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Friday, January 12, 2024

01/12 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: The ICJ's genocide travesty; The Agony and Determination of Sderot; Glick: Israel Faces the International Lynch Mob

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The ICJ's genocide travesty
People are understandably reacting with astonishment and disgust to the obscene Soviet-style show trial now under way at the International Court of Justice in which Israel is being accused of genocide against the Arabs of Gaza.

It is indeed a surreal and Orwellian spectacle. Israel is the victim of attempted genocide by Hamas and its patron, Iran, which openly declare their intention to erase every Jew from the planet and wipe Israel off the map.

Israel has gone to war in Gaza solely to prevent the genocide of its people after the depraved atrocities of October 7 and the declared intention of Hamas to repeat these again and again until Israel ceases to exist. The destruction and suffering in Gaza are indeed distressing and regrettable; but that is the inevitable price to be paid even in a just war, waged as Israel is doing purely out of defensive necessity against a vicious and fanatical aggressor. As any country is entitled to do under international law, which Israel is following by the book.

Israel goes to greater lengths than any other country to reduce the number of civilian casualties among its enemy population. It does so even at the cost of its own soldiers and even where, as in Gaza, Hamas have deliberately sited their missiles and infrastructure of genocidal warfare among Gaza’s homes, hospitals and schools. They do this in order to cause civilians to die in large number, and thus provoke the world to blame Israel for taking the only available recourse to defend its people against mass murder.

This is the cynical strategy now being deployed at the ICJ’s kangaroo court in The Hague. The argument to which the ICJ — on past form — is likely to be all-too receptive effectively casts the attempted genocide by Hamas as self-defence and Israel’s defence against that murderous onslaught as “genocide”.

The case would bring the ICJ into total disrepute if it actually had any reputation to defend. It does not. Despite its pretensions to being a court of law, it is in fact a theatre of partisan political activism. It squats at the vortex of the legal and moral black hole that is international “human rights” culture.

Laws draw their legitimacy from being passed by nations rooted in specific institutions, history and culture. Without the anchor of national jurisdiction, laws can turn into instruments of capricious political power.

The ICJ has no such national jurisdiction but is made up of many nations. That’s why, from its inception, it was in essence a political court. That’s why it’s an existential foe of Israel — the principal target of some of the world’s many human rights abusers, who have grasped that international law provides them with a potent weapon.
Boston Herald Editorial: Going After Oct. 7 Terrorists
For eight years, the U.S. State Department has offered a reward of up to $5 million for information on the whereabouts of Saleh Arouri, a Hamas terrorist whose hands were dripping with blood. Last week, Israel found him in Beirut. The New York Times reported that "Arouri worked with Yahya Sinwar, Hamas' chief in Gaza, in recent years to link the group's military wing more closely to Iran, which, regional security officials say, most likely helped the group develop some of the capabilities it used in the Oct. 7 attack."

In other words, he was knee deep in carrying out a barbaric military operation against Israeli civilians that left more than 1,200 innocents dead and led to the kidnapping of more than 200 men, women and children. Critics of Israel maintain that the attack on Arouri will escalate the violence, but Hizbullah has been shelling northern Israel with missiles from Lebanon since the Oct. 7 massacre. Who is escalating what?

It's just as likely that Israel's targeted operation sends a message of steely resolve to those who wish to destroy the Jewish state. Israel has made clear that it won't be cowed into a ceasefire that allows its enemies to rearm and recuperate in order to terrorize innocents once again. Arouri ran but he couldn't hide. They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.
Alon Davidi, Mayor of Sderot, Israel: The Agony and Determination of Sderot
Until the morning of Oct. 7, the town of Sderot was a parable of hope and success. Less than a mile from the Gaza border, it emerged as a haven for Jewish refugees fleeing antisemitic persecution - from North Africa, Kurdish lands, Ethiopia, and the former Soviet Union. My parents found refuge in Israel from Iran. Those people forged a city brimming with cultural richness, industrial vitality and a spirit of coexistence.

After Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, rocket attacks from Gaza-based terrorist groups became the new normal. Air raid sirens and rushed trips to bomb shelters invaded our days and nights. Over the years, 10 of our residents were killed. The children of Sderot grew up in an atmosphere of perpetual danger. Despite these challenges, Sderot flourished, even attracting new residents.

The Israeli government tried to help Gazans where we could, offering job opportunities in agriculture and industry within Israel and a proposed, but unrealized, industrial zone aimed at providing jobs for thousands of Gazan residents. On Oct. 7, my friend and colleague Ofir Libstein, head of the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council, who spearheaded the industrial zone project, was slain defending his town, Kfar Aza. Sderot lost at least 50 people, including eight members of our police department who died trying to protect our city.

As Israel fought to recover control of the area and as Hamas rocket attacks on Israel intensified, we evacuated 30,000 inhabitants of our city to shelters all over Israel. As mayor, I face an overwhelming task while forced to work out of a hotel in Jerusalem: ensuring the provision of essential public services like education, after-school programs and social services for our city's residents at 110 locations across the nation.

What sustains us is the hope that Oct. 7 was a turning point, igniting global awareness of the need to end the Hamas nightmare. The world must understand that Israel's fight is existential, that we will not cease until the Hamas threat is eradicated. Our community has suffered immensely, and it's time to guarantee us the basic security that every human being deserves.


Editor's notes: Isn't this the true face of genocide?
The New York Times recently published just a few of the incidents of sexual abuse, although Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,000 Israelis. They shared a grainy video that emerged in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre, just one day later. It showed a woman, her clothes in disarray, lying in a state of vulnerability. Her face was unrecognizable, marked by the horrors of the previous night’s attack at a rave. The video, captured by someone searching for a missing friend, quickly went viral, igniting widespread anxiety as thousands feared the woman might be a missing loved one.

Among the viewers, a family from a central Israeli town recognized the victim as Gal Abdush, a mother of two. She had disappeared that night along with her husband, turning a national tragedy into a personal and irreplaceable loss for her family.

The Times (UK) also investigated the atrocities. Yoni Saadon, a 39-year-old father of four who attended the Supernova music festival in Re’im, shared a heartbreaking account of a young woman who sought refuge from the terrorists next to him under the stage.

“I saw this beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or ten of the fighters beating and raping her,” he recounted.

“She was screaming, ‘Stop it already. I’m going to die anyway from what you are doing; just kill me!’ When they finished, they were laughing, and the last one shot her in the head.

“She fell to the ground, shot in the head, and I pulled her body over me and smeared her blood on me so it would look like I was dead too,” he continued. “I will never forget her face. Every night I wake up to it and apologize to her, saying, ‘I’m sorry.’”

He added, “They caught a young woman near a car, and she was fighting back, not allowing them to strip her. They threw her to the ground, and one of the terrorists took a shovel and beheaded her, and her head rolled along the ground. I see that head too,” he said, according to The Times.

THE WORLD should know about the atrocities committed by Hamas. They should see the photo of the 10-year-old girl whose head was cut off. They should hear about the sexual torture committed against women and men. The Israeli government and the IDF should share these images and videos. They should expose the true face of the Palestinian people. They don’t want peace; they don’t want a two-state solution. They want to commit genocide.

They want to kill every single Jew, whether in the West Bank or within the Green Line.

In their minds, the establishment of Israel in 1948 was a tragedy. A mistake. Something that needs to be eliminated.

But guess what? We are alive and strong. We are here to stay. This war, unfortunately, will last for decades, but we will prevail.

Am Israel Chai.
WSJ Editorial: South Africa Volunteers to be Legal Counsel for Hamas
The UN has done little while Russia has slaughtered innocent Ukrainians, but suddenly the body has a cause it can get behind - charging Israel with genocide for the crime of self-defense. South Africa says support for the genocide claim should be "inferred" by the existence of Israeli bombardment.

Well, no. The 1948 Genocide Convention defines genocide as the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." A legally plausible case for genocide requires a demonstrated intent of ethnic cleansing, not a war of self-defense after a terrorist massacre.

Before its military campaign, Israel urged civilians to evacuate. But arguing the merits presumes this case is more than political theater. Where was South Africa's moral outrage when the country tolerated Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, or when it opposed the indictment of Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir for killing 200,000 people in Darfur?

If the UN wants to find genocidal intent, try the Hamas charter. The preamble says "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it."
South Africa goes to war against Israel at the ICJ
WHEN THE court assembles, you will see among its justices Prof. Aharon Barak, one of the world’s greatest jurists, and an emblem of the Israeli judiciary’s independence, professionalism, morality, and guts.

Yet Justice Barak will represent more than all that. Justice Barak will be in The Hague as a Jew, and not just a Jew but a Jew who survived the Holocaust, the real Holocaust, the one that really happened, and the one that would happen again, tonight, if it were up to the religious fanatics you have chosen to hail, shield, and serve.

Not only do you face legal defeat and moral debacle in the fight you have picked, but you also face political disgrace.

To blame anyone of genocide, one must be moral; but to blame a nation of Holocaust survivors of perpetrating genocide, one must be not just moral but morally impeccable.

That’s not what your South Africa is, Mr. Ramaphosa.

Overcast by a world-leading homicide rate of 41 murders annually per 100,000 people, your country is a nexus of human trafficking, drug dealing, arms trade, embezzlement, rape, robbery, carjacking, burglary, mugging, pickpocketing, and every other form of crime whether petty, organized, financial, or political. Corrupt to the bone, your land is a social tragedy and a moral hell.

Now, the courtroom drama you have engineered will only make millions of foreigners tell you to first take care of South Africa before setting out to fix the rest of the world.

You are in no position to preach anything to anyone outside your land, least of all humanism, least of all to the Jews.
Brooke Goldstein: The ICJ is illegitimate, but it is an existential threat to Israel
The icj is no longer a neutral arbiter of justice. It lacks basic due process. Its bias has turned it into a political entity and destroyed its legitimacy as a court of law. Israel cannot afford to risk its sovereignty, including its right to self-defense, by seeking justice from a political body infused with systemic Jew hatred. Indeed, engaging with the ICJ on its terms sets a dangerous precedent of empowering (and legitimizing) the very lawfare now being conducted against Israel.

Instead of fighting a losing battle, Israel needs to show, on the global stage, that the ICJ has become an illegitimate court. It needs to employ every diplomatic channel and every political tool available to show what the principal judicial organ of the UN really is. Like the UN, the ICJ is an institution that has become a cesspool of bias and Jew-hatred. Israel needs to highlight the politicization and bias that have come to plague the ICJ, the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the UN itself. Indeed, one only needs to look to Iran’s envoy being appointed to chair a UN Human Rights Council meeting to see what the UN has become.

There once was a time when the pursuit of justice was guided by sanity and rational thought. The ICJ – like the ICC and the UN – was a product of a post-WWII vision for a global justice system that would, optimistically, prevent global conflict and ensure peace. But in the decades that followed the six million Jewish dead, the post-war optimism was replaced by systematized hatred against the Jewish people and the State of Israel, coupled with an abject failure to effectively mediate conflicts and prevent atrocities.

The UN itself has become a forum for illiberal and genocidal dictators to unite against the democratic ideals that created it. A democracy of totalitarian dictatorships. Consequently, the UN and its institutions have lost credibility and legitimacy, and there are now serious questions about their commitment to impartial justice.

Israel must shift its focus from defensive legal tactics to proactive strategies that assert its position and values on the global stage. In so doing, it will delegitimize the ICJ and neutralize the effect of any ruling coming from what has become a kangaroo court.

The Genocide Convention was born of the ashes of over six million murdered Jews and is now being used as a weapon to enable another genocide.

It is shameful that the ICJ, founded in the wake of a devastating world war and with the aim of helping prevent another Holocaust, is now being used as an instrument of lawfare to support the potential mass murder of the Jewish people by trying to restrain Israel from defending itself.

The UN and its organs are no longer legitimate, and allowing this self-appointed “world court” to exercise legal authority over Israel is an existential threat not just to Israel and the Jewish people but to everyone who values justice, democracy, and the sovereign rights of the world’s nations to protect their citizens from genocidal atrocities.
Alan M. Dershowitz: The International Court Of "Injustice" Begins Its Blood Libel Trial Against Israel
What is the International Court of Justice? It is not international, because it excludes judges from certain countries. It is not a real court, because the judges are selected by their countries and many of them simply follow the instructions of those who appointed them. And it has never done justice, because it has long been biased against Israel. It is the United Nations court, and that tells you all you need to know about it.

The United Nations has become the megaphone of bigotry and anti-Semitism.... Both the United Nations and its court are shams.

It is the Hamas charter that calls for genocide against the Jews of Israel, and it is South Africa that is harboring Hamas terrorists and defending its murders and rapes. It should be Hamas that is on trial for attempted genocide and South Africa that is on trial for complicity with Hamas. Instead, the nation-state of the Jewish people is being accused of a blood libel, despite going to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties in its legitimate efforts to destroy Hamas.

The evidence is indisputable that Hamas has committed numerous war crimes.

Were the International Court of Justice to falsely conclude that Israel was guilty of genocide, it would destroy whatever remaining credibility that court might have. If that were to happen, the United States and some other nations should and probably would leave the court: it would not deserve the legitimacy afforded by membership of any decent country.
United Nations should be put on trial
DOING SO would make a clear statement that no UN body can exercise authority over Israel or any free society’s sovereignty and certainly not over national security decisions such as how to conduct an existential war of self-defense. And media and opinion formers in the free world should become very much more circumspect in the credibility they grant UN institutions. The time has come to build a new global alliance comprising free societies with shared values and a sincere commitment to human rights.

The words of Israel’s then-Ambassador to the UN Chaim Herzog, later Israel’s president, come to mind. In 1975, he addressed the UN General Assembly on the eve of another one of its many fits of blatant antisemitism, when it was about to pass its infamous “Zionism is racism” resolution. He ended his speech with these words: “I stand here not as a supplicant. For the issue is not Israel or Zionism. The issue is the continued existence of the [UN] Organization which has been dragged to its lowest point of discredit by a coalition of despotisms and racists.

“This resolution, based on hatred, falsehood, and arrogance is devoid of any moral or legal value. For us, the Jewish people, this is no more than a piece of paper, and we shall treat it as such.” And then tore up the resolution at the rostrum of the UN. Israel should give the ICJ summons the same treatment.

The stakes could not be higher. The fate of the entire world is at stake, as the great ethical work of the Talmud, Pirkei Avot states: “the world stands on three things – justice, truth and peace.” God has created the world such that without these pillars human civilization crumbles. But note their order. First justice and truth – and then peace.

Around 1800 years ago, in the ancient and eternal capital of the Jewish people, the great sages of the Jerusalem Talmud, explained that without justice and truth there can be no peace.

And so, Israel must stand firm against the intimidation of the UN and its so-called International Court of Justice. Israel must stand firm in the name of justice and truth, for as the prophet Isaiah said, “Zion will be redeemed through justice.” The route to redemption – and the path to peace – begins with justice: true justice.
South Africa paints grim picture of Gaza, but obfuscates foundations of genocide claim
The very general descriptions of Palestinian civilian casualties and desperate living conditions in Gaza are not evidence of genocide.

The Israeli legal team in its defense Friday will, instead, likely underline something that the South African team did not mention even once in all three and a half hours of its oral arguments and 84 pages of its application to the ICJ: that Hamas has embedded its military installations and combatants in, around, and under every part of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure.

The high level of civilian casualties, the Israeli team will likely argue, is due not to a genocidal Israeli campaign but because Gaza’s civilians have been placed in harm’s way since Hamas strategically located its armed forces, weapons and tunnels in hospitals, mosques, schools and UN facilities.

The Israeli army’s widespread and repeated warnings to civilians to evacuate from the most intense combat zones will also be underlined as evidence that Israel does not wish to harm Palestinian civilians — a key contextual element that, again, was absent from the South African case.

More broadly, the South African case ignores the cause of the Israeli military campaign — the October 7 atrocities committed by Hamas — and Israel’s subsequent declaration of war which is explicitly aimed at destroying Hamas so that it can no longer constitute a deadly danger.

By failing to acknowledge this reality and failing to even acknowledge that there are Hamas fighters battling Israeli troops in Gaza, the South African case obfuscates the fact that there is currently a war between two sides and that in all wars there are always civilian casualties.

The task in front of the Israel defense team Friday is a difficult one and faces serious challenges. But the South African case has real and significant flaws.

The Israeli legal representatives will strive to underline these in order to extricate Israel from the highly problematic corner into which it has been jammed — and into which, in good part due to the intemperate comments of some of its political leaders, it has also jammed itself.
Israel On Trial Day 2: Israeli defense requests ICJ dismiss South Africa's genocide charge
Israel's argument at the Hague Refuting the South African claims, the Israeli team argued that the court has no jurisdiction over this case, as no disputes exist between the country and South Africa. Pretoria claims it had sent to the Israeli embassy numerous requests to discuss the situation in Gaza, but never received a response. British international law expert Malcolm Shaw, who leads the Israeli legal team, argued that South Africa was misleading the court, citing the exact dates of Israeli responses to the diplomatic notes it received, including proposals for meetings between South African and Israeli officials to talk about Gaza.

The Israeli team further argued that claims of genocide fully lack credibility, in view of Israel’s efforts for humanitarian aid to Gaza residents. These efforts include Israel enabling unlimited amounts of fuel, food, water, and medical supplies to be entered into the Gaza Strip.

Doctor Galit Raguan noted that since the beginning of the Israeli military operation, the IDF dropped millions of leaflets with instructions to Gaza residents where they should flee and how they should protect themselves from bombing. 70,000 phone calls were placed by the army to Gazans, with similar explanations, stressing that these moves are in stark contradiction to claims of Israel embracing genocidal policies.

“The applicant astonishingly claims that these efforts are themselves genocidal. A measure intended to mitigate harm to civilians is proof, according to the applicant, of Israel’s intent to commit genocide when it in fact proves the exact opposite,” noted Raguan.

Israel reminded the court that in contrast to its humanitarian efforts, Hamas has been stealing and hoarding the assistance material transferred into the Gaza Strip for the needy. The Israeli legal team also said that the South African complaints ignore in fact all that Hamas has been doing since Oct. 7, as if there are no terror tunnels, no terrorists dressed as civilians, no Hamas operatives exploiting safe zones, schools, and mosques as military infrastructure. The hostages, it was noted, are all but forgotten. South Africa’s complaint dismisses the right, the obligation of the Israeli government to defend it citizens, it was said.

‘’Astonishingly, the Court has been requested to indicate a provisional measure calling on Israel to suspend its military operations. But this amounts to an attempt to deny Israel its ability to meet its legal obligations to the defense of its citizens, to the hostages, and to over 110,000 internally displaced Israelis unable to safely return to their homes,’’ noted Becker.


Caroline Glick: Israel Faces the International Lynch Mob
3 months after Israel was subjected to a one-day genocide and the worst massacre against Jews since the Holocaust, Israel is being tried in the ICC for genocide but no one other than...South Africa.

All this and more on Caroline's In-Focus!




‘ICJ has no moral authority,’ says South Africa chief rabbi
In the wake of today’s hearings at the UN International Court of Justice in The Hague, in which South Africa has accused Israel of charges of genocide against Palestinians during the war in Gaza, Rabbi Warren Goldstein, Chief Rabbi of South Africa, said that “Israel must stand firm against the intimidation of the UN and its so-called International Court of Justice.” Goldstein argued that the United Nations has become a threat to freedom and democracy in the world and that Israel should use its appearance before the UN’s International Court of Justice to expose this fact.

Goldstein pointed out that only 84 of the 193 members of the UN General Assembly are ranked as free societies, and of the 47 members of the UN Human Rights Council, just 13 are economically and politically free. “What does it say about the UN as a protector of human rights and international justice,” he stated, “if the majority of its members have no regard for the values or democracy or freedom, or indeed human rights?”

The appointment of judges, explained Goldstein, is at the very heart of justice, who noted that the Talmudic interpretation of the Biblical verse, “Justice, justice you shall pursue,” refers to the moral duty to submit one’s case only before a worthy and upstanding bench of judges.

“Justice is only as good as the judges who dispense it. Therefore, who appoints the judges is absolutely critical,” said Goldstein. “And the UN, dominated by dictatorships, riddled with antisemitism, appoints ICJ judges, who therefore, by definition, lack the moral authority to stand in judgment over any democracy, especially Israel.”

He charged that the hearings are “a theater of the absurd, where a democracy such as Israel can be brought before the ICJ to face charges related to its national security imperative to fight off Jihadist terror - terror that is financed and supported by countries such as Iran with the declared intent of waging war against the West and destroying the values that free democracies are built upon.”


UK says South Africa’s genocide case ‘endangers peace’
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman has condemned South Africa’s attempt to prosecute Israel for genocide over its conduct of the war in Gaza, saying it can only endanger the cause of peace.

Speaking to parliamentary reporters at their daily briefing on Thursday, he said the South African case was “completely unjustified and wrong”.

Sunak’s spokesman added: “His legal action does not serve the court of peace. The UK government stands by Israel’s clear right to defend itself within the framework of international law.”

Both main parties in Britain have upheld Israel’s right to defend itself and its attempt to destroy Hamas since the October 7 terrorist attacks.

The case against Israel, which opened on Thursday in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, has attracted international allies of the cause including Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader.

South Africa’s lawyers are attempting to persuade the court that Israel is deliberately trying to bring about the “physical destruction” of Gaza’s Palestinian inhabitants.

Foreign Secretary David Cameron has also denounced the South African petition, saying “I don’t think that is helpful,

I don’t agree with it, I don’t think it’s right.”
Germany to intervene at ICJ in support of Israel
The German government does not believe Israel is committing genocide and will intervene as a third party at the International Court of Justice in defence of the Jewish state, the country announced earlier today.

The intervention comes after Israel’s legal team delivered its defence at the United Nations court in the Hague on Friday.

South Africa’s case is "a sweeping counter-factual description" of the Palestinian conflict, Israeli lawyer Tal Becker told the ICJ.

Hamas has sought "to maximise civilian harm to both Israelis and Palestinians, even as Israel seeks to minimise it,” he insisted.

The day before, South African lawyers told the court that a plan to "destroy" Gaza had been "nurtured at the highest level of the state" and was evidenced by the public statements of Israeli politicians.

In a statement on the case, German officials said they oppose the “political instrumentalisation” of the Genocide Convention.

"On October 2023, Hamas terrorists brutally attacked, tortured, killed and kidnapped innocent people in Israel,” they wrote.

“Hamas' goal is to wipe out Israel. Since then, Israel has been defending itself against the inhumane attack by Hamas…

“We know that different countries assess Israel's operation in Gaza differently.

"However, the Federal Government firmly and expressly rejects the accusation of genocide that has now been made against Israel at the International Court of Justice. This accusation has no basis whatsoever.

"The Federal Government supports the International Court of Justice in its work, as it has done for many decades. The federal government intends to intervene as a third party in the main hearing.”


South African national cricket team removes Jewish captain, citing anti-Israel protests against him
David Teeger, a rising star on South Africa’s cricket scene, has been removed as the country’s Under-19 team captain on the eve of the world championship competition.

Cricket South Africa cited threats to Teeger, who is Jewish, and the team over Israel’s war in Gaza ahead of the U19 Men’s Cricket World Cup, which South Africa is hosting.

“We have been advised that protests related to the war in Gaza can be anticipated at the venues for the tournament. We have also been advised that they are likely to focus on … David Teeger,” the organization said in a statement.

“CSA has decided that David should be relieved of the captaincy for the tournament,” Cricket South Africa added. “This is in the best interests of all the players, the SA U19 team, and David himself.” The statement said he would remain an “important and active member” of the team.

Continued targeting of Teeger
Cricket South Africa had previously suspended Teeger while it investigated hate speech allegations against him after he expressed support for Israeli soldiers following Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel. It later cleared him to return to the team.

Television personality Piers Morgan condemned South Africa's decision, writing on X "WTF!? Have they sacked him because he’s Jewish? This is shameful moral cowardice by Cricket South Africa."


Jonathan Tobin: Biden’s Middle East diplomacy is about Michigan
Looked at soberly, Blinken’s talking points about Palestinian statehood and Saudi normalization are not serious proposals. But they do serve a very serious purpose for the Biden administration: helping the president get re-elected.

The war on Hamas has been a major political problem for Biden. He has correctly expressed support for Israel’s right to defend itself and for the goal of eliminating Hamas. But with the base of his party under the sway of woke intersectional lies about Israel being a “white” oppressor of people of color, his campaign is reeling from dissent within the ranks of Democratic staffers and the party’s left-wing activist base. This created a civil war within the party with letters demanding that he abandon Israel and impose a ceasefire that would allow Hamas to survive coming from lower-level appointees throughout the government, in addition to Democratic congressional staffers. The latest broadside came from within his own re-election campaign staff, which not only repeated Hamas propaganda but accused him of complicity in alleged Israeli atrocities. It also stated plainly that it was support for Israel that was costing him the support of young voters.

Polls have shown that young Democratic voters, who like the mobs of students on college campuses chanting for Israel’s destruction and Jewish genocide have likely been indoctrinated in critical race theory and the diversity, equity and inclusion catechism, oppose Biden because of his refusal to abandon Israel. That’s in spite of the fact that the administration has been second-guessing and undermining Israel throughout the war. As Blinken made clear again this week, Washington wants a war against Hamas in which no Palestinian civilian human shields are hurt—a goal that is even more of a fantasy than the scenarios about Palestinian statehood and formal Israeli-Saudi peace. But that hasn’t satisfied the administration’s noisy left-wing critics.

Should Biden listen to the pleas of his base and betray Israel, it would cost him the votes of centrist and independent voters who still back the Jewish state against its foes. But if he doesn’t listen to them, it will sap the Democratic base of enthusiasm and depress voter turnout—factors that would likely cost him the election. On top of that, Muslim and Arab-American voters who turned out for Biden to defeat the openly pro-Israel Trump in 2020 would also presumably stay home or vote for third-party candidates in November.

That is illustrated by the latest polls in Michigan, with its large Arab-American population, which show Trump defeating Biden decisively in that state. The margin only increases when third-party candidates are included.

So, while Blinken’s proposals are unrealistic, they make perfect sense from the point of view of Biden’s campaign. The president needs a quick end to the war and gestures that favor the Palestinians if he’s going to reassemble his 2020 coalition and win Michigan this fall. And unless the Democrats’ left-wing base is re-energized by policies that allow the president to distance himself from Israel, the same is true for the country as a whole.

Israel remains dependent on Biden’s goodwill to maintain the flow of arms that the Israel Defense Forces need to keep fighting until victory against Hamas. And Netanyahu is politically weak and also under pressure to find a way to ransom or rescue the hostages. But no one should be under any apprehension that administration policy proposals will bring peace, make Israel more secure, or help defeat Hamas and ensure that this genocidal terrorist group can’t make good on its pledge to commit more Oct. 7 slaughters in the future.

Everything Blinken is saying about the Middle East right now is really about Michigan, not peace for Israel, the Saudis or the Palestinians.
U.S. Making Demands Israel Can't Meet
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was back in Israel this week. Despite ongoing support from the White House, disagreements over core issues were at the center of discussions. President Biden would like to see the war in Gaza wind down, and is adamant that the humanitarian situation must change dramatically. The White House wants Palestinian civilians to return to their homes in northern Gaza, and wants the war to lead to a political process toward a Palestinian state.

Israel's war cabinet see things differently. They talk about the continuation of the fight until Hamas is toppled. Some Israeli leaders reportedly told Blinken that there would be no return for Gazans to the north until Hamas agrees to another hostage deal. And there is absolutely no capacity right now among the Israeli public to consider the creation of a Palestinian state.

"He came out with a long list of expectations and demands of Israel, of which, to my mind, very few can be met," said Michael Oren, a former ambassador to Washington. "I don't believe that the army is going to let refugees in any significant numbers back into the north....We can't let them back yet. They come back, Hamas is going to be with them, and it's going to get soldiers killed."

The Biden Administration approach - publicly pushing Israel - could come with dangerous unintended consequences. "The message to the region is that the U.S. relationship with Israel is conditional and strained," said Oren. "They're going about it in the way best guaranteed to actually make [a broader war] happen. Think about it like this: If you are Iranian, Russian or Chinese and you're listening to America's messaging that a) it's not standing foursquare behind Israel, and b) it's afraid of regional war, is that going to make you less likely or more likely to escalate?"
IDF quietly transitions to phase three in the war against Hamas
Without fanfare, the Israel Defense Forces is transitioning from phase 2 in the war against Hamas—the high-intensity stage of surging ground forces throughout Gaza—to phase 3, involving far more targeted operations, with a focus on the south of the Strip.

The decision to do so is based primarily on the IDF’s assessment that it has succeeded in dismantling Hamas’s organized military structures in northern Gaza and in Hamas’s former heartland of Gaza City, leaving disorganized terror cells that have fallen back on independent guerrilla warfare tactics.

“While there are still terrorists and weapons in the north, they are no longer functioning within an organized military framework, IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Jan. 6. “We are now operating differently in that area, with a different mix of forces, to deepen our achievements. We are currently focusing on the central Gaza Strip, in the area of the central camps, and in the southern Gaza Strip, in the area of Khan Yunis.

“This is still a complex operational activity, with hard battles being fought both in the center and the south. The fighting will continue into 2024,” Hagari added.

This coming year will likely see the IDF divide Gaza in two, with IDF units deployed to defend the dividing line while also working to make sure that tunnels cannot be used to move from north to south Gaza.

In practical terms, this means that large numbers of soldiers are being discharged, with reservists returning to the workforce to nourish the badly neglected economy and recharge ahead of a potential call-up to the north.

The operations in remaining Hamas strongholds such as Khan Yunis are being led by the IDF’s 98th Division, which features many special forces operators.

In the central Gaza Strip, the IDF is still involved in significant fighting in the area of the central camps in Al-Bureij, where it is locating tunnels, large underground weapons factories (from which weapons were sent along the Hamas military tunnel network to positions all over Gaza) and terrorists.
Why Israel’s air power did not paralyze the Hamas factories of death
In a large factory shed, the soldiers show dozens of industrial metal melting, molding and engraving machines. Large containers hold tens of thousands of unassembled mortar shells, with fuses nearby. At the far end of the shed, there is a large shaft with an elevator. Most production was done underground, where the finished products were readied for shipment.

In an adjacent structure are dozens of long-range missiles, capable of hitting northern Israel and nearly ready for use, lacking only warhead and paint. This building too has a huge shaft leading to an underground production space.

“The room below is huge. They only brought finished products above ground to transfer to the launch sites,” says Lt. Col. Ohad Moyal, commander of the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion.

The terrorists did not give up the expansive industrial complex easily.

“We saw hard fighting here. They counterattacked, blew up shafts, and set booby traps. Ultimately, they can’t stand against a force like ours over time, but they continued producing weapons up till the last moment, just as we were meters away from them,” says Moyal.

Other weapons factories were also found for the production of explosives, rocket guidance systems, mortar shells, small arms and drones.

“This is the largest weapons manufacturing site we have discovered since the beginning of the war,” IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Monday during his daily press briefing.

“This factory was connected to an underground tunnel system, through which weapons were transferred throughout the Gaza Strip. The rockets manufactured there were launched towards central Israel and other areas in the State of Israel. We will continue to operate against Hamas’s manufacturing infrastructure, against their underground system and Hamas leaders throughout the Gaza Strip,” he said.

A cursory examination of the compound shows why all of Israel’s air power did not suffice to paralyze Hamas’s industry of terror and death. Huge bomb craters gape on the grounds from IAF strikes preceding the ground offensive. But despite the heavy bombardment, which likely damaged infrastructures and even missile launch pits, nearby plants, in civilian buildings and underground, continued churning out thousands of mortar shells and rockets.

“Production at this facility could only be stopped as we did, on the ground, meter after meter, shed after shed,” says Moyal as we pass by a nearby blast crater.


661 terrorists tied to Oct. 7 to get PA ‘pay for slay’ financial stipends
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority has added thousands of Palestinians to its list of people who qualify to receive terror stipends, an Israeli watchdog reported on Wednesday.

The findings sparked outrage among surviving residents of the communities.

P.A. officials announced that 3,550 terrorists imprisoned in Israel will receive payouts, as will the families of 23,210 slain “martyrs,” the Jerusalem-based Palestine Media Watch (PMW) said.

The figure for the prisoners was announced on the Telegram channel of the P.A.-funded Prisoners’ Club. The number of “martyrs,” which includes terrorists killed while carrying out attacks, was reported in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the official P.A. daily newspaper, on Jan. 10.

“The PLO Commission of Prisoners pays the salaries. It means that the Gaza terrorists are recognized officially and are going to receive salaries,” PMW director Itamar Marcus said regarding the prisoners.

“We already knew this, but now it’s official,” Marcus added. “This means that the P.A. sees all those killed by Israel as innocent victims. Even the terrorists are victims because the P.A. has said their attack was justified in response to Israel’s occupation of seven decades—i.e., since Israel’s creation.”

Of the 3,550 terrorists slated to receive payouts, 661 are Hamas terrorists from Gaza. The remainder are Palestinians arrested in almost daily Israeli counterterror operations around Judea and Samaria. According to Israeli figures, around 1,300 of the terrorism suspects arrested in counterterror raids since Oct. 7 are affiliated with Hamas.
IDF intelligence: Hamas spent ‘tens of millions’ on Gaza terror tunnels
Hamas spent tens of millions of dollars, which was intended for the Gaza Strip, building underground terrorist infrastructure, the Israel Defense Forces said on Thursday evening, citing intelligence findings.

Hamas “opted to invest precious resources in building terrorist infrastructure used to harm Israeli civilians and IDF forces, while cynically exploiting the civilian population in the Gaza Strip,” the military said.

An analysis of tunnel shafts discovered since the start of Israel’s ground operation in the coastal enclave last year shows that Hamas diverted at least 6,000 tons of concrete and 1,800 tons of metal to build “hundreds of kilometers” of underground infrastructure, added the statement.

The IDF’s search for terror tunnels is aided by a trove of intelligence seized by soldiers, including 65 million digital files and half a million physical documents, the IDF said late last year.

In some cases, soldiers found large sacks belonging to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The sacks were filled with sand, possibly intended to stabilize tunnels before concrete layers were added.

In a seven-minute video summary of the first three months of its military offensive, the IDF noted that “with the outbreak of the war, representatives from Israel, the United States, Egypt and the United Nations convened to create a large-scale humanitarian aid operation focused on maximizing the amount of aid transported into Gaza.”

“Israel is fully committed to facilitating and supporting all humanitarian efforts by the international community, while working to free the Israeli hostages and dismantle Hamas, and with it, bring hope for a better future for the people of the Middle East,” per the video.


IDF strikes at Hamas's Nukhba forces, kills leader who took part in Oct. 7
The IDF has struck again at Hamas infrastructure in Gaza over the past 24 hours, eliminating dozens of terrorists, including leaders of Hamas's Nukhba forces, the military stated on Friday morning.

In Khan Yunis, an IDF fighter jet struck a Hamas military compound and killed seven terrorists. One of the terrorists killed was a Nukhba commander who took part in the October 7 massacre.

IDF troops in the area of the city located three armed terrorists who were exiting a Hamas compound and began to advance toward the soldiers, to which IDF troops responded with live fire.

Additionally, in Khan Yunis, IDF troops also located a number of AK-47 rifles and RPG launchers and dismantled a weapons storage facility over the past day.

IDF continues to locate Hamas tunnels
The IDF also discovered a vast subterranean tunnel complex built by Hamas under Khan Yunis on Wednesday. Located by the Commando Unit, the Yahalom Combat Engineering Unit, and Special Forces units, the tunnel was connected to an extensive underground tunnel network beneath a civilian area in the city.

After investigating the tunnel, the IDF confirmed that Israeli hostages had been inside the tunnel. Millions of shekels are estimated to have been invested in excavating the tunnel and equipping it with air ventilation systems, electrical supply, and plumbing.

The IDF's 98th Division is simultaneously fighting underground and above ground in urban areas in the city. Engineering forces, the Yahalom Unit, special forces units and additional troops are leading the effort to locate tunnels, investigate and dismantle them with advanced technology and operational means.


Israeli government welcomes ‘long overdue’ airstrikes on Houthis
Senior figures in the Israeli government have welcomed the British and American airstrikes against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and consider they were long overdue and unlikely to lead to a long-term conflict, the JC understands.

Israeli security experts across the political spectrum take a similar view and believe that neither the West nor Iran currently have an appetite for a direct military confrontation.

If borne out by events, this analysis suggests that fears that the airstrikes may trigger a global economic crisis by closing vital shipping routes in the long term may not be realised.

The US and UK launched strikes on 60 Houthi targets in Yemen on Thursday night. They followed months of increasing tension, with at least 26 separate Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea since the Gaza war started on October 7.

The rebels – a proxy terrorist militia controlled and supplied by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – have stated they see any vessel “linked” to Israel by having docked there as a legitimate target, and that they are intended to support the Palestinians.

The Houthis have also launched drones and missiles at the southern Israeli city of Eilat, although most have been intercepted by Israel’s missile defence system, Iron Dome.

Ofer Shellah, a former Knesset member for the opposition Yesh Atid party and chair of its defence and foreign affairs committee, who is now a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, told the JC:

“I don’t know what kind of language you are allowed to use in the JC, but frankly, it’s about f***ing time.

“If you speak the language of the Middle East, you know that what the Houthis have been doing is a threat to everyone, not just Israel, and they have to be made to see they cannot behave in this manner. My opinion is that so long as the US and UK are persistent and act with enough force, the Houthis will grasp the fact they cannot win, and maybe cannot survive, this war.”


‘World betrayed women over October 7’ says Israel’s first lady
Like most Israelis, the country’s First Lady is refreshingly down to earth. Welcoming me into the stylish house in Tel Aviv where she and her husband, President Isaac Herzog, live when not at their official residence in Jerusalem, she asks how I’d like my coffee, then makes it herself.

But behind the warm welcome lies a core of steel. When she starts her exclusive JC interview, Herzog accuses international human rights and women’s organisations of a “painful betrayal of women” by refusing to condemn the organised sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists during the October 7 attacks.

On Monday, the day our interview took place, it emerged that at the end of this month — almost four months after the atrocities — the UN is finally sending Pramila Patten, its special rapporteur on sexual violence in conflict, to Israel. But so far that is all, and, according to Herzog, the wider world’s lack of reaction “clearly shows the worst double standard against Israel”.

Herzog, a former criminal lawyer who is Israel’s highest-profile First Lady for years, first raised what she called the “devastating silence” of international rights groups over the rapes of Israeli women in an article she wrote for Newsweek in November. But her comments to the JC are her most outspoken yet, following claims by anti-Israel activists that allegations of rape by the terrorists have been “fabricated”.

Among the most extreme was a statement signed last week by 19 Middle East women’s and human rights groups and hundreds of individuals, some in Europe and America, saying a recent New York Times investigation into the rapes was “propaganda for an unlawful occupation” designed to silence opposition to “the genocide in Gaza”.

Herzog points out that the evidence of orchestrated, gender-based violence was “overwhelming”. It included eyewitness testimony, the horrific injuries of victims who were raped and then murdered, videos shot by perpetrators, admissions by captured terrorists, and, perhaps most compelling of all, the Hamas “instruction manuals” recovered from fighters killed by the IDF, which set out the Hebrew for phrases such as “take off your pants” and “open your legs”.

“The double standard in this is astonishing,” Herzog says. “Of course, antisemitism is embedded in it, but it’s also a product of this shallow discourse that makes people side with the supposed underdog. But in this case, it was the Palestinians who attacked, and we know it was pre-planned.

“I cannot stomach the hypocrisy. It’s not just a betrayal of Israeli women, but women at large. What was the Me Too movement? It was about believing women. That they don’t is very painful.”


Vital medications to be transferred to Gaza hostages in coming days, PM’s office says
An agreement has been reached that will see vital medications delivered to hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Prime Minister’s Office announced in a statement Friday evening.

The statement added that the medications will be delivered to the hostages in the next few days.

Channel 12 reported that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will facilitate the transfer.

It is believed that 132 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November.

They have had no access to the ICRC since being abducted during Hamas’s murderous onslaught across southern Israel, when terrorists killed 1,200 and took 240 others captive — mostly civilians. Critics have blasted the Red Cross for failing to visit them in captivity or even ensure that much-needed medicines reach those being held.

An Israeli official told The Times of Israel that the list of medications for the hostages will include ones deemed as “life-saving” by their doctors and are believed to include medicine for those with chronic illnesses, heart disease, high blood pressure and asthma.

According to the official, the negotiations were complex as Hamas is wary that the transfer of medications to the hostages will lead to Israel discovering where exactly they are being held.

The official said that Israel has been pushing from the get-go for medications to be transferred to Hamas, which has until this week refused to cooperate.


How Israel is battling its demons
Many of the Nova survivors need more intensive therapy because of what they witnessed. The “Iron Hug”, a shelter named after the Iron Dome defence system — and set up by the addiction centre Ritorno in the countryside close to Jerusalem — is dealing with Nova survivors who aren’t coping at all. Some of them have lost their jobs and flats because they were unable to function normally, go to work, even get out of bed. Others have been thrown out of home because they were excessively using alcohol or drugs or sex to alleviate their pain.

“When you drink something, or smoke something, or have sex with someone, for a moment you feel good — and you forget about your memories and your flashbacks — but it doesn’t last long and then the cycle begins again,” says Talia Brandes, who is helping to run the shelter. “At first, we didn’t realise that some of them were living on the streets or were homeless. But then one of the girls wrote to me in the middle of the night saying that she could not take it anymore — she said ‘I am sleeping in different beds every night’. That is when we realised, we needed a shelter for them.”

Trauma, of course, is something with which Jews are familiar — older survivors of October 7 speak of its echoes with the Holocaust. And therapy is something Jews are good at. But can you mend a country that seems so broken? The images of those 136 hostages yet to be returned are everywhere; pictures of them flash up at cashpoints. And Israelis are forced to reckon with the fact that, elsewhere in the world, posters of the kidnapped are pulled down, or seen as false propaganda.

“It feels like our entire society is being tortured — all of those hostages are like our children,” says former politician Ayelet Shaked, who is now the Chairwoman of the Friends of Schneider Hospital — the biggest children’s hospital in Israel. She has worked with some of the nation’s most traumatised individuals: the child hostages who have been returned. “Physically they are malnourished, have nits and scabies but those things they can recover from. Mentally, it is a different thing; some of them were physically abused. Some of them were sexually abused. They were not allowed to speak, not allowed to cry.”

And yet, she is hopeful. “They will not break us,” she says. Israel, recently so divided over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned judicial reforms that many wondered if it could ever recover, is more united than ever. “[Hamas] miscalculated as they saw we were polarised before, but now we know what we have to do: we will fight until the end — until all those monsters that did this are either dead or in jail.”

As for the Israel’s traumatised survivors, “will be looking after them for some time”, says Shaked. “But we will get there.”


The Commentary Magazine Podcast: The U.S. Strikes Back!
Hosted by Abe Greenwald, Christine Rosen, John Podhoretz & Matthew Continetti
Today we discuss the American strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. Was it enough to deter terrorism in the Red Sea? What does it accomplish so long as the Biden administration continues to ignore the Iranian threat? We also take up the matter of American apologists for terrorism and propose a Biden-Trump debate.
The Israel Guys: Will the October 7th Attack Be Repeated in Judea & Samaria?
Wake up world!!! The same security failures that lead to the Oct 7th massacre are repeating themselves in Judea and samaria. Yet no one seems to be taking it seriously! I sincerely hope that the Israeli high command stops following International opinion and does something before 1,000’s more are lost.

Joshua breaks it all down for you on today’s show!


‘About time’ Australia interfered with Houthi attacks in Red Sea: Jonathan Dunaim
Shadow Environment Minister Jonathan Duniam says it’s “about time” Australia stepped in to help protect the “critical” trade route in the Red Sea that is currently under attack from Houthi rebels.

“About time too,” Mr Duniam told Sky News Australia host James Macpherson of Australia’s support of the US and UK airstrikes on the region.

“The sad reality is it’s been lacking – it’s been taking too long.

“The 'A' in AUKUS stands for Australia, but I’m yet to see exactly what it is Australia has done to contribute to this effort to protect what is a critical trade route through the Red Sea.”

Defence Minister Richard Marles confirmed on Friday that Australia was among several Western nations that supported British and US strikes against the Iran-backed military group following weeks of interference in the Red Sea.


‘Test’ for ICJ to consider provisional measures against Israel ‘reasonably low’
The “test” for the International Court of Justice to consider provisional measures against Israel is “reasonably low”, military lawyer and defence academic Dr Glenn Kolomeitz says.

Judges at the United Nations' International Court of Justice have been told by South Africa that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

In opening remarks, the African nation pleaded with the court to halt Israel’s military operation in the Palestinian enclave.

“I don’t necessarily agree that the South African case is particularly strong, but that’s a separate half of the argument,” Dr Kolomeitz told Sky News Australia.

“The test for the ICJ in applying, or considering, the provisional measures is quite low – the actual test is that some of the alleged acts are capable of falling within the genocide convention.

“Capable of falling within the convention is a reasonably low test so that part of the case may be a bit stronger, but, as I said, I’m not convinced that the case overall is particularly strong.”


South Africa’s genocide case against Israel providing ‘political cover’ for Hamas
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin warns South Africa’s genocide case against Israel is providing “political cover” for Hamas at a time when the terrorist group’s leadership is on the “brink of collapse”.

South Africa has taken Israel to the United Nations' International Court of Justice over accusations of genocide in Gaza.

The African nation alleged Israel knew of the number of civilians it was killing and had shown an “incontrovertible” intent to commit genocide.

“Israel is bombing where it needs to take out Hamas fighters and Hamas infrastructure, but the measures it has gone to limit civilian suffering are virtually unprecedented,” Mr Ryvchin told Sky News Australia.

“It is literally telling the Palestinians and telling Hamas which neighbourhoods, which parts of Gaza it intends to strike in order to allow civilians to leave and to minimise the displacement and toll of the civilian population.”






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