“It’s going to be decisive. Israel will use every tool it has to conquer Gaza and eradicate Hamas.” That’s how Amir Avivi, a former Israeli brigadier general who has advised the Israeli government and military during the war, described the Jewish state’s plan to resume the war in Gaza with overwhelming force.
That plan, he and others told our Andrew Tobin, will see Israel “deploy more troops to Gaza than it has to this point in the war—over 50,000—before relocating Gaza’s civilian population to humanitarian zones and waging a ruthless ground campaign against Palestinian terrorists across the rest of the strip.” The plan “also involves the reduction of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, sources said.”
“Israel’s plan to resume the war comes on the heels of a string of military and diplomatic successes that leave the Jewish state less constrained than at any previous point in the past 17 months of war.”
In January, President Donald Trump took office and began reversing former president Joe Biden’s efforts to restrain Israel and accommodate its genocidal enemies. Trump has aligned more closely with Israel against Hezbollah and Iran and ended Biden’s restrictions on U.S. military aid to the Jewish state. In Gaza, meanwhile, Trump has taken an even harder line than Netanyahu, pushing the prime minister to resume the war with Hamas and resettle Gazans abroad.
During Netanyahu’s visit to the White House earlier this month, Trump told the prime minister to “do whatever you need to do” to defeat Hamas, according to an Israeli official who described the meeting on condition of anonymity. But, the official said, Trump gave Netanyahu just 150 days to finish the job.
When Donald Trump kneecapped the White House Correspondents’ Association, the organization’s president portrayed the move as an assault on the First Amendment, arguing that the group has worked tirelessly to expand the association’s membership and “facilitate the inclusion of new and emerging outlets.”
Alas, in the real world, mainstream media outlets and press organizations haven’t been more reliable champions of the free press than some of the politicians they cover. The White House Correspondents’ Association restricts membership to outlets that have a congressional press pass. The Washington Free Beacon, among others, has been denied such a pass for over a decade. “Not a single one of our colleagues in the mainstream media has raised hackles over this assault on our First Amendment rights—one that has for over a decade been in their power to rectify,” our editors write.
“House Speaker Mike Johnson would be wise to follow in the White House’s footsteps and exercise his constitutional prerogative to take control of the congressional press gallery, too. The result would be a press corps on Capitol Hill and the White House that is freer and more inclusive—not less.”
READ MORE: Trump Is Right on the White House Correspondents Association—and Speaker Johnson Should Follow Suit
Barnard College made progress in its dealings with student radicals last week, expelling two studentswho stormed an Israeli history class at Columbia University and targeted Jewish students with anti-Semitic flyers.
Campus Hamasniks retaliated Wednesday evening by storming the building that houses Barnard dean Leslie Grinage, whose response was not heartening. Members of Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine spent hours occupying the building and sent a security guard to the hospital. A Columbia student confirmed to our Jessica Costescu and Jessica Schwalb that campus public safety quickly called the police, but Barnard leaders refused to allow officers in, citings fears of a “physical confrontation.” Instead, they set—and later extended—a deadline by which the students could leave and face no disciplinary action.
The radicals walked out around 10:30 p.m.—and not in handcuffs. They even said they had a tentative agreement in place to meet with Grinage on Thursday afternoon. That meeting didn’t happen, as the students behind the “sit-in” refused to attend without their masks on.
The White House and Congress have pledged to punish schools that refuse to curb campus anti-Semitism. The House Education Committee, responding to our coverage, fired a warning shot at Columbia and Barnard. “Actions have consequences,” the committee wrote. “Barnard was right to expel the students who disrupted class & distributed fliers calling for the death of Jews. Negotiating with pro-terror protestors who are breaking campus policies should be out of the question.”
READ MORE: Barnard Admin Surrenders To Student Radicals Who Stormed Campus Building, Shields Them From Police
Away from the Beacon:
- Tim Walz, reportedly weighing a third gubernatorial run, privately told a group of nurses that America “is being stolen by fascists and Nazis.” His motto as governor? “One Minnesota.”
- The Department of Education launched an “End DEI” portal that allows parents, students, and teachers “to submit reports of discrimination based on race or sex in publicly-funded K-12 schools.”
- Karine Jean-Pierre had this to say on the Democratic Party’s response to Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance: “It was a firing squad. And I had never seen anything like it before. I’ve never seen a party do that in the way that they did. And it was hurtful and sad to see that happening. A firing squad about a person who I believe is a true patriot.” You don’t need to keep lying for him, Karine!
Happy Friday, our full lineup is below.
This article was originally published at freebeacon.com
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