September 2024 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Monday, September 30, 2024

09/30 Links Pt2: The Cold War Against the Jews; The self-induced downfall of the ICC; Why Are Iran’s Thugs Free to Walk the Streets of New York?

From Ian:

The Cold War Against the Jews

In November 2023, I became involved in a small community of Jewish academics who were concerned about these developments. Rather than expending our effort on debating with academic associations, we decided to focus on developing one of our own. In January 2024, I joined 22 North American scholars on a solidarity mission to visit academic campuses in Israel. Our group consisted of faculty members representing Yeshiva University, Jewish Theological Seminary, and Hebrew Union College, as well as Emory University, Bard College, Washington University at St. Louis, and other colleges across North America.

Our visits to campuses across Israel were sobering. As we listened to Israeli professors and administrators share story after story about their exclusion from global academic communities, we became increasingly attuned to the situation’s tragic irony. The same faculty and administrators who had been boycotted as progenitors of apartheid had devoted their careers to producing pluralist campuses. Twenty percent of the undergraduate population of Achva College, which is just a few miles from the Gazan border, is Israeli Bedouin. Tel Aviv University, one of the most elite universities in the world, also serves a diverse student population, 16% of whom are Arab Israelis. Forty percent of the University of Haifa’s student body is Arab Israeli.

The trip convinced us that we are dealing with a global issue that runs not only up and down the educational ladder, but also around the globe. Excluded from journals, conferences, and public gatherings, pressured to change their public writings to conform with others’ sensitivities, and gaslit by administrators who inform them that all of this has nothing to do with antisemitism, we had discovered that to be a Jew in academic spaces was to embody provocation—and that provocation, we were told, had to be suppressed for the sake of everyone’s comfort.

This trend was also surfacing in literary circles outside of academia. In March 2024, the journal Guernica greenlit Joanna Chen’s essay “From the Edges of a Broken World,” a reflective memoir by an Israeli leftist that expressed empathy with both Israeli victims of Oct. 7 and with Palestinian people. The essay’s publication sparked a mass resignation of Guernica’s staff that culminated in a public apology from the journal’s editor for publishing “Genocide apologia”—though there is no evidence of a genocide being committed by Israel, nor was Chen writing apologetics for Israel or the actions of her government. Most recently, Gabrielle Zevin’s novel Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was blacklisted among booksellers for being tainted by the Zionism of its author. Zevin, though Jewish, has made no public statements in support of Israel.

Around the same time that my children were told that the Nazis were coming for them, and that the Jewish teacher working across the street was fired, something else happened to me. A representative of the Jewish Publication Society, a historic press with a reputation for bringing outstanding Jewish scholarship to wide English-speaking audiences, contacted me about applying for the position of their editor-in-chief. Aware of what had been taking place in Jewish literary circles, I jumped at the chance. I was offered the position three months later.

When news of my new position was shared in July, I was inundated with hundreds of emails, text messages, and phone calls from authors of children’s books, poetry, young adult novels, fiction, philosophy, ethics, Bible, religion, and history. All of them sent warm congratulations, but many were more interested in sharing their concern. What was the Jewish Publication Society going to do to meet this critical moment?

I’ve been thinking about this question myself. It’s clear that some of what JPS will achieve in the coming years is going to depend on partnerships with other organizations and institutions. With the right allies, JPS can develop an authors’ cohort, a college research internship, and maybe even a podcast. But more than anything, the question of how JPS is going to meet this moment depends on books. And to publish books, we need Jewish authors to keep writing. In response to exclusion, Jews must build their own centers of knowledge. Every person who cares about Jewish ideas, moreover, should view themselves as a repository of creative knowledge, and view the production of knowledge as an act of resistance against the scourge of antisemitism wending its way through academic circles.

As Jews continue to find themselves isolated in schools, professional spaces, and even in their front driveways, we must recommit ourselves to building communities that foster the production of great Jewish ideas. This is my answer to well-wishers who have reached out to me voicing their concern about the Jewish future: Be creative. Build communities. Go write.

Seven in ten Jewish students “uncomfortable” revealing their religion

A survey of Jewish students published today has revealed that 7 in 10 are “somewhat uncomfortable” or “very uncomfortable” revealing their Jewish faith.

In its first report, “I have never felt less protected as a Jew”: Antisemitism at UK Universities since 7th October 2023, the Intra-Communal Professorial Group (ICPG) - which was formed earlier this year “in response to a significant rise of antisemitism across academia globally and in UK higher education” - has found that just 22 per cent of Jewish students are comfortable revealing their faith - a dramatic decline since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Prior to that, the survey finds, 79 per cent of Jewish students had no problem saying they are Jewish.

The ICPG spoke to 500 Jewish students between May 29 and July 3. Although it is not a formal poll was “not a formal statistical sample of the population”, the ICPG says its findings are “broadly representative”.

63 per cent of the students surveyed had seen Jewish students being harassed because of their faith, both on social media and on campus - in contrast to just three in 10 who witnessed it before the current conflict.

41 per cent had been subject themselves to such behaviour over the past year – nearly twice the 21 per cent who said they had experienced antisemitic abuse before last autumn. 5.2 per cent said they had been physically attacked. Others said they had suffered verbal insults, harassment and Nazi imagery. One student said she was “spat at” for wearing “a JSoc [Jewish Society] jumper on campus”, while others said they had been

“chased by a man with a large glass bottle”, been pelted by eggs after hearing the Chief Rabbi speak on campus, had their Star of David necklaces grabbed from their necks and had rubbish thrown at them,

The ICPG said the government should launch a special task force to combat antisemitism in universities.

The self-induced downfall of the International Criminal Court

The idea of creating an International Criminal Court to prosecute the world’s worst offenders, who committed the worst crimes, was a noble one. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, Israel and Jews were among the leading proponents of establishing such a court. In practice, however, the ICC has proven to be a colossal failure. Now, as a result of the actions of the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, and his predecessor Fatou Bensouda, the court, as an establishment, is reaching ever-deepening lows.

Bensouda was distinctly hostile to Israel. She was the one who generated the ICC prosecution theory of a non-existent “State of Palestine.” She pushed the court into taking upon itself jurisdiction that it does not possess, to define the borders, de novo, of this non-existent state. She was also the one to officially adopt, lock, stock and barrel, the Palestinian narrative regarding Israel’s actions and to allege that Israeli officials had committed serious offenses.

As regards the Palestinians, Bensouda was quite forgiving and focused mainly on the actions of the acknowledged terrorists. She did however have one saving grace.

In her “Report on Preliminary Examination Activities” (2019)1 Bensouda noted, inter alia, that the Office of the Prosecutor had also received allegations that the “Palestinian Authority has encouraged and provided financial incentives for the commission of violence through their provision of payments to the families of Palestinians who were involved, in particular, in carrying out attacks against Israeli citizens, and under the circumstances, the payment of such stipends may give rise to Rome Statute crimes.”

Bensouda was of course referring to the P.A.’s terror-rewarding “pay-for-slay” policy. This decades-old policy consists of two elements: a) the payment of monthly allowances to injured terrorists and the families of dead terrorists; and b) the payment of monthly salaries to terrorists who have been arrested by Israel. Even though the two elements are technically separate, their common goal is to encourage and incentivize participation in terror. While the payment of allowances to injured terrorists and the families of dead terrorists is mandated by internal policies of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the payment of the salaries to the imprisoned and released terrorists is fixed in a P.A. law—Law of Prisoners and Released Prisoners No. 19 of 2004—and accompanying P.A. government regulations. According to analysts and commentators, every year, the P.A. spends an estimated one billion shekels ($270 million) on these terror rewards. The terror-rewarding payments are not concealed by the P.A. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has openly declared on the world stage and in the P.A. media that even if the P.A. is left with only one penny in its coffers, it would pay that penny to the terrorists.

09/30 Links Pt1: Phillips: A seismic moment; Hamas Leader in Lebanon Eliminated, Was UNRWA Union Leader; Nasrallah’s Killing Reveals Depth of Israel’s Penetration of Hezbollah

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: A seismic moment

Given how the Americans have been undermining and sabotaging Israel’s defence for the past year, it is fervently to be hoped that Israel is telling the Iran-genuflecting Bidenites precisely zero about what it’s doing.

The west doesn’t realise how this abominable reaction demonstrates that it has now lost the geopolitical plot big time. For while western media and politicians were eulogising a genocidal tyrant and spitting on his designated Israeli victim for not agreeing to commit national suicide, the Arab and Muslim world was reacting very differently.

Although the Islamic death cultists had a meltdown over Nasrallah’s demise, there were scenes of wild jubilation among thousands of Arabs and Muslims.

In Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran Arabs and Muslims distributed celebratory sweets and cakes and danced in the streets to express their unbridled joy at Nasrallah’s removal from this earth and thanked Israel for “getting rid of our garbage”.

In Lebanon, people cheered and clapped, drivers honked their horns and fireworks exploded in the sky in the north-western region where Nasrallah was seen as a key ally of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and was thus responsible for assisting Assad’s brutal crackdown on opponents and helping turn the tide of the civil war in his favour.

A video went viral on Arab social media celebrating Israel's dominance over Hezbollah. Many users dubbed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a hero, referring to him as “the king of the Middle East”. Syrians celebrating in the streets held up a sign reading: “Thank you very much Netanyahu. By killing Nasrallah you light the path of peace”. In a striking reversal of the obscene anti-Jewish hate marches that have been taking place ever since the October 7 pogrom, Iranians gathered outside the Israeli embassy in London to thank the IDF for removing Nasrallah from the world.

Israel has been getting rid of the west’s garbage too, since Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood of which Hamas is the military arm have been attacking western interests for decades through both terrorism and subversion. And of course, Iran is the west’s arch-enemy — and if Israel neutralises the Iranian regime, that will get rid of the most putrid garbage of all.

The Arab and Muslim reaction suggests that Israel’s spectacular military successes have the potential to be a geopolitical game-changer. For what Israel has achieved in Lebanon over the past couple of weeks has illuminated the utter bankruptcy of the approach pushed by America, Britain, France and the rest of the supine and in every sense de-moralised west: that all conflict must be dealt with through negotiation and compromise — and in the great battle between good and evil, you split the difference.

For Israel, this pressure for a negotiated ceasefire was tantamount to offering its throat to an enemy which never stops announcing its intention to remove Israel’s head from its shoulders.

Israel Hayom reported of the American displeasure at Israel’s military adventures:
The officials stressed that diplomacy remains the only viable long-term solution to the conflict, even if military action sets the stage for negotiations.

This attitude has been lethal for the world order and for peace in the Middle East. The Arab and Muslim world respects strength. It regards negotiation and compromise as signals of surrender which incentivise its fanatics to ramp up their aggression. Using diplomacy to deal with non-negotiable fanaticism is an unforgiveable category error.

America’s appeasement of Iran, first by the Obama-Biden administration and then by the Biden-Harris administration, has been catastrophic in signalling to the Iranian regime that it is aiming at an open goal.

That was why the October 7 pogrom happened. It's why the subsequent war has dragged on for a year; it could have been stopped on October 8 had America bombed the Iranian oil refineries, or told Qatar that unless the hostages were released unharmed within 24 hours all relations with Qatar would cease.

But it didn’t do that. Instead it put pressure on Israel to surrender — as Biden is doing even now — and punished it when it refused. As a result, Iran and its proxies believed they were winning.

It’s taken Israel — in extremis — to show the spineless west that sometimes you have to make war to prevent a worse war; that in a war, you only win if the enemy is totally defeated, otherwise the enemy wins; and that you can only win if you fight with that aim in mind.

Israel has achieved more in two weeks against America’s enemy Hezbollah — which has so much American blood on its hands — than the US has achieved in more than two decades.

More significant than that, Israel has now been seen to have faced down America. This will have a dramatic and very deep impact on the Arab world.

The Arabs think that America has abandoned them for Iran — which indeed it has. Accordingly, the Arabs have come to regard America as their enemy. Now they are looking upon Israel — for whom America has also become a lethally false friend — as their brave and valorous defender.

As a result it is Israel, not the United States of America, which is now emerging as the major player in the Middle East and the chief defender of civilised values in the world. That’s quite an achievement. And it’s happened because of the civilisational collapse of America and the west.

Israel’s current celebrations are necessarily muted. More than 100 hostages remain in the hellholes of Gaza. Yahya Sinwar is (presumably) still alive and is still using the hostages as blackmail. Hezbollah and Iran still have many lethal missiles in their arsenals. Israel is still under attack from Yemen, Iraq and Syria — not to mention from within the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria. The head of the snake is Iran. This evil will not be defeated until and unless Iran is neutralised.

Yet despite these manifold dangers, it’s impossible not to feel that something momentous is now unfolding. Rub your eyes. As things stand at present, the line-up is Israel and the Arab world versus America and Iran.

Here in Israel it feels as if this is a seismic moment for the Jewish people, a hinge of history which is opening up a new world order in which Israel will win — because it has no alternative — and the west that so disdains it will lose.

Seth Mandel: Nasrallah’s Killing Was No Mere ‘Decapitation’ of a Terror Group

It’s not inaccurate to say Israel decapitated Hezbollah. But let’s not forget that Hezbollah’s torso was obliterated as well.

The stark warnings from “experts” stand in stark contrast to the celebration from actual civilians in the region, especially with reports that the IDF may have also taken out Syrian butcher Bashar al-Assad’s brother, Maher. Hezbollah played a key role in the Assads’ immiseration of Syria, where over half a million have been killed in the civil war that began when Bashar al-Assad sought to violently quash protests.

As analyst Seth Frantzman summed it up: “Syrian regime destroys Syria with the help of Hezbollah, causing millions of Syrians to flee war to Lebanon; the regime turns Syria into a conduit of Iranian arms going to Hezbollah which leads Hezbollah to attack Israel…then Syrians have to flee again because Hezbollah brings ruin on Lebanon due to Iranian arms.”

The story of this part of the Levant in the 21st century is one of Iranian colonial warlords forcing civilians into a constant state of flight.

Which is why it makes no sense to treat Hezbollah as a “normal” terrorist group when it comes to predicting the effects of Israel’s targeted strikes. It’s an army and an imperial administrator in an empire of blood. Despite what campus bobbleheads in America might say or think, Hezbollah is not a resistance movement. It is the vanguard of an expansionist regime based a thousand miles away in Tehran.

And when an imperial army surrounds you and declares war on you, what’s the proper response? Do you analyze which soldiers and generals and commanders might, based on spurious comparisons with random armed terror groups, be replaceable? Do you refuse to fight back because, throughout history, so many victories have been temporary?

The premise of so much criticism of Israel’s actions seems to be that the Jewish state’s military leaders are sitting around in a bunker with cameras on every single terrorist in the world and choosing when to zap them. The reality is that Israel was invaded less than a year ago, and Hezbollah has since joined forces with the invading army.

That’s what this is: an extensive, multi-front defensive war. People seem confused by the magnitude of Israel’s successes, as if that means the IDF brass are playing a video game. Israel’s impressiveness does not change any of the underlying facts of the conflict. It does, however, suggest that maybe invading armies ought to think twice.

Eli Lake: The Killing of Nasrallah—and the Virtue of Escalation

A day after Hamas launched its pogrom of October 7, Hezbollah began raining rockets and missiles into northern Israel, displacing up to 70,000 Israelis. Nearly a year later, those people have not been able to return to their homes.

With this kind of butcher’s bill, one might think the response from the civilized world upon learning of Nasrallah’s death would be jubilation. But Western leaders have responded with reticence. In this they have revealed their profound confusion about the enemy. It is not a nation-state, a terror group, or even an ideology. From Washington to Paris, they seem to believe the real enemy is escalation.

This united front against escalation began before the strike that killed Nasrallah.

At the United Nations last week, twelve countries—including America, France, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—presented a plan for a 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon without mentioning Hezbollah, the terror army that holds Lebanon hostage. A joint statement reasoned that Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah’s leadership presented an “unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation.”

President Joe Biden and French president Emannuel Macron later urged Israel to accede to a “settlement on the Israel-Lebanon border that ensures safety and security to enable civilians to return to their homes.” Meanwhile, British prime minister Keir Starmer called on “Israel and Hezbollah to stop the violence, step back from the brink.” An immediate ceasefire, he said, was necessary to “provide space for a diplomatic settlement.”

Even after Hezbollah confirmed that Nasrallah had left this mortal coil, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock warned that the strikes “weren’t in Israel’s security interests.” Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris made sure to say that Nasrallah’s killing provided justice to his many victims. But they too kept pushing for de-escalation as the way forward. “President Biden and I do not want to see conflict in the Middle East escalate into a broader regional war,” Harris said.

The trouble is that the Middle East is already engulfed in a regional war. The party behind that war—Iran, which funds Hezbollah, Hamas, and other proxies—just suffered a devastating blow thanks to Israel.

Indeed, by refusing to heed the council of Biden, Macron, and Starmer, Israel has brought the Middle East far closer to peace than it was before.

What are the Saudis thinking? It sounds like they are tacitly supporting Israel

Middle East Eye reported:

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that he does not personally care about what he referred to as the "Palestinian issue", according to a report in The Atlantic.

Published on Wednesday, the report gave a picture of 11 months of Washington's negotiation efforts in the region after the outbreak of war in Gaza, citing "two dozen participants at the highest levels of government in America and across the Middle East".

It stated that during a visit to Saudi Arabia in January, Blinken and the crown prince met in the Saudi city of al-Ula to discuss the prospect of the Gulf kingdom normalising relations with Israel amid the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza.

According to The Atlantic, Blinken enquired whether the Saudis could tolerate Israel periodically re-entering the territory to strike the besieged Gaza Strip.

“They can come back in six months, a year, but not on the back end of my signing something like this,” Mohammed bin Salman responded.

“Seventy percent of my population is younger than me,” the crown prince explained to Blinken.

“For most of them, they never really knew much about the Palestinian issue. And so they’re being introduced to it for the first time through this conflict. It’s a huge problem. Do I care personally about the Palestinian issue? I don’t, but my people do, so I need to make sure this is meaningful.”

There is indirect evidence that this is true.

For example, the (Saudi) Arab News interview I previously mentioned with Lebanon's health minister, the interviewer Katie Jensen pushed hard on Hezbollah's responsibility for the war in Lebanon.

But another story I looked at today may also shed some light.

Sheikh Mohammad Ali Al-Husseini is a Shiite cleric who used to be part of the anti-Israel resistance in Lebanon who worked together with Hassan Nasrallah. The two had a falling out and Husseini was arrested, but eventually released. He ended up going to Saudi Arabia where he eventually was granted citizenship, a rare honor for only those who have helped Saudi Arabis in a huge way.

Husseini is now considered a moderate who seeks dialogue with Jews.

Husseini is in a unique position where he can say things that would normally be considered outrageous to the general Sunni Arab public but he can get away with it as a Shiite. Just like Iranian media will try to avoid direct antisemitism but will eagerly interview American or British antisemites, Saudi Arabia may be using Husseini as a means to float ideas to see what kind of reaction they get.

It seems highly unlikely that Husseini would publicly say anything that the Saudi Crown prince would disagree with. He is a popular guest on interview shows in Saudi Arabia.

So when you goes through Husseini's Facebook page, you see that he says that Jerusalem has no holiness under Shiite Ja'afari thought.

By examining the narrations and hadiths relied upon in the Ja'fari school of thought, we found no definitive evidence or authentic narration proving that Jerusalem (the Dome of the Rock) holds special sanctity in our school. The absence of such narrations confirms its lack of consideration as one of the religious sanctuaries, as it might be in other schools of thought.
Furthermore, there is no report from the Imams of Ahl al-Bayt (The House of the Prophet, peace be upon them) indicating any virtue for Jerusalem (the Dome of the Rock). The narrations filled with great virtues for Jerusalem are all through narrators other than ours.
Conclusion
From the above, it becomes clear that Jerusalem (the Dome of the Rock) does not enjoy a legitimate basis that confirms its sanctity within the Ja'fari school of thought. This does not mean that we diminish its historical and cultural status, but here we are discussing what is well-known among the Ja'fari jurists, urging Muslims to adhere to sound religious principles and not be swayed by myths or traditions that lack a clear Sharia basis.
We emphasize: there is no particular sanctity for Jerusalem (the Dome of the Rock), and it is problematic for any movement by followers of the Ja'fari school towards Jerusalem, and any slogan or action or banner raised for Jerusalem and blood shed for Jerusalem or on the way to Jerusalem is a Sharia issue and a heresy without a Sharia basis according to the prominent jurists of Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them). This is what was stated in the responses to the legal inquiries we sent to the authorities, and their response was: "There is no religious consideration for the Dome of the Rock, and we did not find in the narrations of Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them) anything indicating its importance" and another response: "The Dome of the Rock has no special sanctity according to us."
Thus, Jerusalem holds no sanctity for us, and we see that the rock of the dome has no consideration or status in Islam.

He writes about Nasrallah and how close they were, expressing sadness that he chose to be more loyal to Iran than to the Arab nation. He talks about terrorism. He talks about Lebanon.

But I could not find a single negative word about Israel.

This is almost unbelievable - in Arab media, one is expected to denounce Israel as routine. I don't see that here.

Given how much the Saudis have detested Hezbollah and Iran over the years, it seems likely that they are just waiting for the war to end, then wait a few more months, in order to establish relations with Israel as they had planned to before the war.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Lebanese people mostly hate Hezbollah. But Lebanese officials and media refuse to say anything bad about the terror group that hijacked their country.

There seems to be a huge disconnect between how Lebanese media and officials are talking about Hezbollah, and how ordinary Lebanese are.

Criticism of Hezbollah is almost non-existent in every Lebanese newspaper I can find. At best, they maintain a careful balance of reporting the facts but no op-eds denouncing Hezbollah.

The Lebanese health minister, Firass Abiad, was interviewed by The Arab News yesterday. The interviewer tried very hard to get him to say anything negative about Hezbollah and he steadfastly refused, blaming everything on Israel accepting Hezbollah's absurd excuse for building up a separate army in southern Lebanon contrary to UN resolution 1701, and even accusing Israel of targeting civilians:

Interviewer: Israel actually withdrew from Lebanon back in 2000 and Lebanon had a chance to be neutral and protect its interests, but Hezbollah simply wouldn’t let that happen. Isn’t that true?

Abiad: No, that’s the exact opposite. If you go back to the UN resolutions — especially 1701. In 1701, it was very clear that, first of all, Israel has to withdraw from all the areas in Lebanon, which did not happen. And up till now, Israel still occupies Lebanese territory. Secondly, it very clearly mentioned that Israel should not violate Lebanese airspace, which also did not happen; Israel has been violating Lebanese airspace continuously since the 2000 partial withdrawal from Lebanon. So, indeed, unfortunately, these actions by Israel gave the pretext for Hezbollah to continue today what it is doing now. But let’s be very clear, Israel didn’t fulfill that part of 1701. And even now, Lebanon is saying we are ready to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions.

Interviewer: But is the Shebaa Farms worth what is happening right now, minister? Because surely a negotiated deal would have been a far better option?

Abiad: But that depends on the other party accepting a negotiation. And, up to now, it has been very clear that Israel is not interested in a negotiated outcome.

These are all lies, and Abiad knows it. In 2006, Nasrallah justified Hezbollah staying in southern Lebanon and defying 1701 by falsely claiming that it was not meant to be implemented immediately, and that the Lebanese army wasn't strong enough to defend Lebanon. The border dispute wasn't his excuse.

Abiad is toeing the Hezbollah line and spouting Hezbollah propaganda, which is something most Lebanese politicians are doing.

When you look at what Lebanese people themselves are saying, though, you get a different story. In places like Reddit and comments section on newspapers, there is anger at Hezbollah and Iran for dragging Lebanon into their own adventures (although they also generally hate Israel, but they hate Hezbollah and Iran more.)

For example, this thread on Reddit started off with:

I don't seek validation, but I wanna be on the right side of history. I totally admire kicking out the israelis 2 times 2006 and before, thanks hezb. But after that the epitome of human greed consumed hezbollah and messed the country internally.

I simply asked my friends, do you support nasrallah taking lebanon and its citizens to war to free palestine? They said yes he is the only one who stood up for them. I claim that had they not done that, lebanon wouldn't be in flames and explosions. The thousands of lebanese wouldn't have died. They say well israel is evil and they wanna occupy lebanon regardless because of the "greater israel" plan

For 18 years, we had no beef with israel, everytime they attacked us was because they had missiles fired into their country, here is where i was called a zio. Because i said it's natural israel retaliates. Never said it was okay, but you can't expect someone to stay shut when you send rockets over. Hezb shouldn't have started it on Oct. 8, not forgetting the syrians and sunnis; everyone that were killed by him because they opposed him for decades.

Lots of reactions, most anti-Israel but mostly also anti-Hezbollah:

Think about it this way. Israel and Israelis up until the war cared mostly for the economy, and war is bad for business. Also, in 2000, Israel left Lebanon due to internal pressure, so a long term occupation of Lebanon is not popular among Israelis. And if Israel actually wanted to settle or annex Lebanon, I think it would have happened between 1982 and 2000.

Any sane person would be against Hezbollah. A country cannot function when they have a militia that doesn't answer to the government, especially when the army is scared of that militia.

What’s crazy is people still think that hizb was “protecting us” and they’re “10x stronger” than they were in 2006 yet they just got dismantled and defeated within a week.
Lots of people saying “the hizb protected us” “the hizb saved us” wlak why did we need protection in the first place ya maneyek.
In 2006 the IDF came in destroyed the country’s infrastructure and massacred 10,000 civilians then walked out like nothing happened. Where was our victory?

Save from what? Lebanon was a paradise of freedom before hamas/ Hezbollah decided to bite the hand that helped them by accepting Gaza refugees years ago. They thanked them by overthrowing the government an having a civil war cos Allah.its so sad to watch these fuckwits screaming about how bad everyone else is while repressing there own civilians. Do people honestly think Lebanon wouldn't be better off if Hezbollah were gone?

Or this thread:

Praying for a time like this again

Amen. Inshallah.
But first, the Iranian puppets must go.

Israeli puppets first and foremost

Israel isn't the one controlling the Country. Nor are they the extremists that have perverted our land for decades causing my family to flee.

Israel needs to emphasize, again and again, that it wants to see an independent Lebanon free of Iranian influence and that it has no territorial designs on the country. People there can listen.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Iran once again shows how it is willing to support any enemy of Israel as long as its proxies are the only ones taking any risk.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said at his weekly press conference today that Iran will not leave any of "the criminal acts" of Israel unanswered.

"We stand strongly and we will act in a way that is regretful [for the enemy]" Kanaani said.

That is all that Reuters reported. But there was a follow-up question, asking whether Iran is planning to send any fighter to Lebanon to actually help out Hezbollah. His answer to that was far more enlightening.

"The governments of Lebanon and Palestine have the capacity and power to confront the aggression of the Zionist regime, and there is no need to deploy Iranian auxiliary or volunteer forces," Kanaani answered.

"We have not received any requests either and we know that they do not need the assistance of our expeditionary forces," Kanaani added.

Last October, Iran's Revolutionary Guard created an online recruitment campaign for volunteers to help Hamas fight Israel. They claimed over 3 million volunteers, including children. But now Iran is saying that even the people who want to help combat the Zionist enemy are not allowed to go.

This lack of support for Hezbollah by Iran has not been unnoticed by Lebanon's Shiite community, who are bitter towards Iran for what they consider its abandoning Hezbollah. Some are saying that Iran, which has said it is interested in re-opening talks on the nuclear deal, is selling out Hezbollah for its own economy.

“I am so angry with Iran. The Iranians saw how we were being beaten up. They went after the United States for nuclear power. They don't care about us," one Shiite woman told a Lebanese French-language newspaper Le Orient le Jour.

Others are even going so far as to create conspiracy theories to blame Iran for Nasrallah's death.. Sheikh Mohammad Ali Husseini, a former member of Hezbollah who left the party in 2006 and now lives in Saudi Arabia, addressed Nasrallah in a TV interview two days before Nasrallah was assassinated saying that Iran was planning his death: "He who bought you has sold you. If only you knew what Iran said about you and the extent of the information it provided (to Israel), if you also knew how much they demanded in exchange for your assassination." He suggested that Nasrallah write his will.

Iran has based its entire anti-Israel military strategy on using proxies as cannon fodder. The people Iran intends to turn into martyrs are slowly waking up.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Newest conspiracy theories to explain Israel's attacks in Lebanon: Jews control genies! Jews are descended from blue-blooded space aliens!

I wrote a week ago, after the pager bombs, "To people in Hezbollah and Hamas and Iran, Israel is a supernatural jinn - it knows where they are, it knows what they say, it knows what they are thinking and are about to do." I said that even as they hate Israel and Jews, at least they should be in awe of them.

I was more right than I thought.

Iran International writes that an Iranian cleric figured out that the only way Israel; could have killed Hassan Nasrallah is by using the services of jinn (genies):

"Considering the Zionists' history of subjugating genies, they carry out many of their missions through this means, and demons are their secret army," said Iranian Shia seminary teacher Mostafa Karami in a televised interview, referring to Israel's killing of Hassan Nasrallah.

But Karami isn't the only Muslim to invoke the supernatural to explain Israel's unbelievable success over the past two weeks.

A columnist for Turkey's Anadolu'da Bugun by Ramazan Yüce has a completely different explanation:

I don't know if there is a superior race in the world, but there is talk of a blue blood. The only thing I know about blood so far is red blood. I don't know if there is blue blood, if this is a mythology. ....

In mythology, especially in Sumerian tablets, there are two types of beings mentioned. One is earthly, the other is a species that came from outside the world. They are also called aliens. It is even stated that aliens stayed on earth for a while, ruled the place, were treated as semi-divine, had relations with some women here, had children from this relationship, these aliens had more knowledge than people on earth, taught some knowledge than people on earth, taught some information to people, those who came from space left the earth after Noah's flood, and those who rule the earth today are those born as a result of relations between aliens and some women on earth.

In the book of Enoch (Idris), it is circulated in the virtual world that 200 fallen angels descended from the sky to the earth and had sexual intercourse with women, that their father was a fallen angel and their mother was earthly people, that they were called by the name Nephilim in the Torah and giants in other sources, that they had blood mixed with blue and red. ...

Now let's come to the half-alien, half-earth human type. These are called blue blood. They consider themselves the superior race. It is written that the 13 richest people who have a say in every field such as capital, technology, science, trade etc. are also blue blood and that they direct everything in the world.

This blue color, which means superior race, is also reflected in the flag colors of some countries. For example, one of these countries is the flag of Israel. There is blue on the top and bottom, white in the middle, and a Star of David depicted on the white.

Today, despite their small numbers, Jews are far ahead of other nations, especially in capital, technology and science. They have strong lobbies in every country. Their intelligence is also strong. Perhaps the majority of those who have won new inventions and Nobel Peace Prizes are all Jewish. Perhaps the 13 richest people who own 80% of the world's capital today are also Jewish. It is also a fact that everything that is happening in the Middle East today is being done for Israel's security. The weakening and de-statement of Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Libya, which are potential threats to Israel, under the name of the Arab Spring, is an example of this. Israel's destruction of Gaza despite the reaction from the world and the fact that no one can speak out against it can also be given as an example.

All of this makes one wonder whether Jews are a superior race or whether they see themselves as a superior race.

Both of these are reactions to Israel's brilliant attacks against Hezbollah. As I had quoted Arthur C. Clarke, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." we are seeing this is literally true - the Israel haters are seeing Israel's accomplishments as superhuman, and therefore magical.

09/29 Links: Israel Rises; Oct. 7 Taught Israel that Only Victory Brings Security; Dara Horn: Harvard's Antisemitism Begins in the Classroom

From Ian:

Oct. 7 Taught Israel that Only Victory Brings Security

In recent years, Israel tried nearly everything to avoid a large-scale confrontation with its enemies. Billions of shekels were funneled into Gaza in a bid to pacify the terrorist group; thousands of Gazans were allowed to work inside Israel; and trade restrictions were eased. Military operations were narrow and carefully restrained to avoid a wider escalation.

Yet, as the events of Oct. 7 showed, when a terrorist organization is driven by a deep-seated desire for your annihilation, no amount of money, economic opportunities, or limited military action will suffice. Hamas's mission was the destruction of Israel. Nothing else mattered to its leaders. This reality must guide Israel's response to calls for it to pause its strikes against Hizbullah.

Stopping the fight now would only ensure another war within a few years. We know this because every war with Iran's proxies over the last 25 years has always just been the precursor for the next. We reach a ceasefire, pass UN resolutions, and convince ourselves that this time it will work. But it never does.

Hizbullah must be weakened to the point that it can no longer pose a serious threat to Israel - neither with rockets nor with cross-border raids. Victory is the only path to long-term security.

Telegraph Editorial: The IDF Is the Most Formidable Fighting Force on Earth

First Hamas, now Hizbullah: in a matter of months, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has decapitated the two most powerful terrorist organizations in the world. Rather than rejoice, however, the West has offered at best lukewarm support, at worst ostracism and obstruction.

Once again, Israel has transformed defeat into victory. Iran, which is responsible for unleashing the present conflict, has suffered a strategic defeat. And Israel-haters everywhere have been reminded that those who attack the Jewish people will not escape unscathed.

Israel has ignored the hostile global consensus and carried on exercising its right to self-defense. It has routed two terror organizations which between them had more men under arms and bigger arsenals than many sovereign states.

Whether judged by military prowess or humanitarian scruples, the IDF is the most formidable fighting force on earth. Rather than preaching to the Israelis, we in the West should admire their daring, emulate their creativity, and learn from their example. Like any nation state, Israel is not perfect, but it has survived and flourished in a dangerous region by its own efforts.

WSJ Editorial: Israel Sends Nasrallah to His Just Reward

The press is predictably describing Israel's strike against Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah as "escalatory." It isn't.

The escalation started against Israel last Oct. 7 with Hamas's massacre, followed a day later by rockets fired by Hizbullah that haven't stopped.

The strike against Nasrallah was a justified defense against the leader of an Iran-backed terrorist proxy waging war against Israel.

By degrading Iran's front-line proxy in Lebanon, Israel has substantially weakened its enemies.

Israel's experience in the last year is a lesson to the West about the cost of failed deterrence and what is required to restore it.

(From Iran's FARS News, 2013)

Adolf Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf:

The Jew today is the great agitator for the complete destruction of Germany. ...The Jewish train of thought in all this is clear. The Bolshevization of Germany ....is conceived only as a preliminary to the further extension of this Jewish tendency of world conquest. As often in history, Germany is the great pivot in the mighty struggle. If our people and our state become the victim of these bloodthirsty and avaricious Jewish tyrants of nations, the whole earth will sink into the snares of this octopus; if Germany frees herself from this embrace, this greatest of dangers to nations may be regarded as broken for the whole world.

The parallels between how Hitler described Jews and how Iran (and much of the Arab world) describes Israel are so obvious that those who deny that the latter is based on antisemitism is either fooling themselves or tacitly antisemitic themselves.

Here is a cartoon that was tweeted on X by Nasser Kanaani, spokesperson for Iran's foreign ministry, which was promptly retweeted by the foreign ministry account itself.

His text sounds just like Hitler's.

The motif of Jew as octopus goes back to the 19th century at least, but the Nazis used it with relish:

The Soviets used it too:

Right wing antisemites:

Left wing antisemites like cartoonist Latuff:

And Arab antisemites:

The irony, of course, is that Iran is the one that has been tirelessly building its "axis of resistance" which it is constantly attempting to expand.

Israel is the only party that is chopping off the tentacles of the real octopus.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Since 2000, Hassan Nasrallah and later other Iranian proxies have been fond of calling Israel "weaker than a spider's web." The term has been on Iranian billboards and elsewhere.

At the same time, Iran (and Hezbollah) have been pushing the narrative that they are strong, with huge arsenals and dedicated fighters, and just itching to get into a war with Israel if Israel is so foolish as to start one.

That had been the story they have repeated for decades. And, as with so much other anti-Israel propaganda, it was all a lie.

And as with the other anti-Israel lies, much of the world bought it.

Israel has done a lot of innovative things during this conflict, but one of the most significant did not involve high tech or brilliant strategy or intelligence: Israel simply called their bluff.

And the Axis of Resistance came up empty.

Hezbollah bet that Israel would not escalate the war of attrition they have had for ten months, and lost that bet. Now it is largely in disarray and as long as Israel keeps up the pressure it will have a hard time rebuilding its damaged infrastructure.

Iran bet on Hezbollah being able to degrade Israel's will to fight and move it towards a ceasefire in Gaza, preserving Hamas as a critical member of the Axis. It certainly didn't think Israel might make Lebanon the major focus of the fighting.

Iran's strategy has been based on its proxies, because it is the frightened party. Israel is doing militarily what the West couldn't do in Lebanon - blocking all Iranian arms imports to Hezbollah. And it can do militarily (including cyberwar) to Iran what the West has not been able to enforce - severely blocking all Iranian imports and exports, crippling its economy in weeks, if it wants to.

This is not to say the war is won. Far from it. Iran still has proxies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen who are willing to send missiles and drones to Israel. They are dangerous but the threat is not existential. Israel no doubt has been working on plans to neutralize those threats, in ways we cannot imagine - or Israel will send a message to Iran that those projectiles will be treated as if they were launched from Tehran and the response will be in that direction.

Every time Israel has done what Iran considers a provocation, Iran has promised retribution - and come up short. Even honor is not enough to make Iran want to bet the country on a war with Israel. Hezbollah was its buffer, and it can no longer rely on that.

This is the first major setback for the "Axis of Resistance" since Iran created it. Israel is the one that has popped the balloon of inevitable Iranian growth in strength and influence. The psychological value of embarrassing Iran in the rest of the Muslim world is dramatic. .This is no less than a restructuring of the Middle East, no less important than the Abraham Accords, that has increased Israel's prestige and diminished Iran's.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

For those who are trying to soft-pedal Hezbollah's evil, here are some sections from its 1985 manifesto:

No one can imagine the importance of our military potential as our military apparatus is not separate from our overall social fabric. Each of us is a fighting soldier. And when it becomes necessary to carry out the Holy War, each of us takes up his assignment in the fight in accordance with the injunctions of the Law, and that in the framework of the mission carried out under the tutelage of the Commanding Jurist.

Let us put it truthfully: the sons of Hezbollah know who are their major enemies in the Middle East - the Phalanges, Israel, France and the US.

TO THE CHRISTIANS
If you, Christians, cannot tolerate that Muslims share with you certain domains of government, Allah has also made it intolerable for Muslims to participate in an unjust regime, unjust for you and for us, in a regime which is not predicated upon the prescriptions of religion and upon the basis of the Law (Sharia) as laid down by Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets…

We don't wish you evil. We call upon you to embrace Islam so that you can be happy in this world and the next.

We see in Israel the vanguard of the United States in our Islamic world. It is the hated enemy that must be fought until the hated ones get what they deserve. This enemy is the greatest danger to our future generations and to the destiny of our lands, particularly as it glorifies the ideas of settlement and expansion, initiated in Palestine, and yearning outward to the extension of the Great Israel, from the Euphrates to the Nile. Our primary assumption in our fight against Israel states that the Zionist entity is aggressive from its inception, and built on lands wrested from their owners, at the expense of the rights of the Muslim people. Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated. We vigorously condemn all plans for negotiation with Israel, and regard all negotiators as enemies, for the reason that such negotiation is nothing but the recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.

In 1992, Hassan Nasrallah said he planned to turn all of Lebanon into "resistance."

“Our participation in the elections and entry into the National Assembly do not alter the fact that we are a resistance party. We shall, in fact, work to turn the whole of Lebanon into a country of resistance, and the state into a state of resistance. "

I fear whether Lebanon has any leaders ready to fight for Lebanon, even when Hezbollah is in a weakened state. But if they don't do it now, they will never get another chance.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

According to Lebanon's health minister, only ELEVEN people were killed in the airstrikes that killed Nasrallah!

We know that Israel flattened four apartment buildings in its airstrike on Hassan Nasrallah.

Israel haters are claiming that this is a war crime because there were so many civilians presumed to have been killed in the strikes. They say that this violates the principle of proportionality.

They are obviously wrong. Nasrallah, his bunker and the people with him are as high value military targets as can be imagined, and nothing in international law says that the highest value targets cannot be struck - just that the attacker must do everything feasible to minimize collateral damage. International law (as codified in many nations' military manuals) says that the presence of civilians within or near military objectives does not render such objectives immune from attack. As I've shown previously, the latitude in attacking within the bounds of proportionality have been ruled to be far more generously than the "experts" claim for Israel. Hundreds of civilian deaths would indeed be proportional to the military value of killing the single most important decisionmaker in Iran's war against Israel.

But how many ended up dying from the airstrike?

Each building had about 7-9 stories, presumably with at least four apartments per floor; one can expect that hundreds of people lived there. So we would think that death toll would be in the hundreds, assuming no warning.

The Lebanese minister of health, Firas Abiad, held a press conference on Saturday detailing all of the deaths since the beginning of the war October 8. Here is what he said about Friday's airstrikes, according to LBC TV:

Regarding the toll of Friday's Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs:

Total deaths: 11.

Total injuries: 108.

ELEVEN?

And out of that eleven, how many were Hezbollah terrorists and their partners?

For contrast, the health ministry says that 33 were killed Saturday in airstrikes across Lebanon. One would think that they would have been able to recover far more bodies by Saturday than only eleven if there were hundreds of casualties from the massive Friday airstrikes.. The hospitals would record the numbers.

How could the death toll be so low?

Maybe Israel did manage to obliquely warn the residents? According to Dearborn.org, the airstrike occurred two hours after residents in the area were warned to evacuate, but I cannot find that reported anywhere else. Maybe Israel calculated that a general warning for the entire neighborhood would be enough to get many residents to flee but not specific enough to make Nasrallah risk going aboveground, thinking it was a trap for him. However, outside this one source, I cannot find any reports of warning for that airstrike.

Somehow, Israel seems to have managed to minimize civilian casualties even when destroying four buildings. Perhaps the death toll will rise, but it seems unlikely to reach more than a few dozen. Which is absolutely mindblowing.

This also proves that Israel knows how to use 2,000 pound bombs in a precise way even in an urban environment - the exact opposite of how it has been framed by the media and Kamala Harris.

One other point. If you look at Google Maps you see that most of Beirut can be seen in Google Street View (blue highlighted section.) But large parts of the city have no street view, including the Haret Hreik area that was struck.

Those areas are controlled by Hezbollah, which probably instructs Google that some areas are off limits from open source photographs. Presumably the only people that live there either Hezbollah members, their families or otherwise linked to Hezbollah.

Not to say that any civilians linked to Hezbollah deserve to die, but they knew exactly where they lived and why.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

09/28 Links: Killing Nasrallah; The death of Hassan Nasrallah shows why this is a just war; Defund the UN for its role in enabling terror and antisemitism

From Ian:

Lee Smith: Killing Nasrallah

In the past, Israeli officials warned against targeting the terror chief. They feared it might bring about an even more ruthless leader just as Israel’s 1992 assassination of then-Hezbollah chief Abbas al-Mussawi elevated, in their eyes, the more effective Nasrallah. But what made Nasrallah special, what gave rise to the personality cult around the man whose name means “victory of God,” was his relationship with Khamenei.

In 1989, Nasrallah left Lebanon for Iran, where the 29-year-old cleric was introduced to Khamenei. In the vacuum left by Khomeini’s death, Khamenei was working to consolidate his power, which included taking control of Hezbollah, Tehran’s most significant external asset. He saw Mussawi’s assassination as an opening to put his own man in place, and with Hezbollah’s operations against Israeli forces in Lebanon, Nasrallah’s legend steadily grew. Even Israeli officials credited Hezbollah for driving Israel out of the south in 2000, a singular triumph worthy of the name Nasrallah, a victory against the hated Zionists that no other Arab leader could claim.

But the myth of Nasrallah as Turban Napoleon was dispelled with the disastrous 2006 war which he stumbled into by kidnapping two Israel soldiers. Later he said that had he known Israel was going to respond so forcefully, he’d never have given the order. And yet despite the thousands killed in Lebanon, Hezbollahis and civilians, and the billions of dollars worth of damage, he claimed that Hezbollah won just because he survived. Before his demise, he’d been in hiding since 2006.

Israel’s recent demonstrations of its technological prowess show that Nasrallah survived this long thanks only to the sufferance of the Jerusalem government. Netanyahu and others seem to have hoped the Hezbollah problem would resolve itself once the Americans came to their senses and recognized the threat Iran posed to U.S. regional hegemony. But the Israelis misread the strategic implications of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The George W. Bush administration’s freedom agenda gave Iraq’s Shia majority an insuperable advantage in popular elections. And since virtually all the Shia factions were controlled by Iran, democratizing Iraq laid the foundations for Iran’s regional empire as well as Obama’s realignment strategy, downgrading relations with traditional U.S. allies like Israel and building ties with the anti-American regime. Even Trump, whose January 2020 targeted killing of Iranian terror chief Qassem Soleimani and his Iraqi deputy Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was far and away the most meaningful operation ever conducted by U.S. forces on Iraqi soil, couldn’t entirely break the mold cast by his predecessors and which the Pentagon protected like a priceless jewel.

U.S. forces are still based in Iraq and Syria to fight ISIS and any other Sunnis the Iranians and their allies categorize as threats to their interests. The detail seems almost like a medieval curse imposed on the losing side in a war. After the Iranians killed and maimed thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq, and helped kill and wound thousands more by urging their Syrian ally Bashar Assad to usher Sunni fighters from the Damascus airport to the Iraqi front, America’s best and bravest are condemned to eternal bondage requiring them to protect Iranian interests forever.

The idea advanced by conspiracy theorists from the U.S. political and media establishment on the left as well as the right that Netanyahu is trying to drag the U.S. into a larger regional war with Iran—a thesis sure to be cited repeatedly in the aftermath of Nasrallah’s assassination—is absurd. The Obama faction, of which Biden and Harris are a part, is in Iran’s corner. Moreover, only a fool could be blind to the fact that the Pentagon way of war, three decades into the 21st century and a world away from the United States’ last conclusive victory, means death for all who pursue it.

If Washington and the Europeans are appalled by Israel’s campaign over the last two weeks, it’s because the Israelis have resurfaced the ugly truth that no modish theories of war, international organizations, or even American presidents could long obscure. Wars are won by killing the enemy, above all, those who inspire their people to kill yours. Killing Nasrallah not only anchors Israel’s victory in Lebanon but reestablishes the old paradigm for any Western leaders who take seriously their duty to protect their countrymen and civilization: Kill your enemies.

Seth Mandel: Iran’s Limits

So what was happening was this: Iran was using Hezbollah to draw Israeli attacks on Hezbollah’s stronghold in South Lebanon, while claiming Israel was attacking Hezbollah to provoke Iran. For the Iranian president to say this out loud was essentially an admission that Tehran won’t sacrifice itself to save Hezbollah or to avenge Hamas’s honor.

To be clear, there are limits to this reticence. Iran has been using its proxies in four different countries to attack Israeli and American targets, and Iran did strike at Israel this summer directly with hundreds of missiles and drones.

Hamas and Hezbollah (and the Houthis and groups in Iraq) are extensions of Iranian force around the Middle East. The assumption was that Iran would intervene before letting any of its proxies get fully destroyed. But what if that’s not the case? It’s not clear at all that Iranian self-preservation extends to those groups, or beyond Iran’s borders at all.

The idea that it’s impossible to, say, destroy Hamas because “you can’t kill an idea” was always preposterous. Hamas can be destroyed. But it’s becoming clearer that there is no reason not to destroy Hamas, because destroying Hamas won’t trigger a wider war with Iran. And Hezbollah is clearly getting worried that they, too, might be considered expendable by the regime.

The answer to this one isn’t clear yet. Iran does not have the same investment in and connection to Hamas that it has with Hezbollah, which is a key arm of its global expansionist militaries. But terror groups don’t last forever, and this one is now into its fifth decade on earth.

That doesn’t mean Iran won’t fight to hold onto its control over territory in Lebanon and Syria and Iraq and Yemen. But no proxy is more important than its principal.

A path to a wider victory is clear: maximum pressure on Iran, along with strong regional alliances, can defeat Tehran in the long run. The West just has to decide if it wants that victory.

John Bolton: Israel has exposed the lie at the heart of Starmer and Biden’s foreign policy

We have all repeatedly dealt fecklessly with Iran’s efforts to create nuclear weapons. But now that the reality of present danger has become crystal clear, quibbling about Israel’s determination to survive is quite unbecoming to the West’s leaders.

Failed and misbegotten diplomacy toward Iran and Hezbollah particularly has helped produce the current conflict. I know personally because of my service as US Ambassador to the UN during and after the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War.

Although the inadequacies of Security Council Resolution 1701, which brought that conflict to a halt, were evident even as the Council was voting unanimously to approve it, recent years have shown it to be wholly ineffective. Resolution 1701’s central objective was to prevent the rearmament of Hezbollah after Israel’s devastating retaliation for combined Hamas-Hezbollah attacks from Gaza and Lebanon (sound familiar?).

To say the least, this UN diplomacy facilitated exactly the opposite result. It did not strengthen an independent Lebanese government, with the backing of enhanced UN peacekeeping forces, to stand against Hezbollah. Instead, Hezbollah in effect took over the Lebanese government.

As with Hamas in Gaza, not until Hezbollah is eliminated will the truly innocent civilians have a chance for representative government.

Today’s real issue is Iran. Far from being eager to aid now-beleaguered Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran is clearly worried it will face direct, devastating retaliation from Israel. Indeed, there were reports even before Israel’s elimination of Nasrullah that Iran was dodging Hezbollah entreaties for Iran to come to its defence.

Iran has been visibly nervous about responding to Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Ismael Haniyah on July 31, and Nasrullah’s exit will only make the ayatollahs more nervous.

The fear that this time Netanyahu will not succumb to American pressure to “take the win,” as Israel did in April after Iran’s unsuccessful missile and drone attack, is clearly chilling Iran’s leadership. As well it should.

While the future is decidedly murky, Israelis undoubtedly remain determined to defend themselves. Too bad the current United Kingdom and the United States governments are not proud to stand with them.