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Friday, April 19, 2024

04/19 Links Pt1: Israel strikes deep inside Iran; Are Iran’s Nine Lives Nearing an End?; Is it now a crime to be a Jew in London?

From Ian:

Iran, not Israel, is escalating this war
The West’s admonishments of Israel certainly cannot be put down to simple wavering on Joe Biden’s part. Despite his oft-professed claim to be a staunch supporter of Israel, he has been equivocal in backing Israel in its war against Hamas. Crucially, he has also avoided discussing the Hamas-Iran connection despite it being transparently clear. As Gadi Taub, a veteran Israeli journalist, noted last year: ‘From the get-go, the US denied Iran’s fingerprints on the Hamas attack. National-security adviser Jake Sullivan said there was no “direct” evidence of Iranian involvement.’ That was despite the fact there was ample evidence, including public statements by Hamas leaders thanking Iran for its support.

Last month, the Biden administration approved a sanctions waiver worth $10 billion to Iran – a nation it has publicly declared to be a state sponsor of terrorism. America could have chosen to suspend or discontinue this waiver in the wake of Iran’s assault on Israel, but it has not done so. That it remains in place is all the more remarkable given that a drone attack by an Iranian-backed group recently killed three American soldiers and injured 30 others in Jordan. You don’t have to support the sanctions to notice the wide gap between America’s words and its deeds when it comes to Iran.

Biden’s relatively soft stance on Iran is actually in line with a political realignment among Democrats dating back to the Obama administration, when Biden was vice-president. As Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, has noted:

‘Those policies began in the week after President Barack Obama’s inauguration in January 2009. In one of the 44th president’s first acts of foreign diplomacy, Obama sent an offer of reconciliation to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. That June, in his historic Cairo speech, Obama became the first president to refer to Tehran’s regime as the Islamic Republic of Iran – legitimising the oppressive theocracy – and stood aside while that republic’s thugs beat and shot hundreds of Iranian citizens protesting for their freedom.’

There are two distinct motivations for America’s long-term attempt to tilt away from Israel and towards Iran. The first is geopolitical and the second lies in the sphere of domestic politics.

Where geopolitics is concerned, the Democrats are keen to draw the Islamic Republic, a regime that has condemned America as the ‘Great Satan’, closer into the US’s orbit. Officially, the US has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since 1980, the year after the Islamists took power in the Iranian Revolution. They have instead tried to maintain relations by other means. These have included the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), unofficially known as the Iran nuclear deal, promoted by Obama and later by Biden.

This is all part of a broader US strategy known as the pivot to Asia. The aim is to reorient American foreign policy away from the Middle East and towards East Asia. Its priority is to contain China.

The Biden administration’s hope is that defusing tensions with the hostile forces in the Middle East will make its pivot to Asia easier. Yet since the pivot was announced, the US has found itself dragged into further conflicts in the Middle East, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. America has also found itself reluctantly drawn into the periodic conflicts between Israel and Hamas. Biden wants to untangle America from this bitter strife as much as he possibly can. This means downgrading its commitments to Israel.

What’s more, the Biden administration, like Obama before it, is increasingly influenced by domestic identity politics. Many grassroots US Democrats see the conflicts involving Israel in simplistic black and white terms. Israel is today portrayed as a regional bastion of privilege – supposedly akin to those who enjoy privilege at home in America – with the Palestinians representing the oppressed. The involvement of Islamist movements in the region, which have pledged to destroy Israel, is ignored or at least downplayed. The activists who hold this view have placed considerable pressure on Biden to withdraw support for Israel.

There are also notable overlaps between the Islamist worldview and the woke worldview. Both tend to see Israel representing the side of evil. Both fail to distinguish between the Palestinian people and Hamas, with its goal of an international Islamic order. And both also tend to downplay or even dismiss the role of anti-Semitism as a key motivating force in the current conflict.

Today, Israel faces not just the wrath of its genocidal enemies – from Hamas to Iran and its other proxies. It also has to contend with its increasing isolation from the West. This is a dangerous moment.
Bernard-Henri Lévy: Israel Must Respond Forcefully to Iran’s Attack
The Islamic Republic of Iran is not just a failed regime, economically ruined, disavowed by its youth, women, and its living elements, revealed to have the force of a paper tiger.

It’s also a country that—like the USSR of recent times, where there coexisted both a real country devastated by economic misery and public demoralization, and decoupled from that, an ultramodern military-industrial complex able to compete with the United States—established a secret but effective nuclear industry.

It’s a country whose programs in that area have only grown and prospered as America changed course, over the last 15 years, oscillating between Obama’s ineffectual and misbegotten policy of détente and, under Trump, ineffectual ranting.

And, as for Iran’s nuclear programs, their sites have been moved and often buried over the years; their centrifuges have become capable of producing enough enriched uranium to build stockpiles 22 times above the limit authorized by the 2015 nuclear deal; IAEA inspectors no longer have meaningful access to them. These sites have become giant black holes, off the radar, from which the world could learn, in six months, in a year, suddenly, that Iran has been allowed to join North Korea and Russia in the club of dictatorships capable of setting the planet on fire …

I’ll add that the same Iranian drones that, with the exception of a young girl in the south of the country, systematically missed their targets are the very ones that Putin has used, for two years now, to ravage Ukraine.

And I’ll add that the same Iran that was mocked, this Monday morning, for its pathetic failure in the face of the solidity of the Iron Dome, recently engaged, in the Persian Gulf, in joint naval maneuvers, largely unnoticed, with the Russian and Chinese navies.

Let’s imagine, then, that the Iranian regime emerges unharmed from this adventure.

Let’s imagine that it sees this adventure not as a lamentable defeat, but as a dress rehearsal. And let’s suppose that they repeat it, six months, a year from now, with faster and more accurate drones and missiles, equipped with operational nuclear warheads.

That, for Israel and, beyond, for the region, is a terrifying prospect. It is a clear existential threat.

And that is why it feels unreasonable to me that “cowardly relief” reigns among Israel’s allies and dictates, everywhere, the same recommendation for “de-escalation” and “restraint.”

Iran has declared war.

There is no other choice, alas, but to retaliate.
Victor Davis Hanson: Are Iran’s Nine Lives Nearing an End?
Before the Biden appeasement of Iran, the Trump administration had isolated and nearly bankrupted Tehran and its proxies. Its Revolutionary Guard terrorist planners proved to be easy targets once they operated outside Iran.

Iran’s only hope is to get a bomb and, with it, nuclear deterrence to prevent retaliation when it increases its terrorist surrogate attacks on Israel, the West, and international commerce.

Yet now Iran may have jumped the shark by attacking the Israeli homeland for the first time. It is learning that it has almost no sympathetic allies.

Does even the Lebanese Hezbollah really want to take revenge against Israel on behalf of Persian Iran, only to see its Shia neighborhoods in Lebanon reduced to rubble?

Do all the pro-Hamas protestors on American campuses and in the streets really want to show Americans they celebrate Iranian attacks and a potential Iranian war against the United States?

Does Iran really believe 99 percent of any future Israel barrage against Iranian targets would fail to hit targets in the fashion that its own recent launches failed?

Does Iran really believe that its sheer incompetence in attacking Israel warrants them a pardon—as if they should be excused for trying, but not succeeding, to kill thousands of Jews?

In sum, by unleashing a terrorist war in the Middle East and targeting the Israeli homeland, Iran may wake up soon and learn Israel, or America, or both might retaliate for a half-century of its terrorist aggression—and mostly to the indifference or even the delight of most of the world.


Israel strikes deep inside Iran
Israel attacked deep in Iran early Friday morning, reportedly targeting a military facility close to the city of Isfahan, some 930 miles from the Jewish state.

Three Iranian sources confirmed to The New York Times that an airbase in Isfahan was targeted, while anonymous Israeli and U.S. officials were cited by outlets as saying that the IDF conducted the strike.

Iranian media denied any Israeli missile attack, claiming that the Islamic Republic had shot down drones in its airspace. Iran’s nuclear facilities were not hit, according to the U.N.’s atomic watchdog.

An Israeli official told The Washington Post that the assault “was intended to signal to Iran that Israel had the ability to strike inside the country.”

Jerusalem reportedly told the United States on Thursday that it planned to retaliate within a 24- to 48-hour window for Tehran’s massive drone and missile assault last weekend.

There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces or the Prime Minister’s Office.

The U.S. embassy in Jerusalem issued an alert to government employees and their families restricting travel to the Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Beersheva regions out of “an abundance of caution following reports that Israel conducted a retaliatory strike inside Iran.”


A strike in an Iranian area with a long missile history
Judging by initial Iranian and international media reports, the airstrike on a target near the central city of Isfahan early on Friday was likely designed to hit an important military site, while avoiding escalating already soaring tensions with the Islamic Republic.

This isn’t the first time that reports have surfaced about a mysterious strike in this location.

On Feb. 2, 2023, Iran accused Israel of launching a drone attack on a Defense Ministry facility in the city. This past January, Iran executed one of four suspects it accused of being behind that attack, after claiming they acted on behalf of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.

Isfahan is also home to Iran’s largest missile assembly and production site, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington-based think tank. The facility has reportedly been used to develop a range of threats, including Shahab ballistic missiles, which can hit Israel. There are also four small nuclear research facilities in the city, according to The New York Times.

In May 2021, a blast of unknown origin struck a complex north of Isfahan that was reportedly linked to Iran’s unmanned aerial program.

While it is difficult to know at this stage what was hit at Isfahan, it is clear that Tehran is making strenuous efforts to downplay the attack. If Israel indeed attacked it on Friday, it may have given the Islamic Republic a sphere of sufficient deniability to de-escalate the situation.

It is also reasonable to assume that Israel’s War Cabinet concluded that it has more pressing priorities, such as pushing ahead with an operation to dismantle Hamas’s last battalions in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, as well as contending with the six-month-long assault by Hezbollah in the north, which has displaced more than 60,000 Israelis.

Iran, for its part, may want to return to its long-term strategy aimed at taking over the Middle East and leading to Israel’s destruction.

That strategy envisions Iran surrounding Israel with a ring of terror armies and breaking through to nuclear weapons capabilities to provide an umbrella for its increasingly aggressive proxies.

Iran likely also wishes to improve its conventional missile and UAV capabilities, especially after Israeli air defenses, fighter jets and partner militaries intercepted 99% of the drones and rockets launched from Iranian territory at Israel on April 14.
Israel targeted air defense system for Iran nuclear site - ABC News
Israel targeted the defense system of the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran during its strikes Friday morning, ABC quoted a senior American official as saying.

The Israelis were targeting an air defense radar site near Isfahan that’s part of the protection of the Natanz nuclear facility," ABC said, in the name of the official.

"The first assessment is that the strike took out the site, but assessment hasn’t been completed, the official said."

The official noted, however, that the strike was meant to send a signal to Iran about Israeli capabilities, but not to escalate the situation.

Iran has downplayed the attack's significance
The attack, which Israel has not claimed credit for, was launched in response to the aerial barrage of ballistic missiles and attack drones that Iran sent to Israel last Saturday night following an airstrike in Damascus, widely attributed to Israel, that killed a senior officer in Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

The officer was connected to Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy that has been attacking Israel almost daily since Hamas's attack on October 7.

In the hours since the strikes in Iran Friday morning, Iran has downplayed their effect and significance, declining to directly point the finger at Israel and announcing that no damage was done to any nuclear sites. The International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) also reported that no damage was done to nuclear sites, and there were no reported casualties.
Israel’s strike was the perfect response
Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out but seems that it was in a creative manner. It is good that a question mark hovers over the question of what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The way it was executed was very professional. It has kept everybody satisfied. Nobody wants to see an escalation, so the strike was conducted in a way that doesn’t have to lead to escalation. That is not something our partners should be worried about, neither the Americans, Europeans or the Arab states.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and airforce was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel.

I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment. The main mission on our agenda is to finish the war in Gaza. We have hostages to release. We have Hamas to destroy. We must focus on that.

At the same time, however, the strike indicates that our option are open to take further action at the time of our choosing.
Israeli sources to Post: 'An eye for an eye'; not clear why Pentagon leaked info on attack
Israeli official security and governmental sources told The Jerusalem Post on Friday: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Israel retaliated where they were attacked.”

That said, officially, Israel will not accept responsibility for this attack for strategic reasons. Sources explain that the Iranians claim it was an “explosion at a factory” because they wish to avoid escalation. Israeli sources told the Post that it's unclear why the Pentagon disclosed to the American media that Israel was involved; they could have remained silent, they say. They could have preserved Iran's dignity and avoided escalating the situation on their own.

At the Kirya base in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the entire security and diplomatic leadership have been present for 24 hours, coordinating with regional partners in Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

That said, Israel does not yet accept responsibility.

In recent hours, countries in the region have conveyed messages to Israel that if Iran attacks, they are here to help.

A senior US official also confirmed this on Friday morning of the attack, stating that "We were not surprised," while also telling Walla that Israel informed the US in advance of the strike.

A Bloomberg report said that Israeli officials notified the US on Thursday that they planned to launch a strike in the next 24-48 hours.


FDD Morning Brief | feat. Jonathan Conricus and Brig. Gen. (Res.) Yossi Kuperwasser
Former IDF Spokesperson and FDD Senior Fellow Lt. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Conricus delivers timely situational updates after an alleged Israeli strike in Iran. He is joined by former Head IDF Intelligence Research Division and Director General of Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs Brig. Gen. (Res.) Yossi Kuperwasser.


Caroline Glick: Iran's Terror State EXPOSED
Caroline Glick interviews Iranian journalist and activist Vahid Behesti about the horrors of the Iranian government and why now is the time to topple the regime once and for all.


Josh Hammer: Hold Obama-Biden Foreign Policy Responsible for Iran's Unprecedented Attack on Israel
The apotheosis of the Obama-Biden Middle East "realignment" was the terrible Iran nuclear deal of 2015, laundered to a skeptical American people by failed novelist-turned-Obama White House apparatchik Ben Rhodes via a cynical, astroturfed "echo chamber" of a P.R. campaign. In 2016, Obama secretly delivered $400 million in wooden pallets of cash to the mullahs—on the same day the nuke deal went into effect. More recently, the Biden administration agreed to cough up a whopping $6 billion in return for five illegally detained U.S. citizens—just weeks before the Iran-sponsored Hamas pogrom of Oct. 7. And just last month, Biden approved a fresh $10 billion sanctions waiver for Iran.

There are too many other examples to count. But it is all in service of the Obama-Biden doctrine: Punish America's allies in the Middle East and reward its enemies.

Just as bad, the Iranian regime has also shown itself capable of infiltrating and co-opting America's corridors of power: Last September, Semafor scooped emails revealing an Iranian regime-supported intelligence operation seeking to influence high-ranking government offices, think tanks, and academic institutions in the U.S. The man at the center of it all? Robert Malley, Obama's lead negotiator for the 2015 nuke deal and Biden's now-suspended special envoy for Iran. Most recently, Iranian reporter Vahid Beheshti just revealed a stunning internal Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps document that inculpates the Iranian regime in helping to orchestrate America's day of anarchic, crippling, pro-Hamas "demonstrations" on Monday.

The Trump administration, something of an interregnum between the two "realignment" presidencies, pursued the precise opposite policies: Punish America's enemies and reward its friends. That is what basic logic would dictate, and the results were historic: new peace deals forged between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco under the umbrella of the Abraham Accords. It turns out that the obvious thing is often also the best thing.

The Hamas pogrom and the ensuing war in Gaza was the first real test for the Accords—and the Iran-containment coalition they represent. Crucially, none of the Arab signees have severed relations with Israel. Even more remarkably, Saudi Arabia—not part of the Accords—acknowledged on Monday that it assisted the U.S.-led coalition that foiled Iran's weekend attack.

All of this is a tribute to the statesmanship of former President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who shepherded the Accords across the finish line. And it is a glimmer of hope that more peace—and less Iran-emboldening Obama-Biden foolishness—might be just around the corner.
The West must urgently learn from Israel’s red lines on Iran
The Israeli response to Iran stood in stark contrast to the United States’ own retaliation for the deaths of three American servicemembers in Jordan in January 2024.

US officials hesitated to even raise the prospect of a counterattack on Iranian soil, ultimately aiming at IRGC-linked facilities in Iraq and Syria, which are disposable for Tehran. This extreme risk-aversion on the part of the Biden administration extended to the lack of any consequences – apart from sanctions, statements and indictments – even after multiple Iranian assassination and kidnapping plots on US soil. This is despite the fact that the US dwarfs Israel in terms of military power.

The same logic applies to the United Kingdom, where the IRGC has tried to kill or harm Iranian dissidents who are British nationals. Most recently, for example, journalist Pouria Zeraati was stabbed on the streets of London by an Eastern European criminal gang working for Tehran. Iranian officials calculate the benefits of such operations – striking fear in the Iranian diaspora – outweigh the absorbable costs.

Like Israel, Pakistan also did not hesitate to cross the Iranian red line and strike inside its territory in January 2024 after Tehran launched airstrikes on what it claimed were militant bases in Pakistan. While Islamabad did not target the regime, its lack of reservations about undertaking military action within Iranian borders coupled with Israel’s own mission are striking indictments of American restraint. This self-deterrence has only emboldened Iranian leaders to endanger US interests.

The response from the G7 to an unprecedented attack on Israel was thoroughly precedented. It featured a joint press statement, a slate of piecemeal sanctions, but nothing more.

Western capitals appear afraid of even proscribing the IRGC as the terrorist organisation that it is. And Khamenei was betting on this restraint. He demonstrated Tehran’s capabilities of reaching Israel with drones and missiles (although most were intercepted); deflected criticism from his base over a series of non- or underwhelming responses after Israeli targeted killings; and was able to exploit Operation True Promise for propaganda and psychological warfare purposes.

This all happened without Washington and its allies taking any risks in their reply to him all the while Iran’s missiles threatened the thousands of Western nationals residing in Israel. While Khamenei may lay low for now, this asymmetry in risk-taking will continue to incentivise Iran’s regional strategy.
Lahav Harkov: With Iran strike, Netanyahu is tested on his flagship issue
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s standing as “Mr. Security” suffered a serious blow in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7. But one of the keys to that reputation has been his decades-long focus on the Iranian threat.

Now, after a reported limited Israeli strike in response to Iran’s weekend attack on Israel — the first direct Iranian attack on Israel in history — Netanyahu is being put to the test on his flagship issue.

Netanyahu has never made a secret of the priority he gives to the Iranian file, making several memorable speeches about it: at the U.N. General Assembly with a Looney Tunes-style bomb cartoon in 2012; when he infuriated then-President Barack Obama by giving a speech against the Iran nuclear deal before a joint session of Congress in 2015; and his 2019 presentation of the nuclear archive smuggled out of Iran by the Mossad, in a gambit to convince then-President Donald Trump to pull out of the Iran deal. But long before that, in 2002, he told Congress that Iran was seeking nuclear weapons and developing ballistic missiles that could reach the U.S.

One section of Netanyahu’s 2022 memoir, Bibi: My Story, illustrates how his position on containing Iran has trumped all else, including his long-held positions on other matters of national security. Netanyahu recounted a conversation in 2011 with his then-senior adviser and current Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer about freeing 1,027 Palestinian prisoners – including Yahya Sinwar, who currently leads Hamas in Gaza – in exchange for captive IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, despite Netanyahu’s past opposition to such exchanges. One of his arguments: “Do you see any other way to quickly gain the public support we’ll need for an operation against Iran?”

His former chief of staff, Ari Harow, told Jewish Insider on Thursday that when the Obama administration pushed for a settlement freeze in 2010, “Netanyahu’s rationale for agreeing to the Obama freeze was Iran. I was in a meeting with him and the Yesha Council [umbrella organization of settlements], and he was able to tell them that while he doesn’t want to hurt [them], we have this existential threat we’re facing and we need Obama on our side.”

Israelis remember a turn of phrase that became an often-repeated political punchline after being used by Netanyahu in 2015. When asked about the cost of living at a press conference ahead of that year’s Knesset election, the prime minister said that the more important matter was “life itself.” And what he meant by “life itself” was that “the greatest challenge to our lives at the moment is Iran arming itself with nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said.

“Netanyahu prided himself on being the one to have identified [the Iranian nuclear threat] and brought it to the attention of the world at a very early stage,” Harow said.


Seth Mandel: A Glimpse of a Post-Hamas Future for Gaza
The current scene in Gaza is a strong indication that the longer it takes to pull the trigger on a Rafah operation leading to the war’s end game, the more unnecessary suffering will be enabled by the West’s indecision. No matter President Biden’s intentions, he isn’t helping the people of Gaza.

The Wall Street Journal reports on the ever-descending-but-never-landing famine in the Strip: “Weeks after deadly strikes against World Central Kitchen aid workers spurred Israel into action, affordable vegetables and freshly baked bread are now available in northern Gaza for the first time in months. Israel in recent days has enabled more aid trucks to reach Gaza, has opened a crossing into the north directly from Israel and has approved more flour destined for the strip through its port of Ashdod.”

Sounds like they’re making real progress. Now that it’s clear that the problem isn’t Israel supposedly preventing food from getting into the Strip, the United Nations has adjusted the goalposts accordingly. “The problem is not just about food,” UN aid coordinator Andrea De Domenico told the Journal. “It’s much bigger than simply bringing in flour and baking loaves of bread or pita. It is much more complex.”

If you’re wondering why you can sense disappointment in De Domenico’s statement, it’s because we’ve passed the part of this crisis that can be plausibly blamed on Israel. You see, De Domenico isn’t exactly wrong that feeding Gazans is more complex than providing pita bread. In February, a riot around an arriving aid truck, followed by a hijacking by Hamas militants, killed more than a hundred Gazans. Hamas has also hired its own proxies to take deliveries, and it executes those who attempt to distribute food aid independent of Hamas. There is an extended inspection process for UN trucks because the UN’s Gaza agencies had become an arm of Hamas before and during the war.

Notice how often the word “Hamas” comes up? That’s because the weaker Hamas is, the more Palestinians eat. That’s not much of a surprise—Hamas has been starving the Strip for years by hoarding food and supplies and spending all infrastructure cash on Hamas-only tunnels underground. And because Hamas had so thoroughly coopted UNRWA, there was no international aid agency focused on helping the actual Palestinian civilians.
Humanitarians Should Want Hamas’s Human-Sacrifice Strategy to Fail
For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis. Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Koranic vision of killing all Jews.

When Hamas provokes hot wars with Israel, which it does periodically, the suffering of ordinary Gazans intensifies. Perversely, Hamas intends this result because it knows it can exploit that suffering for strategic purposes.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. If successfully blamed on Israel, the dead Gazan noncombatants might spur uprisings by Arabs and Muslims everywhere and would fuel demands for a ceasefire that would allow Hamas to claim victory.

To these ends, Hamas worked for a decade and a half to put military assets in and near schools, hospitals, mosques, and residences—and to build its enormous, dense network of tunnels underneath Gaza’s cities. That network extends over 350 miles, within Gaza’s narrow 141 square miles. It is longer than London’s famed Underground, which serves an area more than four times the size. The network includes an estimated 5,700 vertical shafts, many of which emerge in ordinary homes.

Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk, in an October 27, 2023 television interview, explained that Hamas built underneath civilian homes and businesses not to safeguard civilians, for “it is the job of the United Nations to protect them,” but because “We are fighting from inside the tunnels,” and Hamas fighters have “no other way of protecting ourselves.”

To defend itself, Israel had to reach Hamas fighters in the tunnels. To do that, it had to devastate civilian life in Gaza, just as Hamas intended. Hamas counted on these deaths to fuel international demands for Israel to halt its offensive prematurely. Hamas, saved, would emerge successful.

The human-shield strategy that Biden decries would be bad enough. But someone who uses human shields is usually hoping to deter enemy attack, not to kill the shields. What Hamas is doing is worse. It is employing a human-sacrifice strategy, intentionally increasing civilian casualties among its own people.

Hamas’s hiding among civilians is a war crime against the people of Gaza. We make this point not to be legalistic but to stress the scheme’s immorality. Perpetrators of such immorality would under normal circumstances be widely condemned. Regarding the war in Gaza, however, people speaking in the name of humanitarianism are working to reward Hamas for this crime.
US vetoes Palestinian bid for full UN membership
As expected, the United States vetoed the Palestinian bid for full U.N. membership during a vote at the U.N. Security Council on Thursday afternoon.

Of the 15 members of the council, 12 voted for a Palestinian state, including Japan, South Korea, France and Slovenia which don’t currently recognize a Palestinian state. The United Kingdom and Switzerland abstained on the Algeria-drafted resolution.

As one of the five permanent members of the council, Washington has veto power.

Washington has “long been clear that premature actions here in New York, even with the best intentions, will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people,” Robert Wood, deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the Security Council on Thursday.

Wood cited the failure of the council’s committee on new members to reach a consensus on the issue. He also questioned whether the Palestinians meet the basic criteria for U.N. statehood—questions that prevented the committee from reaching consensus on the original application for full Palestinian U.N. membership in 2011.

“We have long called on the Palestinian Authority to undertake necessary reforms to help establish the attributes of readiness for statehood and note that Hamas—a terrorist organization—is currently exerting power and influence in Gaza, an integral part of the state envisioned in this resolution,” Wood said.

The Palestinians became the first membership applicant to be turned away by a council vote since Vietnam when the United States voted against its membership in 1976 before relenting the next year.

By U.S. law, full membership for Ramallah at the United Nations outside a political settlement with Israel would automatically terminate U.S. funding for the United Nations.

“For Washington, they do not deserve to have their own state,” Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s U.N. envoy, said of the Palestinians. “They are only a barrier on the path towards realizing the interests of Israel.”
U.S. Vetoes Palestinian Statehood Bid at UN
Latest Developments
The United States on April 18 vetoed the Palestinian bid to gain full membership at the United Nations. Twelve members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) supported the measure, two abstained, and the United States opposed it. U.S. Alternative Representative at the UN Robert Wood explained that “premature actions here in New York … will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people.” He cast doubt on whether the “applicant meets the criteria to be considered a state” and said that peace “will only come from direct negotiations between the parties.” Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan recently said that “recognizing a Palestinian state at such a time not only gives a prize to terror, but also backs unilateral steps which are contradictory to the agreed upon principle of direct negotiations.”

Expert Analysis
“The administration did the right thing in vetoing a resolution meant to provoke and incite rather than promote peace. What’s appalling, however, is that so many supposed allies voted to reward terrorism and put a democratic ally at further risk. That’s a moral failure on their part and a diplomatic failure for the U.S. mission.” — Richard Goldberg, FDD Senior Advisor

“Granting the Palestinians statehood recognition at the UN would create paper gains that disincentivize Ramallah from negotiating a two-state solution with Israel. Moreover, the timing would elevate Hamas’s standing by showing that the war it launched on Israel benefited the Palestinians internationally.” — David May, FDD Research Manager and Senior Research Analyst

Abbas Continues ‘Palestine 194’ Campaign
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas attempted in 2011 to have the UN welcome the “State of Palestine” as its 194th member state. The UNSC failed to reach a consensus on the matter then, and it was never put to a vote. Instead, UNESCO, the UN’s cultural organization, granted full-member status to the “State of Palestine” in 2011, triggering statutory American defunding of that body. The UN General Assembly in 2012 granted the Palestinians non-member observer state status. In 2014, Abbas began joining dozens of international treaties to bolster his statehood bid.

‘State of Palestine’ Is Not a ‘Peace-Loving State’
To begin the process of UN acceptance, a state must submit an application to the secretary-general, who places it before the members of the Security Council. The UNSC typically refers the application to a UNSC committee for review, though the council can still vote on whether the applicant is a “peace-loving state” independent of the committee’s findings. Nine members of the UNSC must support the bid — without any of the five permanent members exercising their veto — and then two-thirds of the members of the UN General Assembly must approve the statehood application. On April 16, the committee reviewing the bid did not render a unanimous decision on the application’s merits.

Consensus failed to emerge in the 2011 bid over whether the “State of Palestine” constituted a “peace-loving state.” Hamas, a terrorist group that has launched multiple wars as part of its commitment to destroy Israel, controls roughly 40 percent of the territory and population that the PA claims for a state. Also raising doubts about Palestinian intentions is the PA’s “pay to slay” policy, whereby the PA incentivizes and rewards Palestinians who murder Israelis. The PA’s lack of control of the territory it claims — Hamas controls Gaza and the PA exerts only limited control over the West Bank — also undermines the Palestinians’ statehood claim.


Saudi Arabia wants Netanyahu to renew Palestinian statehood talks as part of normalization
A Saudi official said the state is ready to accept a 'verbal agreement' from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he would be willing to renew talks for Palestinian statehood as part of the normalization process between the two countries, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The statement came amid reports that the Biden administration as been increasing pressure on both countries to come to a normalization agreement.


Israel worries ICC could order arrest of top officials
Jerusalem is concerned that the International Criminal Court in The Hague could soon issue arrest warrants against senior officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over the Israel Defense Forces operation against Hamas, Channel 12 News reported Thursday.

According to the report, an emergency meeting was held at Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday in the presence of Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Foreign Minister Israel Katz.

The four decided to take “urgent action with international authorities” to prevent the arrest of Israelis abroad, Channel 12 added.

The Palestinian Authority has already declared its acceptance of the jurisdiction of the ICC over alleged crimes committed by Israel. However, Israel does not recognize ICC jurisdiction over the so-called matzav, or political and military “situation” regarding its conflict with the Palestinians.

The United States has also voiced strong objections to the Palestinians joining the ICC, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken previously expressing “serious concerns about the ICC’s attempts to exercise its jurisdiction over Israeli personnel.”

South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor has said that the ICC should have already issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu “for war crimes committed against Palestinians in Gaza.”

Following a visit to southern Israel in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan said that the massacre of more than 1,200 people represented “some of the most serious international crimes that shock the conscience of humanity.”

Commenting on Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip since the terrorist attacks and the kidnapping of more than 250 people, Khan noted that the Israel Defense Forces “has trained lawyers who advise commanders and a robust system intended to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law.”


The Commentary Magazine Podcast: Israel Hits Iran and Columbia’s Turn
Hosted by Abe Greenwald, Christine Rosen, John Podhoretz & Matthew Continetti
Jonathan Schanzer joins the podcast for an immediate after-action report on the details of the Israeli strike on Iran, whether deterrence has been reestablished, and how last night might represent the most significant game-changing moment in recent Middle Eastern history. And what’s this? Columbia University throws the book at the Hamas-supporting tent city on its campus and has the NYPD arrest more than 100 people? Is this a game-changer too?


The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg: Tucker Carlson, King of the Isolationists
Eli Lake, The Remnant’s resident bloodthirsty war hawk, returns to the pod to break down the situation with Israel and Iran. The two get into why America has no strategic vision on Iran, the growing alliance of left- and right-wing isolationists, and how Tucker Carlson has become so unhinged.

Show Notes:
—Eli’s profile at The Free Press
—Eli’s piece on Tucker Carlson and Russia
—Eli's piece on the FBI
—The Remnant with Nancy French
"You're LYING!" Piers Morgan Hosts Debate On Iran, Israel And Hamas
Piers Morgan gives his thoughts on Iran's attack on Israel before speaking to Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi in Tehran, who says he thinks it "was a major defeat for the Israelis and the Americans."

Another Piers Morgan Uncensored panel debate then ensues with the show joined by Outgoing Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem and Special Envoy for the Foreign Ministry of Israel and host of The Quad on JNS, Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Mustafa Barghouti and journalist and comedian Francesca Fiorentini.

00:00 - Piers Morgan's monologue on Iran's attack on Israel
01:39 - Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi gives his view from Tehran
06:03 - "The genocide began long before October the 7th"
09.50 - "Do you condemn Hamas?"
12.25 - "Hamas were proud of what they did"
14.50 - Were the Iran attacks pointless?
18.30 - Why did Israel bomb Damascus?
20.20 - "The Israeli regime are always lying"
22.40 - "Nothing is going to distract the world from the Holocaust in Gaza"
25.25 - "Piers, you have been misleading people for years over Ukraine"
27.50 - "I experienced what the west does to the non-western world"
29.25 - Panel gives their response to Marandi
35:05 - "Netanyahu wanted to provoke Iran"
38.28 - "My tax money went to funding a genocide"
45.25 – Does Netanyahu have to go?
54.11 - "You don’t believe Israel has any rights"




U.N. Shares Hamas Sympathizer Propaganda Promoting Illegal Protests in U.S.
The United Nations on Thursday was accused of spreading pro-Hamas propaganda through one of its online newsletters, including links to websites that organized protests to block roads in American cities on April 15 in violation of U.S. law.

The allegation came from a group called Human Rights Voices, which backed up its charges with screenshots of the U.N.’s “NGO Action News” online newsletter.

NGO Action News is a weekly newsletter produced by the United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine (UNISPAL). The newsletter links to various Internet posts containing information related to the Palestinians and the war in Gaza, almost all of them strongly critical of Israel.

In the April 11 edition of the newsletter, one of the entries points to a post from a group called U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) entitled “Stop Arming Israel: 5 Ways to Take Action for Tax Day.”

“Tax Day” was April 15, the deadline for filing U.S. income tax returns. Pro-Palestinian activists used the day to stage demonstrations against American funding of Israel. Some of those demonstrations included illegal, destructive, and dangerous activities such as blocking high-traffic roads, bridges, and airports. Dozens of protesters were arrested in cities across the country.

The U.N. newsletter apparently had no problem with USCPR calling for “a coordinated economic blockade in cities around the world.” The post linked from the U.N. publication explicitly called for disruptive activities and linked to an even more provocative website created by the group that organized the illegal Tax Day protest actions, A15 Action.

“The United Nations is distributing, through its global online network, alerts and links to events in the U.S. that break U.S. law. Detailed announcements and invitations to participate in such illegal activities are found on third party websites,” Human Rights Voices charged.

Human Rights Voices noted that the NGO Action News publication includes a disclaimer that the U.N. is “not responsible for the content of any linked site,” but the U.N. does exercise editorial judgment over the newsletter.
Google CEO Breaks Silence After Firing 28 Employees: ‘This Is A Business’
Google CEO Sundar Pichai broke his silence on Thursday regarding the firing of 28 employees who occupied an executive’s office in California and protested in the company’s New York building to demand the company terminate a contract with Israel.

“Ultimately we are a workplace and our policies and expectations are clear: this is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform, or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics,” Pichai said in a company-wide email on Thursday.

“This is too important a moment as a company for us to be distracted,” he added. “When we come to work, our goal is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. That supersedes everything else and I expect us to act with a focus that reflects that.”

Email by Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar where he addresses the anti-Israel protests at the company.

The termination of the employees was announced in a company-wide memo on Wednesday by Google vice president of global security, Chris Rackow who described their actions as “unacceptable” and “extremely disruptive.”

Several of the employees were seen being arrested on their livestream after refusing to leave the offices for more than eight hours.

The protests were announced in internal emails to employees that shared a list of demands, including that Google drop its $1.2 billion contract with Israel for Project Nimbus, a cloud-computing project of the Israeli government.
‘The Worst Palestinian in the World’: Pressure Mounts on DJ Khaled to Make Anti-Israel Remarks
Grammy-Award-winning Palestinian-American producer DJ Khaled is facing mounting pressure from left-wing activists, fellow music artists, and his own cousin to express opposition to Israel’s self-defense operations in Gaza following the harrowing Hamas attacks of October 7.

Cousin Fadie Musallet, the head of a charity organization in Dubai called The Giving Family and presence on the first season of the Netflix reality series Dubai Bling, told the Emirati newspaper The National on Wednesday that he does not believe DJ Khaled would be welcome in the Palestinian territories if he attempted to visit, as locals “really feel like they have been let down.”

Writing this month, Palestinian journalist Maysa Mustafa compiled disappointed messages from Palestinians on social media who declared DJ Khaled “the worst Palestinian in the world” and lamented that the ostentatious hip-hop artists has used his online presence to post videos boasting of his prodigious wealth, including a widely ridiculed video in which he appears to use bodyguards to carry him to prevent his expensive sneakers from getting dirty.

DJ Khaled is a Palestinian-American DJ, producer, and hip-hop artist known for his collaborations with rappers such as Drake, Jay-Z, and Rick Ross. His parents are Palestinian immigrants who settled initially in New Orleans; DJ Khaled moved to Florida and has remained a fixture in the Miami celebrity scene since achieving stardom.

At press time, the artist has yet to make any public comments on the situation in Israel following the October 7 Hamas attack. He has often discussed his identity as the son of immigrants and expressed pride in his family, but not made any overtly political statements taking a stance either in favor or against Palestinian terrorist activity against Israel.


Policeman threatens to arrest campaigner for being ‘openly Jewish’ at Gaza rally
A Metropolitan Police officer threatened to arrest the head of an anti-racism campaign group for being visibly Jewish at a Gaza rally in central London last weekend.

A video from last Saturday’s march shows the policeman physically block Campaign Against Antisemitism Chief Executive Gideon Falter from crossing a street over his “openly Jewish” appearance.

The policeman threatened Falter with arrest citing “a breach of peace with all these other people” and told him he was not safe on the streets of London.

Falter had been walking through central London after a Shabbat service, wearing a yarmulke and carrying a prayer bag, when he was stopped on Aldwych and told his presence would “antagonise” crowds and lead to him being attacked.

Falter told the policeman: “I’m just a Jew in London trying to cross the road”.

The officer responded: “You are quite openly Jewish. This is a pro-Palestinian march. I am not accusing you of anything, but I am worried about the reaction to your presence.”

Later in the video, Falter was threatened with arrest if he did not leave the area: “There’s a unit of people [police officers] here now and you will be escorted out of this area so you can go about your business, go where you want freely. Or if you choose to remain, because you are causing a breach of peace with all these other people, you will be arrested.”

One anti-Israel protester told Falter, “The police ain’t going to help you in this scenario” and threatened to follow and film him.


Is it now a crime to be a Jew in London?
Later, a different officer told Falter that he could either be escorted away or face arrest. ‘If you choose to remain here’, he said, ‘because you are causing a breach of peace… you will be arrested. Your presence here is antagonising a large group of people.’

Certainly, many protesters did seem agitated by Falter’s presence. In the video, they can be heard shouting ‘scum’ and ‘Nazi’ at him.

Hang on a second. Aren’t these marches supposed to be about the plight of civilians in Gaza? Indeed, the Metropolitan Police have themselves gone to great lengths to try to assure the public that these weekly demos are merely peaceful expressions of solidarity with innocent Palestinians. When former UK home secretary Suella Braverman dared to describe these protests – accurately as it turns out – as ‘hate marches’, Met commissioner Mark Rowley seemed completely baffled by the suggestion. He pretended not to know what she meant.

Now the police have tacitly admitted that these pro-Palestine demos are indeed hotbeds of hatred. Officers know all too well that the mere presence of a visibly Jewish man is enough to infuriate the marchers. But instead of defending London’s Jews, the police have decided to appease these anti-Semitic elements – by threatening a man with arrest for being visibly Jewish and refusing to move along.

Can the Met sink any lower?


Greens MP, feminist appear alongside accused kidnapper at anti-Israel rally
Greens MP Gabrielle de Vietri was spotted addressing a rally at Melbourne's Federation Square on Thursday, alongside accused kidnapper Mohammad Sharab.

Despite claims from a Greens spokesperson that Sharab was not a scheduled speaker, his presence raised eyebrows, especially considering his alleged involvement in a violent kidnapping incident earlier this year.

The event, which also featured figures like controversial feminist Clementine Ford and Burgertory restaurant owner Hash Tayeh, drew attention due to Sharab's connection to an ongoing criminal case.

Sharab, a familiar face at anti-Israel gatherings, stands accused of being part of a group that violently abducted and assaulted a Melbourne man in February. His co-accused, Laura Allam, allegedly orchestrated the kidnapping.

During her speech, De Vietri accused the government of complicity in "genocide" and criticised its environmental stance.

This isn't the first time De Vietri has courted controversy regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict, having previously been involved in a anti-Israel stunt at the parliament earlier this year.




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