1599: Drop the Op

I have been listening to your show No Agenda for 2-4 years and have always enjoyed it,

However… your coverage of the Atrocities by the monstrous hamas , including the beheading of innocent babies, babies torn from their mothers belly’s….

… is so appalling. There is indeed ample footage, pictures , to prove what happened… and your glib laughter with John… well there are no words. Your excuse that you’re just evaluating the media coverage is a cheap, and not even believable .

To say I am Disappointed and disgusted would be an understatement

Sandy

The Sukkot celebration, held near a Palestinian village known in Hebrew as Haware, would need extraordinary protection, given the tension over the latest violence, and the local Israeli military authorities, with the approval of Netanyahu, ordered two of the three Army battalions, each with about 800 soldiers, that protected the border with Gaza to shift their focus to the Sukkot festival.

“That left only eight hundred soldiers,” the insider told me, “to be responsible for guarding the 51-kilometer border between the Gaza Strip and southern Israel. That meant the Israeli citizens in the south were left without an Israeli military presence for ten to twelve hours. They were left to fend for themselves. And that is why Bibi is finished. May take a few months, but he is over.”

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In 1969, Meir assumed the role of prime minister following the death of Levi Eshkol. Early in her tenure, she made multiple diplomatic visits with western leaders to promote her vision of peace in the region. The outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 caught Israel off guard and inflicted severe early losses on the army. The resulting public anger damaged Meir's reputation and led to an inquiry into the failings. Her Alignment coalition was denied a majority in the subsequent legislative election; she resigned the following year and was succeeded as prime minister by Yitzhak Rabin. Meir died in 1978 of lymphoma and was buried on Mount Herzl.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Belgian Psychotherapist and Author (born 1958)

Esther Perel (born 1958) is a Belgian-American psychotherapist, known for her work on human relationships.[1]

Perel promoted the concept of "erotic intelligence" in her book Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006), which has been translated into 24 languages.[2] After publishing the book, she became an international advisor on sex and relationships.[3] She has given two TED talks, hosts two podcasts, runs a series of therapy training / supervision events,[4] and launched a card game.[5][6][7]

In 2016, Perel was added to Oprah Winfrey's Supersoul 100 list of visionaries and influential leaders.[8]

Early life and education [ edit ] Perel was born and raised in Antwerp, Belgium, the daughter of Sala Ferlegier and Icek Perel,[9] two Polish, Jewish, Holocaust survivors.[10] She has one brother, Leon.[9]

Perel attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel,[11] where she earned a B.A. in educational psychology and French literature, and subsequently earned a master's degree in expressive art therapy from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States.[9]

Perel grew up amongst Holocaust survivors in Antwerp, later categorising them into two groups: "those who didn't die, and those who came back to life".[5] She asserts that "those who came back to life were those who understood eroticism as an antidote to death."[5][12]

Career [ edit ] Perel subsequently trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy before finding a professional home in family systems theory.[13] She initially worked as a cross-cultural psychotherapist with couples and families. For 13 years she was a clinical instructor at the New York University School of Medicine.[14]

Perel has also worked as an actress (appearing in the 2017 film, Newness, as herself) and run a clothing boutique in Antwerp.[11]

Perel in Boston in 2017Personal life [ edit ] Perel is Jewish, and says of it, "You can't know me without it."[9]

Perel is married to Jack Saul, Assistant Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.[15] They met at Lesley University[9] when she was 22[16][17] or 23[18] and he was 7 years her senior.[17] After 2 years of being close friends, they became a couple.[17][18] She says she "swallowed the romantic ideal quite a bit" in her youth.[16]

Ideas [ edit ] Perel argues that, due to trends such as the secularization of Western society, the rise of individualism, and the societal "mandate" for personal happiness, the expectations for romantic relationships are higher than ever:[19]

Never before have our expectations of marriage taken on such epic proportions. We still want everything the traditional family was meant to provide'--security, children, property, and respectability'--but now we also want our partner to love us, to desire us, to be interested in us. We should be best friends, trusted confidants, and passionate lovers to boot.[20]

She also notes the ideals of modern marriage are often contradictory: "We want our chosen one to offer stability, safety, predictability, and dependability'--all the anchoring experiences. And we want that very same person to supply awe, mystery, adventure, and risk."[20] Perel calls for a more open and honest discussion of monogamy to reconcile this conflict between the erotic and the domestic.

Podcasts [ edit ] Perel is the host of two podcasts: Where Should We Begin? and How's Work?

Where Should We Begin? brings the listeners inside Perel's therapist's office as she sees anonymous couples in search of insight on everything from infidelity to sexlessness to grief. The unique format combines live recordings of the therapy session, with Perel's reflections on what she heard, and what techniques she tried.[21][22] The New York Times writes: "it feels more like an unraveling mystery story than a relationship advice show."[23] The couples include both heterosexual and same-sex couples. The first episode aired on Audible in May 2017, and became publicly available on iTunes on October 9, 2017.[24] Three seasons have been released as of December 2019[update]. "Where Should We Begin?" received a 2018 Gracie Award.[25]How's Work? is Perel's second podcast. It follows a format similar to the couples therapy session in "Where Should We Begin?", but this time the couple seeking Perel's advice are cofounders or colleagues, navigating the challenges that play out in work relationships.[26][27] HuffPost describes each episode as a "one-time therapy session between Perel and various co-founders, members of family businesses and partners with a thriving operation but deteriorating relations on the job."[28] As described in one review: "The podcast aims to shine light on the things that form us as individuals and how those things relate to life in the workplace. Because, honestly, a lot of people hold their careers and workplace relationships as dearly and tightly as they do their romantic relationships."[29] "How's Work?" was created by Gimlet Media, and was available exclusively on Spotify.[30] The show first aired in November 2019.[31] In March 2023, Bloomberg announced that "How's Work?" was acquired by Vox Media's Podcast Network.[32]Publications [ edit ] Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006, Harper, ISBN 978-0060753634)The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity (2017, Harper, ISBN 978-0062322586)Recognition [ edit ] 2016: Named to Oprah Winfrey's Supersoul 100 list of visionaries and influential leaders.[33]Perel was selected for the inaugural 2021 Forbes 50 Over 50; made up of entrepreneurs, leaders, scientists and creators who are over the age of 50.[34]References [ edit ] ^ Perel, Esther. "Erotic Intelligence: Reconciling Sensuality and Domesticity" (PDF) . The Psychotherapy Networker, May/Jun 2003. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 October 2014 . Retrieved 20 July 2014 . ^ Perel, Esther (2006). Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence. Harper. ISBN 978-0060753634. ^ "Unorthodox advice for rescuing a marriage". The Economist. 12 October 2017. ^ "Sessions with Esther Perel". sessions.estherperel.com . Retrieved 2022-11-05 . ^ a b c Perel, Esther (February 2013). "The secret to desire in a long-term relationship". TEDSalon NY2013 . Retrieved 24 December 2020 . When I began to think about eroticism (...) I had to go back to the original definition of eroticism, the mystical definition (...) by looking actually at trauma, which is the other side. And I looked at it as looking at the community that I had grown up in, which was a community in Belgium, all Holocaust survivors, and in my community there were two groups: those who didn't die, and those who came back to life. ^ Perel, Esther (March 2015). "Rethinking infidelity... a talk for anyone who has ever loved". TED2015 . Retrieved 24 December 2020 . ^ Eldor, Karin. "Esther Perel's New Card Game Of Stories, 'Where Should We Begin,' Inspires Play At Home And At The Office". Forbes. ^ "SuperSoul 100: The Complete List". www.supersoul.tv . Retrieved Oct 6, 2022 . ^ a b c d e Musleah, Rahel (25 April 2019). "Therapist Esther Perel on Reframing Our Relationships". Hadassah Magazine. The Women's Zionist Organization of America, Inc . Retrieved 19 April 2021 . ^ Polly Vernon (8 October 2006). "So, how's your sex life these days?". The Guardian . Retrieved 24 December 2020 . ^ a b Dominus, Susan (24 January 2014). "The Sexual Healer". The New York Times . Retrieved 19 April 2021 . ^ A-Fest by Mindvalley (2017-11-26), In Search Of Erotic Intelligence | Esther Perel , retrieved 2018-06-24 ^ Lori Schwanbeck (2012). "Esther Perel on Mating in Captivity (interview)". psychotherapy.net . Retrieved 24 December 2020 . ^ Quito, Anne (9 November 2017). "Esther Perel is America's first clear-eyed public intellectual on love". qz.com. Quartz Media, Inc . Retrieved 18 April 2020 . ^ Dominus, Susan (24 January 2014). "The Sexual Healer: The Couples Therapy Expert Esther Perel Takes On Sex and Sexuality". Fashion & Style. New York Times. Archived from the original on February 1, 2014. ^ a b Perel, Esther (Jul 6, 2022). "Why Giving Your Partner SPACE Is Important For A Relationship" (Interview). Interviewed by Lewis Howes. YouTube. ^ a b c Mulkerrins, Jane (6 Oct 2019). "Relationship therapist Esther Perel: 'An affair doesn't have to be the end' ". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on October 8, 2019. ^ a b O'Brien, Kerrie (Oct 16, 2022). "She's a world-famous couples therapist. Here's what she thinks about 'The One' ". The Sydney Morning Herald. ^ Schwartz, Alexandra (9 December 2018). "Love Is Not a Permanent State of Enthusiasm: An Interview with Esther Perel". The New Yorker . Retrieved 2020-08-17 . ^ a b Perel, Esther (10 October 2017). The state of affairs : rethinking infidelity (First ed.). New York. ISBN 978-0-06-232258-6. OCLC 1005357589. {{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) ^ Sawyer, Miranda (Oct 29, 2017). "The Week in Radio Podcasts: Where Should We Begin". The Guardian (UK) . Retrieved Dec 31, 2018 . ^ Schwartz, Alexandra (May 31, 2017). "Esther Perel Lets Us Listen in On Couple's Secrets". The New Yorker . Retrieved Dec 31, 2018 . ^ Hess, Amanda (Aug 1, 2017). "The Art of the Taboo Podcast Interview". The New York Times . Retrieved Dec 31, 2018 . ^ "Where Should We Begin? Podcast - on iTunes". iTunes . Retrieved Dec 31, 2018 . ^ "2018 Gracie Awards". 17 April 2018 . Retrieved Dec 31, 2018 . ^ "How's Work Podcast". EstherPerel.com. ^ MacLellan, Lila (Oct 30, 2019). "Esther Perel, renowned couples therapist, is starting a podcast about work". Quartz . Retrieved Jan 26, 2020 . ^ Torres, Monica (Nov 11, 2019). "For Esther Perel, Work Is Personal '• And The Topic Of Her Brand-New Podcast". HuffPost . Retrieved Jan 26, 2020 . ^ "How's Work with Esther Perel Podcast Review". Podcast Maniac. December 3, 2019 . Retrieved Jan 26, 2020 . ^ "How's Work? with Esther Perel". Gimlet . Retrieved 2020-01-26 . ^ "How's Work? with Esther Perel - Esther Perel Global Media & Gimlet". Spotify . Retrieved 2020-01-26 . ^ "Vox Media Adds Another Former Spotify Podcast to Its Lineup". Bloomberg.com. 2023-03-11 . Retrieved 2023-03-13 . ^ "Meet the SuperSoul100: The World's Biggest Trailblazers in One Room". O Magazine. 1 Aug 2016 . Retrieved 5 Jul 2018 . ^ Gross, Elana Lyn; Voytko, Lisette; McGrath, Maggie (2021-06-02). "The New Golden Age". Forbes . Retrieved 2021-06-02 . Sources [ edit ] In search of Erotic Intelligence: Reconciling our desire for comfortable domesticity and hot sexSexual Genius: An Interview With Esther PerelEsther Perel on Mating in CaptivityExternal links [ edit ]

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Sun, 15 Oct 2023 15:11

Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974

Golda Meir[nb 1] (n(C)e Mabovitch ; 3 May 1898 '' 8 December 1978) was an Israeli politician who served as the fourth prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974. She was Israel's first and only female head of government, the first female head of government in the Middle East, and the fourth elected female head of government or state in the world.[5]

Born in Kiev in the Russian Empire to Jewish parents, Meir immigrated as a child with her family to the United States in 1906. She graduated from the Milwaukee State Normal School and found work as a teacher. While in Milwaukee, she embraced the Labor Zionist movement. In 1921, Meir and her husband emigrated to Mandatory Palestine, settling in Merhavia, later becoming the kibbutz's representative to the Histadrut. In 1934, she was elevated to the executive committee of the trade union. Meir held several key roles in the Jewish Agency during and after World War II. She was a signatory of the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948. Meir was elected to the Knesset in 1949 and served as Labor Minister until 1956, when she was appointed Foreign Minister by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. She retired from the ministry in 1966 due to ill health.

In 1969, Meir assumed the role of prime minister following the death of Levi Eshkol. Early in her tenure, she made multiple diplomatic visits with western leaders to promote her vision of peace in the region. The outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 caught Israel off guard and inflicted severe early losses on the army. The resulting public anger damaged Meir's reputation and led to an inquiry into the failings. Her Alignment coalition was denied a majority in the subsequent legislative election; she resigned the following year and was succeeded as prime minister by Yitzhak Rabin. Meir died in 1978 of lymphoma and was buried on Mount Herzl.

A controversial figure in Israel, Meir has been lionized as a founder of the state and described as the "Iron Lady" of Israeli politics, but also widely blamed for the country being caught by surprise during the war of 1973. In addition, her dismissive statements towards the Palestinians were widely scorned.[6] Most historians believe Meir was more successful as Secretary of Labor and Housing than as Premier.[7]

Early life Golda Mabovitch, before 1910Golda Mabovitch was born to a Ukrainian Jewish family[8] in downtown Kiev,[9] Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine) on May 3, 1898, to Blume Neiditch (died 1951) and Moshe Mabovitch (died 1944), a carpenter. Meir wrote in her autobiography that her earliest memories were of her father boarding up the front door in response to rumours of an imminent pogrom. She had two sisters, Sheyna (born 1889) and Tzipke (born 1902), as well as five other siblings who died in childhood.

Meir's father, Moshe, left the country to find work in New York City in 1903.[10] In his absence, the rest of the family moved to Pinsk (present-day Belarus) to join her mother's family. In 1905, Moshe moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in search of higher-paying work, and found employment in the workshops of the local railroad yard. The following year, he had saved up enough money to bring his family to the United States. Golda along with her mother and sisters landed in Quebec and traveled to Milwaukee by train.[11]

Meir's mother ran a grocery store on Milwaukee's north side. By age eight, Meir was often put in charge of watching the store when her mother went to buy supplies. She attended the Fourth Street Grade School (now Golda Meir School) from 1906 to 1912. A leader early on, she and a close friend, Regina Hamburger, organized the American Young Sisters Society, a fundraiser to pay for her classmates' textbooks in 1908. As part of the organization's activities, she rented a hall and scheduled a public meeting for the event. Despite frequent tardiness due to having to work in her mother's store, she graduated as valedictorian of her class.[11]

In 1912, she began studying at North Division High School and worked part-time. Her employers included Schuster's department store and the Milwaukee Public Library.[12][13] Her mother wanted Golda to leave school and marry, but she declined.

On 17 February 1913, Meir took a train to live with her married sister, Sheyna Korngold, in Denver, Colorado.[14] There, Meir attended North High School.[11] The Korngolds held intellectual evenings at their home, where Meir was exposed to debates on Zionism, literature, women's suffrage, trade unionism, and more. In her autobiography, she wrote: "To the extent that my own future convictions were shaped and given form ... those talk-filled nights in Denver played a considerable role."

Around 1913, she began dating her future husband Morris Meyerson, a sign painter and socialist.[15][16]

Return to Milwaukee, Zionist activism, and teaching Golda Mabovitch in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1914In 1914, after disagreements with her sister, Golda left North High School, moved out of her sister's home, and found work. After reconciling with her parents, she returned to Milwaukee and resumed studies at North Division High, graduating in 1915. While there, she became an active member of Young Poale Zion, which later became Habonim, the Labor Zionist youth movement. She spoke at public meetings and embraced Socialist Zionism.[17][11]

She attended the teachers college Milwaukee State Normal School (now University of Wisconsin''Milwaukee) in 1916, and likely part of 1917. In 1917, she took a position at a Yiddish-speaking Folks Schule in Milwaukee. There, she further embraced Labor Zionism.

On 9 July 1917, Golda became a naturalized US citizen, as her father had naturalized, and at that time children of naturalized citizens under the age of 21 received citizenship by descent.[11]

On 24 December 1917, Meir and Meyerson married. However, Meir's precondition for marriage was to settle in Palestine.[18] She had intended to make aliyah (immigration to Israel) straight away, but her plans were disrupted when all transatlantic passenger services were canceled due to the entry of the United States into the First World War.[19] She then threw her energies into Poale Zion activities. A short time after their wedding, she embarked on a fund-raising campaign for Poale Zion that took her across the United States.[18]

Immigration to Mandatory Palestine Golda Meir in the fields at Kibbutz Merhavia (1920s)In 1921, after the conclusion of the war, the couple moved to Palestine, then part of the British Mandate, along with Meir's sister Sheyna, Sheyna's daughter, and Meir's childhood friend Regina. They sailed on the SS Pocahontas, from New York to Naples, then from there to Tel Aviv by train. Meir's parents subsequently moved to Palestine in 1926.[16][11]

They were eventually accepted into kibbutz Merhavia in the Jezreel Valley after an initial rejected application. Her duties included picking almonds, planting trees, working in the chicken coops, and running the kitchen. Recognizing her leadership abilities, the kibbutz chose her as its representative to the Histadrut, the General Federation of Labour.

In 1924, the couple left the kibbutz and lived briefly in Tel Aviv before settling in Jerusalem. There, they had two children: a son Menachem in 1924, and a daughter Sarah in 1926.[21] Meir returned to Merhavia for a brief period in 1925.[11]

Early political career In 1928, Meir was elected secretary of Moetzet HaPoalot (Working Women's Council). She spent two years (1932''34) in the United States as an emissary for the organization and to get expert medical treatment for her daughter's kidney illness.[22][11]

In 1934, when Meir returned from the United States, she joined the Executive Committee of the Histadrut and moved up the ranks to become the head of its Political Department. This appointment was important training for her future role in Israeli leadership.[23]

In July 1938, Meir was the Jewish observer from Palestine at the ‰vian Conference, called by President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States to discuss the question of Jewish refugees' fleeing Nazi persecution. Delegates from the 32 invited countries repeatedly expressed their sorrow for the plight of the European Jews, but refused to admit the refugees.[24] The only exception was the Dominican Republic, which pledged to accept 100,000 refugees on generous terms.[25] Meir was disappointed at the outcome and she remarked to the press, "There is only one thing I hope to see before I die and that is that my people should not need expressions of sympathy anymore."[15]

Throughout World War II, Meir served several key roles in the Jewish Agency, which functioned as the government of British Palestine.[26]

In June 1946, Meir became acting head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency after the British arrested Moshe Sharett and other leaders of the Yishuv as part of Operation Agatha. This was a critical moment in her career: she became the principal negotiator between the Jews in Palestine and the British Mandatory authorities. After his release, Sharett went to the United States to attend talks on the UN Partition Plan, leaving Meir to head the Political Department until the establishment of the state in 1948.[23]

In 1947, she traveled to Cyprus to meet Jewish detainees of the Cyprus internment camps, who had been interned by the British after being caught trying to illegally enter Palestine, and persuade them to give priority to families with children to fill the small quota of detainees allowed into Palestine. She was largely successful in this task.[11][citation needed ]

Role in the Palestine War and the establishment of Israel On 17 November 1947, shortly before the outbreak of the 1947-1949 Palestine war, Meir met with King Abdullah I of Jordan. Abdullah I was seen as the only Arab leader willing to ally with a future Israeli state, as he also opposed the Mufti of Jerusalem and was rivals with other Arab countries. The meeting was cordial and confirmed that Abdullah was uninterested in invading and quietly willing to cooperate in future.[27]

First phase of the war Golda Meir in Haifa, 1947For most of the war, Meir reluctantly played what she felt was a minor role in Israel's activities. An article published by the Golda Meir institute said "she felt she was being pushed aside to a secondary arena".[26]

However, she played a critical role in fundraising. In January 1948, the Jewish agency needed to raise funds for the continuing war and the coming Israeli state. The treasurer of the Jewish Agency was convinced that they would not be able to raise more than $7 to $8 million from the American Jewish community. Meir raised over $30 million.[26] Key to her success was an emotional speech she first delivered in Chicago on 22 January.[28] She toured dozens of cities in the United States and returned to Israel on 18 March.[27]

The funds were critical to the success of the war effort and the establishment of Israel; by comparison, the opposing Arab Higher Committee's annual budget was around $2.25 million, similar to Haganah's annual budget before the war.[29] Ben-Gurion wrote that Meir's role as the "Jewish woman who got the money which made the state possible" would go down in history.[18]

However, upon returning home, she suffered a political setback. The Jewish Agency and National Council Executives excluded her from the 13-member cabinet of the provisional government of Israel, and only included her in the 37-member People's Council. Ben-Gurion protested this, saying "It is inconceivable that there shall be no adequate woman'...it is a moral and political necessity, for the Yishuv, the Jewish world and the Arab world." At one point, he even considered offering her his spot on the cabinet.[27]

On 13 April, she was hospitalized in Tel Aviv due to a suspected heart attack. Ben-Gurion and the political department heads urged her to guard her health and come to Jerusalem as soon as she could. They asked her to be "the mother of this city", and that her "words to 100,000 residents will be a source of blessing and encouragement".[27] However, she felt it was a secondary and temporary role.

Instead, on 6 May, she visited Haifa after its 22 April occupation by Hagannah. This trip had a significant impact on her. There, she witnessed an elderly Arab woman emerging from a destroyed house, clutching to her few remaining belongings. When the two women made eye contact, they burst into tears. Meir went on to call the mass expulsion and flight of Arabs before the 1948 Palestine war "dreadful", and likened it to what befall the Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe.[30] She returned to Tel Aviv, and eventually to Jerusalem two weeks before the end of the mandate.[27]

On 10 May, Meir had a second meeting with Abdullah I. She travelled to Amman in secret, disguised as an Arab woman. He proposed that Palestine be absorbed into Jordan, with autonomy granted to majority-Jewish areas. Golda rejected the proposal. It then seemed likely that Abdullah I would invade.[27]

Second phase of the war and appointment to Minister Plenipotentiary On 14 May 1948, Meir became one of 24 signatories (including two women) of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. She later recalled, "After I signed, I cried. When I studied American history as a schoolgirl and I read about those who signed the U.S. Declaration of Independence, I couldn't imagine these were real people doing something real. And there I was sitting down and signing a declaration of establishment."

A day after independence, the second phase of the war began. Meir also suddenly lost her job and administrative responsibilities, as the Political Department became the provisional Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and her leadership role in Jerusalem was taken over by Dov Yosef.

On 18 May, she embarked on a second and even more successful fundraising tour in which she raised around $50 million. In total, her fundraising efforts raised around $90 million, around a third of the cost of the war ($275 million).[26] During preparations for this trip, she was issued the first Israeli passport.[27][31][32] Over the ten weeks that she was gone, Israel was battered by the war and changed drastically.

On 25 June, while still in the United States, Meir was appointed by Sharett, then the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as the minister plenipotentiary to the Soviet Union, which recently recognized Israel.

Meir was displeased by the offer. She spoke no Russian and feared being lonely in Moscow. She said "At last we have a state. I want to be there. I don't want to go thousands of miles away. Why do I always have to go away?"[27]

Her return to Israel was delayed due to a car crash in which she tore a ligament and fractured a bone.[27] Soviet officials refused to believe she was in hospital and wanted an Israeli envoy as soon as possible. Thus she ignored doctor's orders to rest and returned to Israel on 29 July. Years later, her leg would frequently pain her.

Government career before premiereship Minister Plenipotentiary to the Soviet Union (1948''1949) Meir surrounded by crowd of 50,000 Jews near Moscow Choral Synagogue on the first day of Rosh Hashanah in 1948. This image later appeared on the 1984 10,000-shekel banknote.Meir served as minister plenipotentiary to the Soviet Union from 2 September 1948 to 10 March 1949.[33]

She was reportedly impatient with diplomatic niceties and using interpreters. She did not drink or ballroom dance and had little interest in gossip and fashion. According to her interpreter, when asked by a Russian ambassador how she traveled to Moscow, she responded "tell His Excellency the Ambassador that we arrived riding on donkeys".[27]

This was an important and difficult role. Good relations with the Soviet Union impacted Israel's ability to secure arms from Eastern European countries. In turn, Joseph Stalin and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov saw its relationship with Israel as a means of furthering the Soviet position in the Middle East.[34] However, Soviet''Israeli relations were complicated by Soviet policies against religious institutions and nationalist movements, made manifest in actions to shut down Jewish religious institutions as well as the ban on Hebrew language study and the prohibition of promoting emigration to Israel.[35]

Just 20 days after her term began, antisemitic crackdowns began in response to an article by Soviet Jewish writer Ilya Ehrenburg.[36] Meir and the other Israeli representatives responded by making a point of visiting Russian Jewish businesses, synagogues, and performances.[33]

On 3 October, during Rosh Hashanah celebrations at the Moscow Choral Synagogue, she was mobbed by thousands of Russian Jews chanting in Russian "Nasha Golda", meaning "Our Golda". In her autobiography she said "I felt as though I had been caught up in a torrent of love so strong that it had literally taken my breath away and slowed down my heart." This event was commemorated by the Israeli 10,000-shekel banknote issued in November 1984. It bore a portrait of Meir on one side and the image of the crowd greeting her in Moscow on the other.[37]

To her close friends, she admitted she had little to do in Moscow and felt isolated from Israeli politics.[27] Despite being a socialist that was born in Ukraine, her Jewish side caused friction with the Soviets that made progress difficult. By the end of her term, she felt she had accomplished little. She reportedly felt guilty for not achieving more for the Russian Jews, as she would have been in their situation if her father had not moved to the United States.

She planned to run for the first Knesset elections on 25 January 1949. The month before the elections, she returned to Israel and campaigned for Mapai. Mapai won 35% of the votes and formed a coalition, and Ben-Gurion invited her into the cabinet. She was sworn in on 8 March, and continued to serve in the Knesset until 1974.

Labor Minister (1949''1956) Golda Meir and Eva Per"n in Argentina, 1951.Golda Meir at first session of the third government (1951)Ben-Gurion initially offered Meir the position of "deputy prime minister", which she rejected. She found the title and responsibilities vague, and disliked the idea of needing to coordinate with so many government departments.[27]

Instead, she took the role of Labor Minister, which she held from 10 March 1949 to 19 June 1956.[27] Meir enjoyed this role much more than her previous, calling it her "seven beautiful years". In particular, she enjoyed the ability to act quickly and with little friction from others. She was also one of the most powerful Israeli politicians at the time.

The main source of friction in the role was funding, especially to deal with the millions of immigrants arriving in the new state. In October 1950, Meir announced in Washington a three-year-plan for Israel's development and stated a price tag of $15 billion over the next 15 years. The Israeli government managed to secure a loan from the United States government and American Jews that secured 40% of the budget. The newly-created Israel Bonds only provided a small amount, although years later they would contribute billions to the Israeli economy.[27]

Meir assisted in building over a hundred ma'abarot (Hebrew: מַ×ְבָּרוֹת ), temporary immigrant camps with crude tin-roofed huts and tents for housing. She drew criticism from many new immigrants and contemporary politicians due to this, but responded by pointing to her limited budget and the time needed to construct proper housing. In 1953, she assisted in an effort to eliminite the ma'abarot. By 1956, two-thirds were eliminated, and 120,000 families moved to permanent housing.[38][27]

Meir considered herself highly productive during this period.[27] She carried out welfare state policies, orchestrated the integration of immigrants into Israel's workforce,[39] and introduced major housing and road construction projects.[40] From 1949 to 1956, 200,000 apartments and 30,000 houses were built, large industrial and agricultural developments were initiated, and new hospitals, schools, and roads were built.[38] Despite the complaints of her colleagues in the Finance Ministry, Meir worked to establish social security, maternity benefits, work-related accident insurance, benefits to widows and orphans, and even burial costs.[41]

In 1954, she sided with Ben-Gurion against Pinhas Lavon in the Lavon Affair.[27]

In the summer of 1955, Meir reluctantly ran for the position of mayor of Tel Aviv on request of her party. At the time, mayors were elected by the city council and not directly. She lost by the two votes of the religious bloc who withheld their support on the grounds that she was a woman.[42][43] While angered by the sexism she encountered, she was happy to rejoin her colleagues in the cabinet.[27]

On 3 August 1955, she was again hospitalized after complaining of chest pains, and was diagnosed with arrhythmia.[27]

Foreign Minister (1956''1966) Meir with U.S. President John F. Kennedy, 27 December 1962.In October 1955, Ben-Gurion appointed Meir as foreign minister, replacing Sharett. The occasional disagreements between Ben-Gurion and Sharett had escalated to snubbing in meetings and refusals to speak face-to-face. Meir, while less experienced in foreign affairs than Sharett, had a consistently loyal and friendly relationship with Ben-Gurion. While Meir eventually came to enjoy her new job, she disliked the lingering pro-Sharett colleagues in her department.[27]

Meir served as foreign minister from 18 June 1956 to 12 January 1966. Her first months as Foreign Minister coincided with the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which Israel, Britain, and France invaded Egypt to regain Western control over the Suez Canal, remove the President of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser, and secure freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran for Israel.[44] Meir planned and coordinated with the French government and military prior to the start of the invasion.[45] During United Nations debates about the crisis, Meir took charge of the Israeli delegation.[46] After the fighting started, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Nations forced the three invaders to withdraw.

As foreign minister, Meir promoted ties with the newly established states in Africa in an effort to gain allies in the international community.[40] She also believed that Israel had experience in nation-building that could be a model for the Africans. In her autobiography, she wrote:

Like them, we had shaken off foreign rule; like them, we had to learn for ourselves how to reclaim the land, how to increase the yields of our crops, how to irrigate, how to raise poultry, how to live together, and how to defend ourselves. Israel could be a role model because it had been forced to find solutions to the kinds of problems that large, wealthy, powerful states had never encountered.[47]

She also devoted much effort to convincing the United States to sell Israel weaponry. One success in this area came in 1962, when the White House quietly agreed to sell Hawk missiles to Israel.[27] Israel's relationship with the Soviet Union remained frosty during her tenure.

On 29 October 1957, Meir's foot was slightly injured when a Mills bomb was thrown into the debating chamber of the Knesset. David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Carmel were more seriously injured. The attack was carried out by 25-year-old Moshe Dwek. Born in Aleppo, his motives were attributed to a dispute with the Jewish Agency, but he was described as being "mentally unbalanced".[48]

In 1958, Meir praised Pope Pius XII's assistance of the Jewish people shortly after his death. The pontiff's legacy as a wartime pope has continued to be controversial into the 21st century.[49]

The same year, during the wave of Jewish migration from Poland to Israel, Meir sought to prevent disabled and sick Polish Jews from immigrating to Israel. In a letter sent to Israel's ambassador in Warsaw, Katriel Katz, she wrote:

A proposal was raised in the coordination committee to inform the Polish government that we want to institute selection in aliyah, because we cannot continue accepting sick and handicapped people. Please give your opinion as to whether this can be explained to the Poles without hurting immigration."[50]

In late 1965, 67-year-old Meir was diagnosed with lymphoma.[27] In January 1966, she retired from her role as Foreign Minister, citing exhaustion and ill health, although she continued to serve in the Knesset and as secretary-general of Mapai.[40]

Premiership (1969''1974) PM Golda Meir in Tel Aviv, July, 1969Prime Minister Levi Eshkol died suddenly on 26 February 1969, leading to the appointment of Yigal Allon as interim prime minister and an election to replace him.[51][52] Before the vote, most suspected that Meir would be elected. On 7 March 1969, the party's central committee voted Meir as the new party leader. 71-year-old Meir had mixed feelings, due to her health concerns, but eventually agreed, saying that she would honor the party's decision, just as she had honored all of the party's past decisions.[52][53][54]

Meir served as prime minister from 17 March 1969 to 3 June 1974. She maintained the national unity government formed in 1967 after the Six-Day War, in which Mapai merged with two other parties (Rafi and Ahdut HaAvoda) to form the Israeli Labor Party.[40]

Six months after taking office, Meir led the reconfigured Alignment, comprising Labor and Mapam, into the 1969 general election. The Alignment managed what is still the best showing for a single party or faction in Israeli history, winning 56 seats. This is the only time that a party or faction has approached winning an outright majority in an election. The national unity government was retained.

In 1969 and the early 1970s, Meir met with many world leaders to promote her peace settlement idea, including Richard Nixon (1969), Nicolae CeauÈescu (1972) and Pope Paul VI (1973). In 1973, she hosted the chancellor of West Germany, Willy Brandt, in Israel.[40]

In August 1970, Meir accepted a U.S. peace initiative that called for an end to the War of Attrition and an Israeli pledge to withdraw to "secure and recognized boundaries" in the framework of a comprehensive peace settlement. The Gahal party quit the national unity government in protest, but Meir continued to lead the remaining coalition.[55]

On February 28, 1973, during a visit in Washington, D.C., Meir agreed with Henry Kissinger's peace proposal based on "security versus sovereignty": Israel would accept Egyptian sovereignty over all Sinai, while Egypt would accept Israeli presence in some of Sinai's strategic positions.[56][57][58][59][60]

"There was no such thing as Palestinians" In June 1969, on the two-year anniversary of the Six-Day War, Meir stated in an interview that there was no such thing as Palestinians, a comment later described by Al Jazeera as "one of her defining '' and most damning '' legacies."[61] [62] This phrase is considered to be the most famous example of Israeli denial of Palestinian identity.[63]

The interview entitled Who can blame Israel was published in The Sunday Times on June 15, 1969, and included the following exchange:

Frank Giles: Do you think the emergence of the Palestinian fighting forces, the Fedayeen, is an important new factor in the Middle East?Golda Meir: Important, no. A new factor, yes. There was no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist.[64] Munich Olympics (1972) Meir (center) with Pat and President Richard Nixon in Washington, DC, in 1973.In the wake of the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics, Meir appealed to the world to "save our citizens and condemn the unspeakable criminal acts committed".[65] Outraged at the perceived lack of global action, she ordered the Mossad to hunt down and assassinate suspected leaders and operatives of Black September and the PFLP.[66]

Dispute with Austria (1973) During the 1970s, about 200,000 Soviet Jewish emigrants were allowed to leave the Soviet Union for Israel by way of Austria. When seven of these emigrants were taken hostage at the Austria''Czechoslovakia border by Palestinian militants in September 1973, the Chancellor of Austria, Bruno Kreisky, closed the Jewish Agency's transit facility in Sch¶nau, Austria. A few days later in Vienna, Meir tried to convince Kreisky to reopen the facility by appealing to his own Jewish origin, and described his position as "succumbing to terrorist blackmail". Kreisky did not change his position, so Meir returned to Israel, infuriated. A few months later, Austria opened a new transition camp.[68]

Yom Kippur War (1973) US President Richard Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir meeting on March 1, 1973, in the Oval Office. Nixon's National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger is to the right of Nixon.A common criticism of Meir is that she could have avoided the Yom Kippur War in 1973. For months preceding the attack, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made repeated overtures for peace in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai, but these gestures were rebuffed by Meir, who had offered previously to discuss ceding "most of the Sinai", but was not willing to restore the pre-1967 borders, and Egypt had no interest in peace talks under Meir's conditions.[6] As the nation's leader during this short war, her main goal was deciding on the timing of preliminary operations, and providing the IDF with the necessary time and munitions to pull off a victory.[69]

In the days leading up to the Yom Kippur War, Israeli intelligence could not conclusively determine that an attack was imminent. However, on 5 October 1973, Meir received information that Syrian forces were massing on the Golan Heights. She was alarmed by the reports, and believed that the situation was similar to what preceded the Six-Day War. However, her advisers counseled her not to worry, saying they would have adequate notice before any war broke out. This made sense at the time; after the Six Day War, most in the Israeli intelligence community considered the Arabs unprepared to launch another attack.[70] Consequently, although the Knesset passed a resolution granting her power to demand a full-scale call-up of the military (instead of the typical cabinet decision), Meir did not mobilize Israel's forces early. Soon, though, the threat of war became very clear. Six hours before the outbreak of hostilities, Meir met with Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan and General David Elazar. While Dayan continued to argue that war was unlikely and favored calling up the air force and only two divisions, Elazar advocated full-scale army mobilization and the launch of a full-scale preemptive strike on Syrian forces.[71]

On October 6, Meir approved full-scale mobilizing but rejected a preemptive strike, citing concerns that Israel might be perceived as initiating hostilities, which would hurt Israel's access to crucial foreign aid and military support, in particular from the United States, in the resulting conflict. She made it a priority to inform Washington of her decision. U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger later confirmed Meir's assessment by stating that if Israel had launched a preemptive strike, Israel would not have received the backing of the United States.[72][73]

Resignation (1974) Golda Meir Memorial Plaque on the building where she was born (5-A Baseina Street, Kyiv)Following the Yom Kippur War, Meir's government was plagued by infighting and questions over Israel's lack of preparation for the war. The Agranat Commission appointed to investigate the war cleared Meir of "direct responsibility". It said about her actions on Yom Kippur morning:

She decided wisely, with common sense and speedily, in favour of the full mobilization of the reserves, as recommended by the chief-of-staff, despite weighty political considerations, thereby performing a most important service for the defence of the state.[72]

Her party won the elections in December 1973, but the coalition lost seats and was unable to form a majority. Meir resigned as prime minister on 11 April 1974, and gave up her Knesset seat on 7 June 1974. She never held office again. She believed that was the "will of the people" and that she had served enough time as premier. She believed the government needed to form a coalition. She said, "Five years are sufficient ... It is beyond my strength to continue carrying this burden."[72][74] Yitzhak Rabin succeeded her on June 3, 1974.

After premiereship and death (1974''1978) In 1975, Meir published her autobiography, My Life, which became a New York Times Best Seller.[72][75]

On 21 November 1977, Meir spoke at the Knesset on behalf of the Labor Party to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat during his historic trip as the first Arab leader to visit Israel. She said his visit was important for the sake of the next generations' avoiding war, praised Sadat for his courage and vision, and expressed the hope that while many differences remained to be resolved, that vision would be achieved in a spirit of mutual understanding.[76][77]

On 8 December 1978, Meir died of lymphatic cancer (lymphoma) in Jerusalem at the age of 80. She was buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.[78][79]

Personal life Golda Meir's grave on Mount HerzlMeir's husband Morris Meyerson (also "Myerson") was born on 17 December 1893 in Chicago, Illinois. They married on December 24, 1917, and remained married until his death in Jerusalem on 25 May 1951. She never remarried. Despite never divorcing, the couple grew apart over the course of the marriage.[18] When Meir took her children with her to the United States in the 1930s, Morris stayed behind in Jerusalem.

Meir had two children.[21] Her son, Menachem, was born on 1924 in Jerusalem and died on 14 December 2014 in Tel Aviv. He was a professional cellist who studied at the Israel Conservatory and Manhattan School of Music.[80] Her daughter Sarah was born on 17 May 1926 and died on 30 January 2010 in Revivim.[81]

She had two sisters, Sheyna (1889''1972) and Tzipke (1902''1981), as well as five other siblings who died in childhood.

Morris, Sheyna Korngold and her husband Shamai were buried on Nahalat Yitzhak Cemetery in Givatayim.

In 1956, after becoming Foreign Minister, she changed her surname from "Meyerson" to "Meir", meaning "illuminate", as her predecessor Moshe Sharett had all members of the foreign service take a Hebrew surname.

She was a heavy smoker and coffee drinker, and did not exercise often, which may have contributed to her recurring heart problems.[27]

Of her Jewish identity, Meir said in the 1975 edition of her autobiography My Life that:

It is not only a matter, I believe, of religious observance and practice. To me, being Jewish means and has always meant being proud to be part of a people that has maintained its distinct identity for more than 2,000 years, with all the pain and torment that has been inflicted upon it.[82]

She strongly identified with Judaism culturally, but was an atheist in religious belief.[83][84][85] She is famously reported to have stated: "I believe in the Jewish people, and the Jewish people believe in God."[86]

Awards and recognition In 1974, Meir was awarded the honor of World Mother by American Mothers.[87]In 1974 Meir was awarded the James Madison Award for Distinguished Public Service by Princeton University's American Whig''Cliosophic Society.[88]

In 1975, Meir was awarded the Israel Prize for her special contribution to society and the State of Israel.[72][89]

In 1985, Meir was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame.[90]

Legacy Biographer Meron Medzini argues that a perspective of forty years makes possible an appreciation of her deep nationalism and Zionism. Historians find her main legacy includes effective leadership of the Labor Movement, and building good relationships with Third World nations. Medzini states, "Apart from laying the foundations for Israel's presence in Africa, she was never taken with the routine and often dull diplomatic work in the Foreign Ministry and abhorred its outer manifestations of ceremonies and rites."[91] Most historians agree she was a success as Secretary of Labor and Housing, but a failure as prime minister.[7]

A controversial figure in Israel, she has been lionized as a founder of the state and described as the "Iron Lady" of Israeli politics, but also widely blamed for the country being caught by surprise during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. She was also widely criticized for her dismissive statements towards the Palestinians.[6]

Portrayals in film and theater Facade of the Golda Meir Center for the Performing Arts '' home to the Israeli Opera and the Cameri Theater, Tel AvivMeir's story has been the subject of many fictionalized portrayals. In 1977, Anne Bancroft played Meir in William Gibson's Broadway play Golda. The Australian actress Judy Davis played a young Meir in the television film A Woman Called Golda (1982), opposite Leonard Nimoy. Ingrid Bergman played the older Meir in the same film. Actress Colleen Dewhurst portrayed Meir in the 1986 TV movie Sword of Gideon.[92]

In 2003, American Jewish actress Tovah Feldshuh portrayed her on Broadway in Golda's Balcony, Gibson's second play about Meir's life. The play was controversial for implying that Meir considered using nuclear weapons during the Yom Kippur War.[citation needed ] Valerie Harper portrayed Meir in the touring company production and in the film version of Golda's Balcony.[93] In 2005, actress Lynn Cohen portrayed Meir in Steven Spielberg's film Munich.

Tovah Feldshuh assumed the role of Meir again in the 2006 English-language French movie O Jerusalem. She was played by the Polish actress Beata Fudalej in the 2009 dramatic film The Hope directed by Mrta M(C)szros.[94]

Actress Helen Mirren portrayed Meir in the 2023 Golda biopic film directed by Guy Nattiv and produced by Michael Kuhn. The film centres on the Yom Kippur War.[95]

As of April 2021, a TV miniseries Lioness starring Shira Haas is also currently being produced and will be directed by Barbra Streisand.[96]

Commemoration Golda Meir Square in ManhattanIsraeli 10 New Sheqalim Banknote commemorating Golda MeirGolda Meir House Museum and Education Center, Auraria Campus, 1149 9t Street, Denver CO 80204Golda Meir School, Milwaukee, Wisconsin[97]Golda Meir School, in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil[98]Golda Meir Library, University of Wisconsin''Milwaukee, Wisconsin[99]Golda Meir Boulevard, Jerusalem, Israel (and various other streets, neighborhoods and schools in Israel)Golda Meir Center for the Performing Arts '' home to the Israeli Opera and the Cameri Theater, Tel Aviv[100]Bust of Golda Meir at Golda Meir Square, New York City[101]Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership at Metropolitan State University of Denver[102]Golda Meir House, Denver, Colorado[15][103]Golda Meir House, Newton, Massachusetts[104]Golda Meir Street in the city of KyivCultural references In Israel, the term "Golda's shoes" (na'alei Golda) has become a reference to the sturdy orthopedic shoes that Golda favored. These shoes were also supplied to women soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces from its foundation to 1987.[105]

Published works This Is Our Strength (1962) '' Golda Meir's collected papersMy Father's House (1972)My Life (1975). Putnam, ISBN 0-399-11669-9.See also ‰vian ConferenceList of Israel Prize recipientsNotes References ^ "Meir". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins . Retrieved June 26, 2019 . ^ "Meir, Golda". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on February 25, 2021. ^ "Meir". Merriam-Webster Dictionary . Retrieved June 26, 2019 . ^ "Golda Meir: An Outline of a Unique Life: A Chronological Survey of Gola Meir's Life and Legacy". The Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership (Metropolitan State University of Denver) . Retrieved February 20, 2014 . Reference on name pronunciation (see "1956"). ^ Kort, Michael (2002). The Handbook of the Middle East. Lerner Publishing Group. p. 76. ISBN 9781315170688. ^ a b c " 'Golda' biopic aims to counter notion that PM was chiefly to blame for Yom Kippur War". The Times of Israel. August 26, 2023 . Retrieved August 28, 2023 . ^ a b Meron Medzini, "Golda Meir''A Forty Year Perspective." Israel Studies 23.1 (2018): 73-85. online ^ "Golda Meir becomes Israeli Prime Minister | History Today". www.historytoday.com . Retrieved April 26, 2021 . ^ Костюк, БоÐ"дана (February 21, 2021). " "Ð'ати ІзÑаїÐ>>ю" з КиÑ--ва: 120 Ñоків від дня наÑодження ҐоÐ>>ди Ð'еїÑ". Радіо Ðвобода (in Ukrainian) . Retrieved May 27, 2021 . ^ "Golda Meir's American Roots". American Jewish Historical Society. Archived from the original on April 26, 2011 . Retrieved June 27, 2016 . {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) ^ a b c d e f g h i Chronology of Golda Meir ^ Jim Higgins (November 27, 2017). "Author recounts Golda Meir's career as a leader, which began as a schoolgirl in Milwaukee". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel . Retrieved November 27, 2017 . ^ "Goldie Mabowehz (Golda Meir), from the Milwaukee Public Library to Prime Minister of Israel". Milwaukee Public Library. March 15, 2017 . Retrieved November 27, 2017 . ^ "North Denver's Most Famous Former Resident? '' The Denver North Star". April 25, 2022 . Retrieved February 17, 2023 . ^ a b c Golda Meir: An Outline Of A Life Metropolitan State College of Denver, mscd.edu; accessed November 22, 2015. ^ a b "Golda Meir (1898''1978)". University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee . Retrieved December 8, 2017 . ^ "Golda Meir". Jewish Virtual Library . Retrieved December 8, 2017 . ^ a b c d Mother of a nation, but not much of a mother [permanent dead link ] Haaretz, July 7, 2008 ^ Legacy Staff (October 7, 2015). "Golda Meir: 10 Facts". Legacy.com . Retrieved April 6, 2021 . ^ a b "Golda Meir | Jewish Women's Archive". jwa.org . Retrieved June 12, 2018 . ^ Golda Meir, Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel, ed. Raphael Patai, New York, 1971, vol. II, pp. 776''77 ^ a b "Golda Meir", Encyclopaedia Judaica, Keter, 1972, Jerusalem, vol. 11, pp. 1242''45 ^ Fl¼chtlingskonferenz von ‰vian 1938, Als die Welt sich abwandte, Der Spiegel, July 6, 2018. (in German) ^ "MJHnyc.org" (PDF) . Archived from the original (PDF) on September 29, 2011 . Retrieved September 2, 2011 . ^ a b c d "Israel Midwife: Golda Meir in the Closing Years of the British Mandate". www.goldameir.org.il . Retrieved February 18, 2023 . ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Medzini, Meron (2017). Golda Meir: A Political Biography (illustrated ed.). Walter de Gruyter GmbH. p. 155. ISBN 9783110492507. ^ "Speech that made possible a Jewish State - Jan. 2, 1948". Archives of Women's Political Communication . Retrieved February 18, 2023 . ^ Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine, vol.3 Fayard 2007 p.33. ^ Margolick, David. "Endless War" New York Times, May 4, 2008 ^ "Golda". The Emery/Weiner School. Archived from the original on July 26, 2011. ^ Pine, Dan. "Golda Meir's life was devoted to building Zionism". San Francisco Jewish Community Publications. Archived from the original on August 26, 2012 . Retrieved July 15, 2005 . ^ a b Yossi Goldstein, "Doomed to Fail: Golda Meir's Mission to Moscow (Part 1)", The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs Vol. 5 No. 3 (September 2011), p. 131 ^ Yossi Goldstein, "Doomed to Fail: Golda Meir's Mission to Moscow (Part 1)", The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs Vol. 5 No. 3 (September 2011), p. 134 and 137 ^ Goldstein (Sept 2011), "Doomed to Fail", p. 138 ^ "Answer to a Letter". www.revolutionarydemocracy.org . Retrieved February 18, 2023 . ^ Call Uncle Sam [dead link ] Archived July 26, 2011, at the Wayback Machine News Behind the News, June 10, 2001 ^ a b Flatt, J.M.M. (2012). Powerful Political Women: Stirring Biographies of Some of History's Most Powerful Women. iUniverse. p. 172. ISBN 9781462068197 . Retrieved December 3, 2014 . ^ "Biography". Morim Madrichim . Retrieved January 31, 2013 . [permanent dead link ] ^ a b c d e "Golda Meir", Encyclop...dia Britannica, Microp...dia, 1974, 15th edition, p. 762 ^ Reich, B. (1990). Political Leaders of the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa: A Biographical Dictionary. Greenwood Press. p. 329. ISBN 9780313262135 . Retrieved December 3, 2014 . ^ My Life. p. 232. She 'wasn't very pleased' with B.G. and was 'enraged' by the religious bloc. ^ Dana Blander, "Elections for the Local Authority '' Who, What, When, Where and How?", first published in Parliament, November 5, 2008, posted at Israel Democratic Institute; accessed August 21, 2018 ^ The Arab-Israeli Wars, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Retrieved March 21, 2015 ^ Israel Studies An Anthology: The Sinai War and Suez Crisis, 1956''7, Motti Golani, 2010, Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved March 21, 2015 ^ Golda Meir: An Outline of a Unique Life '' A Chronological Survey of Gola Meir's Life and Legacy, Gold Meir Center for Political Leadership, Metropolitan State University of Denver. Retrieved March 21, 2015 ^ Golda Meir, My Life, (New York: Dell Publishing, 1975), pp. 308''09 ^ Robert William St. John, Ben Gurion. Jarrods Publishers (Hutchinson Group), London. 1959. pp. 304''306. ^ "Jewish Gratitude for the Help of Pope Pius XII Who helped them against the perverse regime of the Nazis". Catholic Apologetics . Retrieved September 2, 2011 . ^ "Golda Meir wanted to keep sick Poles from making aliyah". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. December 9, 2009. Archived from the original on December 12, 2009. ^ 1969: Israel elects first female leader BBC News ^ a b "Golda Meir Consents to Lead Israel" . The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved July 19, 2022 '' via Newspapers.com. ^ Kenig, Ofer (2009). "Democratizing Party Leadership Selection in Israel: A Balance Sheet". Israel Studies Forum. 24 (1): 62''81. ISSN 1557-2455. JSTOR 41805011 . Retrieved January 25, 2022 . ^ "Party Chiefs Back Mrs. Mier; Thant Fears Suez Outburst" . The Philadelphia Inquirera. The Associated Press. March 4, 1969 . Retrieved July 19, 2022 '' via Newspapers.com. ^ "Golda Meir" Encyclopaedia Judaica, Keter, Jerusalem, 1972, pp. 1242''44. ^ Yitzhak Rabin (1996). The Rabin Memoirs. University of California Press. p. 215. ISBN 978-0-520-20766-0. security versus sovereignty ... Israel would have to accept Egyptian sovereignty over all the Sinai, while Egypt, in turn, would have to accept Israeli military presence in certain [Sinai] strategic positions. ^ Henry Kissinger (May 24, 2011). Years of Upheaval. Simon and Schuster. pp. 252''. ISBN 978-1-4516-3647-5. "She (Golda Meir) would be prepared to have me (Kissinger) continue to explore in private with Hafiz Ismail (the Egyptian delegate) some general principles of an overall settlement" this hint is compatible with Rabin description of Golda readiness for recognizing Egyptian sovereignty in Sinai ^ P.R. Kumaraswamy (January 11, 2013). Revisiting the Yom Kippur War. Routledge. pp. 105''. ISBN 978-1-136-32888-6. In February 1973, Kissinger held talks with Sadat's National Security Advisor, Hafez Ismail. ... memoirs that Kissinger told him that, on the basis of his conversations with Hafez Ismail, Egypt might be ready to start negotiating if Israel acknowledged Egyptian sovereignty over all of Sinai. Rabin consulted with Prime Minister Golda Meir and told Kissinger that Israel authorized him to explore this approach. ^ Richard Bordeaux Parker (2001). The October War: A Retrospective. University Press of Florida. pp. 64''. ISBN 978-0-8130-1853-9. Dinits evidence ^ Steven L. Spiegel (October 15, 1986). The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict: Making America's Middle East Policy, from Truman to Reagan. University of Chicago Press. pp. 237''. ISBN 978-0-226-76962-2. based on Rabin ^ Said, Fifty Years of Dispossession ^ The mixed legacy of Golda Meir, Israel's first female PM ^ Waxman, D. (2006). The Pursuit of Peace and the Crisis of Israeli Identity: Defending/Defining the Nation. Palgrave Macmillan US. p. 50. ISBN 978-1-4039-8347-3 . Retrieved November 22, 2021 . ^ Frank Giles (June 15, 1969). "Golda Meir: 'Who can blame Israel' ". Sunday Times. p. 12. ^ Hostages killed in gun battle Daily Telegraph, September 5, 1972 ^ Morris, B. (2001) [1999]. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist''Arab Conflict, 1881''2000. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-74475-4. ^ Kathrin Bachleitner, "Golda Meir and Bruno Kreisky''A Political and Personal Duel." Israel Studies 23.1 (2018): 26-49. ^ Hagai Tsoref, "Golda Meir's Leadership in the Yom Kippur War." Israel Studies 23.1 (2018): 50-72. ^ Riedel, Bruce (September 25, 2017). "Enigma: The anatomy of Israel's intelligence failure almost 45 years ago". Brookings. Brookings Institution . Retrieved August 29, 2023 . ^ Interview with Abraham Rabinovich: The Yom Kippur War as a Turning Point, History News Network ^ a b c d e Meir, Golda (1975). My Life . G. P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 9780399116698. ^ "The October War and U.S. Policy", National Security Archive, declassified archival records, George Washington University ^ Biography of Golda Meir, Zionism and Israel ^ See Schmidt (2004) for a close reading. ^ Remarks by Golda Meir to President Sadat in the Knesset, Jewish Virtual Library ^ "Three years too late, Golda Meir understood how war could have been avoided", Times of Israel ^ Golda Meir: a political biography ^ Golda Meir, a BBC News profile. ^ "Menahem MEIR 1924''2014". www.seligman.org.il . Retrieved February 17, 2023 . ^ "Sarah MEIR 1926''2010". www.seligman.org.il . Retrieved February 17, 2023 . ^ Golda Meir (1975). My Life. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 459. ISBN 0860073947. ^ Giulio Meotti (2011). A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism. p. 147. ISBN 9781459617414. "Even atheist and socialist Israelis like David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, and Golda Meir were marked by the stories and legends of King David and the prophets. In other words, their lives had been shaped by Hebron." ^ Fischer, Raymond Robert. Israel My Inheritance: Persecuted Messianic Jews Cry Out for Justice and Reform. Lake Mary: Creation House, 2011. Print. ^ See Emma Goldman, "The Philosophy of Atheism", in Christopher Hitchens, ed., The Portable Atheist (Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2007), 129''133; Golda Meir is quoted by Jonathan Rosen in "So Was It Odd of God?", The New York Times, December 14, 2003. ^ Rosen, Jonathan (December 14, 2003). "So Was It Odd of God?". The New York Times . Retrieved December 22, 2018 . He seems to subscribe to Golda Meir's observation: 'I believe in the Jewish people, and the Jewish people believe in God.''‰ ^ "Past National Mothers of The Year". Archived from the original on March 23, 2011. ^ "UN Secretariat Item: Letter '' The American Whig-Cliosophic Society : James Madison Award for Distinguished Public Service '' 1974 '' Golda Meir" (PDF) . Archives-trim.un.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 26, 2012 . Retrieved November 25, 2012 . ^ "Israel Prize Official Site '' Recipients in 1975 (in Hebrew)". ^ Colorado Women's Hall of Fame, Golda Meir ^ Medzini, (2017) p. 685. ^ "Filmography for Colleen Dewhurst". Turner Classic Movies . Retrieved February 1, 2018 . ^ Gans, Andrew (October 10, 2007). " 'Golda's Balcony' Film, with Valerie Harper, Begins Engagement at Quad Cinema Oct. 10". Playbill . Retrieved February 1, 2018 . ^ "M(C)szros wraps production on historical drama The Hope" Screen Daily. February 26, 2009 ^ "Helen Mirren to Star as Israeli Leader Golda Meir in Guy Nattiv's 'Golda,' Produced by Michael Kuhn". April 6, 2021. ^ JTA. "Shira Haas to play Golda Meir in US TV series". jewishnews.timesofisrael.com . Retrieved April 6, 2021 . ^ Fourth Street School Wisconsin Historical Society ^ "Unidades Escolares". Government of Rio de Janeiro. Archived from the original on March 16, 2018 . Retrieved March 15, 2018 . ^ Hubbard, John. "Frequently Asked Questions: Library Information". University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Archived from the original on February 12, 2018 . Retrieved March 15, 2018 . ^ "Golda Center '' Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center". Zeev Matar Ltd. '' זאב מ×ר ב×"מ. Archived from the original on March 15, 2016 . Retrieved March 15, 2018 . ^ Jerold S. Kayden; New York (N.Y.). Dept. of City Planning; The Municipal Art Society of New York (November 6, 2000). Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience. John Wiley & Sons. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-471-36257-9. ^ "A Chronological Survey of Gola Meir's Life and Legacy". Mscd.edu . Retrieved September 2, 2011 . ^ Golda Meir House U.S. Library of Congress ^ "Golda Meir House". Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly. Archived from the original on July 3, 2013 . Retrieved March 15, 2018 . ^ "Israel's Women GIs Kick Off 'Golda Shoes' ". Los Angeles Times. Tel Aviv. AP. May 11, 1987. Archived from the original on October 4, 2013 . Retrieved October 3, 2013 . Sources Avner, Yehuda (2010). The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership. Toby Press. ISBN 978-1-59264-278-6. OCLC 758724969. Burkett, Elinor (2008). Golda Meir: The Iron Lady of the Middle East. Gibson Square. ISBN 978-1-906142-13-1. Medzini, Meron. "Golda Meir''A Forty Year Perspective." Israel Studies 23.1 (2018): 73-85. onlineFurther reading Agrees, Elijahu (1969). Golda Meir: Portrait of a Prime Minister. Sabra Books. ISBN 0-87631-020-X. Bachleitner, Kathrin. "Golda Meir and Bruno Kreisky''A Political and Personal Duel." Israel Studies 23.1 (2018): 26-49. online; in 1973 she clashed with leader of Austria regarding Palestinian terrorist attacks against Jewish transit through Vienna.Fallaci, Oriana (1976). Interview With History. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-25223-7. Klagsbrun, Francine (2017). Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel. Schocken Books. ISBN 978-0-80524-237-9. , a standard scholarly biography; excerptLahav, Pnina. "''A Great Episode in the History of Jewish Womanhood'': Golda Meir, the Women Workers' Council, Pioneer Women, and the Struggle for Gender Equality." Israel Studies 23.1 (2018): 1-25. onlineMartin, Ralph G. (1988). Golda Meir: The Romantic Years. Ivy Books. ISBN 0-8041-0536-7. , popular onlineMeir, Menahem (1983). My Mother Golda Meir: A Son's Evocation of Life With Golda Meir. Arbor House Publishing Company. ISBN 0-87795-415-1. Medzini, Meron. Golda Meir: A Political Biography (2017) excerpt; a stamdard scholarly biographyMedzini, Meron. Golda Meir: A Reference Guide to Her Life and Works (2020) excerptSkard, Torild (2014) "Golda Meir" in Women of Power '' Half a century of female presidents and prime ministers worldwide. Bristol: Policy Press, ISBN 978-1-44731-578-0.Steinberg, Blema S. Women in power: The personalities and leadership styles of Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, and Margaret Thatcher (McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 2008).Syrkin, Marie (1969). Golda Meir: Israel's Leader . Putnam. , highly flatteringSyrkin, Marie (1963). Golda Meir: Woman with a Cause. Tsoref, Hagai. "Golda Meir's Leadership in the Yom Kippur War." Israel Studies 23.1 (2018): 50-72. onlineWeitz, Yechiam. "Golda Meir, Israel's Fourth Prime Minister (1969''74)." Middle Eastern Studies 47.1 (2011): 43-61. onlineHistoriography Schmidt, Sarah. "Hagiography in the diaspora: Golda Meir and her biographers." American Jewish History 92.2 (2004): 157-188. onlineExternal links Golda Meir on the Knesset websiteGolda Meir at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign AffairsMeir, Golda (n(C)e Mabovitch; 1898''1978) at the Jewish Agency For IsraelWomen's International CenterThe short film Golda Meir Interview (Reel 1 of 2) (1973) is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.The short film Golda Meir Interview (Reel 2 of 2) (1973) is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.Video Lecture on Golda Meir by Henry AbramsonPrime Minister Golda Meir, Exhibition in the IDF&Defense establishment archives Archived March 29, 2020, at the Wayback MachineGolda Meir Personal Manuscripts, Shapell Manuscript FoundationThe Golda Meir Mount Carmel International Training Center (MCTC) '' established in 1961 to assist in the training of women engaged in community work in the newly emerging states in Africa and Asia

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Sun, 15 Oct 2023 15:09

A statement from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) about semaglutide and, more generally, glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) agonists recently caused a stir. Could these medicines lead to patients taking their own lives?

Medical Authorities Alert The EMA published a press release in early July 2023 to announce that a review is underway after reports from the Icelandic Medicines Agency about two cases of patients who developed suicidal thoughts while taking liraglutide (Saxenda) and semaglutide (Ozempic). There was also a report of self-injury in a patient taking liraglutide.

Clearly, a few cases aren't enough to call an entire therapeutic class into question or to establish contraindications. Further investigation is needed, and the European authorities who collected the data are analyzing the approximately 150 reports concerning possible cases of self-injury and suicidal thoughts in patients taking these drugs. We should have some results and answers by November 2023.

This alert comes at a time when GLP-1 agonists, especially semaglutide, are being misused, particularly in France. The French health authorities (ANSM) have published a press release and reiterated that these medicinal products should be used only as indicated.

Despite these warnings, alerts, and suspicions, the risk profile of GLP-1 agonists appears to clinicians to be very good. Although nausea and vomiting occasionally lead patients to stop treatment, there are no obvious major side effects. A risk for acute pancreatitis (though not yet fully confirmed) has been mentioned, as has a risk for thyroid cancer that has not fully been proven in humans. Do we now have to worry about suicide risk?

Another Rimonabant Fiasco? This situation is reminiscent of what happened with rimonabant (Acomplia), which was studied and marketed in the early 2000s. Relatively soon after it reached the market, it was withdrawn, mainly because of a risk for depression and suicide. Is this a case of history repeating itself? Have we found ourselves in the same situation? Frankly, as it stands, I don't think so.

It's true that with rimonabant, we had some worrying data that had already been observed in randomized clinical trials. There were already signs of mood disturbances in patients taking the drug vs placebo. With GLP-1 agonists, to my knowledge, there have been no reports of this kind in the clinical trials conducted. Of course, this doesn't rule out a rare risk. That's why we need to continue with the investigations.

We also know that there are GLP-1 receptors in the central nervous system. We often talk about them as being located in the hypothalamus, which largely explains the effect of these drugs on appetite. But the mechanisms of action of GLP-1 agonists and medicines conventionally used to reduce appetite (anorectics or even rimonabant) are very different. This is why we don't really expect there to be any psychological side effects with GLP-1 agonists.

What's the Explanation? Why do we have these suspicious observations of suicidal ideation or self-injury? What are the possible explanations?

In my opinion, we must first confirm that the incidence of these psychiatric disturbances is greater in patients taking GLP-1 agonists than in a similar matched general population group. We should also question whether these mood disturbances are not simply linked to patients with obesity who have easy access to GLP-1 agonists. We know that obesity is associated with an increased risk for suicidal ideation and self-injury.

There is another little-known observation: Weight loss is associated with a risk for suicide. It has been spoken about in relation to bariatric surgery. We know that after bariatric surgery (bypass or sleeve gastrectomy) the risk for suicidal ideation is double that of the preoperative period in the same population. And this risk is multiplied by close to four when comparing the population with a control group. But be careful because these data come from observational studies. Although the analysis I'm referring to when I'm speaking in relation to a control population is a control group, it isn't from a randomized trial.

There is another interesting piece of data, which is that weight loss, regardless of the method used, is associated with an increased risk for suicide. This is what I found in two prospective studies involving this association, and there is no obvious explanation for it at this stage. Of course, there are lots of types of methodologic bias possible, but this poses the question of why there is a greater risk for suicide and self-injury in people taking a certain treatment and losing weight.

In Practice Should we change our attitude towards prescribing GLP-1 agonists? For the moment, there are no recommendations in this regard. I don't think that it's reasonable to upend everything. Of course, the important thing is to adhere strictly to the treatment indications, and in a few weeks' time, we'll see the results from the analyses conducted by the French Health Authorities regarding the causal link between suicide risk and taking a GLP-1 agonist.

With our current knowledge, I think we can all agree that losing weight is never a walk in the park. It's a change, for which individual physical and psychological consequences must be measured.

Thank you for your time. I hope to have the opportunity to speak to Medscape again soon.

This article was translated from the Medscape French Edition.

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Sun, 15 Oct 2023 13:23

The case in favor of homeschooling is growing by the day. Multiple public school districts in the state of Wisconsin officially added gender fluid ideology as a part if their controversial "Human Growth and Development" curriculum that earned heat from critics in 2022. While Wisconsin allows districts to tailor their own sex education programs and not all districts are the same, basic lessons in many districts include teaching "gender role stereotypes" to second graders, third graders are urged to investigate their gender identity and sixth graders are instructed to refer to girls as "a person with a vulva."

For 4th and 5th graders in the Superior School District of Wisconsin, the 2023-2024 required resource list includes a cartoon produced by the Canadian Public Broadcasting Service (CBC) called 'Gender Explained.' This is what they are now teaching to 9-year-olds in WI:

Below is the the portion of the Superior District required curriculum resources list that includes the CBC cartoon:

Gender ideology was initially taught covertly to children by activist teachers across the US, with teacher unions and organizations quietly encouraging the practice while also pushing for secrecy from parents. Progressives denied the practice for years, claiming that accusations were "paranoia and conspiracy theory" despite ample evidence to the contrary, including teacher's own confessions on social media.

After exposure became widespread and parents realized that their children were being indoctrinated into the far-left fold instead of being taught reading, writing and arithmetic, the uproar did not lead to a change in momentum or an apology from schools. Rather, Democrat states and school districts doubled down, admitted that they were teaching gender fluidity to kids and started officially adding the lessons to the curriculum. This has been the case in Wisconsin.

Gender identity started as a fringe movement attached to LGBT organizations, but it has quickly mutated into a sweeping sociopolitical movement with the help of the entertainment industry, social media, corporate propaganda and most of all, public school teachers. Studies show a huge spike in trans identifying children from 2017-2021, right as gender curriculum was being secretly introduced in classrooms.

Trends among young people often die as quickly as they are adopted; the problem is that schools and government organizations are institutionalizing the trans fantasy as if it is proven science.

Keep in mind, there is no concrete scientific evidence supporting the notion that "gender" exists separate from biological sex, or that gender identity is fluid outside of an extremely rare mental illness known as gender dysphoria. In fact, trans activists have organized in an attempt to have studies disproving gender theory removed from major scientific journals.

For example, in March, activists were able to force a retraction on technical grounds of a paper on gender dysphoria by one of the world's largest academic publishers, Springer Nature, which publishes Nature magazine and Scientific American. The paper found a large number of parents of gender dysphoric children said that their children suffered from long standing preexisting mental health issues. The study also reported a large number of parents surveyed thought their children's gender dysphoria resulted from social contagion. In other words, kids are jumping on the bandwagon because it is seen as trendy, or because they are being brainwashed.

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Sat, 14 Oct 2023 22:28

Amaryllis Hope Fox (born Amaryllis Damerell Thornber; September 22, 1980)[1][2] is an American writer, television host, public speaker, and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. She departed from her role at the CIA in 2010.[3] Subsequently, Fox authored a memoir about her time in the CIA, entitled Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA, published by Knopf Doubleday in October 2019.[4] She is the host of the six-episode Netflix documentary series The Business of Drugs, released in July 2020.[5]

Early life and education Edit Fox was born Amaryllis Damerell Thornber in New York City. Her mother, Lalage Damerell, is an English retired actress.[6] Her father was an economist. Fox's mother has since married billionaire businessman Steven Rales.[1] When Fox was eight years old, she suffered the loss of her friend Laura in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.[7] She said of the event in an interview with the CBC News, "I remember being very, very overwhelmed by the loss and my dad intervened and said, you have to understand the forces that took her or they will drown you."[7] Fox describes the moment as pivotal for catalyzing increased awareness of current events and geopolitical conditions.[7]

Growing up in Washington, D.C. and London, Fox attended the National Cathedral School beginning in eighth grade and graduated in 1998; she attended The American School in London during tenth grade.[8] She completed undergraduate studies at the University of Oxford in 2002.[9] Fox stated that while at Oxford, she rebuffed approaches from the Secret Intelligence Service.[7][9] Prior to Fox's final year at Oxford, the September 11 attacks took place while she was visiting family in Washington, D.C.; subsequently, she decided to pursue a master's degree in conflict and terrorism at the Walsh School of Foreign Service.[10] For her master's thesis, Fox developed an algorithm intended to identify local terrorist safe havens, which attracted attention from the CIA.[10]

Career Edit Interview with Aung Sang Suu Kyi Edit In 1999, at age 18, Fox clandestinely recorded an interview for the BBC with the Burmese leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi, then under house arrest. To arrange the meeting, Fox worked with a local dissident journalist with whom she communicated via taped messages inside the water tank of a toilet at a caf(C) in Rangoon.[9] Her intent in the trip had been to make a secret recording of planned pro-democracy protests on September 9.[11] A book, called "In the Quiet Land" was set to be published in 2002, with film rights optioned to Golden Square Pictures and screenplay by Nick Thomas.[11]

Central Intelligence Agency Edit Fox became one of the youngest female officers in the CIA at the age of 22, assigned to "non-official cover," entailing living abroad with a fake identity and no diplomatic protections.[12] Fox states her work focused on preventing terror organizations from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, assuming the cover of an art dealer.[3] After eight years at the agency, Fox left the CIA in 2010.[3]

Memoir and controversy Edit Fox's memoir, entitled Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA described her experiences as an officer. Prior to the book's release, numerous journalists and former CIA officers pointed out that her memoir's manuscript had been submitted to publisher Knopf Doubleday without first receiving approval from the CIA's Publication Review Board, a potential violation of nondisclosure agreements signed by CIA staff.[4] Fox was represented in that process by attorney Mark Zaid.[13] Some former CIA case officers have expressed skepticism about elements of Fox's accounts of events or raised questions regarding the circumvention of the CIA's lengthy approval process.[4] Fox responded by stating that she had taken care not to reveal potentially sensitive details, and that some characters were composites.[4]

Television and public speaking Edit Fox is the host of the Netflix documentary series The Business of Drugs, for which she traveled to several countries while in the third trimester of pregnancy.[3] The show investigates the supply chains, social effects, and legal issues specific to six types of drugs: cocaine, synthetics, heroin, meth, opioids, and cannabis.[14] She speaks at events around the world on dialogue and peacekeeping.[9] Apple is reportedly developing a TV series based on Fox's memoir that will star American actress Brie Larson, with Fox serving as an executive producer on the series.[10]

Personal life Edit Fox's first marriage was to a British man named Anthony, which was annulled.[10] She has a daughter named Zo with her second husband, Dean Fox, a CIA officer who had previously served in Afghanistan. Before their divorce, she lived undercover with him in Shanghai.[4][10] Fox is currently married to Robert F. Kennedy III, a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy. The couple has a daughter named Bobby and a son named Cassius.[15][16] Fox and Kennedy were introduced via a mutual friend at Burning Man, and married in Cape Cod in 2018.[10]

References Edit ^ a b "Who is Amaryllis Fox? The former CIA spy married to a Kennedy". IrishCentral. July 8, 2018 . Retrieved August 3, 2020 . ^ Fox, Amaryllis [@amaryllisfox] (September 22, 2015). "@SecurityGeorge, Man, have I arrived if i'm getting a birthday shoutout from you! Big love, my brother!!" (Tweet) . Retrieved September 11, 2020 '' via Twitter. ^ a b c d St. Clair, Josh (July 16, 2020). "The Business of Drugs Host Amaryllis Fox Has a History in the CIA". Men's Health . Retrieved August 3, 2020 . ^ a b c d e "Ex-spy publishing book about undercover exploits without OK from CIA". NBC News . Retrieved August 3, 2020 . ^ Jensen, Erin. "New on Netflix July 2020: 'The Old Guard,' Zac Efron's 'Down to Earth,' new 'Unsolved Mysteries' ". USA Today . Retrieved August 3, 2020 . ^ "Who is Amaryllis Fox? The former CIA spy married to a Kennedy". IrishCentral. July 8, 2018 . Retrieved December 6, 2021 . ^ a b c d "Nov. 5, 2019 episode transcript". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. November 5, 2019. Archived from the original on November 6, 2019 . Retrieved August 3, 2020 . ^ Fox, Amaryllis (2019). Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 26''27, 29''30, 32. ISBN 978-0-525-65497-1 '' via Google Books. ^ a b c d "Eat, Drink And Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key To Spycraft". NPR . Retrieved August 3, 2020 . ^ a b c d e f Chozick, Amy (October 10, 2019). "This C.I.A. Officer Wants to Give Peace a Chance". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved August 3, 2020 . ^ a b "Opens Up To Stark Reality". Catholic Herald . Retrieved September 10, 2020 . ^ "Amaryllis Fox on Her 'Life Undercover' in the CIA". KQED . Retrieved August 3, 2020 . ^ "People, Etc". Publishers Lunch. October 10, 2019 . Retrieved September 10, 2020 . ^ " 'The Business of Drugs' Review: Amaryllis Fox opens a window to illicit drug trade on the Netflix docuseries". Meaww . Retrieved August 3, 2020 . ^ "Robert F. Kennedy III and Wife Welcome a Daughter Named Bobby". W . Retrieved October 8, 2021 . ^ "RFK's grandson Bobby welcomes new son with wife Amaryllis Fox". IrishCentral. September 8, 2021 . Retrieved October 8, 2021 .

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Sat, 14 Oct 2023 22:25

The environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist significantly added to his campaign trail schedule this summer and early fall, making stops in New Hampshire and South Carolina in addition to general election swing states. The campaign also opened field offices in New Hampshire and South Carolina as well as a campaign headquarters in New Jersey.

The single biggest expense over the last quarter was more than $916,000 for security services paid to the firm of Gavin de Becker, a security specialist who also gave $4.5 million to a super PAC backing Kennedy's candidacy earlier this year.

In July, the Kennedy's campaign asked for secret service protection. But Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas determined that providing security was ''not warranted at this time.'' Most presidential candidates do not receive secret service protection during a primary.

The request and subsequent private security expense come after numerous comments Kennedy has made around the political assassinations in his own family. In a cable news appearance earlier this year, Kennedy claimed that the CIA was involved in killing his uncle, President John F. Kennedy.

The campaign also reported spending more than $260,000 on travel and also purchased a campaign vehicle from Land and Sea Specialty, an RV dealer in Florida, for almost $200,000.

Kennedy also continued a series of documentary-style videos, including one focused on a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border, and increased his digital media presence during the reporting period, and the campaign said it spent $218,000 on media production expenses across several different vendors.

And nearly $180,000 went to the consulting company of former congressman Dennis Kucinich, who had served as Kennedy's campaign manager since the spring. Kennedy's campaign announced on Friday that Amaryllis Kennedy, his daughter-in-law and a former undercover CIA agent, would be taking over as campaign manager.

''He is now handing off the baton to the team he did so much to cultivate,'' Kennedy said in a statement. ''Amaryllis is a woman of extraordinary intelligence and drive who I am confident will take this campaign to the next level.''

Amaryllis Kennedy has been with the campaign since the spring and was the highest-paid campaign staffer in the third quarter, making $49,000. The Kennedy campaign spent $720,000 in total staff salaries from July through September.

More than two-thirds of Kennedy's third-quarter fundraising came from donors who gave at least $200. Just over $3 million came from donors who have given at least $3,300 to his campaign, while $2.7 million came from small-dollar donors who gave less than $200 apiece.

Kennedy relaunched his campaign for president earlier this week as an independent candidate, quitting the party that his family helped define in the 20th century.

That Oct. 9 announcement occurred after this reporting period and would not have impacted his third quarter fundraising. But it will be reflected in the next reporting period deadline at the end of January.

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Sat, 14 Oct 2023 22:23

LOS ANGELES'--OCT. 13, 2023'-- Today the Kennedy Campaign announced a new campaign manager, Amaryllis Kennedy. Amaryllis, previously the Kennedy campaign's co-manager, will take on the role of Campaign Manager beginning today.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said of the change, ''The campaign benefited enormously from the political experience of Dennis Kucinich. Dennis Kucinich has been a moral center in American politics for more than five decades. This campaign would never have experienced tremendous success during the past six months except for the leadership, wisdom, and experience he brought. We will continue to profit from his advice and judgment as we go forward.''

''He is now handing off the baton to the team he did so much to cultivate, headed now by my daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Kennedy,'' Kennedy continued. ''Amaryllis is a woman of extraordinary intelligence and drive who I am confident will take this campaign to the next level.''

Amaryllis stated , ''I am thrilled to lead this historic people-powered movement to reclaim the American Dream on behalf of all our citizens.''

Formerly founder and CEO of natural language processing startup Mulu and Head of Product for Twitter's consumer commerce division, Amaryllis brings immense experience '‹'‹growing and optimizing dynamic teams, leveraging cutting-edge digital engagement, and building energized communities at scale.

Amaryllis holds a law degree from Oxford University and a Master's Degree in International Security from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Prior to her work in technology, Amaryllis spent a decade working on counterproliferation efforts on behalf of the United States Government. She has written two books about the pitfalls of the forever wars and produced and presented the Netflix documentary ''Business of Drugs,'' detailing the militarism and corruption driving America's failed War on Drugs.

Over the last year, Amaryllis has launched and managed many of the campaign's front-facing initiatives, working closely with Kennedy, Kucinich, campaign leadership, national staff, and volunteers.

Learn more at Kennedy24.com. Visit our press page here.

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Sat, 14 Oct 2023 06:22

WISHFUL THINKING: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses world leaders during the United Nations General Assembly last month in New York City. / Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images. Decades ago I spent three years writing The Samson Option (1991), an expos(C) of the unstated policy of American presidents going back to Dwight Eisenhower to look the other way as Israel began the process of building an atomic bomb. The right or wrong for Israel, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, was not the point of the book. My point was that what America was doing was known throughout the Third World, as it was then called, and our duplicity made our worries about the spread of nuclear weapons another example of American hypocrisy. Since then others have undertaken far more comprehensive studies, as some of the most highly classified Israeli and US documents have become public.

I chose not to go to Israel to do my research in fear of running afoul of Israeli national security law. But I found Israelis living abroad who had worked on the secret project and were willing to talk to me once I indicated I had information from American intelligence files. Those who worked on such highly classified materials have remained loyal to Israel, and a few of them became lifelong friends of mine. They have also remained in close touch with former colleagues who stayed in Israel.

This is an account of the past week's horrific events in Israel, as seen by a veteran of Israel's national security apparatus with inside knowledge of recent happenings.

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Fri, 13 Oct 2023 23:30

This week, two stories came out that placed the left's anti-government riots in a new light.

First, in a podcast with Haaretz reporter Amir Oren, Gilead Sher'--one of the leaders of the ''Resistance'' against the Netanyahu government'--explained that he and his colleagues put together the organizational and financial structure for the mass rioting that Israel has experienced since January, before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his colleagues formed the government. In other words, the riots, protests, acts of political violence and intimidation that have swamped Israel since January were not spontaneous responses to the government's legal reform proposals. They were planned and financed weeks before Justice Minister Yariv Levin was appointed to his position and well before the government took any position on anything.

Sher served as Ehud Barak's chief of staff during Barak's brief tenure as prime minister from 1999-2001. He was Barak's chief negotiator with the PLO at the failed Camp David Peace Summit and has remained close to Barak ever since.

Speaking to Oren, Sher revealed that the plot to light the country on fire was hatched in mid-December, three weeks before the government was formed. In a meeting hosted by Yossi Kutchik, who served as the director general of the Prime Minister's Office during Barak's premiership, Sher and Kutchik met with former IDF Chief of General Staff Dan Halutz and high-tech billionaire and far-left political activist Orni Petruschka.

In Sher's telling, ''The four of us met and very quickly, maybe a week or two, we were joined by a number of other people.''

Among others, Sher mentioned former deputy attorney general Dina Zilber and Shikma Bressler. In 2020, Bressler burst into the public consciousness as head of the ''Black Flags'' group of anti-Netanyahu protesters. As Israel's Channel 13 revealed in January 2020, Bressler's group was funded by Ehud Barak.

Barele Crombly, who organized several of the right's major pro-judicial reform protests, claimed in a recent interview that Barak is one of the largest funders of the ''Resistance.'' Crombly claimed that ''Ehud Barak is funding the protest with millions if not tens of millions of shekels.''

Sher's claims were later expanded by former leftist activist Eldad Yaniv. Yaniv, who was a senior adviser to Barak during his 1999 campaign against Netanyahu and maintained close ties to the former premier in the intervening years, organized the 2017 protests outside then-Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit's home demanding that he indict Netanyahu. After the Nov. 1 elections, Yaniv broke with his political colleagues because he felt that the public had spoken and that Netanyahu and his government had the right to lead the country.

After Sher gave his interview, Yaniv explained on Channel 11 said that the same people Sher mentioned in his interview approached him before the elections. Convinced by their polling data that Netanyahu and the religious right would win the elections, they asked Yaniv to begin planning the campaign Sher claims he initiated last December.

The first thing that we learn from these revelations again is that the impetus for the protests and direct actions against Netanyahu, his government and the majority of the Israeli public that voted for Netanyahu's government was not the government's judicial reform agenda, nor any other policy the government has launched. Rather, the protests were a preconceived program to paralyze and destabilize the government with the plan to overthrow it. The anti-judicial reform banner was attached to the protests because it was the new government's first major initiative.

The other aspect that is notable is the apparent centrality of Ehud Barak in everything that has happened.

Barak has been one of the most outspoken and radical critics of Netanyahu and his government. And now we learn that while he wasn't present at the meeting Sher described, Sher and Kutchik'--like many of the dozens of retired generals, colonels and high-tech tycoons running the protest and riot campaigns'--are closely associated with Barak. These are the people who initiated the hi-tech sector's anti-government campaign and who organized retired generals to take a leading role in calling for active duty reservists to refuse to serve in reserves.

'Deliberately destroying' an industry to placate Washington

The second major story this week was an expose by the Financial Times regarding Israeli cyber security firm Paragon. Barak sits on the firm's board of directors.

Israel was arguably the first country to recognize the centrality of cyber security for 21st-century intelligence operations. In recent decades, former soldiers and officers from the IDF's cyber intelligence unit 8200 formed private companies that developed cyber espionage tools used by Israel's intelligence agencies, and, under the strict supervision of the Defense Ministry, exported those tools to friendly nations. Cyber tools are vital to today's counterterror operations. Untold numbers of lives in Israel and around the world have been saved through the penetration of the electronic communications of terrorists.

Beginning in 2018, an NGO called Citizen Lab which operates out of the University of Toronto began publishing a series of reports claiming that one Israeli cyber firm, NSO Group, was being used by authoritarian regimes to harm journalists and human-rights activists. That report, together with several follow-up reports with additional allegations, most of which were debunked, formed the basis of the Biden administration's decision in November 2021 to blacklist NSO Group and Candiru, another Israeli cybersecurity firm. Notably, The New York Times reported last year that days after the United States blacklisted NSO Group, it signed a secret contract with the group to purchase NSO's geolocation tool that can covertly track mobile phones around the world without the owner's knowledge.

Last July, two weeks after the Bennett-Lapid-Gantz government lost its parliamentary majority and new elections were called, Channel 13's military correspondent Alon Ben David reported that the Biden administration and the U.S. intelligence agencies had decided to destroy Israel's cybersecurity industry and force Israel's cybersecurity firms to transfer their ownership, operations'--and allegiance'--to the United States.

The Bennett-Lapid-Gantz government was beholden to the Biden administration as no previous Israeli government had ever felt beholden to any U.S. administration. Rather than defend Israel's industry, according to Ben David, the government was ''deliberately destroying'' the industry to placate Washington. ''The Defense Ministry has already frozen most of the export licenses and the Americans have simply decided to shut down our offensive cyber industry and transfer it to them,'' Ben David explained.

The heads of Israel's intelligence agencies were up in arms. They told Ben David that shuttering the industry would cause massive harm to Israel's capacity to defend itself. But in short order, Israel's cybersecurity firms folded, sold their shares or closed their offensive cyber divisions.

Not all Israeli firms were upset about what was happening. As Ben David put it: ''Unfortunately, there were Israeli companies that, in their greed for sales, gave the Americans the excuse to act.''

Ben David didn't provide any details about which Israeli firms were benefiting from the U.S.'s bare-knuckled assault on Israel's cyber industry. This week, the Financial Times appears to have provided the backstory. According to a news report, as Citizen Lab was going after NSO Group, NSO Group's competitor with a cyber weapon of its own called Graphite, decided to take advantage of the situation. The competitor's name was Paragon.

According to the report, ''In 2019, even before work on Graphite had been completed'..., Paragon hired DC-based WestExec Advisors, the influential advisory group staffed by ex-Obama White House officials including Michele Flournoy, Avril Haines and Antony Blinken. Ex-U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, was also consulted.''

After Biden's election, Haines was appointed director of national intelligence and Blinken became secretary of state.

The Financial Times' report continues, ''WestExec said it 'advised Paragon on its strategic approach to the U.S. and European markets, as well as the formulation of its industry-leading ethical commitments designed to ensure the appropriate use of its technology.'''

The report explained, ''American approval, even if indirect, has been at the heart of Paragon's strategy. The company sought a list of allied nations that the US wouldn't object to seeing deploy Graphite.''

Last year, Paragon won a contract to provide cyber security tools to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. As the Financial Times' story explains, while Paragon built its marketing strategy on subordinating its activities to U.S. approval, NSO Group worked with the government of Israel which provided it with export licenses to countries that Israel wished to assist. Israel's cybersecurity prowess is one of the foundations of its strategic ties with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. And as Ben David hinted, the sale of NSO's Pegasus spyware to these countries was one of the reasons that the Abraham Accords were achieved.

Barak's position in the United States is strong but precarious. On the one hand, he enjoys close relations with senior U.S. political and national security officials. On the other hand, Barak's name has come up as one of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's associates. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that according to Epstein's diary, Epstein met Barak 30 times between 2013 and 2017. Barak also flew several times with Epstein on Epstein's private jet. Epstein was convicted of child sex solicitation in 2009.

Barak told the Journal that his wife and security detail accompanied him on all of his flights.

In 2020, court documents revealed that in a sworn deposition, Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre claimed that Epstein forced her to have sex with Barak. Barak flatly rejected the allegation, and others have challenged Giuffre's credibility.

In July 2019, while Epstein was jailed in Manhattan pending trial on child sex trafficking charges, the Daily Mail published a photo of Barak taken in January 2016. The photograph showed Barak wearing a facemask and standing outside Epstein's New York townhouse. In the four hours that followed, four young women were photographed entering Epstein's home.

Barak admitted that it was him in the photograph but insisted that his meeting that day with Epstein was innocent. ''I was there for lunch or a chat, nothing else. So what? I never attended a party with him. I never met Epstein in the company of women or young girls.'' Barak said in a comment to The Daily Beast. Barak also admitted to flying on Epstein's plane to his island residence in the Caribbean where Epstein allegedly held illicit sex parties with underage girls.

Also in July 2019, Haaretz reported that in 2015, Epstein invested millions of dollars in Barak's company Carbyne, which develops geolocation software for emergency services.

Several men whose names were associated with Epstein, including Prince Andrew, and senior Morgan Stanley executive Jes Staley were forced to resign their positions and withdraw from public life. Barak's close ties to Epstein, in contrast, have been downplayed by the Israeli media and ignored by the state prosecution. Obviously, the situation would change immediately if U.S. officials decided to investigate Barak's close ties to Epstein.

Barak's Twitter feed is filled with enraged, threatening posts against Netanyahu and his coalition partners. In recent weeks, it has focused its ire at opposition leaders Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, whom Barak has been trying to intimidate into rejecting all efforts to negotiate an agreed program for judicial reform with the government, under the auspices of President Isaac Herzog.

It is impossible to know whether Barak's ties with senior U.S. officials are related to his multiyear efforts to oust Netanyahu from power. But from this week's revelations we learned that Barak's associates organized the continuous campaign to destabilize and paralyze the Netanyahu government, and that they began their efforts before the government was formed. We also learned that Barak benefited personally from the U.S. move to seize Israel's cybertechnology industry.

Beyond that, we know that Netanyahu is the Israeli leader who transformed Israel into an independent, regional power and did so despite the fervent opposition of Barak, his associates and key members of the Biden administration.

Originally published at JNS.org.

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By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1 . Policy . Technology is central to the future of our national security, economy, and democracy. The United States has fundamental national security and foreign policy interests in (1) ensuring that technology is developed, deployed, and governed in accordance with universal human rights; the rule of law; and appropriate legal authorization, safeguards, and oversight, such that it supports, and does not undermine, democracy, civil rights and civil liberties, and public safety; and (2) mitigating, to the greatest extent possible, the risk emerging technologies may pose to United States Government institutions, personnel, information, and information systems.

To advance these interests, the United States supports the development of an international technology ecosystem that protects the integrity of international standards development; enables and promotes the free flow of data and ideas with trust; protects our security, privacy, and human rights; and enhances our economic competitiveness. The growing exploitation of Americans' sensitive data and improper use of surveillance technology, including commercial spyware, threatens the development of this ecosystem. Foreign governments and persons have deployed commercial spyware against United States Government institutions, personnel, information, and information systems, presenting significant counterintelligence and security risks to the United States Government. Foreign governments and persons have also used commercial spyware for improper purposes, such as to target and intimidate perceived opponents; curb dissent; limit freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, or association; enable other human rights abuses or suppression of civil liberties; and track or target United States persons without proper legal authorization, safeguards, or oversight.

The United States has a fundamental national security and foreign policy interest in countering and preventing the proliferation of commercial spyware that has been or risks being misused for such purposes, in light of the core interests of the United States in protecting United States Government personnel and United States citizens around the world; upholding and advancing democracy; promoting respect for human rights; and defending activists, dissidents, and journalists against threats to their freedom and dignity. To advance these interests and promote responsible use of commercial spyware, the United States must establish robust protections and procedures to ensure that any United States Government use of commercial spyware helps protect its information systems and intelligence and law enforcement activities against significant counterintelligence or security risks; aligns with its core interests in promoting democracy and democratic values around the world; and ensures that the United States Government does not contribute, directly or indirectly, to the proliferation of commercial spyware that has been misused by foreign governments or facilitate such misuse.

Therefore, I hereby establish as the policy of the United States Government that it shall not make operational use of commercial spyware that poses significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person. In furtherance of the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States, this order accordingly directs steps to implement that policy and protect the safety and security of United States Government institutions, personnel, information, and information systems; discourage the improper use of commercial spyware; and encourage the development and implementation of responsible norms regarding the use of commercial spyware that are consistent with respect for the rule of law, human rights, and democratic norms and values. The actions directed in this order are consistent with the policy objectives set forth in section 6318 of the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (NDAA FY 2023) (Public Law 117-263) and section 5502 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 (NDAA FY 2022) (Public Law 117-81).

Sec . 2 . Prohibition on Operational Use . (a) Executive departments and agencies (agencies) shall not make operational use of commercial spyware where they determine, based on credible information, that such use poses significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or that the commercial spyware poses significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person. For the purposes of this use prohibition:

(i) Commercial spyware may pose counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government when:

(A) a foreign government or foreign person has used or acquired the commercial spyware to gain or attempt to gain access to United States Government computers or the computers of United States Government personnel without authorization from the United States Government; or

(B) the commercial spyware was or is furnished by an entity that:

(1) maintains, transfers, or uses data obtained from the commercial spyware without authorization from the licensed end-user or the United States Government;

(2) has disclosed or intends to disclose non-public United States Government information or non-public information about the activities of the United States Government without authorization from the United States Government; or

(3) is under the direct or effective control of a foreign government or foreign person engaged in intelligence activities, including surveillance or espionage, directed against the United States.

(ii) Commercial spyware may pose risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person when:

(A) the commercial spyware, or other commercial spyware furnished by the same vendor, has been used by a foreign government or foreign person for any of the following purposes:

(1) to collect information on activists, academics, journalists, dissidents, political figures, or members of non-governmental organizations or marginalized communities in order to intimidate such persons; curb dissent or political opposition; otherwise limit freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, or association; or enable other forms of human rights abuses or suppression of civil liberties; or

(2) to monitor a United States person, without such person's consent, in order to facilitate the tracking or targeting of the person without proper legal authorization, safeguards, and oversight; or

(B) the commercial spyware was furnished by an entity that provides commercial spyware to governments for which there are credible reports in the annual country reports on human rights practices of the Department of State that they engage in systematic acts of political repression, including arbitrary arrest or detention, torture, extrajudicial or politically motivated killing, or other gross violations of human rights, consistent with any findings by the Department of State pursuant to section 5502 of the NDAA FY 2022 or other similar findings.

(iii) In determining whether the operational use of commercial spyware poses significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or poses significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person, such that operational use should be prohibited, agencies shall consider, among other relevant considerations, whether the entity furnishing the commercial spyware knew or reasonably should have known that the spyware posed risks described in subsections (a)(i) or (ii) of this section, and whether the entity has taken appropriate measures to remove such risks, such as canceling relevant licensing agreements or contracts that present such risks; taking other verifiable action to prevent continuing uses that present such risks; or cooperating in United States Government efforts to counter improper use of the spyware.

(b) An agency shall not request or directly enable a third party to make operational use of commercial spyware where the agency has determined that such use poses significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or that the commercial spyware poses significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person, as described in subsection (a) of this section. For purposes of this order, the term ''operational use'' includes such indirect use.

(c) To facilitate effective interagency coordination of information relevant to the factors set forth in subsection (a) of this section and to promote consistency of application of this order across the United States Government, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) shall, within 90 days of the date of this order, and on a semiannual basis thereafter, issue a classified intelligence assessment that integrates relevant information '-- including intelligence, open source, financial, sanctions-related, and export controls-related information '-- on foreign commercial spyware or foreign government or foreign person use of commercial spyware relevant to the factors set forth in subsection (a) of this section. The intelligence assessment shall incorporate, but not be limited to, the report and assessment required by section 1102A(b) of the National Security Act of 1947, 50 U.S.C. 3001 et seq., as amended by section 6318(c) of the NDAA FY 2023. In order to facilitate the production of the intelligence assessment, the head of each agency shall, on an ongoing basis, provide the DNI all new credible information obtained by the agency on foreign commercial spyware vendors or foreign government or foreign person use of commercial spyware relevant to the factors set forth in subsection (a) of this section. Such information shall include intelligence, open source, financial, sanctions-related, export controls-related, and due diligence information, as well as information relevant to the development of the list of covered contractors developed or maintained pursuant to section 5502 of the NDAA FY 2022 or other similar information.

(d) Any agency that makes a determination of whether operational use of a commercial spyware product is prohibited under subsection (a) of this section shall provide the results of that determination and key elements of the underlying analysis to the DNI. After consulting with the submitting agency to protect operational sensitivities, the DNI shall incorporate this information into the intelligence assessment described in subsection (c) of this section and, as needed, shall make this information available to other agencies consistent with section 3(b) of this order.

(e) The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), or a designee, shall, within 30 days of the issuance of the intelligence assessment described in subsection (c) of this section, and additionally as the APNSA or designee deems necessary, convene agencies to discuss the intelligence assessment, as well as any other information about commercial spyware relevant to the factors set forth in subsection (a) of this section, in order to ensure effective interagency awareness and sharing of such information.

(f) For any commercial spyware intended by an agency for operational use, a relevant official, as provided in section 5(k) of this order, shall certify the determination that the commercial spyware does not pose significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person based on the factors set forth in subsection (a) of this section. The obligation to certify such a determination shall not be delegated, except as provided in section 5(k) of this order.

(g) If an agency decides to make operational use of commercial spyware, the head of the agency shall notify the APNSA of such decision, describing the due diligence completed before the decision was made, providing relevant information on the agency's consideration of the factors set forth in subsection (a) of this section, and providing the reasons for the agency's determination. The agency may not make operational use of the commercial spyware until at least 7 days after providing this information or until the APNSA has notified the agency that no further process is required.

(h) Within 90 days of the issuance of the intelligence assessment described in subsection (c) of this section, each agency shall review all existing operational uses of commercial spyware and discontinue, as soon as the head of the agency determines is reasonably possible without compromising ongoing operations, operational use of any commercial spyware that the agency determines poses significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person, pursuant to subsection (a) of this section.

(i) Within 180 days of the date of this order, each agency that may make operational use of commercial spyware shall develop appropriate internal controls and oversight procedures for conducting determinations under subsection (a) of this section, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.

(j) At any time after procuring commercial spyware for operational use, if the agency obtains relevant information with respect to the factors set forth in subsection (a) of this section, the agency shall determine whether the commercial spyware poses significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person, and, if so, shall terminate such operational use as soon as the head of the agency determines is reasonably possible without compromising ongoing operations, and shall notify the DNI and the APNSA.

(k) The Federal Acquisition Security Council shall consider the intelligence assessment described in subsection (c) of this section in evaluating whether commercial spyware poses a supply chain risk, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, including 41 C.F.R. Part 201-1 and 41 U.S.C. 1323.

(l) The prohibitions contained in this section shall not apply to the use of commercial spyware for purposes of testing, research, analysis, cybersecurity, or the development of countermeasures for counterintelligence or security risks, or for purposes of a criminal investigation arising out of the criminal sale or use of the spyware.

(m) A relevant official, as provided in section 5(k) of this order, may issue a waiver, for a period not to exceed 1 year, of an operational use prohibition determined pursuant to subsection (a) of this section if the relevant official determines that such waiver is necessary due to extraordinary circumstances and that no feasible alternative is available to address such circumstances. This authority shall not be delegated, except as provided in section 5(k) of this order. A relevant official may, at any time, revoke any waiver previously granted. Within 72 hours of making a determination to issue or revoke a waiver pursuant to this subsection, the relevant official who has issued or revoked the waiver shall notify the President, through the APNSA, of this determination, including the justification for the determination. The relevant official shall provide this information concurrently to the DNI.

Sec . 3 . Application to Procurement . An agency seeking to procure commercial spyware for any purpose other than for a criminal investigation arising out of the criminal sale or use of the spyware shall, prior to making such procurement and consistent with its existing statutory and regulatory authorities:

(a) review the intelligence assessment issued by the DNI pursuant to section 2(c) of this order;

(b) request from the DNI any additional information regarding the commercial spyware that is relevant to the factors set forth in section 2(a) of this order;

(c) consider the factors set forth in section 2(a) of this order in light of the information provided by the DNI; and

(d) consider whether any entity furnishing the commercial spyware being considered for procurement has implemented reasonable due diligence procedures and standards '-- such as the industry-wide norms reflected in relevant Department of State guidance on business and human rights and on transactions linked to foreign government end-users for products or services with surveillance capabilities '-- and controls that would enable the entity to identify and prevent uses of the commercial spyware that pose significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person.

Sec . 4 . Reporting Requirements . (a) The head of each agency that has procured commercial spyware, upon completing the review described in section 2(h) of this order, shall submit to the APNSA a report describing the review's findings. If the review identifies any existing operational use of commercial spyware, as defined in this order, the agency report shall include:

(i) a description of such existing operational use;

(ii) a determination of whether the commercial spyware poses significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person, along with key elements of the underlying analysis, pursuant to section 2(a) of this order; and

(iii) in the event the agency determines that the commercial spyware poses significant risks pursuant to section 2(a) of this order, what steps have been taken to terminate its operational use.

(b) Within 45 days of an agency's procurement of any commercial spyware for any use described in section 2(l) of this order except for use in a criminal investigation arising out of the criminal sale or use of the spyware, the head of the agency shall notify the APNSA of such procurement and shall include in the notification a description of the purpose and authorized uses of the commercial spyware.

(c) Within 6 months of the date of this order, the head of each agency that has made operational use of commercial spyware or has procured commercial spyware for operational use shall submit to the APNSA a report on the actions that the agency has taken to implement this order, including the internal controls and oversight procedures the agency has developed pursuant to section 2(i) of this order.

(d) Within 1 year of the date of this order, and on an annual basis thereafter, the head of each agency that has procured commercial spyware for operational use shall provide the APNSA a report that identifies:

(i) any existing operational use of commercial spyware and the reasons why it does not pose significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person, pursuant to section 2(a) of this order;

(ii) any operational use of commercial spyware that was terminated during the preceding year because it was determined to pose significant risks pursuant to section 2(a) of this order, the circumstances under which this determination was made, and the steps taken to terminate such use; and

(iii) any purchases made of commercial spyware, and whether they were made for operational use, during the preceding year.

Sec . 5 . Definitions . For purposes of this order:

(a) The term ''agency'' means any authority of the United States that is an ''agency'' under 44 U.S.C. 3502(1), other than those considered to be independent regulatory agencies, as defined in 44 U.S.C. 3502(5).

(b) The term ''commercial spyware'' means any end-to-end software suite that is furnished for commercial purposes, either directly or indirectly through a third party or subsidiary, that provides the user of the software suite the capability to gain remote access to a computer, without the consent of the user, administrator, or owner of the computer, in order to:

(i) access, collect, exploit, extract, intercept, retrieve, or transmit content, including information stored on or transmitted through a computer connected to the Internet;

(ii) record the computer's audio calls or video calls or use the computer to record audio or video; or

(iii) track the location of the computer.

(c) The term ''computer'' shall have the same meaning as it has in 18 U.S.C. 1030(e)(1).

(d) The term ''entity'' means a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization.

(e) The term ''foreign entity'' means an entity that is not a United States entity.

(f) The term ''foreign government'' means any national, state, provincial, or other governing authority, any political party, or any official of any governing authority or political party, in each case of a country other than the United States.

(g) The term ''foreign person'' means a person that is not a United States person.

(h) The term ''furnish,'' when used in connection with commercial spyware, means to develop, maintain, own, operate, manufacture, market, sell, resell, broker, lease, license, repackage, rebrand, or otherwise make available commercial spyware.

(i) The term ''operational use'' means use to gain remote access to a computer, without the consent of the user, administrator, or owner of the computer, in order to:

(i) access, collect, exploit, extract, intercept, retrieve, or transmit the computer's content, including information stored on or transmitted through a computer connected to the Internet;

(ii) record the computer's audio calls or video calls or use the computer to otherwise record audio or video; or

(iii) track the location of the computer.

The term ''operational use'' does not include those uses described in section 2(l) of this order.

(j) The term ''person'' means an individual or entity.

(k) The term ''relevant official,'' for purposes of sections 2(f) and 2(m) of this order, refers to any of the following: the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the DNI, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, or the Director of the National Security Agency. The Attorney General's obligation under section 2(f) of this order and authority under section 2(m) of this order may be delegated only to the Deputy Attorney General.

(l) The term ''remote access,'' when used in connection with commercial spyware, means access to a computer, the computer's content, or the computer's components by using an external network (e.g., the Internet) when the computer is not in the physical possession of the actor seeking access to that computer.

(m) The term ''United States entity'' means any entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches).

(n) The term ''United States person'' shall have the same meaning as it has in Executive Order 12333 of December 4, 1981 (United States Intelligence Activities), as amended.

(o) The term ''United States Government personnel'' means all United States Government employees as defined by 5 U.S.C. 2105.

Sec . 6 . General Provisions . (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) Nothing in this order shall be construed to limit the use of any remedies available to the head of an agency or any other official of the United States Government.

(c) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law, including section 6318 of the NDAA FY 2023, as well as applicable procurement laws, and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(d) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

THE WHITE HOUSE, March 27, 2023.

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A new investigation by The Washington Post and a consortium of 16 international news outlets reveals that software from an Israeli company named NSO Group has spied on hundreds of journalists, activists, executives, and government officials. Its infamous product Pegasus can crack into encrypted phones without a trace and is used by autocrats. The findings are part of the Pegasus Project, which has already presented evidence of the spyware being used to hack the slain Mexican journalist Cecilio Pineda Birto as well as two people close to the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

But NSO Group has been deflecting from its relationship with authoritarian governments for years. After its surveillance tech was caught being used to target dissidents, the notorious Israeli company sought the assistance of WestExec Advisors, the consultancy founded by now''Secretary of State Tony Blinken and staffed by prominent national-security experts from the Obama administration.

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WestExec turned the company down, but NSO was persistent. It was investing heavily in a revamp of its global reputation in response to accusations of its spyware's abuse, especially in the hands of Saudi Arabia. NSO must have sensed just how influential Blinken's tight-knit group of former policymakers was, though the client didn't align with WestExec's stated principles.

The consulting group stood firm, but NSO had actually already recruited one of its members. Dan Shapiro, a WestExec consultant based in Israel and Obama's former ambassador to the country, had already been working for NSO.

Shapiro began independently advising NSO in mid-2017, months before WestExec was established. He counseled NSO on how to prevent the misuse of its technology and advised the company to stop selling its hacking tools to Saudi Arabia, according to The New York Times. Initially, NSO heeded. But then, under new ownership'--and with the encouragement of the Israeli government and the Trump administration'--NSO once again sold its powerful software to Saudi Arabia.

Many Washington operators were willing to do lucrative business for the NSO Group, and it hasn't necessarily hurt their careers.

Shapiro advised NSO through the end of 2018 and participated in Biden campaign strategy calls in 2020. He is now under consideration to be President Biden's special envoy to the Middle East.

That a consulting firm specializing in national-security tech like WestExec Advisors rejected NSO Group's entreaties, while advising other defense contractors and tech companies, shows just how beyond the pale NSO's products are. Working for Israeli hackers, WestExec consultants may have thought, would hurt their chances of re-entering government. (It's a decision validated by Biden appointing more than 15 members of the boutique firm to the administration.)

Still, many Washington operators were willing to do lucrative business for the NSO Group, and it hasn't necessarily hurt their careers. Shapiro has been floated for a State Department appointment to continue Trump's policy of securing accords between Israel and Arab states. Shapiro declined to comment on the record.

The list of Washington operators who have benefited directly from working with NSO is long, and they don't want to talk about it. The consultancy Beacon Global Strategies'--founded by longtime Hillary Clinton adviser Andrew Shapiro, former CIA and Pentagon official Jeremy Bash, and former House aide Michael Allen'--quietly provided advice to NSO until mid-2019. Attorney Dan Jacobson provided legal services to NSO's parent company and joined the Biden administration this spring as general counsel for the Office of Administration. Rod Rosenstein, after two years as deputy attorney general, advised NSO in a lawsuit the Facebook affiliate WhatsApp had brought against it. Jeh Johnson, Obama's homeland security secretary who was in the running to be Biden's defense secretary, signed off on NSO's human rights policy. Obama homeland security official Juliette Kayyem advised the hacking group.

The company's PR is currently being done by Mercury Public Affairs, where retired Sen. Barbara Boxer is a co-chair and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is a partner. Mercury, which receives $120,000 monthly to represent NSO, did not respond to a request for comment.

The list possibly includes one current White House official. Anita Dunn took a leave of absence from her consulting firm SKDKnickerbocker and joined the Biden White House in January as a senior adviser. Her firm advised NSO Group in 2019. It's unclear whether she personally worked for the company. Dunn has circumvented federal ethics rules that require disclosures of income, assets, and clients by serving as a temporary employee in the executive branch and taking a salary just below a threshold that would require public filings. She says she plans to leave the White House soon.

Dunn's firm defended NSO on the record. Even if she may have not been directly working for NSO, Dunn was willing to lend her name'--hers is the D in SKDK'--to repair the company's image. ''What sets NSO apart from many other cyber technology firms is its commitment to an ethical business framework that relies on the expertise of people with national security and intelligence backgrounds from around the world to evaluate potential customers and review current customers,'' Dunn's firm told The Intercept in 2019. SKDK declined to comment to the Prospect.

The experts counseling NSO have hardly helped bring it closer toward ethical behavior; in fact, as the Pegasus Project trickles out new reporting, what's clear is that Washington consultants have lent a veneer of principle to a company whose malicious software has hacked more than 180 journalists and 14 world leaders.

The NSO Group's co-founder says that its spyware is designed to target ''bad guys,'' and is only sold to states that comply with its protocol. But its first annual Transparency and Responsibility Report, released last month, is not all that transparent about its clients. There's much more insight into the company'--its high regard for itself, its Silicon Valley vibes'--on NSO's active LinkedIn page, with posts celebrating Pride Month or Earth Day, and photos of '‹'‹a rave in the desert it hosted for employees to toast the end of Israel's coronavirus lockdown.

Without any irony, the company celebrated World Data Privacy Day in January on social media. ''At NSO Group, we have committed ourselves to high ethical business standards by embedding human rights protections throughout all aspects of our work,'' it posted, above an image of a padlock set against neon-colored zeroes and ones. Amid damning revelations about its spyware, not even the best consultants can rebrand NSO.

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They had been public servants their whole careers. But when Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, two departing Obama officials were anxious for work. Trump's win had caught them by surprise.

Sergio Aguirre and Nitin Chadda had reached the most elite quarters of U.S. foreign policy. Aguirre had started out of school as a fellow in the White House and a decade later had become chief of staff to U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power. Chadda, who joined the Pentagon out of college as a speechwriter, had become a key adviser to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in even less time. Now, Chadda had a long-shot idea.

They turned to an industry of power-brokering little known outside the capital: strategic consultancies. Retiring leaders often open firms bearing their names: Madeleine Albright has one, as do Condoleezza Rice and former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen. Their strategic consultancies tend to blur corporate and governmental roles. This obscure corner of Washington is critical to understanding how a President Joe Biden would conduct foreign policy. He has been picking top advisers from this shadowy world.

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At the outset of a new administration, high-ranking officials often join one of a dozen such firms, which are surprisingly bipartisan in their makeup, to help companies navigate the areas where their relationships give them power. The model was pioneered by Henry Kissinger, who through Kissinger Associates represented American Express and Coca-Cola, among other banks and transnationals. In Beijing, Washington, and developing countries, strategic consultants help corporations manage tricky regulations, potential crises, and new markets. Their behind-the-scenes work in world capitals can look a lot like lobbying.

The problem for Aguirre and Chadda was that neither young man was a marquee name. Chadda realized that the latest crop of senior officials hadn't yet started their own named consultancies. ''The thought for us was to build a living and breathing platform, with those who are enthusiastic about serving again,'' he said. Staying up late one night, they drafted a plan and came up with the first target they would pitch.

Mich¨le Flournoy had served as undersecretary of defense for policy from 2009 to 2012. Both Aguirre and Chadda had known her well in the Obama administration. Since leaving office, she'd spent several years in consulting and was hitting her stride. With Flournoy as senior adviser, Boston Consulting Group's defense contracts grew from $1.6 million in 2013 to $32 million in 2016. Before she joined, according to public records, BCG had not signed any contracts with the Defense Department.

Flournoy, while consulting, joining corporate boards, and serving as a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center, had also become CEO of the Center for a New American Security in 2014. The think tank had an annual budget of about $9 million, and defense contractors donated at least $3.8 million while she was CEO. By 2017, she was making $452,000 a year.

If a Democrat were to win office, she would likely become the first woman defense secretary. She had considered an offer to serve as deputy to Trump's first secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, but ultimately withdrew from the vetting process and stuck to consulting. ''That's more of a labor of love,'' she told me. ''Building bridges between Silicon Valley and the U.S. government is really, really important.''

Intrigued by Aguirre and Chadda's idea of starting her own shop, she had one condition: find another big name, so it wouldn't just be Flournoy and Associates.

They needed another co-founder. Establishing a new firm was an investment and a risk, and many Obama officials were already spoken for, some headhunted by corporations or consultancies, others returning to academic appointments or finding respite in research institutions'--many wearing all those hats at once.

Flournoy could carry her own private practice, but she didn't want a firm with her name on it alone. The trio reached out to defense and intelligence honchos, but with no luck. Then a particular Washington fixture came to light.

He had been Vice President Joe Biden's right-hand man for almost two decades and finished out the Obama administration as deputy secretary of state. He was known for his unimpeachable ethics. Having written Biden's speeches for years, he had started to enunciate with the vice president's drawl when he appeared on CNN. He had never cashed in on his international connections, years of face time with Saudi, Israeli, and Chinese leaders.

His name was Tony Blinken. With his commitment to join Flournoy as founding partner, a new strategic consultancy was born. They called it WestExec Advisors.

WEST EXECUTIVE AVENUE runs along the West Wing of the White House, the connection between presidential power and the offices where aides sit and do the real work. The name WestExec Advisors trades on its founders' recent knowledge of the highest echelons of decision-making. It also suggests they'll be walking down WestExec toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue some day soon.

The Obama campaign in 2008 made a pledge to exclude lobbyists from policy deliberations and, once in office, policymaking. ''Lobbyists are not bad people,'' then-Sen. Joe Biden said. ''Special interest groups are not bad people. But they are corrosive.'' Biden was the most modest vice president in recent history, coming into office with a net worth of less than $150,000. But afterward, he made big money, profiting from a multimillion-dollar book deal and earning $540,000 annually from a University of Pennsylvania center named for him that doesn't involve any teaching. He nevertheless promoted himself as Middle-Class Joe. ''I work for you'--not any industry,'' he tweeted last year.

But many of the people who work closely with Biden are enmeshed in the opaque world of strategic consultancies and by extension a network of the world's biggest businesses. If they've been consulting for corporations with offshore interests, this spells potential conflicts. ''One of the biggest gaps in ethics laws is that we don't require strategic consultants to register as lobbyists,'' said Mandy Smithberger of the Project on Government Oversight.

When it comes to foreign affairs, Biden and his advisers are nonideological and mainly transactional. In Obama's situation room, he sometimes urged restraint, according to people who were there, and sometimes was hawkish. Rather than being associated with a particular school of statecraft or a signature policy accomplishment, Biden is known for his intimacy with world leaders.

Tasked by Obama to end the Iraq War, Biden supported Nouri El-Maliki, the leader he knew, and rescued the Iraqi prime minister's career even though it ended up fracturing the country. When Maliki narrowly lost in 2010, Biden didn't give Iraqi political parties time to broker a new coalition. With Biden's endorsement, Maliki gained a second term; he grew more authoritarian, which is now widely believed to have led to the rise of ISIS. Biden ignored experts who were skeptical of Maliki and preferred to glad-hand. ''He came to deal with Iraqi politicians like local political kingpins in Delaware or Pennsylvania,'' said Robert Ford, who was deputy ambassador in Baghdad from 2008 to 2010.

Biden's foreign policy is a blank slate, onto which often-conflicted advisers from the national-security establishment will project actual policies.

There is no Biden Doctrine. ''He's not a guy who knows history. He's not a guy who is intellectually curious,'' said Emma Sky, who advised the U.S. military in Iraq. ''It's all about personal relationships.'' Those close bonds may cloud his judgment. He has expressed ''love'' for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even after he had defied the Obama administration and stood by the late Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as he assaulted protesters. In effect, Biden's foreign policy is a blank slate, onto which often-conflicted advisers from the traditional national-security establishment will project actual policies.

If ''personnel is policy,'' as Sen. Elizabeth Warren likes to say, we can learn a lot about Biden from his team. In addition to Blinken, advisers include Nicholas Burns (The Cohen Group), Kurt Campbell (The Asia Group), Tom Donilon (BlackRock Investment Institute), Wendy Sherman (Albright Stonebridge Group), Julianne Smith (WestExec Advisors), and Jake Sullivan (Macro Advisory Partners). They rarely discuss their connections to corporate power, defense contactors, private equity, and hedge funds, let alone disclose them.

I asked a Biden spokesperson if the campaign would commit to more transparency and expand the Obama-era pledge to strategic consultants. ''There's a difference between consulting and lobbying,'' he told me. ''There's a pretty strong line there '... So, presumably we don't have a ban on people who were consultants at one time or another, since I'm one myself.''

AGUIRRE AND CHADDA RENTED an office suite three blocks from the White House. The newly hired operations director drove over card tables, folding chairs, and a Wi-Fi router in the trunk of her car. But this was hardly a scrappy startup.

WestExec promised to be more boutique than conventional consultancies like Albright Stonebridge Group or RiceHadleyGates. Most clients would have direct access to either Blinken or Flournoy. They also recruited an assortment of former colleagues as contractors to chip in, among them Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work, Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, and Deputy CIA Director Avril Haines, who had helped design Obama's program of using drones for extrajudicial killings.

Now, they needed clients. The first step was hosting a party.

At their April 2018 launch, Aguirre and Chadda stood with drinks across the hall from WestExec's now furnished suite. It had a clubby feel thanks to purple lights and concrete walls. It must have been heartening to look across the room at Susan Rice, Tom Donilon, and Denis McDonough eating canap(C)s as a DJ spun.

The next day, they were back to reaching out to venture capitalists and corporate leaders. Their whole approach was based on word of mouth and the power of their founders' reputations. Initially, WestExec's website, with its cool black-and-white portraits in dark suits, simply listed Blinken by his role in the firm. By April, a boldfaced title had been added under his name: ''Former Deputy Secretary of State and Former Deputy National Security Advisor to the President.'' It must have appealed to clients.

To look more established, WestExec found partners in a private equity group and a Google affiliate.

The private equity firm Pine Island Capital Partners was incorporated a year earlier by John Thain. Blinken and Flournoy joined a startlingly high-profile roster of former policymakers, including four retired senators and the former chair of the Joint Chiefs. (Pine Island declined to comment.) Thain, an investment banker, had tanked Merrill Lynch, sold it off to Bank of America, and paid himself several bonuses along the way. At the height of the subprime mess, he spent $1.2 million remodeling his office, installing a $35,000 golden toilet. He seemed like a less-than-ideal partner for public servants.

Another partnership was with Google's in-house think tank, Jigsaw. WestExec's Robert Work, during his time at the Pentagon, collaborated with the tech company in an artificial-intelligence venture, as first reported by The Intercept. That AI initiative, known as Project Maven, led to an insurrection among Google staff upset about collaborating with the military. (''WestExec has done no work on Project Maven. Period,'' said Flournoy.) Though Jigsaw has since been removed from WestExec's list of partners, the Prospect has learned that Blinken and Flournoy have continued to work quietly and informally with Google engineers and executives, spitballing potential geopolitical threats. Schmidt Futures, Google founder and billionaire Eric Schmidt's philanthropy, has also hired WestExec.

The founders told executives they would share their ''passion'' for helping new companies navigate the complex bureaucracy of winning Pentagon contracts. They told giant defense contractors how to explain cutting-edge technologies to visitors from Congress. Their approach worked, and clients began to sign up.

One was an airline, another a global transportation company, a third a company that makes drones that can almost instantly scan an entire building's interior. WestExec would only divulge that it began working with ''Fortune 100 types,'' including large U.S. tech; financial services, including global-asset managers; aerospace and defense; emerging U.S. tech; and nonprofits.

The Prospect can confirm that one of those clients is the Israeli artificial-intelligence company Windward. With surveillance software that tracks ships in real time, two former Israeli naval intelligence officers established the company in 2010. Gabi Ashkenazi, former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, serves on its board. Windward also claims former CIA director David Petraeus as an investor, as well as a Hong Kong billionaire (most U.S. military-tech companies avoid money from China, experts told me, so they turn to investing in Israel).

Strategic consultants' behind-the-scenes work in world capitals can look a lot like lobbying.

WestExec says they do not lobby. ''We'll tell you who to go talk to, but we're not going to go in there for you, and we're not going to facilitate the introduction,'' said one staffer. One of their offerings that attracted corporations, the same staffer told me, is an ''on-call National Security Council.''

It wasn't until companies renewed contracts in December 2018 that Aguirre and Chadda felt that their strategic consultancy was in place. The plan was paying off. WestExec didn't need to do any marketing. CEOs had recommended them to other CEOs.

LAST YEAR, WESTEXEC'S corporate interests and their policymaking at last collided. On January 7, 2019, Tony Blinken and Mich¨le Flournoy chaired the biannual meeting of the liberal organization Foreign Policy for America. Over 50 representatives of national-security groups gathered in a boardroom at the Madison hotel in Washington. Blinken and Flournoy's roles with WestExec were not listed on the invitation or on the FP4A website.

The group worked through 24 agenda items, and the last one was ''The War in Yemen.'' Many Obama diplomats had expressed remorse for enabling Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's destructive campaign in the Arab world's poorest country. In 2015, Obama had dispatched Blinken to tell Mohammed bin Salman that the U.S. supported Saudi Arabia's right to defend itself and nothing more. But four years later, the U.S., through its arms sales, was party to an ongoing war. The death toll was over 100,000 in an asymmetric conflict, and the defense contractor Raytheon had sold Saudi Arabia more than $3 billion worth of bombs.

Four hours into the marathon policy discussion, many former officials joined progressive advocates in urging an end to weapons sales. The starting point, per FP4A's agenda, was to ''ask Congress to halt U.S. military involvement in the conflict.'' Most participants supported cutting all weapons sales, but one person stood apart: Flournoy tried to persuade the group that an outright ban on arms sales to Saudi Arabia wouldn't be a good idea. Putting conditions on their use was a better compromise, she said, one that defense contractors wouldn't lobby against, according to two attendees. Flournoy told me she had made a distinction between offensive and defensive weapons, saying that Saudi Arabia needed advanced Patriot missiles to protect itself.

It was an argument she had been making around the capital, but it didn't resonate among the left-leaning room and didn't affect the group's recommendation. To two people present, it sounded like Flournoy was working for Raytheon, which produces Patriot missiles.

Flournoy would not confirm whether WestExec currently works for them. ''Raytheon was not being considered as a client at that point,'' she said. ''When I take a policy position, I do so because I think it is in U.S. interests, and the views I express are solely my own, no one else's.''

Another WestExec staffer wouldn't comment on whether the consultancy has Raytheon as a client but would only say the defense contractor is ''in the ballpark,'' noting they work for a ''defense prime,'' meaning one of the top five defense firms among which Raytheon ranks. (WestExec's own Robert Work has served on Raytheon's board since 2017.)

WestExec is only one of Blinken and Flournoy's overlapping roles, which keep them updated on trends that others lack access to. Flournoy, for instance, previously served on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, and the CIA director's External Advisory Board; each of these positions gives members access to sensitive information, which in turn provides insights useful to attracting and serving corporate clients. Membership requires ethics disclosures, though none of those documents are publicly available, adding another layer of opacity.

Flournoy also joined the board of Booz Allen Hamilton in October 2018, and it has signed 61 contracts with the Defense Department since. Last year, the role earned her $192,474 ($76,986 as cash, $115,488 in equity). She previously was a board member of the nonprofit Mitre Corporation, the IT company CSRA, and Rolls-Royce North America. She now serves on the board of Amida Technology Solutions and is a senior adviser to SparkCognition Government Systems, a new subsidiary that feeds the company's AI to government agencies.

''When we do take on a defense firm, we're careful and just thoughtful about the nature of the work that we do,'' Flournoy told me. ''There's work we would do, and there's work we wouldn't do.''

AGUIRRE AND CHADDA FELT their strategic consultancy had far surpassed their hopes. As Joe Biden launched his presidential campaign in spring 2019, they were committed to the firm they had built. If Democrats took the White House, they won't close up WestExec.

''Think about it: If Biden were to win, we do think that companies will start coming to WestExec, for 'Hey, what is the commerce secretary thinking?''' one of the firm's members said. ''Because we likely have a history with that person or that staffer in our network somewhere. That will be something we can provide that we just don't provide right now.''

Blinken is back to consulting for the vice president. In a video on Biden's Twitter feed this April, he was introduced as senior foreign-policy adviser, explaining the candidate's China policy. At the same time, WestExec advertises on its website that it will ''develop a strategy for expanding market access in China'' for clients. And a recent post on WestExec's LinkedIn page displays Obama and Blinken chatting at the end of the board table.

Chadda denied that Blinken was having it both ways. ''Volunteering for a political campaign, much like any other private pursuit, is done outside of formal employment and should never be implicated,'' he told me.

Despite multiple requests, neither the firm nor the Biden campaign would provide WestExec Advisors' client list. ''Transparency is very important to us,'' said a Biden spokesperson. Blinken had recused himself from work at WestExec, according to the campaign, yet his profile remains on the consultancy's website as well as on Pine Island Capital Partners'. Unmentioned on either page is his role in the campaign. After requests for comment from the Prospect, a Biden campaign official responded that Blinken will take a leave of absence from WestExec effective August 1. He is also in the process of leaving Pine Island Capital Partners, the campaign official added.

Such representational juggling is likely to influence how decisions are made. ''Registered lobbyist is a bullshit distinction,'' a former Obama official said. ''For me it's: Are you making a living based on monetizing a set of relationships or a policy domain with personal interest?''

At the end of June, the campaign announced who would oversee foreign policy for Biden's transition team. It was Avril Haines, another former security chief whom Aguirre and Chadda had hired, now aiming to return with her WestExec colleagues back to West Executive Avenue.

An earlier version of this story said that the think tank CNAS had $48 million on hand when that figure represented contributions received from 2013 to 2017. The story has also been updated to reflect the boards Flournoy currently serves on and to clarify the relationship between WestExec, Robert Work, and Google.

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Fri, 13 Oct 2023 23:29

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Israeli physicist and social activist

Shikma Schwartzman-Bressler (Hebrew: ×(C)קמ×-- בר××'ר ; born July 10, 1980) is an Israeli physicist. A researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science, she is among those taking part in research at the CERN particle accelerator in Switzerland as a member of the ATLAS collaboration.[1] She is also a social activist and leading figure in the "Black Flags" protests against Benjamin Netanyahu.[2][3][4]

Biography [ edit ] Bressler was born in Haifa, the second child of four, to a doctor mother and a father who was a senior worker at Elbit systems. She grew up in Kibbutz Gvat and Timrat. When she was younger she played basketball in the Hapoel Galil Elyon basketball team and in Israel's youth national team. After her army service, Bressler moved on to play for "Ha'poel Haifa".[citation needed ] She retired from basketball after she was injured and began her studies at the Technion. She married and had two children. She later divorced and remarried and has five daughters.[5]

Scientific career [ edit ] Bressler is a physicist at the Weizmann Institute of Science. She completed her bachelor's degree, with distinction, in physics and mathematics at the Technion, where she also completed her master's degree in physics in 2006 and a Ph.D. in 2011. In 2012, she joined the faculty at the Weizmann Institute.[3]

In 2013, Bressler formed a team at the Weizmann Institute entrusted with the development of detectors and particle physics. This team deals with the development of advanced concepts in the field of radiation detectors. She is an active researcher at the CERN particle accelerator in Switzerland, where she deals with gathering data from the ATLAS experiment in search of physics beyond the standard model of particle physics.[3]

Bressler heads a physics research group in the particle and astrophysics department of the Weizmann Institute and deals with the research into the Higgs Boson[3]

[ edit ] 2020 "Black Flag" protests [ edit ] Shikma Bressler at a demonstration in Kiryat Bialik March 23, 2023In March 2020, Bressler founded and led the "Black Flag Protests", along with two of her brothers, Yarden and Eyal, and two family friends.[4][1] Following the 2020 Israeli legislative elections, President Reuven Rivlin laid the task of forming a government on the chairman of the Blue and White party. Outgoing Knesset chairman, Yuli Edelstein, refused to give up his position for the new chairman in an attempt to prevent the establishment of a committee which would convene to deliberate on removing parliamentary immunity of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.[6] Bressler and two of her brothers initiated protest convoys to the Knesset and protests near the homes of Knesset members and members of the Israel Resilience Party headed by Benny Gantz.[7] The protestors began with three demands.[8] The first, the election of a new chairman for the Knesset after the 3rd elections in a year, while Benny Gantz and the block of parties opposed to the continuation of Netanyahu's rule should be entrusted with the task of forming a government. Their second demand was the establishment of Knesset committees with parliamentary supervision, and the third demand was the legislation of an amendment to the basic law pertaining to the formation of a government and regulating government powers so that in the future, a person indicted on criminal charges would not be able to run for Prime Minister.[9][10][11] The protest movement spread throughout the country and came to be known as "The Black Flag Protest".[12][13][4]

2023 judicial reforms protest [ edit ] Arrest of Shikma Bressler at a demonstration in Kiryat Bialik March 23, 2023Leaders of the protest march to Jerusalem (from left to right: Ran Harnevo, Shikma Bressler, Moshe Radman, Ami Dror)On March 23, 2023, Bressler was detained by police during one of the many "Day of Disruption" protests held across Israel as part of the 2023 Israeli anti-judicial reform protests. She was later released. Former Prime Minister and protest leader, Ehud Barak, tweeted that Bressler's arrest was "dictatorship in action". Knesset Member and Labor party leader, Merav Michaeli, stated that "in a normal country Shikma Bressler would be given the Israel Prize. In the state of Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir she is arrested as a common criminal."[14][15]In July 2023, Bressler announced they would march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.[16]The march from Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was a protest against the law proposal to reduce the reasonableness clause.[17][18]

In September 2023 it was claimed that Bressler was charging 20,000 USD for a meeting in person (or a personal Zoom meeting) with her while in New York City which caused a vocal outrage amongst her supporters and opponents alike.[19][20][21] The protest movement Kaplan Force said however the event was an uncoordinated private initiative, that Bressler didn't engage in paid meetings and wasn't expected to be in the United States.[21]

Awards and recognition [ edit ] In 2016, Bressler received the Charles Clore award for research.[22]

In 2020, Bressler appeared in TheMarker ' s list of 100 most influential people in Israel and in Forbes magazine's list of 50 most influential women in Israel.[23][24]

In 2021, Bressler received the Nathan Rosen Experimental Physics Prize for Young Physicists award from the Israeli Physical Society (IPS).[25]

References [ edit ] ^ a b Kershner, Isabel (August 2, 2023). "The Face of Israel's Protests Is a Particle Physicist" . The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 25, 2023 . Retrieved August 3, 2023 . ^ Kopepper, Ruta (2020). "Shikma Bressler, Initiator of "The Black Flag Protests" at #16 of the 100 Most Influential People List" (in Hebrew). The Marker . Retrieved December 2, 2020 . ^ a b c d "Dr. Shikma Bressler Deeply Examines the Laws of Nature" (in Hebrew). Weizmann Institute of Science. 2014 . Retrieved November 28, 2020 . ^ a b c Shpigel, Noa (March 25, 2020). "This is How a Whatsapp Conversation Between Three Brothers and a Sister Became "The Black Flag Protests" " (in Hebrew). Haaretz . Retrieved December 2, 2020 . ^ Vaknin, Yossi (July 11, 2000). "Women: Revolution at Ha'poel Galil Elyon" (in Hebrew). Ynet . Retrieved November 28, 2020 . ^ Weisburg, Nitzan (March 26, 2020). "Meet the Leader of the "Black Flag" Protest: A Physicist from the Weizmann Institute and a Mother of 5" (in Hebrew). OnLife.co.il . Retrieved December 2, 2020 . ^ Cohen, Uri (August 3, 2020). "Israel Police ramps up security ahead of weekend demonstrations". The Jerusalem Post . Retrieved December 4, 2020 . ^ Kahana, Eilat (July 16, 2020). "Who Is Behind the "Black Flag Protests"?" (in Hebrew). Makor Rishon . Retrieved December 3, 2020 . ^ REICH, AARON (April 26, 2020). "Thousands gather in Tel Aviv for Black Flag protest against coalition". The Jerusalem Post . Retrieved December 4, 2020 . ^ Zarchia, Zvi (March 19, 2020). "The Black Flag Protest: "Saving the Knesset and Democracy" " (in Hebrew). Calcalist . Retrieved December 3, 2020 . ^ "Head to Head: Opposers of Netanyahu Facing His Supporters" (in Hebrew). Haifa - News. October 24, 2020 . Retrieved December 3, 2020 . ^ Lis, Yonathan (March 16, 2020). "Rivlin Tasks Gantz With Formation of Government" (in Hebrew). Haaretz . Retrieved November 28, 2020 . ^ Gorali, Moshe (March 19, 2020). "The Health of the Nation or the Health of the Prime Minister" (in Hebrew). Calcalist . Retrieved November 28, 2020 . ^ STARR, MICHAEL (March 23, 2023). "Protest leader Shikma Bressler arrested in judicial reform demonstration". The Jerusalem Post . Retrieved March 23, 2023 . ^ SHARON, JEREMY (March 23, 2023). "Protest leader Shikma Bressler arrested, later released; ex-PM Barak: 'Dictatorship in action' ". The Times of Israel . Retrieved March 23, 2023 . ^ "Protest leaders announce march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem". Times of Israel . Retrieved July 19, 2023 . ^ Sela, Uri (July 18, 2023). "Hundreds of protesters march on foot from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem: "We will rebuild the nation" " (in Hebrew). Walla! . Retrieved July 24, 2023 . ^ "The journey to the Knesset continues - a special broadcast to cover the great protest campaign against the coup d'(C)tat" (in Hebrew). Democrat TV. July 19, 2023 . Retrieved July 24, 2023 . ^ "Big Money in the Big Apple: Shikma Bressler's price for a meeting with New Yorkers is published (Hebrew), Israel HaYom, September 14th, 20223. ^ US supporters fume: $20,000 to meet with the leader of the anti-government protests?, Arutz Sheva, Israel National News, Sep 14, 2023, 4:30 PM (GMT+3) ^ a b Edelson, Daniel (September 14, 2023). "Judicial reform protest fundraiser U-turns on '$20,000 cup of coffee' perk, exposes production costs". Ynetnews . Retrieved September 19, 2023 . ^ "Awards 2016" (in Hebrew). Weizmann Institute of Science. 2016 . Retrieved November 28, 2020 . ^ "100 Most Influential People in Israel 2020". TheMarker (in Hebrew). 2020 . Retrieved November 28, 2020 . ^ "PowerWomen 2020". Forbes (in Hebrew) . Retrieved November 29, 2020 . ^ "IPS Awards 2021". The Israeli Physical Society. 2021 . Retrieved February 1, 2021 . External links [ edit ] Kopepper, Ruta (2020). "Shikma Bressler, Initiator of "The Black Flag Protests" at #16 of the 100 Most Influential People List" (in Hebrew). The Marker . Retrieved November 28, 2020 . "A Symphony of Particles: Physical Winner" (in Hebrew). News1. December 21, 2018 . Retrieved November 28, 2020 . Symphony of Particles: Dr. Shikma Bressler on YouTubeMoran, Meirav How a Particle Physicist Became the Reluctant Face of Israel's Protest Movement Haaretz. Subscription required. How a Particle Physicist Became the Reluctant Face of Israel's Protest Movement at archive.todayKershner, Isabel The Face of Israel's Protests Is a Particle Physicist The New York Times August 2, 2023. Subscription required. The Face of Israel's Protests Is a Particle Physicist at the Wayback MachineShotter, James Israeli activist Shikma Bressler: 'People feel they cannot serve a dictatorship'. Financial Times 25 August 2023. Subscription required. Israeli activist Shikma Bressler: 'People feel they cannot serve a dictatorship' at archive.today

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Fri, 13 Oct 2023 23:10

Shikma Bressler, a mother of five who says her passion is life in the lab, has emerged as a symbol of the struggle against the government's divisive judicial overhaul.

''It's rare that you recognize you are in a real-time historical moment,'' Shikma Bressler said. Credit... Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse '-- Getty Images The particle physicist was sitting at a cafe in Tel Aviv when a young waitress rushed over, gushing at her in admiration. An older couple, a husband and wife, at the next table looked over at her with tears in their eyes.

''You are our hope,'' the wife said. Later, the physicist stopped to chat with the couple on her way out, and hugged the woman.

''She's an honest, brave and genuine leader,'' said the husband, Natan Sitner, a retiree. ''She didn't come to this out of personal interest,'' Mr. Sitner said. ''When she gets up onstage, everyone listens and believes what she says.''

For years, the physicist, Shikma Bressler, devoted herself to the lab she runs at a science institute near Tel Aviv, a job she describes as her passion, and to the raising of her five daughters in a small village in northern Israel, staying far away from politics.

But she has also become the face of the protests that have rocked Israel for months, marching on the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday nights, exhorting crowds of protesters with speeches echoing with revolutionary ardor, and amplifying her message in a steady stream of social media posts. She was arrested, briefly, in March after she encouraged protesters to block a highway.

Dr. Bressler sealed her status as a symbol of the protest movement last month when she led a miles-long column of demonstrators on a multiday march to the hills of Jerusalem from coastal Tel Aviv. It evoked a biblical pilgrimage, and they picked up tens of thousands of supporters during the journey.

The march, Dr. Bressler said, was ''almost a spiritual experience,'' attracting Israelis angered by the government's contentious plans to reduce the influence of the Supreme Court, a move that prompted perhaps the deepest internal crisis since the foundation of the state 75 years ago. People along the way contributed huge quantities of food for the marchers. Somebody noticed that one of Dr. Bressler's shoes was torn and asked for her shoe size. She soon had seven pairs to choose from.

''It's rare that you recognize you are in a real-time historical moment,'' Dr. Bressler said during an interview in the cafe, reflecting on the events of the past few months. ''It's amazing to be living it as it happens and to be taking on some responsibility for this story.''

After the march from Tel Aviv, many of the demonstrators camped out near Parliament until lawmakers passed the first law last week in a package of legislation intended to rein in the Supreme Court and give more power to the government.

While the far-right and religiously conservative governing coalition that campaigned for the changes argues that they are a much-needed move to bolster the authority of elected governments, critics like Dr. Bressler see them as an effort to erode Israel's democracy and worry that they could lead to a dictatorship.

''We are at a historical crossroads,'' Dr. Bressler said in the interview, which was conducted a few days after the vote. ''From here, there is no going back; we can only take one of two ways forward,'' she added.

''We can either fall into a very dark, extreme, racist place where the Israel that we know, in all its social and economic aspects, will be destroyed,'' she said, touching on another issue that has struck a nerve with liberal Israelis '-- the presence of ultranationalist ministers in the government with a history of anti-Arab incitement and homophobia. ''Or we can build a new stronger, better democracy for the good of all the people.''

Dr. Bressler is a professor and runs a lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, south of Tel Aviv. She is an active member of an international team experimenting with particle detectors at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, near Geneva '-- an effort, she said, to understand ''the other 95 percent of the universe beyond what we already know.''

She said she never planned to become a leader of the protests, and had no political ambitions.

''If I had wanted to be a politician, I'd have gone into politics,'' she said.

Image A convoy of vehicles heading to Jerusalem in a protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2020. Credit... Abir Sultan/EPA, via Shutterstock Dr. Bressler said she first became concerned about where Israel was headed in March 2020, when Benjamin Netanyahu, then the prime minister, as he is now, ordered a shutdown of the courts at the start of a coronavirus-related lockdown. Mr. Netanyahu cited health concerns for the move, but it also postponed the opening of his corruption trial, angering many Israelis.

Dr. Bressler said she and two of her three brothers decided they had to do something.

They devised a plan to lead a convoy of cars driving to Parliament in Jerusalem, and made video clips calling on people to join them. Dr. Bressler's clip circulated widely online, and scores of people turned up with their cars for the protest.

Encouraged by their success, Dr. Bressler and her siblings founded a group called Black Flags, one of the early anti-Netanyahu protest groups, and became actively involved in later protests that sought to oust the prime minister.

During the subsequent period when Mr. Netanyahu was out of office, from June 2021 until the end of 2022, Dr. Bressler settled back into her routine at the lab and at home '-- her eldest daughter is now 17; the youngest, age 5, is still in kindergarten.

But she returned to the streets for a huge protest in Tel Aviv on Jan. 14, days after the justice minister, Yariv Levin, introduced his plan to overhaul the country's judiciary.

The next Saturday night, the coordinating committee for a protest in Tel Aviv was seeking a presenter to go onstage and, after failing to recruit an actor or prominent journalist in time, decided to ask Dr. Bressler.

''Things evolved from week to week. It evolved until she became the face of the struggle,'' Nadav Galon, a spokesman for the committee, said of Dr. Bressler.

She stays on message in her speeches and frequent appearances in the Israeli news media, using plain language to convey what she calls the urgent mission to ''save the country.''

Today, Dr. Bressler is not associated with any particular protest group.

The antigovernment protest camp embraces a broad section of mainstream Israelis who want to preserve a more pluralist and liberal society. It has no hierarchical or formal leadership; a highly organized coordinating committee is made up mostly of volunteers. Financing comes from contributions from Israel's business and tech communities and from crowdfunding.

Dr. Bressler said it was the nature of Israelis to respond when ''called to the flag,'' echoing the views of many Israelis that the protests are a patriotic struggle to protect a democracy at risk. A former basketball player, she spent her period of obligatory military service in a special track for outstanding athletes and lost several high school peers in the war between the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israel in 2006. Now, she said, it was her turn on the front lines.

As well as celebrity, her activism has put her in the cross hairs of Mr. Netanyahu's loyalists, who have branded the protesters as anarchists.

Image A protest march to Jerusalem in July. Dr. Bressler said the multiday demonstration was ''almost a spiritual experience.'' Credit... Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse '-- Getty Images May Golan, the conservative minister for the advancement of the status of women, described Dr. Bressler as an agent of chaos. Tally Gotliv, an outspoken lawmaker from Mr. Netanyahu's Likud party, said Dr. Bressler enjoyed ''delusional fame based on lies.'' She added that protest organizers who disrupt the lives of lawmakers ''should be investigated by the police on suspicion of incitement.''

A self-described political centrist, Dr. Bressler acknowledges that the protest movement cannot solve all of Israel's problems.

After the setback in Parliament last week, the organizing committee is focused on trying to maintain the momentum of the main Saturday night protests while Parliament is in a recess until October. Dr. Bressler said she found it ''magical'' that so many people kept showing up.

She was back on the stage at the big weekly protest in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, dressed in a T-shirt with a logo of a raised fist and the words, ''We must resist.''

Addressing the crowd, she read her speech from her phone in one hand while holding a large Israeli flag in the other. Then she roared out the signature chant of the protest, ''De-mo-cra-tia! De-mo-cra-tia!'' A rapt audience of tens of thousands chanted back.

Isabel Kershner , a correspondent in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian politics since 1990. Her latest book is ''The Land of Hope and Fear: Israel's Battle for its Inner Soul.'' More about Isabel Kershner

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In the summer of 2019, as Paragon Solutions was building one the world's most potent cyberweapons, the company made a prescient decision: before courting a single customer, best get the Americans on side.

The Israeli start-up had watched local rival NSO Group, makers of the controversial Pegasus spyware, fall foul of the Biden administration and be blacklisted in the US. So Paragon sought guidance from top American advisers, secured funding from US venture capital groups and eventually scored a marquee client that eludes its competition: the US government.

Interviews with half a dozen industry figures about the divergent paths of the two companies underline how the shadowy spyware industry is being reshaped around those friendly to American interests.

According to four of those people, the US Drug Enforcement and Administration Agency is among the top customers for Paragon's signature product nicknamed Graphite. The DEA's use of Graphite was first reported by the New York Times.

The malware surreptitiously pierces the protections of modern smartphones and evades the encryption of messaging apps like Signal or WhatsApp, sometimes harvesting the data from cloud backups '-- much like Pegasus does.

Paragon was set up by Ehud Schneorson, the retired commander of Unit 8200, the Israeli army's elite signals intelligence arm. According to people familiar with the company, which includes ex-Prime Minister Ehud Barak on its board, has secured investment from two US-based venture capital firms, Battery Ventures and Red Dot.

Paragon, Barak, Battery Ventures and Red Dot declined to comment.

In 2019, even before work on Graphite had been completed, on advice from a retired senior Mossad official, Paragon hired DC-based WestExec Advisors, the influential advisory group staffed by ex-Obama White House officials including Michele Flournoy, Avril Haines and Antony Blinken. Ex-US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, was also consulted, people with knowledge of the advisory effort said. Shapiro declined to comment.

WestExec said it ''advised Paragon on its strategic approach to the US and European markets, as well as the formulation of its industry-leading ethical commitments designed to ensure the appropriate use of its technology,'' adding it was ''proud of our contributions in these critical areas.''

After the election of Democratic president Joe Biden in 2021, Blinken was appointed secretary of state, while Haines is now director of national intelligence. Both had departed WestExec by the time of the Paragon contract, the lobbying firm said. Flournoy '-- once considered in the running to lead the defence department '-- remains an influential US voice on foreign affairs.

American approval, even if indirect, has been at the heart of Paragon's strategy. The company sought a list of allied nations that the US wouldn't object to seeing deploy Graphite. People with knowledge of the matter suggested 35 countries are on that list, though the exact nations involved could not be determined. Most were in the EU and some in Asia, the people said.

''Everything they did was with the strategy that at the end of the day, the US should see them as the good guys,'' said one person familiar with the decisions.

That contrasts with NSO's recent troubles. By 2019, assisted by the regional diplomacy of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, NSO was a $1bn company selling its wares to Saudi Arabia, Mexico and dozens of other countries.

By the time the Biden administration came into office, NSO's lucrative customers were proving to be its Achilles heel, as many of those regimes continued to deploy the multimillion-dollar weapon against journalists, dissidents and opposition leaders.

As evidence of abuse spread, such as the targeting of US diplomats in Uganda in 2021, NSO has found itself in the crosshairs both of the American government and the world's largest tech companies. Apple and WhatsApp owner Meta are suing it.

''There is a growing sense that this particular type of malware is so invasive, so surreptitious that its proliferation poses both a human rights risk and a counter-intelligence risk to the US,'' said Stephen Feldstein, who has studied the spread of spyware such as Pegasus and Graphite for the Carnegie Endowment.

For nearly a decade, the only restraint on some of the biggest spyware manufacturers was Israeli export controls, which regulate malware like Pegasus as weapons. Feldstein said that Israeli officials ''make decisions on geopolitical solutions, not on human rights abuses.''

Paragon's founders, however, were more sensitive to the increasingly dim view the US was taking of the proliferation of cyberweapons.

After NSO's malware was tracked to the phones of associates of murdered Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Paragon declined Israeli government requests to replace Pegasus with Graphite in the Saudi armoury, according to two people familiar with the issue.

Paragon's decision to eschew a valuable Saudi contract eventually paid off. Two other Israeli firms, Quadream and Candiru, which sold similar hacking capabilities to the Saudi government, were outed by Microsoft and rights group Citizen Lab after their malware was used on journalists and dissidents. Candiru was blacklisted alongside NSO in Nov 2021. Quadream recently shut down operations, the Israeli paper Calcalist reported.

The US has stepped in further to reshape the spyware market to favour those who sell cyberweapons to the US and its allies, while curbing those who chase lucrative contracts with authoritarian regimes.

President Joe Biden signed an executive order in March barring any US agency from purchasing spyware that ''poses risks to national security or has been misused by foreign actors to enable human rights abuses around the world.''

The wording of the executive order is seen by experts as targeting NSO, while carving out a space for companies like Paragon to continue selling similar spyware, but only to the closest of US allies. The American expectation '-- still unproven '-- is that friendly nations are less likely to abuse such a weapon on civil society, or to spy on US government officials deployed abroad.

''It's really making the case that the US believes that many of these kinds of tools are unlawful,'' said David Kaye, who as the UN's Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression spent years trying to hold the NSO Group accountable for its customers' abuse of its spyware. ''And if the proliferation of these tools is a national security problem, then that really changes the conversation from it being a human rights problem.''

NSO said it ''does not believe that its placement on the [US Commerce Department blacklist] has ever been warranted,'' adding: ''ironically, other cyber intelligence companies who are not subject to the list sell to countries without any regulatory structure and that NSO refuses to make sales [to].''

However, the DEA's purchase of Graphite, reportedly only for use by its partners in Mexico to help fight drug cartels, has begun to draw scrutiny. The DEA said it uses: ''every lawful investigative tool available to pursue the foreign-based cartels and individuals operating around the world responsible for the drug poisoning deaths of 107,735 Americans last year.''

Congressman Adam Schiff, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, wrote to the DEA in December asking for more details on the purchase. Mexico is among the worst abusers of NSO's Pegasus which it bought nearly a decade ago.

Schiff wrote: ''such use [of spyware] could have potential implications for US national security, as well as run contrary to efforts to deter the broad proliferation of powerful surveillance capabilities to autocratic regimes and others who may misuse them.''

This article has been updated to reflect that the DEA's use of graphite was first reported by the New York Times.

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>>

>>

Fear Not, No WWIII Yet '' Bo Polny

By Greg Hunter's USAWatchdog.com (Special presentation of Weekly News Wrap-Up WNW 603 for 10/13/23)

Biblical cycle timing expert and geopolitical/financial analyst Bo Polny predicted last month on USAWatchdog.com that ''chaos was coming in early October.'' The Hamas/Israel war that started on October 6th proved him right. The situation seems to be intensifying and spinning out of control by the hour. Israel has called up 300,000 troops in the war with Hamas terrorists that murdered, wounded or kidnapped thousands of Israelis in a surprise attack last Friday. Hamas is calling for a ''global Jihad, invasion of Israel and to attack Jews worldwide on Oct. 13.'' Even though this is already a bloody conflict that will, no doubt, get much worse, Polny predicts this is not going to be WWIII, at least not just yet. Polny explains, ''If you truly understand the times we are living in today, do not fear World War III. It is not the time for it. That time point is Revelation 16, verse 12. It says the Euphrates River dries up, and armies prepare for Armageddon. I repeat, we are not at Revelation 16.''

Polny is quick to point out that just because this is not Armageddon, it does not mean there will not be blood and financial meltdowns. Polny thinks gold and silver go way up in price from here, and a lot of other things go way down in value, including the U.S. dollar. Polny explains, ''God is going to intervene and destroy Mystery Babylon. How does he do that? Destroy the dollar. You are going to see the U.S. dollar lose its status as the world's reserve currency. It's going to collapse starting this year. It has topped right now, and it will start collapsing in November. There will be a huge collapse in the first quarter of 2024. That's going to cause the bond markets to collapse. That's going to cause the banking institutions to collapse. That's going to cause the financial system to collapse. That's going to cause real estate to take a 50% to 90% haircut. Everything that Babylon has built gets destroyed. We are going to get fulfillment. What is the third seal of Revelation? It is a financial rebalancing. The wealth of the sinner, Babylon, is stored up for the righteous.''

Polny says you can sum up what is coming as ''blessings and vindications.'' Polny still thinks President Donald Trump will be back in office sooner than later.

There is much more in the 1-hour and 2-minute special presentation.

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with Biblical cycle expert and financial analyst Bo Polny, founder of Gold2020Forecast.com, for a special presentation of the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 10.13.23.

(To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here)

After the Interview:

You can find free information on Gold2020Forecast.com.

To look at Polny's free PowerPoint presentation called ''Events in Our World are Not Political, They Are Biblical,''click here.

If you would like a reduced rate on a 2-week trial on the price moves of ''Gold Turn Dates,'' click here. (Use discount code USA49)

If you would like a reduced rate for a 2-week trial on the price moves of ''Bitcoin Index,'' click here. (You will get Bo Polny's latest U.S. Dollar chart for free with this trial subscription.) (Use discount code USA49)

If you want to find out about how to get into the ''Easy Crypto School,'' click here.

(USAWatchdog.com gets no financial compensation from Bo Polny for posting these links. We do this as a courtesy.)

If you are looking to buy physical gold and silver coins, check out our sponsor Discount Gold and Silver Trading. Ask for Melody Cedarstrom, the owner, at 1-800-375-4188.

Please Support Our Direct Sponsors Below Who Support The Truth Tellers

About the Author Greg HunterGreg is the producer and creator of USAWatchdog.com. The site's slogan is ''analyzing the news to give you a clear picture of what's really going on.'' The site will keep an eye on the government, your financial interests and cut through the media spin. USAWatchdog.com is neither Democrat nor Republican, Liberal or Conservative. Before creating and producing the site, Greg spent nearly 9 years as a network and investigative correspondent. He worked for ABC News and Good Morning America for nearly 6 years. Most recently, Greg worked for CNN for shows such as Paula Zahn Now, American Morning and various CNN business shows.

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Sun, 15 Oct 2023 13:47

Authored by Ben Sellers via Headline USA (emphasis ours),

Last week, Rep. Alexandrio Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) hopped on a livestream to give a 'very fine people on both sides' damage control speech regarding the situation in Israel, after the Democratic Socialists of America came out for Hamas following last weekend's brutal attack on Israelis.

She did anything but clear the air... as Twitter followers couldn't help but notice that during the 45-second livestreamed social-media broadcast, the socialist lawmaker unmistakably appeared to break wind around the 38 second mark.

It came at a particularly awkward moment, during which ''AOC'' happened to be accusing Israel of genocidal war crimes after it struck back for the slaughter of more than a thousand innocent civilians'--including the rape and torture of many'--and the kidnapping of roughly 150 others whose fate remains unknown.

''[T]he United States has a responsibility to ensure accountability to human rights to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and to ensure that horrors do not happen in the names of victims who do not want their [fart] tragedy used to justify further violence and injustice,'' she said.

The United States' responsibility is to human rights. That means supporting the safety of the Israeli people and preventing the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. pic.twitter.com/7CsuN6uO3w

'-- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) October 12, 2023But while few would have predicted it to be the next development in a story that has shocked the world and fueled global anxieties like never before about the outbreak of World War III, it is not the first time farts have become an unwanted diversion for AOC.

One of her first acts as a freshman lawmaker was to draft the ''Green New Deal,'' a multi-trillion-dollar framework for revamping the entire U.S. economy in order to achieve net-zero carbon emissions.

Unfortunately, the plan was widely ridiculed for its outlandish proposals'--not the least of which was its fixation on regulating cow farts.

Despite the popular rejection of it at the time, leftists and globalists have continued to push the Green New Deal agenda under different labels, including President Joe Biden's ''Build Back Better'' plan and the ''smart city'' initiatives being coordinated by the World Economic Forum.

And at least one nation'--New Zealand'--has attempted to impose a tax on cow farts'--although it is unclear how they are assessed.

In all likelihood, Ocasio''Cortez, who let the video remain up on her Twitter site as of Friday morning, felt no sense of shame over her own methane emission.

She has performed other acts of public humiliation before, including dancing to bongos while enraged citizens jeered her at a town-hall meeting.

Dare you to find something more cringey than these AOC dance moves pic.twitter.com/X8tz8BJ7YF

'-- Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 20, 2022However, the Bronx boofer may have doomed her future presidential aspirations if history offers any indication.

At least two past Democratic presidential candidates who have publicly cut the cheese went on to bomb in the ballot box.

Hillary Clinton left the normally loquacious Sens. John Edwards and Barack Obama practically speechless after a burst during a November 2007 CNN debate ahead of the Democratic primary.

Although Clinton was by far the better known name and widely considered to be the frontrunner at the time, Obama wound up closing the gap and going on to win the election'--and two terms in office'--while Clinton would go on to win the nomination in 2016 only to lose the general election.

In 2019, while conducting an on-camera interview with then Hardball! host Chris Matthews, Rep. Eric Swalwell, considered to be a serious political upstart with a bright future and a formidable political adversary for then-President Donald Trump, appeared to shift a bit in his seat.

Shortly thereafter, Swalwell let out a ripper that reared back his shoulders, but continued to make his point without missing a beat.

At that point Swalwell already had launched and failed a short-lived presidential campaign, which lasted only about three months. However, the fart'--and subsequent news of an affair with a Chinese honeytrap spy named Fang Fang'--not only raised serious concerns about Swalwell's judgment and integrity, but also made it hard to take him seriously.

In January, Swalwell was one of three Democrat lawmakers who was stripped of his committee assignments due to concerns that he was unfit to serve on the House Intelligence Committee since he was potentially a compromised Chinese asset.

And who could forget when Rahm Emanuel farted on the Charlie Rose show?

Or when Rep. Jarrold Nadler (D-NY) may have duked in his diapers.

Jerry Nadler poops his pants, Pelosi calls him distinguished, Nadler waddles off stage. pic.twitter.com/zcJ8jrV6GF

'-- Jesse Watters's hand (@JesseWatersHand) September 24, 2020How much did he poop? Depends...

Rudy toot toot?

It's not just Democrats...

I present this clip of Rudy Giuliani testifying without editing or commentary. (Watch for the ðŸ‘) pic.twitter.com/h4ndjLO56p

'-- Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) December 3, 2020And last but not least, current independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was caught in a fart scandal in July, but not one of his own making.

While attending a private dinner with several members of the New York media at an Italian restaurant in Manhattan, RFK Jr. was upstaged by the evening's host, literary agent Doug Dechert (a conservative), who began to argue about global warming while several cups deep into the evening's libations.

When the debate with his friend across the table became too tiresome, Dechert shut it down with a ''loud, prolonged fart,'' wrote Page Six reporter Mara Siegler, ''while yelling, as if to underscore his point, 'I'm farting!'''

The moment apparently left many at the table shell-shocked, but perhaps not RFK Jr.'s campaign manager, Dennis Kucinich, who had dealt with public flatulence at least once before.

Kucinich also was a candidate in the 2008 Democratic primary and was onstage during the Hillary Clinton incident.

Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers .

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Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) suggested that the United States consider bombing Iranian oil refineries if the Iranian-funded terror group Hamas follows through on its promise to start executing hostages in the Gaza Strip.

In addition to murdering and raping hundreds of Israeli civilians over the weekend, terrorists took hostages, including Americans back to Gaza as hostages. Since then, they've threatened to execute those held captive every time Israel launches a retaliatory airstrike that kills civilians.

On Fox News, Graham reacted to that threat by issuing one of his own to the Iranian government.

''Well, for every Israeli or American hostage executed by Hamas, we should take down an Iranian oil refinery. The only way you're going to keep this war from escalating is to hold Iran accountable,'' began the famously-hawkish Graham.

He continued:

How much more death and destruction do we have to take from the Iranian regime? I am confident this was planned and funded by the Iranians. Hamas is a bunch of animals who deserve to be treated like animals. So if I was Israel, I would go in on the ground. There is no truce to be had here. I would dismantle Hamas. This is the best opportunity Israel has to destroy Hamas. Take it to the Iranians. If you harm one American in Syria by using your Iranian militia against us in Syria, if you escalate the war by urging Hezbollah to attack Israel in the north, if Hamas kills one American Israeli hostage, we're going to blow up your oil refineries and put you out of business. It is now time to take the war to the Ayatollah's backyard.

At least 9 Americans have been confirmed to have died in the attack, which was characterized by the intentional killing of civilians as well as mass rape. An unknown number of Americans are missing and have been taken hostage.

Watch above via Fox News.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com

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Fri, 13 Oct 2023 22:05

Marina Machete became the first transgender woman to win Miss Portugal last week, making her one of two trans contestants so far to compete for Miss Universe later this year.

Machete, a 28-year-old flight attendant, thanked her supporters for the ''positive and empowering'' messages she has received since being crowned Thursday.

''To all of you watching, I just want to say that, just like the universe, your possibilities in life are limitless,'' she said in a video shared on Instagram over the weekend. ''So don't limit yourself to any dream that you have.''

She added that she is excited to meet the other delegates at the 72nd Miss Universe pageant in El Salvador in November.

In July, Rikkie Valerie Kolle, 22, became the first trans woman to be crowned Miss Netherlands.

''Yes I'm trans and I want to share my story but I'm also Rikkie and that's what matters to me,'' she wrote in an Instagram post at the time. ''I did this on my own strength and enjoyed every moment.''

Shortly after she was crowned, she revealed that she became the target of hate speech online.

''I thought we were really accepting ... in the Netherlands, but the hate comments show the other side of our society. I hope that's a wake-up call,'' she told Reuters at the time. ''For now, I fully ignore it. I focus on the good things coming my way.''

It appears that Machete and Kolle will be the only transgender contestants among the 90 women who will compete for the crown on Nov. 18. There are two more qualifying pageants '-- in Mongolia and China '-- before the Miss Universe pageant next month, and no local reporting has identified any trans contestants.

Miss Universe began allowing trans women to compete in 2012 and, in 2018, Angela Ponce became the first trans woman to do so after she was crowned Miss Spain.

In 2021, Kataluna Enriquez became the first trans woman to compete in the Miss USA pageant after she was crowned Miss Nevada, though she did not go on to compete in that year's Miss Universe pageant. In February, Daniela Arroyo Gonzlez became the first trans woman to compete in Miss Universe Puerto Rico, where she finished within the top 10 finalists, according to her Instagram.

However, not all pageants have been open to including trans women. In July, more than 100 transgender men entered the Miss Italy pageant after the pageant's organizer said Miss Italy wouldn't allow trans women to compete.

Anne Jakkapong Jakrajutatip, a Thai businesswoman and transgender advocate, bought the Miss Universe Organization for $20 million last year, making her the first woman to own the pageant.

Jo Yurcaba Jo Yurcaba is a reporter for NBC Out.

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Fri, 13 Oct 2023 21:57

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Arnold Schwarzenegger told Rob Lowe that ''ruining'' cities is what Democrats are all about, and he has ''no idea'' why they are like that, in a new podcast interview out on Thursday.

The movie star and former California governor was a recent guest on SiriusXM's Literally! With Rob Lowe podcast, and spoke about what it is that being a Republican is all about, and what Democrats would say they are about.

In addition to all the big name celebrities, host and Hollywood star Lowe has had political guests on his podcast before, such as George Stephanopoulos and Jen Psaki. Schwarzenegger, of course, is in both categories and Lowe asked about what it means to be a Republican.

Lowe gave an example, saying that former GOP Congressman from California David Dreier said being Republican is about, ''in no particular order, strong military, low taxes, less government, more personal freedoms.''

''Strong law enforcement,'' said Schwarzenegger.

Lowe then asked what a Democrat would say it means to be a Democrat, and Schwarzenegger offered an answer.

''Ruin your cities,'' he said.

Lowe asked for more explanation and Schwarzenegger said, ''That's what the Democrats would say. We are about ruining the cities. We want to f*ck up every city in America. That seems to be the theme right now.''

As for why that's what they're about, he had ''no idea.''

The full episode will be available on Thursday from SiriusXM.

LOWE: Okay, let me ask you this, and I ask people this all the time. David Dreier, good friend of ours and a good man. Surfer for many, many, many years. He used to have the greatest, what makes me a Republican, and he had I think four or five things. I think it was, in no particular order, strong military, low taxes, less government, more personal freedoms. There might have been one more, but it makes sense to know ''

ARNOLD: Strong law enforcement.

LOWE: Strong law enforcement. And then I'd like to know, I always ask Democrats what it means to be a Democrat in that way. And I, I think whatever anybody would say ''

ARNOLD: Ruin your cities.

LOWE: What would they say?

ARNOLD: Ruin your cities.

LOWE: What's that?

ARNOLD: Ruin your cities.

LOWE: Ruin your cities.

ARNOLD: That's what the Democrats would say. We are about ruining the cities. We want to f**k up every city in America. That seems to be the theme right now.

LOWE: Why is that?

ARNOLD: I have no idea.

Listen to the clip above via Literally! With Rob Lowe on SiriusXM.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com

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Biden'‹ will be in Philadelphia on Friday to announce seven regional clean hydrogen hubs to accelerate the domestic market for low-cost, clean hydrogen.

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