A high-ranking Syrian army commander was assassinated on Tuesday near the city of Sweida in the war-torn country’s southwest, dozens of miles from the border with Israel.
Brig. Gen. Jamal al-Ahmad was gunned down by unknown assailants while touring the sector, the intelligence blog Intelli Times and London-based pan-Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat both reported on Wednesday.
According to the Intelli Times, Ahmad was among a group of Syrian officers tasked with maintaining ties with Hezbollah in the Sweida area, and particularly with Hezbollah’s commander in southern Syria, Munir Ali Naim Shaiti,also known as Hajj Hashem, who is responsible for building the Lebanese terrorist organization’s military infrastructure in the Syrian Golan Heights.

President Trump said on Wednesday that there’s “always a chance” the United States could use military force against Iran, tough he added that he’d “rather not.”
“Iran is a place that was extremely hostile when I first came into office,” he said to British television station ITV. “They were a terrorist nation—No. 1 in the world at that time and probably maybe are today.”
Regarding Washington using military force against Tehran, the president said that “there is always a chance. Do I want to? No, I’d rather not. But there’s always a chance.” Later, he added, “I would much rather talk.”
However, such overtures by the Trump administration have been rejected by the Islamic Republic.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Tuesday that he has removed Airbnb from the state’s blacklist following its April reversal of its November decision to delist from its travel opportunities about 200 Jewish-owned properties in Judea and Samaria.
“As Governor, I have an obligation to oppose policies that unfairly target Israel. Once @Airbnb ended their discriminatory policy toward Israel, we decided to remove them from the @FloridaSBA Scrutinized Companies List,” he tweeted.
In January, Florida placed the online marketplace and hospitality service on the state’s scrutinized companies list, prohibiting state contractors from doing business with it.
(JNS)
{Matzav.com}

Leaked documents revealing that members of the Palestinian Authority Cabinet gave themselves a retroactive 67 percent pay raise in 2017 have sparked outrage among their constituents, who are accusing their leaders of being corrupt and self-serving.
According to the Associated Press, the large salary increase occurred in 2017, the same year that the P.A. cut salaries for 50,000 employees in Gaza by a third, arguing that the government wouldn’t be able to pay salaries at all unless it made the move. The P.A. also argued that the Gaza workers were idle, given that the region was now controlled by Hamas, which employed its own loyalists.
The documents confirming the pay increase—including for P.A. chief Mahmoud Abbas—were posted anonymously online and quickly went viral.

In 2009, Barack Obama had an unprecedented opportunity to advance the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. For the first time, the Palestinians had a prime minister who was respected and admired by the Israelis, because he did not come from the same terrorist background as Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. Unlike his ideological comrades who insisted on “liberating Palestine,” Salam Fayyad, with a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Texas, was interested in building the infrastructure for a future state, strengthening the West Bank economy, and improving the lives of the Palestinian people.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi  privately told senior Democrats that she’d like to see President Trump “in prison,” Politico reported Wednesday.
Her remarks came during a meeting Tuesday night with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and other top Democrats leading investigations against the White House, multiple sources told Politico.
Nadler reportedly pressed Pelosi to let his committee launch an impeachment inquiry, which the Democratic leader denied.
“I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison,” Pelosi said, according to Politico.
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
When the Bnei Yisroel were in Sinai after having crossed through the Yam Suf, Hakadosh Boruch Hu commanded them to count down the days until Shavuos, at which time the Torah would be given to them and shtei halachem would be brought (Vayikra 23:15-16).
It is commonly understood al pi drush that the reason for the count was to signify their anticipation to receive the Torah. The purpose of Yetzias Mitzrayim was not simply to free the Jewish people from slavery, but to bring them to Har Sinai for them to receive the Torah and become obligated to studying it and observing its many commandments.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday dismissed the notion that anti-Semitism exists on the left side of the political spectrum, saying that Jew-hatred is a “right-wing movement.”
At a press conference in Brooklyn, home to 561,000 Jews, he said, “I think the ideological movement that is anti-Semitic is the right-wing movement.”
De Blasio, a candidate for president, disagreed with a claim by a reporter who noted increasing anti-Semitism “on the left in the BDS movement and around the world.”
BDS supporters are predominantly associated with the far-left, belonging, for example, to the Democratic Socialists of America, and are especially active within academia and on college campuses.

By Chaim Saller, Matzav.com
The following are two major takeaways from Tuesday night’s election in Toms River, NJ, in which Mo Hill and his entire slate won.
First, all the Jewish-supported candidates won by margins smaller than the Jewish vote. So the Jewish vote clearly swayed the election. Jewish-community-supported Mo Hill garnered 511 more votes than runner up Joe Coronato. Had 256 Jewish voters voted for Coronato and his slate instead of Hill and his, Coronato and his slate would have won. The breakdown of districts show that Hill won by a landslide in the Jewish-dense areas.