Monday, Monday … so good to tabs …
10-13-25 Freedom Day! 🇺🇸🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/mv5FhPfR1U
— John Ondrasik (@johnondrasik) October 13, 2025
Ed: Our friend John will join me for a podcast to discuss the end of the hostage crisis in Gaza, and the silence of the AMPAS in Hollywood over the ceasefire. John has tirelessly advocated for — and with — hostage families, both here and in Israel. We’ll talk about that too.
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Matthew Continetti at The Free Press: The bond between Trump and Israel is not easily explained. Perhaps it’s personal: As he mentioned to the Knesset, Trump has a Jewish daughter and Jewish grandchildren. Perhaps it’s political: Pro-Israel evangelical Christians are the foundation of the Republican Party. Part of the reason is psychological: Trump, you may have heard, likes people and nations that achieve. In his remarks, he called Netanyahu a winner and Israel a miracle. It punches far above its weight. For Trump, whose eye always looks to strength and weakness, Israel is an attractive ally because it sticks up for itself.
There’s also a spiritual connection between Trump and Israel. The connection has grown stronger since the attempt on his life in July 2024. You notice it in his language. Earlier this year, when he announced that Operation Midnight Hammer in Iran was a success, Trump thanked God. Today, at the Knesset, he invoked God several times. For many Christians, Israel is more than a democratic ally. Israel proves the Bible is true.
Whatever the reason for Trump’s steadfast leadership in the Middle East, as we say at the Passover Seder—dayenu. It would be enough. With his appearance in the Knesset, Trump rightly took his place as a champion of freedom and justice. And his message cannot be denied: “The state of Israel is strong and it will live and thrive forever.”
Ed: I think Continetti hits the nail on the head here.Trump likes a fighter, and Israel has always — always — fought anyone who challenged it, eventually. It took longer than it should have with Hamas, but October 7 finally forced Israel to recalculate.
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Grab the tissues. A thread of hostages reuniting with their families.
First up, Eitan Mor meeting his parents, Efrat and Zvika. pic.twitter.com/rHk6CUpYEu
— Kassy Akiva (@KassyAkiva) October 13, 2025
Ed: Grab your tissues, indeed. Click through to watch all of these reunion scenes that Kassy has in her X thread.
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Tom Knighton: Every GOP candidate since Bush I has been, so far as I could tell, been “literally Hitler” to the left, and I’m not saying it didn’t start a long time before then. I just didn’t see it, in part because the world wasn’t as connected as it was, and the 24-hour news cycle wasn’t such a big part of life.
No one has gotten that treatment worse than President Donald Trump, though. While the passing comment has flown in the past, this has reached a fever pitch with Trump to the point that two people tried to assassinate him, someone assassinated Charlie Kirk, and a lot of other violence has taken place in between, and some after.
Of course, Hitler wanted war. He liked seeing death and destruction.
Trump, similarly, likes war so much that he just stopped one in Israel. Instead of facilitating the so-called genocide, he managed to stop the fighting.
Ed: I saw something similar in a meme this weekend: “Trump Saves Israel, Rescues Jews — Worst Hitler Ever.”
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An observation:
In Israel, when Trump spoke about the release of the hostages, those listening cheered and clapped.
In Egypt at the Peace in Middle East summit, when he mentioned the hostages being released there was little reaction from dozens of leaders in the room.
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) October 13, 2025
Ed: This speaks volumes about the moral compass of leaders at this summit, and what it says is pretty pathetic. Like the Bidenistas, these Western leaders wanted Israel to cough up a lot more in concessions to get the hostages out, but Trump out-thought them and out-manipulated them.
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Free Beacon: CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour claimed Israeli hostages, who were tortured and starved for two years by Hamas, were treated better than Gazans.
“They’re probably being treated better than the average Gazan because they are the pawns and the chips that Hamas had,” Amanpour said Monday morning on CNN News Central. “Now Hamas has given up all its leverage, by the way, by giving them all up. So that is a victory for the Israeli side.”
Videos released over the past two years have shown malnourished Israeli hostages enduring brutal treatment. Survivors have said they were starved, tortured, electrocuted, and forced to dig their own graves. One freed hostage, Ron Krivoi, said “ordinary Gazans” beat him. Another, Evyatar David, was forced to dig his own grave in a Hamas propaganda video released in August.
Ed: The Protection Racket Media has gotten worse over the last two years in covering Hamas terrorism, but CNN in particular outdid itself today. Amanpour has always been an anti-Israel hack, but she sank to a new low with this claim.
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Earlier live on air, I spoke about what a day of real joy this is, for Israeli families whose loved ones are finally being returned from two years of horrific Hamas captivity, and for civilians in Gaza, who have finally had a reprieve from two years of brutal, deadly war.
— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) October 13, 2025
Ed: Too late. You revealed who you are to all the world. It’s not as if you just came across this story today; it’s been unfolding for two years. You’re just sorry you got caught.
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Amanpour’s eventual apology only highlights the insanity of her original comment (which she only sort of retracted.) She went from “probably treated better” to “made to dig their own graves” in a matter of a few hours. https://t.co/UwBH2mNWdJ
via @DailyCaller @NicoleMSilverio https://t.co/snkehkcTYH— Caleb Howe (@CalebHowe) October 13, 2025
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Michael Oren at The Free Press: Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner—all adept at developing urban properties and golf resorts—seem to have succeeded where generations of aspiring peacemakers failed. How?
The answer is precisely that the Trump team is not a group of Middle East experts operating under the misconception that no Arab state would make peace with Israel before the creation of a Palestinian state. Neither Trump nor his envoys subscribed to the mainstream nostrum that Israel’s response to the terrorists trying to destroy it should be to cower under anti-missile batteries. Never did they believe that strategic advantage in the Middle East could be obtained by soft power, nor that Iran and its proxies could be incentivized to become responsible interlocutors, nor that the way to gain the cooperation of Israeli and Arab leaders was to cold-shoulder or browbeat them. They never accepted the myth that the way to end the war was to cut off arms supplies and military aid to Israel, isolate it internationally, and expose it to charges of war crimes and genocide.
Ed: Oren nails this. For decades, “experts” like John Forbes Kerry pretentiously lectured us that the only path to peace was a two-state solution and appeasement of Iran. Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan just parroted the received wisdom of the failures that preceded them. At least Bill Clinton learned a lesson from getting betrayed by Yasser Arafat. Well, the expert class just got proven wrong — again. The West currently has the most incompetent “experts” of all time, and too many of them are still in charge.
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Donald Trump is at this very moment securing world peace, while you, sir, are still trying to get the taste of Harvey Weinstein out of your big mouth.
Sit down and shut up. https://t.co/QPm2zlAxCS
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) October 13, 2025
Ed: Well put. Democrats are basically ankle-biters in comparison these days.
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Newsbusters: After taking a few days to take in the historic ceasefire President Trump negotiated between Israel and Hamas and bringing the hostages home, ABC’s The View finally decided to talk about it on Monday. Out of the five cast members (six total) that were on the set that day, only two of them credited Trump or noted his role in any way. The rest spoke in bland platitudes or questioned why the war even had to happen at all. One’s reaction was so cliché that she even quoted “give peace a chance.”
Ed: Did anyone expect any different from the assorted morons at The View?
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🚨NEW: NY Dem C-SPAN Caller *MOVED TO TEARS* over Trump’s PEACEMAKING between Israel & Hamas🚨
“I’m going to get choked up … I’m a conservative Democrat living here in New York where this example of bringing peace to everyone should be thought of in New York City — where out… pic.twitter.com/eIx11UPN2v
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) October 13, 2025
“I’m going to get choked up … I’m a conservative Democrat living here in New York where this example of bringing peace to everyone should be thought of in New York City — where out of ignorance — the people are about to elect a guy who’s pro-terrorist, pro-Hamas.”
“This should be a wake-up call to everyone that people can live together.”
“I’m sorry for being so emotional — but it’s a great moment in history for everyone. And we have to reject hate. We have to reject Antifa. We have to reject Mamdani. And we have to come together as human beings.”
Ed: At least someone’s learning a lesson from this. That’s better than anyone can say about The View, anyway. Or most of the Democrat Party. Except Philip from Queens, and John from Pittsburgh …
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“Now, life.” – Eli Sharabi, former hostage, on resilience and optimism.
The nightmare finally ends.
May the hostages have a full recovery and may we never forget those who didn’t make it out alive.
Credit to @POTUS for a breakthrough ceasefire of this awful war. pic.twitter.com/FcmNe6PT7q
— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) October 13, 2025
Ed: Who knew that John Fetterman would prove himself to the moral anchor of his caucus?
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