News of the World

[kyonides]

USA

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Adam Schiff Re-Hires Former Radical Pro-Palestinian Staffer Maher Bitar

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has re-hired Maher Bitar, a former White House staffer who spent his student years as a pro-Palestinian radical in Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and played a major role in the Biden administration.

Bitar’s new job is confirmed by Legistorm. He also previously worked for Schiff during the first impeachment effort against then-President Donald Trump, who will return to office on Monday.

As Breitbart News reported last year:

Maher Bitar, the White House Coordinator for Intelligence and Defense Policy at the U.S. National Security Council (NSC), was a radical pro-Palestinian activist and a leader within Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

The SJP is one of the most prominent groups involved in the pro-Hamas, antisemitic “encampment” protests that have taken over dozens of university campuses. Its parent group is also the target of a lawsuit by survivors and families of victims of the October 7 terror attack that alleges SJP is a propaganda front for Hamas in the U.S.

In addition, conservative author Daniel Greenfield wrote about Bitar’s record for the Jewish News Syndicate:

At the PSM [Palestine Solidarity Movement] conference in Georgetown [in 2006], Bitar had run a session describing how to best demonize Israel. Next year, he facilitated a Palestinian Student Society summit addressed by Joseph Massad, who had called Israel a “Jewish supremacist state” and praised terrorism.
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A few years later, Bitar could be found presenting at a Sabeel conference featuring some of the worst bigots like Rebecca Vilkomerson of JVP, who had invited a terrorist to address the BDS hate group, and Richard Falk, who had endorsed a book which wondered whether “Hitler might have been right after all.”
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Bitar went to work for UNRWA, interned at the misnamed and militantly anti-Israel Foundation for Middle East Peace and studied at Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre, writing papers on the so-called “Nakba” and on “Palestinian” activism. He appeared to describe Israel’s security barrier as a “segregation wall.”

Schiff is considered a pro-Israel Senator, by the standards of the Democratic Party, but his reliance on Bitar for advice on national security policy signals a possible shift mirroring the anti-Israel drift of much of the rest of his party.

UKRAINE WAR

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Exclusive — Erik Prince: American-Owned Company Effectively Seized by Russia

Economic “wreckage” is occurring across the globe as the result of Russian aggression, Erik Prince, veteran and founder of Unplugged Technologies, discussed during an appearance on Breitbart News Saturday, highlighting the Russian seizure of an American-owned business.

He described the war in Ukraine as a “very unnecessary slaughter that’s gone on for multiple years now,” calling for its end.

“There is no possibility that it’s going to end in some armistice moment of Ukrainian victory. There are thousands of people, thousands of soldiers on both sides, dying daily and very unnecessarily,” he began, laying out the bigger picture globally.

President-elect Donald Trump, he said, was elected to “pursue the strategic interests of the United States,” which he identified, in part, as keeping Russia away from “combining with China.”

“And you have for 100 years, it was the policy to keep German industry from combining with Russian resources. Now, all we’ve done is pushed all those Russian resources into a subservient role with the Chinese Communist Party,” he said, noting that in previous BRICS meetings, there has been an “equal relationship between Putin and Xi Jinping.”

“This last one in October was very different. That it was Xi was clearly on top, Putin subservient. That is not a good scenario for the United States. So settling this war, you know, Putin, yes, was the aggressor. This was a dumb thing. I’m sure if he had a chance to do it over, he would not wade into the mess. But I think settling it, freezing the lines and coming up with some hybrid approach is very, very necessary, because at so many levels, there’s economic damage going around the world, and especially the United States,” he said, noting that the neocons thought sanctions would “bring Putin to their knees,” but that is not what happened. “Their economy is actually doing ok.”

“But there’s economic wreckage happening all around now. There’s even American-owned businesses in Russia, like Universal Beverage Company,” he revealed, noting it was “started by a guy that came to America in the in the 80s,” who is now an American citizen.

He went back after the Soviet Union collapsed and started the business, which “now is effectively frozen by the Russian government,” Prince said.

“This is the kind of nonsense that must stop,” he said, describing this company as the “Campbell’s Soup of Russia.”

“The Russian government apparently did a decree, Vladimir Putin signed a decree to seize the assets of this company,” host Matthew Boyle said of AO Glavproduct, owned by Universal Beverage Company.

WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST

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PHOTOS: First Images of Israeli Hostages Reuniting with Families

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released the first photos of the three female hostages who were released Sunday as part of a hostage deal with Hamas — Romi Gonen, 24; Emily Damari, 38; and Doron Steinbrecher, 31 — and returned to Israel.

They were finally free, after 471 days in captivity. All were abducted in the Hamas terror attack of October 7, 2023.

The three were handed to the International Red Cross, after being paraded in front of a jeering crowd in green Hamas headbands and black uniforms — much like the hostage releases that took place during an eight-day truce in 2023.
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They were then brought into Israel, where they were transported by Air Force helicopter to the Sheba Medical Center. There, they reunited with their mothers, chosen by medical professionals to be the first relatives to greet them.
[Photos]
The three are the first of 33 hostages to be released over the course of six weeks, most of whom are presumed to be living, with priority given to female and civilian hostages. In return, Israel will release over 1,900 Palestinian terrorists and withdraw from some positions in the Gaza Strip while surging humanitarian aid into the territory.

The deal almost collapsed when Hamas failed to provide the names of the hostages to be released, as it had agreed. It did so, belatedly.

There are thought to be about 60 remaining hostages, many of whom are still alive. They will only be released in a second phase of the ceasefire deal. Israel says it reserves the right to resume the war at any time.