Benny Gantz Quits the Race
Eight days out, his party stays on the ballot and every vote for it is wasted.
Benny Gantz quit Israel's election. Blue and White won't stand on October 27, Gantz said Monday, after polls kept putting it below the threshold. "I have not been able to convince enough of the people, and the responsibility is mine." The party stays on the ballot, so any vote for it is wasted. After October 7, it was briefly the country's most popular party. 1
Netanyahu's aide kept working for Qatar after October 7. Jonatan Urich, a Qatargate suspect, told police he got "hundreds of thousands of shekels" from Qatar and said, "I don't see it as a moral problem," Channel 12 reported Monday. On whether Netanyahu knew, he said, "I don't report to the prime minister about the things I do." 2
Mahmoud Khalil took his deportation fight to the Supreme Court. The anti-Israel activist asked the justices Monday to overturn a 3rd Circuit ruling that opened the door to his re-arrest. An order barring his re-detention holds until they rule. 3
Hero: Gavriel D. Rosenfeld. Someone left a note reading "Nuke Jews, Save Lives" at the door of the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan. Rosenfeld, its president, answered in the Forward: its 65 million documents outnumber "the four hateful words left on our doorstep" and "testify to the authority of archives." 4
Villain: Macklemore. His "Free Palestine" tour, which he says "sold out immediately," lists the Palestinian Youth Movement among 12 beneficiaries. PYM wrote in The New Inquiry that October 7 was a "prison break" and the attackers "the men who broke through." The Israeli-American Council says Live Nation and the organizers "must now publicly explain their vetting process." Our view: Macklemore can sing about a free Palestine without sending money to a group that calls a massacre a prison break. 5
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