While most major American Jewish organizations staunchly support Israel in its war against Hamas, dissent has quietly been growing among their often younger employees, some of whom are now speaking out to “demonstrate broad support within the Jewish community for a ceasefire.”

More than 500 staffers at over 140 Jewish organizations across the country signed on to an open letter to President Joe Biden, shared first with NBC News, calling for a cease-fire, the return of all hostages and a lasting peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.

“Many of us have devoted our life’s work to building thriving Jewish communities,” reads the letter, which follows similar anonymous open letters from various groups of U.S. government employees. “We know there is no military solution to this crisis. We know that Israelis and Palestinians are here to stay — neither Jewish safety nor Palestinian liberation can be achieved if they are pitted against one another." 

A Tehran court has ordered the US government to pay nearly $50 billion in damages for assassinating a top Iranian general nearly four years ago, the judiciary said on Wednesday.

Then-US president Donald Trump ordered a drone strike near Baghdad airport that killed General Qasem Soleimani, 62, and his Iraqi lieutenant Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis on January 3, 2020.

Days later, Iran retaliated by firing missiles at bases in Iraq housing American and other coalition troops. No US personnel were killed but Washington said dozens suffered traumatic brain injuries.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday they had discussed the "vital" U.S.-UK Indian Ocean air base at Diego Garcia, and Blinken said Washington recognized British sovereignty there.

The air base is on British Indian Ocean Territory in the Chagos Islands that a vote in the United Nations General Assembly in 2019 said should be returned to Mauritius.

Cameron did not give a specific response at a joint news conference with Blinken when asked about a report in Britain's Daily Telegraph this month that said British Defence Minister Grant Shapps wanted Britain to drop plans to hand back the islands.

"On the issue of the vital U.S. air base at Diego Garcia, when foreign secretaries and secretaries of state get together, they often discuss the importance of the assets that we share and use around the world, and that is an important one, and we touched on that this afternoon," Cameron said.

Blinken said the base played a vital role for the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific region and for global security.

(This Dec. 6 story has been corrected after Citigroup clarified that the $1 billion figure does not relate only to the reorganization recently announced in paragraphs 1, 2, 3 and 6)

Citigroup (C.N) Chief Financial Officer Mark Mason said the company will book $1 billion in costs that include restructuring and severance this year.

The company's sweeping reorganization is expected to be fully completed by the end of the first quarter next year, Mason told the Goldman Sachs (GS.N) U.S. Financial Services Conference. The changes include slimming down management and potentially laying off thousands of employees.

Some of you probably noticed that the entire media was relying on numbers from the Gaza authorities (they have some complicated way of claiming it’s the PA acting autonomously, but it’s literally Hamas – the PA has no ability to act autonomously in Gaza) for the death tolls, and maybe thought it was weird that the media wasn’t making an effort to claim that they were exaggerating the deaths.

Well, the reason the media didn’t want to touch that is that the death estimates – as we’ve said several times – were totally low-balled.

I think the Gaza authorities chose to low-ball it to maintain credibility. It makes sense. But it’s always been obvious, just from watching videos, seeing the property destruction, and then estimating the scale, that a lot, lot, lot of people are dying.

The United States believes that Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) is actively playing a part in the missile and drone strikes carried out against "Israel" and targeting shipping in the Red Sea, Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said on Thursday.

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, Finer stated, "We believe that they are involved in the conduct of these attacks, the planning of them, the execution of them, the authorization of them and ultimately they support them."

Commenting on the state of the battlefront along the Lebanese-Palestenian borders, Israeli Kan channel military affairs analyst, Roi Sharon said it was clear that Hezbollah "is running things in the North" pressing the Israeli Occupation Forces into defense. 

Sharon warned that if the fighting in the north escalates a notch it would entail an all-out war. 

Sharon also described  Netanyahu's threats regarding making Beirut and the Lebanese south like Gaza if Hezbollah starts a total war as being only "half- threats". 

Since the first day following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the  Resistance in Lebanon, led by Hezbollah, has been targeting military sites and gatherings of the Israeli occupation forces along the blue line, in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and response to the ongoing attacks by the occupation against southern Lebanese towns.

The U.S. is putting on a show of force in the skies above Guyana on Thursday, as the Biden administration said it was standing with the country amid growing fears that Venezuela was about to launch an invasion. 

Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro raised the stakes this week by ordering maps to be withdrawn and telling state companies to exploit contested oil and mineral deposits.

The dictator has ramped up his rhetoric and the slide to war, claiming a Sunday referendum gave him a clear mandate to claim sovereignty over Guyana's oil rich region of Essequibo.

No joke: I’d rather give the money to Barbados than to Ukraine and Israel.

It’s not an option to spend the money on our own people, so give it to Barbados.

You create 10,000 widgets of no real value, that cost you $.50 each.

You get ten friends to buy the widgets for $1 each, doubling your money.

Davos man John Kerry is continuing to “pledge” for stricter regulations on behalf of the people after the United Nations climate change summit (COP28). He already committed $3 billion to eliminating coal and believes emissions could be slashed by 68% come 2050. Now, John Kerry is out to eliminate the energy we use to cool our homes.

The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro, who has spent years railing against affirmative action and identity politics, on Thursday celebrated Palantir announcing that they're "setting aside 180 positions" just for Jewish college students who say they feel "unsafe" at America's Ivy League universities.

Heavy Israeli bombardment has destroyed the central archive of Gaza City, according to the Gaza municipality. 

Photos published by local media and Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank showed the building heavily damaged, with papers and documents littering the floor. 

“The Israeli occupation destroys the central archive of Gaza municipality, executing thousands of historical documents, and deliberately razing all life forms, erasing the city and its history,” Birzeit University posted on social media platform X on Wednesday.

“It is worth noting that the archive holds documents more than one hundred years old,” it added.

The Ukrainian government can’t expect additional funding from the US until it has been approved in Congress, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby warned at a White House press briefing on Thursday.

On Wednesday, the Senate failed to advance the $111 billion spending bill that would have allocated over $60 billion in aid to Kiev, even after President Joe Biden argued that this would undermine US leadership and prestige.

“We’re not in a position to make that promise to Ukraine, given where things are on the Hill,” Kirby said, answering a reporter who had asked whether the White House could offer any assurances that additional funding was coming Kiev’s way.

Last week’s statements by David Arakhamia – who took part in the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations to end the armed conflict a year and a half ago – have caused a stir. The leader of Ukraine’s parliament only said what had been uttered by others before, but his input, for the first time, delivered official confirmation from Kiev.

Firstly, he admitted that the main issue at that time was military and political security – the guaranteed neutral status of Ukraine. As we know from the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin (during a meeting with an African delegation in June), those present also talked about specific parameters for limiting Ukraine's military potential. Secondly, Arakhamia reported on the position of then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who, either on his own initiative or on behalf of the collective West, was in favor of continuing the war to a victorious conclusion.

We will refrain from making a political assessment of the decisions taken by the Ukrainian leadership. What is more interesting is the substantive side of the negotiations, which we can now assess more fully.

The administration of US President Joe Biden is considering tightening immigration controls in order to persuade the Republicans to sign on to a behemoth security package for Ukraine and Israel, Reuters reported on Thursday.

On Wednesday, GOP Senators blocked Biden’s flagship $111 billion supplemental funding request, which included aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, citing the Democrats’ reluctance to address the tense situation on the US-Mexico border. Some Republicans have also repeatedly criticized the White House for a lack of accountability with respect to the money sent to Ukraine.

The Biden administration is now reoprtedly open to raising the bar for initial asylum screenings as well as considering the introduction of a provision that would deny asylum to would-be immigrants who pass through a third “safe” country on their way to the US, according to the agency's source.

Webmaster addition: This is purely cosmetic.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reportedly told members of Congress that unless they approve more funding to Ukraine, Americans will be sent to fight Russia directly, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said on Thursday.

According to Carlson, Austin spoke at a classified briefing for members of the House of Representatives on Wednesday, and at one point told them that “we’ll send your uncles, cousins and sons to fight Russia” unless Kiev gets the $60 billion in aid requested by the White House.

“The Biden administration is openly threatening Americans over Ukraine,” Carlson said on X (formerly Twitter), summarizing Austin’s message as “Pay the oligarchs or we’ll kill your kids.”

“He really said this?” X owner Elon Musk asked.

“He really did. Confirmed,” Carlson replied.

While US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been frantically shuttling around the Middle East trying to stop the Israeli conflict in Gaza from exploding into a regional war, the United States has also sent two aircraft-carrier strike groups, a Marine expeditionary unit and 1,200 extra troops to the Middle East as a “deterrent”.

In plain language, the US is threatening to attack any forces that come to the defence of the Palestinians from other countries in the region, reassuring Israel that it can keep killing with impunity in Gaza.

But if Israel persists in this genocidal war, US threats may be impotent to prevent others from intervening. From Lebanon to Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Iran, the possibilities of the conflict spreading are enormous.

Even Algeria says it is ready to fight for a free Palestine, based on a unanimous vote in its parliament on 1 November. 

The Russian economy grew by 3.2% in the first ten months of 2023 and will post 3.5% growth by the end of the year, beyond the levels recorded prior to the conflict in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin said during his address at VTB Bank’s ‘Russia Calling!’ Forum on Thursday.

Putin said Western states had aimed to destabilize the Russian economy “to make the Russian people suffer,” with financial sanctions imposed on the country since February 2022. However, these goals “set by our ill-wishers have clearly not been achieved,” the president added.

“There are still things we need to work on, of course… but we have proven that we are capable of tackling the most difficult challenges. The Russian economy is coping,” Putin stated, adding that Moscow expects the country’s GDP to continue expanding and grow by 3.5% by the end of the year.

Saudi Prince Talal bin Abdulaziz bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has died aged 62, the Saudi monarchy announced on Thursday. Reports in Arabic media claim the prince was killed in a plane crash.

The Saudi royal court announced the prince’s passing in a short statement, saying that funeral prayers for the deceased royal would be performed at the Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque in Riyadh.

Prince Talal bin Abdulaziz was the son of Prince Bandar and the grandson of the first Saudi monarch, King Abdulaziz. Born in 1961, he was a lieutenant colonel in the Royal Saudi Air Force and served as assistant intelligence chief at the GIP, the Saudi intelligence agency, from 2004 to 2012.

While the court’s statement did not reveal a cause of death, Lebanon’s Al Mashhad news outlet reported that the prince died when his F-15 fighter jet crashed during a training exercise with the air force earlier on Thursday.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s hold on his position as prime minister of Israel appears increasingly tenuous.

Many Israelis hold him and his cabinet responsible for the security failures of October 7, and he has come under heavy domestic criticism for his handling of the war on Gaza. Add to that the fact he has long been bogged down by corruption charges and criticism over plans to change the judicial system.

In a recent development, the Colorado Supreme Court has begun hearing appeal arguments in a case that seeks to disqualify Donald Trump, the 2024 GOP frontrunner, from the state's primary ballot, citing the 14th Amendment.

The case was first ruled on by a lower court judge on November 17, who decided that Trump could remain on the ballot. This decision sparked appeals to the higher court by the petitioners. Trump's attorneys also appealed the lower court ruling, arguing that while the judge allowed Trump to stay on the ballot, the ruling was accompanied by the assertion that Trump was an "insurrectionist" who instigated the January 6 riot at the Capitol building.

A bereaved father, whose 8-year-old son was shot dead by soldiers, stood this week at the entrance to his home at the border of the Jenin refugee camp and stated the simple truth: "These children will never forgive the soldiers. You're raising another generation of resistance. Now our children want Israeli children to be killed too."

I visited the home of the father, Samer al-Ghoul, after a visit to the Jenin camp where the Israel Defense Forces once again sowed destruction in recent days, to a horrifying extent. About 80 homes were demolished, all the roads in the camp were uprooted from their place and the sewage, whose infrastructure was destroyed, is flowing in the streets and raising a stench. The children of the Jenin camp wallow in it.

Webmaster addition: Israel NEEDS enemies to keep their own population under control.

The ancient Othman bin Qashqar Mosque, located in the old town of Gaza City, was bombed by Israeli warplanes on Thursday, causing casualties among people and damage to nearby homes, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

The mosque was built in the year 620 Hijra (1220 AD), and it is one of the oldest mosques and archaeological sites in the Gaza Strip. 

It is located in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood, east of Gaza City, and is adjacent to the Great Al-Omari Mosque, which was also destroyed by Israeli warplanes during this aggression.

The Biden administration’s steadfast support of Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza has cost him tremendous political capital internationally, according to Ian Bremmer, the CEO and founder of the Eurasia Group.

Washington’s stated unconditional backing of Israel — politically, financially, and militarily — has been a longstanding pillar of its Middle East foreign policy.

When Israel suffered a brutal terrorist attack on Oct. 7 by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed some 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostages, Biden flew to the country in a show of solidarity, pledging billions of dollars in military support. The U.S. already provides Israel some $3.1 billion annually in military aid, making it the largest recipient of American foreign aid in the world.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wants to jail Trump, his former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani in the RICO and conspiracy case against the former president.

“We have a long road ahead,” the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, wrote in one email on November 29, according to The Guardian. “Long after these folks are in jail, we will still be practicing law.”

In August Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis hit President Trump and 18 others with RICO and conspiracy charges for daring to challenge the 2020 election.

A Fulton County grand jury returned a 41-count indictment which included RICO and conspiracy charges against Trump.

In May, Reynolds signed the law to prevent teachers from raising gender identity and sexual orientation issues with students from kindergarten through grade six, and removed all books depicting sex acts from school libraries, with religious texts exempt.

The law also requires school administrators to notify parents if students ask to change their pronouns or names. 

In response, the ACLU and Lambda Legal are pushing back with a lawsuit, arguing that the law imposes "ongoing irreparable harm to LGBTQ+ students."

A trio of companies, including Ford, have iced plans for a large electric vehicle plant in Turkey, citing cooling demand. 

The news (also involving LG Energy Solution and Koç Holding) is a blow to innovation and investment momentum happening among some of the largest automakers around the world. 

“Considering the current pace of electric vehicle adoption, the timing is not appropriate for a battery cell investment,” Koç Holding stated in a Reuters article posted by Automotive News Europe. 

"Squad" Democrats gathered on Capitol Hill to call for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza on Thursday, doubling down on accusations that Israel is targeting civilians and committing "genocide."

Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., held the press conference alongside Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. They also invited members of the Doctors Without Borders organization, which provides humanitarian aid in Gaza. Bush had vicious words for Israel during her opening remarks.

"When we hear genocidal rhetoric, when we witness devastation and mass murder, when we finance the bombs being dropped, when we intentionally disregard the suffering, we allow the people we represent to be complicit in mass atrocities," Bush said.

The ongoing United Nations COP28 climate summit in Dubai is offering a wide variety of gourmet food options from vendors who serve beef, even as it prepares a report that is expected to call for the West to reduce consumption of beef.

According to the summit's online portal, its food offerings include "juicy beef," "slabs of succulent meat," smoked wagyu burgers, Philly cheesesteaks and "melt-in-your-mouth BBQ" in addition to African street BBQ, fast casual Mexican fare and an Asian option that has a "touch of French flair." The revelation comes as the U.N. faces criticism for preparing a first-of-its-kind report that is expected to be published at the summit and call for lower meat consumption.