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Tuesday, May 14, 2024

05/14 Links Pt1: Why Joe Biden Has Gone from Friend to Enemy; IDF kills Hamas terrorists embedded inside UNRWA school; The UN’s World of the Absurd

From Ian:

John Podhoretz: Why Joe Biden Has Gone from Friend to Enemy
This political maneuvering just doesn’t pass the smell test. Nor do Biden’s expressions of disapproval at Israel’s “indiscriminate” bombing, which has been the opposite of indiscriminate. Something else is going on here.

Now, I’m not saying the Biden people are being disingenuous. It could be, as Matthew Continetti points out in his column this month, that they’re just bad at politics and are miscalculating the electoral importance of the anti-Israel voter. But what if it’s not just that. What if it’s something darker?

For three years, Biden and his team have been fighting to get the American people to give him and themselves credit for a booming economy. Whether he deserves that credit or not, it’s not happening. They are beside themselves with frustration because they are not receiving the gratitude they think they deserve. Add to this that there’s nothing they can do about Biden’s own personal infirmities. These matters appear out of their control, and beyond their ability to fix, and it’s maddening to them. And they’re terrified—maybe even more terrified now that it’s clear that three of the four criminal cases against Donald Trump will not reach a courtroom before Election Day. They have been pinning their hopes on a turn in American opinion against Trump due to multiple Trump convictions. They might get the verdicts they want in the Stormy Daniels case, but the public’s lack of response to his being found liable for sexual assault and financial fraud might suggest even that anti-Trump moment will not be the knockout blow they desperately crave.

Ask yourself: Might there be something irresistibly seductive for the Biden team and Biden himself in the idea that his electoral woes have a foreign root? Doesn’t the disorder and crisis in and around Israel provide a convenient scapegoat for his own failings? No, it’s not that inflation has eaten away at the ordinary American’s financial gains. It’s not that Biden now needs his staff to stand between him and photographers to obscure video images of his halting gait. It’s not that he sounds like his throat is coated in sandpaper and that his tongue lolls about around his mouth when he speaks.

No, it’s that damn Bibi that’s threatening to drag him down.

The obsession with Netanyahu—when Israel’s prime minister is doing nothing more than reflecting the consensus opinion of his people about the necessity of winning the war—is reminiscent of another shameful moment in English history. “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Henry II is reputed to have said of Thomas à Becket, after which four knights cornered Becket in Canterbury Cathedral and murdered him. Perhaps, in his private councils in the White House and perhaps in conversation with Chuck Schumer before Schumer’s speech, Biden offered some woke variant of the same sentiment: “Who will rid me of this meddlesome Jew?”

Biden’s policy now is that Hamas should be allowed to live to massacre another day. In the end, then, while Biden spent months being the best friend Israel may ever have had in the White House, he has now become one of its worst enemies.

And, again, for what? For Wales?
The Gates of Gaza
The healthy alternative to the Star Wars paradigm, which has so visibly and spectacularly failed to assure Israel’s security, is “Mad Max.” This alternative paradigm states that new and old weapon systems will merge, thanks to innovative concepts of operations. Mad Max understands that the twenty-first century battlefield is home to T-64 tanks, which fought their first battles in the early 1960s, as well as state-of-the-art cyber-electronic warfare. Mini drones that are commercially available across the globe can spot for Cold War-era artillery.

Never underestimate technologically inferior adversaries, the Mad Max paradigm counsels. High-tech tools and weapons will never be the sole or even the primary factor determining the winner of wars. This dictum is especially true for the wars of the Middle East, where great powers external to the region determine the balance of power on the ground.

Because war remains today what it has always been, a political activity, we cannot gauge the true advantage of any weapon—be it new and technologically advanced or old and rusty—without first considering the political-military strategy that it serves. Victory comes not to him who kills the most enemy soldiers or who fries the most motherboards but to him who converts what transpires on the battlefield into the most beneficial political arrangements. Losers on the battlefield frequently win wars, by bleeding giants until they are too exhausted to continue fighting. For example, in Vietnam, the second Iraq War, and Afghanistan, the U.S. repeatedly outmatched its adversaries militarily but lost the wars, nevertheless.

The digital revolution has enhanced the powers of technologically advanced countries in many ways, but it has also exposed them to new risks while also delivering surprising new tools to underdogs. Even the poorest of powers, thanks to the internet and smartphones, now enjoy a bonanza of open-source intelligence that just a few years ago was not available to even the richest of states. Cheap drones purchased off the shelf can offer startling reconnaissance capabilities to Ukraine against Russia. Cyber-enabled supply chains and GPS present an otherwise ragtag group like the Houthis opportunities to disrupt global commercial shipping. The list goes on.

The Star Wars paradigm also rests on the assumption, often unstated, that taking and holding territory has somehow become a secondary part of warfighting. While it is certainly possible to name wars that have been won without territorial conquest, they are few and far between. Almost inevitably, the magnitude of such victories is small, because victors who impose their will from over the horizon—from the air, sea, or through economic leverage—lack the physical presence on the ground that is necessary to shape a new political order.

The Mad Max mentality cultivates a heightened sensitivity to the phrase “on the ground.” With minor exceptions, armies translate battlefield victories into lasting changes either by seizing territory or threatening persuasively to do so. In the brave new digital world, traditional warfighting assets—large combat formations, replete with artillery, rocket systems, engineering units, and heavy armor—will not disappear, because only they can take and hold territory decisively.

Under the influence of Star Wars, Israel neglected its role by allowing its land forces to atrophy. In 2018, Brigadier Roman Goffman, who was then the commander of the 7th Armored Brigade, took the extraordinary step of airing his concerns about this issue openly before the senior leadership of the IDF at a command conference. “Chief of Staff,” Goffman said, referring to his senior most commander, General Gadi Eisenkot, “I first want to tell you that we [in armored units] are ready to fight. There is one problem. You don’t activate us… [T]here is a very problematic pattern that is developing here, namely, the avoidance of the use of ground forces.”

Eisenkot sat in the front row of the audience flanked by the top leaders of the IDF. Behind them sat hundreds of senior officers who greeted Goffman’s remarks with smirks. But he continued undeterred. The non-deployment of ground forces, he argued, “ultimately affects the will to fight. What makes us into combat commanders over time is friction with the other side.” Absent friction with the enemy, he continued, the military enters a state of “clinical death.”

On October 7, the Israelis tasted what Goffman meant by “clinical death.” The Israeli military had at its disposal a glittering arsenal of exquisite weapons, including a large squadron of radar-proof F-35s, whose capacities previous generations would have considered to be the stuff of science-fiction. As it turned out, however, none of these weapons were of the slightest use against terrorist bands, armed mainly with Kalashnikovs, who were intent on murdering, raping, and kidnapping civilians.
The Legacy of the Maalot Massacre
Fifty years ago today, Palestinian terrorists attacked a school in northern Israel, taking hostages and murdering 22 students. The memories endure for those who survived, and the lessons learned in 1974 resonate anew for a country facing another hostage crisis.

An intersection opposite the central bus station in Tzfat illustrates the interwoven trauma between that city and the Galileean town of Maalot, a half-hour’s drive away. At the intersection, one sign designates the road’s name as 22 Children of Tzfat Street, while a sign at the adjacent bus stop calls it 22 Children of Maalot Street.

Fifty years after a notorious terrorist attack that killed 28 Israelis near and in Maalot, including 22 students on a field trip from a Tzfat high school, places and people testify to the lingering pain.

It’s there a few hundred yards from the Tzfat intersection, on the Fig Kindergarten sign for the school named after Sarah Madar, “murdered in the Maalot disaster of May 15, 1974, may her memory be blessed.” Bracha (meaning blessing), a teacher there, told me that it’s one of 22 flora- and fauna-named kindergartens in Tzfat that memorialize the victims.

It’s there in Maalot’s Founders Museum, where a wall placard tells of the tragedy that began May 13, 1974, when three Palestinians who’d trained in Lebanon infiltrated Israel through the border fence a few miles north, setting off a series of security failures and attacks that culminated in the same terrorists taking more than 100 Israelis hostage in the Netiv Meir School and murdering the 22 students.

It’s there down the street from the museum, where a sculpture memorializes the Cohen family, who lived in the next apartment building until the terrorists shot them to death en route to the school.

It’s in a memorial in the Maalot school building where the teens’ lives were extinguished; in Tzfat’s Amit School that they attended, since relocated and renamed The Religious Comprehensive High School in Memory of the 22; in that school’s first-floor room with a wall filled by the victims’ pictures on branches of a painted tree and, next to the tree, a stained-glass window with 22 chiseled brown circles containing their names; in a bomb shelter that a Maalot survivor renovated, inside whose entrance he hung pictures of his 22 classmates; and in the cemetery where the children were buried together down a hill from the ancient part of the city renowned for its holiness.

It is even 7,500 miles away in the Los Angeles suburb of Irvine, California, in a Reform synagogue that in 1975 renamed itself Congregation Shir Ha-Ma’alot in solidarity. The synagogue includes its namesake, out-of-the-way town on each congregational visit to Israel and a decade ago paid for the memorial site in the Maalot classroom that it also refurbished.

“It’s part of our hearts, part of our soulful connection, how much more so in the period we’re now living in,” said Richard Steinberg, the synagogue’s rabbi.


Amb. Alan Baker: The UN’s World of the Absurd
Only in the world of the absurd can a despicable purveyor of terror, Hamas, carry out a brutal massacre, killing over a thousand innocent people, torturing, murdering, and carrying out sadistic mass rape, over a space of just a few hours, and then run-away home to Gaza taking with them hundreds of hostages.

Only in the world of the absurd can the Palestinian representative organization that encourages, finances, supports, and represents such Hamas murderers be feted and upgraded by the majority of member states in the international community.

Only in the world of the absurd can a group of non-democratic, terror-supporting states oblige the United Nations General Assembly by proposing a resolution that indulges in pampering a terror-supporting entity in a misguided and surreal demonstration of naïveté, skewed political correctness, and acute hypocrisy.

Only in the same world of the absurd can 143 states parrot their support for what they blindly proclaim to be a “two-state solution” without really understanding what they are talking about out of ignorance and stupidity.

Only in the world of the absurd can the majority of the international community deliberately ignore the openly declared genocidal intentions of Iran, Hamas, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in their efforts to eliminate the Jewish state and kill all Jews. And this, while at the same time upgrading the Palestinian representation in the UN.

Lastly, only in the world of the absurd can all this happen at the same time as incited and handsomely financed and organized groups of violent, hysterical, antisemitic demonstrators occupy campuses and town centers in the U.S. and European cities, calling for the elimination of the only Jewish state.


John Bolton: The West will soon pay for Biden’s betrayal
Finally, and most importantly, the substance of Biden’s threat and the thoroughly unsatisfactory State Department report expose the administration as misguided and confused in ways that could haunt future US presidents.

Close-quarters combat in complex urban environments, let alone in Hamas’s extraordinary network of underground tunnels, is something Western militaries prefer to avoid. Not surprisingly, the State’s report is incoherent and contradictory, doubtless reflecting anti-Israel sentiment in many department bureaus, and schizophrenia within the Biden Administration’s political ranks. The report lacks specificity, yet incomplete information is hard to assess without adequate context – which is why a fair and accurate reckoning would be most fruitful after the war, not while combat still rages.

The fact that civilians are present in combat areas requires that Israel, or any combatant, determine they are striking only military targets and that civilian casualties are no more than proportional to the importance of such targets. In Rafah, the IDF is seeking to eliminate Hamas’s highest command-and-control hierarchies and its remaining organised military units, all clearly legitimate objectives.

It is unacceptable that Israel may be prevented from achieving its legitimate self-defence goals because the terrorists are so barbaric as to sacrifice their own civilian population to save themselves. If that is what Biden means by saying he objects to Israel entering Rafah, then he is simply endorsing the terrorist veto. Yet it is Hamas that is morally culpable for Gazan civilian deaths, not Israel.

We do not know what will unfold next, but the decisive choice now lies with Israel’s war cabinet. Biden’s ill-considered threat to cut the Jewish state loose will be at the centre of considerable debate. There is no debate, however, that Biden’s ploy will come back to haunt him, America, and all the West.
House to vote on bill forcing arms sales to Israel to move forward
The House is set to vote this week on a bill that, in response to the administration’s decision to halt certain arms sales to Israel and threaten to cut off all offensive weapons, aims to force the administration’s hand.

The bill is not likely to pass the Senate and would likely be vetoed by President Joe Biden, but it will be a key barometer of how many Democrats back the administration’s recent moves, amid growing condemnation from moderate pro-Israel lawmakers. The legislation will require a simple majority vote.

The Israel Security Assistance Support Act condemns the administration’s moves and calls on the administration to permit all approved arms transfers to Israel to move forward and to utilize all existing congressional funds. It also carries a series of penalties that aim to force the issue.

The bill demands that any arms being withheld be delivered to Israel within 15 days of the bill’s passage and would cut off funding from the Department of Defense, Department of State and and National Security and Homeland Security Councils if that requirement is not fulfilled.

It would require that any other weapons and defense services expected for Israel, including direct Israeli weapons purchases, be delivered promptly.

It would also mandate that no funds appropriated for the Department of State or Department of Defense may be used to withhold or prevent the delivery of military equipment and services to Israel or to pay any official of either agency involved in such activity.

The bill would also implement a series of new reporting requirements to Congress, including a report from the State and Pentagon inspectors general on efforts to withhold aid, and monthly reports on U.S. security aid to Israel.

Separately, the House Oversight Committee announced that it is investigating the administration’s holds on weapons shipments.
Joe Biden is no leader and neither is Chuck Schumer
The other shoe has finally dropped.

We knew it was coming for months. Once US President Joe Biden began opposing any IDF action in Rafah and shifted from supporting the defeat of Hamas and the return of all of the hostages to pursuing a ceasefire above all else, it was only a matter of when his nerve would finally fail completely.

His threat in an interview with CNN last week to cut off arms supplies to Israel should it press in to Rafah is nothing sort of a craven betrayal, made all the worse by the fact that it came a day after Biden said at a Holocaust Remembrance Day event that people were forgetting the atrocities Hamas committed on October 7.

With this betrayal, Biden has proven once and for all that he is no leader, the quality that is the most crucial for a president.

With his campaign spooked by polls showing former President Donald Trump neck and neck with or even leading Biden in this year’s presidential race, the decision was made to attempt to appease the most rabid antisemites in the fringes of the Democratic Party’s base in the hopes of maintaining the Muslim vote in Michigan and the youth vote nationwide.

If this meant throwing Israel to the Hamas and Iranian wolves, guaranteeing another October 7 in the coming years, and giving a tailwind to the forces making life increasingly unsafe for Jews in the US, then all of this is a necessary sacrifice to keep Trump out of the White House and Biden in the Oval Office.

Biden’s shortsighted, foolish decision will only make things worse, not only in the Middle East, but in America as well.

Not only will Hamas be emboldened to keep its hostages and continue the war to the bitter end, secure in the knowledge that the leader of the most powerful nation in the world is working to secure its survival, but the antisemites who have made college campuses a hell on earth for Jewish students over the last month and celebrated the October 7 massacre in the immediate aftermath will also be emboldened to continue their campaign to turn all Jews except for the small handful of IfNotNow extremists into pariahs banned from American life.


The US aims to wrap up Gaza war. How does that square with its goal of toppling Hamas?
More than seven months into the Israel-Hamas war, the Biden administration’s top priority is to try and secure a hostage deal. This would commence a weeks-long truce, but Washington’s goal is for that pause to be turned permanent.

“If we can get a ceasefire, we can get something more enduring and then maybe end the conflict,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said this month.

What appears less clear, though, is how pushing for this ceasefire squares with another US commitment, which is to eliminate the threat of Hamas.

“An enduring defeat of Hamas certainly remains the Israeli goal, and we share that goal with it,” Kirby said last week.

The two objectives seem to clash, given that a temporary-turned-permanent deal with Hamas would ostensibly leave the terror group standing in Gaza.

The Biden administration has not directly and publicly addressed this apparent dissonance, but two US officials and two other sources familiar with the matter who spoke to The Times of Israel on condition of anonymity offered some clarity.

“The goal is for Hamas to be severely weakened when the dust settles, i.e., incapable of carrying out another attack like the one [it] launched on October 7,” the first US official said, referring to the terror onslaught unleashed on southern Israel during which some 1,200 people were killed and 252 were taken hostage.

“But we have to be honest about the fact that Hamas will remain in Gaza in some form after the war is over. The past six months have proven no amount of fighting is going to change that,” they added. Last week, Israeli troops raided Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood for the third time since the war’s outbreak after Hamas fighters returned to areas previously cleared by the IDF.

“What we are trying to do is advance a vision where Hamas would be marginalized, while Israel would be stronger through improved relations with its Arab neighbors,” the official explained. “By doing that, we are able to eliminate the threat of Hamas without having to continue the war indefinitely.”

“It’s a years-long process, and it will require Israeli buy-in, but the alternative is a never-ending cycle of violence that the Israelis could be left alone to deal with,” a second US official said, referencing the danger of waning international support.

Replacing Hamas
The four sources described an international effort to support the re-deployment of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces in the Gaza Strip.

They recognized that the PA is not currently in a position to immediately assume security — let alone governing — responsibilities in Gaza.

The PA is arguably in its weakest position since its founding 30 years ago, when it was envisioned as a precursor to a more sovereign entity. In the eyes of Palestinians, the PA’s legitimacy has waned amid charges of corruption and mismanagement that have piled up as Israel entrenched its presence in the West Bank.

The US along with its Arab and European partners are not deterred, though, and are working to establish mechanisms for a reformed PA to return to the Strip.

While much of the plan is still being crafted, stakeholders have been clear that it will be conditioned on Israel agreeing to a time-bound pathway to a Palestinian state.

Such acquiescence is highly unlikely to be accepted by the Israeli public, with an appetite for concessions to Palestinians at perhaps an all-time low following the October 7 attack.
US: Israel can’t achieve total victory over Hamas in Gaza
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his public speeches focused on the importance of total victory over Hamas, stressing the significance of a major IDF operation in Rafah, which has been described as the last Hamas stronghold with four battalions.

The IDF has repeatedly rejected US claims that it is unable to defeat Hamas militarily in Gaza, including in Rafah. At the same time, both the IDF and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have gotten progressively louder and more public in slamming Netanyahu for a failure to approve a "Day After" plan for what Gaza will look like once Hamas is no longer in control of the enclave.

They have said that the IDF is capable of militarily beating Hamas, which has mostly already been done, but that unless Netanyahu approves a Day After plan, Israel could eventually by default snatch a diplomatic defeat that allows Hamas to come back from the jaws of military victory.

The IDF in the past week has pushed forward with the initial phases of a Rafah operation, which the US and the international community has also opposed on humanitarian grounds.

Until last week over 1.3 million Palestinians had been in that area, many of whom had fled there during the early part of the war to escape bombing in the north.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is the primary organization dealing with Palestinian refugees, reported that over 450,000 people have fled the Rafah area since May 6.

Biden has also already clarified that the US will not provide Israel with weapons for a Rafah operation and has held up a shipment of arms designated for use in Gaza.

Campbell clarified that Biden remains deeply supportive of Israel, is committed to its security, and has stood by its side throughout the war, including visiting Israel just after the Hamas attack on October 7 that sparked the war.

“Probably no American leader has put it all on the line for Israel” as Biden has done, Campbell states, adding that the US leader had been deeply committed to Israel’s security throughout his political life.

“The President is proud of the fact that he has stood by Israel in its darkest, most difficult time. But at the same time… we are committed to a future that calls for a two-state solution.

“We believe that ultimately there has to be a political and humanitarian set of solutions to what's taking place,” Campbell stated.
Secretary of State Blinken: Only Nation Building, Not Fighting Terrorists, Can Defeat Terrorists
Blinken claimed that “if they leave and get out of Gaza, as we believe they need to do, then you’re going to have a vacuum that’s likely to be filled by chaos, anarchy, and ultimately by Hamas again.”

Israel he claimed is “on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy, and probably refilled by Hamas. We’ve been talking to them about a much better way of getting an enduring result, enduring security.”

The “enduring” result is more of the “nation-building” that created the problem in the first place.

Major parts of Israel are under the control of terrorists because the Bush I and Clinton administrations argued that without nation-building, there’s be constant terrorism. The Oslo accords turned over territories to the terrorists as part of a peace deal. Instead of a peace deal, there was only more terrorism.

The Bush II administration, specifically Condi Rice, pushed for elections leading Hamas to take over Gaza. Obama demanded that Israel negotiate with Hamas after every conflict to produce ceasefires.

Oct 7 is the end result of all that nation-building.

Biden talks about an endless insurgency, chaos and anarchy. And Hamas. The cause of all that isn’t fighting terrorists, it’s enabling them.

The lesson of Oct 7 is to stop the nation-building and defeat the terrorists.
Blinken Slams Israel's War Effort: 'Get Out of Gaza'
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday slammed Israel’s war effort against Hamas, urging the Jewish state to "get out of Gaza" and accusing the Israel Defense Forces of violating international humanitarian law.

An Israeli military operation in Rafah, the last major Hamas stronghold in Gaza, may have some "initial success" but would ultimately be unsustainable and leave the Israelis "holding the bag on an enduring insurgency," Blinken said during an NBC appearance on Sunday, according to National Review.

"[This is] because a lot of armed Hamas will be left, no matter what [the Israelis] do in Rafah, or if they leave and get out of Gaza, as we believe they need to do," Blinken added. "Then you’re going to have a vacuum and a vacuum that’s likely to be filled by chaos, by anarchy, and ultimately by Hamas again."

The secretary of state also cited a Friday report by his State Department in arguing "it was reasonable to assess that, in certain instances, Israel acted in ways that are not consistent with international humanitarian law." The report, however, "did not find any specific instances of Israel misusing American weapons to back those allegations," National Review reported on Friday.

Blinken’s remarks came after President Joe Biden last week faced a barrage of criticism by announcing the United States would stop supplying certain weapons to Israel should the Jewish state choose to enter Rafah. The Biden administration has reportedly already paused a shipment of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs to Israel.
White House: We do not believe genocide is occurring in Gaza
The Biden administration does not believe that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told repeaters in Washington on Monday.

“We do not believe what is happening in Gaza is a genocide. We have been firmly on record rejecting that proposition,” Sullivan said.

The US is “using the internationally accepted term for genocide, which includes a focus on intent,” Sullivan explained, adding that the Biden administration has also backed Israel on this matter at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

“The United States actually made a presentation [there] backed up by legal analysis, which I would invite you to read because it lays out all of those crimes,” he stated.

South Africa's case against Israel
The ICJ is in the middle of adjudicating charges by South Africa, that Israel is guilty of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, due to its military campaign to destroy Hamas in that enclave. It is expected to hold an additional hearing this Thursday and Friday on a South Africa request for more provisional measures.

The United States and Israel both believe that Hamas is a terror organization. It forcibly seized power in Gaza in 2007 and has ruled it since.

Sullivan said that what is happening in Gaza is a war between the State of Israel and the terrorist group Hamas, whose mission is to annihilate Israel and kill as many Jews as they can,” Sullivan said.

He noted that the war began on October 7, “when Hamas massacred 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostages” even though there was a ceasefire in place.

“The United States wants to see Hamas defeated and justice delivered to [Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar], there can be no equivocation on that.

“The Palestinian civilians caught in the middle of this war are in hell. The depth and trauma they’ve endured are unimaginable. Their pain and suffering are immense. No civilian should have to go through that,” Sullivan stated.
Meet the Jihadi Inside the White House
What do Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and Presidentish Joe Biden's National Security Council all have in common?

One man: Maher Bitar.

Bitar has an impressive CV, including Georgetown Law, a degree from Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, and a Master's from Oxford. He's just the kind of person you'd expect to do well in Washington — and he has. Before I get to that, you need a little background on SJP and UNRWA.

SJP is an explicitly anti-Israeli organization founded in 1993 and "committed to ending Israel’s occupation and colonization of all Arab lands," from the river to the sea, as they say. Noor Dahri — executive director of the UK's Islamic Theology of Counter Terrorism (ITCT) think tank — describes SJP as "the most violent student organisation in the United States against Jews today."

Its behavior has gotten the group kicked off of various college campuses across the nation, including Columbia University. At Brandeis, spokeswoman Julie Jette said of that school's decision to remove and defund SJP, "National SJP has called on its chapters to engage in conduct that supports Hamas in its call for the elimination of the only Jewish state in the world and its people. Such expression is not protected by Brandeis' principles of free speech."

SJP receives funding from American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), which is under investigation by the Attorney General’s Office of Virginia due to "allegations that the organization may have used funds raised for impermissible purposes under state law, including benefitting or providing support to terrorist organizations.”

While a student at Georgetown, Bitar was on the executive board of the school's SJP chapter.

UNRWA has long been accused of aiding Hamas, dating back at least to this 2007 report claiming "UNRWA workers are permitted to openly affiliate with terrorist groups," and that "as long as UNRWA employees are members of Fatah, Hamas, or PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine], they are going to pursue the interests of their party within the framework of their job."


President Herzog to 'Post': Hamas started this war, we will never give up
At the center of the State of Israel, currently embroiled in conflict, there stands President Isaac Herzog, who has dedicated his life to his country.

While the weight of the Israel-Hamas war bears down heavily on the collective consciousness, Herzog has been fighting to keep the light in the country alive and strong, as well as echoing the importance of that ever-enduring flame on the international stage.

Walking through the halls of the President’s Residence, one might expect an atmosphere thick with tension and solemnity but rather, the energy of a limitless nation striving to continue its justified existence persists there – with politicians, advisers, security officials, and international delegations walking in and out regularly.

Herzog joined The Jerusalem Post for this special interview to bring both levity and understanding to a holiday that, now most of all, is complicated and difficult to celebrate.
IDF kills Hamas terrorists embedded inside UNRWA school in Gaza Strip
A Hamas war room embedded inside a UNRWA school in Nuseirat used by Hamas commanders was targeted in a precise strike by the IDF and ISA, the military announced on Tuesday.

The IDF eliminated over 10 Hamas terrorists by airstrike.

The IDF stated that the war room was used by terrorist operatives in Hamas' military Nukhba wing. They said the strike was carried out using precise munitions to minimize civilian harm.

The terrorists took part in Oct. 7
According to the intelligence, the Hamas war room had been used by the terrorist organization to plan multiple attacks against IDF troops in central Gaza in recent weeks. The Nukhba terrorists situated inside the war room are alleged to have taken place took part in the October 7th Massacre and carried out ambushes and attacks on IDF troops in the Gaza Strip.

In the IAF strike, approximately 15 operatives from terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip were eliminated, more than 10 of which were part of Hamas.

Earlier on Tuesday, the IDF's Division 98 killed dozens of Hamas terrorists in Jabalya in northern Gaza in the largest Gaza battle since mid-March and the largest battle in Jabalya itself since January.


IDF kills dozens of Hamas terrorists in largest Gaza battle in two months
IDF Division 98 on Tuesday killed dozens of Hamas terrorists in Jabalya in northern Gaza in the largest Gaza battle since mid-March and the largest battle in Jabalya itself since January.

Although the IDF started its reinvasion of Jabalya over Saturday-Sunday, only on Tuesday did the military finally find and confront larger quantities of Hamas’s reconstituted forces in that northern Gaza area.

Until Tuesday, fights in Jabalya since January had only involved IDF altercations with smaller terror cells, often of only a handful of Hamas fighters at a time.

The last large fight anywhere in the Strip was during a reinvasion of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in mid-March. That reinvasion lasted between one to two weeks, depending on how one categorizes different stages of the fighting.

Questions raised over evacuation of northern Gaza
Until now, it has been unclear why the IDF evacuated 100,000-150,000, between one-third to one-half of the remaining northern Gaza civilian population, for a new large operation in Jabalya, given that the last few days have involved relatively minor altercations.

But multiple defense sources have assured the Jerusalem Post that Tuesday’s fights are more of an indication of a more significant volume of Hamas terrorists reconstituting themselves in Jabalya.

In addition, IDF Division 162 continued smaller battles in Rafah, and IDF Division 99 continued smaller battles in Zeitoun, killing lower numbers of Hamas fighters.

The IDF still has not broadened its operations in Rafah beyond portions of the eastern area, though the Post has been told by Israeli defense sources that such a broadening operation could come soon and US sources have told CNN that the massing of additional IDF forces appears ready to broaden the Rafah operation.


Israel secretly asked Palestinian Authority to run Rafah crossing
Israel recently unofficially asked that the Palestinian Authority run the Rafah crossing in Gaza, defense sources have told the Jerusalem Post.

The report first emerged from an Axios report Monday night, which referred to a mix of Israeli, American, and Palestinian Authority officials.

The proposal was the first invitation Israel has extended to the Palestinian Authority to join or facilitate issues relating to the war.

Egypt has halted sending aid through the Kerem Shalom crossing and has promised to continue delaying aid until Israeli forces withdraw from the Palestinian side of Rafah. Given the repeated warnings from the United Nations and other international bodies, the threat of withheld aid has placed significantly more pressure on the precarious humanitarian situation in the enclave.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a Sunday night phone call that Israel is open to many solutions for the Rafah crossing except for a return of Hamas. Another senior official reported that the Israeli government was seeking to bring in Palestinian leadership who were unconnected to Hamas to help manage the site.

Officials from all three groups reported that the condition on bringing in PA control would involve the caveat that they identify themselves as a local aid committee and not an extension of the PA.

The condition upset PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who said they would not agree to fulfill this role undercover.

As a secondary issue, the PA also demanded that Israel release Palestinian tax revenues, which have been withheld for several months by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, as retaliation for the PA pushing the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials for alleged war crimes.


Hezbollah anti-tank missile kills Israeli civilian, hurts five soldiers
Hezbollah terrorists fired an anti-tank missile on Tuesday that killed an Israeli civilian and wounded five soldiers in the northern community of Adamit, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The military said one soldier was moderately wounded and four others were lightly hurt in the attack.

The fatality was not immediately identified.

On Monday, four Israeli soldiers were wounded—one moderately—by Hezbollah anti-tank fire from Lebanon. The other three troops were lightly injured after two missiles hit Kibbutz Yiftah, south of Kiryat Shmona in the Upper Galilee.

Last week, the IDF announced the death of Staff Sgt. Haim Sabach, 20, who was killed by a Hezbollah missile at a military post near the northern kibbutz of Malkia.

Days earlier, two reserve soldiers were killed in a Hezbollah drone attack on a military position close to the northwestern Galilee town of Metula. The IDF said it had failed to intercept the explosive-laden drone.

The casualties were identified as Master Sgt. (res.) Dan Kamkagi, 31, from Kfar Oranim and Master Sgt. (res.) Nahman Natan Hertz, 31, of Elazar.
Druze Israelis remain on Lebanon border: ‘We’ll die defending our land if we have to’
There was a constant flow of traffic on Route 89, the central road running through the Druze village of Hurfeish in northern Israel, and all the tables inside Sambousak HaErez, one of the most popular local eateries, were full of diners on a sunny weekday lunch hour last week.

Hurfeish’s northernmost point is less than a mile from Israel’s border with Lebanon, where the Iranian-backed Islamist Shiite group Hezbollah has been firing mortars, rockets and killer drones into Israel almost daily since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack, yet in this village, unlike other communities nearby, there were few signs of the shadow of this war. It was a day like any other.

Children disembarked from a school bus outside Sambousak HaErez, lugging backpacks as they headed home. A muscle-bound father in a shirt with the name of his IDF unit sat with his two young children at one table, four men in their 20s and 30s smoked at another table outside; and two middle-aged men held a meeting with a laptop between them. Iyad (who did not want to give his last name) pushed pitas into a traditional Druze taboon oven and then scooped labneh yogurt spread, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with za’atar spice mix, into bowls.

The lively scene in Hurfeish sharply contrasted with every other kibbutz and moshav in the area, all of which were evacuated in the chaotic days following Oct. 7 and remain empty seven months later. Members of Israel’s Druze community decided to remain in their homes.

The Druze — a monotheistic religion that incorporates elements of all Abrahamic religions and several other philosophies — live in villages dotting northern Israel, from the Mediterranean coast across the Galilee Valley and up to the Golan Heights, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics. They have had a presence in the region for a thousand years, and related communities are also found in Lebanon, Syria and parts of Jordan.

According to their religious dictates, Druze swear allegiance to the country in which they reside. While they make up just 1.5% of Israel’s total population, an overwhelming 83% of Druze men enlist in the army. Druze account for roughly 5% of the IDF’s soldiers, as well as 20% of its prison guards and 6.5% of its police officers.

In Hurfeish, about 10% of the residents have been on IDF reserve duty since the war started, in addition to the large numbers of career officers who serve permanently in the IDF, the Israeli Police, the Internal Intelligence Agency and other security branches.

“Our religion says we have to defend our land,” Osama, 31, one of the men smoking outside, said. “Parents with children in the army can’t sleep, can’t eat. My parents and grandparents watch the news all day; there’s bad energy in the home.”

“We see [missiles] over our heads, but none have fallen in the village,” he added, showing a photo on his phone of his cousin’s factory abutting Hurfeish, destroyed by an anti-tank missile launched from Lebanon.


Protesters call for Jewish settlement of Gaza during Sderot march
Protesters gathered in Sderot on Tuesday for the “Gaza March,” a march supporting widespread Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.

Among many organizations affiliated with the event were the settlement movement Nachala, Torat Lechima – an organization that works to increase the Jewish nature of the IDF, and the Homesh yeshiva.

Thousands participated, according to organizers, who said that the march would be followed by a rally for “coming home,” and family members of hostages were set to speak at the rally.

MKs join in on the settlement calls
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir addressed the people at the rally, telling them that their attendance was the “real solution” to the ongoing war.

“We can sit in the cabinet and press for action in Rafah, not compromise on ending the war, demand countermeasures, but in order to actually end the problem once and for all, we need two things: one – return Israelis to Gaza now! Return home! Return to our holy land! And two – encourage emigration. We need to encourage the voluntary departure of the current residents of Gaza.

“This is the Torah and this is the only way! And yes, it is also humanitarian,” he continued.

He also spoke of being ashamed to be the only cabinet member to vote against the transfer of humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza through Kerem Shalom.

MK Tzvi Sukkot of the Religious Zionist Party, told the attendees that “whoever expelled the Jews of Gush Katif is directly responsible, with his own hands, for the terrible massacre of October 7.”


UN sexual violence envoy pulls out of Security Council briefing on Hamas hostages
The UN’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict Pramila Patten pulled out of a Security Council session where she was supposed to brief members about the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, a UN diplomat told The Times of Israel on Tuesday.

Invitations to the Thursday event organized by the United States Mission the United Nations were sent to Security Council members last week and obtained by The Times of Israel. The session is titled “Condemning hostage taking in Israel on October 7 as a psychological tool of terrorism.”

Patten — the UN special representative whose purview most closely overlaps with the topic — was named as the first of three briefers along with a civil society representative and a released Israeli hostage or relative of a hostage.

But in the updated invitations — or “concept notes” — sent out to members on Monday and also obtained by The Times of Israel, Patten was no longer listed among the briefers.

A UN diplomat said on condition of anonymity that Patten’s withdrawal was not due to scheduling issues.

The diplomat hinted that the decision was politically motivated, as her office has faced pressure not to be seen as prioritizing the plight of the Israeli hostages over that of the Palestinians caught in the middle of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

Patten’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Shani Louk’s father says infamous photo of Hamas parading her body shows ‘darkness’ Israel faces as he visits NYC
The father of murdered Israeli concert-goer Shani Louk appeared Monday night at a pro-Israel rally in Times Square, where he said the enduring image of her lifeless body being paraded around by Hamas terrorists illustrates the “darkness” the Jewish state is fighting against.

Nissim Louk told The Post that before-and-after photos of his 23-year-old German Israeli daughter on Oct. 7 — which appeared in countless newspapers the next day — emphasize what’s at stake in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

One photo shows the young tattoo artist joyfully dancing at a music festival in Israel and the other shows her half-naked body in the back of a pickup truck after Hamas militants stormed the event.

“This picture is very important because this picture shows from one side, Shani — beautiful, amazing, bright light to the world, and from the other side you see these militants in the pickup with machine guns that bring trouble and pain to the world and nobody can mix these two pictures,” he said in an exclusive interview.

“And whenever you don’t know who you are, you don’t know: ‘Am I the bad guy? Am I the good guy?’ You don’t know. Look at these pictures — and it immediately straightens everything out.

“You see that Shani is the light and that Shani is part of the Jewish people. We are the light. The other part is darkness. They bring pain to the world and suffering and that’s what happened to her,” he continued. “She died that day.”

Nissim previously defended an Associated Press photographer who snapped pictures of the grim scene of his daughter’s mangled body in the back of the pickup. He called it one of the most important photos of the last 50 years.

The heartbroken dad, who flew into New York last Thursday, remembered Shani as a “beautiful girl” and “free spirit” on Monday.

“Wherever she went, she brought light and happiness,” he added.
Nova Survivor Bravely Revisits the Shelter of Horrors Where She Escaped Death on October 7
Rafaela Treisman, a survivor of the Nova Music Festival massacre, brings @-yosephhaddad9088 back to the shelter where she hid on October 7th. There, she recounts the harrowing horrors she endured.




Jonny Gould's Jewish State: 148: #TheGazaYouDontSee: @imshin reveals the REAL Gaza: how Gazans see themselves through their own videos
The mainstream news channels are stuck in a tiresome stream of programmes which you know misrepresent Gaza and Israel.

That ignore key facts and amplify voices from just one side (with honourable exceptions, of course).

The world’s media would have you believe Gazans are helpless, living in an overcrowded prison camp, unable to escape their predicament, sitting ducks to Israeli aggression.

It couldn't be further from the truth.

Hamas leadership need the bleeding hearts of Europe aided by mass media to continue underwriting UNRWA and other NGOs which only extend the war another day, year or even longer.

But when you strip away the Hamas videos, ordinary Gazans don’t view themselves as victims at all.

They’re resilient, creative, great cooks, they eat good quality meat, fruits and vegetables. Wouldn’t you if you lived off the Mediterranean coast?

How do we know? They upload hundreds of videos about themselves, their lifestyles and their views, freely available for all to see.

And here’s Imshin who chronicles it all, a voice you certainly won’t hear on mainstream news. She doesn’t suit the story. It’s a great shame because her sources are impeccable and transparent.

Our guest today describes herself as an amateur Gaza watcher, her highly valuable resource is documented on Twitter or X under the handle, Imshin.

Imshin, real name Jacqui Peleg paints a vivid picture of Gazan society through the eyes of the people themselves.

There’s revelatory detail in every answer from Jacqui, including the accidental superstar Mr Fafo who went from little known YouTuber to worldwide attention.

You’ll hear how Joe Biden’s lack of support over Israel’s Rafah mission only helps to bolster Hamas inside Gaza.

This is a gripping interview from start to finish, full of insightful observations and detailed revelations.

This is “The Gaza You Don’t See”. This is Imshin, Jacqui Peleg.


'A Propaganda Tool For Israel!' Piers Morgan's Eurovision Debate
While it’s supposed to be a unifying celebration of music, the Eurovision Song Contest practically never manages to stay apolitical; and this year was no exception. An unprecedented level of disruption and protest was directed at the Israeli entry Eden Golan over the weekend, as global anger at Israel’s actions in Gaza continues to grow.

To discuss this year’s contest, Piers Morgan brings comedian James Barr, Israeli writer and activist Hen Mazzig, Novara Media host Michael Walker and Drag Queen Crystal onto the show. The debate gets heated when Crystal calls Eden Golan ‘a propaganda tool for the Israeli government’ and Hen claims no British person can call for the exclusion of Israel without becoming a hypocrite.

00:00 - Introduction
03:52 - Why should Israel not be allowed to compete?
04:49 - Would you ban Ukraine?
05:30 - The hypocrisy of Israel being banned
06:06 - "No one called for the UK to be banned over the Iraq war"
07:08 - Israel are fighting a 'genocidal war'
07:40 - "There's a stronger case for kicking out Israel than Russia"
10:10 - "What did you tweet about the October 7 terror attack?"
12:39 - Drag queen Crystal who boycotted Eurovision over Israel's inclusion
14:57 - Queers for Palestine movement
17:23 - "Eurovision is a load of crap"
18:08 - What did you tweet when Russia was kicked out of Eurovision?
19:37 - "The West Bank is under Israeli occupation"
20:33 - "The UK broke international law with the invasion of Iraq"
21:28 - "Once you fly this moral halo over this event, there is rank hypocrisy"
23:03 - Should America's World Cup be boycotted?
27:09 - Bambie Thug's 'satanic' performance
27:39 - Finland’s Windows95man with no trousers on
28:18 - Graham Norton misgendering Switzerland's Nemo
29:40 - Piers blasts UK's entry Olly Alexander's performance




Gary Lineker’s useful idiocy
Remember when Gary Lineker likened the UK government to the Nazis? Last March, the doe-eyed national treasure described the Tories’ attempts at stopping the small boats as ‘an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the [1930s]’.

Fast-forward seven months to 7 October. As the world stood appalled by scenes of butchery, mutilation, infanticide and sexual torture in southern Israel that would have made the Nazis applaud, how did Lineker respond? ‘Super Spurs are top of the league’, he tweeted.

I mention this episode only because last week, in an inexplicable interview with internet provocateur Mehdi Hasan about the Gaza war, Lineker again skipped over the Hamas atrocities, this time with an almost comical lightness of foot, before getting his teeth into Israel. ‘Obviously we all know, you know, 7 October happened’, he said magnanimously, ‘and you know, the Hamas thing. But the minute you, you know, raise your voice against what [the Israelis] are now doing there, you know, you get accused of being a supporter of Hamas.’

This startling display of hypocrisy brought to mind that line from Game of Thrones, where Jon Snow says: ‘Everything before the word “but” is horseshit.’ Because the fact is that, however unwittingly, Lineker spent the rest of the interview articulating, embellishing and amplifying Hamas propaganda.

Following Aristotle’s threefold precept of rhetoric (ethos, logos and pathos), Lineker begins the interview by staking a claim to moral authority. ‘You know, I’ve got no skin in this game’, he says. ‘I’m not Muslim, you know, not Jewish. I’m not Israeli. I’m not Palestinian. So I see, I think, purely from the outside, from a neutral perspective.’

Having set himself up as a sports commentator worth taking seriously when it comes to just-war theory and Middle Eastern geopolitics, Lineker warms to his theme. But whereas Aristotle recommends that the speaker moves on to logos (or appealing to the audience’s reason by building up logical arguments), Lineker ducks this challenge. He jumps instead straight to the pathos, or the practice of appealing to the audience’s emotions. ‘I can’t think of anything that I’ve seen worse in my lifetime’, he says of the Gaza war, shaking his head. ‘The constant images of children losing their lives, day in, day out.’

He then blends this with a bit more ego-fuelled ethos:

‘There is, you know, a lot of heavy lobbying on people to be quiet. So I understand why most people refrain. But I’m getting on a bit now. I’m fairly secure. And, you know, I can’t be silent about what’s happening. It’s so, so utterly awful.’

The BBC sports commentator, with an expression of exaggerated incredulity, then says: ‘And now they’re talking about going into Rafah!’ He can’t believe it. Why would the Israelis possibly consider such a thing?

This is, from beginning to end, music to the ears of Hamas. In carrying out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and then turning the world against its victims, the terror group has performed a remarkable feat. How did it achieve this? By saturating social media and legacy media alike with footage of suffering children, combined with condemnation of the sole democracy in the Middle East.


Official Hamas propaganda distributed at Mandela Foundation and fringe Jewish organization event
A pamphlet issued by Hamas was handed out at the entrance to an event in Johannesburg criticizing Zionist Christianity, co-hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and an anti-Israel group named “South African Jews for a Free Palestine” (SAJPF), a source told The Jerusalem Post.

The pamphlet named “Our Narrative: Operation Flood of Al-Aqsa” was issued by the Hamas media office in January of this year, in which the terror group denied the well-documented atrocities against civilians, including deadly incursions into civilian communities, mass shooting at a music festival, sexual violence and kidnapping of hundreds of toddlers, children, elderly, women and men aged nine months to 80. In the pamphlet, Hamas also attempts to justify the massacre, using claims such as the “Judaization of Jerusalem,” accusing Jews of colonization and claiming that all Israelis over the age of 18 are deemed fit for conscription.

In South Africa, the Hamas pamphlet distributed at the Mandela Foundation and SAJPF event was printed by an organization named “The Media Review Network” (MRN), which openly stated that it had distributed the propaganda material “in solidarity with Hamas.” MRN’s founder and executive member, Firoz Osman, reported that he met with leader of the radical terror organization Ismail Haniyeh in late April, where the former commended the “Palestinian resistance” and expressed his support for the struggle against the “West” and the demise of “the Zionist project.”

The event itself was titled “Understanding Christian Zionism - Bridging Faith and Justice” and featured guest speakers from different Christian denominations, including Frank Chikane and David Wildman, as well as Palestinian reverend Munther Isaac, who was quoted as saying that, while he can condemn the act of kidnapping children, he cannot condemn Hamas as an organization or regard them as a terrorist group.

‘Israel threat to entire globe’
A second event featuring Hamas representatives was also held over the weekend in South Africa. Titled “The Global Conference Anti-Apartheid Conference on Palestine,” the event featured the participation of leaders of the radical terrorist organization, including a member of the Hamas political bureau, Basem Naim, who knowingly abandoned his constituency in Gaza before the October 7 massacre, as well as a member of the Hamas international relations bureau Imad Saber.

The event was held with formal South African representation, namely Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor, in addition to other politicians and activists, such as Sheikh Ebrahim Gabriels, an official at the Hamas front named Al-Quds Foundation, and Mandla Mandela, grandson of South African leader Nelson Mandela.


Paris Holocaust memorial defaced with red hands in ‘disgraceful act of hate’
A memorial to commemorate those who rescued Jews in France during the Holocaust was defaced with red hands in an act of vandalism described as “unspeakable” by the Paris mayor.

The Wall of the Righteous was vandalized overnight between Monday and Tuesday, along with around 10 other locations in the Marais, Paris's historically Jewish neighbourhood.

The wall bears the names of over 3,900 people who risked their lives to help save Jews in France during the country’s Nazi occupation in World War Two.

May 14 is the anniversary of the first major round-up of French Jews under the Nazis in 1941.

The UK’s Holocaust Educational Trust said they were “shocked and saddened to see the antisemitic vandalism of the Shoah memorial in Paris with blood red hands on the Wall of the Righteous.

“This is a disgraceful act of hate, ignorance and disrespect. It is an abuse of the memory of the 6 million Jewish victims and also the righteous, who risked everything to save Jewish lives.”

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo reported the graffiti to prosecutors as a possible antisemitism.

Hidalgo said, “No cause can justify such degradations that dirty the memory of the victims of the Shoah and of the Righteous who saved Jews at risk to their lives.”

Ariel Weil, the mayor of Paris’ central districts, posted photos of the damage on social media and said, “On the very day of the anniversary of this event which prefigures the Vel'd'Hiv roundup where many children were arrested before being exterminated, the walls of the Marais in front of nurseries and schools were defiled”.

Other spots daubed with the red hands overnight included schools and nurseries around the Marais.




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