"It's very easy to say where these war start and how we should do it," he said, warning against Israel renewing the campaign in Lebanon to force Hezbollah to disarm. Pressed by the interviewer that this was also the message before the Lebanon operation by Israel in late 2024, he said," Let's be fair. we wanted to get to a ceasefire before the land invasion because that is what the Israeli government wanted and that is what we wanted as a result. What we wanted publicly in Lebanon at the time that 'we are not going to stop this war until Hamas stops its war, it meant that Hamas is going to decide the future of Lebanon...and we said at some point Israel is going to say enough is enough." But he cautioned, "disarming will not happen by Israel.. you can't live in a state of war, the Lebanese have to do it."

Video: Amos Hochstein during the Israel Hayom Summit

He said that the ceasefire Hezbollah was not the result of the terror group's goodwill, but "a demonstration of military weakness." He revealed that alongside the ceasefire, efforts began to install a new presidency in Lebanon, which he described as "the most pro-Western the country has had for years – to create a stable basis for the move of disarming Hezbollah."

Yet a year later, the reality is grim. The Lebanese government has not fulfilled its part, and Hezbollah has not been weakened enough to voluntarily relinquish its power. Hochstein stated this explicitly. "Hezbollah must disarm, and the Lebanese government must fulfill what it committed to." However, he emphasized that Israel must give the Lebanese government a genuine opportunity to lead the move before opting for a military solution. "Returning to war will not achieve this, unless Israel plans a full occupation, which no one wants."

At the start of his remarks, he recalled the initial moments of anxiety for the hostage families when speaking with the US president. "I was there when Biden refused to leave the call – that is a moment that will stay with me all my life," he said.

When asked if this followed the same logic that previously led him to oppose military action against Hezbollah, Hochstein clarified the distinction. The difference, he argued, is that a previous campaign weakened Hezbollah but did not dismantle it. He maintained that military force alone would not solve the strategic problem – necessitating a multi-stage American-Lebanese plan to generate real change on the ground: evacuating the south (of Lebanon), long-range missiles have to be disbanded, and implementing actionable steps on clear schedules. Regarding how long Israel should remain patient, he refused to set a deadline but emphasized that the US must lead in creating a practical path, rather than merely issuing declarations.

The final part of the interview addressed a pressing question: Does the Democratic Party still support Israel? Hochstein rejected the gloomy forecasts. "There is still strong support, both in Israel and among American Jewry. Not all Democrats are Mamdani," he said. He admitted that antisemitism is rising on both the left and the right but warned against panic. "The US is still the safest place for Jews in the world – and I believe it will remain so." Hochstein concluded with cautious optimism, noting that while the challenges are immense – in Lebanon, in Israel, and within US Jewry – there is no room for despair. "History has proven that it is possible to cope with these waves. We need to fight – and not give up."

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Friedman, former US ambassador to Israel, told Israel Hayom in an interview marking his appointment that the Biden administration's decision "to punish NSO was political. It was made by people in the Biden administration who are not particularly strong supporters of Israel. Clearly, today we are in a very different world. We have the most supportive president in US history when it comes to Israel."

In 2021, the Biden administration determined NSO acted "contrary to US foreign policy and national security interests." Following this, then-President Joe Biden banned NSO from purchasing certain technologies in the US. Subsequently, in 2023, Biden signed an order restricting the use of the company's commercial spyware software.

An Israel Hayom investigation revealed at the time that the American measures, which apparently occurred deliberately, collapsed Israel's offensive cyber industry, of which NSO was the spearhead.

"Biden was not helpful"

Friedman confirmed in the interview that the company he will lead was indeed harmed. "NSO continued to operate throughout this difficult period, but it was a significant setback for the company. It didn't remove it from the market, but it certainly caused a decline in its client base and revenues. So the Biden administration was not particularly helpful to the company."

"So will you remove NSO from what's called 'the blacklist'?" Israel Hayom asked him, and Friedman responded, "I have several goals from the moment I start the position. One is generally to grow the company. And second, to rehabilitate and promote its credibility among clients and in the global market. I hope people will understand that all of NSO's goals are to do good, prevent crime, and prevent terrorist attacks. That's what the company exists for. So I will try. I intend to present to the US government the argument that NSO is an asset America needs and in America's interest. NSO will make America safer than it is now. I hope to present that argument. I cannot predict what will happen, and I don't want to discuss the outcome further."

Friedman again denied claims that NSO violated international law, as was alleged against it at the time. He explained, "NSO grants countries licenses to use its technology. It receives assurances from those countries that the technology will be used only for legitimate purposes, such as stopping crime and terror. Many years ago, there were cases where claims arose that the technology was used for improper purposes, like spying on journalists or political rivals. NSO never approved that and never agreed to it. The contract with them prohibited it, and it took appropriate steps to prevent it. So it wasn't the technology that caused these things to happen, but improper use by the clients. Today, we have very strong tools, protocols, and procedures to ensure this won't happen in the future. However, even in the past, it's akin to a manufacturer providing weapons to a country. It doesn't fire the gun and doesn't operate the bomb. So such things happen, and I hope they won't happen again. But the criticism of NSO, even then, was unfair."

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The US president is in no way harming Israel. From his perspective, he sometimes saves it from itself. This occurred when he demanded halting the Israeli Air Force planes that were already over Iranian territory at the end of Operation Rising Lion; when he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the Gaza war had run its course and pressured him to adopt the plan to end it; and when he demanded reversing Netanyahu's decision on cutting aid supplies to the Gaza Strip two days ago.

As of now, it appears that in all three instances he was correct, and indeed a responsible adult was needed to prevent us from acting against our own interests. Because indeed the war against Iran should have concluded on day 12, and it was correct to adopt the 20-point plan. Regarding eliminating Hamas in Gaza – the IDF was given two years to accomplish this, and particularly in the Rafah area the damage to the organization was the most severe. Nevertheless, Hamas fighters emerged from the tunnels there. In other words, before we make the ceasefire collapse we must formulate an orderly plan for how to achieve the war objectives that have not yet been reached.

In the grand scheme of things, Trump was and remains the most pro-Israel president ever, by a tremendous margin from all his predecessors. Therefore, even if here and there he makes things difficult for us, the matters must be put in their proper prespective.

We must also remember that he is not the first. All US presidents from time immemorial have demanded that Israel stop, restrain or reduce various military moves that we needed. Moreover, compared to his predecessors Trump has even expected Israel to be significantly more aggressive than it was. This happened with the famous sentence "the gates of hell will open on Gaza." And of course, in his first ten months in office, that same Trump opened the warehouses and gave the IDF all possible armaments.

So even if he is mistaken, it is permitted and proper to respect his request. And let us tell the truth – apparently there is also no other choice. Against the Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Netanyahu could fight because he received tailwind from their Republican rivals. On the other hand, when the MAGA president gives us a red card, we have no counterweight to hold onto. The reason for this is the severe damage to Israel's image in the US.

Our legitimacy oxygen has run out. In the situation that has been created, Israel and Netanyahu have no room for maneuver because we have been pushed into an PR corner. Extricating ourselves from it is therefore an urgent and critical mission. Because if we have a problem with Trump, how much more so will there be one with his successors, certainly if they come from the Democratic side but even if they arrive from the Republican camp.

Large and enormous forces from both left and right wings in the American discourse are working to weaken the alliance between the US and Israel. Unfortunately, they are playing against an empty goal.

From the prime minister down – everyone understands that a campaign for the gloal public opinion is required from Israel and the Jewish people. After all, our enemies in the world will only go and intensify their incitement against us, which will exacerbate the international legitimacy problem and further narrow the political room for maneuver. This, and not Trump's local "Don't," should therefore be Israel's central concern. If we do not open a campaign for consciousness now, in three years we will miss Trump's hugs.

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The 82-year-old former chief executive has been diagnosed with an aggressive and incurable form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bone, according to a Sunday announcement from his office. Biden reportedly sought medical care after experiencing urinary symptoms, but healthcare specialists are questioning the credibility of this timeline, wondering how such a serious condition could have evaded detection during his presidency.

Professor Karol Sikora, who previously directed the World Health Organization Cancer program and founded the University of Buckingham Medical School, characterized the late-stage diagnosis as "very unusual" in comments to The Telegraph. He suggested two possibilities: either Biden's medical team deliberately concealed the condition, or the former president developed an unusually aggressive cancer. "He would have had health screens every month and he doesn't have to wait six weeks to see his GP. He's not likely to be asking the NHS for advice," Prof Sikora told The Telegraph.

Video: Biden in 2022 says he has cancer / Credit: White House

This perspective has found support from Donald Trump Jr., son of the current president, The Telegraph notes. Incorrectly describing Biden's condition as stage five rather than stage four, Trump Jr. posted on X: "How did Dr Jill Biden miss stage five metastatic cancer or is this yet another coverup??? [sic]" While Mrs. Biden holds a doctorate in education rather than medicine, numerous prominent US healthcare professionals have raised questions about why routine prostate screening tests – recommended for all men over 50 – apparently failed to detect Biden's cancer earlier.

Following the announcement, Biden shared an emotional message on social media Monday morning, The Telegraph reports. "Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learnt that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support," the former president wrote.

Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support. pic.twitter.com/oSS1vGIiwU

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 19, 2025

The revelation comes as particularly startling given that Biden – the oldest serving president in American history – received a clean bill of health from his physician amid growing concerns about his age and health during his presidency, according to The Telegraph. In February of last year, his longtime doctor Kevin O'Connor declared there were "no new concerns" with the president's health.

Biden's office revealed in their statement: "On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 [Grade Group 5] with metastasis to the bone." The Telegraph explains that prostate cancers are graded using the Gleason scoring system, with Biden's score of 9 indicating one of the most aggressive forms. Cancer that has metastasized – spread to other parts of the body – presents significantly greater treatment challenges than localized cancer.

The statement continued, "While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management. The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians," The Telegraph reports.

Dr. Howie Forman, a radiology and biomedical imaging professor at Yale who previously worked as a health policy fellow in the US Senate, expressed disbelief at the situation. "It is inconceivable that this was not being followed before he left the presidency," he wrote on X, adding that prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing would have shown elevated cancer cell levels "for some time before this diagnosis," The Telegraph notes.

Whether Biden underwent prostate cancer screening during his presidency remains unclear, leaving open the possibility that his aggressive cancer developed undetected, despite warnings from health organizations about PSA testing reliability, according to The Telegraph. Other health experts have joined in questioning how such a cancer could escape detection in someone with Biden's access to premier medical care.

Dr. David Shusterman, a urologist, told News Nation, "It's unusual to hear that someone has prostate cancer when they're annually being followed up. The fact that we find it at a Gleason 9 is unheard of." He emphasized that Biden would have had "state-of-the-art care," The Telegraph reports.

"That's why I and so many other people have cancer." — Joe Biden, July 2022pic.twitter.com/YgcyaLR31K

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) May 18, 2025

Dr. Stephen Quay, a physician and cancer specialist, offered an even stronger opinion, stating it would constitute "malpractice" not to test a sitting US president for prostate cancer. "It is highly likely he was carrying a diagnosis of prostate cancer throughout his White House tenure and the American people were uninformed," he added, according to The Telegraph.

While prostate cancers typically grow more slowly than other cancer types – potentially taking up to eight years to spread beyond the prostate – certain aggressive forms can progress rapidly, The Telegraph explains. Biden's treatment options remain undisclosed, though specialists note that given his age and the cancer's spread to his bones, surgical removal of the prostate is unlikely.

Treatment outcomes for metastatic prostate cancer have improved in recent decades, with patients typically living four to five years after diagnosis, according to Dr. Matthew Smith of Massachusetts General Brigham Cancer Center, The Telegraph reports. Sophie Smith, a senior specialist nurse at Prostate Cancer UK, described the condition as "treatable, but not curable."

Beyond hormone therapy, some patients receive chemotherapy or radiation treatment, The Telegraph notes. Given that Biden's cancer cells have metastasized to his bone, surgery to remove the prostate is highly improbable, according to Smith. However, she emphasized that treatments remain "very effective" even for metastatic cases, with men diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer often living "easily" for "five to 10 years."

"It is very possible Joe Biden could die of something totally different," Smith added. "Prostate cancer can be very difficult to diagnose, it can develop without symptoms," she told The Telegraph, noting that neither the US nor UK maintains a national screening program for the disease.

The Telegraph reports that Biden has faced previous health challenges, including removal of a basal cell carcinoma (a common skin cancer) from his chest in February 2023, and extraction of a benign but potentially precancerous colon lesion in November 2021.

A video from 2022 has resurfaced following the diagnosis, showing Biden seemingly stating he had cancer. While delivering a speech on environmental pollution in Massachusetts, he said in present tense: "That's why I – and so damn many other people I grew up with – have cancer," fueling speculation about his health at the time.

A Biden official at the time said official Biden had "mistakenly stated (present tense) that he has cancer," but in face was referencing past treatment for other types of cancer.

The cancer announcement arrived shortly after the release of "Original Sin," a new book based on White House insider accounts claiming that Biden's aides shielded the public from the full extent of his cognitive decline during his presidency, The Telegraph reports. On Sunday evening, Biden's granddaughter Naomi criticized CNN media analyst Brian Stelter, who called the timing of her grandfather's cancer announcement "extraordinary" given its proximity to the book's release by his CNN colleague Jake Tapper.

When an X user questioned whether Stelter "had no shame" for appearing to promote the book on air, Naomi Biden responded simply: "Apparently not," The Telegraph notes.

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The explosive report reveals how Biden's physical deterioration had progressed to such an alarming degree by 2023 that his team was deeply concerned about his health while simultaneously working to hide the full extent of his decline from voters during his reelection campaign.

In "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," scheduled for release on May 20, the authors explain that Biden's physician Kevin O'Connor frequently battled with political staffers about the president's demanding schedule, claiming they "were trying to kill him" while he was "trying to keep him alive."

If Trump had lost, no "journalist" would write a book about Biden's health. They would keep spreading propaganda.

We should not forgive, forget or allow those culpable in one of the great coverups ever attempted on the American people to financially benefit.

This is a fucking…

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) May 13, 2025

The book, based on extensive interviews with more than 200 individuals, primarily Democratic insiders, documents the significant deterioration of Biden's spine and outlines comprehensive measures implemented to prevent the then-81-year-old president from falling in public after a June 2023 incident when he tripped over a sandbag at the Air Force Academy.

Biden's team enacted numerous safeguards, including planning shorter walking paths, requiring handrails for stage steps, having him wear sneakers more frequently, providing more detailed visual briefings, and offering enhanced guidance through his movements – all while maintaining publicly that his labored walking style was primarily the result of a 2020 foot fracture.

The authors note that while O'Connor had documented in early 2021 that Biden's foot fractures were "completely healed," the White House continued to reference the injury when questioned about the president's increasingly difficult gait. In his official health summaries, O'Connor emphasized "significant spinal arthritis" as the explanation for changes in Biden's walking style.

What's politically revealing is the authors' assertion that Biden's aides considered using a wheelchair during the campaign "politically untenable" despite his worsening physical condition.

These revelations provide fresh context to Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race following his widely criticized June 2024 debate performance against Donald Trump. Three weeks after that decisive debate, Biden abandoned his reelection bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

A Biden spokesperson, who requested anonymity, challenged the portrayal in the book, stating that Biden's medical examination "made clear that he had a stiffened gait caused, in part, by wear and tear to his spine – but that no special treatment was necessary and that it had not worsened."

The spokesperson maintained Biden was "transparent about this" and that "evidence of aging is not evidence of mental incapacity," arguing that no one has identified instances where Biden "was unable to do his job because of mental decline."

"WHOLE NEW LEVEL OF GASLIGHTING": @guypbenson slams Democrats for attempting to absolve themselves of responsibility for ignoring President Biden's health decline pic.twitter.com/sLB6pvsmyG

— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) May 14, 2025

 In another remarkable disclosure, the book reports that Biden repeatedly failed to recognize George Clooney at a June 2024 fundraiser despite having known the actor for two decades. For Clooney, observing Biden's "diminished" physical appearance after not having seen him since 2022 was characterized as a "holy sh*t" moment.

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Michael LaRosa, former communications director for former First Lady Jill Biden, sharply criticizes former US President Joe Biden's recent appearances and warns they are damaging the party, while the 82-year-old former president continues to struggle with public missteps, including confusion in his speeches and dropping dessert during an event.

Democratic party officials warn that his return to the public arena provides a "gift" to the Trump administration and diverts attention from criticism of the current president's tariff policies. Biden's return to the spotlight is provoking anger among senior Democratic party officials, including senior aides, who claim his presence only reopens old wounds.

After maintaining a low profile recently, Biden reappeared Tuesday in a speech against US President Donald Trump in Chicago, followed by a private appearance at the Kennedy School at Harvard University. But the reaction within the Democratic party was overwhelmingly negative, with activists, strategists, and Biden loyalists expressing alarm that his appearance came at the worst possible timing, according to reporting on The Hill.

La Rosa emphasized that while he holds great affection for the Bidens, staff loyalty carries with it an obligation to provide candid feedback about their public standing, regardless of how difficult that truth might be to deliver.

While speaking at Harvard, Biden needed correction from his longtime advisor, Mike Donilon, when he confused Ukraine with Iraq while discussing the war with Russia, as reported in the Harvard Crimson. After the 82-year-old former president took a bite of an ice cream bar at the event, the partially eaten dessert fell to the floor, the Crimson noted. "It was hard to watch," a former White House official told The New York Post about the speech.

"It felt like seeing someone you care about start to regress. We just wanted him to enjoy retirement like other presidents — not go out like this," the official said. The confusion only added to the Trump administration's attempts to use Biden's appearance as a distraction from the recent controversy over tariffs, LaRosa said.

LaRosa expressed regret that those managing Biden's public affairs have yet to acknowledge the conclusion of his time in politics and make decisions reflecting this reality. "It's a heartbreaking and tragic ending to their time in public life, but it's also the truth, and they should index the political realities into their decision-making," the former aide said.

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President Donald Trump has long complained about ecological laws restricting water flow in showerheads, which he says makes it difficult for him to wash his "beautiful hair."

During his first term, Trump ordered an easing of restrictions on showerheads, an action former President Joe Biden later reversed. Now, Trump is set to allow water flow once again. A presidential order signed on Wednesday calls for the immediate end of water conservation standards limiting the number of gallons per minute flowing through showerheads and other appliances such as dishwashers, washing machines, and toilets.

"I like to shower properly, to take care of my beautiful hair," Trump said on Wednesday while signing an executive order at the White House. "I have to stand in the shower for 15 minutes until my hair gets wet. The water comes out drop by drop by drop. It's ridiculous."

"What happens is that you end up washing your hands for five times longer, so it's the same amount of water," he added. "And we're going to open this up so people can live."

The order directs Energy Secretary Chris Wright to immediately cancel what Trump called an "overly complicated federal law" that redefined the word 'showerhead' under the last two Democratic presidents. Both Biden and former President Barack Obama imposed restrictions on water flow from showerheads and other appliances. The standards were designed to make dishwashers, showerheads, refrigerators, washing machines, and toilets use less energy and water.

But the regulations "turned a basic household item into a bureaucratic nightmare," according to a White House fact sheet. "Showerheads will no longer be weak and worthless." The Appliance Standards Awareness Project, which promotes energy efficiency, said that Biden-era standards lower electricity bills and protect the environment. Showers account for about 20% of the average American family's daily indoor water consumption, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Water-efficient showerheads also save energy since water heating represents about one-fifth of the average home's energy consumption.

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A new poll by the American Pew Research Center reveals that 53% of the American public holds a negative view of Israel. This represents an 11% increase over the past three years since the institute's previous survey.

Additionally, significant percentages of Americans do not believe that the United States will ultimately take responsibility for Gaza and advance the migration plan, according to the same Pew Research Center survey. Meanwhile, there are significant disagreements regarding whether President Donald Trump favors Israel or acts in a balanced manner in the conflict.

The Pew Research Center asked respondents about their position on the American plan to take control of Gaza and promote a migration plan. Of those surveyed, 38% think it is unlikely that Trump will continue with this policy, and 26% indicated "somewhat likely," meaning they are somewhere in the middle. Only 20% answered that it is very likely, and 16% said they were not sure.

The implication, according to the Pew Research Center, is that six out of ten Americans (62%) oppose US control of Gaza, including 49% who strongly oppose the plan. Surprisingly, Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats to say there is no chance for the plan – 43% compared to 34%. At the same time, 27% of Republicans prefer the plan compared to only 5% of Democrats. 80% of Democrats responded that they oppose the move.

In the survey, researchers also examined the question of how Trump is handling relations between Israel and the Palestinians. Only 3% of Americans believe that Palestinians receive preferential treatment, but there are disagreements about whether Trump is acting in a balanced way. 31% believed that Trump favors the Israeli side compared to 29% who believe Trump is striking the right balance.

For comparison, a survey conducted last July found that 21% of Americans thought President Joe Biden favored Israelis over Palestinians, compared to 20% who thought the then-president favored Palestinians over Americans. 18% responded in this survey that he found the right balance, and 40% said they were not sure.

The division by party, in this case, is clear. 51% of Republicans believe Trump is finding the right balance. In contrast, 50% of Democrats believe the American president favors Israelis too much.

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It will be the policy of the United States to fight antisemitism vigorously, and to use all legal means at our disposal to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold accountable those who commit unlawful acts of harassment and violence motivated by antisemitism.

This unequivocal declaration comes from President Donald Trump's executive order issued earlier this month. The order gives all federal agencies exactly 60 days to propose new and muscular ways to eradicate the meteoric rise in antisemitism in the US. In the year and a half since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, the number of antisemitic incidents in the US, according to Anti-Defamation League data, has surged by over 200%, with more than 10,000 cases of harassment, threats, vandalism and outright violence against Jews. Of these, over 2,000 incidents occurred on university campuses – an increase of nearly 500%.

To understand why Trump's executive order is so important, and what exactly it can do, we must first understand the reality that preceded the election of the 47th president, namely Joe Biden's years in the White House.

Black and white

According to many American commentators, the former vice president's path to the Oval Office began to be paved more vigorously in the summer of 2020, when a white police officer named Derek Chauvin used unreasonable force, causing the death of a black detainee named George Floyd. Almost overnight, massive riots erupted in thousands of US cities, with dozens killed and over a billion dollars in property damage. The riots were led by members of a relatively new movement called Black Lives Matter, which maintained deliberate ambiguity about its goals, leadership, or any other transparency details expected of a public organization. Members of the movement accused white America of systemic racism and demanded far-reaching changes, chief among them the complete abolition of all police forces whatsoever, under the slogan "Defund the Police."

As ridiculous as it may seem, the idea gained traction, and between Floyd's killing in May 2020 and December of that year, Black Lives Matter raised more than $10 billion, including from major corporations and large donors to the Democratic Party. The Democrats, for their part, immediately rallied to the flag, praising the movement and promising to continue promoting its goals.

It didn't matter that reports from some brave and independent media outlets showed that the movement's leaders were using the funds mainly to buy themselves luxurious mansions. It didn't matter that the movement's official website clashed not only with Jews but also with the institution of the family, which – the movement declared – must be dismantled since every family is oppressive by its very nature, and therefore children should only be raised in communal collectives. It didn't matter that large cities that implemented the promise to dismantle the police were immediately flooded with unprecedented waves of crime and violence. It also didn't matter that the narrative that ignited the movement, that of police violence against blacks, was blatantly false:

Since 2015, when the US began collecting precise data on policing, there have been about 10 million arrests per year, and exactly 14 unarmed black people were shot dead by police officers. Each of these cases can be examined individually, and ways can be suggested to reduce shooting of innocents, but it cannot be claimed, as members of Black Lives Matter and their associates in the Democratic Party did, that this is an epidemic of racism and violence.

None of the above data particularly interested Joe Biden and his colleagues. The presidential candidate called it a "historic movement for justice" and promised to support it and its goals. He did not lie: on his first day as president, he signed Executive Order 13,985, which promised to allocate significant resources to diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI. Those who supported the president and his policies claimed that this was nothing less than a revolution to finally eradicate the racism that pervades American society. The less enthusiastic, on the other hand, argued that while there is room for improvement, America in 2020 is light years away from that of the 50s or 60s, and that allocating significant resources to fight a problem that is not really noticeable will only cause social upheaval.

Almost overnight, a significant part of American institutions – giant corporations, universities and the federal government itself – aligned with the Biden administration and began to divert significant budgets, partly encouraged by the administration, to DEI. The University of Pennsylvania, for example, announced in 2020 an initiative called Projects for Progress, designed to invest vast resources in everything related to fighting all types of discrimination, real or imagined. Or, more accurately, almost all types of discrimination. "After DEI took hold at Penn, anti-Semitic fervor on campus intensified," said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, former vice dean of the university's medical school. In an article in City Journal, Goldfarb explained that all this is no coincidence. "At the heart of DEI is a simple binary: the world is divided between oppressors and the oppressed. Proponents of DEI cast white people as oppressors and black people as the oppressed. While they apply this frame primarily to America, they often apply it to Israel, too. Apparently, Israel is a bastion of Jewish whiteness, with a racist commitment to shattering the lives of nonwhite Palestinians."

Danger on campuses

Unfortunately, quite a few data support this assumption. In 2021, for example, Jay Greene, a fellow at the prestigious Heritage Foundation research institute, examined the social media accounts of 750 people holding key positions in DEI departments at 65 American universities, and found not only that almost all of them frequently shared content about Israel – despite the fact that the Jewish state, needless to say, is not supposed to play a significant role in the lives of those whose job definition is to ensure equality on campuses thousands of kilometers away from the Gaza Strip – but also that 96% of all the content they shared about Israel was not only extremely critical but also bordered on antisemitism.

A rare glimpse into the antisemitism of the DEI world was provided by Tabia Lee, a black non-Jewish woman who in 2021 was hired to lead the DEI efforts of De Anza College in Northern California. In an article she wrote for the New York Post after her dismissal in 2023, Lee claimed that she was horrified, when she arrived at the college, to experience an atmosphere of antisemitic incitement and agitation. When she told her colleagues that Jewish students deserve treatment exactly like any other minority group, they replied that this was not true because Jews are Zionists, Zionism is racism and white supremacy, and therefore care should be taken, if Jewish events are allowed to take place at the college at all, that these events focus on Israeli injustices against Palestinians. Lee was appalled and immediately demanded that the college officially condemn antisemitism. The college leadership refused, and after students and colleagues in the DEI department called her derogatory names like "filthy Zionist," Lee lost her job.

The picture she painted is painful and accurate. Before Biden's election, antisemitism on campuses was limited to a few. After the Democrats' return to the White House, every university began establishing DEI departments at a dizzying pace, and staffed them with faculty members who saw hatred of Israel not only as a legitimate opinion but also as a moral duty of anyone who considers themselves a good progressive. This is why so few universities lifted a finger after October 7, when students raised Hamas and Hezbollah flags, set up tents in the heart of the campus, and attacked their Jewish friends: antisemitism in universities was the result of years of built-in policy, not a momentary and surprising outbreak.

Just as university presidents turned a blind eye to antisemitism – a blindness that cost some of them, including the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and Columbia, their jobs, not to mention vast sums in donations from Jewish supporters – so did the Democrats. At the end of last year, for example, Republican lawmakers on the Congressional Education Committee published a 300-page report on the state of antisemitism in universities. The report summarized a year of interviews with hundreds of people, as well as a thorough examination of 400,000 pages of internal documents at prestigious institutions such as those of the Ivy League. One of the most incriminating findings published in the report was a transcript of a conversation between Minouche Shafik, former president of Columbia University, with David Greenwald and Claire Shipman, the co-chairs of the university's board of trustees.

Shafik told Greenwald and Shipman about a conversation she had with Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senator from New York and the Democratic majority leader in the Senate. Shafik asked Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish politician in the US, what he thought the university should do with pro-Hamas students who disrupt studies on campus and harass Jews. And Schumer, as Shafik reported, said the university should do nothing, as antisemitism is a political issue that only interests Republicans. Schumer, of course, denied the report, but it's hard to imagine why an experienced leader like Shafik would lie about such a matter in an internal conversation with her confidants. And even if the report is not accurate, it cannot be denied that the Biden administration did little, if anything, to ensure the safety of Jewish students on American campuses.

Which brings us back to Trump.

War on DEI

In the first weeks of his second term, Trump declared all-out war on DEI. He not only declared that every federal agency must immediately dismantle all DEI departments established in recent years, but also instructed the federal government to identify and immediately combat all DEI initiatives in the private sector that led to reverse discrimination. Does such discrimination exist? The answer can be inferred from the panic that gripped giant companies like Facebook, Google, Disney, and others, which rushed to immediately dismantle DEI initiatives that just a few months ago boasted hundreds of employees and budgets of millions of dollars. It's time, the president declared in several interviews, to build an American society "color-blind and based on abilities, not identities."

And nowhere will this change be felt more prominently than in American universities: at least 240 of them in 36 states have announced, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, a publication that tracks university affairs, the cancellation of all or a significant part of their DEI initiatives. Public universities in North Carolina, for example, announced this week the cancellation of the requirement to take courses dealing with DEI to be eligible for a bachelor's degree, and the University of Colorado removed the page dealing with DEI from its official website. But many other universities declared war on the president and his policies, and vowed to continue on their path until further notice. The president of Princeton University, for example, Christopher Eisgruber, chose the famous British slogan from World War II – Keep Calm and Carry On – which left no doubt as to who are the good guys here and who are the potential destroyers of democracy. The university, he made clear, will continue with its DEI initiatives until all the lawsuits recently filed against Trump and his presidential orders are resolved in court.

But it's likely that Eisgruber and his fellow travelers will soon have to recalculate their route. The president and his people, explained Asaf Romirowsky, CEO of two influential academic associations – "Scholars for Peace in the Middle East" and "the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa" – are taking campus antisemitism extremely seriously, and intend to use far-reaching measures to ensure that Hamas and Hezbollah supporters face real punishments.

"Trump's executive order regarding antisemitism," Romirowsky told Israel Hayom, "makes it very clear which way the wind is blowing. It specifically mentions US immigration laws, which order the immediate deportation of any non-citizen who supports or encourages organizations defined as terrorist organizations."

Since a significant number of the loudest anti-Jewish activists on campuses are foreign students staying in the US on student visas, Romirowsky explained that it's likely the administration will demand their immediate deportation. And this, it's also likely, will put universities in a sensitive position: Columbia, for example, did everything in its power to avoid identifying the students who participated in the antisemitic riots on campus last year, and ordered a brief investigation that was closed after six days claiming it failed to identify any of the students guilty of disturbing the peace. Given the fact that most of the rioters were documented in videos uploaded to social media, the claim is patently ridiculous; but the university administration knows that if it points to names, and students are deported as a result, it will have to deal not only with internal riots but also with a potentially huge loss of income: as of 2023, 56% of Columbia's students were foreign students, who usually pay full tuition. The university, then, is not eager to do anything that might lead to harming this golden goose.

Through the pocket

Unfortunately for them, Romirowsky explained, Trump has even sharper tools to hit universities' pockets. "Columbia alone," he said, "received more than $6 billion from the federal government in the last five years in various grants. If Trump decides not to approve budgets for any academic institution that doesn't comply with the law, it will mean the loss of vast sums."

Trump can also significantly affect donations that constitute the bulk of universities' capital. Columbia, for example, has a treasure chest of about $14.8 billion, managed in various investment funds. During his first term, Trump passed a law that taxed about 1.4% of the investment income of universities whose total endowment exceeds $500,000 per student, which mainly affected large and wealthy universities. Last week, Congressman Mike Lawler, close to Trump, introduced a bill to raise the tax rate on investment income of wealthy universities to 10%.

"Universities need to understand that the president and his people didn't come to play games," Romirowsky said. "When violent demonstrators impose terror against Jews on campus, and when there's no real freedom of expression for anyone who supports Israel, our universities are in danger of turning from acclaimed academic institutions into nests of hatred and violence. The previous administration saw this process happening and encouraged it. The current administration is committed to doing everything to change direction and protect the core values that have made the US and its universities renowned worldwide."

Romirowsky added that he expects another series of steps from the administration, including real investigations against anyone who refuses to enforce the law and ensure the safety of Jewish students. He also said he hopes to see the administration taking sanctions against Qatar, which has invested $4.7 billion in recent decades in American universities, making the country the largest foreign donor to higher education in the US. Qatari money, Romirowsky explained, very often leads to appointments with extreme antisemitic positions, as well as curricula that present Israel in a distorted and terrible light.

"It's inconceivable that a country that supports terrorist organizations like Hamas and continues to fund America's sworn enemies should have such extensive influence on what American students know and think about the world."

Judging by the output of recent weeks, Trump understands all these threats very well. And unlike his predecessor in office, he takes them seriously.

The post How Biden fueled a 200% surge in antisemitism appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The next phase of stage one of the hostage deal this Thursday is expected to be difficult and emotionally charged. For the first time, Israel will receive dead rather than living hostages, and the temptation to blame Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government for the hostages' deaths will be strong.

This should be avoided. It's too easy and cheap, plays into Hamas' hands, and most importantly, as is repeatedly becoming clear – is highly inaccurate. Just ask senior Democratic administration officials who closely followed the complex negotiations with Hamas. They are no fans of the current government but, unlike some hot-headed commentators in Israel, can still separate facts from opinions.

The deaths of the hostages have only one address – the Nazi terrorist organization Hamas. Hamas murdered hostages. Hamas starved them to death. Hamas let them die from diseases and infections. Hamas denied them medical treatment and medicine. Hamas imprisoned them in conditions worse than those in concentration camps.

In a just world, which ours is not, Hamas would have to pay for its crimes in the spirit of Bialik's famous line from "On the Slaughter" (slightly modified): "The Devil has not yet created revenge for the blood of a murdered hostage..." But when Israel is being extorted by Nazi terrorism and submits to it to bring home living and dead hostages, revenge must wait. It must not, however, be canceled.

Hamas murderers and leaders who may be deported from Gaza in the future are now asking the mediators for an Israeli promise granting them immunity and ensuring Israel won't pursue or assassinate them even when they are far from here.

This must not be granted. Quite the opposite – it must be clear and transparent to the mediators, to Hamas, and especially to the Israeli public that Israel will not cease pursuing them and will try to eliminate them, just as it did with the murderers of the Israeli athletes in Munich, when over the years it eliminated one by one the members of Black September who were involved in the athletes' massacre, led by the organization's commander, Ali Hassan Salameh.

A promise or even an understanding regarding immunity for the butchers, kidnappers, and murderers of hostages not only betrays the murdered, the dead hostages, the living hostages, and the IDF soldiers who sacrificed their lives to restore security to the state and bring hostages home. Such a promise or understanding could also allow the murderers to rehabilitate themselves far from Israel's borders and reorganize to murder us again and take more hostages. This is their intention. They declare it openly. This is their purpose.

Therefore, and despite Hamas having already brought us to our knees, such a concession is one too many, both morally and practically. Even after Israel expelled the PLO and Yasser Arafat from Lebanon in 1982, it refrained from granting them such immunity, and three years later, in Operation Wooden Leg, it bombed PLO headquarters in Tunisia, 2,300 kilometers from Israel's borders, after it became clear the PLO continued initiating terrorism against Israelis in Israel and worldwide.

After they are deported and exiled, Hamas leaders and members, the murderers of hostages, must become pariahs, outcasts, and hunted men all their lives, finding no rest for their feet. There is importance both to revenge and of course to prevention and thwarting of anyone who continues to direct and plan terrorism against Jews and Israelis.

The post Yes to Gaza deportation, no to Hamas immunity appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.