Monday, May 20, 2024

05/20 Links Pt1: Biden doomed the Palestinians to another generation of war; ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant; Palestinians Threaten to Attack US Troops

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: Biden doomed the Palestinians to another generation of war
Biden and the foreign-policy establishment have had ample opportunities in the last 30 years to try and fail to create a Palestinian state, as well as to see what happens when one allows Islamists to survive rather than to seek their complete defeat. That is not true of Chamberlain, who had not tried and failed at appeasing a totalitarian and antisemitic power before he futilely attempted to bring “peace in our time” to Europe by handing Czechoslovakia over to Hitler.

But Biden and the so-called foreign policy “wise men” drew all the wrong conclusions from their experiences.

They failed to understand that Israel’s goal in Gaza was not an Iraq-style counter-insurgency in which, as Fareed Zakaria wrote recently in The Washington Post, the IDF should have sought to “win the hearts and minds” of Gazans who had cheered the crimes of Oct. 7. Nor were they right when, as The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof claimed, that Israel couldn’t and shouldn’t defeat Hamas or finish them off in Rafah. Both lacked the self-awareness to realize that their advice had been a self-fulfilling prophecy that might ensure Hamas’s survival even when that didn’t have to be so.

If Biden and these foreign-policy pundits had a scrap of honesty, they would have admitted that their willingness to ignore the truth about the Palestinians’ refusal to give up their eliminationist goals was proven over and over in the 1990s by the failure of the Oslo Accords to bring peace. If they had drawn appropriate conclusions from the last three decades of peace processing in which the obstacle has always been Palestinian rejectionism—a lesson that the Trump administration had absorbed and that guided their successful efforts to craft the Abraham 2020 Accords—they might have charted a different course post-Oct. 7. At the very least, it wouldn’t have brought worse results than hamstringing Israel with Hamas now clearly at the apex of Palestinian politics and with the Palestinians believing that the destruction of Gaza notwithstanding, the terrorists have gotten international opinion behind them.

Instead, Biden and the leftist voters whose support he seeks have vindicated Hamas’s belief that no matter what Israel did in response, the terror group—and its cause of destroying Israel and killing its Jewish population—would benefit from the attacks. Indeed, as far as they were concerned, the more Palestinians who were killed in the war the terrorists started, the better. They were counting on international pressure and sympathy for their cause would outweigh any horror felt about the orgy of murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction their “soldiers” and other Palestinians who followed in their wake had committed. And that is exactly what has happened.
International Criminal Court seeks arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor on Monday will seek arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as for Hamas leaders.

The charges against Netanyahu and Gallant will include “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies [and] deliberately targeting civilians in conflict,” Karim Khan told CNN‘s Christiane Amanpour.

Charges against Hamas terrorist leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, chief Ismail Haniyeh and Al-Qassam Brigades armed wing head Mohammed Deif will include “extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention,” he said.

In a statement published following the CNN interview, Khan’s office said he had “reasonable grounds to believe” that Netanyahu and Gallant bear criminal responsibility for “war crimes and crimes against humanity” committed since Oct. 8, 2023, the day after Hamas terrorists massacred 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the northwestern Negev.

However, “the independent judges of the International Criminal Court are the sole arbiters as to whether the necessary standard for the issuance of warrants of arrest has been met,” the statement noted.

A panel of three justices from the ICC’s Pre-Trial Division will now consider Khan’s application for the arrest warrants.

If the court in The Hague greenlights the warrants, it would constitute an “unprecedented antisemitic hate crime,” Netanyahu warned last month after reports surfaced of Khan’s intentions.

“The possibility that they will issue arrest warrants for war crimes against IDF commanders and government leaders is a scandal of historical magnitude,” stated the premier.

“Eighty years after the Holocaust, the international bodies established with the goal of preventing another Holocaust are considering denying the Jewish state its right to defend itself,” he continued.

Netanyahu noted that this marks the first time that a democratic country committed to international law is defending itself from accusations of war crimes while at the same time facing existential threats.
Ebrahim Raisi’s Iran was one of brutal repression
Given his reputation for lethal repression, Raisi’s election as president in 2021, succeeding the more moderate Hassan Rouhani, might seem surprising. But then this was an election in which the Iranian people played only a walk-on role. Iran’s theocrats, through the Guardian Council, effectively decided who was able to stand for president, weeding out any candidates who didn’t subscribe to their hardline Islamist position. As one of his nominal rivals put it, the regime had aligned ‘sun, moon and the heavens to make one particular person the president’. Little wonder the majority of Iranians didn’t bother to vote at all, with turnout reaching a record low of just 49 per cent. Raisi wasn’t so much elected as appointed president by the powers-that-be.

In power, Raisi was everything his line managers could have wished. As Iran strengthened its alliances with Moscow and Beijing, Raisi combined anti-American posturing with anti-Semitic, anti-Israel bile. In 2022, he suggested that more research needs to be undertaken to prove that the Holocaust really happened, called Israel a ‘false regime’ and declared that ‘the only solution is a Palestinian state from the river to the sea’. Needless to say, within 24 hours of Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October last year, Raisi praised the terrorists for mounting ‘a legitimate defence of the Palestinian nation’. Which is one way to describe the slaughter and rape of hundreds of civilians.

Above all, President Raisi indulged in large-scale repression, eagerly subjecting Iranians to the ever harsher dictates of an Islamist regime. In the summer of 2022, he ordered the authorities to enforce the ‘chastity and hijab’ law. He described the growing numbers of Iranian women who weren’t wearing a veil in public as the ‘corruption’ of ‘Islamic society’. A few months later, Raisi’s crackdown on hijab-less women led to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. She was arrested and detained by the morality police for not wearing the veil. Three days later, she died in a hospital in Tehran.

News of Amini’s death prompted outrage across Iran. For weeks and months, young women and men from across the country gathered in the streets to burn hijabs and express their hatred of the ayatollahs. Raisi’s response was entirely in keeping with his record in every public office he had held. He cracked down hard. Hundreds were murdered by security forces. Many more were arrested, tortured and some were executed. All because they wanted more freedom. To think, speak and dress as they – and not the ayatollahs – saw fit.

Raisi was a vicious Islamist apparatchik, one all too willing to repress and murder his own people. Yet what was striking about his presidency is how little outrage it generated among Western progressive circles. They listened to his anti-Semitic spiels. They saw what he was willing to do to his own people, the lengths he was willing to go to force them to adhere to his regime’s intolerant demands. They saw those brave Iranian women and men try to stand up to the de facto Islamist dictatorship after Amini’s death in 2022. Yet aside from a few token gestures, no real solidarity was forthcoming. It’s almost as if brutal repression doesn’t count for as much, if it’s being conducted by one of the West’s implacable enemies.

As we absorb the news of the death of Ebrahim Raisi, we should remember his many victims – and the brave Iranian rebels who continue to risk it all in pursuit of a freer future.
Seth Frantzman: Raisi set the Middle East aflame but his death will not put out the fire
Iran’s foreign policy manoeuvres during the Raisi era enabled it to knit together closer ties with Russia and China, as well as to get China to broker reconciliation with Saudi Arabia. Raisi also attempted outreach to Egypt this past year.

All this was key to Raisi’s goal of isolating Israel. He wanted to empower Iranian proxies such as the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as proxies in Iraq and Syria. These groups could be mobilised at a moment’s notice to attack Israel, the US or other countries. Raisi understood that many Arab states were tired of wars and extremism, having faced off against ISIS and been divided during the Arab Spring and its aftermath. Iran preyed on this preference for calm by Arab states.

Raisi and his regime moved systematically to increase Iranian ties with Arab states, while also encouraging the region to become closer to Russia and China. Meanwhile behind the scenes, groups like Hamas were plotting the October 7 attack.

The architecture he put in place will remain now he has gone. Close ties between China, Iran and Russia will continue. Drone exports and Iranian drone and missile threats will increase. Iran’s backing of Hamas has already led to a massive war and Iran’s goal is to keep that war going and keep its proxies attacking Israel. The longer the war drags on, the more Israel will be stuck fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, while Iran can increase its influence in the Gulf, Egypt and other places.

With Raisi and Amir-Abdollahian gone, Iran will fall back on the IRGC which controls much of the country behind the scenes. It is the IRGC that moves drones and weapons to groups like Hezbollah. The fires lit by Raisi that are consuming the region will continue to burn even though he has left the stage.


How the dark ICC war crimes day came, and what it means
Likewise, Khan seems to have waited until the middle of the Rafah operation, which pretty much the whole world opposed, and which will likely be the last major battle of the war, to come after any Israelis.

When he did, as stated above, he went only after two, and Khan, who is far more politically savvy than his predecessor Fatou Bensouda, knows that Netanyahu is profoundly unpopular right now across the world, and even behind in the polls within Israel should an election be held.

It seems he went after Gallant because he is the defense minister and not going to be probed, and possibly for certain public statements against Gaza, which Gallant made right after October 7 in the heat of the moment, but which could help the ICC in any case against him.

In addition, Gallant is part of Netanyahu's party, even if the two are internally at loggerheads, so Khan may think he is helping Gantz and other center or left parties.

The truth is that within Israel, the ICC arrest warrants will probably give Netanyahu a temporary boost, but this may be beyond Khan's analysis or beyond the level he cares to look into Israeli domestic issues.

Whether Israel adopts the Schondorf option - which helped it beat off the Goldstone Report war crimes allegations in 2008-9 - it is critical that the IDF rapidly start announcing the results of some of its war crimes probes.

This will not only give Khan pause about going after the IDF and force him to analyze specific cases as opposed to dealing with general stereotypes, but it will also show the civilized world that there is a real evidentiary-based other side to the story.

In the past, Khan recognized that the IDF has had to fight Hamas as it uses human shields and hospitals, schools, and mosques for its defense.

Top US government officials have also made this point.

Yet, this point was absent from Khan's detailed announcement on Monday.

Khan, the US, and EU critics have also recognized that Israel has done a lot toward facilitating humanitarian aid. America has also noted that Hamas has interfered with humanitarian aid.

These are points Israel could make louder if it probes itself in detail and publishes the results—points Khan left out on Monday but would then need to confront.

At the end of the day, on humanitarian aid, Israel did make a strategic error in cutting off water and some other items for several days at the start of the war, but it fixed this issue in a short period of time, and if no deaths can be proved from that short period given supplies in Gaza on hand, the humanitarian war crimes accusations may fall apart.
Knesset signs historic bipartisan statement against ICC charges
An immense majority of 106 out of 120 members of Knesset from the coalition and opposition signed a statement on Monday condemning the announcement by ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan that he intends to request arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of crimes against humanity for Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war.

The statement read:
"The state of Israel is in the midst of a just war against a criminal terror organization. The IDF is the most moral army in the world. Our heroic soldiers are fighting with courage and dedication that has no second, according to international law, like no other army has ever done.

"The scandalous comparison by the Hague prosecutor between Israel's leaders and the heads of terror organizations is an unerasable historic crime and a clear expression of antisemitism. We reject this with revulsion. 80 years after the Holocaust, no one will block the Jewish state from defending itself." Historic majority

The petition was signed by all the members of Knesset save for those from the Hadash-Ta'al, Ra'am, and Labor parties.

The petition was first circulated in a closed-door meeting of the Likud party on Monday afternoon. However, the coalition eventually decided to send it to all of the Knesset members.

Labor MK Naama Lazimi explained her party's choice not to sign the statement. She called it "meaningless" and a "pawn in Bibi's game to receive legitimization and fortify his corrupt and bad government. Lazimi added that while she also thought the ICC decision was "disgraceful", it was also part of Netanyahu's "total failure" in running the war.
Netanyahu: ICC arrest warrant request will not stop war on Hamas
The “scandalous” decision by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor to request arrest warrants for Israeli leaders will not prevent Jerusalem from destroying the Hamas terror organization, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Monday afternoon.

“It’s a scandal—it won’t stop me or us,” Netanyahu told reporters on the sidelines of a faction meeting of his Likud Party in Jerusalem.

At the beginning of the meeting, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana had the attending Likud lawmakers and ministers sign a formal declaration denouncing ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s move.

According to Army Radio political reporter Shahar Glick, the text, which will soon be presented to all 120 members of the Knesset, states that “the scandalous comparison of the prosecutor in The Hague between Israeli leaders and the heads of the Hamas terrorist organization is an indelible historical crime and a clear expression of antisemitism.

“The IDF is the most moral army in the world. Our heroic soldiers fight with unparalleled courage and morality, in keeping with international law,” the statement continues, adding, “Eighty years after the Holocaust, no one will tie the hands of the Jewish state as it defends itself.”


Caroline Glick: INNER STRIFE: Is the Israeli Defense Minister Rebelling Against Netanyahu



UN reduces its Gaza casualty figures: data analyst reveals the truth behind the numbers
Jonathan Sacerdoti and Mark Zlochin discuss the drastically lower number of women and children the UN says have been killed in Gaza, and the implications of the admission of error on the CJ hearing and overall analysis of the war.




Arrest Warrants Sought for Netanyahu and Hamas Leader
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is seeking arrest warrants for both the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar for their actions in the war raging in Gaza.

Karim Khan, the ICC's chief prosecutor, shared the news with CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour on Monday

Anne Herzberg, legal advisor of the pro-Israeli NGO Monitor, condemned the decision to pursue Israeli officials as "abhorrent."

"While it is unlikely any Israeli would ever appear before this kangaroo court, this case represents yet again the exploitation of international institutions in service of malevolent agendas," Herzberg said in a statement to Newsweek.

Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the nonprofit Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), told Newsweek in a statement, "The arrest warrants for Israeli and Palestinian officials is a milestone in accountability in the face of decades of impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine."

Khan said that the court was also seeking warrants for Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as two other top Hamas leaders—Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the leader of the Al-Qassam Brigades, better known as Mohammed Deif, as well as Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas' political leader.

The charges against Netanyahu and Gallant were laid out as "causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict."

An ICC panel will now consider Khan's application for the arrest warrants in a decision likely to take two months to consider, the Associated Press reported.


Hamas slams ICC for seeking arrest of its leaders alongside
The Hamas terror group on Monday denounced a decision by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to seek the arrests of its leaders and complained that the prosecutor announced the development in the same breath as a similar move against Israel’s prime minister and defense minister.

In a statement Monday, Hamas said it “strongly denounces the attempts of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to equate the victim with the executioner by issuing arrest warrants against a number of Palestinian resistance leaders.”

The warrants relate to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which began when the Palestinian terror group led a devastating attack on Israel on October 7.

“Hamas… demands the cancellation of all arrest warrants issued against leaders of the Palestinian resistance, for violating UN conventions and resolutions,” the statement said.

Hamas added that it has the right to resist Israeli occupation, including “armed resistance,” and criticized the court for seeking the arrests of only two Israeli leaders.

International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan earlier said he had requested arrest warrants from the court’s judges for Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s ruler in Gaza; the terror group’s military chief, Mohammed Deif; and the leader of the organization, Ismail Haniyeh. He said they would be charged with extermination, murder, hostage-taking, rape, and sexual assault.


Herzog: ICC decision ‘beyond outrageous’
The decision by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to seek arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant “is beyond outrageous and shows the extent to which the international judicial system is in danger of collapsing, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Monday.

“Taken in bad faith, this one-sided move represents a unilateral political step that emboldens terrorists around the world, and violates all the basic rules of the court according to the principle of complementarity and other legal norms,” he said.

Herzog described Hamas as “oppressive dictators guilty of launching mass murder, mass rape and mass kidnappings of men, women, children and babies,” and stressed that “any attempt to draw parallels between these atrocious terrorists and a democratically-elected government of Israel working to fulfill its duty to defend and protect its citizens entirely in adherence to the principles of international law is outrageous and cannot be excepted by anyone.

“We will not forget who started this war, and who raped, butchered, burned, brutalized and kidnapped innocent citizens and families,” continued the president.

“We will not forget our hostages whose safe return should be the main concern of the international community. We expect all leaders in the free world to condemn outright this step and firmly reject it,” he said.


Amal Clooney told ICC ‘reasonable grounds’ that Netanyahu, Galant guilty of war crimes
On the same day that the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague said that he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli leaders alongside Hamas terrorists, Amal Clooney, a lawyer and the wife of actor George Clooney, announced that her research influenced that decision.

“More than four months ago, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court asked me to assist him with evaluating evidence of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and Gaza,” she wrote on the website of the Clooney Foundation for Justice.

She and the panel concluded unanimously that the ICC has jurisdiction over Israel and Gaza, and that “there are reasonable grounds” to accuse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of war crimes and crimes against humanity, “including starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution and extermination.”


Time to impose sanctions on ICC, says former US national security adviser John Bolton
Former US national security adviser John Bolton has called for the US to impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court after its prosecutor said he had applied for an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as a trio of senior Hamas leaders.

Bolton wrote on Twitter: “The ICC has proven its fundamental illegitimacy by seeking arrest warrants against Israeli officials in the middle of a war.

"To aid our ally Israel, the US should take steps both in Congress and in the White House to condemn the ICC and impose sanctions, as I have previously suggested.”

He added: “Since 1998, I have condemned the ICC and suggested America impose sanctions against this illegitimate and unaccountable court. The ICC's planned arrest warrants against Israeli officials clearly show the threat it poses to America and our allies.”

British lawyer Karim Khan KC said he was seeking a warrant for the Israeli leaders over accusations that they had engaged in the crime of extermination, causing starvation as a method of war – including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies – and deliberately targeting civilians in conflict.


Biden Admin Sends Iran Condolences After Mass Murderer President Killed in Helicopter Crash
The Biden administration on Monday sent "official condolences" to the Iranian regime following a weekend helicopter crash that claimed the lives of its hardline president and foreign minister.

"The United States expresses its official condolences for the death of Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, foreign minister [Hossein] Amir-Abdollahian, and other members of their delegation in a helicopter crash in northwest Iran," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. "As Iran selects a new president, we reaffirm our support for the Iranian people and their struggle for human rights and fundamental freedoms."

Raisi, a longtime hardliner who was close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was known for leading chants of "death to America" during public events in Iran. In February, during a rally in which onlookers burned American and Israeli flags, he slammed the U.S. for supporting "the Zionist regime's crimes against humanity in Gaza."

"I say to the enemies; you want to hear the word of the people? These are the great people of Iran," Raisi was quoted as saying, as the crowd chanted "death to America" and "death to Israel."

Raisi—who is known as "the Butcher of Tehran"—was one of the main architects of a 1988 massacre in Iran that killed around 5,000 regime opponents. Raisi at the time served on the hardline government’s "death committee" that issued death sentences to scores of political opponents.

Raisi was sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2019 for his role in committing mass human rights abuses "over three decades."

A State Department spokesman, speaking only on background, said U.S. policy toward Iran remains unchanged in light of Raisi and Amir-Abdollahian’s deaths. Khamenei remains Iran’s leading political figure and is certain to continue directing the Islamic Republic’s domestic and foreign policy as Raisi and Amir-Abdollahian are replaced.


Call Me Back PodCast: And then there was Gantz – with Haviv Rettig Gur
Hosted by Dan Senor
Haviv Rettig Gur returns for a regular check-in, in which we analyze the emerging political scenarios that might emerge from the moves being made by Yoav Gallant, Benny Gantz and Naftali Bennett.

We also discuss the implications of the crash of the helicopter transporting Iran’s president — what does it mean for Israel and other stakeholders OUTSIDE Iran and what does it mean INSIDE Iran?
The Commentary Magazine Podcast: The Iran Helicopter Crash
Hosted by Abe Greenwald, Christine Rosen, John Podhoretz & Matthew Continetti
Has history been altered by the helicopter crash that has apparently killed the president and foreign minister of Iran? Will Israel be blamed? Did Israel do it? Won’t Israel be blamed even if it didn’t do it? And what blame attaches to American policy for Israel’s increasingly parlous political and military confusion? Give a listen.


Ukraine Plane Victims' Families Condemn Raisi Following His Death
After the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the Association of Families of the Ukrainian Plane Victims released a statement accusing him of complicity in the downing of the airliner.

The flight was shot down by two air-defense missiles fired by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on January 8, 2020, shortly after taking off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport, killing all 176 aboard.

The group accused him of not only being complicit in maintaining open Iranian airspace during the shooting down of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 but also in actively obstructing the victims' families' quest for truth.

In July, Britain, Canada, Sweden, and Ukraine lodged formal complaints against Iran at the International Court of Justice, accusing the Islamic Republic of intentionally shooting down the plane. Additionally, in January, these nations submitted a complaint to the UN Aviation Council, seeking to hold Iran responsible for the aircraft's downing.

The association's statement highlighted Raisi's involvement as a member of the Supreme National Security Council on the night of the downing.

“We demanded a fair trial and punishment for him to confess to his crimes and taste the punishment. This opportunity was taken from us, but it must be said that we are not sorry for his death. We neither forget nor forgive the killers of Iran's children," the association's statement said.
‘Very bloodthirsty’: Iran’s President was responsible for deaths of ‘a lot of dissidents’
The Australian Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan has blasted Iran’s President for being a “very bloodthirsty” figure responsible for the deaths of “a lot of dissidents”.

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has died in a helicopter crash, along with the country’s Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

“Raisi was a very central figure in the Iranian regime,” Mr Sheridan told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.

“He’s extremely ideological; a very bloodthirsty judge.

“He was responsible for the deaths of a lot of dissidents, and he was a fully paid-up leading member of the very totalitarian and oppressive Islamist ideology, which runs Iran.”


Iranian politics to ‘destabilise and shake up’ following helicopter crash
Macquarie University Research Fellow Kylie Moore-Gilbert says Iran’s President going missing in a helicopter crash is going to “destabilise and shake up Iranian politics”.

Ms Moore-Gilbert says this is “irrespective” of the fact that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, remains in power.

Her comments come after a helicopter carrying Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has been involved in an accident in the north of the country.




Bassam Tawil: Palestinians Threaten to Attack US Troops
[The Palestinians] seem confident that if the Biden administration is rewarding them for malign behavior, it is clearly working, so why not keep it up?

The Palestinians are hoping to scare the Americans and prevent them from cooperating with Israel on the future of the Gaza Strip after the war.

The Biden administration did not, it seems, even demand that, in return for the humanitarian aid, the hostages be released or that the terrorists stop launching rockets into Israel.

Apparently, the Biden administration did not even request assurances that the aid would not be seized and diverted by the terrorists.

Hamas has earned at least $500 million from the aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war in October 2023, according Ehud Yaari, an Israeli expert on Arab and Palestinian affairs.

[The Palestinians] consider the presence of US troops in the region as another form of "occupation" and an unwelcome intervention in the internal affairs of the Arabs in the Middle East.

As long as supplies are getting into the Gaza Strip, Hamas will not stop fighting or free the hostages.

Because of the Gaza pier, the Biden administration has made it immensely harder to free the hostages and end the war.
IDF succeeds in evacuating almost 1 million from Rafah in 2 weeks
The IDF has succeeded in evacuating around 950,000 Palestinian civilians in only two weeks since May 6, the military revealed on Monday.

In addition, around 30-40% of Rafah is now under IDF control, not merely a small portion of the eastern sector, and about 60-70% of Rafah has been completely evacuated.

The remaining Rafah civilians, estimated at around 300,000-400,000, are almost all near the Gaza coast Tel al-Sultan area.

This is despite US predictions that the civilian population could not be evacuated without a huge death count or without leaving around four months to do so.

Of those evacuated, the overwhelming majority moved northwest to al-Muwasi, while a smaller number moved to central Gaza.

A much less significant number returned to Khan Yunis, though that had been discussed as a real possibility for potentially hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Regarding the battle, though there certainly is significant resistance from the four Hamas battalions in Rafah, the IDF said it had mostly taken them by surprise.
House reps urge labeling UNRWA staff who joined Oct. 7 attacks as terrorists
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives want to see stronger action against 12 former employees of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) for their involvement in the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 that left 1,200 people dead and more than 250 taken hostage into the Gaza Strip.

Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and French Hill (R-Ark.) led a bipartisan May 16 letter co-signed by 49 other members of Congress to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

The correspondence declared “great concern” since the federal government had not yet taken action against the terrorism-linked workers. “Following Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attacks against Israel, reports and images quickly revealed the overlap between UNRWA and terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip,” the legislators wrote.

“We have clear evidence that at least 12 UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 attack, resulting in the murder of more than 1,200 people, including 44 Americans. It’s time that the Treasury and State Department label them exactly what they are: terrorists,” Gottheimer told JNS. “We need real accountability to make sure no taxpayer dollars are funding terrorism.”

The congress members wrote that “according to the report, an UNRWA school social worker brought the body of a dead Israeli soldier back into the Gaza Strip, and helped coordinate ammunition and vehicle distribution before and during the attack.”

FDD Action has endorsed the letter.

“There is clear evidence that UNRWA employees materially assisted Hamas in the repugnant Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis, 31 Americans and 40 additional foreign nationals,” FDD Action stated. “These individuals should be designated under U.S. legal authorities. This would send a clear message not only to the individuals in question but to the organizations to which they belong that are recipients of U.S. taxpayer dollars that there are consequences for violating our laws.”


UNRWA should be disbanded and replaced, former general counsel of agency tells House
James Lindsay, a former general counsel of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, testified to a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Friday that UNRWA’s cumulative failures over the course of decades to address problems, of which it has repeatedly been made aware, demand that it be replaced.

Referencing a recent report commissioned by the U.N. secretary-general on UNRWA’s neutrality — which supporters of Israel have described as biased and incomplete — Lindsay said that there is ample evidence that UNRWA cannot continue to operate.

“Given the… report’s revelations that UNRWA’s leadership is both incompetent and willfully obstructionist of fundamental reforms, UNRWA should be replaced,” he said.

Lindsay said UNRWA is not, as U.N. authorities and the recent report claim, irreplaceable.

And Lindsay said that, while not implemented as official policy, current moves by the U.S. and Israel are effectively beginning the process of winding down UNRWA. He said that the congressionally mandated pause on UNRWA funding, in effect through 2025, should be continued beyond then.

Lindsay said that he personally tried to raise concerns during his time at UNRWA, but was consistently ignored. He also noted that he’d written a report in 2009, after leaving UNRWA, highlighting issues in the agency that was again ignored.

“The situation in UNRWA was not receptive to things that were at all critical of what was being done already,” he said.

While Lindsay said the recent review of UNRWA did not and was not designed to address major long-standing criticisms, it did offer dozens of recommendations that “reflect obvious management deficiencies… things that any competent management team would have long ago addressed without prodding from an independent review.”

Those include UNRWA’s failure to vet staff for terrorist connections or remove antisemitic, anti-Israel content glorifying violence from UNRWA educational materials.
IDF discovers weapons in UNRWA facility, kills Hamas terrorists
IDF troops have located additional weaponry in an UNRWA facility in Jabalya, the Israeli military announced Monday afternoon.

Additionally, an Israel Air Force aircraft struck and eliminated the terrorist Zaher Huli (also known as "Abu Hamed"), who held roles in Hamas's military wing and the Hamas Police in central Gaza, the IDF and the Shin Bet announced.

Zaher reportedly used his position to build connections with other Hamas terrorists and promote terror attacks on Israel.

During an additional operation on Sunday, the terrorist Rami Khalil Faki, who held roles in Hamas' military wing and Hamas Police in the area of Nuseirat, was also targeted in an aerial strike.

Rami Khalil Faki commanded armed terrorists who carried out attacks against IDF troops. His deputy and four additional Hamas terrorist operatives were eliminated together with him.


'Violent thugs': Pro-Palestine protesters at Israel rally make 'insecurity grow'
Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council Executive Manager Joel Burnie says the ‘Never Again is Now’ rally had pushback from pro-Palestinian “violent thugs”.

The ‘Never Again is Now’ rally, advocating against antisemitism, took place in Melbourne yesterday.

Mr Burnie told Sky News Australia that a “group of violent thugs who wanted to intimidate” were also there, essentially saying “that you’re not safe on these streets and you have no freedom to express your opinions or your desires”.

“We’re going to make sure we continue our threats and intimidations against you to make sure that sense of insecurity just grows and grows.”


‘Abhorrent’: David Littleproud calls for Senator Payman’s expulsion from Labor Party
Nationals Leader David Littleproud has called for Anthony Albanese to expel Senator Fatima Payman from the Labor Party after accusing Israel of genocide.

Ms Payman directly addressed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a speech criticising Israel over the war in Gaza, requesting sanctions be imposed.

“That is an abhorrent statement ... and I just don’t see how her position is tenable in the Labor Party or in any committees that the Prime Minister has appointed her to,” Mr Littleproud said.


Gary Lineker’s Gaza gaffe
Freddy Gray joins Tom Slater and Fraser Myers to discuss the virtue-signalling football pundit’s anti-Israel hysteria.




Hamas flag proudly waved at NYC anti-Israel demonstration: ‘Marching for terrorists’
A pro-terror protester proudly waved the Hamas flag at a weekend rally in Brooklyn — in a shocking and disturbing display of solidarity with terrorists.

The green and white Palestinian terror group’s flag was on display at the Nakba Day protest in Bay Ridge on Saturday — as was that of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist-Leninist group also classified as a terrorist organization by the US State Department.

The disgusting show of support drew fierce backlash from horrified lawmakers and local residents.

“They’re criticizing police, but they’re for marching terrorists?!” Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said of the demonstrators who rallied alongside the flags and violently clashed with NYPD cops. At least a dozen anti-Israel protesters were arrested at the raucous demonstration.

“They’re criticizing the protectors, but they’re commending the murderers?!” he seethed.

Several Bay Ridge locals also admitted they were disturbed when interviewed by The Post on Sunday, when a Norwegian parade was taking place in the neighborhood.

“If this flag is about his country, it is OK, like a Norwegian [flag],” said Dr. Sami Nagar, a native of Egypt. “But Hamas is a very controversial organization, and in this time, that’s not OK.

“To wave a Hamas flag on American soil is unacceptable for any reason.”

Resident Mary Owens called the waving of the Hamas flag “infuriating” — and said the ruckus from the Nakba Day demonstration was over the top.

“It doesn’t stop. The drums, the noise,” she said.

“Our mayor has no control,” Owens added. “They are protesting a war that is thousands of mile away. They couldn’t even point out Gaza on the map.”


Police must be 'all over' pro-Palestine protests, Grant Shapps warns as the Government finalises plans to give officers more powers to restrict public assemblies
Police must be 'all over' pro-Palestine protests, Grant Shapps warned yesterday as the Government finalises plans to give officers more powers to restrict public assemblies.

The Defence Secretary said that the regular mass marches could 'spill over' into hate speech and anti-Semitism.

It comes ahead of the publication of a long-awaited report on political violence and disruption that will contain recommendations for ministers on clamping down on the activities of hard-Left groups who engage in criminal acts.

There have been more than 1,000 protests and vigils since the October 7 attacks, including weekly mass marches in London, with 600 arrests made. Policing the events has cost £40 million and involved some 55,000 officer shifts.

There were seven arrests as thousands marched in the capital on Saturday, including a man carrying a coffin with offensive language on it and another chanting 'Intifada revolution'. Officers also arrested a 74-year-old man at a counter-protest on suspicion of provocation of violence.

Lord Walney, whose review will be released tomorrow, said the marches are 'making sizeable parts of our Jewish community in London apprehensive at best about going into the centre of the city'.

'That is a deeply uncomfortable position,' he told Sky News. 'There has been a substantial level of criminality and disorder and anti-Semitic content around the margins of the marches.'

Under new laws proposed by the Government, police will be able to arrest protesters who wear face coverings to conceal their identity or for carrying flares or other fireworks. Activists who climb on war memorials could also face up to three months in jail and fines of £1,000.
Misrepresenting the Melbourne Rally
The media coverage of the Rally against Antisemitism yesterday in Melbourne is a very sad reflection of:
1. the media’s ratings-chasing desire to create shock and excitement where there was so little,
2. the moral equivalence they assigned to ‘both sides’,
3. misreporting our Rally as a rally for Israel.

Let’s be very clear and clean up this wanton and dangerous disregard for what actually happened, and the consequences of this misreporting.

Somewhere between 7000-10000 people held a peaceful Rally Against Antisemitism outside the Victorian Parliament House. It’s sole purpose was for Non-Jews and Jews to stand together in the face of the assault – yes, assault – the Jewish community has been experiencing by those who want to blame Melbourne Jews for what is happening in Gaza.

It was a rally called “Stop The Hate Mate”.

The Rally featured more flags of Australia than Israel flags.

Sunday’s in the city feature weekly 10am demonstrations by ProHamas and ProPalestinian demonstrators, as is their right.

I walked through their Rally, which had been delayed to coincide with the Rally Against Antisemitism.

As I was walking through the thought occurred to me it would be really wonderful if everyone at that demonstration came to join their Jewish brothers and sisters at our Rally, standing together against the scourge of Antisemitism. That if these people truly were not Antisemitic, they would come, stand together for our joint security and well being. We do not, and probably will never agree on the Gaza-Palestine-Israel conundrum, but that is OK. Empathy means seeking to understanding the other – agreement is optional.

I did not see any Australian flag at this demonstration. Not one.

This was the one week – the only one in 6 months – where those standing to support the Jewish community rallied in the same city at 1.30pm. Different site and different time. All planned to avoid incident.




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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

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