JD Vance sets a most divisive example

I don't know what exactly is in the final "deal" between the USA and Iran, something I'll try to comment on another time, but for now, vice president J.D. Vance is not improving the situation with attacks on Israel in regards to Lebanon:

The harsh criticism leveled against Israel by U.S. Vice President JD Vance has sparked angry reactions.

Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida wrote: “Israel is our greatest ally and strongest partner in the Middle East. The evil Iranian regime wants to wipe BOTH of us off the face of the Earth. That will never happen because we will ALWAYS stand together."

“America’s unwavering support for Israel’s defense helps make the America First agenda possible, the U.S. stronger, and the world a safer place," he stressed.

Professor Jeffrey Lax of New York University, a prominent activist for the Jewish community and in the fight against antisemitism and discrimination against pro-Israel professors and students, was even sharper in his criticism.

“The most sickening part of JDVance's mid-book tour press conference? Right here, where he accuses Israel(!) of attacking civilian population centers in Beirut when every honest person on earth knows it is exactly the other way around," Lax said.

“This man CANNOT be our next president," Lax declared.

The criticism was also echoed by the “Green Prince," Mosab Hassan Yousef, who lives in the United States.

"Israel is not a client state. It is a sovereign, independent, and powerful nation. Its strength has never depended on any foreign leader, it comes from its own people. While the partnership with the United States has been valuable, Israel has never been a burden. It has delivered massive contributions to American technology, medicine, cybersecurity, and defense, far beyond what most Americans realize. At a moment when America is facing deep internal and external challenges, turning against one of its most capable and loyal allies is not just shortsighted, it is self-destructive. Those who believe they are weakening Israel by attacking it are actually weakening America’s own interests," Yousef said.

During a White House briefing yesterday (Thursday), Vance claimed that Israel was bombing Lebanon indiscriminately.

Based on what Vance has done, no, he's not fit to be the next presidential candidate. And we shouldn't buy his books either. So he obscures the Hezbollah's evils, and rails against Israel instead? Vance has really disappointed.

Update: on the subject of Iran, they've backed out of the deal signing in Switzerland, and Vance has delayed a trip there. So what's being accomplished so far when the deal may be questionable at most?

Reintegrating Haredis into wider society will be expectedly difficult

Michael J. Salomon and Louis Libin give some observations as to what's wrong with the ultra-Orthodox mindset that's led to shocking contempt of wider society to the point they'd block transportation on the roads:

The haredi (ultra-Orthodox) world has long stood apart, wrapped in its own traditions and ways, but lately, the gap between its insular mindset and the broader society, which includes the National-Religious and a large part of the Yeshiva world, has grown alarmingly wide.

This divide isn’t just about religious practice or lifestyle choices; it’s about a dangerous attitude that echoes some of the very forces that led to the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash – the most sacred site in Judaism. [...]

This sense of entitlement is rooted in narcissism, a belief that they are somehow superior to the rest of society. It’s a psychological state where the self inflates to ridiculous proportions, creating a delusional bubble where reality is distorted.

People caught in this mindset genuinely believe they are better, holier, or more important than their neighbors, to an extent that can defy compassion.

This isn’t just arrogance. It’s a dangerous delusion of grandeur from some. Those who hold these beliefs have convinced themselves that their community’s way is not only right but inherently above the rules that bind everyone else.

This thinking fractures the social fabric because it undermines the principle that we all share responsibility for each other. When a group believes it can opt out of contributing to the common good while still drawing heavily from society’s resources, it breeds resentment and division. It’s a betrayal of the values that hold a nation together.

The behavior of some members of this community in public spaces only deepens the crisis. Their presence in street protests or confrontations often comes across as an embarrassment, not just to the broader society but to their own heritage.

It’s painful to think about the grandparents and great-grandparents who served the nation, who sacrificed for the collective good, seeing their descendants acting in ways that seem to reject those very ideals. The older generations understood the meaning of contributing to the nation’s welfare and respecting laws.

But the real question isn’t just about judgment or moral outrage. It’s about solutions: how do we address this behavior in a way that restores balance and fairness?

How do we reintegrate a community that seems to be isolated, entitled, and that threatens social cohesion? One idea that came from a young voice in this conversation was to arrest those causing disruption and then require them to perform support work for the army.

Something they shouldn't be allowed to do is bear arms, because if they could assault people and commit vandalism and arson, who knows how long it could be before the criminal offenders are willing to attack with knives and guns? What they definitely need for now is a good psychologist, and it can't be according to the permission of their spiritual gurus, that's for sure. Even then, reintegrating them will sadly take ages.

The haredi world stands at a crossroads. It can choose to embrace a path of integration and shared responsibility, honoring both its heritage and its place within the larger society. Or it can continue down a road of division and entitlement, risking further isolation and conflict. The choice will shape the future for the entire nation.

In the end, the solution is as much psychological as it is political. It calls for a reckoning with the narcissism and delusion that fuel this crisis, and a recommitment to the values that once united everyone.

Yes, that's correct, and exactly why the offenders badly need a shrink. That's probably one of the best ways to make them realize how badly they've screwed up, and apologize for the damage they've done.

Muslim identified as palestinian murdered German girl in Saxony

Another case of a "palestinian" Muslim who committed a misogynist murder in Europe, on a train in Germany (via Front Page):

The father of a German teenager murdered by a migrant on a regional train has questioned whether he and other bereaved parents could be treated as right-wing extremists after Saxony-Anhalt’s domestic intelligence agency cited an Alternative for Germany (AfD) politician’s remarks about “murdered children” in its classification of the party’s state branch as an extremist organization.

According to Apollo News, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Saxony-Anhalt justified its classification of the AfD state association as a confirmed right-wing extremist organization in part by pointing to the party’s migration rhetoric.

The agency’s report accuses the AfD of being “essentially permeated by the racist ideology of ethnopluralism” and says the party promotes the vision of ethnically homogeneous states. It claims that such a vision amounts to “the expulsion of all ‘aliens’.”

Among the examples cited as “xenophobic agitation” were a carnival speech by AfD deputy state chairman Hans-Thomas Tillschneider in which he claimed that illegal migrants “stream in here in masses and want to squander our money,” and a Facebook post from Oliver Kirchner, co-chairman of the AfD parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt in which he wrote, “Let us never forget the murdered children for whom this illegal and uncontrolled immigration by the established parties is responsible. It can happen to anyone in Germany, anytime, anywhere!”

He also called for the removal of those “on whose hands the blood of the victims is stained and who are responsible for these conditions.”

The reference to murdered children has now become the center of a wider dispute after Michael Kyrath, whose 17-year-old daughter Ann-Marie was stabbed to death on a train near Brokstedt on Jan. 25, 2023, publicly challenged the state government.

Ann-Marie was killed alongside her 19-year-old boyfriend, Danny, by a stateless Palestinian man who had reportedly been released from custody just days earlier despite a history of violent crime.

Since his daughter’s murder, Kyrath has become a prominent voice among bereaved families demanding answers over violent crime, immigration, deportation failures and political accountability.

It's terrible what happened to the man's daughter. And this is what's bound to happen to all sane countries that allow even "palestinians" through the gates. What the monster did makes clear how ungrateful men like him are to the countries that welcome his ilk to their countries.

How LGBT movements became so full of antisemitism

Here's a discussion of the antisemitism that's prevalent in many LGBT movements:

Pride began as a celebration of survival. The foundational belief was simple and radical: the closet is a form of violence. Hiding who you are does real damage. A generation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans people built something extraordinary on that premise — legal rights, visibility, cultural legitimacy — and taught the world that no one should be forced to choose which part of themselves to suppress in order to be accepted.

That same movement is now asking Jews to leave their Star of David at the door.

Eve Barlow has been documenting this inversion from the inside. As a lesbian Jewish journalist who spent the first decade of her career at NME and writing cover stories for GQ, Elle, and The Guardian, she was woven into the fabric of progressive cultural life.

In 2019, she started saying one thing out loud: that the anti-Zionism rising around her was antisemitism in a new coat. The world that had welcomed her turned on her. She named her Substack after what followed: Blacklisted.

Thrown Out for Wearing a Star

In the week before this conversation, two married Jewish women, both American, one American-Israeli, walked into a queer women’s sauna night in Barcelona wearing Stars of David. What happened next was not spontaneous.

Barlow, who has spoken directly with the couple, believes the organizers were alerted in advance. The interrogation was initiated by a trans woman, a deliberate choice in Barlow’s reading: the trans identifier carries the highest position in the current oppression hierarchy, which offers maximum plausible deniability and minimum capacity for the targets to push back without being framed as the aggressor. The questions were calibrated: “We have no problem with the star. We have a problem with Zionists.” A second figure appeared, fluent in English, smugly explaining to two Jewish women that Zionism and Judaism are not the same thing.

The three perpetrators, once identified, were a trans biology teacher, a sociology doctorate at the University of Barcelona, and a queer lawyer who is also an author and parent.

No doubt, the "trans identifier" is a man, and any man who identifies that way is very deliberately considered superior to women in every way in far-left circles. And now the antisemitism that was surely long there is coming to the fore, as Ms. Barlow's found out the hard way. There's more to be read, but for now, this should serve as an important lesson why it's ill-advised to pander to leftist causes, because they will not "have one's back", as pro-Israel sources must surely assume. The LGBT movement is surely anti-Torah too, and that says quite a bit as well.

Religious studies are not an excuse for committing crimes

Rabbi Pini Dunner wrote about why Haredis cannot use their alleged interest in religious studies as excuses for committing offenses:

This week, thousands of Israelis found themselves trapped in traffic as Haredi demonstrations brought major highways and railway lines to a standstill. Routes 1, 4 and 6 were blocked.

Traffic on the Ayalon Highway ground to a halt. Trains were stopped, passengers forced to get off, and people attempting to reach Ben-Gurion Airport were stranded. Inevitably, there were clashes with police and confrontations with frustrated motorists.

In one particularly tasteless display, protesters wore yellow stars modelled on those imposed on Jews by the Nazis, except that the word “Jew" had been replaced with “deserter."

On which note, I'd forgotten to mention it before, but those who vandalized the house of a deputy justice in Alon Shvut also brought Israeli flag pages with a swastika in place of a Star of David. That was one of the most antisemitic acts so-called Judaists could possibly commit, and makes clear self-haters aren't limited to the secular leftists. More on that news in the next article highlighted.

The demonstrations were organized by the extremist Haredi group known as the Peleg Yerushalmi, Jerusalem Faction, in response to the arrest of Haredi draft evaders and those who surrounded the private home of the Deputy Chief Justice last week.

To be clear, the protesters did not represent every Haredi Jew, or even every Haredi opponent of military enlistment. But the position they espouse is not confined to this small vocal group. Haredi politicians and rabbinic authorities repeatedly assert that military service threatens the spiritual identity of Haredi young men and must be avoided at all costs.

The army, they say, is not merely physically dangerous; it is religiously dangerous. A young man immersed in Torah study would enter the IDF spiritually refined and emerge diminished. His standards will decline, his outlook will change, and his commitment to Torah will weaken.

Considering it's all written about when it comes to Moses, who asked if certain figures would just sit it out while their brothers went to war, that's why what the Haredi opposition did is just trash talk. They should be utterly ashamed of themselves, and it's decidedly time they left the country. Why, as some could validly argue, those who committed the offenses are unsuited for the army and also unemployable. Perhaps a country like Afghanistan would be a better residential area for them, and they definitely are doing exactly what the Islamofascists would want.

Now since we're on the issue, 4 Haredis from Bet Shemesh, no less, have been indicted for the horror story they caused in Alon Shvut, against a supreme court deputy who happens to be a religious man himself:

Prosecutors on Sunday indicted four men from Beit Shemesh for rioting at the home of Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut on June 3.

Sohlberg’s home was attacked in the protest, with windows smashed and the entrance vandalized, and some of the protesters reportedly planned to physically harm the justice.

The four are the first to be indicted over the destructive demonstration against the judge, who enraged Haredi leaders with a November ruling that called for criminal sanctions on draft-evading yeshiva students. Police have nabbed dozens of suspected participants in the violent demonstration.

The defendants were identified as Nachman Platnik, 20; Abraham Fried, 20; Gershon Hanoun, 21; and Shimon Atep, 41. All have been in custody since the day of the attack, according to the indictment, and prosecutors informed the court they would seek prison sentences. The defendants will remain in custody until the court says otherwise.

All four defendants were charged with rioting, and Platnik and Fried were also charged with trespassing in order to commit a crime.

Posters announcing the planned riot were plastered on roads and synagogues in the Haredi city of Bnei Brak on the day of the incident, said the indictment, which was filed in the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court.

What's stunning is that the police surely were aware of this, yet did not act to prevent them from reaching the area. The defendants should not be released, and should receive psychological counseling in prison if they're ever to be part of regular society again.

“Many dozens” of rioters blocked Sohlberg’s street, yelled derogatory chants including “Nazi” and brought small Israeli flags with a swastika instead of a Star of David, according to the indictment.

They also stoned the judge’s home, and smashed windows, potted plants in the entrance and the windshield of the judge’s car, prosecutors said.

Some of Sohlberg’s neighbors mistook the violent protest for a terror attack and entered safe rooms, the indictment said. It added that some neighbors also tried to confront the rioters, and one neighbor was attacked by rioters and had his kippah snatched.

That too was an antisemitic act. Seriously, it's doubtful these particular Haredis actually respect their own faith as opposed to their "interpretation" of it.

The monsters in black hats and suits haven't stopped at the deputy justice's doorstep either. They've practically gone after the chief justice of the supreme court as well:

Dozens of extremist ultra-Orthodox demonstrators rallied on Sunday outside the home of Supreme Court President Isaac Amit in Mevasseret Zion to protest the arrest of a Haredi military draft dodger.

Police dispersed the demonstration after a short while, according to Hebrew media reports.

It was the latest demonstration by Haredim to target a court official. Earlier this month, ultra-Orthodox rioters attacked the home of Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg, smashing windows and causing property damage, while trying to break into the residence in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut.

The above may have been dealt with in short order, but it was surely possible to have prevented the rioters from reaching the area to start with. This is utterly atrocious and the ringleaders must be exposed, arrested and imprisoned. They're as bad as some far-left activists too, and it's to be hoped serious prison sentences will be given to the monsters who're desecrating the Torah. It's also chilling to think of what if these ultra-Orthodox would even go so far as to commit arson against a synagogue and Torah scrolls. If nothing proper is done, those could be the next targets of those some may least expect as being capable of committing such a heinous act.

Update: unshockingly, now the Haredi parties like UTJ are planning a mass protest traveling to military prisons to protest the jailings. More information here. If the authorities don't take any proper action, that's wrong, and only perpetuates a sorry situation all the more.

Will alleged deal with Iran include surrender of nuclear materials?

Now, president Donald Trump says a deal with Iran will be signed on Sunday, ahead of a G7 conference he's attending:

President Donald Trump announced Saturday that a deal with Iran will be signed on Sunday, ahead of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) at the White House and his departure for the G7 in Evian-les-Bains, France.

A short time after Pakistani Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar told Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan that the deal will be signed electronically, Trump took to Truth Social to confirm the deal will be formalized.

[...] The president said the deal does not include cash exchanges and the nature of his administration’s relationship with Iran is substantially different than that of his predecessors.

“Our relationship with Iran is a much different and better one than previous Administrations have had. Unlike Obama’s Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in payments to them, including 1.7 Billion Dollars in green, cold cash, no money will exchange hands,” he wrote.

Trump added that, at some point, the United States will retrieve the “Nuclear Dust” — enriched uranium that was buried by B-2 Bomber strikes at Natanz, Fordow, and Esfahan in Operation Midnight Hammer a year ago. Iran allowing the United States to retrieve and destroy this material had been a key redline of the president’s throughout negotiations.

Now here's one serious problem: Iran's reportedly trying to seal openings to the underground storages where they've kept the uranium with mines in order to make it difficult for the USA military to reach those areas, if at all. If such reports are factual, that's not shocking Iran's tyrants would do that, but it certainly won't make things any easier.

And of course, the Iranian dictatorship, as it stands now, cannot be allowed to continue running the country in any way. They've threatened to attack Israel again because of the IDF's continued work in Lebanon to defeat the Hezbollah, and if they do, that'll only confirm the regime has no intention of cooperating with even Trump. So it still remains to be seen what'll be the outcome.

Riots break out in Belfast, Ireland after Sudanese Muslim tried to behead local

Once again, infiltration of the Religion of Peace into once safe countries has resulted in violence against innocents, to which the local public has responded with outrage:

Bedlam broke out in Belfast on Tuesday evening as protests turned violent and rioters set fires to vehicles and homes in the wake of an apparent beheading attempt allegedly at the hands of a Sudanese migrant.

Horrific footage of the stabbing attack on Monday evening, in which a man was seen repeatedly stabbing another man’s neck, inflamed tensions in Northern Ireland, which had previously been the site of anti-mass migration.

On Tuesday morning, police announced that they had arrested a man in his 30s from Sudan who had been granted leave to remain status by the UK Home Office after being granted in 2023, after having travelled through Paris and Dublin, ultimately entering the UK territory through the soft open border with the Irish Republic.

According to the Belfast Telegraph, protests over the alleged attempted murder were held across the city, some of which descended into scenes of chaos and violence. Multiple vehicles, including a city bus and a police car, were set on fire by rioters.

Well, we can see now where Europe is sadly headed in the near future. More on the subject here. It's very sad as it's also horrifying what's occurred, yet local politicians vehemently refuse to convincingly address the issue and perform the mass deportations needed to curb such horrors.

Churches in France continue to be desecrated by Muslims

Anti-Christian persecution in France is also as common as anti-Semitism, and here's an example of a church that was vandalized (via Jihad Watch):

Vandals desecrated the Notre-Dame du Faron shrine in Toulon, France, damaging a statue of the Virgin Mary at one of the region’s most visited Marian pilgrimage sites.

On June 9, the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon reported the desecration of the Notre-Dame du Faron shrine, a prominent Marian pilgrimage site overlooking the harbor of Toulon in southern France. Church authorities announced that a statue of the Virgin Mary was damaged in an act of vandalism discovered in recent days by the priest of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul parish, which is responsible for the shrine. The diocese has filed a formal complaint with the authorities.

According to a report released by Tribune Chrétienne, the damage was identified after the parish priest inspected the site at the summit of Mount Faron. The pedestal supporting the statue, known as Notre-Dame du Mont Faron, had been knocked over and broken. The wooden statue itself also suffered damage. Church officials reported a crack in one of the feet and additional deterioration to the head that will require restoration work. The statue has since been removed and secured pending repairs.

At this stage, the diocese indicated, no information has been made public regarding those responsible for the desecration or the reasons behind it.

In all cases, the perpetrators arrested have turned out to be Muslims, and if they're allowed to continue growing in numbers in Europe, this will tragically continue apace.

Of course it's not solely antisemitic to criticize Haredis when they commit offensive crimes

So here's a writer who wants to make a point that there are legitimate ways to criticize Haredis when they do some repulsive like vandalize the house of a supreme court justice or worse, all because they don't want to serve in the army:

It is undeniable that political depictions of the haredim (ultra-Orthodox) occasionally dip into the bucket of antisemitic tropes. Haaretz contributors have referred to specific sects as “parasites,” and TV personality Galit Gutman notoriously labeled them “bloodsuckers” on live TV.

As the most visibly Jewish community in Israel, haredim face a reality mirrored on the streets of Brooklyn and London: those who look the “most Jewish” are often the most targeted. Haredim have even been victims of hate crimes. In one infamous case last year, a haredi couple near an anti-government demonstration in Tel Aviv were physically assaulted due to their appearance.

The defense that Israel is a Jewish state provides no immunity. There is a plethora of historical evidence to testify that Jews have never been immune from jew-hatred by dint of heritage.

Yet, despite these flashes of bigotry, anti-haredi rhetoric is fundamentally distinct from antisemitism, and treating it as such concedes haredim much more than a narrative of victimhood.

[...] Therefore, the question must be asked: What is it, inherently, about haredi Jewishness that so infuriates their critics?

Take what is perhaps the most cited statistic in Israeli public discourse: the 15,000-shekel gap between the average haredi and non-haredi family’s contribution to the state. Or consider the widespread fury over the refusal to serve in the IDF. Notice what is absent from both of these grievances? Any inherently Jewish element.

Another problem that's angered the public is their denigrating view of women, to the point where they demand dressing modestly and sit at the back of the bus, that women not be singing and dancing, and even want censorship of women in advertising, for example. Those are serious and valid issues to take with the Haredis, and strange the writer didn't seem to bring that up.

To test this, let’s substitute the haredim with an entirely different demographic group. Suppose secular Ashkenazi Jews occupied this exact socio-economic position, maintaining this same rejection of civic duty as a conscious, collective lifestyle choice.

What would society call them? I imagine “parasites” would be one of the milder labels used, their devout commitment to secularism and heritage notwithstanding. While there may very well be some anti-religious sentiment mixed into the public outrage, that does not equate to antisemitism. The hostility has nothing to do with the particularities of Jewish practice itself; it is a reaction to a civic imbalance. The ultimate proof? Neither this intensity of opposition, nor these supposedly antisemitic tropes, are ever weaponized against Religious Zionists.

Ultimately, labeling mainstream Israeli criticism as “antisemitism” betrays a much deeper ideological pathology within the haredi worldview.

First, it assumes their specific lifestyle is completely synonymous with Judaism itself, granting them an absolute monopoly on authentic Jewish expression. This monopoly warps their understanding of the draft and of Israeli society.

In their worldview, the state isn’t demanding they serve out of a basic need for civic equality. Rather, as Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch of the hardline Badatz (Eda Haredit Rabbinical Court) recently claimed, secular Israelis see the haredi brand of authentic Judaism and are “fiercely jealous of us.”

Second, and more profoundly, weaponizing the charge of antisemitism fundamentally denies the nature of the Jewish state. By branding their tax-paying, military-serving Jewish neighbors as antisemites, haredi leadership rhetorically excommunicates the rest of the country.

It signals a refusal to accept the reality of a sovereign Jewish society, choosing instead to operate as if they are living in an alien, hostile diaspora where the “outside world” and “antisemitic persecutor” are one and the same.

Another problem is how they all but segregate themselves and do something similar to what some non-Jewish societies do: predetermine their viewpoint and refuse to take a deeper look with a magnifying glass. Nor do they make any distinctions between what's in good or bad taste. They even reject the idea of reading literature that doesn't meet their worldview, if at all. That does not bode well, and requires a serious fix that'll take ages to repair, if at all.

Interestingly enough, there was a rabbi who spoke out against the "protests":

At the same time, Rabbi Salim firmly condemned the street demonstrations and called on yeshiva students to stay away from them.

"The demonstrations do not help - they cause harm, take people away from learning, and accustom them to violence," he said. "Efforts must be made through quiet channels - visits, phone calls - and one must remain aligned with the instructions of the rabbis."

Yet at the same time, these "rabbis" are still a bad influence in how they teach to literally follow a flesh-and-blood human instead of God's positions, and/or think for themselves. That's another very troubling issue.

Since we're on the subject, here's another writer who believes Haredis could make good employees in weapons factories:

Think about it. The Israel Defense Forces isn’t only suffering from a shortage of front-line troops. It also faces a grave shortage of munitions: guns, bullets, mortars, drones, artillery shells, missiles, interceptors and the like.

Israel must massively expand its domestic weapons industry, but it needs more workers to do so. At the same time, the governing coalition has collapsed under the weight of the Haredi military exemption.

Here’s a solution for both problems: Let Haredi men work in Israeli arms factories without being drafted, and count hours worked toward mandatory national service. This enables them to meet one of Israel’s vital defense needs without submitting to the control of a military establishment they don’t trust.

That could be a solution, with the remaining query being whether they'd accept, and whether they know better than to "turn traitor" and use said weapons for bad purposes, especially if they're members of a clan like Neturei Karta. If all concerns can be overcome, then who knows? Maybe something positive can come from that suggestion.