Saturday, April 6, 2024

Why I Will Not Watch for The Solar Eclipse


Hype is building around the solar eclipse that will be visible in the United States on April 8, especially for those who live along the “path of totality.” Many people intend to make a pilgrimage to take the “total” look, and some ceremonies planned have all the earmarks of religious observances.

The media are warning people to leave photographing the eclipse to professionals with special equipment that protects both the human eye and camera lenses. Many official alerts have been issued against using cameras or cell phone cameras, which can literally burn out. 

As for me, I have no intention of eclipse-chasing.

My decision this year, as in years past, is not based solely on the warnings of possible eye damage if one looks in the direction of an eclipse, even with special glasses that might somehow fail. 

One can certainly make a case from Jewish Law (halachah) that one should not look in the direction of a solar eclipse because of the real danger of risking one’s vision. After all, the Hebrew Sages interpreted the biblical verse, “Guard yourself, and guard your soul diligently” (Deut. 4:9) as prohibiting anything that might pose a risk to physical health and well-being.

True, the Prophet Isaiah urges us to look to the heavens in order to appreciate our Creator: “Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who has created these…[and] calls them by name.”(40:26) But sometimes the most profound message of religion is not to look.

Among synagogue rituals, a noteworthy mandate to refrain from looking occurs during the Priestly Blessing, when descendants of the cohanim or priests, garbed in their talitot (prayer shawls) bestow the ancient benediction (Numbers 6:24-6, “The Lord bless you and keep you,” etc.) with chant and choreography. This ceremony is known in Yiddish as “duchening,” from the Aramaic for the “platform” upon which the cohanim perform the blessing.  There are strong traditions that one should not gaze upon them, but should listen intently to every word that they intone.

A Talmudic dictum suggested that those who gazed at the cohanim during their blessing in the Temple of old would suffer diminished eyesight, perhaps because the Sacred Name of God, which requires the utmost attention, was uttered. (Chagiga 16a) Some Sages taught that one should not look because the Shechinah, the brilliant and loving Divine Presence, shines forth from the “lattices” (Song of Songs 2:9) of the special priestly finger formations. 

Later sages emphasized that one should not look because the spectacle would distract the onlooker from proper concentration on the blessing. That is why it is also customary for many Jews to cover their eyes when they are reciting the Shema (Deut. 6:4, etc.), the declaration of Divine unity and uniqueness and sovereignty in our lives through acceptance of the “yoke” of the mitzvot or commandments.

My own longstanding no-look approach to solar eclipses derives from my stance that we need to regard these events as incentives to reaffirm the Creator and the importance of privacy to the dignity of humanity’s Divine image. (Gen. 1:26)

Adoring the creation more than the Creator is not a new problem. I am not the first to associate it with a solar eclipse. The Hebrew Sages of the Midrash speculated that God created eclipses as a seeming one-upsmanship between sun and moon so that humanity might be discouraged from deifying sun or moon or both. But still, these rabbis observed, people worshipped the sun and moon instead of God, burning incense to created objects instead of to the Creator. 

Some sages went so far as to conclude, on the basic of Scriptural verses, that the sun and the moon reluctantly go forth on their respective daily orbits, prodded by God, because they are embarrassed that people might worship them!

One best appreciates the earthly and heavenly spheres not by rushing to exalt the movement and concealment of heavenly bodies, but by resisting the impulse to venerate even the most magnificent and awe-inspiring natural phenomena and processes.

Only the Creator is worthy of our veneration and offerings as the One Who, in the words of the daily Hebrew prayer, “arranges the stars in their courses in the sky according to Thy will,” Whose miracles “are every day with us,” in the consistent laws of nature upon which we can rely and in which we continually find wonder. 

Eclipses can inspire us to more fully appreciate the daily miracles that surround us in the normal processes of heaven—and earth. A good photograph of an eclipse can accomplish this, especially if we refrain from congregating along the “path of totality” and make our way instead to a regular worship service, choosing to affirm the path of Divine guidance. In Hebrew, Divine commandments are the basis of halachah, the “path” of religious law. Along earth’s paths, conservation of natural resources is a religious duty (Gen. 2:15) that must not become a religion of earth-worship, displacing the sacred bond between humanity and the Creator and thus the unique dignity and preciousness bestowed upon humanity by God.

A little boy cried to his grandfather, who was a Hasidic rebbe, that he was playing hide and seek with other children who walked away and did not look for him. The rebbe’s empathy for the boy extended to God, Who hides in order to be sought out by people who choose not seek the Divine. Rabbi Samuel Dresner observed in the Prologue to Prayer, Humility and Compassion that “just as the radiance of the sun, reaching everywhere, can be closed off by the palm of a hand before the face, so can the glory of God be shut out by the wall of the will before the soul.” 

With regard to God and human beings, certain forms of not-looking help us to respect and love other people as God lovingly bestows dignity and infinite worth on humanity. The Hebrew Sages taught that the Gentile prophet Balaam admired that the tents of Israel were set up so that no dwelling impinged upon the privacy and the dignity of neighboring tents. Not-looking is essential to privacy, decency and morality. If anything, suggests the Talmud, an eclipse should prod us to look inward, to what within ourselves and society bolsters darkness when there is normally light. (Sukkah 29a)

In writing about “Privacy in Jewish Law and Theology,” Rabbi Norman Lamm made the striking observation that we must also respect God’s privacy: “The unknowable Essence or Absoluteness is the inner boundary of God’s privacy.” (Faith and Doubt, p. 302) Human beings, made in the Divine image, must appreciate the importance of privacy and restraint. Even the sun and the moon, as praised in the midrash cited above, would rather not be gawked at by human beings who violate, as it were, their celestial privacy by worshiping them. 

 God’s hiding is an invitation to seek out, with humility and restraint, the One Who “sees but is not seen,” to cite the Talmud (Chagiga 5b). Could it be that gawking at peek-a-boo events in nature, which are dangerous to the naked eye, anyway, will distract us from looking for the One Who seeks to be closer to us, and from the importance of the choice of not-looking, which is increasingly important in an age when privacy and restraint are constantly challenged?



X22, Red Pill News, and more- April 6

 




What Is an ‘American’?


Most people who live in America, especially if they were born there, call themselves “Americans.”  And while being born in a chicken coop doesn’t make me a chicken, there is a sense in which being born in the United States does make one an “American.”  But there is much more to being an American than birth location.

The ancient and pathetic Dan Rather recently went on a Twitter tirade against Donald Trump.  “It’s about me, as a patriot, rejecting a cheating, lying, racist, treasonous, fascist, and vile man...”  (Rather hated Ronald Reagan, too.)  And, in America, Rather has the right to express his empty mind.  But America is far more than that.  Rather has been a Leftist for a long time, and the Left has a vision for America.  But nobody’s “vision” of what they want America to be is what America actually is, unless that vision is rooted and grounded in the principles of what the country was established upon.  There are solid values found in historical truth that determine what “America” and “Americans” are.  And while America and her people have never been perfect, we judge those imperfections based upon the standard of what America was intended to be.  And that is a historical question, not a Leftist utopian vision.  Anyone who holds onto America’s historical values is a true American; anyone who rejects them can hardly claim to be a “true” American, born there or not.

What are the values that make a person an “American”?

1.   A belief in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, natural rights that come from God.  A true American believes in the sanctity of life, in a freedom that comes from God—thus is natural, not government-given—and in the right of a person to pursue their own happiness in accordance with the virtues dictated by God.  I cannot “pursue my own happiness” and kill, steal, or rob other people of their right to pursue happiness.  True freedom has always been the key element of America.  And a person, like Dan Rather, is free in America to believe anything he wants about Donald Trump, or God, or whatever he wishes.  We all have the freedom to believe anything we want to.   But it is critical to note that some of those beliefs might be very unAmerican.  

Some Americans believe in socialism.  They have that right.  But socialism is a very unAmerican thing, and anyone who tries to put socialism into practice in America is not upholding the values the country was founded upon.   Bernie Sanders can be a socialist if he wants to; freedom allows such.  And he has the freedom to try to convince the rest of us.  But don’t call socialism “American” because it’s not.  And don’t call someone a “patriot” who tries to force upon other Americans practices that are the very antithesis of what the country was founded upon.  THAT is fascism.

True Americans believe in absolute, unchanging natural rights, not ever-evolving, government-granted rights.  Believers in government-endowed rights are denying historical American values.  Can we truthfully call them “Americans”?

2.   America believes in equality.   “All men are created equal...”   But, in true America, this is an equality of opportunity, an equality that comes from freedom, not an equality of compulsory results; that’s communism.  Equality of results can only be forced upon people, and when something is forced upon someone, that’s not freedom.  Every American should have the same opportunities.  Racism is wrong and very unAmerican in principle.  But it’s Rather and the Left that is racist, not Trump.   DEI is unAmerican because it is racist, sexist, and immoral, implying people of color, gender, and perversion are incapable of succeeding on their own, something that has been disproven countless millions of times in American history.  Every aspect of DEI is in direct opposition to the cardinal principles of freedom and equality of opportunity America was built upon—true equality and virtue.  

3.   Limited government.  Our Constitution created a very limited government.   Totalitarians in America—and they are legion today—are the most unAmerican people in the country.  And 99 percent of them are on the Left.

4.   America first, not the world.  How can an “American” be a freedom-denying “globalist”?  America was founded to make America great.  By exalting America and being a shining, righteous city on a hill, we can point the way, for all of mankind, to a better life of freedom, virtue, and true equality.  There is the “globalism” I believe in.  America actually used to do that.  But the Left wants to destroy it to create a totalitarian globalist empire.

These are some great principles of America.  These are the principles of true Americans.  I’m not going to debate whether Biden and the Democrats are “true Americans,” but I WILL insist that what they are trying to do is change America into something different from what the country was founded to be, change the great principles of life, liberty, equality, virtue, and American greatness into some Leftist vision of globalism, decadence, and government tyranny.   America believes in freedom, so I suppose Democrats have a “right” to try to transform the country into their warped vision of some future globalist hellhole.  But we have the freedom to oppose them, too.  And true Americans WILL oppose them.

Mr. Rather, Mr. Biden, don’t call what you are doing “American.”  America gives you the freedom to say what you want and do what you are trying to do (or is it treason?), but don’t call the results you are attempting to foist upon the rest of us “American.”  When I eat pizza, some of it will leave my body as waste material.  I could call that waste material “pizza” if I wanted to, but it wouldn’t be pizza.  And what Biden and the Democrats are trying to morph America into will not be America, regardless of what they call it.

True America First.  And only. 



The Gaza War at Six Months: Israel Increasingly Isolated But Resilient

The Israel-Hamas War is in a very different phase than it was when it began six months ago.


In the aftermath of the horrific October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, the world united behind Israel. President Joe Biden pledged America’s rock-solid support, sent two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean, and visited Israel to express America’s support for the Israeli people. There was remarkable political unity in Israel as an Israeli war cabinet was formed on October 11, 2023, and divisive domestic political issues, such as reforming Israel’s Supreme Court, were set aside.

Six months later, Israel’s situation is very different. War fatigue has undermined support for Israel’s efforts to destroy Hamas, especially in Western countries. Although most Israelis reportedly support the war, there have been growing protests to end it so the hostages taken by Hamas can be freed. There also have been efforts to undermine the Israeli government and how it has conducted the war in the United States and Israel.

The Israeli army has made significant progress in the war in Gaza, destroying 20 of Hamas’s original 24 battalions. It plans to soon destroy Hamas’s remaining battalions in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. However, there is strong pressure from the West to end the war because Western leaders and audiences have succumbed to constant scenes of destroyed cities in Gaza, women and children digging themselves out of rubble, and reports of famine. Hamas and their supporters in the West have expertly manipulated press coverage of the war to blame this humanitarian catastrophe on Israel. Few mainstream media reports mention that Hamas started and is sustaining this conflict. The media will also not report that the reason Gazans are hungry is because heavily armed Hamas terrorists are stealing the aid sent into the enclave.

Growing demonstrations in Israel to end the war so hostages can be freed were part of Hamas’s original plan. Hamas knew Israelis value the lives of their citizens and that many would press to end the war early to secure the release of Israeli hostages, even if this meant not destroying Hamas or holding it accountable for the October 7 terrorist attacks.

Western nations and the United Nations condemning Israeli actions to defend themselves against Palestinian terrorists are not new. The UN has established itself as a stridently anti-Israel organization and has passed hundreds of resolutions in the UN Security Council and other UN bodies condemning Israel and questioning its right to exist. For decades, the United States used its veto power in the UN Security Council to block resolutions critical of Israel and its actions to defend itself. That changed on March 25, 2023, when the Biden administration abstained on a UN Security Council resolution demanding a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war without requiring Hamas to release any hostages.

The Israeli government and its supporters in the United States were outraged that the Biden administration did not block this unbalanced Security Council resolution. This unprecedented decision reflected a larger Biden administration agenda to sacrifice Israel’s security for domestic political reasons.

There has been a growing rift between many Democratic leaders, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and Israel for some time. The Obama and Biden administrations had strong disagreements with Prime Minister Netanyahu and especially resented his opposition to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the JCPOA. Despite Biden expressing his support for Israel and the Netanyahu government in the aftermath of the October 7 terrorist attacks, there were often caveats and tentativeness in Biden’s statements of support. Last December, I wrote in American Greatness that Biden was turning on Netanyahu to win the 2024 U.S. presidential election because of opposition to the war from his progressive supporters and Muslim voters in Michigan and Wisconsin.

Six months after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and the start of the war, U.S.-Israel relations are at a historic low. Instead of discussing its differences with Israel privately—the appropriate way to deal with a close U.S. ally—the Biden administration has been pressuring Israel to end the war through public condemnation, lectures, and press leaks. Although the Netanyahu government has stated that a two-state solution peace plan is off the table for the foreseeable future, the Biden administration continues to publicly promote this idea in the press and with other Middle East states.

Biden officials have complained publicly about how Israel has conducted the war and blamed it for the humanitarian situation in Gaza. There have been many reports of tense discussions between American and Israeli officials. A virtual meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer on Monday was so tense that it led to Dermer yelling at the U.S. side. Biden has reportedly been sharply critical of Netanyahu in private. The president said on April 2 that he was “outraged” when an Israeli airstrike accidentally killed humanitarian workers distributing food in Gaza. The Israeli government took full responsibility for this tragedy.

U.S.-Israeli relations worsened on March 14 when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called on Israel to hold new elections and criticized Netanyahu for being an obstacle to peace.

Although Schumer’s comments were condemned at the time by Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s chief political rival, as meddling in Israeli politics, they may have helped to undermine Gantz’s support for the Netanyahu war cabinet. Gantz visited Washington to meet with administration officials a week earlier on a visit he did not clear with Netanyahu. On April 3, Gantz called for early elections in September, supposedly to unify the county. Schumer quickly endorsed Gantz’s call for elections and claimed they vindicated his earlier remarks about this issue.

Netanyahu has not yet ordered the Israeli army to go into Rafah to destroy the remaining Hamas forces and has been willing to listen to objections to this operation from Biden officials and their purported alternate plans. Netanyahu knows Israel needs the United States and that most Israelis want a close U.S.-Israel relationship. For this reason, he and his government have endured public and private criticism by Biden officials, with few public complaints.

Biden increased his pressure on Netanyahu during an April 3 phone call when he reportedly again expressed outrage over the recent deaths of aid workers in Gaza and demanded Israel take “a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.” Biden also demanded a cease-fire without delay and came close to conditioning future U.S. aid to Israel on how it responded to U.S. concerns about the war.

Despite President Biden’s feckless badgering of Netanyahu, criticism from other Democratic politicians, and increased opposition to the Netanyahu government in Israel, the status quo at the six-month mark of the war probably will not change. Netanyahu will agree to short-term cease-fires to free hostages. But the Israeli leader will order an attack on Rafah when he has decided he has given U.S. officials enough opportunities to express their opinions of this operation. Netanyahu is not going to be bullied by the United States for how he defends his country.

Moreover, Netanyahu knows Biden’s threats are empty rhetoric driven by a weak politician in serious political trouble at home. The Israeli leader understands that most Republican and Democratic members of Congress support Israel and will not back any Biden effort to cut off American aid and military sales. Netanyahu also probably believes that Biden will become increasingly irrelevant as we approach the November election.

Although pressure on Netanyahu in Israel and from abroad will increase as the year goes on, he appears to have sufficient political support to hold onto power. New elections are scheduled for October 2026, and Netanyahu will not agree to early elections, especially while Israel is at war. Moreover, Gantz does not have the political support in the Knesset to force a snap election.

The challenge for Prime Minister Netanyahu over the next six months will be to defeat what is left of the Hamas fighters and stabilize Gaza after this operation, despite U.S. opposition.

Netanyahu will also try to hold out for a possible new U.S. administration in January 2025 that will restore U.S.-Israel relations, help form a regional alliance to rebuild Gaza, and promote regional peace.

Netanyahu is facing a difficult year in 2024. However, his country is resilient and prepared to go it alone to preserve its freedom and security. But Netanyahu knows how crucial it is that Israel and the United States work together to promote their mutual security interests and therefore sincerely hopes that help is on the way from the U.S. next January.



Former Agent: FBI Taught Agents Pro-Lifers Are More Dangerous Than Islamic Terrorists



The FBI trained personnel on countering extremism with material from the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), according to former special agent turned whistleblower Steve Friend.

In an interview with the Tennessee Informer last month, Friend recalled his experience at the FBI Academy in 2014: “We were shown a video that was produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center.” The film, Friend said, “ranked people who oppose abortion, pro-life activists, as a greater threat than Islamists.”

“I don’t know if they still show that,” Friend added, “but that’s what we were shown.”

The FBI still relies on SPLC material a decade later, leading a pair of top Republican senators to demand the agency sever ties with the leftist hate group that routinely smears right-of-center associations as “hate groups.” SPLC’s false “hate group” designations led to a domestic terrorist attack in 2012 on the offices of a pro-family organization.

“The SPLC is known for disseminating its ‘hate group’ list, which contains at least 1,225 organizations, to Democrat allies in Congress, Big Tech, and woke corporations on a regular basis,” The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd reported last fall. “The activist hub recently aided the Biden regime’s quest to target concerned parents by sullying a dozen grassroots groups, including Moms For Liberty, as ‘anti-government extremist groups’ in its 2022 ‘hate and extremism’ report.”

The FBI also cited the SPLC to target traditional Catholics with counterterrorism resources, according to former agent Kyle Seraphin.

“The FBI should not lend credibility to an organization that labels traditional values as ‘hate,'” wrote Sens. Chuck Grassley and James Lankford last fall, adding “any use of SPLC data by the FBI” is “inappropriate and should be stopped immediately.”

More recently, the SPLC refused to answer Federalist inquiries about whether the SPLC would add Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Socialists of America to the list of “hate groups” following the far-left’s positive response to Hamas’s October terrorist attacks on Israel. The SPLC eventually responded to the attack, from which hostages are still being held and raped, by claiming Israel is deliberately targeting Palestinian children.

The SPLC also lists the first Amendment legal non-profit, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) as a “designated hate group.” ADF has won cases at the Supreme Court 15 times, setting significant precedents in favor of Americans’ constitutional rights.

Friend was asked on the Tennessee Informer whether students at the FBI Academy pushed back at the use of a leftist hate group to train agents that pro-lifers are a worse threat than Islamic terrorists.

“There was some eye rolling,” Friend said, because his peers at the time were a group that “leans more conservative, more libertarian. “It’s probably very different now,” Friend added.

“When you’re at the Academy for the FBI, a lot of people are a little bit older,” Friend said. “Now the FBI is actually recruiting young people so they can indoctrinate them further.”



New Trouble for Fani Willis: Now Accused of Illegally Recording Phone Call by Trump Co-Defendant


Nick Arama reporting for RedState 

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis may not have been disqualified from the Georgia election case against former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants, but she's still facing multiple probes or complaints from the Georgia state Senate, the House Judiciary Committee and involving the state bar. 


Fani Willis Throws a Tantrum in Response to Jim Jordan's Threat of Contempt

Fani Willis and Nathan Wade Now Facing Trouble With the Georgia State Bar


On top of that, now there's a new accusation by one of the lawyers for one of the co-defendants in the case. 

During an interview with Townhall columnist and legal analyst Phil Holloway, Christopher Kachouroff, the attorney for Trump co-defendant Harrison Floyd alleged that Willis recorded a phone call between herself and one of his Maryland colleagues

"She did reach out to us, one of my colleagues in Maryland, and was rude, abrupt with him on the phone, and he was dealing with the Maryland case and I was dealing with the Georgia case, and she ended up recording him," Kachouroff said.

He noted that Maryland is a "two party state," meaning both parties had to consent to the recording. When asked by Holloway if he was saying that Willis illegally recorded the phone call, he said, "Oh, yes" and noted it was a felony in Maryland. 

Floyd posted that part of the conversation. 

Holloway also noted that Floyd followed that up with another tweet calling on her to recuse herself by Monday, saying otherwise he would pursue legal remedies. 

In Floyd's tweet, it refers to Willis providing a copy or a recording of a call to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution between herself and Carlos J.R. Salvado, an attorney in Maryland, who also represents Floyd on an unrelated matter. 

Atlanta News First and Newsweek have reached out to Willis' office for comment on this new allegation but she doesn't appear to have weighed in yet. It will be interesting to see what her response to this allegation is. 

Her responses when confronted on issues tend to dig even bigger holes for herself as we saw during the hearing over the disqualification question. That issue forced the special prosecutor she had selected Nathan Wade off the case.  

In the latest news on the case, Judge Scott McAfee had turned down a motion to dismiss the charges on First Amendment grounds without prejudice, meaning the defendants could try again. 

After everything we've seen already, I'm guessing this alleged issue isn't going to make him happy either. 



Hugh Hewitt Interviews President Trump on Current Events


Hugh Hewitt (Salem Media) is one of the key media control operatives on the right, fully controlled by the multinationals who organize controlled Republican politics, who attempts to manipulate political outcomes through the pressure of his platform.  Why any conservative would appear on the Hugh Hewitt broadcast is beyond my understanding.

In this interview, Hewitt starts shaping the conversation based on the editorial priorities handed to him by his benefactors.  However, that said, President Trump does a great job cutting through the majority of the Hewitt bait & shaping and he finds a way to explain his message despite Hewitt’s interventions.  WATCH:



Hugh Hewitt, on behalf of the corporations and banking interests who organize their insurance policies, would love to influence the vice presidential selection.


Melania Trump Coming Back to 2024 Campaign and Electioneering Prominence This Month


This is interesting.  First Lady Melania Trump will be coming back into a visible position in order to support President Donald Trump’s run for the White House.

According to Politico, Melania Trump will begin her return on April 20th:

(Via Politico) – […]  The former first lady is set to hold her first major political event of the year — a fundraiser for the Log Cabin Republicans on April 20 at Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach, Florida, club where she and former president Donald Trump live, according to an invitation obtained by POLITICO. (more)


♦️𝐖³𝐏 𝐃𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝

 


W³P Daily News Open Thread. 

Welcome to the W³P Daily News Open Thread. 

Post whatever you got in the comments section below.

This feature will post every day at 6:30am Mountain time. 


Why Is the Biden Regime Sending Aid to Hezbollah 'Refugees'?

Katie Pavlich reporting for Townhall 

The U.S. State Department announced this week millions of American tax dollars are being sent to "vulnerable populations in" southern Lebanon. 

"The United States government, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is providing more than $67 million in additional urgently needed humanitarian assistance for vulnerable populations in Lebanon. This brings the total USAID humanitarian assistance to Lebanon to over $157 million since Fiscal Year 2023," the U.S. Embassy in Beirut released in a statement. "Lebanon’s protracted economic, financial, and humanitarian crises have led lead to acute levels of food insecurity and critical healthcare needs nationwide.  These needs arise from highly inflated prices for food, fuel, and basic commodities; loss of livelihoods; and the departure of medical personnel. The regional impact of the ongoing crisis in Gaza has further exacerbated humanitarian needs in Lebanon.  Insecurity in southern Lebanon has prompted USAID partners to mobilize existing resources to meet urgent humanitarian assistance needs among the more than 91,000 individuals who have been internally displaced since October 2023."

But the State Department failed to include the context for why individuals are being displaced and who they actually are: members of the Iranian backed terrorist organization Hezbollah. 

At least 60,000 Israelis who live in the country's north have been displaced as a result of Hezbollah's continued rocket and missile attacks. Entire towns have been abandoned as a result of Hezbollah's onslaught. More than 117,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country's south after the Iran backed Hamas massacre on October 7.