Wednesday, May 12, 2021

05/12 Links Pt1: It's Time to End the Small Palestinian Victories; Israel rules out ceasefire after Hamas seeks international mediation

From Ian:

It's Time to End the Small Palestinian Victories
On Friday, Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem chanted on the Temple Mount: "We are all Hamas, waiting for your orders, commander Mohammed Deif. Hamas, shoot a rocket at Tel Aviv tonight."

Palestinians think that Israel does not have the perseverance to be victorious. Possibly, there are even Israelis who are beginning to think this way. This is dangerous because it emboldens the violent rejectionists.

Palestinians think that Israel does not have the perseverance to be victorious.

Victory is obviously not won overnight but by a series of smaller victories that wear out one's opponents. With each small victory, many rejectionist Palestinians see the greater victory at hand.

This is the perception, however wild it might seem, which is being perpetuated. Nonetheless, it can be turned back if Israel decides that it will no longer act as if it is in retreat.

Israel needs to start winning some small victories of its own. It needs to push back against the rejectionist Palestinians. It needs to first assert control, then provide deterrence against those who would seek harm to its citizens and act in favor of security.

In the latest conflict with Hamas in Gaza, "Operation Guarding of the Walls," Israel should massively bombard Gaza and even enter and occupy it until the rocket infrastructure has been completely destroyed. While doing this, it should hermetically seal Gaza, cutting off the supply chain to Hamas and other terrorist organizations. It must do what all nations have and are doing to achieve victory, by beating its enemy into submission.

Israel must convince the average Palestinian that it is here to stay and should be accepted in full.

This would be a significant victory and would change perceptions and switch the momentum against violent Palestinian rejectionism. It would convince the average Palestinian that Israel is here to stay and should be accepted in full. This would have the important goal of bringing peace closer because the more Palestinians accept the legitimacy and permanency of the State of Israel, the more pressure would be put on their leaders to give up on their goals of ending the Jewish state.

This is a victory towards which Israel should be persevering.
These Attacks on Jerusalem are Different
The results of these inversions of the expert-driven conventional wisdom were remarkable.

Our key regional allies—Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE—not only grew stronger, but deepened their collaboration.

The Abraham Accords ushered in the first true, warm peace agreement since the dawn of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

ISIS was crushed and al-Qaeda neutered—with a consequent reduction in Islamist terror in the U.S. and across the West.

Iran was kept off-balance and at bay. For the first time in recent memory, the Middle East seemed to be pointed in a positive direction.

Over the past 100 days, the Biden administration has retreated—hard—towards the now-discredited "experts," their now-disproven assumptions and their long-failing approaches to the region. Unsurprisingly, we have already seen increased Iranian aggression towards U.S. interests, growing brutality in the Yemeni civil war and Islamist terror attacks here at home (perhaps most prominently the King Soopers massacre in Boulder, Colorado).

The current wave of pretextual attacks against Israel are merely par for the course. When the Biden administration announced it would resume unconditional funding to the anti-Israel, terror-supporting Palestinian Authority—almost certainly in violation of U.S. law—it had to have known what to expect. Biden has returned to Obama-era policies; the terrorists have returned to Obama-era behavior.

It's not too late for the Biden team to undo its catastrophic error. Nor is it too late to appreciate the human suffering that walking away from a successful Middle East policy has unleashed throughout the region—and throughout the world.

The current attacks in Jerusalem have put the young Biden administration to the test. We must hope that these are missteps, not malevolence.
Elliott Abrams: Israel Erupts: Cutting through the Misinformation Surrounding Part of This Conflict
Note again this line in the Kohelet analysis: “The litigation has taken several years, and the owners have won at every step.” Israel’s courts, sometimes viewed as too sympathetic to — or indeed part of — the Israeli “Left,” have consistently applied standard property law, as would courts in any Western country, and consistently found that the rights of ownership have not been obliterated just because people moved into these homes when the Jews who lived in them were driven out.

Now let’s return to the paintings forcibly seized from Jews by the Nazis. There is widespread sympathy for the owners of those paintings, and it is visible in newspaper accounts and in court decisions and international conventions. Why is there so little sympathy for those who own the properties in contention in Jerusalem? Why the bias in most accounts of these eviction proceedings? Even media generally sympathetic to Israel have produced tendentious reporting (see this analysis of Fox News’ reporting).

Good questions. Is the criticism of Israel here explained by the bitter old conclusion that the world likes dead Jews (and their paintings) more than living Jews who are fighting for their rights? Is it the context of Arab complaints about the “Judaization of Jerusalem,” as if that city were somehow naturally an Arab capital where all Jewish presence is alien? Is it the Palestinian propaganda, which makes cases like this part of the battle to protect the Al-Aqsa mosque from imagined Israeli depredations?

Here’s a theory: Israel’s critics here don’t care about law and rights. Yesterday, before his meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the Jordanian foreign minister spoke of “provocative measures against . . . the peoples of Sheikh Jarrah” to describe court cases in which ownership rights are being asserted. The theory seems to be that the Jews were downtrodden by the Nazis, so the Jews can recover their stolen paintings — but the Palestinians are downtrodden by the Israelis, so the stolen properties cannot be recovered. In other words: forget rights, forget courts.

Blinken, by the way, commended Israel for postponing those court decisions. But they will come, soon enough, and that will be an interesting test for the Biden administration and many other governments. Will they uphold the rule of law and say Israel has every right to enforce a ruling for the owners (if that is the court’s decision)? Or does the rule of law apply only in Europe, when it comes to old Nazi cases where there’s no political risk in siding with the Jews?


Elisha Wiesel: My Father Stood with Israel When It Was under Attack
Rockets have been launched at Ashdod, Ashkelon, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. And I know my father - Elie Wiesel - would have flown to Israel, the way he did during every one of its wars from 1956 until 2014, two years before his death - the instinct of a survivor to stand with his people in moments of danger.

He felt it was for Israel's citizens to decide how best to achieve peace and security.

And he was deeply grateful that Israel existed. For him, the consequence of that gratitude was simple. He would stand with Israel.

Israel was a dream his grandmother had whispered to him as an infant. And it was the only reality that could guarantee to him that the Jewish people would never again be decimated.

I know we now have a country and an army devoted to making sure that no more Yartzeits need to be observed for murdered defenseless Jewish men, women and children.

And I know, as my father did, that Israel will survive because it will fight when it needs to fight, and it will make peace when peace is possible.
This has nothing to do with Sheikh Jarrah
After Palestinian PM Mahmoud Abbas canceled highly anticipated elections, Hamas simply saw an opportunity it could not pass up, exploiting the Sheikh Jarrah situation and an already tense environment during the holy day of Leylat Al Qadr and Jerusalem Day. Hamas is currently running a social media campaign calling for Palestinians to incite violence during demonstrations in Jerusalem and elsewhere. They are encouraging Palestinian youth to throw their lives away by hurling rocks and makeshift bombs at police.

Hamas-led riots outside of the Al Aqsa Mosque prove that Israeli police are not at fault for the dangers preventing Muslims from praying. Hamas has incited mobs and provoked violence with the intention of framing Israel for ethnic cleansing. Just today, provocateurs filled several busses to travel to Jerusalem to participate in the “historic” riots and answer the Hamas call to incite violence.

Most significantly, Hamas leaders ordered hundreds of rockets to be launched in the general direction of major Israeli cities. Many of them did this from the comfort of their luxury villas in Doha, Damascus, or elsewhere, knowing full well they themselves are safe from any blowback. It is important to remember that Hamas’s penchant for murder is almost matched by their blundering incompetence, which is partly the reason one out of every three of their rockets crashes into Gaza where the only possible victims are Palestinian. They also apparently shelled Abu Ghosh, an ancient Arab village.

This dispute is not actually about four houses in East Jerusalem. This is about Hamas seeing a chance to seize the narrative and increase its own influence and control over Palestinians in Jerusalem. Don’t buy their fake news and let them dilute their own blame. In the coming days, Jews and Muslims are both likely to die because Hamas saw political upside in violence. Don’t forget it.


Commentary Magazine Podcast: Israel Under Attack—from Hamas and Liberals
On today’s podcast, I read my exchanges yesterday with my sister from her bomb shelter in Tel Aviv to give listeners a real-time sense of what it’s like to be under rocket attack. And then we express our outrage at the liberal effort to blame Israel for the assault upon it.
Israel Is Under Attack | Gaza Conflict



Israel Strikes Senior Hamas Commanders, as Over 1,100 Rockets So Far Launched From Gaza
Israel launched a serial aerial attack after Palestinian militants fired a massive rocket barrage on Tuesday night over the center of the country and the south killing senior Hamas military commanders in what marked the most serious fighting since the Gaza war in 2014.

Bassem Issa, brigade commander for Hamas Gaza City, is among the senior members of the terrorist group who were killed in Israeli airstrikes, according to Israel’s Security Agency (ISA).

“I congratulate the ISA, the Air Force, Southern Command and the IDF for the operation that targeted senior Hamas commanders. Whoever attacks us — will pay a severe price,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu has convened a security cabinet meeting to discuss the next steps of the operation in Gaza. “We will respond, and are responding, with increasing force,” Netanyahu said ahead of the meeting. According to the Israeli outlet N12, the IDF does not rule out the entry of ground forces into Gaza should it become necessary.
The IDF and the ISA killed several members of Hamas’s military leaders in strikes in Gaza city and Khan Younis, who represent “a central part of the ‘General Staff Forum’ and are considered close to the head of Hamas’s military wing, Muhammad Deif.”
In a joint operation with the ISA, Israeli army fighter jets struck a building and killed two Hamas military intelligence operatives — Hassan Kaogi, head of the Hamas military intelligence security department, and his deputy Wail Issa, head of the military intelligence counter espionage department. Issa is the brother of Marwan Issa, the Deputy Commander of the Hamas.
Report: Israel rules out ceasefire after Hamas seeks international mediation
Israel on Wednesday ruled out mediated talks with Hamas and other Gaza-based terror groups, which are apparently seeking a truce to end the latest deadly escalation, unnamed Israeli officials told local media.

Egypt, which shares a border with the Gaza Strip, has often served as a broker between Israel and the Islamist leaders of the Gaza Strip, who were reportedly prepared to agree a ceasefire after massive IDF strikes against terrorist infrastructure and high-ranking operatives in Hamas.

The officials stressed that Israel was intent on eradicating the terror networks responsible for the latest escalation of violence, and was unwilling to settle for another temporary détente.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz issued earlier on Wednesday a statement to similar effect.

"Israel is not preparing for a ceasefire. There is currently no end date for the operation. Only when we achieve complete quiet can we talk about calm," Gantz said. "We will not listen to moral preaching from any organization or institution regarding our right and duty to protect the citizens of Israel."

The most intense hostilities since 2014 have killed at least 48 people in Gaza, including 14 children, three Palestinians in the West Bank, and five Israelis since Monday.
MEMRI: Palestinian Islamic Jihad Official Ramez Al-Halabi: The Rockets We Use To Pound Tel Aviv, Our Weapons, Our Money, And Our Food Are Provided By Iran
Palestinian Islamic Jihad Official Ramez Al-Halabi said that the rockets used by the faction to target Tel Aviv have the signature of Iran and Qasem Soleimani on them. He made his remarks in an interview that aired on Al-Ahd TV (Iraq) on May 7, 2021. Al-Halabi said that the axis between Jerusalem and Tehran is a victorious one. He added that faction members were trained by the IRGC and that Iranian money was used to buy weapons for the armed factions in Gaza and Lebanon. Al-Halabi continued to state that every home in Gaza has a picture of Qasem Soleimani, and he said: "They are the ones who support us with weapons, money, and food."

"The Contours Of The Victories In Palestine... Were Outlined With The Blood Of Qasem Soleimani, Iranian Blood; The Patronage Of The Axis Of Resistance Has Begun To Prevail In The Region"

Ramez Al-Halabi: "The mujahideen in Gaza and in Lebanon use Iranian weapons to strike the Zionists. We buy our weapons with Iranian money. An important part of our activity is under the supervision of Iranian experts. The contours of the victories in Palestine as of late were outlined with the blood of Qasem Soleimani, Iranian blood. Today, the patronage of the axis of resistance has begun to prevail in the region, thanks to Allah and to the blood of the martyrs, and it has begun to make an impact, and what an impact!

"The axis between Jerusalem and Beirut, the axis between Jerusalem and Baghdad, the axis between Jerusalem and Damascus, the axis between Jerusalem and Sanaa, and first and foremost, the axis between Jerusalem and Tehran – it is a victorious axis.

Our Rockets And Kornet Missiles "Have An Iranian Signature On Them"; Our Gunmen "Were Trained By Our Brothers In The IRGC"

"I am not sorry, I am proud to say that the rockets that are used to pound Tel Aviv have an Iranian signature on them, the signature of Qasem Soleimani.

"The Kornet missiles that we use to blow up the Israeli tanks – the pride of the Israeli and global defense industry – are the Kornet missiles of Qasem Soleimani and Iran. The guns that we use to shoot at the Israeli enemy... Those who use these guns were trained by our brothers in the IRGC. We say this loud and clear.
Gaza Rockets Kill Israeli Arab Father and Daughter in Lod
Halil Awad, 52, and his daughter, Nadine, 16, were killed early Wednesday outside the Israeli city of Lod when their car was struck by a rocket fired from Gaza. The mother, who was also in the car, was seriously injured. Lod Mayor Yair Revivo said the dead were members of the Arab community. "Hamas missiles do not differentiate between Jews and Arabs," he said.

Another missile hit a house in the town of Yehud, just north of Ben-Gurion Airport. Rescue workers said the family was saved by their bomb shelter, as the house was completely destroyed. (
Two Killed in Rocket Barrage on Ashkelon on Tuesday
Hundreds of rockets and mortar shells fired from Gaza hit homes in Ashkelon on Tuesday, killing an Israeli woman and a caregiver from India - Soumya Santhosh, 32. Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon treated 95 casualties, including 2 seriously wounded, 2 in moderate condition, and 49 lightly injured, with the remainder suffering from anxiety.
IDF Kills 4 Islamic Jihad, Hamas Commanders in Targeted Strikes in Gaza
Three Islamic Jihad commanders and one from Hamas were killed in targeted strikes by Israeli forces on Tuesday in retaliation for the firing of hundreds of rockets at Israeli cities from Gaza. Sameh Fahim Al-Mamlouk, 34, who directed Islamic Jihad's rocket brigades in northern Gaza, was killed along with two field commanders who oversaw rocket strikes on Israel. Iyad Fathi Faik Sharir, the Hamas commander who headed the group's anti-tank missile unit in Gaza City, was also killed.


Ma’am, Your Medicine Isn’t As Important As Rockets To Kill Israeli Children by Mahmoud Al-Zahar, Hamas spokesman (satire)
Madam, please stop your histrionics. The screaming will accomplish nothing but annoy me and put you and your family on a blacklist of those who get food and housing last. As I have already explained, we cannot supply you with your life-saving medication because all of our funds have been diverted the higher cause of launching missiles at little girls in Lod, Beersheva, wherever.

It’s like the fifth time I’ve had to say this: your medicine isn’t as important as killing Israel children. They don’t even have to be Jewish! As you can already see, one of the deaths was an Arab teenager, along with her dad. We’re even happy about the caregiver from India whom we killed along with her eighty-eight-year-old client. With achievements such as those already under our belts only three days into our latest round of attacks, I’m sure you’ll understand why we can’t divert any funds from our rocket-launching budget to keep you and your family healthy. Pray to Allah for insulin or something.

You’re trying my patience, madam. You appear to be operating under the mistaken assumption that I, or the Hamas movement at large, cares about you. We do not, except insofar as we can leverage your suffering to make the enemy look evil. We an never hope to defeat him militarily, so we must undermine the enemy’s legitimacy on the international stage and let other, larger forces exploit the situation that creates to take care of the strategic elements of undoing the shame of 1948 and 1967. If we gave you money for the medicine you need, or the medicine itself, we would be relinquishing a vital piece of propaganda!
Israeli President: Palestinian Extremists Turning Temple Mount into Weapons Cache
The Temple Mount must not be used for violence threatening Jewish and Muslim worshippers, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin told EU ambassadors on Tuesday.

"Palestinian extremists have turned the Temple Mount into a cache for weapons, and a base for attacks."

"No country in the world would accept a situation like this. We will never accept this reality. We will protect our citizens by all means necessary."


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Condemns Hamas Rocket Attacks on Israel
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said Tuesday: "I condemn the escalating and indiscriminate rocket attacks by Hamas against Israel. Israel has the right to defend herself against this assault, which is designed to sow terror and undermine prospects for peace. Every civilian death is a tragedy that we mourn. Hamas' accelerating violence only risks killing more civilians, including innocent Palestinians."


U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan Condemns Ongoing Rocket Attacks on Israel
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan spoke Tuesday with Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben Shabbat. He condemned the ongoing rocket attacks by Hamas and other terrorist groups, including against Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. He conveyed the President's unwavering support for Israel's security and for its legitimate right to defend itself and its people, while protecting civilians.


Bella and Gigi Hadid Use Social Media Accounts to Support Palestinians
Modeling duo Bella and Gigi Hadid have come out against Israel and in favor of the Palestinians in the current Middle East conflict.

After several years of relative calm during President Donald Trump’s term, and peace agreements between Israel and several Arab states in the region, Palestinians launched riots last week that escalated into rocket attacks this week, to which Israel responded by targeting Palestinian terrorists in airstrikes in Gaza.

The UK Daily Mail noted that the sisters’ father, Mohammed, “is of Palestinian origin.”

Bella Hadid posted several anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian images, including one that declared “Israelis are the oppressors and Palestinians are the oppressed.”

In her comments, she accused Israel of “apartheid.”

Gigi Hadid posted an image that declared:
One cannot advocate for racial equality, LGBT & women’s rights, condemn corrupt and abusive regimes and other injustices yet choose to ignore the Palestinian oppression. It does not add up.
You cannot pick & choose whose human rights matter more.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) does not honor racial equality, nor does it protect LGBT rights or women’s rights. Neither does Hamas, which rules Gaza. The PA is also widely regarded as one of the most corrupt governments in the world.

Neither of the two sisters said anything about Israeli victims of Palestinian terror, nor about the fact that the current violence is being driven by Hamas, an Islamic terrorist organization that would almost certainly ban them from working as models under Palestinian rule.


CNN's Zakaria: Israel-Palestine Conflict Can only Be Solved if Israel 'as a Matter of Morality,' Decides to 'Give Rights to Palestinians'
On Tuesday’s “CNN Tonight,” CNN host Fareed Zakaria argued that the problems between Israel and Palestine are “only going to be solved if Israel decides that it wants to, as a matter of morality, it wants to give rights to Palestinians,” and blamed the recent conflict in the area on the Trump administration giving too much leeway to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Netanyahu pursuing “his own very narrow interest to the max.”

Host Don Lemon asked, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about this, about what’s happening with Israel and Gaza. I’m so glad that you’re here to discuss. Rocket fire, airstrikes, and the death toll certain to rise. How did this escalate just over just recent days?”

Zakaria responded, “It’s pretty simple. The Trump administration’s foreign policy toward the Middle East was to subcontract the entire region to two people: MBS, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and Bibi Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel. And each one pursued his own very narrow interest to the max. … Netanyahu…was trying to do things that would make it as impossible for there ever to be a Palestinian state as he could do. So, he makes peace with some moderate Gulf states with the help of the United States. And he had been essentially ruling out any possibility of any deal with the Palestinians. So, after a while, I think what happened is, there was a certain amount of frustration that these events then get triggered by something or the other. But the reality is that Israel had almost forgotten that they had this Palestinian problem on their hands, and it has now exploded.”

He added, “Well, a lot of people in Israel are pointing out it seems pretty suspicious or strange that this should happen right as it has happened now. Because it probably helps Bibi Netanyahu. It creates an atmosphere of crisis. It creates an atmosphere where people tend to move to the right. I mean, if you’re getting rockets hailed down upon you that are being shot by Hamas, you’re going to get more security conscious. And if all that happens, what it does for Benjamin Netanyahu is very personal. If he can stay in the prime minister’s office, he does not have to face the corruption charges that threaten to put him into prison.”
Israel Under Fire: IDF Spokesperson on CNN



CNN Criticizes Iron Dome Attacks Against ‘Mostly Peaceful Rockets’ (satire)
Accusing Israel’s missile defense system of unprovoked aggression, CNN has come out against Iron Dome’s violent attacks on “mostly peaceful rockets” fired by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.

Noting that the vast majority of the hundreds of rockets launched at Israeli towns and cities landed uneventfully in empty fields, CNN anchor Don Lemon pointed out that the Iron Dome batteries could have launched a social worker into the sky to de-escalate the situation instead of blasting the rocket out of the air with an interceptor missile.

“Besides, so what if these rockets get a little bit violent sometimes?” anchor Chris Cuomo asked. “Where does it say that rockets are supposed to be peaceful, or that militant groups aren’t supposed to blow up homes, busses, and schools?”

Correspondent Omar Jimenez, meanwhile reported from just south of Tel Aviv, where a rocket had hit a bus, that Hamas had launched a series of “fiery but mostly peaceful attacks” as the bus burned in the background.









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