Cruel and Malicious Agreement Violation
"We
will work with determination to bring Shiri home together with all our
hostages -- both living and dead -- and ensure that Hamas pays the full
price for this cruel and malicious violation of the agreement."
"The sacred memory of Oded Lifshitz and Ariel and Kfir Bibas will be forever enshrined in the heart of the nation."
"May God avenge their blood. And so we will avenge."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
"[We have] no interest in retaining any bodies."
"[We have] demonstrated full compliance with the agreement [in recent days and remain] committed to all its terms."
"We reject Netanyahu's threats."
Hamas statement
 |
| Yarden, Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas |
The
body of Oded Lifshitz, 83 when he was abducted on October 7, 2023, was
returned to Israel in a casket. This was a man who lived in a kibbutz on
the border of Southern Israel with Gaza. He was an exponent of peace
between the two neighbours. And he arranged to pick up and deliver
Gazans, including Palestinian children to hospitals in Israel for
medical treatment. He and those others like him who lived in the border
kibbutzes believed in peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Palestinian
farm workers found regular employment in the Israeli kibbutzes,
enabling them to earn a wage far superior than anything they could find
in employment-bare Gaza. These Palestinian farm workers became familiar
with the Israelis among whom they worked. Comfortable enough that they
all ate their meals communally in the kibbutz's dining halls. And it was
from among these trusted Palestinian farm workers that Hamas operatives
planning the October 7 invasion of the kibbutzim were given hand-drawn
maps of the kibbutzes, including which of the structures held members of
each kibbutz's security team.
Some
of the Palestinian civilians accompanying the terrorist groups during
the invasion were familiar to the terrorized Israelis who were being
raped, dismembered and slaughtered. Oded Lifshitz was one of them. Of
the four caskets that were delivered in a handover from Hamas to the Red
Cross, then to waiting Israeli IDF members, two were tiny affairs,
holding the bodies of a four-year-old child and a 10-month-old infant,
sibling brothers, Kfir and Ariel Bibas.
Their
mother Shiri Bibas was purportedly in one of the two large adult-sized
caskets. All were taken to the forensics unit for verification of
identity. It was quickly evident that it was not Shiri Bibas in the
casket meant to hold her, but the body of an unknown woman from Gaza.
Devastating news for her waiting family members, already wholly
traumatized by their experiences of the past fifteen months, and
particularly so for her husband Yarden, father of their two babies.
Hamas
responded to the revelation and the fury of Israel by demurring over
malicious intention; no, never would they be so inhumanely sadistic, and
they would "conduct a thorough review" of
the information with respect to the body. Moreover, they demanded the
immediate return of the body in Shiri's casket, that of a Palestinian
woman. What occurred, they said was an error in remains resulting from
Israeli bombing of the area where the Israeli hostages had been held.
The following day another casket was delivered, this time confirmed
that it held the body of Shiri Bibas.
 |
| IDF officers salute a casket containing the body of slain hostage Shiri
Silberman Bibas, late on February 21, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces) |
Hamas
had informed Israeli authorities a year ago that the Bibas family,
mother and two infants were killed in an Israeli bombing raid into Gaza.
They set up a video featuring Yarden Bibas, held separately from his
family, taunting him with the information that his wife and children
were dead. No one in Israel believed they were dead, and Yarden,
released from captivity two weeks earlier, held steadfast to the idea
that they were alive and would be released to him.
"We identified Shiri Bibas two days after we identified her
children. Our examination found no evidence of injuries
caused by bombing."
"[The medical staff at Abu Kabir had worked] professionally and carefully to provide clear answers to the Lifshitz
and Bibas-Silberman families [since receiving the bodies, first on
Thursday and then on Friday night]."
"It’s a difficult day for the
families, for us, the medical staff, and for the entire nation of
Israel."
Dr. Chen Kugel, director of the National Institute of Forensic Medicine (Abu Kabir)
On
Friday, Israeli Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari cleared up the Hamas
contention that the Bibas babies had been killed along with their mother
in an Israeli air strike. Dr. Kugel, the pathologist had already stated
that mother Shiri had not died of wounds consistent with an air strike.
Then came the statement from Rear Admiral Hagari: "The terrorists did not shoot the two young boys — they killed them with
their bare hands. Afterward, they committed horrific acts to cover up
these atrocities."
 |
| Shiri Bibas is led into Gaza by her Palestinian abductors, carrying Kfir and Ariel in her arms |
Labels: Abduction of Israeli Hostages, Hamas Invasion of Southern Israel, Palestinian Terrorist butchery, Terrorist Atrocities
Sounds Like an Approach to Regional Conflict...
"There
must be a U.S. backstop because a U.S. security guarantee is the only
way to effectively deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again."
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer
"Russia
is preparing for a long war. They have now three times the manpower and
their defence industry is moving quicker than that of Europe."
"Does anybody believe that this is only aimed at Ukraine?"
"What
is the use of security guarantees from a weak party? Europe needs to
muscle up right now to be actually able to provide security guarantees
that will hold."
Lithuanian Defence Minister Dovile Sakaliene
 |
| UK PM and French President at 106th anniversary of Armistice Day. Nov2024 AP |
In
Europe, political and military leaders are busy fleshing out details of
a plan for European forces -- on the sidelines of the United States and
Russian talks, to which Ukraine has not been invited -- to vigilantly
prepare to ensure that Moscow will not attack again. The issue of a
united European force is likely to be high on the agenda when U.K. PM
Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron visit Washington for
talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, next week.
The
proposed force would only be workable if the U.S. military could be
relied upon for backing, and persuading Donald Trump to that opinion
will be a difficult proposition. What Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy is really invested in is NATO membership to ensure the
security guarantee he is looking for. Yet while NATO's European members
are fully invested in backing Ukraine in its NATO ambition, it seems the
U.S. has no intention of paving the way for Ukraine in NATO.
With
NATO membership closed off to him, Zelenskyy feels that over 100,000
European troops would be required to guarantee the conflict will not
flare up once more following a ceasefire. According to Western officials
what is under discussion is not an army of peacekeepers to be posted
along the 1,000 kilometr front line in Ukraine's east, but rather a "reassurance force".
Fewer than 30,000 European troops on the ground in Ukraine, distant
from the front line at key infrastructure sites, backed with western air
and sea power is what the UK and France envision.
The
front line would, under the plan, be monitored remotely. Based outside
Ukraine, air power would be in reserve for the purpose of deterring
breaches and to reopen Ukrainian airspace to commercial flights.
Presumably U.S. air power could be included, in the opinion of the
U.K.'s Starmer. However, U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth informed
European allies "there will not be U.S. troops deployed to Ukraine", without completely ruling out U.S. support like air transport or logistics.
 |
| French President Macron speaks with Ukrainian soldiers at military camp in France, Oct2024 AP |
"Different people in the administration are sending different signals ... Who do you believe, is an issue",
commented former senior NATO official Jamie Shea. The closest NATO
countries in proximity to Russia, the U.K., France, the Nordic and
Baltic states, are likely to be assigned the major roles in any such
force as is being proposed. Poland, a key logistics base for support to
Ukraine since Russia's invasion does not intend to send troops into
Ukraine, according to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz commented that discussion of a Europe-led security force is "premature", and he was "a little irritated" that peacekeeping forces were being discussed "at the wrong time",
insisting NATO, and not an independent European force, must remain the
foundation of Ukrainian security. Russia has a fighting force of some
600,000 troops in Ukraine; according to analysts any ceasefire leaving
the bulk of that force in place would be a guarantee of renewed
conflict.
The
French military is comprised of just over 200,000 personnel, the U.K.'s
fewer than 150,000; Europe would struggle to mount a force of even tens
of thousands, according to Matthew Savill, director of military
sciences, Royal United Services Institute.
 |
| British PM Keir Starmer speaks to British soldiers at base in Cyprus, Dec.2024 AP |
Labels: Ceasefire, European Allies, Guaranteeing Ukrainian Security Russia, Russian Invasion of Ukraine, United States
First The Saturday People, Then The Sunday People -- The Writing on The Wall Ignored
"Our hearts -- the hearts of an entire nation -- lie in tatters."
"On behalf of the State of Israel, I bow my head and ask for forgiveness."
"Forgiveness for not protecting you on that terrible day."
"Forgiveness for not bringing you home safely."
Israeli President Isaac Herzog
"Their
bodies were handed over to the Red Cross today after Hamas paraded them
in Gaza in a shocking display of cruelty and propaganda."
"Hamas's
treatment of these victims in death is as abhorrent as their treatment
in life. The terror group labelled each casket with 'Date of arrest:
October 7' -- a blatant distortion of the truth."
"These
innocent civilians were not arrested; they were violently kidnapped
from their homes during Hamas's brutal attack on Israel on October 7,
2023, and murdered in captivity."
World Jewish Congress
 |
| Hamas releases four dead hostages to Israel; still from video CNN |
A
handful of Israeli citizens, and even fewer female soldiers released
from captivity by a terrorist group that had no compunction over taking
infants and their mothers, the feeble elderly, teens, and foreign farm
workers as pawns in a scheme to eventually exchange them for the release
of thousands of Palestinians held prisoner in Israeli jails. Those
prisoners were incarcerated for presenting a direct violent threat to
Israelis. Others were convicted of committing or taking part in deadly
raids on Israeli citizens and armed personnel as acts of personal
violence, to gain favour with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas after
years of indoctrination into a cult of murder incorporated and the
fetish of martyrdom.
A
simmering tinderbox of acid-tempered relations between a state
re-established on its ancestral territory and a people that had migrated
to take advantage of better living opportunities, leaving their
original homes in Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon to arrive in an
historical-era geographic land mass of ancient Judeans, the authentic
indigenous people of the region. A group of people of Arab origins whose
leaders have convinced generations that the presence of Jews is
displeasing to Islam and they must be violently dealt with, that their
obligation to Islam calls for the obliteration of the Jewish state.
Pre-dating
and post-dating the rebirth of Israel in its indigenous territory, Arab
leaders allowed diaspora Jews to live among them since the Roman era of
occupation as lesser beings, paying a tax for their presence to be
tolerated. The Jews that were Arabized living among Arabs for millennia
were suddenly exiled, their properties confiscated, when Israel
re-materialized in 1948. The Arabs calling themselves Palestinians, a
designation reserved for Jews on historically Jewish land during the
Roman era, signed a covenant among themselves, supported by the wider
geographic Arab populations to destroy the Jewish State.
 |
|
That
condition of challenge, conflict and conquest led to wars, none of
which dislodged Israel. When state-led armed conflict failed, unaligned,
spontaneous terrorist groups took the place of state-led wars against
Jews. Terror groups out of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran all pledged the
destruction of Israel, by various Sunni and Shi'ite tribal proxies. At
the present time, Hamas in Gaza has been the most persistent attacker of
the Jewish state, followed by Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and
Yemen's Houthis. What they all have in common is a morbidly sinister
ethos of death and martyrdom, refined to a fine art with the addition of
sadistic savagery in which Hamas excels.
Palestinian
terrorist groups have become as addicted to threatening, tormenting,
and exacting death through both organized and casual attacks as they are
to portraying themselves as victims of conniving, territorial-hungry
Jews. Their propaganda campaigns in the West aided and abetted by the
migration of Islamist agitators infiltrating society at every level have
succeeded in drawing out the slumbering menace of the world's oldest
and deadliest menace against Jews through antisemitic smears and
accusations, succeeding in polluting public opinion and actions against
any Jewish presence anywhere.
 |
| Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters wave Palestinian flags and chant
slogans during a demonstration in central London on January 6, 2024,
calling for a ceasefire in the war in Gaza. (Henry Nicholls/AFP) |
No
crime against humanity is too severe in its horrendous outcome to be
perpetrated against Jews. The Medieval-era brutalities of the savage
attacks by Palestinian terrorists in southern Israel of October 7, 2023,
appealed to the inner antisemitism of a global public at large which
bent to their lifelong obsession in a belief of Jewish schemes to
control the world through devious means, led by the Christian Church
through the ages depicting Jews as the killer of the originator of
Christianity, none other than a Jew.
Throughout
the worldwide Jewish community there is confusion and disbelief that
the world seems once again to have turned against them. The influential
Muslim Brotherhood which has infiltrated one country after another, from
the Middle East to Europe, North America and Africa with its long
tentacles and conspiracies, helping to give birth to countless Islamist
terrorist groups which become the living scourge of whichever country
they settle in, attacking minority ethnic groups, clans and tribes,
killing not only non-Muslims but insufficiently-pious Muslims as well.
 |
| Pope Francis stops to pray in front of a Nativity scene from Bethlehem
in the Vatican audience hall Dec. 7, 2024. The baby Jesus is lying on a
white and black kaffiyeh, a Palestinian headdress. Around the star,
written in Arabic and Latin, are the words of the angels: "Glory to God
in the highest and on earth peace to people of good will." (CNS
photo/Vatican Media) |
Of
the two extremes of jihad, the jihad practised by terrorist groups
through violence, threats and bloodlust in eliminating those whom Islam
identifies as kuffars, Crusaders, infidels and Jews, there is a general
alertness and concern, enough to make target governments -- not only
those of the West, but those in the Middle East and elsewhere that
fundamentalist Islamists loathe for not sufficiently adhering to strict
Islamic Sharia -- dimly aware. The legal immigration and stealth
migration of Muslims into Western society has succeeded not only in
having Islam accepted into traditionally Christian-majority populations,
but in numbers leading to the slow and steady rape of indigenous
Western heritage, culture, societal mores and laws.
Labels: Islamist Conquest, Israeli Rehearsals, Middle East Terrorism, Oblivious West, The Sleeping West, The West in Islam's Crosshairs
The Savagery Behind the Handover of Murdered Israeli Infants
 |
| Hamas terrorists gather at the site of the handing over of the bodies of
four Israeli hostages including the Bibas family, who have become
symbols of the hostage crisis that has gripped the region since the Gaza
war broke out. (Eyad Baba/AFP) |
"[The Bibas family's story is] very, very tragic. It's hard to look at their pictures and not cry for their fate and feel emotional."
"You can see what wonderful people they are, and how sweet the little children are."
"I'm trying to express hope, the optimism that they would be released."
Israeli artist/activist Zeev Engelmayer
"[Yarden] believes that the claim that Shiri and the children were killed is Hamas's speculation, and if he believes it -- who are we to say otherwise?"
"We draw strength from him, from his faith."
Jimmy Miller, cousin of Shiri Bibas
A year or more ago, Hamas informed the IDF that Shiri Bibas and her four-year-old son Ariel, and Kfir, 9 months, were killed in an Israeli Defense Forces airstrike in Khan Younis. Intelligence agents, citing no evidence, refused to give the report authentication, and hopes were high that the three would eventually be returned to Israel through a prisoner exchange. The infants' father, Yarden, had been kidnapped separately from his family. During his imprisonment he was subjected to psychological torture, informed that his family was dead, his reaction filmed in a video for media distribution.
 |
| The coffins containing the bodies of, from right to left, Shiri Bibas,
her two children, Ariel and Kfir, and Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he
was abducted, are displayed on a stage before being handed over to the
Red Cross by Hamas in Khan Younis on Thursday. (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP) |
Despite which, or perhaps because of which, their relatives and supporters held out hope that they would all survive their captivity. "They are breaking into our house ... it feels like the end", the children's father wrote to his sister during the attack on their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Videos that the terrorists themselves had taken with body cams as they hunted down Israeli civilians, raping, torturing, killing, torching homes with entire families inside, showed Hamas operatives and Palestinian civilians moving house to house slaughtering young and old.
In nearby Kibbutz Be'eri, the killing was methodical, consuming hours of butchery. The video of Kfir and Ariel Bibas held by their frightened, traumatized mother, surrounded by men in civilian clothing as they were being taken hostage to Gaza has been familiar to an international audience. It is an iconic picture of a terrified woman and two infants on their journey to an untimely death. There were other mothers and their children who were more promptly and efficiently killed 500 days ago. Their particulars are unknown to a large general public, the Bibas family is recognized through the proliferation of their visages in pleas to bring the hostages home.
 |
| A drone view shows Palestinians and militants gathering around Red Cross
vehicles on Thursday, the day Hamas hands over the bodies of deceased
hostages Oded Lifshitz, Shiri Bibas and her two children, Kfir and Ariel
Bibas, in the Gaza Strip. (Stringer/Reuters) |
Finally, they were to return home. Not as they were, in the blush of youth and health and a promising future. But in three coffins, one adult-sized, and two whose dimensions tore at the heartstrings of Israelis and Jews everywhere, along with their non-Jewish supporters. Yarden Bibas, freed from captivity only weeks earlier, held out hope against hope that they might somehow have survived the intentions of their brutal captors and he would be reunited with them. They are now reunited, not as he wished and imagined, but as their fate dictated.
His two tiny sons will be mourned as tradition demands for their grievous loss. Yet, where is his wife? The body that was returned in a coffin purporting to hold Shiri Bibas was not that of his wife, but that of a stranger whose identity is unknown. A woman who was not an Israeli hostage, a corpse of mystery. More mysteriously sinister is the absence of the Bibas babies' mother, the question hovering ghostlike and fearful, where is she, what happened to her, could she still be among the living?
Past masters at sadistic savagery, savouring the pain they impose on those they hate, Hamas has a tradition of exacting anguish, delectating and delighting over the prolongation of deep-seated, maddening anguish, viewing it as a victory over the hated. That inhumanity, from the thousands of terrorists who flooded southern Israel to inflict suffering and death on innocent civilians who had in fact commiserated with the Palestinian civilians living in Gaza, arranging to drive them to medical and hospital services in Israel failed to resonate with the world at large. Nor did the sight of thousands of Gazans surrounding the coffin handovers in celebration of a 'victory'.
 |
| In
a march organized by Within Our Lifetime and co-sponsored by Samidoun,
according to Within Our Lifetime, pro-Palestinian protesters rallied in
midtown Manhattan on Dec. 25. Selcuk Acar / Anadolu via Getty Images |
Out of the woodworks throughout the West came tens of thousands of Palestinians and their Muslim and non-Muslim supporters who had migrated from the countries of their origins to Europe and North America, to demonstrate their solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, characterizing the raw inhumanity unleashed by Hamas and its sister terrorist groups on Israelis on October 7, as 'understandable', as 'resistance to the occupation'. And nor did the media dispute those popularized 'contextual' sympathies.
Mobs of pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas supporters flocked to the streets of Western cities to express their delight in the comeuppance of Israel, their solidarity with the 'oppressed' Palestinians, their contempt for a Jewish State that imposed its ancestral presence in the Middle East, as a cohort of white, privileged colonizers, dislodging Arab 'Palestinians' from their homeland, crying out for a global Intifada, citing a 'Final Solution', urging Jews everywhere in the diaspora to 'go back to Poland', the messages unmistakable.
"We know [Hamas] is using the world attention to terrorize people. Should it be covered? It's complicated. This is reality. People died ..."
"We don't want world media to ignore this very important news."
"[Those already traumatized by these events that this week's hostage release] will not be quiet or respectful."
Professor Hagai Levine, Israeli public health physician/researcher
 |
| A protest in Australia during the first Gaza war, August 2006. Justin McManus/Fairfax Media via Getty Image |
Labels: 7Oct/23, Gazan Terrorists, Hamas Invasion of Southern Israel, Hostage Exchange for Palestinian Prisoners, Israeli Hostages
Kyiv to Washington: Explain Your Game Plan!
"If anyone wants to replace me right now, then it just isn't going to happen."
"I wish Trump's team had more truth. Because none of this is having a positive effect on Ukraine."
"[Claims from Trump that ratings stood at four percent is disinformation] coming from Russia."
"Since we are talking about 4 percent, we have seen this
disinformation, we understand that it is coming from Russia. We understand this, and we have evidence that these numbers are
being discussed between America and Russia."
"President Trump,
with great respect for him as a leader of the people (...)
unfortunately, lives in this disinformation space."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
 |
| Zelenskyy says Trump 'living in disinformation space' created by Russia |
"Well, we have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine;
where we have martial law, essentially martial law, in Ukraine; where
the leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4%
percent approval rating."
"He [Zelensky] refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian
Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden 'like a
fiddle'. A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he
is not going to have a Country left...I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has
done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have
unnecessarily died."
U.S. President Donald J. Trump
 |
|
The
verbal jousting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy has
resonated deeply in Ukraine. Ukrainians who have been chafing at the
ongoing conflict that Russia imposed on it, finding fault with their
president's positions have now been unified with those of their
compatriots who find the president doing all that can possibly be done
in defence of their country amid the conflict, and his unstinting
efforts in the international diplomatic field to bring together staunch
supporters and allies, imploring them to aid Ukraine in its existential
struggle against the territorial ambitions of Russian President Vladimir
Putin.
Assertions
by Donald Trump of the Ukrainian President's failures in the field of
popularity among Ukrainians, faulting him for the 2022 Russian invasion
of Ukraine that has displaced millions of Ukrainian citizens, levelled
huge swaths of Ukrainian infrastructure, killed or wounded hundreds of
thousands have not been well received by the Ukrainian population at
large. Nor has most of Europe been impressed by the statesmanship of the
leader of the most powerful country in the world, who has suddenly once
again turned against America's traditional allies and found common
ground with Vladimir Putin's Russia.
"Today I heard, 'Oh, we weren't invited'."
"Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it."
"You should have never started it."
"You could have made a deal."
Trump taunting Zelenskyy
Ukraine,
held President Trump, must hold elections. The Kyiv International
Institute of Sociology, Ukraine's premier polling organization,
published a survey concluding that 57 percent of Ukrainians place their
trust in Zelenskyy. Trump's election call for Ukraine and erroneous
claims of low approval ratings echo Vladimir Putin's attacks on the
legitimacy of the Ukrainian leader whose Churchillian performance has
been outstanding, has become a matter of confused conjecture over Mr.
Trump's logic and comprehension of the Russian invasion leading to its
occupation of a sixth of Ukraine.
Transposing
Russia's own flawed election results and the manipulation of Vladimir
Putin's changes engineered to alter the Russian constitution in 2021, to
enable Putin to remain power up to 2036, appears to have escaped the
American President's notice in his tirade against a democratically
elected president in Ukraine with a high trust rating among his
electorate. Moreover, charging Ukraine with 'starting' the war is a
direct quote from Vladimir Putin that Russia had 'no choice' but to
attack Ukraine as a matter of self-defence.
"It sounds like there was a handout prepared by Lavrov given to Rubio, and now they're just reading it",
remarked former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis. A
situation alerting Europe that the alliances the West has been dependent
on for mutual security since World War II appear to be unraveling. "Diverse, varied and often incomprehensible", is how French government spokeswoman Sophie Primas characterized Trump's remarks. "We do not understand the American logic very well."
"I
would love to meet with Donald. It's been a long time since we've seen
each other. I would love to meet with him now as well. I think he will,
too", chortled President Putin, praising the meetings
between the U.S. and Russian diplomats in Riyadh as 'friendly',
describing how different the U.S. representatives were from their Biden
predecessors.
The
resulting firestorm of support for Zelenskyy in Ukraine, where under
Ukrainian law, an election cannot be called under a state of martial law
and the country steeped deep in conflict, with millions of its citizens
abroad, making voting a strategic nightmare, the call for elections has
been viewed as an underhanded attempt to sow chaos and divide the
country at a time of its vexing existential dilemma.
A prominent documentary director and commentator in Ukraine, a critic of Mr. Zelenskyy, wrote: "After
Trump's verbal diarrhea, by tomorrow, Zelensksyy's approval rating will
be back above 90 percent -- just like it was on February 24, three
years ago", with the invasion of Ukraine by Moscow.
 |
| U.S.
President Donald Trump delivers remarks after signing an executive
order on reciprocal tariffs in the Oval Office at the White House on
February 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelensky arrives to meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the 61st
Munich Security Conference on February 15, 2025 in Munich, Germany. Getty Images |
Labels: Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Supporting Russia, Tarnishing Ukraine, U.S. President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
The Post-Conflict Gaza Conundrum
 |
| February 20, senior officials from five Arab states will meet in
Riyadh to discuss President Trump’s “Gaza Riviera” proposal, followed
by an emergency Arab League summit in Egypt on March 4. |
"On February 1, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi
Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, along with a representative of the
Palestine Liberation Organization, delivered a letter
to Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejecting the administration’s Gaza
proposal. “Deportation of Palestinians from their land [will] push the
region towards more tension, conflict and instability,” they warned. The
missive repeated the perennial demand for a two-state solution but
offered no alternatives to Trump’s ideas, nor any tangible Arab role in
addressing the immediate challenges posed in Gaza."
"Subsequently,
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz suggested that Trump’s proposal
was not a definitive U.S. commitment, but rather a starting point for
discussion on Gaza’s future disposition. “The president is engaging with
our key allies in the region and asking for their input,” he told CBS
News on February 5, noting that Trump’s approach would spur “the entire
region to come with their own solutions”."
"Tomorrow,
officials from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE will
convene for a mini-summit in Riyadh; Palestinian Authority president
Mahmoud Abbas may attend as well. The meeting will give them a chance to
fine-tune Egypt’s purported Gaza plan before rolling it out at the
Cairo summit on March 4 and eventually presenting it to the Trump
administration."
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
 |
| U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Saudi Foreign Minister Feb.17/25, AP |
In a counter to President Donald Trump's proposal to wholesale depopulate the Gaza Strip, with the United States prepared to take it over, Egypt is in the process, in conjunction with other members of the Arab League, of developing an alternate plan to rebuild Gaza. According to Egypt's state-operated Al-Ahram newspaper, the proposal calls for the establishment of "secure areas" within Gaza where Palestinians can live temporarily, as Egyptian and international construction firms remove the territory's ruined infrastructure and rebuild it.
The plan has been shared in discussion with European diplomats, along with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, according to both Western diplomats and two Egyptian officials. Discussions are also underway on how the reconstruction will be funded. An international conference on Gaza reconstruction may result, according to one of the Egyptian officials, along with an Arab diplomat. The total sum involved is unsurprisingly substantial, at a proposed $20 billion. The proposal remains in the early negotiating stage.
 |
| Central Gaza Strip, February 17/25 AP |
These moves are in reflection of an international pushback over President Trump's call for the removal of the Gazan population of approximately two million Palestinians. According to Mr. Trump, the United States is prepared to take over the Gaza Strip, to rebuild it into a "Riviera of the Middle East". Palestinians, under his plan, will not be permitted to reenter the new Gaza. For their part, Palestinians have made it clear they have no intention of leaving Gaza, even as Egypt and Jordan have refused Mr. Trump's call for them to absorb the population of Gaza.
In Saudi Arabia on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the United States was interested in hearing alternative proposals. "If the Arab countries have a better plan, then that's great", he said. The proposal, according to Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper, is designed to "refute American President Trump's logic" and to counter "any other visions or plans that aim to change the geographic and demographic structure of Gaza Strip".
An agreement on who will govern Gaza in the long term is one critical issue to be determined. The elimination of Hamas as a political or military force in the territory is top of the agenda for Israel, and for obvious reasons. Moreover, should there be consideration of Hamas returning to govern Gaza, international donors are hugely unlikely to contribute to any rebuilding of the Strip. And that would doubtless include both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Republic, who between them could handily proffer the funds for reconstruction.
 |
| Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi attends the extended
format meeting of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia on October 23, 2024.
ALEXANDER NEMENOV/Pool via REUTERS |
Labels: Egyptian Alternate Plan, Hamas Invasion of southern Israel Oct7, Israel Defense Forces in Gaza, Reconstruction, Trump Plan
National Security ... Uncertain Times
"This is what happens when you exclude Canadian companies: You find yourself potentially being held hostage."
"We don't control the [combat management] system; the Americans do."
"Who knows what they are going to demand from us?"
Alan Williams, former procurement chief, Department of National Defence
"The
primary thing is during the life of a warship there is the need to
modify certain tactics or add certain sensors and the navy didn't want
to be restricted to having to ask permission [from the U.S.] for that."
Don McClure, past president, business development, Lockheed Martin Canada
 |
| Artist drawing of the Canadian Surface Combatant warship (Source: Canada.ca) |
American
President Donald Trump's rumblings about forcing Canada through
pressure he believes he can apply to Canada's economic well-being, to
assent to becoming part of the United States, as the American 51st
state, his executive orders that threaten a 25% tariff on Canadian
exports to the U.S. focusing primarily on steel and aluminum, his
musings about annexing Canada's far North and threats to increase
tariffs even further should Canada decide to impose its own
counter-tariffs on American exports to Canada, have made for some very
tense times. Not that Canada is alone in this; Mexico too has been put
on notice, as have Panama and Greenland.
Mr.
Trump has not endeared himself to his allies since re-assuming the
American presidency. His strident demands and threats are beyond
reasonable, threatening to upturn the global economy, after putting
Europe on notice that they're next. Tariffs he has threatened on Chinese
imports are strangely minimal at 10%, in comparison to what America's
closest neighbours and trading partners are facing. As for America's
traditional role as peacekeeper in Europe and elsewhere as the most
powerful country on Earth, one that has supervised the global order, in
adherence to the inviolability of sovereign borders, that too has
changed.
Suddenly
NATO and the G7 have been put on notice that their greatest sponsor and
originator may withdraw. And Russia suddenly has a new partner in the
new world order. President Trump is moving to make good on his election
promise that he intended to end the conflict in Ukraine. Whereas the
United States, over the past three years, has been as supportive of
Kyiv's defiance of Moscow's expansionism as Europe has been, suddenly
that is no longer the case. The U.S. seems prepared to usher peace into
this conflict, but it will cost Ukraine a significant portion of its
territory while leaving Europe on edge over Russia's territorial
ambitions.
A
very nervous Canada, a country that could write a best-seller about
what it's like to sleep next to a restless elephant, is now considering
its options. And re-assessing its former relaxed attitude about its
reliance on a mattress, deep and soft enough to prevent serious injury
when the restless elephant capriciously turns and tosses, Canada is
beginning to assess its various vulnerabilities. Among them is its own
defence capabilities, one too long overlooked, yet reawakened as a
result of this new posturing from Canada's largest trading partner, the
one Canada shares the longest undefended border in the world with.
Reawakening
to the reality that the United States now has control of many key
systems onboard Canada's new warships; the U.S. is potentially capable
of holding Canada 'hostage' over future military upgrades, even the
provision of spare parts, according to warnings emanating from defence
industry officials. The new fleet of Canadian Surface Combatant vessels
under construction at Irving Shipbuilding have at their heart the
command management system controlling weapons, radars and other
intelligent-gathering equipment, produced in the United States.
The
high tech system was originally meant to be Canadian-made, under full
control of the government of Canada. That was changed, however, for
made-in-the-U.S. technology named Aegis which allows full control and
oversight over the supply of parts, modifications or future upgrades to
the Americans, confirmed by industry officials. As it is, the U.S.
government currently controls much of the technology in use by the
Canadian military, not formerly recognized as an issue, as long as the
Americans were considered close allies.
Canada
is facing an entirely altered situation, one that arrived as out of
nowhere, with the ascension of Donald Trump back to the White House.
Canada is awaiting, with bated breath, the outcome of President Trump's
vow to punish Canada economically with heavy tariffs. His threats to
annex Canada, to transform it into America's 51st state, was first taken
as a joke in bad taste, and then the realization sank in as Trump
persevered and returned time and again to musing how it would benefit
both countries should Canada fold itself willingly into the arms of the
U.S., accepting its manifest destiny.
Five
years earlier, Canadian industry officials had warned the Department of
National Defence and Public Service and Procurement Canada bureaucrats
of potential dangers inherent in US.controlled technology and the total
absence of Canadian on-board content on the new warships. Fifteen years
earlier when their current Halifax-class frigates were being modernized,
DND insisted on the installation of newly developed Command Management
System 330. Financing by Canada gave it total control over the
technology. At that time, government stipulated other key systems on the
Halifax-class ships originate from companies in Canada, Sweden, Israel,
Germany and the Netherlands.
When
Lockheed Martin Canada, a subsidiary of the U.S. defence company,
indicated its proposal included the CMS-330, pointing out maximum focus
for Canadian content -- once the contract was won, Lockheed Martin
abandoned the CMS-330 to substitute Aegis in its place. The design team
on the new warships, led by Lockheed Martin Canada, pointed out the
Aegis system was being used on the surface combatants combined with a
tactical interface derived from the CMS-330.
"[The move is a] real and serious risk."
"Even if everything was
rosy and there was no risk, we’ve given up any down-stream autonomy in
pursuit of a less capable system. Someone needs to answer for this."
"Of all of my laments about this, the shift away from Canadian IP [CMS 330] to AEGIS CCS bothers me the most…"
Retired Vice-Admiral Mark Norman
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| (Top) BAE Systems rendering from 2018. (Bottom) the much-refined design – RCN rendering, June 2024. |
Labels: Canada's New War Frigates, CMS-330/Aegis, Combat Management System, Department of National Defence, High Tech System
No Way To Land A Plane
"We're in Toronto. We just landed. Our plane crashed. It's upside down."
"Fire department is on site. Were upside down."
"Everybody, most people appear to be okay. We're all getting out."
John Nelson, passenger video
"[The plane] impacted [the runway during landing, before parts of the aircraft separated and a fire ensued.]"
"As
you can see here, the fuselage came to rest slightly off the right side
of the runway, upside down, facing the other direction."
"At this point, it's far too early to say what the cause of this accident might be."
Ken Webster, investigator, Transportation Safety Board
"We are very grateful there was no loss of life and relatively minor
injuries. [The quick response was due
to the] heroic [first responders at the airport]."
"We are very focused on the care and the concern and the passengers and
the crew, some of whom have already been reunified with their friends
and their families. Others we have in a comfortable place right here at
the airport in an environment where they're getting a lot of care and
support from my staff."
Deborah Flint, president and CEO, Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA)
"[The landing was a ] forceful [event where all of a sudden everything went sideways]."
"The next thing I know, there was kind of a blink, I was upside down and still strapped in."
"It was cement and metal. The absolute initial feeling is just need to get out of this."
Peter Carlson, passenger on the Delta plane
 |
| Delta Air Lines plane at Toronto Pearson airport, Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025. CTVNews |
On Monday, around 3:00 p.m. a social media statement by Toronto Pearson International Airport announced an "incident upon landing", adding that all passengers and crew are "accounted for". "No deaths, thank goodness. That's why (flight) attendants tell everyone to fasten seat belts", a social media statement by Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish followed. A Delta Air Lines plane suffered a crash landing, on the snow-cleared runway.
The tower had earlier issued a warning to the pilots to be aware of the potential of an air flow bump in their glide path while the plane began its landing manoeuvres; a result of a preceding aircraft before its entry. The tower at Pearson airport's audio recording indicated that Delta Air Lines Flight 4819 was cleared to land at 2:10 p.m. No additional connection with the Delta flight was recorded and then the tower confirmed at 2:12 p.m. that a plane crashed on runway 23.
The Meteorological Service of Canada reported that the airport was experiencing blowing snow and winds up to 51 kilometres per hour, gusting to 54 kph. The temperature registered -8.6 C. Immediately after the crash all flight traffic was interrupted, placed on hold for both arrivals and departures. The New York Post citing flight records, identified the plane as a Mitsubishi CRJ-900LR. Initially there was no word of possible injuries among the passengers debarking.
 |
| First responders work at the Delta Air Lines plane crash site at Toronto
Pearson International Airport in Mississauga, Ont., Monday. (Arlyn McAdorey/Reuters) |
The rear of the plane was sprayed by an emergency services truck. The Delta Air Lines plane was shown in images posted to social media upside down, with its landing gear pointing skyward, a wing torn completely off, smoke rising from the rear, while passengers were leaving the tarmac. The plane, arriving from Minneapolis, had departed at 11:47 a.m. Outside the plane passengers were moving away from their disabled flight.
Passengers walked on the ceiling before managing to evacuate out of the overwing door and the front door. The side of the plane was etched with skid marks close to the front door. The wing rests about 40 metres distant from the plane. Passengers that were injured were taken to hospital, around 20 of them, 17 of whom were eventually released, having suffered minor injuries. Several remain in hospital with more serious injuries, one of whom is a child, taken to Toronto's Sick Kids Hospital.
A woman in her 40s was sent to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre wth critical injuries, while a man in his 60s was airlifted to St. Michael's Hospital. Critically injured people reported by Ornge Air Ambulance services added more people than those identified by a local paramedic service spokesperson who spoke of one individual with critical, non-life-threatening injuries and seven others with mild to moderate injuries.
 |
| Seats may have helped save lives, former transportation safety board investigator says: CBC |
Labels: Delta Flight 4819, Flipped Upside Down, Injured Passengers, Pearson International Airport, Plane Crash, Toronto
Ending the Russia-Ukraine Conflict Trump's Way
"There is not any leader in the world who can really make a deal with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin without us, about us."
"He's a liar. He doesn't want any peace."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
"We'll
be having meetings at the direction of the president [Donald Trump],
and hopefully we'll make some really good progress with regard to
Russia-Ukraine."
"I think Ukraine is part of the talks. I don't think this is about excluding anybody."
U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff
"[Putin]
wants to stop fighting. We each talked about the strengths of our
respective nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in
working together."
"I'd
love to have them back [in the G8]. I think it was a mistake to throw
them out. They should be sitting at the table. I think Putin would love
to be back."
"I think he wants to end it and they want to end it fast."
"Zelenskyy wants to end it, too."
U.S. President Donald J. Trump
 |
|
American
officials and their Russian counterparts arranged to meet in Saudi
Arabia for direct negotiations to begin, over ending the Russia-Ukraine
war. Kyiv and its allies throughout Europe were left to swiftly arrive
at a strategy for their own security. Which led France to call an
emergency meeting of European leaders in Paris. Their first encounter
with the Trump team at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend
left them reeling in disbelief and confusion when senior U.S. officials
including Vice-President J.D. Vance gave up mixed signals on support for
Kyiv and relieved them of the expectation that Kyiv and Europe would be
present for negotiations on Ukraine's future.
Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was somewhat less than pleased,
responding that Kyiv would never view a deal arrived at without his
presence as acceptable, and rejected an American proposal to access
Ukraine's rare earth minerals which offered in return no security
guarantees. In Abu Dhabi on the weekend, President Zelenskyy signed a
trade deal with the UAE, meeting Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to "maximally liberalize access to the UAE market for almost all Ukrainian goods".
Sheikh Mohammed spoke of "the
UAE's keenness to support everything that would lead to a peaceful
settlement of the Ukrainian crisis and continue working to mitigate its
humanitarian repercussions." Contrast that with the
White House expressing its interest in backing President Zelenskyy's bid
to take possession of the US$300 billion in frozen Russian assets held
in European banks, as long as Ukraine spends the money on U.S. military
hardware.
To
place matters in further perspective, contrary to Mr. Trump's claims,
the U.S. has not been the primary financial contributor to Ukraine's
pushback against Moscow. Over the past three years, Europe has
contributed 132.3 billion euros ($197 billion,) pledging an
open-ended commitment to continue for as long as it may take. As for the
U.S. contribution, it totalled $114.2 euros with most of that funding
remaining in the United States, representing purchases from U.S. arms
manufacturers.
 |
US, Russia agree to try to end war without Ukraine at the table High-level
delegations from the U.S. and Russia held talks in Saudi Arabia on
Tuesday over the fate of Ukraine, the negotiations taking place without
Kyiv's participation. Evelyn Hockstein/Pool via AP |
President
Trump concurred with the Kremlin that Ukrainians should not have been
encouraged to approach NATO for membership, that the resulting conflict
was entirely Ukraine's fault, along with that of Joe Biden's offence to
Russia's anti-NATO 'red line' sensitivities regarding Ukraine, which has
never been a proper country with a history and culture of its very own,
claimed by Vladimir Putin. And of course, the one-sixth of Ukrainian
territory annexed by Russia will remain with Russia...
Leaving
Ukrainians in an agony of anxiety over what else Trump might
conceivably defer to Putin on, to Ukraine's detriment, in his quest to
win accolades for ending the war, as he proposed during his presidential
election campaign. And nor does he apparently feel that Russia should
be responsible for war reparations after levelling Ukrainian cities,
causing the death of up to 57,000 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, with
over 250,000 having been injured.
According to President Trump, European troops should be prepared to police U.S. "security guarantees"
in Ukraine, at Ukraine's expense. He proposed making it simpler for
Ukraine to earn the required funding for that initiative with "the equivalent of like $500 billion worth of rare earths".
Vice-President Vance did his part in destabilizing/astonishing European
leaders over their harbouring of misguided fears relating to Russia and
China. "What
I worry about is the threat from within -- the retreat of Europe from
some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United
States of America."
Beyond astonishing...
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Trump falsely claims Ukraine started war with Russia CNN still from video |
Labels: 2014 Annexation of Crimea, Russian Invasion of Ukraine, U.S. President Trump, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Wagering for Peace
