In this edition we mark the sad birthday of 5-year-old Ariel Bibas, the little redhead being held by Hamas with his baby brother and parents. We also want you to know about the courageous stand taken by Ayelet Samerano against the UNWRA secretary-general in Lausanne.
Read about how long can a hostage survive in captivity, about Turkey in NATO, the threats to Israel from Iran and Hezbollah and what the IDF says might happen.
Clinical data of Cytora's oral mucosa stem cells treatment shown to be safe and may be efficient as a disease modifying therapy in moderate stages of Multiple System Atrophy
Nvidia's development and production centers in Israel will benefit from the huge deal and will be able to sell their wares in Saudi Arabia, even though it has decided not to recognize Israel.
The world is leaving Israel out in the cold, at least diplomatically, and the current Israeli government is more insular and distant than the State of Israel has been since its founding. Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, and with recent developments in the Middle East, the decision-making process has not included Israel, including decisions by Israel’s allies that affect Israel.
US president Donald Trump’s recent tour of Arab monarchies around the Persian Gulf has give Israel a rude awakening of its limited influence and ability to affect political decisions in the region. Even Israel’s strongest ally in the world can bypass the Israeli government, the personal egos of its leaders, and even its national and security interests, for a bit of political expedience. Trump succeeded in convincing the Emir of Qatar to pressure Hamas to release one hostage it was holding, Israeli soldier and US citizen Edan Alexander, without negotiating a ceasefire or prisoner exchange. This concession from both Qatar and Hamas was done with no official Israeli participation. Israel was completely kept out of the decision process.
Israel woke up, or rather Israeli politicians and government officials woke up to another reality check that they were all unprepared for the decisions of other influential parties in the region, even to decisions by, again, Israel’s most powerful ally.
The news that Trump is fed up with Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu is bittersweet. On the one hand, Bibi is actively harming Israel’s national interests in order to keep it in a perpetual state of war on multiple fronts rather than doing what is necessary to free the hostages and protect our borders. On the other hand, Trump’s decisions over the past week also harm Israel - not just Bibi.
Last Thursday, Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke at the World Bible Quiz for Jewish Youth and said that the primary goal of Israel’s ongoing war was not the return of the hostages but to defeat Hamas and Israel’s enemies.
The comments prompted a strong backlash from the families of captives. Meanwhile, military plans to expand operations in Gaza move forward amid diminishing hopes for a hostage deal.
Responding to Netanyahu, the mother of the kidnapped Matan Tsengaukar, Einav Tsengaukar, harshly attacked Netanyahu and his government. “I'm tired of being silent and I'm tired of being diplomatic. I've decided that from today on, my ultimate goal, as Matan's mother, is to overthrow the prime minister and to oust him and his bloody government, and send them home” (note that the link for this quote is in Hebrew).
Its been a long and confusing week, both in Israel and the United States, not to mention the rest of the world. In this issue, our focus is more mixed than we would like - we too are confused. We begin this issue with a look at the 2nd Trump administration from both an Israeli and American viewpoint (we may very well fail in part two). This is followed by a report on the Hostage issue which unfortunately is still urgent and Israel’s most recent scandal involving Netanyahu’s and his attempts avoid taking responsibility for Israel’s worst disaster.
Our two newest editors each focus on different issues:
Hagay Vider focuses on how “long-term investment policies” by foreign countries with their own agendas have damaged the American higher education system. There is more than meets the eye to the Trump vs. Harvard fight and we strongly recommend that you read what Hagay has to say.
Shmuel Goldstein, in his “The Road to Pravda” series, strays from its mission of showing how mainstream media’s deterioration of journalism into propaganda on anything related to Israel. This week he analyzes what at first glance appears to a recent local tragedy in Israel to show how western cultural assumptions can be just as misleading as swimmer who treats sharks as if they were pet dogs and cats. Yes - here in Israel we have supposedly intelligent people who can be just as stupid as some of the dumbest Americans.
On Friday, the Prime Minister made a dramatic announcement that he would be making an important — albeit recorded — press conference on Saturday night, thus raising the hopes of the hostages’ families that he would finally be ending the war and returning all of their loved ones. Their hopes were quickly dashed the next night...
This week we have a number of different articles that do not necessarily reflect the opinions of all of our editors - so you may see a number of different focuses. These include:
Editorial: Are We Being “Two-Faced” When We Tell the World Israel Is Truly Free?
The Cost of Protecting Israel’s First Family, and the Efforts to Cover it Up
The Road to Pravda - Rock Throwing Yutes
Harari’s Playbook for Dictatorship: A Chilling Parallel to Netanyahu’s Actions
If you disagree with some of these - that’s a good sign and all the more reason to forward the newsletter to friends and relatives!
This Passover has been as bittersweet a holiday as it’s ever been (or at least since the Holocaust). Having family together and celebrating freedom is always sweet, but this year it almost feels like we are still waiting for sea to part because 59 of our people are still being held in conditions worse than the slaves of Egypt.
We know that you are busy and preoccupied with Passover week and for most of you, who live outside of Israel, celebrating the 2nd Seder. So we’ll keep this week’s newsletter short. And we ask you to do at least one thing each day of Passover week to keep the fate of the remaining 59 hostages in the public eye. Ideas… Tie yellow ribbons in public places, call or write a local politician or news source, call for President Trump to step in where Prime Minister fails to act (sounds terrible - but Bibi is no Moses).
Over time, the international organizations that were created in the aftermath of World War II to prevent a repeat of the Holocaust and the massive destruction of extreme nationalism became corrupted. It was a slow process at first, almost unnoticed. But alongside the creation of organizations with virtuous names and ideals, the greatest violators of these ideals hijacked and corrupted them from within.
When we look back, we can already see the seeds of hypocrisy being planted in 1949, when UNRWA was created to treat the Arab refugees of Israel’s War of Independence differently from all other refugees for whom the UNHCR was responsible. In the name of “progress and humanity,” a whole class of refugees was prevented from resettling and condemned to a generations of conflict. The truth is -- they were used as pawns simply because of their ethnicity and because most of the powers that be couldn’t really accept the idea of a Jewish State as an equal among nations. …
Other topics include:
World Zionist Congress Elections
How Trump’s Tariffs Will Impact Israeli Defense of America’s Biggest Industry
The Road to Pravda - The decline of journalistic standards in coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict
The mismanagement of the war Gaza for political motives seems more like a satirical musical than real life. Israel clearly needs to get the hostages back - even if it means ending the war before Hamas is destroyed. Partial deals for a handful of hostages in return for a 50-day ceasefire is the equivalent of a death sentence to those left behind - so a full-scale military operation ramped up faster than Netanyahu is willing to do is the best option until a deal can be made - but Bibi won’t allow that either. He chooses slow death and threats over action (either making a deal or full-scale military action).
In the meantime, the government is doing everything it can to distract the Israeli public from the most important existential issue - the hostages. He is allowing Yariv Levin to move forward with the divisive “Judicial Reforms” that are designed to subjugate the judicial branch to the whims of the politicians. Although he publicly supports ending UNRWA’s mission to perpetuate the “Palestinian conflict”, the government quietly refuses to implement the new laws to end UNRWA’s presence inside Israel’s border and prevent the government institutions from cooperating with them in any way.
The list of crisis headlines that Netanyahu’s coalition has managed to create this week is too long to list, but the most significant is the 2025 budget that the Knesset recently passed just before the deadline. It is not just because failure to pass the budget would have resulted in long overdue elections, but the budget raids the public coffers so deeply that those who serve are left behind and the sectors that refuse to serve are rewarded. The communities of the war-ravaged north and south of Israel are left to fend for themselves, the crime wave in the Arab communities that threatens to spread to nearby Jewish communities is left unchecked, the education and health systems are being starved in order to provide billions for useless ministries whose sole function is to provide patronage.
