is Hamas Story by Stephen Pollard

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/no-one-can-now-deny-the-evil-that-is-hamas/ar-AA1yFavM?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=3e049c2261804ef0ac98245c7e89fbe2&ei=13

Two weeks ago the world commemorated the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In the years since 1945 the images of the inmates have become part of the fabric of history, documenting the evil of which some of our species are capable.

We may now be used to seeing them, but the pictures of starved, emaciated bodies, barely more than skeletons, have never lost the power to shock.

As a former editor of the Jewish Chronicle, I have had both to report and to confront anti-Semitism.

The battle against Jew hate has become the driving force of my professional life. Sometimes it has felt as though the Jewish people were banging our heads against a brick wall – such as when the response of so many self-described “progressives” to the barbarity of October 7 has been to demonstrate not against the barbarity but against the victims of that barbarity.

In that context, I have spent time asking myself if the scenes in Gaza and the terrible state of the latest hostages to be released might cause them to indulge in some self-reflection, or even a sense of shame that they have been marching in support of the terrorists who inflicted this evil.

I doubt it. These are the people, after all, who we have now learnt applied to the police at 2.50pm on October 7 2023 for permission to march against Israel the following week – making their application while the massacre was still in progress.

The footage of Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami and Or Levy could have come straight from 1945.

The only difference was the presence of their Hamas captors; the Nazis had fled the camps by the time they were liberated.

Trump, Musk, and the Deep State: The Battle Over Transparency Begins Trump and Musk are unraveling the deep state’s secrets at record speed, and the left is panicking—wielding emergency orders, judicial overreach, and legal theatrics to stop the exposure. By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/09/trump-musk-and-the-deep-state-the-battle-over-transparency-begins/

Here we go again. At the beginning of his first term as president, Donald Trump issued an executive order temporarily banning travel from several countries—Yemen, for example, Sudan, Libya, and four others—that had been identified as major exporters of terrorism.  The left went nuts, excoriating Trump for his “racist” “Muslim travel ban.”

It wasn’t a “Muslim travel ban,” but try telling that to Seattle District Court judge James Robart. He sniffed the air, sensed the pleasing hysteria and press coverage, and issued a cursory restraining order against Trump’s executive order. The humorous part of Robart’s order came towards the end.  As I wrote at the time, Robart insisted that the “declaratory and injunctive relief” outlined in his order be applied immediately and on a “nationwide basis” (my emphasis).

Seattle has spoken, Comrades! Judge Robarts finds (where? how?) that his court has jurisdiction over … well, over just about everything: the president and the head of the Department of Homeland Security, for starters, but also “the United States of America (collectively).”

So all across the fruited plain, “Federal Defendants and all their respective officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys, and persons acting in concert or participation with them are hereby ENJOINED and RESTRAINED” from enforcing the President’s executive order.

This may be the best place to pause and point out that Donald Trump, acting as the president of the United States, was perfectly within his rights to issue an executive order to suspend travel from particular countries.

And so it is now with Trump’s deputies in the Department of Government Efficiency.  Tasked with the daunting task of unscrambling the byzantine Rube Goldberg device that is the 21st-century administrative state for furthering corruption, illegal payments, and partisan influence at home and abroad, DOGE commander Elon Musk and his laptop-and-algorithm-toting lieutenants have been patiently uncovering the pyramid of waste, fraud, and abuse that is the foundation of the United States government in its twenty-first-century incarnation.

Who really wants ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the Middle East? If you marched on demos saying ‘Crush Israel’, then you can hardly complain about Trump’s mad vision for Gaza. Brendan O’Neill

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/02/08/who-really-wants-ethnic-cleansing-in-the-middle-east/

A new definition of chutzpah just dropped. It’s people thinking they can spend 16 months crying ‘Crush the Zionist entity!’ and then wring their hands over the threat of ‘ethnic cleansing’. It’s protesters thinking they can wail ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ – shorter version: erase Israel – and then accuse others of wanting to ‘cleanse’ the Middle East of ‘problematic’ people. It’s an activist class that is consumed by a burning hatred for the very idea of a Jewish homeland thinking it can lecture its opponents on the importance of respecting other people’s homelands.

I can stomach some hypocrisy, but I draw the line at pontifications on ‘forced removal’ from a political set that dreams of removing the Jewish State from the family of nations. Behold the orgy of sanctimony that has greeted Donald Trump’s nutty proposals to push Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip so that he might turn it into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’. We’ll come back to Trump’s vision, if you can call it that. But first we need to take down the idea that he has unforgivably put ‘ethnic cleansing’ on to the agenda for the Middle East, for the truth is that the West’s influential Israel-loathers did that long ago.

The fury over Trump’s Gaza idea is intense. He proposed resettling its population so that the Americans might go in and remake the place. We will ‘rebuild’ this ‘demolition site’, he said. The right-thinking are horrified. He’s flouting all the ‘established laws’ of international relations, says the Guardian. One wonders where this white hot fury was during earlier crusades of ‘nation-building’. From Bosnia to Libya, Iraq to Afghanistan, Washington and its allies dispatched local leaders, caused mass exoduses of people, and assumed the godly right to remake said country in their own ‘democratic’ image. And the Guardian often supported it. Keep your wigs on, people – Trump is not the first US president to propose ‘rebuilding’ a nation.

Still the cries of ‘ethnic cleansing’ have come thick and fast. Trump’s proposal would amount to an ‘alarming escalation’ in the ‘ethnic cleansing of Palestinians’, says Human Rights Watch. The UN also says it is ‘ethnic cleansing’. The left has been Trump’s noisiest critic. We know Israel has been ‘plotting the violent removal of Gaza’s surviving population’, says one commentator, and now these ‘genocidal’ ambitions are being abetted by the American president. Student radicals at Columbia University in NYC are damning Trump for ‘advocating for ethnic cleansing’ – a ballsy position for a campus where just a few months ago Jewish students were being told to fuck off back to Poland.

What’s exasperating about all this is that we’ve just come through 16 months of shameless agitation for the end of the Jewish State. Modern anti-Israel activism, at root, is a dream of ethnic cleansing. Consider Columbia. Its woke students are fuming over Trump’s Gaza idea. Yet this is a campus where apocalyptic Israelophobia has run riot since Hamas’s pogrom 16 months ago. Campus activists referred to Israel as ‘the pigs of the Earth’ and fantasised about a future when it would die. ‘We don’t want no two states / We want ’48!’, they cried, referring to 1948, when the modern state of Israel did not yet exist. Plainly put, they want the obliteration of the Jewish homeland.