Vance tells anti-Israel student Trump secured Gaza deal by using ‘leverage’ on Jerusalem

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/vance-tells-anti-israel-student-trump-secured-truce-by-using-leverage-on-jerusalem/

US Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that President Donald Trump was able to secure the current Gaza deal because he used “leverage” over Israel.

The assertion was a relatively rare boast by a Trump official of the power imbalance between the US and Israel and appeared to undercut efforts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to push back on criticism that Washington is dictating the manner in which Israel can uphold the ceasefire in Gaza.

It also came in response to a question that accused Israel and the Jews of working to undermine the US and Christianity, highlighting a growing animosity to the Jewish state by young US conservatives.

This Was His Last Social Media Post: Chabad Man Falls to Death at Jerusalem Rally

 https://www.jfeed.com/news-israel/teen-suicide-jerusalem-rally

Tragic news from Jerusalem: A 20-year-old Haredi (Chabad) man, Menachem Mendel Litzman, fell to his death from a construction site during the Million Man rally. Authorities say the fall was suicide, following a farewell note he left for friends.

Trump Third Term? And other lies

Road closures, canceled trains: Haredi draft protest expected to cause mass transportation chaos

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-872128

Road closures will begin at noon, and Israel Police and Netvei Israel have called on the public to avoid driving to the entrance area to Jerusalem throughout the day.

Heavy traffic and significant disruptions are expected across Jerusalem and the roads leading to the city from 12:00 p.m. on Thursday due to ultra-Orthodox mass protests against the haredi draft law.

Israel Police and Netivei Israel have announced that Route 1 will be closed in both directions, from the Latrun area to Ginot Sakharov, including the entrance to Jerusalem via Route 16 and the Sha'ar Hagai area, depending on developments during the protests.

Givat Shaul-Ramot Interchange will be closed in all directions, Ben Zvi-Rabbi Shmuel Baruch Street will be closed towards the entrance to the city, Shazar Boulevard will be closed towards the Givat Shaul Interchange, Herzl Boulevard will be closed from the Bari intersection towards Gesher Mitamitarim, the Malki Yisrael-Shari Yisrael intersection will be closed towards Nordo Square and Yirmiyahu Street.

Haredim fume: Jerusalem train station closed for haredi rally

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/417042

Israel Railways announced that the Jerusalem Yitzhak Navon train station will be closed to service starting Thursday at 12:30 p.m. and will remain closed until the conclusion of a rally scheduled to take place in the city later that day.

According to the spokesperson’s statement, the decision was made in coordination with Israel Police due to expected overcrowding at the station, which is located in the heart of the affected area. “The decision is intended to ensure public safety,” the statement read. “All train lines and stations, except for Yitzhak Navon, will operate as usual. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

The rally, set to take place at the entrance to Jerusalem, is expected to draw hundreds of thousands from the haredi sector protesting the arrest of draft-evading yeshiva students who oppose IDF service.

‘Let it rain’: Mass prayer for rain held at Sea of Galilee as Israel faces worst drought in a century

 https://www.ynetnews.com/jewish-world/article/s1wu0fekwe#autoplay

With Israel facing its worst drought in a century and the Sea of Galilee 28 centimeters below its lower red line, dozens gathered on its shores to pray for rain, led by Safed’s Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, recalling past prayers said to have brought storms

If the dry conditions persist into the new year, the Water Authority is expected to impose deeper cuts to agricultural and environmental water allocations. Officials are also considering measures such as drying up public gardens in some municipalities to conserve what remains of the country’s water resources.

Senate Republicans defect, reject Trump's tariffs on Canadian goods

 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-republicans-defect-reject-trumps-tariffs-canadian-goods

Paul, one of the co-sponsors of Kaine’s resolution, has consistently rejected Trump’s usage of tariffs and argued that it was a tax on consumers in the U.S. rather than on foreign countries.

He noted that the message it would send to the White House, despite pressure from Vance to support Trump’s duties, was "that a rule by emergency is not what the Constitution intended, that taxes are supposed to originate in the House of Representatives."

McConnell staked his position against the tariffs in a statement, where he argued that retaliatory tariffs have negatively affected Kentucky farmers and distillers.

"Tariffs make both building and buying in America more expensive. The economic harms of trade wars are not the exception to history, but the rule. And no cross-eyed reading of Reagan will reveal otherwise," he said. "This week, I will vote in favor of resolutions to end emergency tariff authorities."

Scandals of the Reagan administration

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandals_of_the_Reagan_administration#:~:text=The%20most%20well-known%20and,six%20U.S.%20citizens%20being%20held

 The presidency of Ronald Reagan was marked by numerous scandals, resulting in the investigation, indictment or conviction of over 138 administration officials, the largest number for any president of the United States.

The most well-known and politically damaging of the scandals since Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair came to light in 1986 when Ronald Reagan conceded that the United States had sold weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran as part of a largely unsuccessful effort to secure the release of six U.S. citizens being held hostage in Lebanon. It was also disclosed that some of the money from the arms deal with Iran had been covertly and illegally funneled into a fund to aid the right-wing Contras counter-revolutionary groups seeking to overthrow the socialist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The Iran–Contra affair, as it became known, did serious damage throughout the Reagan presidency. The investigations were effectively halted when Reagan's vice-president and successor, George H. W. Bush pardoned Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger before his trial began.[2]

Savings and loan crisis in which 747 institutions failed and had to be rescued with $160 billion in taxpayer dollars.[24] Reagan's "elimination of loopholes" in the tax code included the elimination of the "passive loss" provisions that subsidized rental housing. Because this was removed retroactively, it bankrupted many real estate developments which used this tax break as a premise, which in turn bankrupted 747 Savings and Loans, many of whom were operating more or less as banks, thus requiring the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to cover their debts and losses with taxpayer money. This with some other "deregulation" policies, ultimately led to the largest political and financial scandal in U.S. history to that date. The ultimate cost of the crisis is estimated to have totaled around $150 billion, about $125 billion of which was directly subsidized by the U.S. government, which further increased the large budget deficits of the early 1990s. 

Giving Hamas hope, Gaza’s future rests on three somewhat contradictory documents

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/giving-hamas-hope-gazas-future-rests-on-three-somewhat-contradictory-documents

Trump boasts that the world backs his 20-point plan, but no one even signed it. Hamas committed to the first phase of the deal, but has not said it will disarm

The first phase of the ceasefire in Gaza is still in effect, but it remains so only because of a concerted diplomatic effort from the United States.

“Do not act in a way that would endanger the ceasefire. We want to do everything to reach the second phase,” top White House Middle East advisers Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff reportedly told Netanyahu.

On Tuesday, Hamas struck again in Rafah, with a sniper killing an IDF reservist. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the IDF to carry out “powerful strikes” on targets in Gaza in response to Hamas’s violation of the ceasefire. Gaza’s Hamas-affiliated health authorities reported more than 100 dead.

But by Wednesday morning, the ceasefire was back on. Netanyahu had ordered the strikes before notifying the Trump administration, but only carried them out after giving that notice; US officials had reportedly pushed Israel to limit its response to the sniper attack and to Hamas playing games with the return of bodies of slain hostages.

Much of the ceasefire’s turbulence has come from Hamas violations and Israel’s desire to respond forcefully. Hamas’s behavior has put the entire deal at risk, but the truce and hostage-release phase had tensions baked in.

Its exact terms were not fully clear. The involved parties did not agree which ceasefire documents were binding. And no matter what Hamas believes its obligations are, the fact that the terms remain vague in important respects seems to give the group reason to believe it can find a way to evade the stated Trump vision of a Gaza in which Hamas plays no part whatsoever.

The ambiguity around what Israel and Hamas committed to, and to what exactly the countries overseeing the ceasefire’s implementation are bound, leaves plenty of room for Hamas to wriggle its way out of terms it does not like and to drag the process out.

It also leaves Israel clinging to Trump’s promises about Hamas disarmament, rather than a signed obligation by Hamas.

The Trump plan's moment of truth

 https://www.israelhayom.com/2025/10/30/hamas-qatar-pressure-trump-plan-hostage-bodies

Jerusalem and Washington have defined the coming days as especially important for the continuation of the ceasefire and the transition to the next stage of the Trump plan. An Israeli diplomatic source said attention should be paid to the Qatari Prime Minister's remarks in New York, where he repeated his country's commitment to bringing Hamas to surrender its weapons.

Jerusalem shuts train station, roads ahead massive ultra-Orthodox draft protest

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hj0oddx1wl

The protest, expected to bring together various factions within the ultra-Orthodox community, is being held in response to the arrest of several yeshiva students, including one from the prominent Ateret Shlomo yeshiva. A controversial campaign advocating for his release has compared him to hostages held in Gaza.

The Jerusalem Municipality and Transportation Ministry said that from noon until about 7 p.m., additional closures will affect key roads including the city entrance corridor, Jaffa Street near the central bus station, and the Chords Bridge area.

Light rail service will be reduced starting at noon, operating only between the Neve Yaakov and Davidka stations, and between Hadassah Ein Kerem and Denmark Square. Other central stations, including Mahane Yehuda, the central bus station, and Kiryat Moshe, will be closed.

Trump blocks Israeli plan to expand control in Gaza following ceasefire violation

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/417032

US President Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli proposal to shift the yellow line in the Gaza Strip and expand IDF control in response to a serious ceasefire violation by Hamas that resulted in the death of Master Sergeant (Res.) Yona Efraim Feldbaum.

In the aftermath of the incident, Israel had planned for the IDF to assume control of the targeted area, contingent on American approval. However, Trump ultimately blocked the initiative.

The decision raised eyebrows in Israel, particularly as it followed Trump’s own remarks in which he appeared to support a strong Israeli response.

Social Pressure

 Hi – I'm reading "SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance" by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner and wanted to share this quote with you.

For example, the abort rate among American bombers leaving England for daytime sorties over Germany was found to be unnaturally high,""about 20 percent. The pilots gave a variety of explanations for failing to reach the target: a malfunctioning electrical system, a spotty radio, or illness. But a closer analysis of the data led McNamara to conclude that these reasons were “baloney.” The real explanation, he said, was fear. “A helluva lot of them were going to be killed, they knew that, and they found reasons to not go over the target.”""McNamara reported this to the commanding officer, the notoriously headstrong Curtis LeMay, who responded by flying the lead plane on bombing missions and vowing to court-martial any pilot who turned back. The abort rate, McNamara says, “dropped overnight.”"

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Netanyahu orders ‘forceful’ strikes in Gaza, testing ceasefire

 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/28/benjamin-netanyahu-israel-gaza-strikes-ceasefire-00625432

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday ordered his military to conduct “forceful” airstrikes in Gaza, his office wrote on social media, putting new pressure on a weeks-old ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

Netanyahu’s office said hours earlier that remains that were recently returned by Hamas were actually just additional remains of a hostage who was already previously recovered “in a military operation about 2 years ago.”

“This constitutes a clear violation of the agreement by the Hamas terrorist organization,” the prime minister’s office said earlier Tuesday. “Prime Minister Netanyahu will hold a security discussion with the heads of the security establishment to discuss Israel’s steps in response to the violations.”