Important Takeaways:
- The Israel Defense Forces eliminated another top leader as they continue to destroy Hezbollah’s military infrastructure in Lebanon. It comes as Israel is also closely evaluating President-elect Trump’s choices for his foreign policy team.
- In waves of attacks, the IDF is systematically taking apart Hezbollah sites in Beirut and other Lebanese cities. The military says that for years, underneath the targeted buildings, Hezbollah built weapons manufacturing facilities within civilian neighborhoods.
- Before the attacks in such places, the IDF sends evacuation orders to prevent civilian casualties.
- However, a warning was not issued for one strike during the weekend, a rare attack in central Beirut, where Hezbollah Spokesman Mohammed Afif was eliminated. Afif served as a key leader in the terror group’s operations and propaganda machine.
- While the fighting goes on, observers note President Trump’s election could have a profound impact on Israel’s wars and the entire Middle East. Many consider the first Trump administration the most pro-Israel in American history.
- He moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and acknowledged the city as Israel’s capital.
- He agreed Israel should possess the strategic Golan Heights.
- His White House pushed for the Abraham Accords, forging alliances between the Jewish nation and former Muslim foes.
- Regardless of Donald Trump’s views on Judea and Samaria, his choices for foreign policy positions come with strong pro-Israel backgrounds, including Marco Rubio as secretary of state, Elise Stefanik for U.N. ambassador, and a choice many are praising – former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee for U.S. ambassador to Israel.
- Huckabee, who first came to Israel more than 40 years ago, says he is passionate about his calling. He believes the U.S. president should decide weighty matters such as annexing Judea and Samaria.
- Huckabee has said he doesn’t consider a two-state solution to be practical and he has called Judea and Samaria the “Promised Land.”
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Important Takeaways:
- How long will it take to unwind the Biden-Harris Middle East policy? About five minutes, according to Mike Huckabee.
- The former Arkansas governor-turned-U.S. ambassador to Israel nominee suggested that President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office would signal a dramatic change, bringing unwavering loyalty to Israel while “taking the money tree” away from terrorist groups.
- “To be fair, sometimes Joe Biden has been very supportive of Israel, and we’ve heard often he and Blinken and others talk about the ironclad relationship [between Israel and the United States], and then the next day, we would hear pressure on Israel not to continue their efforts against Hamas. You’re thinking, ‘well, why wouldn’t you continue your efforts against people who massacred innocent civilians and just had a bloodthirsty attitude about it?'”
- “The fact remains that the real problem here is not Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis. It’s Iran,” Huckabee told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Monday.
- “They’re the ones who fund it [terrorism], and when the Biden administration reversed the maximum pressure campaign that was effectively shutting down Iran’s ability to have money to fund this nonsense, that’s what changed everything, so I expect the president [Trump] will put the maximum pressure back on Iran, and that’s going to take the money tree away from some of these terrorist groups and make it much harder for them to do their incredibly horrible and dastardly deeds of murdering civilians.”
- More shakeups will come with the changing of the guard, Huckabee insisted, as he weighed in on Trump’s Cabinet nominees thus far.
- “[They are] disruptors, people who don’t come just to oil the machinery of DC, and if there ever was a time when this country needed a disruption in the ebb and flow of the unit party, the deep state, the establishment, call it what you will call it, the swamp, the sewer [it’s now]… this president has putting together a team that is going to be disruptive to Washington, but restorative to the American families living out here in the middle of the country. That’s why he was overwhelmingly elected, and it’s why there is a solid mandate that he carries into office on January 20th.”
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Important Takeaways:
- President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly tapped Massad Boulos, the Lebanese-American father-in-law of Trump’s daughter, Tiffany, to lead U.S. negotiations with Lebanon to end the war between Hezbollah and Israel.
- The Boulos family has Christian Arab roots and is part of a global business empire.
- The Times of Israel reported:
- Lebanese-American businessman and Donald Trump surrogate Massad Boulos revealed in a recent interview days before the election that he will serve as the US point man for Lebanon in the incoming administration, tasked with negotiating with Beirut to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
- “I will be responsible for negotiating with the Lebanese side in order to reach an agreement, and Trump will appoint someone familiar with the Israeli file to negotiate with the Israelis,” Boulos told the Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed in what appears to be one of the first revelations regarding now President-elect Trump’s personnel.
- Boulos joined the Trump inner circle after his son Michael married the former president’s daughter Tiffany in 2022. He helped Trump make significant inroads in the Arab American in yesterday’s election.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hezbollah marked President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election by firing rockets at the Israeli town of Trump Heights on Wednesday morning.
- There were no reports of damage there.
- However, a car was damaged in the town of Ra’anana, near Tel Aviv, when pieces of a Hezbollah missile that was destroyed by Israel’s missile defense system fell onto a parked car.
- Trump Heights was named for Trump in appreciation for his recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which were taken from Syria in a defensive war in 1967.
- Trump has promised to stop the war in Lebanon, while also allowing Israel to do whatever necessary to defend itself from Iranian-backed terror organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas.
- An end to the war could provide opportunities for major foreign policy wins in the early days of the new administration, including an expansion of the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia.
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Important Takeaways:
- “Hezbollah’s model is the same as the North Korean model: tunnels in which hundreds of combatants, fully equipped, can pass stealthily and rapidly underground. In our opinion, Hezbollah’s ‘Land of the Tunnels’ project is much larger than the Hamas ‘metro’ project in the Gaza Strip.” — Alma Research and Education Center, July 2021.
- “Various reports indicate that in the late 1980s, and even more so after the Second Lebanon War (2006), North Korea advisors significantly assisted Hezbollah’s tunnel project
- These tunnels facilitate the movement of heavy equipment, missiles and fighters, and even allow missiles to be launched from within.
- Built beneath the border between Lebanon and Syria, these tunnels allow Hezbollah’s smuggling unit and the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force to transport ammunition, supplies and fighters under the border.
- Many of these tunnels are located beneath civilian infrastructure and populated areas, using civilians as human shields for their activities.
- Even if Hezbollah says it will withdraw to north of the Litani River, the tunnels enable it easily to violate that pledge, with no one above ground the wiser. Hezbollah, moreover, never abided by UNSC Resolution 1701 to stop building tunnels and stockpiling weapons in south Lebanon.
- The current war in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip must not end without the destruction of all the tunnels and the total defeat of Hezbollah and Hamas. Those who are pushing for an immediate ceasefire are only empowering Iran and its terror proxies, paving the way for another October 7-style massacre. The defeat of Hezbollah and Hamas will benefit not only the Israelis, but the Lebanese and Palestinians, as well.
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Important Takeaways:
- Our world is on fire. That which was ignited one year ago on October 7, when Hamas, backed by Iran, invaded Israel and massacred over 1,200 Israeli men, women, youths, children and babies now rages throughout the Middle East. Israel has struck Hezbollah. Iran has struck Israel. And the world now watches on edge in fear of the beginning of a regional war, if not a world war.
- What is happening? Is the world spiraling out of control?
- It was a Friday night when I was led to speak at Beth Israel, the congregation I lead in northern New Jersey on an ancient mystery. The mystery was over three thousand years old. It went back to the Bible, to the Book of Leviticus. It wasn’t what I fathomed would happen, but the mystery itself ordained that a calamity would come to the nation of Israel. More specifically, the mystery determined the following:
- Israel would be invaded. The invasion would catch the nation off-guard. It would result in calamity.
- The invasion would take place in the year 2023.
- It would happen in the autumn of that year.
- It would take place in the month of October.
- It would happen on a Saturday, the Sabbath, the Jewish holy day of rest.
- It would take place on an ancient Hebrew holy day, one that went back to Mount Sinai and the Book of Leviticus.
- It would lead to war.
- It would take place on the first Saturday of October of 2023.
- The first Saturday of October 2023 fell on October 7. On October 7, Israel was invaded, and the nation was caught off guard. The result was a calamity that would lead to war. It happened on the Sabbath and on a Hebrew holy day, Shemini Atzeret, that was given on Mount Sinai and went back to the book of Leviticus. In fact, it happened the very next day after I shared the mystery.
- It was this mystery and these events that led me to preempt the book I was about to write and begin working instead on what would become The Dragon’s Prophecy: Israel, the Dark Resurrection, and the End of Days. Something happened as I wrote the book that I never before experienced — what I was writing would come true in the world right after I wrote it — so much so, that I had to keep rewriting and updating the book up until now when it was released.
- In fact, after I finished the manuscript, three other events came true that were ordained in the same mystery. In fact, this single mystery may enable us to know what is coming, future events and exactly when they are to happen. For there is more to the world than meets our eyes. What is now taking place in the Middle East and threatening the peace of the entire world is all part of these mysteries. Yes, the world is at a most dangerous moment — but it is not out of control. In fact, the conflagration we are witnessing, from Israel to Hamas to Hezbollah to the Houthis and ultimately to Iran, is all part of a prophetic mystery that sits in the bookcases or night tables in our houses — the Bible.
- The ancient biblical and end-time prophecies foretell that in what is called “the last days,” the Jewish people will be gathered from the ends of the earth and brought back to the land of Israel. On that day, the nations of the world will be strangely focused, obsessed, with the tiny Jewish state the size of New Jersey. The world will rage against that stage. The Bible also speaks of the nation of Iran. One of the things it foretells is that in that time when Israel is back in the world, the nation of Iran will turn against the Jewish nation — will come against the Jewish nation — will attack the Jewish nation.
- There is so much more that was foretold and that is now unfolding literally before our eyes, far more than I can put here. Perhaps I was led to write books. But the takeaway is this — while we live in the most perilous times — there is a plan, there is a destiny. We can even know where it is heading, what the future holds and how to survive, stand and prevail in what is yet to come.
- But for that we must return to what the world around us, our culture, and our nation have forgotten — God is real. His word is true. And He remains the only answer to the crisis of our world — and of our lives. For there is more to the world than meets our eyes — and if we seek with our all hearts — we will find it.
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Important Takeaways:
- As fighting continues in Lebanon and Hezbollah continues to launch rockets and UAVs at Israel, the Defense Ministry claims it has substantially reduced Hezbollah’s arsenal. This as the Knesset is under criticism for voting to ban UNRWA from operating in Israel.
- Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claims the Iranian-backed Hezbollah’s rocket supply has been reduced to just 20 percent of what it was before the October 7th, 2023, Hamas attack.
- That’s an especially important number because Hezbollah’s chief threat has been its ability to rain down tens of thousands of missiles on Israelis.
- Some in the Israel Defense Forces want to wrap up the invasion of Lebanon soon. Still, other Israelis want to see it continue until Hezbollah has been eliminated as a threat to Israel’s northern border communities. They’ve been largely evacuated for more than a year.
- After the killing of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and his successor, Hezbollah announced it has a new leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, who has been with the terror group since its start in 1982.
- He’s hiding out in Iran, hoping to avoid the fate of the two previous leaders who were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Beirut.
- As for the Iranian regime controlling the proxy wars from Tehran, it is threatening to respond to Israel’s retaliatory strike on some of the country’s military sites this past weekend, making clear the timing will be made by the Iranians.
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Important Takeaways:
- The West’s political “elites” condemned Israel for defending itself by targeting Hezbollah’s leadership.
- There was no mention of international law for Hezbollah’s unprovoked, year-long attacks: bombardments of missiles and attack drones every day at a country smaller than New Jersey.
- EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell lamented Israel’s continued successful attempts at destroying one of Iran’s proxy armies.
- When Israel took out Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, one of the world’s most dangerous arch-terrorists, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres could barely hold back his disappointment, counterfactually calling Hezbollah’s unprovoked war against Israel and the IDF’s response a “cycle of violence.”
- Only Argentina’s President Javier Milei displayed a reaction fitting the removal of a terrorist mass murderer…
- Israel, as has been noted, is doing the entire world an enormous service by taking out Hezbollah.
- Iran, just since October 2023, through its militias in Syria and Iraq, has launched more than 160 attacks on the US forces in the Middle East.
- [W]hen Israel killed Ibrahim Aqil, the mastermind of the 1983 attacks and a member of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council, its highest military body, the US could not even bring itself to thank its ally.
- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pretends that the US is working to prevent “full-blown war” when these claims can also be seen as yet another attempt at saving both Hezbollah and Hamas so they can rearm and attack Israel again until it “is annihilated,” as Hamas officials have vowed to do. A ceasefire now — a pause for Hamas and Hezbollah to re-arm — would also save Iran’s regime, complete with nuclear weapons, as well as the regime’s dreams of hegemony.
- The world’s political elites apparently cannot forgive Israel for seeking to defend itself, and rid the world of terrorists working to destroy both America and Western civilization. Could these elites, wittingly or not, be working towards the same result?
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Important Takeaways:
- A drone that infiltrated from Lebanon struck a building in Caesarea on Saturday, was revealed on Tuesday to be the residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
- Only hours earlier, a senior Hezbollah official had claimed responsibility for the drone strike.
- Until now, it had only been reported that the drone was launched toward his home, but it was not disclosed that it hit the structure. The Prime Minister and his wife were not present during the incident.
- The drone was tracked by a combat helicopter, which identified its infiltration from Lebanon until the moment of impact. As a result, alarms were triggered in Glilot and northern Tel Aviv, though the Home Front Command app did not issue any warnings.
- In response to Hezbollah’s drone attack, Netanyahu said on Saturday: “Iran’s proxies, who today attempted to assassinate me and my wife, made a grave mistake. This will not deter me or the State of Israel from continuing the war of resurgence against our enemies to secure our safety for generations to come.”
- He added: “I say to the Iranians and their partners in the axis of evil—anyone who harms Israeli citizens will pay a heavy price. We will continue to eliminate your terrorists, retrieve our hostages from Gaza, and restore security to our northern residents.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had “settled the score with him,” but stressed that “the task before us [Israel] is not yet complete.”
- Netanyahu said Israel’s focus was on securing the return of the roughly 100 hostages still in Gaza, taken during Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack last year, of whom a third are believed to be dead.
- “This is an important moment in the war,” Netanyahu said to the families of the hostages, according to the Reuters news agency. “We will continue full force until the return home of all your loved ones, who are our loved ones, too. This is our supreme obligation. This is my supreme obligation.”
- President Biden said Sinwar’s death after almost two decades of Hamas rule in Gaza was good news, “for Israel, for the United States, and for the world.” Along with other senior U.S. officials, he indicated that it should bring new hope for a cease-fire in the year-long war.
- But Hamas did not mention any renewed push for a cease-fire agreement with Israel after the killing of its leader.
- Deputy Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya confirmed Sinwar’s death Friday in a televised speech, and said the group would continue on the same path it’s been on. Al-Hayya said Hamas would not release the remaining hostages without a cease-fire deal and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
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