How Marriage Evolves
+++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The False Choice Between Ukraine and Israel
Helping Kyiv won’t rob weapons to fight Hamas or Hezbollah.
By The Editorial Board
Americans are uneasy as war returns to another part of the world, and Washington is slow to confront the growing danger. Priority No. 1 is an all-out national effort to expand U.S. weapons production, with a focus and urgency akin to the 1940s arsenal of democracy.
President Biden hinted Tuesday that he may ask Congress for appropriations for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. That makes military and political sense. The U.S. is confronting an authoritarian axis that is increasingly working together.
Iran, the ventriloquist for Hamas, is helping Vladimir Putin as he tries to subjugate Ukraine. Tehran is pouring drones into Russia’s war, and the Biden Administration has warned of deepening cooperation, including a new weapons plant in Russia. The two are allies in Syria. Mr. Putin is also dining out on his “no limits” partnership with the Chinese Communist Party. The axis wants to set the rules of the world and topple the relative global stability the U.S. has enforced since World War II.
Yet some in Congress want to separate Israel from Ukraine and force a false choice. “Israel is facing existential threat. Any funding for Ukraine should be redirected to Israel immediately,” GOP Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley tweeted this week. The Heritage Foundation is encouraging lawmakers to “resist attempts to link emergency military support for Israel with additional funding for Ukraine.”
The implication is that the U.S. can’t supply both at once. But the two conflicts are different enough that the U.S. has weapons that can help Ukraine and Israel. The Ukrainians are trying to break through entrenched defenses of concrete and mines, a different job than destroying Hamas in Gaza.
The Israelis spend about 4.5% of their economy on a sophisticated military and have worked closely with the U.S. for decades. The urgent request is interceptors for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense, which Ukraine doesn’t use and Washington has started supplying. The U.S. Army has two Iron Dome batteries and the associated interceptors, which are less relevant to the advanced missile threat U.S. forces would face in a fight. They can be sent to Israel.
Ukraine’s critics suggest the U.S. will struggle to supply both countries with 155mm artillery. But the U.S. is already ramping up 155mm production and Israel won’t be consuming the enormous quantities of unguided shells needed in Ukraine.
The urban fighting in Gaza will require precision bombs to reduce civilian casualties. That calls for the small diameter bomb that is air-delivered. SDB stocks are plentiful and some have already been sent to Israel.
Israel may also need more JDAM kits, which offer directions to unguided bombs from the air. Ukraine has received an undisclosed number of JDAMs, but the numbers are surely low: The Ukrainian air force is old and small and has been boxed in by Russian air defenses. The U.S. produced roughly 30,000 JDAM units in 2019, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies notes. The Congressional Research Service says the kits have been exported to 26 countries. There are enough to share.
Wars turn in unpredictable ways, and it’s true that the demand for weapons could stress the U.S. if Israel ends up in a larger regional war. Some weapons rely on common components like explosives or motors.
That’s why the U.S. needs a generational effort to produce more ammo and expand its arsenal. The U.S. and its allies need everything from artillery to Patriot missile-defense interceptors to long-range weapons like the Naval Strike Missile for multiple theaters. Thousands of long-range anti-ship missiles are needed to deter China from striking Taiwan, no matter events in Gaza or Ukraine.
Choosing between Ukraine and Israel would be a strategic mistake. Blocking Russia’s attempt to reconstitute its empire in Europe and defending America’s main ally in the Middle East are both in the U.S. national interest.
Republicans are right to be frustrated with Mr. Biden’s policy in Ukraine, but Kyiv’s detractors in Congress are in a political bind on a combined aid package because they badly misjudged the world moment. They want a separate vote on aid to Ukraine and Israel so they don’t offend the isolationist sentiment on the right that they have ginned up.
The fantasy that the U.S. can abandon Europe and the Middle East to focus on China imploded on Oct. 7. The threats to the U.S. and its allies are growing worldwide, and Congress has an obligation to rearm to meet them.
++++++++++++
Don’t Go Wobbly on Peace
The Mideast has reaped the fruits of friendship with Israel; it mustn’t let Hamas poison the waters.
By Nadim Koteich
A new Middle East was dawning last week. Commercial flights were taking off between the Arabian peninsula and Israeli cities, goods were flowing from Israel to ports along the Gulf, entrepreneurs in Dubai and Tel Aviv were trading ideas, and Hamas launched the assault, Iran aided it as part of a larger strategy to sabotage nascent peace initiatives between Israel and Arab countries. This wouldn’t be the first time the regime was implicated in such efforts; in the mid-1990s, Tehran was suspected of assisting several suicide bombings in Israel. This period of instability also saw the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, the quintessential symbol of peace in his era.
In recent weeks Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Muslim countries “betting on peace are betting on a losing horse.” President Ebrahim Raisi labeled normalization efforts “reactionary and regressive.” After the weekend’s horror, Mr. Raisi reportedly congratulated Hamas leadership on the group’s “victory.”
The message among regional leaders must be clear: Now isn’t the time to go wobbly on peace. Hamas and its allies have made that difficult by poisoning the climate for normalization. Arab media makes matters worse by not accurately reporting on the conditions in Gaza, which could have been a model of social and economic progress before Hamas turned it to ruin.
Oversimplified arguments for Arab resistance and victimization have shaken even the most peace-oriented nations in the region. Initial responses, including from old peace partners like Egypt and Jordan, fell short of addressing the gravity of the civilian attacks. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were among the few regional actors to condemn Hamas.
Israel will likely have to use extreme military force to re-establish its deterrent power. This presents a quandary: Israel can’t pursue peace while feeling vulnerable—yet the actions required to regain strength and security could further undermine the political foundations for peace. The situation is more difficult with Benjamin Netanyahu at the helm, whose tenure as prime minister—from oversight of expanded settlements to lethal operations in Gaza—has made a two-state solution increasingly unlikely.
A perfect storm is brewing that threatens to set the region back to 1967. That year Mideast leaders gathered for the Arab League Summit in Khartoum, Sudan, where they agreed to no peace with Israel, no recognition and no negotiations. This resolution, known as the “Three Nos,” shaped the Arab world’s mind-set toward Jerusalem for decades.
The geopolitical landscape has recently undergone a seismic shift. The Three Nos have been morphing into Three Yeses: peace, recognition and cooperation. The region has engaged in more-proactive engagement thanks to the Abraham Accords, which has catalyzed direct diplomacy and unlocked untapped commercial and trade avenues, including collaboration in such sectors as space, artificial intelligence and security. Hamas and Iran saw this as a threat and reverted to their old playbook of terrorism and grievance.
While Palestinians have a legitimate claim to statehood, their success will rest on their ability to overhaul their national agenda. This means abandoning corrupt governance in the West Bank and, most important, renouncing extremism in Gaza. The onus for achieving lasting peace—especially in light of past support from the U.S. and Arab nations—primarily lies with the Palestinians themselves.
The Middle East can embrace this new era of yes or revert to a past of no. While Washington can assist, only regional leaders fortified by moral courage can accomplish sustainable peace. Demand peace today, enforce it tomorrow, and sustain it always. Anyone who chooses otherwise should be left behind.
Mr. Koteich hosts “Tonight with Nadim” on Sky News Arabia.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
More personal comments:
My own view is Israel should flatten all Gazan structures before they move any boots into Gaza.
+++
The mass media, even FOX, has made hostages the main story because it sells. Hamas needs hostages for bargaining purposes but they also will portray their murders for shock effect.
+++
It is perfectly acceptable to disagree with a nation's foreign policy. However, it is another matter to have, in your own operational documents, the commitment to drive the citizens of a nation into the sea.
Hamas, Hezbollah, The PLO and Iran have documents sworn to eliminate the sole Jewish nation of Israel. That is when diplomacy morph's into anti-Semitism.
When former president Carter accuses Israel of being an Apartheid nation he too is lying because Israel has a large Israeli Palestinian population that votes, are members of the Knesset as well as members of Israel's Supreme Court etc.
This was never the case in South Africa and Carter knows this but would rather inflame public opinion with his lies. He is a religious snake.
+++
Most every foreign initiative Biden has constructed has failed miserably. Obama and Biden's Iran policies have been a disaster. Will Biden change them? If he does not what then?
+++
Everyone now has cell phones and seldom look at their computers. Even my own wife is obsessive about using hers .I do not own one and still communicate by way of e mails. This causes issues.
+++
There are those who believe the tragic attack by Hamas will prove Bibi's death knell. Perhaps. The problem is this time Israel prepared their defensive plans based on the previous war. Hamas, cleverly, went mostly old style and caught Israel unprepared.
I also hear Hamas, though trained by Iran, did not get Iran's blessing to attack. I have no way of validating this.
Assuredly, Hamas united Israel and that plays to Bibi's advantage.
Time will tell. But all of this must allow Israel to completely destroy Hamas and do so while keeping their own and Palestinian casualties under control. That is a delicate prescription.
+++
Wherever Palestinians go they tend to cause problems and spread messages of hate and discord:a historic normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel was in the works. Then, on Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists stormed into Israel, endangering the nation and region at large.
Though
+++
Violence, threats, tears: Israeli supporters face aggressive pro-Palestinian campus protests nationwide
By JENNIFER KABBANY - FIX EDITOR
An Israel-supporting professor hoisting Israel’s flag was pushed by pro-Palestinian students. A Jewish student was led to tears as her peers shouted “intifada” all around her. An Israeli student was assaulted after posting photos of hostages.
These are some of the anecdotes emerging from campuses nationwide after massive campus protests took place Thursday as part of Students for Justice in Palestine’s nationwide “Day of Resistance” celebrating anti-Israel violence.
The protests took place less than a week after Israel was invaded by Hamas in a series of terror attacks that has killed about 1,100 people, including children who were reportedly “butchered,” Israeli women who were raped, and families who were gunned down inside their homes. Thousands more have been injured.
Clashes are now unfolding on American college campuses.
“A 19-year-old female suspect allegedly assaulted a 24-year-old Israeli student in the School of General Studies at Columbia University on Wednesday evening after tearing down photos of Israeli hostages that had been posted by the victim,” National Review reported.
A NYPD spokesperson told National Review the suspect was arrested and charged with one count of assault.
“The victim suffered minor injuries, including a broken finger and laceration, according to the Columbia University student publication, which complied with the victim’s request to remain anonymous,” National Review reported.
“The victim and a friend had reportedly been putting up posters of Israelis who had been taken hostage by Hamas. The perpetrator asked to join, and later, began ripping down the posters, shouting obscenities, and, when confronted, hit the victim with a stick.”
Another altercation took place as pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel students held dueling demonstrations at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill on Thursday in an event that started at about 50 students and grew to 500, WRAL reported.
At one point, UNC religious studies Professor Evyatar Marienberg walked into group supporting Palestinians as he hoisted a large Israeli flag and was pushed away by the protesters, video taken by the news station shows. He was escorted away by police when he would not leave, WRAL reported.
“I did not do anything violent,” Marienberg told the news station. “They pushed me and I stayed there. Those people support people who killed hundreds of people — kids, babies.”
“Explosive confrontations” also occurred at the University of Washington, according to Johnathan Choe, a Discovery Institute senior fellow and journalist.
“As the pro-Palestine rally was underway at the University of Washington campus, counter protesters holding Israel flags walked through the crowd calling Hamas a terrorist organization. On cue, the neon vest wearing FAR-LEFT activists and Antifa members started swarming KVI Radio’s Ari Hoffman (@thehoffather) and calling him homophobic slurs. Hoffman stood his ground as speakers on stage chanted ‘From The River to the Sea’ and ‘intifada,'” Choe posted on X.
“There were multiple skirmishes with a lot of yelling and shoving. But in the end no punches thrown. Btw, no cops in sight.”
One University of Washington Jewish student broke down in tears during the rally, pointing out to an administrator: “They want us dead, how you are allowing this?”
At UCLA, “Pro-Hamas students, most in masks to hide their identities, chanting ‘intifada’ or armed, violent rebellion against Israel, after 1200+ massacres in cold blood and hundreds taken hostage,” a Los Angeles-based doctor posted on X with supporting video.
Another video posted to X by Aviva Klompas, co-founder of Boundless Israel, stated: “This is @UCLA where students are screaming ‘intifada, intifada’ – a call to murder Israelis and Jews. Imagine just for a moment what it’s like to [be] a Jewish student on this campus.”
Earlier in the week, UCLA students were offered extra credit to attend an “emergency” anti-Israel teach in led by two progressive professors on campus, The College Fix reported.
A SPJ rally at the University of Louisville, a public university in Kentucky, included the chants: “From Palestine to Mexico, all these walls have got to go” and “not another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israel’s crimes.”
Tensions were also high at the University of Michigan, where there has been a constant police presence on the quad amid pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel events, the Michigan Review reported.
At Yale University, a professor who praised the attacks against Israel and argued they were justified is facing calls for her termination.
Zareena Grewal, associate professor of American studies, ethnicity, race and migration, stated on X: “Prayers for Palestinians. Israel is a murderous, genocidal settler state and Palestinians have every right to resist through armed struggle, solidarity.”
“Grewal, who in her X bio described herself as a ‘radical Muslim,’ followed up with a series of tweets that appeared to applaud the bloody invasion, which saw entire families wiped out and babies decapitated, according to the Israeli military,” the New York Post reported.
The petition has more than 41,000 signatures so far.
A Yale spokesperson told the Yale Daily News that the university is “committed to freedom of expression, and the comments posted on Professor Grewal’s personal accounts represent her own views.”
What does Yellen actually mean?
+++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Is this valid?
+++
+++
America's Second Coming: How Coal Could Drive the Future of Energy ---Plus My No. 1 Coal Stock for 2024--- ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Israel’s 10th Day of War By Sherwin Pomerantz On this tenth day of the war here in Israel, Jerusalem had its third air raid alert of the war, a week since the last one. Hamas’ rockets have a maximum range of 80kn (about 48 miles) and Jerusalem is on the edge of that capability. All of the rockets were neutralized by the Iron Dome system. I continue to be spooked as I drive by the inordinate amount of parking spaces available in the city. Most likely the owners of the cars that would normally be parked there are on duty somewhere in Israel, many of whom are in harms way. May they return safely. Numerically, 199 families of Israeli captives held by Hamas have now been notified that their loved ones were taken in the October 7th massacre, along with now over 1,400 killed and 4,100 injured. Among the dead are 289 members of the Israel Defense Forces. And the numbers keep growing. Qatar is reported to be pressing Hamas to release the women, children and the aged hostages. Hundreds of US citizens have left Israel on transports provided by the US government. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also arranged for a rescue flight that landed in Tampa on Sunday night with 270 American citizens. It is not clear how many were tourists and how many were dual-citizens living in Israel who chose to leave. We now know, as well, that the Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel carried a manual with instructions on how to torture and abduct Israelis. Israeli forensic teams have found cases of rape, electric shock, body parts cut off of living people, and other forms of unspeakable torture and abuse. In one case, on a kibbutz, the residents ran to a community shelter for protection which became a death chamber when the Hamas terrorists lobbed hand grenades into the facility. The few people who ran outside to escape were shot and killed. One person inside survived, although he is unsure how he survived. During the last 24 hours, the Israeli Air Force has been flying ground commanders above Gaza in advance of a potential offensive, so that they can become more familiar with the terrain. Israel also observed a unilateral cease fire in southern Gaza so that those who live in the northern part of the strip can relocate to an area that will not be part of the ground action when it begins. On the northern border, which remains tense, a 40-year-old civilian was killed in a Hezbollah attack. Out of an abundance of caution 28 communities in close proximity to the Lebanese border were evacuated over the last day. Their inhabitants have moved south to live with friends, family and in state funded guest houses as well as with strangers who have opened their homes to those displaced. Israel always comes together as one under wartime conditions. While visiting Israel yesterday, a delegation of U.S. Senators, that included Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, was twice forced to take shelter as Hamas rockets attacked Tel Aviv. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invited U.S. President Joe Biden to visit Israel in a show of solidarity. The White House has not yet officially responded although rumor has it that the President will be here sometime this week. Regarding the continued bombing of Gaza by Israel’s Air force, Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said Israel’s campaign in Gaza had “exceeded” its right to self-defense and had become collective punishment. Egypt has largely refused to open its narrow border with Gaza over the past week but it was scheduled to open for a bit earlier today. Criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza is beginning to gain momentum and it would appear that we have a narrow envelope of time to carry out operations there, until world opinion, once again, turns against us. However, this time the scale of barbarism by Hamas terrorists was so great, even some of our worst critics have toned down their negativism. Most likely, Israel will launch a three-pronged attack on Gaza in the next days, by land, sea and air. This is a war we did not want, one we did not start, in a place we would rather not enter. Let us hope this will be the last such war we will need to fight and our troops will exit Gaza victorious and with minimum casualties. Sherwin Pomerantz has lived in Israel for 40 years, is CEO of Atid EDI Ltd., a international business development consultancy. He is also the Founder and Chair of the American State Offices Association, former National President of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel and a past Chairperson of the Board of the Pardes Institute of Jewish |
+++++++++++++++++++++++ The truly ‘proportionate’ response to Hamas is its eliminationOur resolve cannot be undermined by a false equivalence. Why is it that some of the smartest folks in the room are the most prone to tying themselves up in hypothetical and ideological knots? These are the people that Groucho Marx famously asked: “Who are you going to believe? Me or what’s right in front of your eyes?” What’s right in front of the eyes of the Western world—indeed, the entire world—is the gleeful obsession of Hamas and its terrorists in killing Jews, most especially the youngest possible. This defines what might be the ultimate crime against humanity: the wanton slaughter of the most innocent and defenseless Should this not be a full-stop realization? Should this not put an end to the contextualizing, excusing and defending of the worst of the worst? Many who are so inclined to give a pass to Hamas are hyper-vigilant in detecting micro-aggressions, demonizing people who use the wrong pronouns or who lack the requisite empathy and respect for a whole litany of the enshrined oppressed. Is this not the most egregious moral obtuseness one can imagine? In this newly woke universe, Jews have lost their claim to humanity; therefore, whatever Hamas does is no big deal. Then there are those who are obsessed with faulting the Israeli response to “Hamasis” (my own synthesis of Hamas and ISIS) aggression by invoking the mantra of “proportionality.” Proportionality is not part of international law or the history of warfare. It occupies a space akin to what Justice Potter Stewart said about pornography and not being able to define it, though “I know what it is when I see it.” In other words, there is a cottage industry of finger-waggers who have decided that Israel’s responses to wanton murder need to be somehow referenced to the magnitude of the aggression. As British author and political commentator Douglas Murray astutely noted, does that mean that Israel should shoot and behead the precise number of babies that Hamas did? What proportionality really masks is an all-season, never-varying sympathy for the perceived underdog. What do you expect of Hamas; they are resisting Israeli aggression and domination (the fact that Israel left Gaza in 2005 has no bearing on this mindset), and are desperate. So that inherently means that Israel either has it coming, or at least should suck it up and accept such attacks as the price of their “domination.” This is why when those demanding proportionality are reminded of the history of warfare—of the Allied bombings of Germany and Japan—it doesn’t register. Those were good wars. By definition, any war of defense by Israel is an unjustified war. You know where there is going. Taking a series of incremental steps gets one to the inescapable conclusion that Israel is the problem. And from there, it’s just a hop, skip and jump to why should there even be an Israel. Sad to say, but important to realize is that this is the underlying mindset behind much of the moral equivalence that Israel will always be treated to. There is no recognition that aggression will always engender a response by any nation that values its own continuity. Yes, you were brutally attacked. That’s terrible. We weep for the victims. That is the extent of the sympathy that Israel can expect from much of the allegedly civilized world. Dead Jews deserve our tears, alive and kicking (ass) Jews are disproportionate and actually illegitimate. So, let’s all stipulate that this is what we are starting to see, and should expect to see in spades once the Israeli invasion of Gaza becomes more visible and more amenable to media manipulation. However, there is one big difference between the current war and the actions that preceded it. That difference, of course, is in the conviction of the Israeli people themselves. In a classic case of Stockholm syndrome (of identifying with one’s oppressors), I am sure that many Israelis had imbibed the mindset of the proportionality-obsessed crowd. However, the atrocities of the past week have been so revolting, so shocking as to banish that way of thinking for all but a very few. It is the people of Israel who will lead this war in the sense of demanding from our leadership a determinative and definitive reaction—not an obligatory show of force and some “mowing the lawn” resolve. We will tune out the proportionality nonsense while trying (in all likelihood, with limited success) to make the case not only for justice and deservedness, but also the necessity for a response that will end the ability of Hamas leadership to wreak havoc. Still, for those who will defend to the death the concept of proportionality, I have a simple suggestion: I agree, let’s be proportionate. They tried to annihilate us; we should try to annihilate them. The opinions and facts presented in this article are those of the author, and neither JNS nor its partners assume any responsibility for them. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |
No comments:
Post a Comment