Politics

Aoun “will provide critical leadership as Lebanon and Israel” end hostilities between the Jewish state and Hezbollah, Biden said.

(JNS)

President Joe Biden congratulated Lebanon’s army chief Joseph Aoun, after an overwhelming majority of the country’s parliament voted to elect him as president.

“President Aoun has my confidence,” Biden said on Thursday. “I believe strongly he is the right leader for this time.”

Noting that Aoun’s election “comes just six weeks after the United States secured an end to the hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel,” Biden said the new head of state “will provide critical leadership as Lebanon and Israel fully implement that cessation of hostilities and as hundreds of thousands of people return to their homes and Lebanon recovers and rebuilds.”

The Lebanese people, he continued, have suffered for more than two years from a devastating war and continuing financial crisis, as well as the absence of national leadership.

“Through their elected parliamentarians, the people of Lebanon have exercised their democratic right to choose their own future,” Biden said. “They have chosen a path aligned with peace, security, sovereignty, and reconstruction in partnership with the international community. And the United States will support them as they walk that path.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar also congratulated Aoun and expressed his hope “that this choice will contribute towards stability, a better future for Lebanon and its people and to good neighborly relations.”

Image: Commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces Joseph Aoun at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in Arlington, Va., on June 26, 2018. Credit: Elizabeth Fraser/Arlington National Cemetery via Wikimedia Commons.

The House also agreed to a rules package that includes a measure to impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court as it seeks the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Andrew Bernard

(JNS)

The U.S. House of Representatives re-elected Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) as speaker on Friday on a dramatic first ballot after Johnson persuaded Republican holdouts to switch their votes.

Nine Republicans initially declined to vote for Johnson when their names were called in the alphabetical roll-call vote for speaker, leaving Johnson with 210 votes to 215 for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.)

Six of those Republicans subsequently voted for Johnson when their names were called a second time, but Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Keith Self (R-Texas) voted for other candidates, leaving Johnson short of an overall majority.

Johnson later left the floor with Norman and Self, who minutes later returned to the clerk’s desk to change their votes for Johnson, leaving Massie as the lone Republican holdout in the speaker vote.

Norman and Self reportedly had phone calls with President-elect Donald Trump before changing their votes.

Johnson ultimately secured 218 votes, all from Republicans, the minimum required to secure a majority among the 434 members-elect present.

While Republicans will control both chambers of Congress and the presidency after Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20, the difficulty in securing Johnson’s speakership on the first ballot points to the fractious House coalition that Trump and Johnson will have to navigate.

Trump congratulated Johnson. “The people of America have waited four years for common sense, strength and leadership,” Trump wrote. “They’ll get it now, and America will be greater than ever before.”

A letter from the board of the House Freedom Caucus, signed by most of the holdouts, said that they ultimately chose to back Johnson to ensure the timely certification of Trump’s election, but laid out some of their demands for their continued support of the speaker, including spending cuts and border security measures.

“There is zero room for error on the policies the American people demanded when they voted for President Trump,” they wrote. “We demand the House of Representatives deliver—quickly.”

The selection of a House speaker from among the majority party has been a formality for the past century but has become increasingly contentious in recent years on the Republican side of the aisle.

John Boehner resigned the speakership in 2015, amid a looming battle with the party’s right flank, and his successor Paul Ryan declined to run for reelection in 2018 after frequently butting heads with Trump.

In 2023, eight Republicans joined with every Democrat to oust then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy with a motion to vacate the speakership, the first time that procedure had been executed in American history, and Johnson was subsequently elected speaker.

Johnson survived a motion to vacate in May after he received the support of most Democrats and all but 11 Republicans.

After Johnson’s re-election as speaker on Friday, the House also agreed to the rules package for the 119th Congress by a vote of 215 to 209.

The package increases the threshold for a motion to vacate from one member of the majority to nine.

It also includes a provision to ease the passage of a bill instructing the president to impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court over arrest warrants that it has issued for Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The text of the underlying bill, which passed the House 247-155 in June, instructs the president to impose sanctions on any member of the ICC enaged in “any attempt to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute” U.S. citizens or the citizens of U.S. allies not party to the Rome Statute of the ICC, including Israel.

“The ICC’s actions against Israel are illegitimate and baseless, including the preliminary examination and investigation of Israel and applications for arrest warrants against Israeli officials, which create a damaging precedent that threatens the United States, Israel and all United States partners who have not submitted to the ICC’s jurisdiction,” the bill says.

“The United States must oppose any action by the ICC against the United States, Israel or any other ally of the United States that has not consented to ICC jurisdiction or is not a state party to the Rome Statute of the ICC,” it adds.

Image: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) addresses an estimated 200,000 at the “March for Israel” rally in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14, 2023. Source: Screenshot.

“As I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice,” the U.S. president said.

JNS Staff

(JNS)

U.S. President Joe Biden stated on Sunday night that he hopes Americans will understand why he, as “a father and a president,” decided to pardon his son Hunter Biden.

“Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively and unfairly prosecuted,” Biden stated.

“Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form,” the president said. “Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.”

Biden and his administration have previously issued very strong statements about gun control and the important of holding offenders accountable for gun crimes.

Less than a month ago, a reporter asked Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, during a Nov. 8 press briefing about a potential pardon. “His son, Hunter, is also up for being sentenced next month,” the reporter said. “Does the president have any intention of pardoning him?”

“We’ve been asked that question multiple times,” Jean-Pierre said. “Our answer stands, which is no.”

Biden stated on Sunday that the charges against Hunter Biden “came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election.”

“Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the courtroom—with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process,” he said. “Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.”

“No reasonable person, who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases, can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son—and that is wrong,” Biden said. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me—and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

The president said that he has followed “a simple principle” for his entire career, which is to “just tell the American people the truth.”

“They’ll be fair-minded. Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice—and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further,” he said. “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”

Over the weekend, Biden was also photographed carrying an anti-Israel book as he exited a Nantucket, Mass., book store.

“I had a good conversation with my successor-to-be, Sen. Rubio, the other day,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. “I look forward to meeting with him and to going over in detail exactly where we are and where we hope we can go.”

(JNS)

Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, was asked during a press briefing in Fiuggi, Italy, where he was attending a G7 foreign ministers meeting, about the reportedly imminent 60-day ceasefire agreement in Lebanon.

“In 60 days you won’t be in office anymore,” the reporter said. “Do you plan to work with the incoming Trump administration to ensure that this truce can really turn into a lasting peace?”

“We’re absolutely committed to working with the incoming administration on this issue and everything that we’re dealing with,” Blinken said. “I had a good conversation with my successor-to-be, Sen. Rubio, the other day,” he added, of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

“I look forward to meeting with him and to going over in detail exactly where we are and where we hope we can go or, if we haven’t been able to complete the work, the next administration can go,” Blinken said. “Having that continuity and being able to hand off to the next administration the strongest possible hand to play in bringing peace and bringing security is exactly what I’m focused on.”

Blinken was in Italy for a meeting of the G7—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the European Union.

Earlier in the day, the G7 foreign ministers released a lengthy statement, which addressed several regions, including the Middle East. “As the international community is facing a growing number of challenges, including climate change and biodiversity loss, disaster risks, the eradication of hunger and poverty, emerging and disruptive technologies, we renew our determination to foster collective action in the pursuit of common solutions,” they stated.

The ministers reaffirmed their “unequivocal condemnation” of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and continued “to call for the immediate release of all hostages, and for the remains held by Hamas in Gaza to be returned to their loved ones.” They also referred to a “destructive cycle” in the region and said there must be a “pathway to a two-state solution.”

“We are alarmed by the increasing toll of hostilities along the Blue Line and beyond,” they stated. “We are gravely concerned about the very high number of civilian casualties, the destruction of critical civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and health care centers. The growing number of internally displaced persons in Lebanon is alarming.”

They also stated “deep concern” about “recent attacks and strikes on UNIFIL, which have injured several peacekeepers and damaged facilities” and said that “the situation in Gaza has led to unprecedented levels of food insecurity, affecting much of the population, particularly in the north.” They said that UNRWA, the U.N. agency whose employees Israel has accused of having direct ties to Palestinian terror groups, plays a “vital role.”

“We express our strongest condemnation for the rise in extremist settler violence committed against Palestinians, which undermines security and stability in the West Bank and threatens prospects for a lasting peace,” they added. (The Biden administration and some others refer to Judea and Samaria as the “West Bank.”)

They also denounced Iran’s attacks, and those launched by the Houthis, and said the Islamic Republic must not be allowed to secure a nuclear weapon.

‘A significant impact’

Blinken told a reporter in Italy on Tuesday that a ceasefire in Lebanon could have “profound effects.”

A reporter asked the secretary about the White House’s statement that such a deal could lead to a ceasefire in Gaza as well. “For almost a year, it seems that nothing has moved the needle with Hamas,” the journalist said. “So what makes you think that this will convince the group to turn over the hostages it’s holding?”

Blinken said that “one of the things that Hamas has sought from day one is to get others in on the fight, to create multiple fronts, to make sure that Israel was having to fight in a whole series of different places.”

“As it’s thought that that was possible, that’s one of the reasons it’s held back from doing what’s necessary to end the conflict,” he said. “Now, if it sees that the cavalry is not on the way, that may incentivize it to do what it needs to do to end this conflict.”

A reporter asked Blinken, “at this point, does the U.S.-Israel alliance benefit Israel more than it does the United States?” The secretary didn’t respond directly.

Another journalist asked Blinken what guarantees there are that Israel wouldn’t react in a manner, about which there are “concerns,” to ceasefire violations.

Blinken declined to address details of the agreement.

“As a general matter,” he said, “of course by definition Israel will always have the right to deal with challenges or threats to its security, just as any country has that right.”

There is a chance, he said, to achieve “the effective implementation” of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which was supposed to ensure that Hezbollah wasn’t able to attack Israel.

“Unfortunately, 1701 was never effectively implemented, and the result has been Hezbollah has remained in a position where it could attack Israel and, as I said on Oct. 8, the day after Oct. 7, it again launched these attacks on Israel to such an extent that Israelis were forced out of their homes in northern Israel,” Blinken said.

If the agreement goes ahead, “it is the answer to the problem that has bedeviled the area for a couple of decades and is the best way to guarantee that there is peace, there is stability and this constant threat of attack from Hezbollah, which has caused people to leave their homes, kids to not be able to go to school, is over, people can return, just as people who’ve been displaced in southern Lebanon can return to their homes.”

“That’s in the immediate what’s at stake, as well as, I think, the larger ramifications of getting an agreement, including what I believe can be very positive effects on also ending the conflict in Gaza,” he said.

Image: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken participates in the G7 Foreign Ministers Working Lunch and session on Situation in the Middle East and in the Red Sea in Anagni, Italy, Nov. 25, 2024. Credit: Chuck Kennedy/U.S. State Department.

The defense minister asked the Shin Bet chief to employ “alternative means” against residents of Judea and Samaria who wield force against Palestinians.

Natan Galula

(JNS)

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Friday that he had decided to end the use of administrative detention orders against Israeli citizens, in a move that bears significant change for law enforcement in Judea and Samaria.

“Given that the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria are subject to Palestinian terror threats and unjust international sanctions are slapped against the settlers, it is improper that the State of Israel would apply such a severe measure against the people of the settlements,” Katz said in a statement.

Katz informed Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) head Ronen Bar of the decision in an in-person meeting held last week. He asked Bar to use “alternative means” instead.

Israel uses administrative detention as a means to incarcerate suspected terrorists without charges because they pose an imminent security risk. The Emergency Powers (Detention) Law, 5739-1979, authorizes the defense minister to detain suspects with administrative orders for up to six months.

In Judea and Samaria, Israeli law authorizes commanders of the Israel Defense Forces to issue administrative detention orders for persons suspected of terrorism.

In either case, the detainee must be brought in front of a judge within 48 hours of arrest, to determine whether the arrest is justified for national security reasons.

This measure is mostly used against Palestinians, but it has been used with more regularity in recent years against Jews living in Judea and Samaria, suspected of committing acts of terrorism against Palestinians.

According to Israel Hayom, Katz has no intention of extending the arrest of eight Jewish detainees, currently held without charges, who could be released in a few weeks, when their detention orders expire.

Incident in Hebron

Since the start of the year, 16 administrative orders have been issued against Israelis. Thirty-one were issued during the August 2021-July 2024 tenure of Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox as head of the IDF Central Command, which has responsibility for Judea and Samaria.

On Friday night, dozens of Jewish residents reportedly attacked Fox’s successor, Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, in Hebron. They reportedly chased Bluth and other officers, chanting slurs condemning the IDF.

Israeli police arrested five people involved in the incident.

Katz referred to the incident on X, writing: “I strongly condemn the severe attack on the commander of the Central Command, Major General Avi Bluth, as well as IDF officers by a group of rioters in Hebron.

“Harming IDF commanders and soldiers, who dedicate their lives to the security of Israel and its citizens, harms the entire State of Israel. I expect law enforcement authorities to bring those involved in the incident to justice without delay, and call on the settlements’ leadership to strongly condemn phenomena of this sort. The State of Israel will not tolerate violence of any kind against its servants,” Katz said.

The minister has previously said, “I condemn violence against Palestinians and taking the law into your own hands, and I am appealing to the settlements’ leadership to adopt a similar public stance and to voice it unequivocally. The IDF and the rest of [Israel’s] security forces and law enforcement authorities must be allowed to deal with terrorism and Palestinian violence, without taking the law into your own hands.”

The Shin Bet has been opposed to lifting the administrative detentions, with Bar stating in June that the move could result in a “serious harm to the security” of Israel.

Members of Israel’s coalition government have prepared to push for the release of Israeli Jews held in administrative detention in the wake of Yoav Gallant’s recent removal as defense minister.

During Gallant’s two years in office, the use of administrative detention against Israelis reached an all-time high.

Netanyahu announced Gallant’s firing on Nov. 5, saying it was prompted by disagreements on how to conduct the wars against Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iranian terrorist proxies in the region.

Shortly before his dismissal, Gallant signed off on the administrative detention for six months of 19-year-old Eliyakim Harel, a resident of the Binyamin region of southern Samaria, marking the 31st such order since he was named defense minister in December 2022. In the 74 years preceding Gallant’s tenure, a total of some 25 Israelis were held without charge.

Image: Defense Minister Israel Katz (right) at the Knesset in Jerusalem, Nov. 11, 2024. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90.