Thursday, January 18, 2024

01/18 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: The West’s lethal error in the war against Israel; Delusional in Davos; Violent Pro-Palestine Demonstrations Are Not a Bug

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The West’s lethal error in the war against Israel
In any moral universe, a set of people bent upon exterminating another would be treated as pariahs by the international community and their rights would be considered forfeit.

Yet America is even now insisting that the “route to peace” is through a Palestinian state that must be ruled by a “revitalized” and “reformed” P.A.

There’s zero chance of any such reform. Such a state would merely revitalize the capacity of the Palestinian Arabs to inflict yet more genocidal attacks on Israel.

America and Britain remain wedded to the “two-state solution” because they refuse to acknowledge that this conflict is not over a division of land. Instead, it is a war of annihilation against the Jewish homeland that has lasted for almost 100 years.

Moreover, the reason the conflict still endures is the behavior of the West itself.

Led by Britain in the 1930s, the West has consistently rewarded and incentivized Arab aggressors bent on destroying Israel, while it has prevented Israel from taking the measures necessary to see off the threat once and for all.

The essential prerequisite for any solution is for the West to withdraw support for Palestinian aggression and unequivocally back Israeli self-defense. Deprived of both Western funding and validation, the Palestinian agenda would fall apart.

Instead, the West continues to promote the murderous fiction that there are “good” Palestinians who deserve a state of their own—which would be a terror state with Israel at its mercy.

The West’s lethal error goes even deeper. America and the U.K. have failed to realize that, just as Hamas can’t be divorced from the Palestinians but are part of the same genocidal entity, so the war against Israel is merely the most neuralgic element of a civilizational war between the Muslim world and the West.

That war was declared in 1979, when the Islamic revolution in Iran galvanized and radicalized Sunni as well as Shi’ite Muslims across the world, helping to create al-Qaeda.

The new Iranian regime declared war on the West and has prosecuted that war ever since with virtually no pushback. Instead, Western appeasement has helped finance and bolster Iran’s terrorism, proxy wars and quest for hegemony.

That catastrophic strategy, combined with the West’s continued financing and support of the Palestinian agenda, enabled the Hamas pogrom and onslaught on Israel from multiple fronts in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Judea and Samaria.

This already metastasizing conflict is feared to presage a world war in which Russia and China join Iran against a West which has shown such lamentable enfeeblement in the Middle East.

Britain and America do not only insist that “bad” Hamas is different from the “good” Palestinians. They similarly claim that al-Qaeda, ISIS and other radical Islamists are merely rogue actors in an otherwise unthreatening Muslim world.

Both Britain and America have accordingly failed to recognize how jihadis intent upon conquering the West for Islam—as Hamas has said is its own ultimate aim—have tunneled into British and American democratic structures and institutions as devastatingly as they have tunneled into Israel from Gaza and Lebanon.

As a result of myopia, muddled thinking and moral cowardice, America and Britain are not just aiming to ensure that an Israel they protect from outright annihilation will nevertheless continue to twist in the murderous Islamist wind. They have also advertised to the enemies of civilization that the West itself is ripe for conquest.
West Point: Gaza’s Underground - Hamas’s Entire Politico-Military Strategy Rests on Its Tunnels
For the first time in the history of tunnel warfare, however, Hamas has built a tunnel network to gain not just a military advantage, but a political advantage, as well. Its underground world serves all of the military functions described above, but also an entirely different one. Hamas weaved its vast tunnel networks into the society on the surface. Destroying the tunnels is virtually impossible without adversely impacting the population living in Gaza. Consequently, they put the modern laws of war at the center of the conflict’s conduct. These laws restrict the use of military force and methods or tactics that a military can use against protected populations and sites such as hospitals, churches, schools, and United Nations facilities.

Almost all of Hamas’s tunnels are built into civilian and protected sites in densely populated urban areas. Much of the infrastructure providing access to the tunnels is in protected sites. This complicates discriminating between military targets and civilian locations—if not rendering it entirely impossible—because Hamas does not have military sites separate from civilian sites.

Hamas’s strategy is also not to hold terrain or defeat an attacking force. Its strategy is about time. It is about creating time for international pressure on Israel to stop its military operation to mount.

Hamas is globally known for using human shields, which is the practice of using civilians to restrict the attacker in a military operation. The group wants as many civilians as possible to be harmed by Israeli military action—as one of its officials put it, “We are proud to sacrifice martyrs.” It wants the world’s attention on the question of whether the IDF campaign is violating the laws of war in attacking Hamas tunnels that are tightly connected to civilian and protected sites. It wants to buy as much time as is needed to cause the international community to stop Israel. Its entire strategy is built on tunnels.

The tactical challenges Hamas tunnels present to Israel are thereby compounded by strategic challenges. To deal with tunnels at the tactical level, Israel has demonstrated some of the world’s most advanced units, methods, and capabilities to find, exploit, and destroy tunnels. From specialized engineer capabilities and canine units to the use of robots, flooding to clear tunnels, and both aerial-delivered and ground-emplaced explosives, to include liquid explosives, to destroy them. Arguably, no military in the world is as well prepared for subterranean tactical challenges as the IDF. But the strategic challenge is entirely different. To destroy many of the deep-buried tunnels, the IDF has required bunker-busting bombs, which Israel is criticized for using. And most importantly it has required time to find and destroy the tunnels in a conflict in which Hamas’s strategy is aimed at limiting the time available to Israel to conduct its campaign.

Hamas’s strategy, then, is founded on tunnels and time. This war, more so than any other, is about the underground and not the surface. It is time based rather than terrain or enemy based. Hamas is in the tunnels. Its leaders and weapons are in the tunnels. The Israeli hostages are in the tunnels. And Hamas’s strategy is founded on its conviction that, for Israel, the critical resource of time will run out in the tunnels.
Violent Pro-Palestine Demonstrations Are Not a Bug
Remarkably, many of these demonstrators, and the organizations that pay them and routinely bail them out, are also being supported by wealthy nonprofits such as the People’s Forum, and taxpayers (to the tune of $9 million in NYC). The highly politicized intersections of identity politics, wealthy domestic and foreign funders, and government backing certainly helps explain why these demonstrations have been allowed to continue, month after month, despite open calls for genocide and the destruction of public and private property, and the disruption they inflict on the lives of ordinary citizens.

Despite the volume of pro-Hamas protests—or maybe because of it—84% of Americans continue to support Israel over the terror group. Predictably, there’s also been a mounting backlash to the disruption inflicted by the protesters. “They antagonized people so much that they frightened people, to the point that they were not hearing what they were protesting about,” said Fernando Romero, president of Hispanics in Politics, after protesters interrupted a Jan. 5 event in Las Vegas where Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., was speaking and had to be escorted out a back door. In a viral video posted online on Jan. 8, a Black New Yorker was seen exiting his van and shoving protesters blocking traffic in New York City, yelling, “You can’t do that! It’s against the law! I have a daughter in Brooklyn … I have to get home!”

The trajectory of anti-Israel protests across America suggests a deeper, more unsettling trend. Far from a legitimate expression of opposition, they’ve morphed into a troubling display of ideological extremism and physical violence cloaked in the guise of social justice and backed by wealthy domestic radicals and by foreign states like Qatar, the primary global sponsor of the Muslim Brotherhood. The reckless tolerance of this continuing level of radicalism and disruption does a profound disservice to the principles of democracy and civil discourse. Whatever one believes the rights and wrongs of the Israeli-Arab conflict to be, allowing violent demonstrators calling for genocide and supporting terror organizations like Hamas and the Houthis to own the streets of Western democracies sends a very dangerous message—one that threatens the fabric of a society built on liberal values and legitimate dissent.


Delusional in Davos
Antony Blinken—Harvard '84, Columbia Law '88—is apparently unaware that wishing does not make things so. The story he tells is fantasy. Before October 7, the "regional integration" Blinken desires was on track not because a Palestinian state was imminent, but because the Sunni Arab powers saw it in their national interest to join with Israel in balancing against Iran.

It was in the Sunni Arab interest to back the "strong horse" of Israel and its ally, the United States, to ward off the Shiite radicals. Nor is the region disintegrating because the Palestinians remain stateless. It's falling apart because Israel has been weakened and American power has declined.

Iran is missing from Blinken's analysis. He says that a Palestinian state will isolate Iran and force it "to make decisions about what it wants its future to be." Has he not been paying attention? Iran has made its decision. The mullahs want to remain in power. They want the revolution to spread. They want Israel gone and the United States in retreat. That's where any serious analysis must start.

The transcript of Blinken's conversation runs for 6,868 words. Israel is namechecked 23 times. Iran is mentioned just six times. And four of those six mentions are references to how Donald Trump shouldn't have withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal. "We had Iran's nuclear program in a box," Blinken said. "Since the agreement was torn up, it's escaped from that box, and we're now at a place where we didn't want to be because we don't have the agreement."

Wrong, Mr. Secretary. Iran was violating the misguided nuclear deal from the get-go. It used the money it received on cash pallets to fund its terrorist proxies across the Greater Middle East. John Kerry's piece of paper didn't box Iran in. The Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign, including the killing of IRGC general Qassem Soleimani, did that. Iran escaped when Joe Biden entered office and reversed the Trump policies, hoping that sanctions relief and an open hand would revive the deal.

Iran slapped the hand away. Worse: The ayatollah accelerated his nuclear program, crushed a popular uprising, supplied drones and missiles to Russia to use against Ukrainian civilians, watched gleefully as Hamas massacred Jews, and ordered his proxies to spread havoc. Yet the United States continues to refrain from imposing serious consequences on Iranian personnel, on Iranian equipment, on Iranian interests. We chase after dreams rather than confront the reality of Iranian malevolence.

Maybe the thin mountain air made Blinken feel lightheaded. Maybe he wanted to make Tom Friedman happy. Maybe beneath the Davos veneer of self-congratulation and cliché there is a democratic realist plotting the renewal of American power.

If not, we're in trouble. An individual in the grip of delusion endangers himself and others. A delusional superpower endangers itself—and the world.


Caroline Glick: Regional War with Iran and the U.S. is BLIND
The Houthis step up attacks, US continues to appease Iran and its proxies and Israel faces a regional war.


JPost Editorial: Sanders's human rights proposal against Israel endangers Jewish lives

Netanyahu: War against Hamas will continue until ‘complete victory’
In a primetime address to the nation on Thursday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to continue the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip until the Israel Defense Forces achieves “complete victory” over the Palestinian terror organization and the 130-plus captives are freed.

“I promise to all the soldiers, families who lost loved ones and families of the captives: We will not end the war before the hostages are home and not before we achieve a complete victory,” stated the premier.

According to Netanyahu, ending the war before these objectives are met would harm the security of the Jewish state “for generations to come.”

“Stopping the war before we achieve our objectives would convey a message of weakness, which will strengthen our enemies,” he said. “The war will continue on all fronts until we obtain all our goals. This is my directive, that of the government, and of the IDF and all the forces.”

“After the terrible massacre of Oct. 7, we have no other choice,” he charged, adding that “victory will take many more months, but we are determined to achieve it.”

Earlier this week, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called a press to signal the impending end to heavy combat operations in the southern and northern parts of Gaza.

“The intensive maneuvering phase in the north of the Gaza Strip has ended, and in the south, it will also end soon,” Gallant said on Monday evening.
IDF kills 60 terrorists in Gaza as ground op pushes south

Over 2,600 terror attacks in Judea and Samaria since Oct. 7

How Hamas set up a trap for IDF soldiers in Gaza's Rafah
Hamas has set a trap in Rafah for the IDF.

Despite reports that the military has an updated operational plan for entering Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, or for at least securing the Egypt/Gaza border, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, there is, at the current time, no immediate decision to move forward.

So, why hasn’t the IDF gone into Rafah to date? The reasons evolved, but paradoxically, there are even more problems today with an operation, but it is also more critical than ever.

Initially, the IDF decided to mostly focus its initial invasion on northern Gaza, leaving not only Rafah but also most of Khan Yunis and the rest of southern Gaza untouched.

The hope – or gamble – was that Hamas’s leadership would see the dominance, power, and destruction in northern Gaza and make the call to cut a deal favorable to Israel to avoid the same fate for Khan Yunis.

The IDF also wanted to give as wide an area as possible for northern Gaza’s 1.4 million Palestinian civilians to evacuate to the entire area of southern Gaza.

When Hamas broke the hostage deal in early December, the IDF decided to go after Khan Yunis, moving most of the Palestinian civilians in Khan Yunis even further south – to Rafah. Again, the civilians needed somewhere to go after Israel’s strikes made living there impossible.

But an additional reason the IDF did not want to attack Rafah was that it borders Egypt.

Publicly, Egypt has been highly critical of Israel’s war in Gaza. Yet at the same time, Cairo is a crucial part of negotiations for the hostages and will be essential to the day-after plans for rule in Gaza.

This means that Jerusalem cannot afford to alienate Egypt over tensions regarding its actions in Rafah and the Philadelphi Corridor.
IDF says remains of recovered hostages show they were not killed in strike
Two soldiers whose bodies were recovered after they were kidnapped and held hostage in Gaza were not killed by direct military action, the IDF said Wednesday, refuting a Hamas claim that the pair were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

The bodies of Sgt. Ron Sherman, 19, and Cpl. Nik Beizer, along with civilian Elia Toledano, 28, all of whom were kidnapped on October 7, were recovered from a Hamas tunnel in Jabaliya on December 14.

On Wednesday, Israel Defense Forces representatives presented the families of Sherman and Beizer with a pathology report showing that their bodies had no signs of trauma or gunfire, indicating that they were not killed directly by an airstrike or other IDF action.

Due to the condition of the bodies, medical officials have so far been unable to determine a cause of death.

The families were also given findings from the operation in which the remains were recovered.

In November, the IDF carried out an airstrike near the location where the bodies were found, targeting the commander of Hamas’s Northern Gaza Brigade, Ahmed Ghandour, who was hiding in a tunnel.

A Hamas propaganda video released a week after Sherman, Beizer, and Toledano were found showed the three and claimed they had been killed in an Israeli airstrike.

The IDF’s investigation, presented to the families, found that the military was not aware of hostages being held in the area when the strike on the tunnel was carried out.

The bodies were found during scans of the tunnel, without any prior intelligence, according to the IDF’s findings.


Israel Border Police officer wounded by blast in Samaria
An Israeli border policeman was wounded during a counterterrorism raid in the city of Qalqilya in Samaria on Thursday when a Palestinian threw an explosive device at him, the Israel Defense Forces said.

The police officer was evacuated to the hospital and his family was notified, the IDF added. The statement did not specify the severity of his condition.

As IDF troops battle Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria are experiencing a parallel rise in terror incidents, with security officials warning earlier this week that the area is “on the verge of an explosion.”

Security forces, including IDF soldiers, Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) personnel and Israel Police officers, continued to operate in the Tulkarm camp on Thursday, some nine miles north of Qalqilya.

Troops killed at least eight terrorist operatives and arrested more than 15 wanted terrorism suspects, the army said. The soldiers also searched hundreds of buildings, destroying weapon depots, an explosive manufacturing factory and an observation post.

As part of the raid in Tulkarm, which was still ongoing at press time, security personnel also uncovered numerous roadside bombs hidden throughout the city’s refugee camp, the IDF said.

On Wednesday, the first day of the operation in Tulkarm, an IDF soldier was shot and seriously wounded by Palestinian gunfire, the military said.

In response, troops ordered a drone strike on the gunmen, killing several terrorists. The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry claimed four men were killed in the retaliatory attack.


Seth Mandel: Biden’s Self-Sabotage on the Houthis and Iran
From an anti-terrorism perspective, there was no reason to delist the Houthis. But from an “I really want another nuclear deal with the Iranians” perspective, this naïve concession to America’s enemies made some perverse sense, using the word “sense” very loosely. How do you justify removing a terrorist group from a list of terrorist groups if there has been no change in behavior? That’s where the administration’s cleverness asserted itself.

“This decision is a recognition of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen,” Blinken explained. “We have listened to warnings from the United Nations, humanitarian groups, and bipartisan members of Congress, among others, that the designations could have a devastating impact on Yemenis’ access to basic commodities like food and fuel. The revocations are intended to ensure that relevant U.S. policies do not impede assistance to those already suffering what has been called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. By focusing on alleviating the humanitarian situation in Yemen, we hope the Yemeni parties can also focus on engaging in dialogue.”

This gave the administration an out for when the Houthis ramped up their campaign of terror against American targets. If delisting the Houthis wasn’t about terrorism, then relisting them wouldn’t be required if they resorted to terrorism.

But what sounded clever at the time is now clearly anything but. Ever since the Houthis launched a sustained campaign to target commercial ships in the Red Sea, in concert with Iran’s vastly increased attacks on U.S. targets in the Middle East since Iran-backed Hamas instigated a war on Oct. 7, the administration has come under pressure to admit the obvious: Its attempt to thread the needle in Yemen has failed, and its overtures to Iran have been rebuffed.
Bipartisan group of lawmakers calls Biden to fully reimpose Houthi terror designation
After a wave of positive initial feedback from top Republicans and Democrats to the Biden administration’s plan to redesignate the Houthis as a terrorist group, some lawmakers are growing less enthused as more details of the strategy have emerged.

The administration designated the Houthis as a Specially Designated Terrorist Group, but not a Foreign Terrorist Organization — a classification that grants separate authorities and penalties — and implemented a series of carve-outs to the sanctions on the Houthis imposed under the SDTG label.

In a Wednesday press conference, John Kirby, the National Security Council’s strategic communications coordinator, said the administration sought to preserve humanitarian access inside Yemen. It initially rescinded the FTO designation in 2021, imposed by the Trump administration, out of concern that it would prevent providing humanitarian aid to Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

“This particular designation gives us more flexibility, but it also gives aid organizations a higher level of comfort, that they’ll be able to provide this assistance without running afoul of sanctions,” Kirby said. He added that the administration is willing to reconsider the SDTG designation if the Houthis’ attacks stop.

Most Democrats on Capitol Hill — even those who had pushed for the FTO label — are standing behind this approach.

But Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) said in a statement to Jewish Insider that the administration should reapply the tougher label as well.

“The Houthis are a terrorist proxy of Iran’s regime, and I’ve called for their designation as a terrorist organization,” Rosen told JI. “While I support today’s designation, we should go further and formally label the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in order to fully crack down on the flow of arms and funding to them.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) also endorsed that course of action.

“We must cut off the illicit funding for Iranian-backed terrorist groups like Hamas and the Houthis, who are attacking civilians on merchant ships,” Brown told JI. “While designating the Houthis as a terrorist group is a necessary step, the administration should go further to cut off their funding and support by labeling them a Foreign Terrorist Organization.”

And Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), pointing to his work on the Intelligence Committee, said he agreed that the FTO designation is a needed step.
US strikes Houthi missile launchers that posed ‘imminent threat’ to ships in Red Sea

Pro-Israel, anti-Iranian banners hung in Tehran city center

Pakistan launches retaliatory airstrikes on Iran, killing at least 7 people

I can’t believe I need to explain why the Houthis aren’t heroes
International relations discourse tends to be a bit wonkier than domestic American political debates. While this leads to the frequent lament, from voices like Dan Drezner, that American voters don’t care about international relations, it also insulates us from the more frustrating aspects of American politics. IR scholars don’t usually have to deal with knee-jerk activisty hot takes.

Well, we do now.

Apparently leftists think the Houthis–a militant group based in Yemen–are admirable anti-imperialist activists. This is because they’ve been attacking international shipping in protest of Israel’s attacks on Gaza. I guess it’s something like “we don’t like Israel, these guys don’t like Israel, so they must be good!”

And I guess I need to explain why they’re so wrong.

The leftists who love the Houthis
I saw conservatives complaining about progressives praising the Houthis and thought it was just a straw man hypothetical. I.e., “they’re so unreasonable on Israel I bet they’ll even support the Houthis.” But no, that’s really happening.

Helen Lackner in Jacobin claimed the Houthis Red Sea attacks are an authentic expression of the Yemeni people’s support for Palestinians. To be fair, the article included good historical context on Yemen’s orientation towards the Palestinian cause. And the argument was rather subtle, suggesting the Houthis’ attacks were meant to maintain support from their followers. It’s a bit of a leap, however, to claim that the only way they can support the Palestinians is to attack shipping unrelated to Israel. And Jacobin tagged it under “war/imperialism,” indicating how it views this argument.

Less subtle arguments come from US activists. During a December protest in Manhattan, the “Party for Socialism and Liberation” chanted “Yemen, Yemen make up proud; turn another ship around.”

I am staying off Twitter, but there are other examples there explicitly framing support for the Houthis as part of a broader anti-imperialist cause (and this was before recent US bombings).


A hostage for a third of his life: Herzog displays Bibas' photo at World Economic Forum to mark sad birthday
Israelis released from captivity in Gaza reconvened in their ravaged border village on Tuesday to hold a solemn first birthday ceremony for the infant of a family still held hostage.

Kfir Bibas was eight months old when Hamas-led Palestinian gunmen stormed Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7 as part of a cross-border killing spree in southern Israel and became the youngest of some 240 people taken back to the Gaza Strip as captives.

Hamas has said that Kfir, his four-year-old brother Ariel, and their mother Shiri were killed in the Israeli offensive that ensued, while their father, Yarden, survived. But in the absence of Israeli corroboration, relatives, and friends back home have refused to let hope die for the whole family's safe recovery.

A bower of ginger balloons – a nod to Kfir's hair color – stood in the abandoned Nir Oz kindergarten, and his pictures signaled places at a table where celebrants should have sat. "We're marking a birthday to a kid who's not here. We make him a cake, we put balloons, pictures, and blessings and everything and he's not here," Shiri's cousin, Yosi Shnaider, told Reuters. "It's crazy."

Kfir would turn one year old on Thursday, at which point he would have spent a third of his life as a hostage. Meanwhile, Nir Oz has been frozen in time and trauma, with more than a quarter of residents either killed or taken captive, and survivors fleeing.

At the World Economic Forum at Davos, Israeli President Isaac Herzog placed a photo of Kfir Bibas next to him on stage. Herzog and his wife Michal, as well as the president's entourage, wore a lapel with the face of Kfir Bibas on it. Herzog told the crowd: "Our enemy is celebrating the kidnapping of Kfir Bibas ... I call on the entire international community to work for his release and that of all the abductees."


The Guardian: Evidence points to systematic use of rape and sexual violence by Hamas in 7 October attacks
The Guardian spoke to a Zaka volunteer, Simcha Greeneman, who said in one kibbutz he had come across a woman who was naked from the waist down, bent over a bed and shot in the back of the head. In another house, he discovered a dead woman with sharp objects in her vagina, including nails.

At the Shura military base in central Israel, where most of the dead were taken, the reservist Shari Mendes, who was tasked with washing the female bodies and preparing them for burial, told reporters: “We have seen women who have been raped, from the age of children through to the elderly.

“We were in such a state of shock … Many young women arrived in bloody shrouded rags with just their underwear, and the underwear was often very bloody. Our team commander saw several soldiers who were shot on the crotch, intimate parts, vagina or shot in the breasts,” she added.

The most detailed witness account of rape is from a young woman who attended the Supernova music festival, where more than 350 young people were killed. The witness, who was shot in the back, said she was hiding in vegetation just off route 232 when a large group of Hamas gunmen arrived, who between them raped and killed at least five women.

“They laid a woman down and I understood that he is raping her … They passed her on to another person,” she told police in a video reviewed by the Guardian. “And he cuts her breast, he throws it on the road and they are playing with it.”

One raped woman was “shredded to pieces” and another “stabbed repeatedly in the back while she was being raped”, the same witness said in an interview with the New York Times. The witness has provided police with photographs of her hiding place, and another survivor hiding in the same spot has testified that he saw at least one woman being raped.

One of the festival’s organisers, Rami Shmuel, who returned to the scene the day after the attack, has described finding the bodies of three young women “naked from the waist down, legs spread”.

“One had the face burnt,” he said. Another was “shot in the face” while the last had been “shot all over the lower part of her body”.

One woman who survived gang rape at the rave was being treated for severe mental and physical trauma, police said, and was in no condition to speak to investigators.

In addition to the gender-based violence committed on 7 October, there are worries for the safety of the women still in Hamas captivity in Gaza.

Renana Eitan, the head of psychiatry at the Ichilov Tel Aviv medical centre, previously told the Guardian that of the 14 freed hostages still under her care – including children – several had been subjected to or witnessed sexual abuse. The US state department has said that the week-long truce between Israel and Hamas in November broke down because the militants refused to release the remaining women in its custody, over fears they would speak publicly about sexual violence.

Orit Sulitzeanu, the director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, said: “Everyone is looking for that golden piece of evidence, a woman survivor who testifies publicly about what happened to her. But think about it: someone suffering with that kind of trauma, why would they put themselves through that? Sexual violence is underreported everywhere. This is no different.

“I don’t think it is currently in the survivors’ best interests to go to the police, and I think the investigations into all the atrocities are going to take a very long time.”
Outrage as Foreign Office sexual violence adviser backs claim that Israel lied about rapes
A Foreign Office adviser leading the fight against female genital mutilation (FGM) signed a petition dismissing reports of rape committed by Hamas on October 7 as “propaganda” to justify Israel’s “genocide” against Palestinians, the JC can reveal.

Dimpy Sanganee works in the Foreign Office’s Gender and Equalities department and has an “instrumental” role in tackling violence against women and girls. Earlier this month, she signed a petition that wrongly alleged that a major New York Times article revealing the full horror of sexual violence on October 7 cited “no evidence”.

Sir William Shawcross, the reviewer of UK’s counter-terror strategy, told the JC that the government must conduct an urgent investigation into Sanganee’s appointment. After she was approached by the JC, Sanganee’s name disappeared from the petition, which subsequently vanished from the Change.org website.

The petition, posted online earlier this month by SpeakUp, an Egyptian feminist group, claims the article amounted to “exploitation of women’s bodies and struggles as a means to fabricate assault incidents and push propaganda for an unlawful occupation, thereby abetting the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people”.

In a sign of conspiratorial thinking, even if women were raped on October 7, the petition said, there was “no evidence to support the occupation’s allegations” that they were committed by Hamas. “All we have is the confirmed history of the Israeli army’s involvement in gender-based violence towards women, both Israelis and Palestinians,” it said.
Red Cross says it’s not ‘playing any part’ in delivering medicine to hostages in Gaza
Contrary to a Hamas claim, the International Committee of the Red Cross says that it will not play a role in delivering medication to hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

In a statement, the ICRC says that it has been “engaging with the parties” in order to reach such a deal, which saw medicine from France delivered by Qatar to Egypt and sent into Israel.

But “the mechanism that was agreed to does not involve the ICRC playing any part in its implementation, including the delivery of medication,” the statement reads.

Earlier, senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk wrote on X that the ICRC will deliver all the medicines, including the ones destined for the hostages, to hospitals serving all parts of Gaza.


Eylon Levy: South Africa's Hague stunt against Israel is 'despicable'



Why Did the IDF Fail on October 7?
A newly published investigative piece in Israel’s daily Yedioth Ahronoth recounts the blow-by-blow failure of Israel’s army on that fateful morning. How could a low-tech, relatively small terror organization outsmart a high-tech giant with a modern state behind it?

Mike and Gadi discuss the main findings: how Hamas overwhelmed the IDF’s monitoring systems and cut off its chain of command; how IDF HQ and air force were forced to fall back on cellphones and Telegram channels for a picture of the battlefields; why the Israeli air force was so slow to respond; and, above all, how an intelligence service, capable of pinpointing a specific individual and taking him out in a surgical attack in Beirut, failed to detect a ragtag army of 2,000 terrorists practicing for an invasion right under Israel’s nose.

Evidently, Hamas understood exactly how the IDF operates, while the IDF made erroneous speculations about Hamas’ intentions at the expense of studying its M.O. and its capabilities.
WATCH THE EPISODE HERE
Call Me Back PodCast: On Sexual violence and… Silence – with Shari Mendes
Hosted by Dan Senor
Having recently passed the 100 day-mark of Hamas’s massacre against Israel, two events in recent weeks occurred that should have occurred some time ago. The New York Times published a major investigative piece on the details and the scale of Hamas’s use of sexual assault in its warfare against Israeli women. And, in recent days, Pramila Patte — the U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict — has finally agreed to come to Israel to lead an investigation of what Hamas did on October 7.

In this episode, we are joined by Shari Mendes (who was quoted in the New York Times investigation and also spoke at the U.N. on Hamas and sexual violence). Shari is an immigrant to Israel who has raised four children in Israel. She is an architect, the founder of an innovative non-profit in Israel to help cancer patients, and an IDF army reservist who serves in the unit responsible for preparing the bodies of female IDF soldiers through all the steps in advance of burial. Shari has seen firsthand what the world seems to want to ignore. In our conversation, she shares some of her observations, as well as her broader take on Israeli society as we pass the 100-day mark.


The Israel Guys: Keeping Them In Gaza is a Human Rights Violation
With the safety and security of Israel in mind, one must ask the question, what is the best solution to finally resolve the current situation in Gaza?

Today we are diving into that and more, stay tuned for Justin's show here at the Israel Guys.




Israel faces an 'existential threat' on its borders: Alexander Downer
Former foreign minister Alexander Downer has weighed in after Penny Wong voiced her support for a ceasefire and two-state solution between Palestine and Israel.

“Australia has been arguing for a two-state solution since 1948 when Israel was established by the UN and part of the deal was partition of the old British Palestinian Mandate,” Mr Downer told Sky News host Steve Price.

“So everybody says they want a two-state solution – and the challenge for a foreign minister is to be realistic about what the problem is.”

He said the problem is that Hamas and Hezbollah don’t want a two-state solution – they want to “destroy Israel and kill the Jews”.

“So from Israel’s point of view, they face … literally, not figuratively, an existential threat on their borders and they need to deal with that first and foremost.”


‘This money will go straight to Hamas’: Penny Wong has made a ‘complete fool of herself’
Former Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger has slammed Penny Wong for making a “complete fool of herself” as the Australian taxpayer dollars she is sending to Palestine “will go straight to Hamas”.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong recently announced an additional $21.5 million in aid to support Palestinian efforts.

“Penny Wong has made a complete fool of herself,” Mr Kroger told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.

“What they’ve worked out here is if you work out how much concrete is needed for those tunnels and how much metal is needed for 500 kilometres of tunnels, it’s about $15 billion.

“The Palestinian leadership in Gaza have stolen $1 billion a year from the international community and the UN, never been accounted for, no one has ever said where are you getting all this money from.

“This money will go straight to Hamas like the other $1 billion they’ve stolen from the dunces in the international community who think this aid is going to the UN, to the Palestinian people, to the children, to the hospitals, to the schools, to the needy.”




Sharri Markson raises concerns about millions in taxpayer funds committed by Labor to Palestine
Sky News host Sharri Markson has slammed the Australian government as concerns rise over how Australian taxpayer funds are possibly being “exploited” to support terrorism against Israel.

“Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong have now committed a total of $46 million of your money to the Palestinians since the terror attacks began against Israel on October 7,” Ms Markson said.

“Australia gave its first round of funding to Gaza on October 14, just a week after the October 7 unprovoked massacre, one week.”

Foreign Minister Penny Wong today told Palestinian authority officials the latest $21.5 million in funding must be managed carefully to make sure it is not misused by terrorists.

Ms Wong cautioned Israel about its war in Gaza, advocating for the country to comply with international humanitarian law.


Concerns Australia’s aid to Gaza will be ‘hijacked by Hamas'
Liberal Senator Daver Sharma says he is concerned about international assistance to Gaza being “hijacked” by Hamas.

Mr Sharma’s comments come after Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced an extra $21 million in assistance for the humanitarian crisis stemming from Israel’s attack on Gaza.

The funding boost takes Australia’s total contribution since Hamas’ terror attack on Israel on October 7 to over $46 million.

“I am concerned about how international assistance, which is meant to go towards the people of Gaza, which has been hijacked and commandeered by Hamas,” Mr Sharma told Sky News Australia.

“I’ve got no problem – I’m supportive of more humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians, but if the end result is that it ends up in Hamas pockets first, all you’re doing with that assistance is prolonging this conflict.”


‘Just give me some damn ice cream’: Piers Morgan slams ‘imbecilic’ Ben and Jerry’s
Sky News Australia host Piers Morgan has hit out at Ben and Jerry’s after the ice cream franchise called for a permanent and immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

“Ben and Jerry’s one of my favourite companies because on the list of woke virtue signalling imbecilic firms in the world,” Mr Morgan said.

“You just think, ‘Just give me some damn ice cream and shut up about everything else’.

“But they cannot stop making statements.

“It’s the latest of endless pronouncements by people that make ice cream.”




Tube driver who led ‘free Palestine’ chant keeps his job after ‘apologising to faith leaders’
The London tube driver who led a “free Palestine” chant over the train’s speaker system in October has been reinstated after “apologising to faith leaders”, Transport for London (TfL) has confirmed.

According to footage that emerged on social media in October, the unidentified driver of the Central Line service could be heard saying, “Free, Free” to which passengers responded “Palestine”, just two weeks after the Hamas massacre.

TfL suspended the driver following the viral incident and launched an investigation into his conduct.

A TfL spokesperson said on Wednesday: “We can confirm that, following a thorough internal investigation in accordance with our agreed formal process, disciplinary action has been taken with regard to the driver who made announcements on the Central line on October 21 last year.

“The driver has also written to faith groups that we have been engaging with since October to apologise for the announcements and for the impact they had on some customers travelling on the train and in the wider community.

“It is critically important to everyone at TfL that our network feels, and is, a safe and welcoming place for all Londoners, and we will do all we can to continue to ensure that.”


UK supermarket ‘terribly sorry’ about Sabra ‘apartheid’ hummus label
Just before 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, JNS spotted an antisemitic price tag alongside Sabra hummus at the central London Vauxhall train and bus terminal station branch of the U.K. supermarket Sansbury’s.

For £19.48 (about $25), shoppers could purchase “apartheid hummus,” per the label, which encourages consumers to “search #BDS for more info” and notes, “Buying this product helps support genocide.” (The label says “Since £19.48,” an apparent reference to the year of the establishment of the modern-day Jewish state.)

Sainsbury’s, which was founded in 1869, operates 600 supermarkets and more than 800 convenience stores, per its most recent annual report, which states that it made £690 million (nearly $880 million) in 2023.

JNS sought comment from Sainsbury’s on social media.

“Hi There. I’m terribly sorry about the label. I would like to confirm that this label is not a Sainsbury’s label and has been placed there by somebody,” a person named Anisha told JNS from the company’s official X handle (with nearly 600,000 followers). “I have fed this back [to] the relevant teams for an internal review. Sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.”

Such stickers have been sighted on Sabra products in various Sainsbury’s and Tesco supermarket stores across the United Kingdom.
Celebrity chef’s Zahav hummus hits shelves despite war protests
Israeli-American celebrity chef Michael Solomonov’s renowned hummus has only been available in his Philadelphia and New York City restaurants — until now.

Hummus using the recipe from Zahav, Solomonov’s flagship Philadelphia restaurant, is now available at over 150 Whole Foods stores. The packaged hummus, like that at Zahav, doesn’t use oil — just a lot of tahini. Unlike the hummus at Zahav, however, it is certified kosher, bringing the recipe to a new cohort of customers.

The Whole Foods expansion comes at a tense time for Israeli food, with fights spurred by the Israel-Hamas war that have ensnared both hummus and Solomonov in multiple ways.

Last month, one of the James Beard Award-winning chef’s kosher falafel restaurants, Goldie, was targeted by pro-Palestinian activists in Philadelphia. Protesters chanted, “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”

Protest organizers said they were targeting the restaurant over its $100,000 donation to the Israeli emergency medical organization United Hatzalah. Their critics, who included Jewish leaders in Philadelphia, said the protest inappropriately targeted an Israeli over the actions of the Israeli government.

A fracture in Solomonov’s longtime friendship with the Palestinian chef Reem Kassis had already become public. Kassis, who also lives in Philadelphia, told the New York Times that she and Solomonov were no longer speaking several weeks into Israel’s war in Gaza.

“My experience of late has confirmed for me that food diplomacy does not work and that you cannot solve problems like the Israeli occupation of Palestine over the proverbial plate of hummus,” Kassis told the newspaper. (Solomonov did not comment for the story.)




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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