On her last day in Australia yesterday, Melanie Phillips appeared with John Hinderaker’s friends on the Sky News Australia show Outsiders to discuss President Trump’s proposal for a Gaza “Riviera,” the Arab world’s current view of Israel and the western liberals’ love affair with Hamas. Phillips is the brilliant columnist and author, most recently, of The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West — and Why Only They Can Save It, published by the invaluable Post Hill Press.
In response to the first question and following, Phillips unleashes a gusher of common sense and history, both of the politically incorrect variety. This is a bravura performance, via Melanie Phillips/Substack. Her comments can be supplemented with the current columns by Peter Berkowitz at RealClearPolitics and Nils A. Haug at Gatestone.
At the end of the clip above there is an allusion to yesterday’s hostage release. Here are the three released hostages, before and after.
Rabbi Daniel Gordis gives a sense of the shock in his Israel From the Inside Post post “When was the last time you saw three newscasters holding back tears?” Rabbi Gordis’s post includes several videos that are worth your time if you can allow yourself to be blown off course for a while this morning. I urge interested readers to check it out.
I met Rabbi Gordis in 1997 at St. Paul’s now closed Odegard Books when he toured in support of his excellent book God Was Not In the Fire. He emigrated to Israel — “made aliyah” — the following year. He is also the author of the highly regarded, widely praised, and better known Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn (2016). He founded Jerusalem’s Shalem College in 2013.
The X feed of Prime Minister of Israel is full of images of the hostages reuniting with their families yesterday as well as the warning below — a warning of more to come.
The Coordinator for the Hostages and the Missing, Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Gal Hirsch:
"The State of Israel views with grave concern the repeated violations of Hamas, and with even greater concern the condition of the three hostages released this morning. This will not go unaddressed." pic.twitter.com/EZPCwHf5Ge
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) February 8, 2025
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