Author: AFSI Staff

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the state Holocaust Remembrance Day opening ceremony on Wednesday and pledged that Israel will not stop fighting until Hamas is destroyed.

“We will destroy the Hamas monsters who perpetrated the cruelest massacre since the Holocaust. There will not be an Islamic califate, not in the south, not in the north, and not in Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu stated.

He added: “The military pressure on Hamas will continue. We will bring back all the hostages. We will defeat Hamas and deny Iran nuclear weapons.”

Netanyahu harkened back to last year and the international pressure on Israel not to launch operations in Rafah, which Israel did on Holocaust Remembrance Day, 2024. He mentioned threats by allies to impose arms embargoes on Israel and stated: “If we need to fight with our fingernails, we’ll fight with our fingernails. Israel is not a vassal state. No pressure and no resolution can prevent us from settling the score with the barbaric murderers. Last Holocaust Remembrance Day, the operation in Rafah began. That was a turning point in the war.”

The Prime Minister also mentioned the Iranian threat. “The Iranian regime of horrors is a threat to the future of the entire human society. This is what will happen if it obtains nuclear weapons. The struggle with it will determine the fate of all free countries. Israel will not lose, give up, or surrender. What are nice words about the victory of the enlightenment, if at the moment of truth, you surrender to the barbarians.”

Source:
Netanyahu at Yad Vashem: We are not a vassal state, no one can stop us from defeating evil, by Israel National News, April 23, 2025

Words matter. I am reminded of this each and every day as I drive through cities whose names reflect not just thousands of years of our Jewish history but also our very identity.

With President Donald Trump back in office, US Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas has re-introduced proposed legislation to have the United States stop using the term “West Bank” and instead use “Judea and Samaria,” the biblical and historical name for these areas in Israel. If this bill passes, it would necessitate by law the removal of past references to the term “West Bank” from all US documents.

It’s time for official US documents to reflect this historical truth, etched in stone across our ancient landscape.

Source:
Time for Congress to ditch ‘West Bank,’ call it Judea and Samaria – opinion, by Natalie Sopinsky/Jerusalem Post, April 23, 2025

US President Donald Trump announced as follows: “I’ve just spoken to Prime Minister of Israel, Bibi Netanyahu, relative to numerous subjects including Trade, Iran, etc. The call went very well—We are on the same side of every issue,”

Netanyahu met with Trump in Washington two weeks ago. During that meeting, Trump announced that the US would begin talks with Iran on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons program.

“We are having direct talks with Iran. On Saturday we will have a very big meeting and we will see what can happen. i think everybody agrees that a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious, and the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with, or frankly that anyone here wants to be involved with.”

Israel has no better friend right now than US President Donald J. Trump and we are grateful.

Source:
Trump: ‘I spoke with Netanyahu, we’re on same side of every issue’, by Israel National News, April 22, 2025

The name “West Bank” conjures up visions of a complex and contentious region of the Middle East. and there’s increasing discussion of the label itself. The time has come to return to the true, historical, biblical names of Judea and Samaria—names that reflect the deep, millennia-old connection between the Jewish people and their ancestral homeland.

Last month, House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Brian Mast instructed committee staff to refer to the area as Judea and Samaria in official documents and communications. He said Congress should “recognize Israel’s rightful claim to the cradle of Jewish civilization.” And he’s right.

The region has been called Judea and Samaria since Joshua led the Israelites. Judea was the ancient kingdom of the Jews, a central part of Jewish history and identity. King David was born there. As was Jesus. Samaria was also an integral region of ancient Israel. These names are not merely geographic terms; they carry cultural, historical and religious weight.

On the other hand, the term “West Bank” was invented in the 20th century. It’s an artificial construct, coined to describe the western bank of the Jordan River after Jordan attacked Israel in the 1948 War of Independence and annexed the area in 1950. It was part of an intentional effort to redefine the region in terms that were disconnected from Jewish identity, furthering the narrative that the land was devoid of historical Jewish presence.

But Judea and Judaism are inextricably linked.

The name “West Bank” has long been a tool of political manipulation designed to sever the bond between the Jewish people and the land. It is time to turn the page and restore the names of Judea and Samaria, the heart of the Jewish homeland. Let us honor the past and ensure a future where peace can be built on a foundation of truth.

Source:
What’s in a name?, by Heather Johnston/JNS, April 8, 2025

The Prime Minister’s Office responded on Thursday to a report by The New York Times that US President Donald Trump stopped an Israeli plan to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has been leading the global campaign against the Iranian nuclear program for over a decade, even when there were those who belittled the threat and called it a ‘political spin’ and the Prime Minister ‘paranoid.’ The Prime Minister led countless overt and covert actions in the campaign against Iran’s nuclear program; thanks to them, Iran does not have a nuclear arsenal,” the Prime Minister’s Office wrote in a statement.

Despite Israel’s military buildup and plans for a prepared strike on Iran, high-level voices within the Trump administration expressed growing skepticism about the feasibility and consequences of an Israeli-led attack. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard presented intelligence suggesting such an operation could spiral into a broader regional war, an outcome the White House was determined to avoid.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has declared more than once: “Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.” As of now, Washington’s position remains unchanged: negotiations first, military action only if talks collapse.

We knew there was a deeper reason for Netanyahu’s last minute visit with President Trump last week. Let’s watch closely how this plays out.

Source:
Netanyahu does not deny that Trump nixed strike on Iran, by Israel National News, April 17, 2025

US Ambassador-designate Mike Huckabee arrived in Israel on Thursday and will officially take up his position in Jerusalem next week.

The former Arkansas governor landed in Israel toward the end of the week-long Passover holiday and ahead of Easter Sunday after being confirmed by the U.S. Senate last week. He will present his credentials to Israel President Isaac Herzog on Monday at an official ceremony in Jerusalem.

“We are on our way to Israel,” Huckabee tweeted on Wednesday, ahead of the transatlantic flight with his wife Janet and their two dogs. “Our dogs have no idea how long this flight is going to be so don’t tell them. This is not a trip but a complete move.”

AFSI congratulates US Ambassador-Designate Mike Huckabee on his appointment. As a life-long staunch supporter of Israel, we have no doubt he will continue to advocate for the truth and strengthen Israel at this critical time in the Jewish Nation State’s history.

Source:
Huckabee arrives in Israel to take up ambassadorial posting, by Etgar Lefkovits/JNS, April 17, 2025

Hamas faces a severe financial setback as it lacks cash to pay its members, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing Arab intelligence officials.

Israel’s discontinuing of humanitarian aid, which Hamas pilfered for monetary gains, and the IDF strikes targeting Hamas officials responsible for distributing funds have contributed to this trend, according to the officials.

Hamas also exploited the humanitarian aid to increase the flow of money, such as taxing merchants, collecting taxes, and using foreign cash to buy humanitarian aid, which was then sold in Gaza for a profit, according to Western, Israeli, and Arab officials, detailing the terror group’s financial web.

Funding is what has kept Hamas in business – the business of working toward its goal of destroying Israel. What a great day it will be to look forward to the time when the phrase “follow the money” no longer applies to Hamas. We trust that day will be very soon.

Source:
Hamas in financial crisis, unable to pay terrorists after Israel cuts Gaza aid – report, by Jerusalem Staff, April 17, 2025

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on the phone with French President Emmanuel Macron following the latter’s announcement that he intends to recognize a Palestinian state and a meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to discuss said recognition.

The Prime Minister’s Office wrote in a statement that “during the conversation, the Prime Minister expressed fierce opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state and said that this would constitute a huge prize for terrorism.”

The statement added: “The Prime Minister pointed out to the President of France that to this day, no Palestinian body – including those of the Palestinian Authority – has condemned the October 7th massacre; and that in the Palestinian Authority, the children are educated to destroy Israel, and the murderers of Jews are awarded monetary prizes.

“The Prime Minister told the President of France that a Palestinian state that would be established just a few minutes from Israeli cities would become an Iranian stronghold of terrorism; that the vast majority of the Israeli public opposes that categorically – and that this has also been the Prime Minister’s consistent and longstanding policy.”

France’s position may be good for Macron but is wrong for Israel. Even after the October 7 massacre in Israel Macron still lives in a world of delusion and self-serving political ideals. He has no understanding of, or concern for the true intention of the mental state of the PA Arabs – that is, to kill Jews and destroy Israel.

Source:
Netanyahu to President Macron: ‘A Palestinian state would be a huge prize for terrorism’, by Israel National News, April 15, 2025

The Trump administration has halted approximately $2.3 billion in federal funding allocated to Harvard University following the school’s refusal to comply with directives from the White House targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, Reuters reported.

According to an announcement on Monday from the US Department of Education, the decision encompasses a freeze on $2.2 billion in grant money, as well as $60 million in federal contracts previously designated for the Ivy League institution.

“Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges—that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws,” stated the department’s task force on combating antisemitism,” announced the US Department of Education.

While Harvard has not issued a detailed public response to the funding suspension, the dispute marks a significant escalation in tensions between the federal government and elite universities over the direction and governance of campus policies related to diversity and civil rights compliance.

Now, with no government funding, and Harvard stating no government should dictate to it what it can teach and who it can admit and hire, it will be interesting to see what lessons, if any, they learn from this. Will this storied Ivy League institution now become a haven for anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred? So far, they haven’t passed the test of understanding the fine line between free speech and hate.

Source:
Trump admin freezes $2.3 billion in Harvard funding, by Elad Benari/Israel National News, April 15, 2025