This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Christmas shopping was disrupted, and a traditional Christmas display was put in doubt by "pro-Palestine" protesters in Melbourne, Australia, recently.
Myer, an Australian retail giant, canceled the festive unveiling of its traditional Christmas window exhibit after "Pro-Palestine" protesters announced plans to hold a rally in front of the store. This was the 69th annual display and will remain until January.
The store released a statement explaining its decision:
"In light of recent developments and to ensure the wellbeing and safety of customers and team members, we will no longer hold an event on Bourke Street Mall for the unveiling of our Christmas windows," a spokesperson said.
"Myers' Christmas windows have long symbolized joy and community, and we remain committed to providing a safe and positive experience for all visitors."
In response, the protesters announced they would not hold their "Crash the Christmas Windows" protest, though a handful of flag-waving protesters continued to protest at the store in Melbourne's Central Business District, or CBD. Despite their announcement that they would not protest the unveiling on Sunday, a handful of protesters did attend, chanting, "While you're shopping, bombs are dropping," and "Shame on you" to passers-by.
Amy Settal, the protest organizer, explained their motives to the media.
"The intention was to interrupt the media spectacle and economic gain sought by Myer," Settal said. "The children coming to see the Myer Christmas windows were never a target because children are not a target."
"Pro-Palestine" group Disrupt Wars had shared the Crash the Christmas Windows event on its social media accounts.
"Christmas is canceled, and there will be no joy or frivolity while children in Gaza are massacred," a social media post read.
It is unclear what the connection is between Australian holiday retail and the war in the Middle East.
Jacinta Allan, the premier of Victoria, was furious over the decision, saying the group had "chosen to politicize a beautiful event for children."
"I'm just as mad at all the others who have quietly stoked this division and egged them on," she wrote on social media.
"Blocking the Christmas windows won't change a thing in the Middle East, but it will let down a bunch of kids in Melbourne. Who does that help?"
The premier said that while people had a "right to demonstrate," they did not have a "right to divide."
"We cannot let ugly protests ruin a beautiful Christmas tradition, and we cannot let violence, division and vilification ruin what makes Victoria great," Allan wrote.
Speaking on 3AW Radio, the premier singled out the Victorian Greens, accusing the political party of using "conflict in the Middle East to bring further division and conflict into Melbourne."
She said most Victorians were "sick of it."
In a related story, an antisemitic Tiktoker called on her 50,000 followers to "make Christmas Palestinian."
Fiona Ryan of Salisbury, England, was found guilty in September of posting anti-Semitic material. At her hearing at the Magistrates Court, she apologized but told District Judge Timothy Pattinson that the posts were not anti-Semitic. Her posts compared Ashkenazi Jews with Nazis and made false claims about Jewish doctors performing sex change procedures on children. She claimed her posts were protected as free speech.
Senior Crown Prosecutor Gavin Sumpter disagreed, stating,"Fiona Ryan sought to hide behind the right to freedom of speech, however, the court found that her posts and videos were grossly offensive."
"Her vile rhetoric reached a wide audience and has caused real harm in the Jewish community, the impact of which she was fully aware of," he added.
The judge ruled in favor of the prosecution, saying, "Any reasonable person would find all of this material featured in this trial grossly offensive" before finding her guilty on all four charges. Last week, she received a sentence of 20 weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months.
She responded to the sentence by posting a TikTok video urging her followers to "make Christmas Palestinian."
Ryan was wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional Arab head covering, around her neck. Popularized by Yasser Arafat, the Egyptian founder of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the keffiyeh has come to symbolize a call for violence against Israel.
"What I think we need to do is make Christmas Palestinian as much as we possibly can," Ryan said in the video. "That means decorating your tree with perhaps some Palestinian decorations, maybe telling your family, your children about how Jesus was a Palestinian, and how Christmas is a Palestinian story."
"Mostly, it's about supporting Palestinian businesses, whether that's with presents, whether that's through donations, however you want to do it."
"The most important message that we get out this year is that Christmas is Palestinian. Make Christmas Palestinian again … Do this. Let's make this Christmas the most Palestinian Christmas that ever was."
Islam believes in Jesus as a prophet. However, according to Islam, Jesus was not crucified, did not die on the cross, and was not resurrected. Instead, He is depicted as having been miraculously saved by God and ascending into heaven. However, Muslims do not celebrate Christmas.
Jesus as a Palestinian was an invention of Yasser Arafat's adviser, Hanan Ashrawi, a Christian, who said in an interview with the Washington Jewish Week on Feb. 22, 2001, that "Jesus was a Palestinian."
This became the official PLO platform as evidenced by their frequent reference to Jesus as "the first Palestinian martyr" and whose annual Christmas statement reads, "Every Christmas, Palestine celebrates the birth of one of its own: Jesus." This year, the Palestinian Authority prohibited public celebrations of Christmas in Bethlehem.
This false claim has been incorporated into Christian theology in what is called Liberation Theology. This portrays Jesus as a secular social justice warrior fighting the "Occupation."
Liberation Theology portrays Jesus as a Galilean Jewish revolutionary figure, aligning him with the marginalized and oppressed groups rather than the religious elite. The article suggests that the typical Christian understanding of Jesus obscures His ministry's political and social dimensions. The temple-state in Jerusalem is portrayed as oppressive toward the common people, especially Galileans, imposing heavy burdens through taxation and religious regulations.
It suggests Zionism, like earlier empires, disconnects Palestinians from their biblical heritage and homeland. Liberation Theology defines Jesus as a Palestinian living under Israeli occupation. It represents Christianity as a human-rights movement.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The government bureaucrats regulating Realtors in the state of Virginia are assembling an attack on a real estate agent who is in trouble because he shared a Bible verse, including one addressing his beliefs on marriage.
It is in a report at Faithwire that the situation involving Wilson Fauber., who also is a minister, is outlined.
He reports he's facing ethics charges in his industry and could lose his Realtor status, all because he made social media posts regarding biblical beliefs about marriage.
He's being represented by the Foundation Freedoms Law Center, and his problems developed when he decided to run for the Stanton, Virginia, city council.
"During my journey running for Staunton City Council, some of the opposition from a different party decided that they were going to scour my Facebook pages and see if they could find any dirt on me. And they went back to 2015 and they found a Scripture that I posted from Leviticus … where the Lord clearly states that homosexuality is an abomination to Him," he explained.
He was forced to notify police when opposition messages were perceived as threats, and when he lost the election, the National Association of Realtors claimed in an email that a complaint had been filed against him, over his beliefs.
"My complainant said that they thought that posting that Scripture and other Scriptures that I've posted is hate speech. And taking me to task with the National Association of Realtors. … It's very bizarre, in a way, but, as we look at what's happening around the world, it's not," he explained in the report.
Lawyer Michael Sylvester told Faithwire the Bible verses were posted "on behalf of his ministry."
The lawyer said while the real estate group establishes ethics rules to create guidelines for their behavior, the problem has come up because the organization created its own "hate" speech rule that appears to infringe on the First Amendment.
Sylvester explained in the report the rule "suggests that it controls that minister's activity and therefore that individual activity."
Fauber said the agenda against speech, including a looming hearing, is "persecution and certainly trying to silence my free speech."
His lawyer said he didn't do or say anything that qualifies as hate speech, and the complaint should have been dismissed out of hand.
Fauber explained, "I believe the Lord has called me for such a time as this to be His voice in this particular matter and He has given me His peace."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A new report from the Wall Street Journal has detailed how local governments in China are withholding wages from government-paid employees and pensioners in a desperate bid to save cash.
According to the report, dozens of medical staff in the city of Shanwei, located in southeast China, protested by occupying a hall within a public hospital in October over unpaid wages and bonuses. Retired city employees of Yichun, in the northeast of China, also gathered to protest pensions that had not been paid out for months.
The growing debt of local governments is stretching into the trillions, which the WSJ notes is largely "borrowed off the books," as China's shadow banking, which consists of loans outside of traditional banking, continues to swell.
Currently, China's debt officially sits at just under $10 trillion. When factoring in shadow banking, the true debt reaches over $30 trillion.
The report further notes social media has been putting on a spotlight on months-long wage arrears, and it suggests cities are "strapped for cash" and drowning in debt, while recent cash injections via stimulus to local governments by the Chinese Communist Party, have only just "scratched the surface."
Authorities are now cutting medical benefits and attempting to find unpaid taxes to bolster their budgets, but the ongoing impact will eventually affect China's private business sector, employers of civil servants, contractors, and could lead to China's economic growth grinding to a halt.
Employees of Shanghai-based Guoli True Leather Company protested this week after not receiving wages for months.
However, wage issues are not a new issue in China. In 2023, employees of state-owned companies said they hadn't been paid for over 45 months, while pensioners said their promised benefits and medical insurance payments had been reduced.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The governor of New York has signed a measure that repeals a statutory ban on adultery in the state.
So, as legacy wire service AP documented, "Cheating on your spouse is no longer a crime…"
It was Gov. Kathy Hochul who just days ago signed a plan repealing the original 1907 law that made adultery a criminal offense, a Class B misdemeanor that carried a punishment of up to 90 days in jail.
"These matters should clearly be handled by these individuals and not our criminal justice system. Let's take this silly, outdated statute off the books, once and for all," she said.
The Gateway Pundit documented that more than a dozen people have been charged under the statute in recent decades, but only five convicted.
State assembly member Charles Lavine proposed the repeal.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A volunteer with a program that provides food to the hungry and homeless in Dayton, Ohio, was handcuffed for his work, and although he was later released without charges, the city's agenda has prompted a lawsuit over its restrictions on charity.
It is the Pacific Legal Foundation that has brought the federal complaint against Dayton to challenge a city ordinance that bans, unconstitutionally, the public distribution of food without a permit.
It happened during a food distribution event last April when "a homeless man walked up to volunteer Mitchell West asking for food."
It happened while a police officer who had just ordered the handout closed down was present.
"Despite the officer watching, Mitchell chose compassion over compliance and handed the man a burrito. The officer responded by handcuffing and arresting Mitchell, detaining him for more than 30 minutes—over what amounts to a misdemeanor," the legal team announced.
The program is run by Nourish Our Neighbors, a charity that now has sued Dayton.
"Nourish Our Neighbors offers a wide range of services, including haircuts, education, housing, and food assistance. At its core, however, is its food program, which is a crucial community resource considered illegal by the city. Volunteers serve nearly 150 people per month, collect trash before and after all food service, and leave the area cleaner than they found it," the foundation reported.
The city demands a permit, costing $50 per event, and a $250 security deposit for some, a demand that "would undercut Nourish Our Neighbors' ability to serve those most in need."
The legal team noted: "Even more telling is the law's arbitrariness—no permit is required to hand out cake and ice cream for a birthday party at the same location."
The courts, the Pacific Justice Foundation confirmed, "have ruled that food sharing is expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment. Furthermore, the ordinance unfairly discriminates among similar activities and violates the fundamental right to engage in charitable acts."
The Neighbors program was started by McKahla Moran back in 2022 to help "alleviate hardships."
Free food is a primary component.
"When city code enforcement put a volunteer in handcuffs, the chilling message became crystal clear: In Dayton, charity can be a crime," the legal team warned.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A stunner being reported by the Christian Institute in the United Kingdom is that there may have been more than 400 possible criminal violations of the euthanasia law in Ontario, Canada, that have not been reported to police.
The report said Dirk Huyer, chief of the coroner's office in the province, responsible for flagging violations, has identified 428 "compliance problems" over just five years, including 178 in 2023 alone. But not one has been referred for police investigation.
Canada long has been at the forefront of allowing for and providing for the "voluntary" suicides by people who get their doctors' help.
The nation has reached the point that there have been instances in which people with serious medical needs are denied treatment, but instead have been recommended for euthanasia.
The report noted Huyer at a 2024 conference confirmed the 428 compliance issues, such as a refusal to consult with a medic with expertise in a patient's physical ailment.
It was the Macdonald–Laurier Institute, a public policy think tank, that said, "It has been distressing to learn that some authorities, well aware of non-compliance with the law, did not publicly report them."
In Canada, the law is called MAID, for medical assistance in dying.
University of Toronto law professor Trudo Lemmens said in the report, "Any violation of the MAID law, considering that it's a criminal law, should be reported to the police and to the College — as a matter of principle — and should certainly be investigated by an independent prosecutor."
He continued, "It's a serious issue. I mean, this is a criminal law and I'm worried that the lack of referring for prosecution and for investigation by the College of Physicians and Surgeons reflects a kind of normalization of MAID as some kind of inherent beneficial practice."
A report at the New Atlantis on the revelation said, "For years, there have been clear signals that euthanasia providers in Canada may be breaking the law and getting away with it. That is the finding of the officials who are responsible for monitoring euthanasia deaths to ensure compliance in the province of Ontario."
The report said the 400 plus cases in which there were possible violations have been concealed from the public.
No charges have been pursued, "even against repeat violators and 'blatant' offenders," the report said.
The requirements that have been violated include basics such as assessing whether people are eligible, upholding safeguards against abuse, and reporting requirements.
The report confirmed that private documents reveal between 2018 and 2024, "in presentations held behind closed doors and in reports that were nominally public but garnered little attention," Huyer has confirmed seeing "hundreds" of compliance problems.
The New Atlantis reported some of the problems dealt with victims "who may not have been capable of consent."
The article explained Huyer's office refused to refer, to prosecute, or even report to police.
"Whether or not these hundreds of 'issues' are in fact violations of criminal law is unclear precisely because none of them have been referred to law enforcement for investigation. Instead, Huyer's office has deemed virtually all of them as requiring nothing more than an 'informal conversation' with the practitioner or an 'educational' or 'notice' email. Even in one egregious case, in which the practitioner was found to have violated multiple legal requirements, and which Huyer himself described as 'just horrible,' his office reported the case only to a regulatory body instead of the police," the report said.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A university administration, facing accusations of religious discrimination and intolerance, has suspended plans for the sale of an unused school building to a local organization.
It's because a church, Calvary Chapel Belfast, had submitted the best bid for the structure, which it previously had rented, but lost the opportunity to purchase when the school reneged.
Officials with Liberty Counsel say the University of Maine System now has agreed to pause "the discriminatory sale" of the Hutchinson Center building.
The university had canceled the church's winning bid after a long list of local officials complained about the church's religious faith.
The school now has "filed a sworn declaration in U.S. District Court stating it is pausing all negotiations, contracts, sale, or transfer of the property while the church appeals with the university its bidding process decisions," Liberty Counsel said.
Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver said, "Pausing the sale of the property is a good first step. However, the University of Maine System has violated the First Amendment by discriminating against Calvary Chapel Belfast because of its Christian beliefs. The church participated in the bidding processes in good faith, but the university unlawfully discriminated against the church's religious beliefs. Such discrimination is unlawful and may end up being a costly mistake for the University of Maine System."
WND had reported when the church started its legal action that the state officials violated their agreement because "local curmudgeons" including a state senator who was on the board of one of the losing bidders coordinated to create a campaign of "religious animosity and religious hostility" against the Christian faith and demand the agreement be voided.
Named as defendants are the university system and a list of its officials, including Ryan Low, Rachel Piper, Robin Cyr and Derek Houtman.
"The conspirators and disappointed bidders did not hide their animus towards the Christian church receiving the bid award, going so far as to say that the church must not receive the property because its 'very design' as a Christian church with biblical views was discriminatory and had no place in the community. Some disappointed bidders went so far as to assert that a church cannot even operate in 'good faith' concerning alleged nondiscrimination because the church's website espoused biblical teachings and quoted Scripture. And, to make matters worse, the disappointed bidders and their co conspirators were joined in their religious animosity and religious hostility towards the church and its efforts to purchase the Hutchinson Center by elected officials in Maine. Specifically, Senator Chip Curry—the elected state senator in Belfast where the Hutchinson Center is located—said it was completely inappropriate to have a religious organization own the Hutchinson Center," the filing charges.
Liberty Counsel said its legal action charges religious discrimination.
The background is that Calvary Chapel Belfast outscored two other competitors and "rightfully earned" the winning bid to solely negotiate the purchase of UMS's Hutchinson Center, a building no longer in use by the university.
However, the legal team charged, "UMS officials conspired with one of the competing, secular bidders, Waldo Community Action Partners (WCAP), to rescind the award over the church's scriptural beliefs on marriage and sexuality, and subsequently rigged a second bidding process awarding WCAP with the winning bid."
The filing points out, "The Supreme Court has declared that excluding a religious organization 'from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution.'"
That, the filing contends, prevents state officials from acting "in hostile ways" to churches.
"This action therefore seeks to vindicate the church's constitutional rights and restore the church's rightfully earned opportunity to negotiate the purchase of the Hutchinson Center," the filing states.
Last August, "Calvary Chapel Belfast submitted its bid to UMS for the Hutchinson Center, a building where it had previously rented space, to expand its congregation and community outreach. In addition to WCAP, the other competing bidder was Future of the Hutchinson Center Steering Committee and Waterfall Arts (FHC-WA). Once UMS announced the church as the winning bidder, both competing bidders sent a series of protest letters to the university attacking the church's religious beliefs," the federal court was told.
It was Low, being paid to be the school's executive for finance and administration, who "summarily" canceled the church's opportunity.
The report said the pretext used was that the university had an internet hub in the building, an issue the church already had addressed with the university. In fact, the church had offered the university free space for the machinery.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has moved quickly to resolve a fast-developing war in Congress over one of the key agenda points of the outgoing Joe Biden-Kamala Harris regime: Transgenderism.
It seems Delaware voters elected Tim McBride, who now styles himself as a woman and calls himself Sarah.
He will join Congress in a few weeks, prompting women in the House already to announce they would not tolerate a male using the restroom, locker room and other sex-specific facilities alongside them.
That prompted a death threat against at least one member of Congress. But Johnson moved quickly.
On Wednesday, he issued a statement, "All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings – such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms – are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.
"It is important to note that each Member office has its own private restroom, and unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol. Women deserve women's only spaces."
It was U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who led the campaign against men in women's restrooms, introducing a resolution that would bar males from those locations.
Leftists promptly turned berserker, and they responded with a specific threat: "Congresswoman Nancy Mace, I hope that one day I do find you in that women's bathroom and I grab your ratty looking f***ing hair and drag your face down to the floor while I repeatedly bash and until the blood's everywhere and you're dead."
A report in the Hill noted the speaker has "general control" of facilities in the house, and that gives him authority to issue such guidance.
The Gateway Pundit said, "The woke left has lost this round, and McBride will no longer be able to invade the ladies' restroom as he has on various other occasions."
Mace's response appeared on social media:
Mace explained her reasons: "I'm a victim of abuse myself. I'm a rape survivor. I have PTSD from the abuse I've suffered at the hands of a man, and I know how vulnerable women and girls are in private spaces."
She also warned her agenda to protect women will not stop inside the Capitol walls.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat, insisted on calling McBride, a him, "her," and complained that the GOP majority in the House was opening its work by "bullying" a member.
WND had reported when the issue developed that Mace said McBride is "a biological man trying to force himself into women's spaces, and I'm not going to tolerate."
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said, "There's a man pretending to be a woman coming to Congress in January who expects to use the same restrooms as little girls visiting the Capitol. I consider it assault for a man to charge into places that are designated specifically for women. Restrooms are a place where women are vulnerable. It's mentally ill for a man to think he should be allowed there."
Transgenderism repeatedly has taken the headlines since the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration made it one of the top priorities for American government, which now has imposed even on the world stage its ideological campaign.
The Washington Examiner reported at least one Democrat lawmaker turned vulgar over the problem.
"I just don't understand why bathrooms are top of mind for [Mace]," Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., said. "But she wants to think about where a future member is gonna p— and s—* like I don't — I don't understand."
The social behavior campaign by the Democrats was front and center during the 2024 election, a landslide won by President-elect Donald Trump and Republican majorities in the U.S. Senate and House.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
JERUSALEM – Over the last few days or so, those wondering whether the Biden administration would take out some of its frustration at Donald J. Trump's blow-out election victory, as well as a lingering dislike of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – whom they tried so desperately to remove from office – on the state he leads, received their answer.
On Monday, Biden and his team imposed a new round of sanctions against three Israeli individuals and three organizations, including the Amana development group, which it accuses of undermining "peace, security and stability" in Judea and Samaria.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the sanctions were in response to the six targets for "violence against civilians and destruction and dispossession of property in the West Bank [sic]."
He further called on Jerusalem to "take action and hold accountable those responsible for or complicit in violence, forced displacement, and the dispossession of private land."
This is a particularly sticky issue upon which to focus; as was pointed out in WND's article "Can a clash between competing claims be prevented in Judea and Samaria?" https://www.wnd.com/2024/11/can-a-clash-between-competing-claims-be-prevented-in-judea-and-samaria/
It argued there are significant parts of Judea and Samaria, which are not part of Palestinian Authority-administered land according to current international agreements, and upon which there are illegal Arab structures.
One of the main targets of the sanctions is the construction company Amana, whose founder is Ze'ev Hever.
"The sanctions we were informed of today are a result of baseless slanders hurled at Amana by hostile and extreme elements. Had the American administration bothered to examine them, rather than rely on such malicious publications, it would have discovered that they indeed lack factual basis and would have refrained from acting against us," Hever said, according to Israeli news site Arutz 7.
He added that despite the challenges the settlement movement has faced over the last few years including building freezes under pressure from the Biden administration, he fully expected the sanctions to be reversed shortly after Trump assumes office.
Canada, which seems to have entirely become captured by a pro-Palestinian tilt that has infected the entire country very much including the educational system, imposed sanctions on Amana in June. In addition to Amana, the Biden administration announced it had imposed sanctions on Amana's subsidiary Binyanei Bar Amana and on the Judean Mountains Company, which are involved in construction throughout Judea and Samaria.
Additionally, sanctions were imposed on three Israelis. Shabtai Kushlevski was sanctioned for his activities in the organization Hashomer Yosh, which itself has been sanctioned in the past. This organization views its role – like its more illustrious forebear did in the Yishuv pre-state period – to protect farmers and farmland from attacks from Arabs. Meanwhile, the organization's opponents claim it is a violent driver of settler land theft in Judea and Samaria (except they would use the term West Bank).
Itamar Yehuda Levi was sanctioned for his activities in the construction company Eyal Judean Mountains Company, as well as Zohar Sabah from the town of Mevo'ot Yericho, who was also implicated in the attack on the Al-Ka'abneh elementary school near Jericho in September 2024 which injured several Palestinians at the school, Arutz 7 reported.
Samaria Regional Council governor Yossi Dagan said he wanted to work with the incoming Trump administration to remove the sanctions, and he also had words of criticism for Netanyahu, whom he accused of not pushing back hard enough against the move.
"The decision to impose sanctions on the Amana company – this is the swan song of the Biden administration," Dagan stated. "It is an act hostile and cynical toward the only democracy in the Middle East, a government that dares to extort its strategic partner, the state of Israel, which is fighting for its survival, through denial of armaments, now dares to attack the bodies and organizations of the State of Israel."
On Feb. 1, U.S. President Joe Biden issued Executive Order 14115, sanctioning "persons undermining peace, security and stability in the West Bank [sic]." The order cited "high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages and property destruction." In addition, it blocks property and interests held in America which belong to any designated individual and prohibits U.S. citizens from contributing or providing funds, goods and services to or to benefit those designated.
Shortly following its implementation, the U.S. embassy in Israel would neither confirm the source nor the methodology used to determine who falls under the executive order. Israeli investigative journalist Elchanan Groner of the Hakol HaYehudi news site – who has found himself blocked on the X platform – told Israel's Channel 14 news that the sanctions are, in fact, based on statistics compiled by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which is known to gather a significant amount of data on so-called "settler-related violence," according to journalist Josh Hasten.
OCHA, in whose interests it is to inflate the statistics regarding "settler violence," admitted the category labeled "Incidents involving Israeli settlers" included "Palestinians killed or injured during attacks or alleged attacks they perpetrated against Israeli settlers."
The announcement of sanctions follows reporting from Thursday in which 15 U.S. senators and 68 members of the House of Representatives – all from the Democratic Party – sent a letter to President Biden calling on him to impose sanctions on Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Finance and National Security ministers, respectively. In addition, they called for the imposition of sanctions on the Regavim Movement, on the ground that Regavim's "incitement" has resulted in violence, and its activities seek to "prevent Palestinian construction in the West Bank" – actions that resulted in the forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes."
A Regavim press release muscularly countered these claims. "The sanctions imposed by the Biden administration on civil society organizations, based solely on their political orientation, is tantamount to the banning of free speech. This is the definition of dictatorship. The outgoing administration has imposed sanctions on a host of Israeli individuals and organizations at the forefront of the settlement enterprise, as well as grassroots protest movements whose only "sin" is their opposition to current U.S. policy."
The movement also pointed out the use of sanctions is ordinarily reserved for "last-ditch action against drug lords, internationally sanctioned criminals, terrorists and dictators." They argued its use against ordinary civilians of an allied dictatorship was unprecedented, labeling it a "disgrace to the Biden administration."
"The lame ducks in Congress are using their final moments of power to amplify and expand the most anti-democratic maneuver of the Biden Administration. As a result of the sanctions imposed under Executive Order 14115, President Biden will be judged by history for the bald-faced attempt to prevent public debate, to silence political opponents, to deny freedom of speech and to make reasoned debate impossible."
It is probable the incoming Trump administration – especially if the pick of Mike Huckabee as U.S. ambassador to Israel is a barometer of the direction of travel – will quickly dismantle the sanctions against these individuals and groups. And whether there is a ceasefire in Gaza and/ or Lebanon, the issue of Jewish sovereignty over Judea and Samaria will almost certainly become an increasingly contested issue over the length of the Trump presidency.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The scandal for Democrats in Colorado, where their party member, Secretary of State Jena Griswold, posted voting machine passwords online in preparation for the 2024 vote, just got worse.
A recording has been revealed that confirms Griswold and members of her office had no intention of telling either county clerks or the voting public about the disaster, before it became public with an announcement from Republicans in the state.
It is Colorado Peak Politics that confirms the leaked recording has a deputy state official "telling election clerks they didn't plan to inform them of the online password security breach because it would cause a media frenzy of bad publicity."
WND previously reported that an investigation now is under way into the actions by Griswold.
She had schemed with all Democrats on the state Supreme Court to try to take now President-elect Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot, and was rebuked by the U.S. Supreme Court.
She also played an integral role when Tina Peters, then a clerk in Mesa County, made a copy of the 2020 election results from her county and, in the course, exposed briefly an election systems password. She was sentenced to years in prison.
It was Westword that had reported the office of the Denver district attorney is investigating, with help from the district attorney in El Paso County.
"Officials believe the leak originated in Secretary of State Jena Griswold's Denver-based office, but it involved current passwords for voting equipment in 34 Colorado counties, including El Paso," the report said.
The Peak Politics report said, "Griswold and her team kept that secret for five days before the state Republican Party blew the whistle that hundreds of passwords needed to access voting equipment once inside county election offices had been leaked online."
"The recording of Griswold's deputy state secretary, Chris Beall, telling clerks about the security breach reveals the complete lack of transparency and professionalism in how Griswold's office dealt with the crisis," the report said.
The report noted the passwords were changed "only" after the security failure became public.