Sometimes it feels as though there is nothing but bad news, and more bad news. Not the sweeping kind of October 7 bad news, but the ongoing, morale-dampening kind of news that never seems to end.

So, instead of giving into that feeling, we joined the Hostage Family Forum this Saturday evening in Hostage Square, Tel Aviv, where we heard the prayers rising from the hav’dalah service (prayer ending the Sabbath) of the Reform Movement, alongside the sing-along held every Saturday in the square. And we listened to the heartbreaking speech twin sermons by the parents of slain hostage Hersh give twin sermons at Tel Aviv rally: ‘We’ve lost too many cherished souls’.

This issue we'll talk about the hostages - and what's happened to the hostage deal; the Israeli coalition government and its latest shenanigans; the ICJ decision to issue warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant; and of course, what's happening on the antisemitism front.

No, the war is from over, but last week, the new Defense Minister, Yisrael Katz, claimed that Israel has already defeated Hezbollah. You could have fooled us, with the hundreds of rockets and drones being fired from Lebanon into Israel every day. And the soldiers and civilians who have died since Katz made his announcement (Nov 10th).

But that hasn’t stopped the government under Netanyahu from trying to continue business as usual, passing laws that would transfer funds to the ultra Orthodox who refuse to serve in the military (or do do any kind of national service). Or from trying to continue the upheavals to the legal system in Israel, threatening the Knesset’s ombudsman, and the list just goes on.

So we’re fighting back - kind of - by letting you know that you can now see the film Bibi doesn’t want you to see (The Bibi Files)!

And of course, we’ll keep you posted in this issue on the latest in the spy scandal in Netanyahu’s inner circle, updates on the hostages, and a discussion of what the next Trump administration could mean for Jews in the United States.

Israelis may have been the target of the Oct. 7 massacre, but it has set off a chain of events that continue to spread worldwide with no hope of ending until the hostages in Gaza return home.

Over the past week, while most of you have been focused on the results of the presidential election, Israelis have been focused on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s mismanagement of the war and the side effects of his failure to focus on freeing the hostages. Despite all of the IDF’s successes on the battlefield in Gaza and Lebanon - we are no closer to bringing home the 101 hostages than we were last week and the same can be said about the return of the evacuees from northern Israel. Antisemitism driven by the “Free Palestine” movement continues to grow more violent and reminiscent of the right wing antisemitism that swept Europe in the 1930s.

This week we've decided to focus on two developing spy scandals in Israel. While we don't yet know whether they would make for good spy novels or comedy routines - they are both real and serious. The first one, which began appearing in the Israeli news a few weeks ago, concerns Israelis that Iran succeeded in getting to betray Israel in return for money. So far, none of the spies uncovered were high level or well connected, but there are signs of a massive effort by Iran to entice Israelis - often using fake profiles in social media or criminal contacts.  

Over the past week Bibi and Biden appear to have joined forces against Israel’s opposition parties, each for their own reasons. While Biden may not like Bibi, and Bibi may be rooting for Trump - this week’s events have shown that politics can indeed create strange bedfellows. In this issue, we will look at the three most important issues facing Israel this week and explain how U.S. President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister have found themselves working hand-in-hand against the Israel’s opposition parties in order to advance the political interests of the Biden-Harris administration on one hand and of Bibi and his extremist coalition on the other.

“Kul kalb biji yomo” in Arabic means every dog shall have its day; in other words, every bad person shall get their punishment eventually (sorry dogs for dragging you into this…).

And that’s exactly what happened to Yahya Sinwar, the chief architect of the October 7 massacre and the country's most wanted man. Sinwar disappeared at the start of the war triggered by the unprecedented Hamas attacks, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

And now, he’s finally dead, killed in the ruins of the houses above the tunnels he used to hold the hostages and to plan his attack on Israel. Sinwar was killed in a chance encounter with Israeli troops operating in south Gaza’s Rafah on Wednesday.

In today’s issue, we will focus on the aftermath of Sinwar’s death, and what it means for the hostages and the future of the war.

This week we focus on two issues, yesterday’s drone attack that killed 4 and wounded 67 young Israelis and the level of fake news in mainstream media throughout the west on both the right and the left. We lead with the drone attack because as of noon here in Israel (3 AM EST) there are still no reports in the mainstream U.S. media. There are however headlines about the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system, which looks like they were were written by the Biden Administration’s press secretary and printed as-is.

This leads to our second focus (Look to the Right, Look to the Left -Fake News on Parade) - the indoctrination that has replaced investigative journalism in the mainstream media in the U.S. and Europe. This may or may not be true of most domestic political issues - we don’t really know - but it is true when it comes to reporting on the Middle East, especially when it comes to coverage of Israel and the Palestinians, and anti-Zionism as a politically-correct façade for pure antisemitism.

We will then touch on hostages because we fear that the hostages are being put on the back burner. Whether this is intentional or not doesn’t really matter - time is running out for 101 hostages and their families. This is not only true for Israelis, but Americans as well - because some of those hostages are United States citizens left to rot as the world marches on.

The biggest news over the past week has been about the war in Lebanon and how Israel should or will respond to the missile attack from Iran. If this were any other week, we would probably focus on the media bias and misinformation over these two issues. But we’ve decided instead to give you a taste of the issues that are bubbling under the surface and that does not even receive biased coverage outside of Israel. These are not the “top headlines” in Israel this week, but they have been coming up off-and-on over the past year and Israelis all feel them constantly.

The first and most important issue that we will focus on this week is the hostages. All of the major Israeli news broadcasts make a point to remind us, but their fate has still taken a back seat to the northern front and Iran. The change in focus makes sense - but we all need to keep our eyes on the hostages living and dying in hell as we speak about other issues. And every time you hear or read about the importance of a ceasefire - your blood should chill - because it is the release of 101 hostages that must come first. Just try and imagine that you daughter or son, parent or grandparent is being held, starved and tortured day-in and day-out for a year and everyone calls for the police and FBI to take a break and stop the intensive search for your loved ones because their captures and their families need time to calm down.

Giving credit to Bibi is not easy, but he finally did make a good decision. This doesn’t make up for making Oct. 7 possible or mismanagement of the war in Gaza, but he was Prime Minister on Friday and it was his call to approve the bombing of Hassan Nasrallah’s bomb shelter. So he deserves credit. He also deserves credit for the last minute ruse that allowed Nasrallah and many of his top people to feel safe just a few more hours until the bombs dropped.

So before you to read this newsletter, open a bottle of Champagne or whatever else helps you celebrate and enjoy the moment before we delve into the wrong reasons and their potential costs down the road. And maybe, just maybe… his moment of glory might guide him to make a few more good decisions (but most likely he will once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory).

In this issue we  focus on how the Israeli perspective differs from what you are seeing in the mainstream media. We will also update you regarding the parallel universe known as Israeli politics. Finally, we will try and remind you about the hostages and ask that you do all you can to keep talking about them.