JD Vance shows his true colors on Joe Rogan's podcasts

The USA vice president is proving to be the one of the worst omens for Israel, and making matters worse is that he aired horrific viewpoints on the podcast of a man who already gave indications he was hostile to Israel too:

U.S. Vice President JD Vance suggested on Wednesday that some elements within the Israeli government backed an influence campaign aimed at undermining the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran, while emphasizing that Israel remains a U.S. ally.

Speaking on Joe Rogan’s podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Vance said, “I think you have seen this very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation and try to derail the deal.”

“There was a Times story that came out yesterday that basically there are certain influencers in America who are being paid in order to attack the deal,” Vance said. “It lists a bunch of people who have quite literally been paid by a former Trump campaign person who was himself paid by certain elements within the Israeli government.”

He said he has been accused of taking “marching orders from Tucker Carlson” and that “there’s just so much bullsh** out there when what I’m actually trying to do is accomplish what the president of the United States told me to accomplish.”

The vice president said he had no objection to Israel attempting to influence U.S. policy, calling such efforts a routine part of international diplomacy.

“A lot of other countries do,” Vance said. “I think some are better at it than others. I think the Israelis are definitely more effective at it than most. But I wouldn’t say that they’re the only effective country by any means that tries to influence American politics.”

“I mean, why wouldn’t you?” he said. “It’s a country of 9 million people. We have 330 million people. And so, of course, they’re going to try to persuade Americans. They’re going to try to move Americans in one direction or another. I think that’s just the nature of the beast.”

I think the use of the word "beast" is disturbing, and no matter what he says about not objecting to Israel trying to influence USA policy, it's clear he is disturbingly biased. Ruthie Blum addressed the news like this:

As much as I dislike citing Maya Angelou—and absolutely loathe using a single plural pronoun to describe a single noun—one of the late activist-poet’s famous quotes is so spot on that it bears repeating: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

This certainly applies to U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who illustrated it most recently on “The Joe Rogan Experience.”

Yes, during a nearly three-hour chat with the most-streamed podcaster on Spotify, Vance yet again showed us just who he is.

Not that it was tough to do with a host like Rogan, who didn’t challenge a word his interviewee said. Oh, other than asking him what “MoU” stands for and expressing surprise that “dove” in the political context is the opposite of “hawk.”

Where blaming the Jews and Israel for the doomed memorandum of understanding with the Islamic Republic was concerned, there was no pushback. On the contrary, Rogan goaded Vance to keep going down his embarrassing rabbit hole of conspiracy theories.

These included the groyper line about sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s deep ties to the Mossad or the CIA. It was as though anti-Israel political commentators and podcasters Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens prepped the VP for the one-on-one. They undoubtedly were pleased with his performance.

Take the following passage, for instance:

“I definitely think you have seen this very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation and derail the deal,” he said, referring to the MoU with the Islamic Republic that his boss, U.S. President Donald Trump, had declared dead in the water mere days earlier.

Nonetheless, Vance continued in this vein, totally omitting two facts: that Tehran has been blitzing the Gulf (his only mention of the countries in that region is to say that they’re gung-ho for the MoU); and that Israel has been totally out of the fray for many weeks.

Well he certainly isn't helping to end the Iran war sooner than it could be done. Stuff like this also puts his sincerity regarding Europe into doubt. What if it turned out he had some responsibility for getting former Hungarian premiere Viktor Orban voted out? It remains to be seen if Vance will apologize for causing all the trouble he's going to cause with his conspiracy theory tactics, which aren't helping the situation one bit. Just plain embarrassing.

Haredis continue protesting against community members enlisting in army

The sad case of hoodlums and trespassers rioting continues in Ramat Gan and Jerusalem:

Ultra-Orthodox demonstrators protested Wednesday outside army recruitment centers in Ramat Gan and Jerusalem, where new Haredi IDF recruits were set for enlistment.

In footage of the protest near Ramat Gan’s Tel Hashomer, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, at least a hundred young men in ultra-Orthodox garb were seen gathered outside the center, some sitting cross-legged on the road as cars honked at them.

Over a dozen demonstrators attempted to break into the recruitment center in Tel Hashomer, the Israel Hayom outlet reported.

According to the daily, some 140 ultra-Orthodox young men were expected to be conscripted into combat support roles, sparking anger among extremist anti-draft groups. Many ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that military service is incompatible with their way of life, and fear that those who enlist will be secularized.

In Jerusalem, where protesters chanted against IDF enlistment, police officers at the scene declared the gathering unlawful and worked to disperse the demonstrators, police said in a statement.

Considering how negatively insular the ultra-Orthodox customs they follow are, that's why "secularization" is almost a blessing. But of course, if the recruits want to, they can always arrange for Torah studies in the army proper. All the vandals who took part in incidents like this should be heavily fined to compensate for the serious damage they've caused.

When will France recognize these specific injustices?

That's what Freddy Eytan's asking when it comes to history issues:

By definitively rehabilitating Brigadier General Alfred Dreyfus, restoring to him his dignity as a soldier and officer, the French Republic and army have finally regained their honor. They had lost it during the dark years of Petain, at the time of the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, when the Israelis faced death. France had adopted an incomprehensible and cowardly policy. Even today, with each event in our region, it loses its dignity, its honor, and its universal values. It refuses to stand with the free world, to recognize the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, a terrorist organization, as Great Britain has recently done. In doing so, it fails to realize that it is indirectly supporting the Islamist camp, all those who advocate hatred of Jews, antisemitism, boycotts, and the destruction of the Jewish state.

Following the successive failures of French policy, following the disputes, crises and misunderstandings between our two countries, it is high time to re-examine our bilateral relations because they play a considerable role of influence on the Muslim community in France and allow politicians to manipulate and win over voters in each election campaign.

Of course, this is not about boycotting and cutting ties with the Arab world, but about fighting together against jihadist enemies and fanatics.

Glad to know somebody's not throughly lost faith in a country that also built the Statue of Liberty 2 centuries ago. But I would just make clear that so long as the Arabic world adheres to Islam, that's why a boycott may unfortunately be in order until they abandon it. Certain stands and standards have to be maintained.

Loving couple in Islamic Indonesia were flogged for kissing on livestream

Robert Spencer talks about the horror caused by Islamic sharia to a loving couple in Indonesia, which is still quite a horror story in its own way:

A kiss is still a kiss, as the old song goes, but in Indonesia’s Aceh province, it’s going to cost you. Not in terms of money, but in terms of the skin off your back. A young couple in Aceh just found that out after they shared a kiss on a TikTok stream, and found themselves hauled before a Sharia court and charged with violating the rules of modesty and the proper decorum that is to be maintained between an unmarried man and woman.

For that, they were each sentenced to 21 lashes, and the sentence was recently carried out before a gaping crowd of righteously indignant Sharia-adherent Muslims who know now never, ever to livestream a kiss. And so once again we see the true heart and soul of Islam: terror. While Muslim and non-Muslim Islamic apologists in the West continue to insist that the true Islam is benign and cuddly, and that terrorism is only a tiny minority of extremists’ “hijacking” of the religion, in reality, terror is at the very center of Islam. This latest caning in Aceh shows that anew.

The South China Morning Post reported Friday that “as each blow landed on their backs, the unnamed man, 22, and woman, 25, visibly grimaced. The woman later burst into tears, wailing in pain as the public punishment continued.” The Post noted that video of the canings had kicked up the usual firestorm: “It was far from the first such case to gain international attention and the response has become familiar: footage spreads online, rights groups condemn the punishment as inhumane and Aceh’s status as the Muslim-majority country’s sole sharia-enforcing province is thrust back into the spotlight.”

Yes indeed: “In a statement issued the same day as the flogging, Amnesty International said all forms of corporal punishment constituted torture or other ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment,’ while its co-regional director, Montse Ferrer, called the caning of the couple ‘a horrifying act of discrimination.’”

Of course, Amnesty's not exactly a saint themselves when it comes to dealing with the Religion of Peace. What this should make clear is that along with Iran, even Indonesia's a country that has to be condemned for their own human rights violations, along with the abuse they subjected a loving couple to over petty issues. Absolutely repulsive.

The sad passing of Lindsey Graham

This week, a senator who was a good buddy for Israel passed on at 71. Donald Trump said about him:

He added, “He was a worker. He was really a worker. But, but he sounded great, actually. But he was, he was. He actually said he was tired, but he wanted to get the Save America Act. And I said, well, we’re going to get it done, Lindsey. We’re going to get it done. I’ll see you soon. We thought maybe we might even meet today. And then that was it. And that was, you know, around the time; it couldn’t have been much longer. I could have been his last call. I don’t know exactly, but I got a message about 1:00 in the morning from one of the people at his office that he had passed away. I said, you got it. I just can’t believe it. He was like a member of the family to me. It’s very tough.”

Trump concluded, “This is a big blow to the SAVE America Act, let me tell you.”

Also for Israel, sadly. Condolences to his family members. Graham deserved far better.

Update: here's a video of a moment of silence held in the Knesset in Graham's memory.

Why recognizing Ahmed al-Sharaa as legitimate is bad

Amine Ayoub wrote about why the Trump administration's continued recognition of Islamists like Ahmed al-Sharaa is bad news:

The recent declaration by President Donald Trump indicating a willingness to remove Syria from the U.S. State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism marks a perilous pivot in American foreign policy. Coupled with optimistic projections regarding an Israeli military withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Washington appears to be rushing toward a premature stabilization narrative in the Levant. At the center of this strategy is Ahmed al-Sharaa, the interim Syrian president who assumed power following the dramatic collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Sharaa's sudden elevation from an international terrorist to a prospective diplomatic partner is not a triumph of moderate reform. Instead, it represents the most sophisticated mutation of Salafi-jihadist ideology observed in the modern era, posing a severe long-term threat to Western security and regional minorities.

The Illusion of Transformation

To understand the danger of the current U.S. trajectory,we must examine the meticulous career of Sharaa, previously known by his battlefield moniker, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. Sharaa is a veteran of the global jihadist movement who gained operational experience fighting American forces alongside al-Qaeda in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. Following his subsequent incarceration at Camp Bucca, he spearheaded the creation of Jabhat al-Nusra, which operated as al-Qaeda’s official Syrian franchise.

Under his command, the group executed horrific suicide operations, systematically targeted religious minorities, and enforced an uncompromising version of Islamic law. His subsequent break with al-Qaeda and the creation of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, were widely interpreted by Middle East experts as tactical maneuvers rather than genuine ideological transformations.

The institutionalization of HTS under Sharaa demonstrates how modern radical groups adapt their vocabulary for Western consumption without abandoning their core Islamist objectives.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg, so read the rest. What the Trump administration's doing, continuing to give al-Sharaa legitimacy, is a very bad example, and when the Democrats don't raise any objections to the administration's dealings with al-Sharaa, you know something's wrong.

The crisis in Europe now with Muslim sharia gangs

British writer Steve Tucker tells about how Muslim sharia gangs are imposing horror in Europe:

German director Uwe Boll’s new hit movie Citizen Vigilante, in which (spoiler alert!) actor Armie Hammer shoots dead an entire family of Muslim immigrants in retaliation for one of their number’s brutal rape of a native white woman somewhere in continental Europe, has been controversial for many reasons: its violence, its alleged “racism,” and its supposed potential to inspire copycat crimes.

An issue that should be causing far more controversy than the mere fictional vigilante violence depicted on-screen, however, may be the potential for real-life vigilante violence occurring off-screen, performed by Europe’s millions of imported Muslims. All over the continent in recent years, Muslims have been forming their own Citizen Vigilante-like mobs, which they claim are purely for innocent purposes of self-protection. I would suggest this is an issue of rather more valid public concern than a made-up movie in which a made-up white man shoots some made-up Muslims.

Pillars of the Community

The response to Boll’s movie from self-appointed Muslim “community leaders” has focused on calling it Islamophobic or demanding its distribution be suppressed. From some such figures in the United Kingdom, however — home to around 4 million Muslims and counting — the response has been slightly different. Rather than ban the movie, why not use it as an excellent excuse for setting up a giant nationwide Islamic army?

Read more at the article, which tells more about how in a way, the Islamofascists are setting their own "vigilante" armies, and already have. And that's something we cannot put up with anymore.

A woman who wisely chose not to return to Jewish "Taliban cult"

Here's an interview with a woman who wisely left what's called a "taliban cult", one of the worst products of Haredi clans like the Satmar and Lev Tahor in Israel:

When Rose Feldman wants to explain where she came from, she looks through her phone for a photo from the not-so-distant past. For a moment, it is hard to connect the young woman with flowing hair sitting in the room with the girl staring back from the screen: covered from head to toe, her head wrapped in a burqa-like covering.

She rarely allowed herself to be photographed in those years, but that rare image says a great deal about the world she came from. To outsiders, they were known as the “Taliban cult” or the “shawl women.” For Rose, it was simply life itself: the world in which she grew up after her family joined the cult.

Today, as she volunteers for national service at a boarding home for children removed from their families — a home very similar to, and located near, the one where she herself spent her later teenage years — Rose can define more clearly than ever just how abnormal the place she grew up in really was. “Everything was very detached. We moved all the time from place to place,” she says.

The cult, built on a sophisticated system of control by multiple authority figures who frequently change, is constantly evading the authorities. School was out of the question. From the moment her family joined the cult, when she was 8, she stopped studying.

‘The shock of my life’

Rose’s life was defined by wandering: from Jerusalem to Tiberias and from there to Bnei Brak, often at night, in order to evade the authorities. Sometimes they slept in cemeteries and at the graves of righteous figures. Every so often, someone would be added to or removed from the family.

“At one point, I was raising a baby who was not even connected to our family,” she says. What sounds absurd now felt almost self-evident to her at the time. “I was mature from a young age,” she says, because she always knew she had one purpose in life: “They teach you to prepare to be a mother. That is the role. That is what a woman is supposed to do in the world.”

One of her friends was already engaged at 11. Rose was told she was engaged — to a man she did not know and had never even met — when she was 14, two weeks before the planned wedding. “Relatively late,” she says. “He was in Jerusalem and I was in Tiberias,” she recalls. Although she had been prepared for that moment throughout her short life, when it finally arrived she was mainly “in the shock of my life. Just stunned.” Rose was brought to Jerusalem, to the place where the wedding was supposed to take place. But the ceremony never happened. Moments before it began, police raided the site and arrested everyone present. Rose was taken to a police station and from there to an emergency center. Afterward, by court order, she was formally removed from her home and transferred to a boarding school. [...]

For her, service at the boarding home is an opportunity to give back to the place that gave her safe ground and allowed her to choose a life different from the one laid out for her. It is also a deeply personal closing of the circle. “The children are my heart,” she says. “When a child chooses to share something with me, it is worth everything. It is the most meaningful thing I could have done.”

The psychological control and prohibitions: ‘You’ll go to hell’

The police raid on Rose’s child wedding was dramatic and traumatic, but it was far from the happy ending of the story. As the cliché goes, you can take the girl out of the cult, but you cannot take the cult out of the girl.

Another four years would pass before Rose decided, in a single phone call, that she was not going back. Reaching that moment required enormous patience and acceptance from the staff at the last boarding school where she was educated — an Or Shalom family home operated for and supervised by the Welfare Ministry. Eventually, because of the seeds planted during that period, and very much because of Rose herself, she decided to begin a new life.

Read the full article. It's very fortunate she came to her senses, considering all the intimidation tactics they brainwashed her with. Such cults have to be dismantled and dispersed, and her parents, whether they were Haredi or not, should be utterly ashamed of themselves for doing something that could've endangered her health and life, along with her humanity and dignity. Now, she's lucky to have found and regained it again.

Religious families of Golani brigade soldiers who disliked women singing at event should be ashamed of themselves

We recently had here another case of religious families and soldiers who cowardly follow the belief they shouldn't listen to women sing, effectively desecrating the memory of the biblical Miriam:

An end-of-training ceremony for Golani Brigade soldiers at Golani Junction sparked disappointment among some religious soldiers and their families after organizers announced that women's singing would be included as part of the event.

According to the father of one of the graduating soldiers, attendees were informed before the ceremony began that female vocal performances would accompany the program and that anyone who objected could step aside during those portions. Parents had arrived at the site as early as 5:00 a.m. to attend the ceremony following the soldiers' concluding march.

The father said that, in practice, a number of religious soldiers and their families repeatedly left the parade ground whenever female soldiers performed. However, he argued that the loudspeaker system surrounding the area meant they could still hear the singing, making the arrangement ineffective. Throughout the ceremony, officers addressed the graduates and praised their families, with musical performances alternating between speeches. "You could see mothers with headscarves and fathers wearing kippot walking aside again and again," he said.

According to the father, his own son joined the groups leaving during the performances, returning to formation after each song before departing again when the next performance began. "It was a disgrace," he said, adding that his son later told him, "Is this what we walked dozens of kilometers all night for, that they would spit in our faces?" The father said the experience left many feeling they were being singled out rather than accommodated.

After the ceremony, several parents reportedly tried to locate the unit's rabbi, who had attended similar events in the past, but were told he had already left. "We couldn't do much," the father said. "It's a military ceremony, and we respect the army and the event, but I don't understand how mutual that respect really is."

If they don't have the courage to listen to women sing, let alone dance, what are they fighting for exactly? And why does this article feel so biased in their favor? After October 7, 2023, that they would continue this shoddy embarrassment and corruption of Judaism is repulsive, and did they ever consider they're humiliating the lady singers? One sure thing, if I had a daughter who sang there and they tried to get her censored, I'd press police charges against said religious families and soldiers for making petty issues at a lady's expense. It's been argued in the past that modern generations aren't being taught to defend/respect a woman's honor and dignity. By refusing to appreciate a woman's ability to sing and dance for the right reasons, they're perpetuating such a problem. And again, they're disrespecting biblical Miriam as well.

Update: INN appears to have erased the article. Is it really that embarrassing for them that they gave such a report sans objectivity? This definitely is surprising now.

Former Haredi girl becomes fashion stylist

So here's an interview with a former resident of a Haredi clan who became a fashion designer after being expelled from school over petty issue. First:

Chumi Polak is a familiar name in Israel’s fashion industry: a busy stylist who works on productions, commercials and with artists. But many people only recently learned her name in a very different context, as the partner of musician and judge Assaf Amdursky, whom she has been dating for the past year and a half. Polak had also dressed Amdursky over the years, and when the timing was right, love followed. [...]

Amdursky is 55 and you are 36, a 19-year age gap.

“That’s true, but there’s a difference between a 20-year-old woman dating a 40-year-old man and a gap like this at our age,” she said. “I think the age difference becomes much less significant. Assaf is Peter Pan, someone who is constantly in motion. He’s a second-year film student and also plans to pursue a doctorate. He is always doing something, he takes care of himself and he looks wow.

“I’ve also been through a thing or two, and I feel very mature. I don’t think I could be with a man in his 30s. I feel Assaf is a man who knows what he wants, and I love that.”

Oh, it's okay for a 20 year old woman to date a 40 year old man. Such things are practically discussed in the Torah/Bible too, and from a modern perspective, if the lady is 18 and up, then it's perfectly legal and in good taste. Now, on the background of the fashionista herself:

Polak’s appearance, an edgy blonde with a cool haircut and hipster style, gives little hint that she came from a completely different world. She was born in Jerusalem to a Haredi family, the eldest of six children. “Chumi is short for Nechama,” she said. “My mother called me that from a young age and it stuck. It’s a name that always raises questions and I always explain it. In recent years, I’ve even started introducing myself again as Nechama. Nechama Miriam Pearl Polak.”

Her mother was born in London, “a Yiddish-speaking Haredi woman who came to Israel and married my Haredi father. I have a wonderful family and amazing parents, and I am very close to everyone. On the other hand, I was always something a little unusual in that landscape.

“I felt people didn’t understand me. I asked questions in a society where questions were not encouraged. I was stubborn, someone who stood her ground, not the kind of good, obedient girl who tries to please everyone. I was a bit wild and hyperactive. I had character.”

Polak grew up “in a very Haredi neighborhood” and studied at Bais Yaakov girls' school until ninth grade, when her family moved to Bnei Brak. “My father became close to a certain admor (Hasidic rebe), and my parents moved to live in his court,” she said.

What happened?

“One day we had a free period at the seminary, and my cousin, another friend and I ran away to the beach through a hole in the fence,” she said. “We rolled up our tights and our skirts and got our feet wet in the water.

“That evening, an older red-haired man came to my parents’ door with a letter saying someone had seen us and that I was suspended from school immediately. They demanded that we apologize and sign a code of conduct bylaw. My mother begged me to do it, but I refused. I didn’t feel I had done anything so terrible that I needed to apologize. My cousin and the other friend apologized, signed and were allowed back. I was expelled.”

In the Haredi community, she said, being expelled from one school makes it difficult to be accepted to another. “That’s how I found myself without any framework for half a year, and people more or less shut me out,” she said. “Before that, I had been very popular in class. Suddenly, no one called. Silence.” “During that half year, I had free time, I started going out and discovered the world. A little before I turned 16, I moved to Jerusalem. I had a few friends there who were older than me. I moved in with them and started waitressing. I was still religious and waitressed in long skirts. After half a year, I moved to London.”

It's a bold step. “Yes,” she said. “I did extreme, dramatic things without fear and without much thought. I’m more measured today, but that’s my nature. I’m impulsive and I’m not afraid. No one in my family left home or left religion, but I just did. I flew to London without thinking it through, with 100 pounds in my pocket.

“I had a friend there who worked at mall carts, and I have a British passport because of my mother. I sold hair and beauty products from carts inside stores like Harrods and Selfridges and made a lot of money. The pound was worth eight shekels, and sometimes I would make 1,000 pounds a day.”

Well see, when certain segments of society act so petty, that's certainly atrocious, and seriously, she was right to leave the Haredi community where she was born. Her parents shouldn't have been part of it either. It also says here that:

Have you already left religion at that stage?

“It took some time. But I remember that Shabbat in London when I was 17, when I left the house and ordered a hamburger with bacon. Both Shabbat and bacon. I woke up in the morning and said, ‘Okay, let’s see what happens,’ and nothing happened. It was cool.

“I never had an issue with Judaism. I just wanted to see everything. But faith always stayed in me, and actually the older I get, the more I return to religion. For the past five years, I’ve been eating kosher again, and I also keep Shabbat once a month. It does me good. When I visit my parents, I always dress modestly.”

Perhaps she shouldn't, although good for her she resumed kosher eating again. But that sex-negative hysteria has got to go, because it's having a ruinous effect on women's confidence and dignity, and we could seriously do without it. It's also alluded to at the end:

How would you define your style?

“I’m very eclectic, and every day I can be someone else. I love vintage and mixing designer pieces with vintage, but not anything too revealing. Even as a stylist, I don’t dress people very exposed. I don’t like it. The Bais Yaakov girl stayed in me.

“You’ll never see me in tank tops or flip-flops. It just doesn’t feel refined to me. I also work a lot with the Haredi sector. I understand the nuances and subtleties, what is allowed and what isn’t, the language, and the trends there.

“To this day, I still have amazing pleated skirts from seminary. There’s no style like that. I shortened one into a mini and gave it a Miu Miu feel, and left another as a midi. It’s wow, and it’s chic.”

Again, this is a weakness she has to overcome. It's the personality that matters, not whether the clothing is modest or revealing. I hope she'll come to understand that, and she doesn't need to do business with the Haredi segment, unless perhaps to help convince them to leave it. That could be very helpful, considering the Satmar, if any, have been one of the worst 5th columns for decades now.