SAN DIEGO (SDJW) — U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump told a news conference Monday he had “a really good conversation” with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I think we’re going to be in a good place in the Middle East,” he said. “I think the Middle East will be in a good place. I think actually more difficult is going to be the Russia-Ukraine situation.”
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Israel’s former Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Monday Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consciously decided to lead us into a civil war. Such a situation, in terms of the disintegration of Israeli society and internal tension, has never existed before.” He said that it is “impossible to attach the Houthis in Yemen, to attack Iran, and at the same time to attack the Supreme Court ad the attorney general.”
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Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, explaining his decision to close Israel’s embassy in Ireland, said “There is a difference between criticism and antisemitism based on the delegitimization and dehumanization of Israel and double standards towards Israel as opposed to other countries. This is how Ireland allowed itself to behave towards Israel.” Ireland’s Taoiseach Simon Harris, who holds a position equivalent to Prime Minister, told members of the media, “You know what I think is reprehensible? Killing children, I think that’s reprehensible. … Seeing the scale of civilian deaths that we’ve seen in Gaza … People being left to starve and humanitarian aid not flowing.”
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Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said his nation’s ruling coalition has reached consensus that Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has to be dismissed. Several steps, including a formal vote by Israel’s Cabinet, are required to carry out the firing.
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Celebrity attorney Alan Dershowitz said on Fox News that “if Bibi Netanyahu had listened to Biden and the Biden administration, Assad would still be in Syria, the leader(s) of Hamas and Hezbollah would still be alive, and Israel would be afflicted by terrorism. Iran would have attacked Israel multiple times. Fortunately, Bibi Netanyahu has cojones [testicles] and he stood up to his biggest ally in the United States and said ‘No, we’re going into Rafah, we’re going to kill [Yahya] Sinwar. No, we’re going into Lebanon. We’re going to kill [Hassan] Nasrallah. No, we’re going to attack Iran if they attack us and now we are going to help bring about some resolution in Syria.’ The entire Middle East has changed because Netanyahu had the guts to stand up to Biden and to say, ‘I’m going to protect my people Israel …’”
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Pfizer Chairman Albert Bourla and Eli Lilly Chairman David Ricks met at Mar-A-Lago recently with President-elect Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s designee for Secretary of Health and Human Services. At a news conference Monday, Trump said the majority of the conversation concerned how to lower the price of pharmaceuticals to consumers. On the subject of Kennedy’s opposition to vaccines, Trump said a study must be made of why autism rates have increased in the United States, but one vaccine he has confidence in is the polio vaccine developed by the late Dr. Jonas Salk.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with the family of Aysenur Eygi, whom the IDF fatally shot Sept. 6 during a protest in Nablus against the Israeli government. Eygi, 26, was a Turkish-American pro-Palestinian activist, whose killing is now being investigated by the IDF. Her husband, Hamad Ali, has been pressing for U.S. support for an independent investigation. Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesperson, said the Justice Department, rather than the State Department, should decide whether that is warranted.
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Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman is outraged by reports that FBI Director Chris Wray presented a graduation diploma from the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia, to Husham Abu-Aisha identifying him as a native of Ramallah, “State of Palestine.” Friedman said, “I’ve met with Chris Wray in Israel and he knows dam well that the United States does not recognize a ‘state of Palestine,’ Friedman wrote in Front Page Magazine. “Kash Patel can’t arrive soon enough to clean up this mess.”
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U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has urged Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to send drone-detection technology to the states of New York and New Jersey to learn more about the mysterious drones flying over those two states and others. U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey) on Friday stated, “The FBI, Homeland Security, and the FAA, the agencies chiefly responsible for monitoring drone activity, they must disclose more information to the public. And they have to do so now.”
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Former San Diego Mayor Susan Golding’s press secretary, Richard Grenell, has been moving up in the world. He was ambassador to Mexico and acting director of national intelligence during President Trump’s first term. Now, he has been designated as envoy for special missions concerning such U.S. adversaries as North Korea and Venezuela.
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Compiled by San Diego Jewish World staff