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US’ Middle East policy defied by Middle East reality
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
*For the last 45 years, the US has attempted to pacify the anti-US Iran’s Ayatollahs, via dramatic financial and diplomatic gestures, to advance the cause of human rights and democracy in Iran, and to promote peaceful coexistence between Iran and its Sunni Arab neighbors. In fact, the 45-year-old US diplomatic option toward the Ayatollahs, has downplayed the centrality of the Ayatollahs’ ideology and their track record, assuming that “money talks.” The US expected that dramatic financial and diplomatic gestures would induce the Ayatollahs to abandon their 1,400-year-old fanatical vision and become a constructive member of the global community.
However, as expected, Iran’s Ayatollahs would not allow financial and diplomatic temptations to transcend their imperialistic violent ideology. Moreover, they have leveraged the lavish US gestures, intensifying domestic oppression and persecution, and boosting their determination to humiliate and defeat “the Great American Satan,” expanding anti-US global terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced weaponry, increasingly in Latin America from Chile’ to the US-Mexico border.
Furthermore, the US’ eagerness to conclude another agreement with the anti-US Iran, the courting of the anti-US Moslem Brotherhood (the largest Sunni terror organization), and delisting the anti-US Houthis from the terror list, while pressuring the pro-US Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, has pushed these countries closer to China and Russia, militarily and commercially.
*In 2024, the US State Department promotes the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River, contending that it would peacefully coexist with Israel.
However, all pro-US Arab regimes have systematically limited their support of the proposed Palestinian state to an embracing talk, while displaying a lukewarm-to-negative walk.
Furthermore, the State Department has downplayed the Palestinian track record and ideology, basing its policy on subjective and speculative future scenarios and diplomatic Palestinian statements. But, the pro-US Arab regimes have focused on the subversive and terroristic intra-Arab Palestinian track record in Egypt (1950s), Syria (1960s), Jordan (1968-70), Lebanon (1970-1982) and Kuwait (1990). These pro-US Arab regimes recognize the despotic, corrupt and terroristic nature of the Palestinian leadership, its rogue education system, and its global track record (e.g., collaboration with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Bloc, Iran’s Ayatollahs, No. Korea and Venezuela and training international terrorists from Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America).
These Arab regimes have concluded that such a rogue track record would shape the nature of the proposed Palestinian state, which would further destabilize the region, providing Iran, Russia and China with an expanded foothold in the Middle East.
Unlike the State Department, they are aware that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River, transforming Jordan into major platform of Islamic terrorism, threatening every pro-US, oil-producing Arab regime, which would yield a bonanza to Iran, Russia and China and a major blow to global trade and the US economy and national security.
*In 2011, Secretary Blinken (then, National Security Advisor to Vice President Biden) and National Security Advisor Sullivan (then Director of the State Department Policy Planning) played a key role in the US-led NATO military offensive against Qadhafi, aiming to halt severe violations of human rights.
As expected, the US initiative yielded volcanic turbulence in Libya, which has traumatized the region since 2011, fueling Islamic terrorism in Europe, Egypt, North and Central Africa and throughout the Middle East, transforming Libya – the soft underbelly of Europe - into a blustery platform of global Islamic terrorism, drug trafficking, egregious violations of human rights, and a series of civil wars with the participation of Turkey, Qatar, Italy, Russia, Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and France.
*Led by noble intentions, the State Department has systematically attempted to subordinate the 1,400-year-old tempestuous, unpredictable, violently intolerant, non-democratic, highly fragmented, shifty and non-peaceful inter-Moslem and inter-Arab relations to Western values, such as peaceful-coexistence, democracy and human rights. The creation of an alternative, new Middle East has been underscored by Foggy Bottom’s reference to the ongoing turbulence on the Arab Street as “The Arab Spring,” rather than “The Arab Tsunami,” which is still raging from Northwest Africa to Iran (e.g., 10 million refugees since 2011; 11 million Muslims killed since 1948, of which 35,000 - 0.3% - were related to the Arab-Israel wars).
*Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan may consider the following advise by Prof. P.J. Vatikiotis, who was a leading Middle East historian at the School of Oriental and African studies, University of London (Arab and Regional Politics in the Middle East):
"For the foreseeable future, inter-Arab differences and conflicts will continue…. This is a feature of the area that will remain more or less a constant. The question of American options is one that must first of all be resolved on the basis of this fundamental reality: inter-Arab relations cannot be placed on a spectrum of linear development, moving from hell to paradise or vice versa. Rather, their course is partly cyclical, partly jerkily spiral, and always resting occasionally at some grey area…. Arrangements are still made with rulers and regimes open to sedition and coups. This condition in itself renders relations between Arab states, as well as between them and external powers, especially difficult….(ibid, pp. 77-115)"
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Statement on Fani Willis Breaking News
(Atlanta, Ga) - The filing on Friday in Fulton County Superior Court by DA Fani Willis has confirmed what we all suspected to be true. She admitted to an ongoing relationship with her handpicked lead prosecutor, Nathan Wade in the Election Interference RICO case. At least our friends at the AJC and national media can now stop adding a caveat of “if true” every time the subject comes up.
Any practicing attorney (such as myself) can tell you the moral and ethical boundaries to which we swear allegiance should never be crossed. We know full well that even the APPEARANCE of a conflict of interest is enough to derail justice. Not only was there an appearance of a conflict, we now know there WAS a conflict. This gives an appearance of financial motivation for both Willis and Wade. All the while our friends in the media cheered the process along for three years with fawning admiration about the “slow, careful, and methodical” nature of the investigation.
Additionally, Attorney Andee Hastings, representing Mr. Wade’s estranged wife, sat down with WXIA for an extended interview. In that interview Ms. Hastings claimed Mr. Wade stonewalled the court of their request for any and all documents. She also claimed his employment as Special Prosecutor was unknown until they saw him on television the night Ms. Willis announced the indictment. If true, this raises serious ethical questions.
Ms. Hastings also asserted that she felt threatened by Ms. Willis after requesting her deposition. She said, “I was astonished that she (Willis) would make that assertion against an individual (Hastings), a fellow member of the bar… if we proceeded with this deposition we would be prosecuted criminally for it. That’s how I took it.” The conflict of interest regarding Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade is just the tip of the iceberg of troubling allegations we learned last week.
The United States House of Representatives has now subpoenaed Ms. Willis after a whistleblower came forward with audio recordings apparently proving Ms. Willis’ knowledge of misuse of federal funds. According to the Daily Caller News Foundation, Ms. Willis fired the whistleblower shortly after bringing the issue to her attention.
But that’s not all…
The Washington Free Beacon published a documented report that Willis’ office paid at least $10,000 of taxpayer funds to New York City Public Relations Firm “Critical Mention” to monitor the public profile and image of DA Willis. Documents in the WFB report show Ms. Willis' office made initial contact on February 1, 2021. Ten days before she announced the investigation.
But that’s not all…
We learned in court that the Fulton County DA’s office was in contact with the Biden White House during the course of their investigation after denying any coordination with federal officials.
Now we find ourselves with four separate investigations at the local, state, and federal levels into what is becoming clear to be widespread mismanagement by Willis’ office since her inauguration in 2021. Meanwhile, the streets of Atlanta remain unsafe. The county jail looks like something you’d see in a third world country. The backlog of cases in Fulton County remains long. It’s becoming clearer by the moment that Ms. Willis was not prepared for this position. Not ethically, not administratively, not morally.
One thing Ms. Willis said in her filing is actually truthful, this is a circus. A circus she built by her attempts to criminalize politics, interfere with the 2024 General Election, build her own national profile, and make her friends (her word) wealthy with taxpayer funds.
This entire case should be dismissed or at the very least be removed from the Fulton DA’s office.
Ms. Willis should resign and a more qualified individual should be elected to administer justice to the citizens of Fulton County.
To Victory,
Josh McKoon
Georgia Republican Party Chairman
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The Counterinsurgency Trap in Gaza
Why Israel Cannot “Clear, Hold, and Build” Its Way to Victory
In early January, the Israeli military announced it would begin drawing down some of its forces in the Gaza Strip. Five brigades, made up of several thousand troops, were expected to leave Gaza over the next several weeks. But rather than signaling an end to combat, the move was more likely a foreshadowing of a new phase in Israel’s struggle against Hamas. What began as an essentially conventional war may be morphing into something altogether different: a counterinsurgency campaign.
In place of the features that have defined the war to this point, such as brigade-level troop deployments, major airstrikes, and full-scale combat, a counterinsurgency approach would rely more on special operations forces, precision strikes, and targeted raids. The idea would be for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to hold territory after clearing it of Hamas fighters. Retired U.S. Army general and former CIA director David Petraeus has urged Israel to adopt this strategy in Gaza. “Don’t clear and go on,” he said in a November 30 speech. Repeating the slogan that defined the U.S. counterinsurgency effort that he oversaw in Iraq, Petraeus drove home a simple message: “Clear, hold, and build.”
That, however, is easier said than done. Research on past counterinsurgency campaigns suggests that such an approach in Gaza would produce a quagmire that could stretch on for years for the IDF. Hamas would adapt to its new reality by relying on its underground tunnel network, using destroyed infrastructure to its advantage, and leveraging the vast mounds of rubble now found throughout Gaza’s cities to conceal its movements and explosive devices. Hamas, along with other terrorist groups inside Gaza, could also begin deploying suicide bombers against Israeli soldiers on foot patrol.
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Put simply, applying Petraeus’s vision of counterinsurgency to Gaza would be a disaster for the IDF. Palestinians and others would credibly accuse Israel of reestablishing its occupation of the territory. Raids and checkpoints would further radicalize civilians in Gaza. And Hamas would exploit the situation to further marginalize moderate Palestinian voices, inspire a far-reaching uprising that would claim the lives of more IDF troops and even more Palestinian civilians, and galvanize other members of Iran’s so-called axis of resistance to launch attacks on targets in Israel and elsewhere. Rather than bringing the violence closer to an end, a counterinsurgency campaign in Gaza would produce a forever war.
MIA: POLITICAL OBJECTIVES
Israel’s endgame in Gaza is still unknown, but there are signs that an extended occupation paired with a counterinsurgency approach could be the next chapter in the fighting. Statements from Israeli leaders hint at a sustained Israeli presence in Gaza with an open-ended timetable for leaving. Speaking on January 30 in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the war against Hamas will not end until Israel achieves all of its objectives. “We will not withdraw the IDF from the Gaza Strip, and we will not release thousands of terrorists,” he said. “None of this will happen. What will happen? An absolute victory.” On January 4, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the IDF’s military campaign “will continue for as long as is deemed necessary.” And Herzi Halevi, the IDF’s chief of staff, said in December that the war in Gaza would continue “for many months.” But if Israel adopts a counterinsurgency approach, months could easily turn into years.
Even without deliberately making that choice, Israel could find itself backing into it. That is what happened to the United States in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, where mission creep allowed limited objectives to give way to murkier, more ambitious goals. For example, in Afghanistan, the United States started the war intending to destroy al Qaeda but eventually found itself trying to do nation building. In the end, Washington failed to achieve either outcome. The morass facing Israel in Gaza today could turn out the same way—or come to resemble what Israel itself encountered in southern Lebanon, when a campaign that began in 1982 with the goal of eliminating fighters from the Palestine Liberation Organization stretched on for nearly two decades, with Israel ultimately withdrawing unceremoniously in 2000 without removing the threat posed by Palestinian militants. To boot, Israel’s nearly two-decade occupation of Lebanon helped give rise to a new foe, Lebanese Hezbollah, a threat the Israelis are still grappling with today.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu also has a personal incentive to prolong the war; it has become clear that many Israelis want new political leadership as soon as the conflict in Gaza is over. In a Christmas Day op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Netanyahu declared that the prerequisites for peace between Israel and the Palestinians were that “Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarized, and Palestinian society must be deradicalized.” Achieving even one of those objectives, let alone all three, would require a multiyear commitment of troops in both Gaza and the West Bank, and even that would not ensure success.
Four months into the war, some members of Israel’s military brass are losing patience with the lack of a coherent political endgame. In January, Gallant expressed frustration that there was no plan for what the conflict looks like beyond “destroying Hamas,” saying, “it is the duty of the cabinet and the government to discuss the plan . . . and to determine the goal.”
TACTICAL VICTORY, STRATEGIC DEFEAT
If the IDF does adopt a counterinsurgency approach in Gaza, it will be directly at odds with the policy recommendations of the Biden administration, which, from the beginning of the conflict, has warned Israel not to occupy Gaza after the war or to make mistakes similar to those committed by the U.S. military after 9/11. Washington has been pressuring Netanyahu to scale back Israel’s military campaign, concerned about the more than 26,000 Palestinians killed—many of them women and children. “In this kind of fight, the center of gravity is the civilian population,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin remarked in early December. “And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.”
After almost four months of fighting in Gaza, it has become clear that Israel has no defined political strategy for what happens next. Netanyahu has voiced his opposition to the idea that the Palestinian Authority would retake control of Gaza, a position at odds with the Biden administration. And Arab states remain reluctant to commit any troops to a peacekeeping force, which means Israel will likely end up patrolling Gaza while Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups prepare for a drawn-out, low-intensity conflict. In this scenario, Israel would face Palestinian insurgents conducting hit-and-run attacks, staging deadly ambushes, and employing snipers operating from the rubble of demolished buildings. The IDF has razed much of Gaza, pulverizing its infrastructure with relentless airstrikes. This ruined terrain creates an environment that would favor insurgents, providing them with new places to conceal fighters and weapons. Complementing these new hiding places is Hamas’s vast, labyrinth-like subterranean tunnel system that runs underneath Gaza.
And yet if the IDF occupies Gaza and transitions to a counterinsurgency mission, it will be playing into the hands of Hamas. The group’s leaders would like nothing more than an opportunity to prolong the fighting, continue killing Israeli soldiers, and highlight the death toll of Palestinian civilians in its propaganda. Hamas’s strategy would be “death by a thousand cuts,” an effort to slowly wear down IDF troops until the Israeli public demands a withdrawal, at which point Hamas would declare victory. The conflict could play out similarly to the United States’ experience in Afghanistan, where the Taliban patiently waited for two decades for the United States to withdraw and then quickly recaptured control of the country. In Gaza, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating there, would detonate improvised explosive devices and use a variety of antitank weaponry and homemade rockets to neutralize Israeli armored patrols. By blending in with the civilian population, Hamas would invite attacks that would inevitably lead to Palestinian women and children being caught in the crossfire.
A counterinsurgency campaign in Gaza would produce a forever war.
Hamas may already be transitioning to plan for an insurgency—the group is apparently attempting to rebuild a system of governance, with militants performing both administrative and policing functions throughout parts of Gaza. At the same time, acting on orders from IDF commanders, some soldiers have been setting fire to abandoned homes in Gaza, making them uninhabitable and demonstrating that Israel has no intention of attempting a “hearts and minds” campaign to accompany its military approach. With IDF troops clustered in small garrisons throughout Gaza, making no effort to engage with locals, Israeli forces will become an irresistible target for Hamas to attack. Israeli officials, especially Netanyahu but also his far-right allies, ignore the political aspects of this conflict at their own peril. Israel, by completely ignoring legitimate Palestinian grievances, will offer Hamas a chance to step into the power vacuum and further entrench the group in Gaza.
These are lessons Israel has already learned: from its experience in Lebanon and even from its previous occupation of Gaza, which inevitably led to Israel’s withdrawal in 2005. But far-right elements in Israel’s government currently wield outsize influence and are pushing Netanyahu to consider occupying Gaza indefinitely. They argue that Israel must do so in the absence of any suitable Palestinian government.
NO END IN SIGHT
If Israel adopts that strategy, it had better prepare for a long haul. Along with a number of researchers at the RAND Corporation, I have examined every insurgency from the end of World War II through 2009 (71 in total) and found that the median length of these conflicts was ten years. When insurgents enjoy the external support of a state sponsor, as Hamas does with Iran, this often prolongs the insurgency because the sponsor is able to provide weapons, equipment, training, and intelligence to the groups fighting. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and China provided support to communist-backed insurgents in Angola, Greece, South Africa, and Vietnam, just to name a few examples. For its part, the United States worked with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to support the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Red Army in Afghanistan throughout the 1980s. In most of these cases, external support was crucial to the insurgents’ ability to continue fighting much longer than they would have otherwise and, in many of these instances, prevail.
To date, Israel claims that it has killed approximately 9,000 Hamas fighters out of a force estimated at 30,000, although these numbers are unverified. As of early February, Hamas still retains the ability to launch rockets into Israel. What this means is that, despite its no-holds-barred approach in Gaza, Israel is nowhere close to achieving its goal of eliminating Hamas. Moreover, reports now suggest that Hamas is regrouping in northern Gaza to prepare for a new offensive. The Israeli government may be tempted to leave the IDF in Gaza until it can make further progress. But the way Israel fights also matters. In our research on counterinsurgency, my RAND colleagues and I found that militaries that adopted what we called an “iron fist” counterinsurgency approach—defined as focusing almost exclusively on killing insurgents—was successful in less than one-third of all cases analyzed, far less than approaches that also focused on assuaging the grievances of the civilian population.
For Israel, counterinsurgency is an attractive option because it allows the country’s leaders to postpone difficult political decisions and instead focus on short-term military wins. But one of the reasons Israel finds itself in its current predicament is precisely because Israeli politicians, chief among them Netanyahu, have consistently delayed and, in most cases, denied momentum for any negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.
Hamas’s strategy would be “death by a thousand cuts.”
Counterinsurgency-style warfare may seem like an attractive option, but it will not achieve the IDF’s goal of completely eliminating Hamas. With pressure from the Biden administration growing, the clock is ticking for the IDF to make headway in weakening Hamas’s military infrastructure. Mounting IDF casualties will continue to place additional pressure on the Netanyahu government, which is already under fire for its handling of the hostage situation. To date, 221 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat.
The Israelis must find a way to transition to a postconflict setting that does not involve an occupation or the continued presence of large numbers of Israeli troops in Gaza. Bringing the conflict to a close will require a coherent political endgame, something Israel’s political leaders have eschewed so far. If Israel refuses to allow a Palestinian entity to govern Gaza, the Israelis themselves will be forced to govern it—or at the very least, provide security, which in turn will necessitate a long-term presence and occupation-like force.
If the Israeli military feels compelled to remain in Gaza for the indefinite future, as some Israeli political leaders have intimated, then the IDF needs to adopt a light footprint that can respond to various security contingencies without further inflaming the local population in Gaza, a scenario that seems implausible given the IDF’s current objectives, force posture, and risk tolerance for the safety of its own troops. Making peace with one’s enemies is difficult, especially after the horrors of Hamas’s October 7 attack. But without a negotiated settlement, Gaza in 2024 could begin to look even more like Lebanon in 1982: a war without end.
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Many Memos ago I posted the Op Ed by a retired British Lt. Col. who stated the casualty ratio of the current Hamas War was amazingly low . It even beat the historical ratio the U.N has devised by more than half.
He too acknowledged the IDF is one of the most humane army's ever.
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ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ FELIX FRANKFURTER PROFESSOR OF LAW, EMERITUS AT HARVARD LAW SCHOOL, AND THE AUTHOR MOST RECENTLY OF THE PRICE OF PRINCIPLE: WHY INTEGRITY IS WORTH THE CONSEQUENCES. HE IS THE JACK ROTH CHARITABLE FOUNDATION FELLOW AT GATESTONE INSTITUTE, AND IS ALSO THE HOST OF "THE DERSHOW" PODCAST.
You wouldn’t know it from the hectoring decision just rendered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel, but the death toll among civilians in Gaza — even including children and women — is among the lowest in the history of comparable warfare. Over the past several months, it has become even lower.
According to The New York Times, “The daily death toll in Gaza has more than halved in the past month,” and has fallen almost two-thirds since late October. Moreover, the percentage of civilian to combatant causalities has gone down considerably as well.
In a massive understatement, The New York Times also reported that these considerable reductions in civilian deaths have been “somewhat overlooked” by the media and critics. “Somewhat”! They have been totally buried and ignored. The New York Times also opined that Israel’s “harshest critics are wrong to accuse it of wanting to maximize civilian deaths.”
It is no accident that this reduced civilian death toll has been “somewhat overlooked” by the media and by Israel’s critics, including previously by The New York Times itself. Israel is subject to a discernible double standard when it comes to covering its military actions. (RELATED: ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Enough With The Band-Aids, Biden. We Need To Stop Iran Now)
Even before the recent dramatic reduction in civilian deaths, Israel’s military actions produced far fewer deaths and a far lower ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths than in any comparable urban warfare. This is especially significant considering the reality that Hamas deliberately increases civilian deaths by using women and children as human shields and by hiding its military personnel and equipment among civilians. The current ratio of civilian-to-combatant is well below two-to-one, which compares extremely favorably with ratios achieved by other Western democracies in urban warfare.
Critics of Israel almost never cite comparable data from other military encounters. This omission creates the false impression that the civilian death tolls in Gaza are among the highest in history, when they are in fact among the lowest.
Every actual death of an innocent civilian — especially among babies and very young children — is a tragedy. It is these deaths that are always highlighted by Hamas to the media, but no one knows how many such deaths are actually among this most vulnerable segment of the population, and how many of those are the result of Hamas deliberately using young children as shields.
The Hamas figures for total deaths do not purport to distinguish combatants from what they consider civilian deaths. They never give the ages of the “children” they claim have been killed, although they regard anyone under the age of 19 as a child, even if they are active combatants. Hamas has recruited fighters as young as 13 to 19. The Hamas figures also do not count the Gazans who were killed by errant rockets launched by terrorists, or Gazans who were killed by Hamas for refusing its orders not to move to safer locations.
The New York Times’ conclusion that the new data suggests that it is “wrong to accuse [Israel] of wanting to maximize civilian deaths” is highly relevant to the false charges of genocide that are being considered by the International Court of Justice.
Nations engaged in genocide do not go to such great lengths trying to reduce civilian casualties, including placing its own soldiers at heightened risk by employing focused ground forces instead of relying exclusively on air and sea bombardments. The ICJ should immediately reject the genocide charges against Israel and initiate war crime charges against Hamas and Iran, both of which willfully try to increase civilian deaths.
The decreasing civilian death rate among Gazans should also end the campaign to impose a ceasefire on Israel before the IDF completes its legitimate mission to destroy Hamas’ military capacity. Successfully completing that mission will save civilian lives in the long run, by reducing Hamas’ capacity to keep its promise of repeating the barbarism of October 7 and also by reducing its use of civilian shields. (RELATED: BRETT SCHAEFER: The US Shouldn’t Pause Funding To Hamas-Tied UN Aid Agency. It Should End It Completely)
Israel’s conduct in its defensive war, started by Hamas, has been exemplary. It satisfies all international standards, and its effort to minimize civilian deaths while accomplishing its legitimate goals has generally been successful. There is always a tradeoff between reducing enemy civilian deaths and increasing risks to one’s own soldiers and civilians. Israel has struck a better balance than most, following the unprecedented Hamas barbarisms.
The time has come, indeed it is long overdue, for the world to stop imposing a double standard on the nation-state of the Jewish people. Double standards are a form of bigotry, and when bigotry is addressed to the only nation-state of the Jewish people, it becomes a form of international anti-Semitism against the Jew among nations. It must stop.
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"Our goal is a complete victory over Hamas," Netanyahu said. "We will kill the Hamas leadership, so we must continue to operate in all areas in the Gaza Strip. We must not end the war before then. It will take time — months, not years."
Gallant also said that Hamas leadership, including Yahya Sinwar, is "on the run."
"Sinwar goes from hideout to hideout, and is unable to communicate with his surroundings," he said. "He turned from the head of Hamas into a fugitive terrorist, and IDF forces continue to pursue him."
The Assassin’s VetoA British minister is forced out of parliament by Islamist threats. Plus: King Charles, woke kindergarten, and a pitch-perfect Grammys.
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→ The assassin’s veto: When public figures are threatened by Islamists, it changes their life. Just ask the novelist Salman Rushdie, who was forced into hiding after Iranian theocrats put a bounty on his head for publishing The Satanic Verses in 1988. Thirty-four years later, when many thought the threat to Rushdie had passed, he was nearly killed in an onstage attack at a literary festival in upstate New York.
Or ask Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch politician and writer, whose criticism of Islam—the religion she was born into—led to death threats. Meanwhile, her colleague, the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was murdered for collaborating on a movie about Islam with her.
Just this past Sunday, The Free Press’s very own Douglas Murray faced the specter of Islamism in London, when a theater refused to host a pro-Israel event he was participating in, because of violent threats against their staff.
One of the depressing things about these crimes is that they usually have the desired effect. The assassin’s veto has silenced free speech, not just for its targets but for society at large. For evidence of its effectiveness, consider our main story today.
Mike Freer has been a member of Britain’s parliament for 14 years, representing a part of London where a large number of Jewish people live. But last week he announced he will step down at the next election because violent threats—including many from Islamist extremists—have made him fear for his life and the lives of his husband and loved ones.
Olly spoke to Freer shortly after he announced his resignation. The outgoing lawmaker described the security measures he has been forced to take, including wearing a stab vest when he meets his constituents. At home, he said, “I have a doorbell that allows me to see who is at the door. My letterbox is sealed up. . . . All of my windows have been replaced with security windows. I have to have shutters on the windows so that people can’t see in and there’s now a panic button in every room.”
But even that wasn’t enough to put him or his family at ease.
Of those who have threatened him, he says: “They have silenced me.”
Read the full story here:
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Biden looks upon the IDF as if they were dish rags he can continue to "hamper."
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360 degrees of hostility: The Biden administration
and Israel
Why is the United States continuing to hamper the ability of the Israel
Defense Forces in Gaza? Op-ed.
By Caroline B. Glick
The senior contributing editor of Jewish News Syndicate and host of the “Caroline Glick Show” on JNS. She is also the diplomatic commentator for Israel’s Channel 14, as well as a columnist for Newsweek. Glick is the senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington and a lecturer at Israel’s College of Statesmanship.
(JNS) The Mothers of IDF Soldiers group led a demonstration last week of army mothers, reservists in the Israel Defense Forces, bereaved families and other concerned citizens outside the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. They demanded that President Joe Biden stop leveraging power to force Israel to resupply Hamas.
The following day, hundreds of Israelis, including parents of soldiers, families of hostages and terror victims gathered outside Ashdod Port. For hours, they blocked trucks laden with supplies for Gaza from exiting the port. Activists have been blocking trucks from entering Gaza via the Kerem Shalom and Nitzana border crossings for more than two weeks.
Speaking to the crowd in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, Shifra Shahar, who runs a nonprofit organization that cares for the needs of soldiers, addressed her remarks to Israel’s leaders:
“Government of Israel, defense minister, IDF chief of staff, get ahold of yourselves!
“No other nation feeds and sustains its enemy! It’s truly an Israeli start-up.
“We had elections last year. I don’t recall voting for [U.S. Secretary of State Antony] Blinken! Blinken is sitting in the war cabinet and protecting the interests of my enemy. … We have sons in Gaza. We have sons fighting. The entry of the trucks endangers them, prolongs the war, increases the number of casualties and delays the return of the hostages!
“They tell me, ‘There are constraints.’ He who is constrained doesn’t win the war.
“They tell me, ‘The Americans are threatening not to provide us with ammunition.’
“To this, I say, if we were besieging them, we wouldn’t need ammunition! The war would end. They’d be screaming for help, returning the hostages and the war would end!”
The rising expressions of rage at the Biden administration from ordinary citizens are a testament to the shock and anger Israelis feel at what they perceive as a betrayal of Israel’s most basic interests by Biden and his top advisers.
Three and a half months ago, when Biden came to Israel, most Israelis couldn’t imagine his warm embrace would transform into a torrent of hostile actions.
At the height of Biden’s emotional visit, he gave a speech to the people of Israel: “I come to Israel with a single message. You are not alone. You are not alone. As long as the United States stands—and we will stand forever—we will not let you ever be alone.”
For the overwhelming majority of Israelis, Biden’s declaration sounded like a bankable guarantee. But for the few with more sensitive ears, it sounded like a threat—that he and his administration would never leave Israel alone to fight the war to victory.
As the weeks and months passed, it turned out that the latter had it right. The administration has never let Israel alone to win the war whose outcome will determine whether the Jewish state can long survive.
At every turn, in every quarter, the United States is constraining, undermining, subverting and coercing Israel to make moves that, as Shahar said, are “against the interests of the citizens of Israel.”
Ceasefire agreement
The details of the hostages-for-terrorists-and-
These terrorists can be expected to ignite Judea and Samaria and Israel’s major cities in a terror conflagration that would make the Oct. 7 slaughter look like a walk in the park. Terrorists released to Gaza can be expected to rebuild Hamas’s terror empire in the area.
The released terrorists and their comrades on the ground will be able to do these things because, in addition to requiring Israel to free them in exchange for at least some of the 136 Israeli hostages Hamas has been holding since Oct. 7, Burns’s deal requires Israel to end its military operations in Gaza for between one to two months. Based on interviews with Egyptian and Qatari officials involved in the hostage talks, both The Wall Street Journal and Qatari media have reported that the United States is telling Hamas through Egypt and Qatar that the deal is a trap for Israel. By compelling Israel to end its operations in Gaza for such a long period, Burns expects that the Netanyahu government will be unable to reinstate Israel’s operations when the hostages-for-terrorists swap is concluded.
The United States is intent on reaching a ceasefire because the Biden administration remains committed to its strategic objective of appeasing Iran at Israel’s expense. Over the past several days, the U.S. media has reported claims by U.S. intelligence officials asserting that Iran is not responsible for the war being waged by its proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Iranian-controlled Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria. U.S. intelligence officials insist these terror armies are attacking the United States and Israel because Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza. If Israel were to stop fighting, all the troubles would end.
From an Israeli perspective, the prospect of ending the war without dismantling Hamas is an unacceptable outcome. If Hamas is able to survive after conducting its one-day Holocaust in southern Israel, not only will Hamas be able to proclaim victory but Iran and its terror proxies surrounding Israel will be emboldened to strike Israel even more aggressively on multiple fronts.
Humanitarian Aid
On Jan. 23, Shin Bet director Ronen Bar informed Israel’s security cabinet that 60% to 70% of the so-called humanitarian aid entering Gaza daily either goes directly into Hamas’s hands or is commandeered by Hamas terrorists for their use. Bar’s admission bolstered eyewitness testimonies by Palestinian Arabs claiming that Hamas seized the aid trucks and footage from the Egyptian border with Gaza showing Hamas terrorists shooting at civilians seeking access to the supplies.
Under such circumstances, it is clear that the Biden administration’s pointed and ever-escalating demands that Israel permit more or less unlimited entry of supply-laden trucks to Gaza amounts to a demand that Israel resupply its enemy in the midst of war. As Shahar said, the constant supply of food, water, and, most critically, fuel to Hamas has enabled the terror group to maintain its presence in its underground warren of terror tunnels and continue to hold the Israeli hostages. The resupply also endangers Israel’s soldiers, who are forced to fight inside tunnels where Hamas has a tactical advantage.
From a strategic perspective, requiring Israel to resupply Hamas enables Hamas to retain its governing control over Gaza. So long as Hamas controls the supplies entering Gaza, it controls the distribution of those supplies. This compels the population to remain beholden to Hamas and not work with Israel to end the war by turning in Hamas terrorists or helping IDF forces locate and rescue the hostages.
Egyptian Border
The only way to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza without assisting Hamas is to provide them with the same right afforded to those in war zones worldwide: The right to leave the war zone for third countries. From the outset of the war, the Biden administration has strongly opposed Israel’s efforts to persuade the Egyptian government to permit the people of Gaza to leave the area through the Rafah border crossing. In a speech last month in Tel Aviv, Secretary of State Antony Blinken reasserted U.S. opposition to permitting Gazans to leave the area.
“The United States unequivocally rejects any proposals advocating for the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza,” he exhorted.
It isn’t that the Gazans have nowhere to go.
Since Oct. 7, multiple countries, including Chechnya, Turkey, Scotland and Canada have stated their willingness to permit Gazans to seek refuge in their countries. Qatar, which serves as Hamas’s state sponsor, is another option. Rafah is a short drive from El Arish International Airport, where these refugees would be able to fly to third countries.
According to Britain’s Guardian newspaper, Gazans are currently forced to pay $10,000 in bribes to Egyptian border guards to cross into Egypt for refuge. Moreover, as of Feb. 4, the IDF assesses that Hamas has changed its tactics. Rather than fight IDF forces primarily from tunnels, Hamas is increasingly attacking Israeli units in Gaza and bombing Israel with rockets from within humanitarian safe zones where hundreds of thousands of Gazans are now sheltering.
Given the circumstances, the U.S. position requires Israel to choose between defeating Hamas at a profound cost to civilian lives or being defeated itself.
Weapons Supply
On Jan. 28, NBC News reported that the administration is considering slowing supplies of various weapons, including 155 mm artillery rounds and joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs) to Israel to compel Israel to scale back its ground operations in Gaza and permit more supplies to enter the area.
Although the White House denied the reports, the IDF has been compelled to conserve its ammunition on the ground due to shortages in supplies, indicating that the United States is slow-walking its supply of key armaments to Israel. This is of major concern, particularly given the near certainty of escalation along the northern front, where Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon is moving quickly towards a full-scale war with Israel.
Palestinian Arab Statehood
For Israelis, Oct. 7 was an illusion-shattering event. One of the primary illusions shattered was the two-state paradigm. Hamas, which won the 2006 Palestinian elections—the last elections held by the rival Fatah faction’s Palestinian Authority—has maintained the support of the majority of Palestinian Arabs in Gaza and Judea and Samaria throughout the intervening years. On Oct. 7, it was Hamas that initiated and led the slaughter of 1,200 Israelis, but thousands of Gaza civilians followed them into Israel and were full participants in the atrocities; including murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and looting.
Avida Bachar survived the massacre at Kibbutz Be’eri, which saw Palestinian Arabs murder 130 people, including his wife and son, who were murdered next to Bachar and his daughter in the family’s safe room. Crews who recovered the bodies of the victims in Be’eri reported that 80% of the bodies showed signs of torture.
Be’eri is a kibbutz identified with the secular far-left. Its members included prominent peace activists. The surviving members have been forced to come to terms with the atrocities they suffered.
- In an interview last month with Israel’s Channel 14, Bachar explained, “We need to ask if we are capable of coexisting there. The 7th of October showed that the level of evil there means that coexistence is apparently impossible. We can’t do it anymore. Because we gave them everything. They even worked in our community. And in the end, we were proven wrong. … We reached the point where their children burned us alive in our shelters. The older ones shot us through the doors. And anyone who tried to jump out the window—they shot him again. Their elderly, on wheelchairs, and their handicapped arrived at Kibbutz Be’eri, and they looted us and kidnapped us as hostages. We need to understand this situation. And when a person has infinite demands at negotiations, apparently, either we won’t be here or they won’t be here. We mustn’t leave.
Home on kibbutz Be'eri after massacreEdi Israel / Flash 90
- The overwhelming majority of Israelis agree with Bachar. Polls taken since Oct. 7 show that three-quarters of Israelis oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state.
- 70% of Israelis who voted for opposition parties, which include parties on the center and far-left, the Arab nationalist party and the Islamist party, believe that there is no chance of peaceful coexistence with the Palestinian Arabs.
- This position places the Israeli people, rather than simply the government, at odds with the Biden administration, which since the outset of the war has insisted that its strategic goal is to establish a Palestinian state in Gaza and Judea and Samaria under the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. The P.A., for its part, not only refuses to condemn the Oct. 7 slaughter but seeks to form a unity government with Hamas. Fatah forces in Gaza participated alongside Hamas terrorists in the slaughter of Oct. 7 and posted videos of themselves killing Israelis on their Telegram pages.
- Biden and his advisers state regularly that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian Arabs. But the Palestinian Arabs disagree wholeheartedly. According to their own pollsters, 75% of Palestinian Arabs support Hamas.
- Last week, it was reported that the State Department is considering unilateral U.S. recognition of a “State of Palestine.” Such a move would not merely be an act of hostility against Israel. It would constitute a material breach of the Oslo Accords, of which the U.S. is a signatory. The agreements signed in the 1990s by Israel and the Palestinian Arabs under U.S. aegis barred the Palestinian Arabs from unilaterally forming a state or using the international arena as a means to settle the Palestinian Arab conflict with Israel. Under the Oslo Accords, all agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs must be reached through bilateral negotiations.
- Foreign Workers
- As Bachar noted, among the participants in the Oct. 7 slaughter were workers who had been employed by the assaulted kibbutzim, in some cases for decades. Those workers provided precise intelligence on the kibbutzim down to the number of people per household, the location of communal weapons stores, and the homes of soldiers and security forces, among other things.
- Polling of Palestinian Arabs in Gaza and Judea and Samaria found that more than 80% of the Palestinian Arabs support the massacres of Oct. 7. Due to the massive levels of public support for the massacres, and the service Palestinian Arab workers provided Hamas as intelligence gatherers, the Israeli government passed a decision barring Palestinian Arabs from working in Israel. To replace them, the government decided to permit foreign workers from friendly countries, including India, to enter Israel on work permits. Economy Minister Nir Barkat finalized an agreement on the entry of Indian workers with his Indian counterpart.
- Last week, the Israeli media reported that the Biden administration has intervened to block the replacement of Palestinian Arab workers with Indian and other foreign workers. According to a report in Israel’s Calcalist, Cindy Dyer, the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons wrote a letter to her Israeli counterpart and the Justice Ministry insisting that the use of manpower companies to import foreign workers risks breaching bans on human trafficking and exploitation, and demanded that Israel not import laborers through manpower companies. Since these companies are the primary means to bring in foreign laborers, the impact of the State Department intervention has been to place an insurmountable obstacle in Israel’s path to replacing Palestinian Arab workers who overwhelmingly support the genocide of the Jews of Israel.
- Sanctioning Israeli Residents of Judea and Samaria
- According to Israel police data from the Samaria and Judea District, in 2023 Palestinian Arabs carried out 5,600 terrorist attacks against Israelis. During the same period, Israelis carried out 60 acts of violence against Palestinian Arabs. IDF data indicates that violent incidents involving Israelis and Palestinian Arabs in October 2023 were down 31% from the same month in 2022 and violent incidents involving Israelis and Palestinian Arabs were down 55% in November 2023 from the previous November.
- All the same, last Thursday, President Biden issued an Executive Order that imposes sweeping economic sanctions on Israelis deemed by the secretary of state or secretary of treasury to be engaging in so-called “settler violence.” The sanctions, which obviously represent a flagrant violation of Israeli sovereignty and an expression of utter contempt for Israel’s criminal justice system, not only freeze the assets of those accused of acting in a prohibited manner. It bars anyone from having any economic transactions with those sanctioned individuals. The Executive Order was issued against four Israeli citizens who have not been accused or convicted of any felonies. The determination of who to sanction appears to be informed entirely by unsubstantiated allegations presented by Palestinian advocacy groups that do not recognize Israel’s right to exist. All the same, fearful of U.S. sanctions, Bank Leumi and Israel’s postal bank informed two of the sanctioned individuals that they had frozen their bank accounts.
- Visiting Yinon Levy, a rancher whose accounts in Bank Leumi were frozen on Sunday, MK Zvi Succot said, “There is no evidence to the allegations, there is no indictment, criminal record or a record with the Shin Bet. All it is is that leftists don’t like that Jews are building a farm.”
- Commentator Stephen Leavitt put it succinctly: “Biden cancelled sanctions against Iran and shifted them over to Israel.”
- It is worth noting that the Biden administration has placed no comparable sanctions on either Palestinian Arab individuals who engage in actual acts of terrorism against Israelis or on the P.A., which incites, finances and sponsors terrorist attacks against Israel. It has not placed sanctions on the P.A.’s security services whose members have routinely engaged in terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. To the contrary, the administration stopped enforcing the 2018 Taylor Force Act, which bars the United States from funding the P.A. so long as it maintains its “pay-for-slay” policy of paying salaries and annuities to imprisoned terrorists and the families of dead terrorists.
- This Jews-only Executive Order works to turn sanctioned Israeli Jews who live in Judea and Samaria into pariahs in their own communities and to criminalize the half-million Israeli Jews who live in Judea and Samaria. But it does something much bigger as well: It advances the slander that Israelis are the moral equivalent of Hamas terrorists and the civilian lynch mobs that accompany them in their slaughter of Israeli Jews.
- Application of Leahy Law Against IDF in Judea and Samaria
- The week after the Oct. 7 atrocities, ahead of Friday prayers, the P.A.’s Religious Affairs Ministry distributed guidance to P.A.-controlled mosques throughout Judea and Samaria calling for worshippers to attack Israeli communities.
- Last week, the IDF killed four Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in Jenin who were planning just such an operation. Their planned attack was one of many the IDF has prevented at the last moment since Oct 7.
- Since the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel, IDF units in Judea and Samaria have killed more than 500 terrorists and arrested thousands more. And they are just a drop in the bucket. The number of active terror cells continues to grow.
- Despite the acute danger this terror nexus poses to the lives of the 500,000 Israelis who live in the areas and millions more in Jerusalem and central Israel, the Biden administration is acting to intimidate Israel into ending its counterterror operations in Judea and Samaria.
- This week, the Israeli media reported that the State Department has begun investigating IDF units operating in Judea and Samaria for possible violations of the Leahy Law. The Leahy Law requires militaries receiving U.S. military aid to abide by the same human-rights standard that the U.S. military applies in its operations.
- The constant allegation made by U.S. officials, spurred by members of the so-called progressive “Squad” of progressive, anti-Israel lawmakers in Congress, is that IDF operations in Gaza are inherently suspect. According to the reports, the State Department sent a letter to the Foreign Ministry a month ago threatening to deny military equipment to several individual units operating in Judea and Samaria. Israel has two months to submit its response to the State Department’s accusations.
- The underlying assumption at the base of the accusations is even more dire than the allegations themselves. The United States demands that Israel account for every operation posits that Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria is inherently illegitimate, and that so are its counterterror operations in the areas. This view, which accords with the administration’s demand that no Palestinian Arab leave Gaza and that Israel seize no buffer zones in Gaza to protect the Western Negev, stands at the base of the administration’s refusal to reconsider the strategic logic, viability and morality of its demand that Israel support the formation of a Palestinian state in its heartland, whose leaders and citizens are unified in their commitment to Israel’s annihilation.
- Practically speaking, Washington’s wielding of the Leahy Law against IDF units in Judea and Samaria intimidates IDF commanders, who now need to be concerned that they will be sanctioned for their efforts to defend their country and its citizens against Israel’s enemies.
- Undermining Israel’s Political Stability
- Speaking last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Blinken insisted that the key to peace in the Middle East is the establishment of a Palestinian state. Despite the fact that Palestinian Arabs are near-universal in their desire to annihilate Israel and their rejection of the U.S. goal of a two-state solution that would see the formation of a Palestinian Arab state living in peace with the Jewish state of Israel, Blinken insisted that “Arab leaders, Palestinian leaders” have prepared their people for Palestinian statehood. “I think the challenge now, the question now is: Is Israeli society prepared to engage in these questions? Is it prepared to have that mindset?”
- Israelis, of course, have engaged in the question of Palestinian Arb statehood. After the atrocities that the Palestinian Arabs carried out on Oct. 7—and the full mobilization of Palestinian Arab society in Gaza, and Judea and Samaria, on behalf of Hamas’s war of genocide—Israelis recognized that there was no prospect for peaceful coexistence with the Palestinian Arabs.
- As Direct Polls revealed last month, 81% of Israelis, including Arab Israelis, say there is no prospect for peace with the Palestinian Arabs. A whopping 88% of Israelis do not trust the Palestinian leadership.
- Blinken, however, has no interest in Israeli public sentiment. He places the blame for Israel’s unwillingness to accept a Palestinian terror state in its heartland not on the genocidal nature of Palestinian Arab society, but on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Since Netanyahu opposes the transfer of Gaza to the Hamas-supporting P.A. in any postwar scenario and opposes Palestinian sovereignty, Blinken, the president and the administration as a whole are keen to see Netanyahu ousted from power.
- On Jan. 7, CNN’s Jake Tapper reported that an administration official told him that Netanyahu has to choose between his coalition partners from the nationalist Religious Zionism and Jewish Power parties led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, respectively, and his ties to President Biden and the United States.
- This leak is simply a restatement of Biden’s remarks to Jewish donors on Dec. 12, in which he excoriated Ben-Gvir for his opposition to Palestinian Arab statehood and implied that Netanyahu needs to choose between Ben-Gvir and likeminded ministers in his government and U.S. support for Israel.
- A week after Tapper’s report, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported that, in light of Netanyahu’s rejection of the administration’s efforts to end the war with a Palestinian state, “Three senior U.S. officials say the Biden administration is looking past Netanyahu to try to achieve its goals in the region.”
- Mitchell wrote, “The Biden administration is trying to lay the groundwork with other Israeli and civil society leaders in anticipation of an eventual post-Netanyahu government. In an attempt to work around Netanyahu, [during his visit to Israel] Blinken also met individually with members of his war Cabinet and other Israeli leaders, including opposition leader … Yair Lapid.”
- Forcing Netanyahu to choose between his governing coalition and ties with the United States is a recipe for political chaos and military defeat. If Netanyahu betrays his coalition partners and accepts the U.S. demand for appeasement and defeat in war, then his government will fall and Israel will find itself in an unprecedented national security crisis at the height of a pre-election period of political turmoil and domestic rancor.
- Given the threat level, the administration’s effort to dismantle Israel’s government endangers Israel’s very existence.
- Lebanon
- This week, presidential envoy and U.S. interlocutor with Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon Amos Hochstein arrived in Israel in yet another bid to prevent Israel from removing Hezbollah forces and missiles from Southern Lebanon, where they pose an existential threat to Israel through military means.
- For the past four months, Hochstein has been seeking to force Israel to accept a “diplomatic solution” to Hezbollah’s military threat. Hezbollah, with its tens of thousands of battle-hardened terrorists perched along Lebanon’s border with Israel and its arsenal of 150,000 missiles, rockets, drones and mortars poses such a clear and urgent threat to Israel that immediately after Hezbollah began shelling northern Israel without provocation on Oct. 8, the government rightly removed 80,000 Israeli residents from border communities in the north. They have been living in hotels ever since.
- Israel demands that Hezbollah abide by the terms of the ceasefire set out in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 at the end of the 2006 Second Lebanon War. 1701 requires Hezbollah forces and missiles to be located north of the Litani River, 30 km north of the border with Israel. Rather than join Israel in insisting on Hezbollah compliance with the U.S.-sponsored resolution, Hochstein is offering Israel an unenforceable deal that would see Hezbollah remove its forces to just a handful of kilometers north of the border.
- In its latest iteration, Hochstein’s “deal” would be implemented in two stages. In the first stage, Hezbollah would move its forces 8-12 km from the border and be replaced by UNIFIL forces and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). Israeli residents of the border communities would then return to their homes.
- In the second phase, Israel would agree to discuss the surrender of its sovereign territory along the border with Lebanon to Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon. The areas under discussion include strategic points from Rosh Hanikra on the coastline in the west to Mt. Dov along the Syrian border in the east.
- There are three fundamental problems with the deal the U.S. is demanding that Israel accept. First, the LAF is completely beholden to and operates in the service of Hezbollah. UNIFIL does nothing without Hezbollah’s permission. This is the reason Hezbollah has been able to operate in complete breach of Resolution 1701 since 2006. As a consequence, it is absurd to believe that they would be in a position to enforce the agreement or would have any interest in doing so.
- Given the weakness and complicity of UNIFIL and the LAF, the only party capable of enforcing the deal is the IDF. And the U.S. offer precludes an Israeli military operation or presence in Southern Lebanon. Since the proposal cannot be enforced under its terms, the 80,000 Israeli refugees from the border communities will not be able to return home with even a modicum of safety.
- Second, Hezbollah’s territorial demands are completely frivolous. The areas in dispute were never Lebanese territory. The administration’s adamant insistence that Israel concede to Hezbollah’s demands for its sovereign territory, including Mount Dov, which controls all of northern Israel, is a hostile position. Israel cannot accept it.
- Finally, just as the administration’s positions vis-Ã -vis Gaza foresee and indeed require Israel to accept defeat in war, so its “diplomatic solution” for Lebanon requires Israel to accept strategic defeat at the hands of Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.
- Iran
- Since Oct. 7, the Biden administration has been insisting that it has no evidence that Iran had prior knowledge of Hamas’s attack. As Iran’s other regional proxies—Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Iranian-controlled Shi’ite militia in Iraq—have joined the war against Israel and the U.S., the Biden administration has maintained its stubborn refusal to acknowledge that Iran is the head of the snake. But facts are stubborn things.
- Iran controls all of its proxies. Ahead of Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists received training for their mission of slaughter in Iran and Lebanon. In the months before the Oct. 7 invasion, Hamas terror-masters met in Beirut at least twice with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders and their Hezbollah counterparts. Iran funds, arms and trains all of its proxies. An Iranian spy ship in the Red Sea is directing all the Houthi missile and drone attacks against Israel and commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
- While directing its proxies’ operations, Iran itself is sprinting towards the entrance to the nuclear club. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has massively expanded its near-bomb-grade-level uranium enrichment and has effectively become a threshold nuclear state.
- These realities present Israel with an unacceptable threat environment that it must counter militarily or risk its physical destruction. For the Biden administration, these realities present an opportunity to force Israel to agree to lose in Gaza and Lebanon and establish a Palestinian state or lose U.S. support and be compelled to stand up to Iran and all of its proxies on its own with insufficient weapons and no diplomatic backing from Washington.
- Addressing his government at its weekly meeting Sunday, Netanyahu noted the discord with the Biden administration.
- “Israel is a sovereign state,” he began.
- “We greatly appreciate the support that we have received from the Biden administration since the outbreak of the war: In weaponry, at international institutions, in sending forces to the region and more. This is not to say that there are no disagreements among us but as of today we have succeeded in overcoming them with determined and balanced decisions.”
- He went on, “As a sovereign state that is fighting for its existence and its future, we make our own decisions; even in those instances where there is no agreement with our American friends.”
- Seemingly with each passing day, the Biden administration announces a new initiative aimed at undermining Israel’s ability to defend itself, either by limiting its military options, constraining its diplomatic maneuvering room, empowering its enemies or inducing domestic discord and social cleavages.
- At a certain point in the not-so-distant future, Netanyahu will need to say “no” to the administration. It can only be hoped that the vast majority of Americans, who stand with Israel against its enemies, will stand with Israel when we arrive at that point.
- And:
- Biden threatens to veto House's Israel aid bill
- The Biden administration opposes the legislation due to the fact that it supports a broader bill which provides assistance to both Ukraine and Israel while providing new funds for border security.
- The White House on Monday warned that President Joe Biden would veto a standalone funding proposal for Israel that the House is set to vote on this week, calling it a “cynical political maneuver”.
- House Speaker Mike Johnson announced on Saturday that the House will vote next week on the standalone bill providing $17.6 billion in aid for Israel.
- Biden and the Democrats oppose this legislation, due to the fact that they back a broader bill which provides assistance to both Ukraine and Israel while providing new funds for border security.
- The Office of Management and Budget took aim at the House $17.6 billion Israel bill, saying, “The Administration spent months working with a bipartisan group of Senators to reach a national security agreement that secures the border and provides support for the people of Ukraine and Israel, while also providing much-needed humanitarian assistance to civilians affected by conflicts around the world.”
- “Instead of working in good faith to address the most pressing national security challenges, this bill is another cynical political maneuver,” the statement continued.
- “The security of Israel should be sacred, not a political game. The Administration strongly opposes this ploy which does nothing to secure the border, does nothing to help the people of Ukraine defend themselves against [Russian President Vladimir Putin’s] aggression, fails to support the security of American synagogues, mosques, and vulnerable places of worship, and denies humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, the majority of whom are women and children.”
- The White House urged members in both chambers of Congress to vote against the bill and said Biden would veto the measure if it reached his desk.
- Even if the standalone bill passes in the House, it faces longer odds in the Senate, which on Sunday night unveiled a $118 billion package that pairs border enforcement policy with wartime aid for Ukraine, Israel and other US allies.
- As lawmakers have continued to haggle over the aid to Israel, the Biden administration bypassed Congress in December and approved the emergency sale to Israel of nearly 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition worth more than $106 million.
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- THE DAY IS COMING.
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- Iran’s Long-Range Missile Ambitions
- Tehran launches a satellite with technology useful for developing ICBMs.
- The Editorial Board
- That’s the specter raised by Iran’s launch on Jan. 20 of a satellite 450 miles into space. There’s significant overlap between the technologies used for space-launch vehicles and longer-range ballistic missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles. In 2019 then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described these technologies as “virtually identical and interchangeable.”
- In its recent launch Iran for the first time used an all-solid propellant launcher, incorporating a state-of-the-art technology commonly used for long-range missiles, according to Fabian Hinz of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
- Weight is a factor for missile range and payload, so it’s notable that the satellite launch featured a lightweight carbon motor casing. Another dual-use feature was flexible nozzles for thrust control, which can also be used to steer long-range missiles.
- Iran says it won’t develop missiles with a range of more than 2,000 kilometers, but that promise can’t be trusted. Even 2,000 kilometers is long enough to strike Israel and U.S. military bases in the Middle East.
- Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) presided over the launch. Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, the founder of Iran’s ballistic missile project, was working on its pursuit of space-launch vehicles and solid propellants before his death in 2011, according to Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The IRGC officer’s brother told a state-owned newspaper that Tehrani Moghaddam had been working on a project “related to an intercontinental ballistic missile” in a story that was later edited to omit that quote, according to the BBC.
- Unlike satellites, longer-range missiles must be capable of re-entering the earth’s atmosphere without burning up. It’s unclear how close Iran is to gaining this capability, but that’s a technology Russia has mastered and could share with Tehran. NBC News reported in August that a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency spokesman referred to “indications that Russian technicians are helping Iran with its space-launched vehicle program, which could aid Tehran’s goal of developing intercontinental ballistic missiles.”
- All of this underscores that Iran’s nuclear ambitions remain its main threat to world order, and Tehran is on the path to getting there.
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- I believe Biden is all three.
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- Is Biden Malicious, Incompetent, or Conniving?
- By Victor Davis Hanson
- Posted By Ruth King
- What Excites Biden?
- Things are becoming so strange, so surreal, so nihilistic in contemporary America that the chaos can only be deliberate. Chance, incompetence, and accident could not alone explain the series of disasters we now daily witness that are nearly destroying the country.
- When the ailing and non-compos-mentis president now speaks, he rarely becomes excited about Iranian or terrorist provocations. Biden seems restrained even at Russia’s outlawry in Ukraine. The atrocities of Hamas now earn only measured objections from Biden. He does not seem too angered by the collapse of the border. Nor do the deaths of 100,000 Americans to imported fentanyl earn a loud trademark Biden scream.
- No, what earns his unchecked ire, often expressed in shouts and hysterical tones, are Donald Trump and his supporters. Most recently, out of nowhere, Biden resurrected the old and proven falsehood that Trump had libeled the Normandy dead as losers and suckers. He then compounded that libel by claiming Trump’s supposed dismissal of the heroic dead was a grievous family insult to his own late son, who did not die either in combat or while in uniform but in 2015, tragically, from brain cancer.
- During these anti-Trump fits, Biden wakes up and his face tightens up. He begins screaming, in uncharacteristic, animated fashion, anytime he can smear half the nation’s voters as “semi-fascists” and “ultra-MAGA” extremists. In private, he swears that Trump is a “f—ing asshole” and “sick f—k.” If only Biden substituted “cartel” or “Iran” or “Hamas” for “Trump” or “MAGA.” we might see an animate president.
- A Borderless Nation
- Meanwhile, a mob of illegal aliens recently tried to kick and stomp sprawled New York peace officers into senselessness—felonies that would earn any such violent citizen a decade or more on Rikers Island.
- Yet somehow, only a few were arrested. Stranger still, all of them were immediately let go without bail—as if freeing wolves to prey further upon sheep.
- Upon release, a few smirked and flipped their middle fingers to bystanders. Apparently, they wished to show Americans that they are violent, crude, unrepentant, and exempt. And thus they tell us that their newfound hosts are fools for letting the likes of themselves in.
- And why not, given the attackers bussed with impunity to California—the land of free everything if only one qualifies as illegally residing in the U.S.
- These grotesque bullies are part of the eight-million illegal aliens who pranced across the southern border without background checks—all taking Biden up on his 2019 encouragement to “surge” the border with impunity.
- Many brandish their cartel affiliations. Some pay for their transit by smuggling cartel fentanyl, which contributes to 100,000 American overdose deaths per year. Others sport lengthy criminal records. All seemed to have been welcomed out of their countries by conniving Latin American governments and mysteriously invited into our country by our derelict president.
- The Death of the Law
- There is a continuing pattern here. Sometime around late 2020, Americans woke up in a country they no longer recognized. That summer, tens of thousands of rioters had looted, burned, killed, maimed, and assaulted for four months with veritable impunity. Leftwing mayors and governors dubbed the violence as “largely peaceful” demonstrations or a “summer of love.”
- The 2020 legacy of defunding the police and exempting criminals on the basis of their race or ideology is that each week now videos circulate of massive looting, smash-and-grab epidemics, and deadly car-jackings in our major cities. No one cares much about the small business owners who are ruined.
- Who laments for the poor who lose their last shopping outlet? Does the Biden administration worry over the terrified employees who are ordered to stand back or the occasional security officer totem instructed to stand down?
- Instead, we are to empathize with the thief, the assaulter, the rapist, and the carjacker—at least in the sense that he does not deserve punishment for the mayhem he caused, given we, not he, are supposedly the true guilty parties. A lot of innocent and defenseless people have been assaulted and killed since 2020 as the wage of that toxic theory.
- So the subtext of all these violent acts is exemption based on perceived correct race, ideology, or membership in the supposed victim/oppressed binary. The perpetrators are either not arrested, let out the same day as arrested, never charged, or never convicted. And the result is a growing distrust of the law and a cynicism that there is little law anymore, just statutes used against political undesirables.
- If, for just one month, the Biden justice department used the same resources and budget it has spent the last three years rounding up bystanders at the January 6 riot and instead prosecuted, convicted, and jailed these big-city violent assailants, then the crime epidemic could be solved.
- The Implosion of the University
- As a general rule, in 2024, the more “prestigious” our universities, and the more they prided themselves as elite or Ivy-League, the more likely there were racially segregated dorms and graduations, a virtual anti-Semitic hounding of Jewish students, grade inflation, watered-down courses, and pro-Hamas terrorist demonstrations.
- For nearly a hundred years, universities told us that the SAT or ACT admittance exam was critical in determining their admissions. It was sold as a way to confirm the potential and preparation necessary to perform at a level demanded by these elite schools. The tests were praised as a meritocratic tool to determine talent by honing grade point averages and allowing opportunity to those without money and contacts. Then suddenly, in 2021, these tests were mostly junked.
- That dismissal of standardized tests was a de facto admission that:
- 1) Universities had been admittedly wrong for a century that standardized admissions tests had any value in determining the degree of student preparation needed to complete a rigorous Ivy League class load.
- or 2) in the interest of diversity, equity, and inclusion, the university would now be free to admit students who could not meet their prior unrealistic or unnecessary standards and instead would accommodate new students by suddenly inflating grades, introducing easier classes, or diminishing required course work.
- Of course, the university admits to neither of these realities. It compounds the deception and fraud by claiming new generations of students are more competitive and gifted than ever and will leave with degrees that guarantee employers rigorously trained graduates. Time will soon tell.
- The End of Deterrence
- The same nihilism characterizes our foreign policy.
- Our worst enemies could not have planned a more disastrous and humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan than the Biden administration’s August 2021 scamper. We simply, without an afterthought, abandoned billions of dollars of sophisticated weapons to Taliban terrorists.
- We left behind a $1 billion new embassy and a remodeled Air Force base. We bragged about taking out terrorists with a “righteous strike” that wiped out an entire friendly Afghan family, while 13 American service personnel were blown up trying to secure a non-securable escape route.
- Then followed the mysterious laxity as a Chinese spy balloon lazily traversed the U.S. with impunity. Next was the radical drop-off in military recruitment. If one wished to ensure that the one group that serves—and dies—in combat units at twice its demographics would exit the military en masse, prompting an enlistment crisis, the Pentagon could not have done a better job.
- The top brass all but accused its white male recruits of being prone to toxic white supremacy, only to form a task force to root it out—and then discover such rage and hatred never existed in the first place.
- It nonetheless drummed out 8,400 veterans for not receiving the mRNA vaccinations, many of whom had naturally acquired immunity and real doubts about the efficacy or safety of the inoculations. And, finally, the Pentagon made it known that prior standards of recruitment, promotion, and evaluation had apparently weakened the military. Therefore, new race- and gender-based criteria would ensure fewer and now unneeded white males in positions of rank and influence.
- Abroad, China serially threatens to annex Taiwan. A hungry and perennially restless Vladimir Putin once upon a time thought he was restrained from invading his neighbors by fear of more costs incurred than the likelihood of benefits to be gained. But like an earlier reaction to a weakened U.S. in 2008 and 2014, Putin assumed that the 2022 Biden administration would likely do little if he annexed greater swaths of Ukraine. And so he invaded.
- National security advisor Jack Sullivan, on the eve of the October 7 Hamas massacres of Jewish citizens, claimed the Middle East was at last calm. Now it is on the verge of a theater-wide war, once Iran sensed that the Biden team would appease and beg it to behave.
- So the Biden administration was eager to end oil sanctions, plead with Iran to reenter the Iran Deal, remove the Houthis from terrorist designations, route billions of dollars to Tehran for hostages, junk the Abraham accords, and restore millions of dollars in please-be-nice bribe money to the Palestinians.
- Biden’s abject misreading of human nature has ensured that a thuggish theocracy that slaughters abroad and tortures at home would interpret that reproachment as either naiveté or stupidity. And thus it would respond with contempt and escalating aggression. And so it has.
- Somehow, over just three years, the Biden administration did to the Middle East what it did to the southern border: blew it up in the same exact manner of mindlessly undoing any policy that had previously worked with Trump’s finger prints on them.
- What Is Going On?
- What is the common denominator, what is the rationale behind the anarchy, and what is the reason why a president would so willingly rend the fabric of America?
- Why would the government privilege the illegal alien over the law-abiding citizen? The violent pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic foreign-born protestor over the peaceful pro-Israel, U.S. citizen? The smash-and-grabber over the dutiful security guard?
- We are nearing a French Revolution, reign-of-terror moment. The law seems to be what a cabal of hardcore leftists who control the Oval Office say it is.
- Joe Biden’s administration offers no better confirmation of warnings from Thucydides to Thomas Hobbes that the veneer of civilization is precious, hard-won, quite thin, and beneath it churns innate human savagery and chaos roaring to be released.
- So why did Biden unleash the hounds of anti-civilization? Did he despise the supposedly boring middle-class citizen who follows the law, pays all his taxes, and never gets arrested? Does he hate the idea of meritocracy? In Biden’s puppeteers’ dangerous calculus, is all this savagery and chaos a deliberate mechanism to ensure parity? Equity? Inclusion?
- So is the deliberate nihilism—economic, social, cultural, social, and political—a way of leveling the field? Making life difficult for the more successful? Making those who cherish the traditions and protocols of America pay?
- Is that the plan to take the country to near collapse, and then only at the abyss itself to force revolutionary change—or else?
- How else can anyone explain the descent of our city downtowns into dank medieval cesspits, our notion of male and female transformed into the sexual circus right out of Petronius’s Satyricon, our race relations into a mixture of Rwanda and Yugoslavia, and our universities into Soviet-like “People’s Universities of Correct Thought?”
- None of this was by accident. It is the dividend of a philosophy that says, “We have to blow up your America before we can reboot it for us.”
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Israel’s 123rd Day of War
By Sherwin Pomerantz
On the 123rd day of war in Israel the IDF claims that half of Hamas’s troops have either been killed or wounded and that Israel is close to full control over all of Gaza On the hostage front, a senior Hamas spokesperson denies that Hamas has rejected the Qatari/Egyptian proposal which has been accepted in principle by Israel. The spokesperson said that Hamas wants to make changes to the current proposal, is requesting the release of a larger number of security prisoners from Israeli jails as well as the full withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza. Israel’s war cabinet has said that it is not prepared to accept those changes as requested. So….. negotiations continue. A report that just came over the wire says that it is possible that 32 of the 136 hostages held by Hamas may no longer be alive. A drone strike on Monday near a U.S. base in Syria killed six members of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a U.S.-allied Kurdish militia, despite the U.S. pounding Iran-allied militia sites with airstrikes over the weekend. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella of Iran-backed armed groups, claimed responsibility for the attack. The U.S. on Monday launched a strike against two Houthi drone boats carrying explosives in Yemen. "The United States will continue working with regional partners to address threats to U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, as well as Houthi threats to freedom of navigation in the Red Sea," Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday.
Two IDF soldiers were lightly wounded in a rocket attack from Lebanon near the northern community of Margaliot on Tuesday. The IDF shelled the launch sites and carried out additional airstrikes against Hezbollah targets.
Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank opened fire at Kibbutz Meirav on the slopes of Mount Gilboa in Israel on Tuesday. There were no injuries, but damage was caused to a home.
Future Leadership
Oftentimes one comes across a person that is so accomplished, one does not need a long biography to substantiate the accolades. Gidi Grinstein is one such person.
Gidi is an Israeli societal entrepreneur, leader, and author. He founded the Reut Institute, Israel’s most cutting-edge nonprofit strategy, development, and leadership group. Within Reut, Grinstein led TOM, a bold global social project with the goal of helping 250 million people within a decade through global open innovation using 3D printing.
Grinstein is the author of Flexigidity: The Secret of Jewish Adaptability, which offers a unique systemic view of the Jewish People and underlies his extensive work on Israel-World Jewry relations. He previously served as the Secretary of the Israeli delegation for the Camp David Summit and led the Israeli team that designed Birthright Israel.
He has talent that Israel will need as it rebuilds itself after the current war with Hamas comes to a close, which it surely will.
I close today with an appeal to watch this 12-minute video which totally encapsulates the spirit of Israel and which will make you immensely proud.
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