Saturday, September 21, 2024

09/21 Links: Israel’s Beirut Strike Was About Preventing Another October 7; IDF confirms assassination of Ibrahim Aqil, names 15 Hezbollah commanders killed in strike

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Israel’s Beirut Strike Was About Preventing Another October 7
Early in the war, Israeli TV personality Shlomi Eldar visited in Cairo with his friend and former senior Palestinian Authority official Sufyan Abu Zaydeh, who had lived in the Gaza Strip from 2019 until this year. If you had told him before October 7 what Hamas was hoping to accomplish, he told Eldar, “I would have answered like any Israeli intelligence officer: It’s inconceivable that this is what they’re planning.”

But it’s something that another Palestinian told Eldar that brings the full Hamas zealotry into sharp relief.

“Iyad” (an assumed name) and Eldar talk about the “last promise,” a kind of end-times prophecy that Hamas believed it was on the verge of bringing to fruition. Iyad tells Eldar a story: “One day, a well-known Hamas figure calls and tells me with pride and joy that they are preparing a full list of committee heads for the cantons that will be created in Palestine. He offers me the chairmanship of the Zarnuqa committee, where my family lived before 1948.”

That is Rehovot, in Israel. And Iyad was being offered the role, essentially, of military governor of the entire area for after Hamas defeated Israel and divided the entire country into such districts.

Sounds crazy, right? Iyad says he told them “You’re out of your minds” and asked the person not to call him again.

Hamas was serious, though. In 2021, the group held a gathering called “The Promise of the Hereafter Conference.” Three guesses what it was about.

That is the background of today’s strikes in Lebanon. There is no more talk of how crazy these guys are, as if their apocalyptic visions are mere punchlines. Of course Hezbollah has plans for similarly ambitious invasions of Israel. That doesn’t mean such an invasion is imminent, but neither can it be assumed as not imminent. October 7 changed the stakes. It was a humbling experience for the Israeli national-security agencies, but a learning one, too.

Of course, Ibrahim Aqil wasn’t targeted only for what he might do. Forty years ago he helped plan attacks on U.S. diplomatic compounds in Beirut. Since then, he has been a key player in the planning of Hezbollah attacks both inside and outside Lebanon. At the time of his death, he was also leading the group’s elite Radwan Force.

But the bigger-picture lesson here is that Israel will assume its enemies mean what they say. After October 7, it can’t afford not to.
Jonathan Tobin: Why the reactions to Israel’s strikes on Hezbollah matter
Israel can do nothing right
At the root of this the same belief in Israel’s illegitimacy as a “settler/colonialist” and “apartheid” state that motivates the mobs who have marched in the streets of American cities and on college campuses in support of Hamas’s efforts to purge Jews “from the river to the sea.”

To such people, there is nothing that Israelis could do to defend itself under any circumstance that would be justified. And, as they have also shown, there is nothing that those who wish to eradicate Israeli—even the genocidal Islamists of Hamas who perpetrated an orgy of mass murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction on Oct. 7—can do that can’t be characterized as an act of justified “resistance” against “settlers” and “white” oppressors.

Just as important as that is the way the attack on Israel’s efforts to stop Hezbollah tells us about the way many in the West have lost any belief that there is such a thing as a just war.

The immediate reaction to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, reminded the overwhelming majority of Americans that there were times when you had to fight to defend yourself and your country. That was a matter of consensus among the generation that fought in World War II but had gone out of fashion in the Vietnam War era. Amid the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan that followed 9/11, it is once again being attacked by the left.

Some wars are just
That sense that there is nothing worth fighting or dying for has been compounded by the success of the left’s long march through our institutions in recent years as a generation of American students were indoctrinated in the toxic neo-Marxist myths about critical race theory and intersectionality. This is not just a war against America and its history but against Western civilization itself. By this means, many Americans have been intellectually disarmed against threats to their values and their nation. Along with it comes a belief that “white” Westerners are, like Israelis, inherently illegitimate and should not resist those who label themselves (as does Hezbollah) as members of a class of victims who seek to do them harm and topple their civilization.

Unnecessary and aggressive wars are unjust. But those waged to defend against murderous regimes and those who seek to victimize the powerless are just. Most of all, a war waged to defend a nation’s existence is fully defensible and should be supported by anyone with a set of moral values.

But many contemporary Western liberals have either forgotten that or have embraced anti-Western and Marxist ideology that would render even the most obviously moral wars, such as those waged against Hitler’s regime and the perpetrators of Oct. 7, as somehow immoral. In this way, they are prepared to condemn Israel’s exploding beepers that are clearly aimed at killing only terrorists as much as they do anything to prevent Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen and their Iranian paymasters from continuing to inflict suffering on Israel and the West. In their worldview, the terrorists should be protected from attack, and their Israeli and Western victims deserve none.

The issue this week isn’t so much whether it’s OK to laugh at the predicament of terrorists who have had the tables turned on them. It’s whether it’s ever right for Israelis or any citizen of a Western country to defend themselves against murderers with blood on their hands, and who wish to create more mayhem and death. Ethical people understand that there is only one answer to that question. The anger directed at Israel is because they have once again shown that they are prepared to try to make the killers pay for their crimes.
IDF confirms assassination of Ibrahim Aqil, names 15 Hezbollah commanders killed in strike
Israel Air Force jets, guided by the Intelligence Directorate, killed Ibrahim Aqil, in addition to 15 other Hezbollah Radwan Force commanders, during a meeting in the Dahieh neighborhood of Beirut on Friday evening, the IDF confirmed in a statement issued Saturday afternoon.

Among the terrorists killed was Abu Hassan Samir, who served as the head of the Radwan Force training unit.

He held various positions within Hezbollah and was commander of the Radwan Force for a decade until early 2024.

Samir was one of the orchestrators of the "Conquer the Galilee" attack plan. He was involved in furthering Hezbollah's entrenchment in southern Lebanon while strengthening the terrorist organization's ground combat abilities.

The Radwan Force commander had planned and executed numerous shooting attacks and infiltrations into Israeli territory.

Additional Hezbollah commanders who were killed in the strike
The additional Radwan Force commanders who were killed in the strike were Samer Abdul-Halim Halawi, commander of the coastal area; Abbas Sami Maslamani, commander of the Qana area; Abdullah Abbas Hajazi, commander of the Ramim Ridge area; Muhammed Ahmad Reda, commander of the Al-Khiam area; and Hassan Hussein Madi, commander of the Mount Dov area.

These commanders have been leading attacks against Israel for years.

Additionally, senior officials in Hezbollah and within the Radwan Force headquarters were killed. These include Hassan Yussef Abad Alssatar, who was responsible for Radwan Force operations. He led and advanced all of the force's rocket fire operations.

Hussein Ahmad Dahraj, Chief of Staff of the Radwan Force, was also killed in the strike. He was involved in the transfer of weapons and the strengthening of the organization.


Inverted morality
Given the barbaric acts of brutality committed by Hamas — to the undisguised glee, and often enthusiastic complicity of the general population of the Strip — it is inconceivable that any person, professing to subscribe to even a semblance of a humanitarian credo would consider paying any heed to the claims of the villainous savages, who violated even the most fundamental norms of civilized behavior.

Accordingly, no weight ought to be accorded the demands of Hamas. Indeed, it is unthinkable that the organization or its adherents should be afforded even an iota of consideration.

Hamas has raped and ravaged; murdered and mutilated, tortured and tormented infants and invalids, toddlers and teens with a ferocity and malevolence unfathomable to civilized minds. Accordingly, why would Hamas’s demands be accorded any weight in securing the release of the Israeli hostages? After all, the entire existence of Hamas is nothing but a litany of gruesome war crimes. Indeed. every projectile fired indiscriminately at Israeli targets, purposely aimed at killing Israeli civilians, both before and after October 7th, every Israeli civilian forcibly abducted from their homes and incarcerated for months in Gaza, every Israeli tortured and executed in captivity in Gaza since October the 7th, all these comprise a cruel cavalcade of Hamas’s incontestable war crimes.

Perverse and perverted
Accordingly, it would be reasonable to assume that Hamas’s position on how Israel should respond to the pernicious procession of war crimes perpetrated against it—and how to redress them—would be totally irrelevant, especially for those who profess to subscribe to a credo of sanctifying “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”

Yet, astonishingly, what we are seeing is just the reverse: A perverse concern for Hamas’s demands — and the welfare of their malign adherents—is now not only dominating the debate on the fighting in Gaza, but also largely determining attitudes toward the negotiations on the release of the abductees held in captivity by the Islamist thugs.

The treatment of the illegally kidnapped Israelis has been bestial and the conditions they are being held in, below sub-human. They are denied even the most minimal levels of sanitation, nutrition, and medical treatment, any access to, or care by, international humanitarian organizations such as the (hopelessly biased and inept) Red Cross. They are being incarcerated incommunicado deep in dank, damp dungeons cut off from all and any contact with the outside world, certainly from family and friends.

Given the heinous nature of Hamas, its utter disregard, not only for international law, and for elementary norms of human decency but any semblance of accepted behavior in civilized circles, no merit can, or should be, be ascribed to their demands.

Grotesque endeavors
The organization and its aberrant adherents must be hounded mercilessly; hellfire and brimstone relentlessly rained down on them. The grotesque endeavors to justify its barbarism should be repudiated and ridiculed.

Any sign that its inhumanity could be accorded any gains will only induce further inhumanity.

That is an outcome that cannot be countenanced.
US officials say killing of top Hezbollah man a ‘good outcome’ and ‘nobody sheds a tear’
US officials on Saturday expressed approval of the death of Ibrahim Aqil, a top Hezbollah commander responsible for a 1983 bombing that killed 241 Americans in Beirut, who was killed by an Israeli strike on the Lebanese capital on Friday.

Aqil, the head of operations for Hezbollah, was killed in the strike along with top commanders of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force, as they met in the basement of a Beirut residential building. Lebanese officials said 37 people were killed in the strike, including three children and several women.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called Aqil’s death “a good outcome,” adding that he planned to speak with Israeli officials later Saturday about the operation.

“That individual has American blood on his hands and has a Reward for Justice price on his head,” Sullivan told reporters on the sidelines of the Quad summit that US President Joe Biden is hosting in Wilmington, Delaware. “He is somebody who the United States promised long ago we would do everything we could to see brought to justice.”

Before Friday’s strike, the US had offered a $7 million reward for information on Aqil.

Sullivan added that the moment was also meaningful for the American victims. “You know 1983 seems like a long time ago,” he said. “But for a lot of families and a lot of people, they’re still living with it every day.”

Nevertheless, Sullivan said he was still worried about possible escalation between Israel and Hezbollah. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaks during a press conference at the US embassy in Beijing on August 29, 2024. (Adek Berry/AFP)

“Ibrahim Aqil, who was killed today, was responsible for the Beirut barracks and embassy bombing 40 years ago. So nobody sheds a tear for him,” Brett McGurk, the White House Mideast czar, said Friday while addressing the Israeli-American Council’s conference in Washington.

“That said, we have disagreements with the Israelis on tactics and how you kind of measure escalation risk. It is a very concerning situation. I’m very confident that through diplomacy, through deterrence and other means, we’ll work our way out of it,” he added.

“We do not think a war in Lebanon is the way to achieve the objective, to return people to their homes. We also fully stand with Israel in their defense of their people and their territory against Hezbollah,” McGurk continued. “We want a diplomatic settlement to the north. That is the objective, and that’s what we’re working towards.”


Arsen Ostrovsky, John Spencer, and Mark Goldfeder: Sorry, AOC: Israel's Precision Attack Against Hezbollah Was Humane—and Legal
By any stretch of the imagination, Israel is fully entitled under international law, including but not limited to Article 51 of the UN Charter, to exercise its right to self-defense.

Some so-called "experts," like Ken Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch, and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have immediately and reflexively rushed to condemn Israel for violating international humanitarian law, including by unlawfully using booby traps. But what does the law actually state?

Generally speaking, under Article 7 of the Amended Protocol II to the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, the use of booby traps in communication devices are indeed prohibited in certain situations. There is, of course, an overriding caveat, which is that pursuant to Article 52 of the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Convention I, such acts are permissible in circumstances where the objects in question are no longer used for civilian purposes.

In this case, the pagers and hand-held devices, which were distributed specifically to Hezbollah operatives, were being used for the purposes of communicating, planning and conducting operations. As such, they immediately ceased to be considered "civilian objects" and became legitimate military targets.

Accordingly, their destruction constitutes a clear military objective under customary international law (per Art. 52 of the Additional Protocols), and they are a lawful target of attack.

Under the Principle of Distinction, one of the cornerstone principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), parties to an armed conflict must also at all times distinguish between civilians and combatants.

In this case, the operation was also aimed solely at Hezbollah terrorists. Indeed, only Hezbollah operatives were known to be in possession of these devices, which were not widely or generally available, and were in fact ordered by Hezbollah and distributed by Hezbollah leadership specifically to circumvent Israeli intelligence.

Under the Laws of War, parties must also abide by the Doctrine of Proportionality, which requires that any anticipated loss of civilian life must not be excessive in comparison to the potential military advantage to be gained from such an attack and or action, as well as taking feasible precautions in planning and conducting attacks to reduce the risk of harm to civilians and other persons and objects protected from being made the object of attack.

In this case, the clear military advantage would be to stop the ongoing Hezbollah rocket fire, allow for the 80,000 displaced Israeli residents to safely and permanently return to their homes, and render a large part of an enemy army unable to fight.

Of the 4,000 reported Hezbollah operatives injured, only a handful of civilians were reportedly harmed. That is an extraordinary feat in modern warfare and the textbook definition of a precision and proportionate attack.

Lots of people like to claim Israel has the right to self-defense, and yet the moment the Jewish state lawfully exercises that right in an almost unimaginably targeted way, they are outraged, looking to cast Israel as an aggressor. For the record, 8,500 unprovoked and indiscriminate rocket attacks is what might be called an escalation, not the pinpoint accurate response to stop those rockets.


It is perfectly okay to smirk at the humiliation of Hezbollah
Israel needed this win
THE TRUTH is that Israel truly needed this win. Many Israelis have grown disillusioned with the Israeli military and the associated intelligence establishment, for failing to discern and warn of enemy intentions, for failing to find and target Hamas leadership, and for failing thus far to decisively win the wars against Hamas and Hezbollah.

The beeper bang-up is only a tactical win, but it suggests that Israel has turned the page – shall we say with a grin, turned the page(r)! – and is now embarking on a more offensive path to crushing Hezbollah, or at least significantly deterring it from further escalation.

Some Israelis also are disenchanted with the Netanyahu government, wildly accusing it of being a heartless government focused only on its electoral base, concerned mainly about just getting through another day in power – not securing hostage release or resolutely winning the wars.

The beeper bang-up suggests that, on the contrary, the government has been smartly planning for a long time for an assault on Hezbollah, and that more intelligent military strikes and diplomatic moves are possible.

Wouldn’t it be good if Israel could disable Hezbollah’s massive missile force with a similar cyber strike? Imagine an electromagnetic attack, a burst of energy that short-circuits the 150,000 Hezbollah warheads aimed at Israel.

Yes, I would celebrate that with profound schadenfreude (even if it wrought enormous destruction in Lebanon)!

Many Israelis also have been crushed by the ongoing pressures of long-term war: the grief over fallen soldiers, the suffering of the wounded, the torment of hostage families, the dislocations of displaced Israeli families from the North and the South – refugees in their own homeland, the anguish of young families whose fathers have been away from home on military reserve duty for most of the past year, and so much more.

The beeper bang-up does not solve their problems nor does it alone revolutionize Israel’s overall strategic situation.

But the ingenuity, muscle, and grit evidenced by the strike on Hezbollah does wonders for the Israeli national psyche and especially for those who are in despair.

It suggests that the many sacrifices being made by Israelis will yet carry the day and help overcome the enemy.

There is some relief if not consolation in knowing that Israeli political and military intelligence leaders have a few more tricks up their sleeve and that the enemy is vulnerable.

Many Israelis and Jews around the world also have grown furious with that world.

There is great rage at cynical, even malevolent Western thought leaders and politicians who have abandoned Israel by denying it weapons, falsely accusing it of war crimes, and voting to hand the enemy more land.

(See, for example, this week’s reprehensible United Nations General Assembly resolution passed by an overwhelming majority which essentially strips Israel of the right to self-defense and self-determination in Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem. To its disgrace, France voted in favor, while Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada, and Australia shamefully abstained.)

The beeper bang-up doesn’t quell anger at the world but it does suggest some pushback. After all, the world (especially the US) has wrongly been pushing Israel to settle for yet another flimsy diplomatic agreement with Hezbollah that essentially would change nothing.


IDF: Possible attacks on Israel within 24 hours, new restrictions on Haifa and North
The IDF on Saturday night issued new home front restrictions on Haifa and any part of the country northward in anticipation of a potential large Hezbollah attack, following Israel’s attacks over the weekend against over 400 Hezbollah rocket launchers and many thousands of rockets.

Since Thursday, the military has carried out at least three major waves of attacks, each of which destroyed a hundred or more rocket launchers, including one over Thursday-Friday and two on Saturday.

According to the IDF, these attacks are heavily harming Hezbollah's ability and attempts to attack Israel.

At the same time, the Lebanese-based terrorist group still maintains a massive arsenal, including SCUD missiles, other long range precision rockets that can potentially hit all of Israel, medium range rockets that can hit Haifa and northward, and short range rockets and drones that it has used to ravage the Upper Galilee and Golan Heights for nearly a year.

All of this is occurring in the context of the IDF having killed Hezbollah Radwan chief Ibrahim Akil and around 16 other commanders, as well as accusations by Hezbollah that Israel exploded devices across Lebanon on Tuesday-Wednesday which injured between 3,000 and 4,000 Hezbollah fighters and commanders, killing dozens.

HFC restrictions
The new home front restrictions mean that from Haifa and northward, gatherings are limited to 30 people outdoors and 300 indoors.

There are no changes southward of Haifa at this time, but this could change at any time based on upcoming Hezbollah attacks.

IDF chief spokesman R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari refused to commit either to a full invasion of northern Lebanon imminently or that the IDF would refrain from this.
IDF eliminates Hamas terrorists who held Hersh Goldberg-Polin, other hostages
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari informed the families on Saturday of the six hostages who were murdered last month by Hamas while in captivity and that the terrorists who held them were eliminated by Israeli forces.

The hostages they killed were Almog Sarousi, Carmel Gat, Alex Lubanov, Uri Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, and Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

Hagari said that the day after the hostages were murdered, "troops from the 162nd Division identified two terrorists emerging from an underground tunnel shaft in the Tel al-Sultan area and eliminated them during an encounter."

Methods to find the terrorists responsible
The IDF was able to determine that the two terrorists held the six hostages by using DNA findings that linked them to the tunnel where the hostages were murdered.

"Based on the findings and the information available to us, these terrorists that were killed were the same terrorists who were in the tunnel where the bodies of the six hostages were discovered," Hagari continued. "The findings show they were there when they were murdered and we are investigating their involvement in the murder. Should we obtain further information, we will first update the families and then the public."

Hagari then finished his speech by saying that the IDF will "pursue and reach everyone responsible for this heinous murder, and we will not stop until we reach them all."


IDF eliminates Hamas tech expert Muhammad Mansour
The IDF eliminated Hamas terrorist Muhammad Mansour, a key figure in Hamas's intelligence system, and a number of other terrorists in strikes on dozens of terror structures in central and southern Gaza, the military announced on Saturday morning.

Mansour was reportedly a key source of technological knowledge for the terror group's intelligence.

The other terrorists eliminated had targeted IDF soldiers in previous attacks, the military added.

Destroying Hamas's infrastructure
In addition to the elimination of terrorists, the IDF's intelligence-based operational activity also led troops to discover Hamas weaponry and dismantle a large amount of terrorist infrastructure, the IDF stated.

The IAF also reportedly struck 20 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip, including Hamas military cells and terrorist infrastructure.
IDF says it struck Hamas operatives at inactive Gaza school; 21 reported killed
The Israel Defense Forces carried out an airstrike on Saturday against a group of Hamas operatives at a command room embedded within a former school in Gaza, the military said, in an attack that reportedly killed more than 20 people.

Hamas was using the al-Falah School in the Zeitoun neighborhood to plan and carry out attacks against IDF troops and against Israel, the military said.

The school, inactive amid the war, had also been serving as a shelter for displaced Gazans.

According to the Gaza civil defense agency and health ministry — both run by Hamas — 21 people were killed in the strike.

“Civil Defense crews recovered 21 people, including 13 children and six women,” one of whom was pregnant, agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

There were “around 30 injured, including nine children [needing] limb amputations, as a result of an Israeli bombing on al-Zeitoun School C” in Gaza City, he said.

To mitigate harm to civilians in the strike, the IDF said it carried out “many steps,” including using precision munitions, aerial surveillance, and other intelligence.

“The Hamas terror organization systematically violates international law, brutally exploiting civilian institutions and the population as a human shield for terror activity,” the military added.

It said the target was “embedded inside” the al-Falah School, adjacent to the Al-Zeitoun School buildings. An AFP reporter at the scene confirmed that Al-Zeitoun School C had been hit.


IDF thwarts attempt by Gaza terrorists to loot aid truck
The Tzabar Battalion of the IDF's Givati Brigade thwarted an attempt by terrorists in the Gaza Strip to loot an aid truck carrying humanitarian relief for Gaza's civilian population, the IDF reported on Friday.

After securing the humanitarian corridor in Rafah, IDF scans reportedly identified Hamas terrorists stealing the contents of a humanitarian aid truck. Ground forces subsequently directed drones to strike the vehicles carrying the looters.

IDF troops identified a vehicle that pulled to the front of a line of aid trucks and an armed individual exiting the car next to a gathering of people in front of the trucks.

IDF transcripts reveal precision in avoiding civilian harm
A video and audio recording from IDF surveillance revealed the military's identification of assailants, including their weapons and other movements.

"The guy who is currently standing outside the window of the car that is vertical to the road is armed with an AK-47," one IDF soldier can be heard saying in Hebrew. "We saw one armed militant getting back inside the car and one armed militant getting out of the window… Two armed men in the car are turning right from the humanitarian road."

According to the recording, authorization to strike the terrorists attempting to flee the scene was given on the condition that the strike would not hit the truck.

Not an isolated incident
Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza have exhibited a history of stealing humanitarian aid meant for civilians, long before the fallout of the October 7 attacks. In July, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric spoke of the challenges of receiving and distributing aid through the Kerem Shalom crossing, and said some aid is getting through but very little.

According to Dujarric, aid is being dropped off from the Israeli side and left in an area where the UN and some private sector entities are also picking it up.

Dujarric also said the UN trucks that are picking up aid are doing it often at a significant cost because they are being either looted or attacked by criminal elements.

"The aid is being dropped off. But on the other side of that, you have other lawlessness and continuing conflict," he said. ' So it's not as if we're operating in a beautifully safe environment. We're operating in a highly challenging environment and continue to do our best to aid those who need it."


Labour is trying to appease the unappeasable, deserting our true friends in the process
Since Britain’s current government took office, it has dropped its objections to the International Criminal Court’s attempt to issue an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Netanyahu; restored funding to UNRWA, despite many of its employees being outed as terrorists; and restricted arms exports to Israel. “In none of these cases,” writes Tom Harris, “can we see any similarity with what previous Labor governments would have done.”

Usually, the Labor turn against Israel is understood in the context of the party’s former leader, the anti-Semitic radical leftist Jeremy Corbyn. But Harris believes the shift started in 2010, under Corbyn’s far more moderate Jewish predecessor, Ed Miliband.

In his first conference speech as [party] leader, Miliband generously announced that Israel had the right to exist—a peculiar statement, since he felt no compunction to say the same thing about any other nation. But Miliband’s equivocation on Israel, a product of his desire to flirt with the left that had given him the edge over his older brother in the leadership contest, only presaged what was yet to come.

Harris looks at the reasons for the shift, which has persisted even after Corbyn’s ouster by the current prime minister, Keir Starmer, who has made a point of repairing relations with British Jews:

[T]he case for concluding that these [anti-Israel] policies have been pursued specifically in order to assuage Muslim opinion in the UK is convincing, if not overwhelming. . . . In campaigners’ experience, will there ever be a point, short of declaring that Israel should abolish itself in favor of a Greater Palestine, that more extreme Muslim opinion is satisfied? How far must the government go along the path it has chosen before it starts to win back that lost support in northern and midlands seats?

The answer, of course, is that extremists tend to demand extreme things. Those who march each week for Palestine and who voted for pro-Gaza candidates at the general election will never, ever be satisfied with a government that does anything other than express complete opposition to Israel.

By reasserting its principled support for Israel and by helping its efforts to remove Hamas as a player in Gaza, the government would be honoring its own liberal principles. It would also be sending an important signal to the pro-Palestine movement and the Islamists and terrorist apologists who dwell in its shadow: our principles of tolerance are not for sale, however many votes you think you can deprive us of.
UN rights chief claims detonation of Hezbollah comms devices could be a war crime
The United Nations claimed Friday the detonation of hand-held communication devices in Lebanon could constitute a war crime as Beirut’s top diplomat accused Israel of orchestrating what he called a “terror” attack.

The blasts that killed dozens and wounded nearly 3,000 on Tuesday and Wednesday targeted communication devices used by the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization.

Pagers and walkie-talkies exploded as their users were shopping in supermarkets, walking on streets and attending funerals, plunging the country into panic.

“International humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby-trap devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects,” the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, told the Security Council during an emergency session on Lebanon requested by Algeria.

“It is a war crime to commit violence intended to spread terror among civilians,” he added, repeating his call for an “independent, rigorous and transparent” investigation.

Lebanese authorities blame Israel for the attack and have said the targeted devices were booby-trapped before they entered the country.

Hezbollah has vowed retribution and launched its own internal probe into the explosions.

“I am appalled by the breadth and impact of the attacks,” said Turk.

“These attacks represent a new development in warfare, where communication tools become weapons,” he added.

“This cannot be the new normal.”

Speaking at the Security Council, Lebanon’s top diplomat Abdallah Bou Habib called the attack “an unprecedented method of warfare in its brutality and terror.”

“Israel, through this terrorist aggression has violated the basic principles of international humanitarian law,” he said, calling Israel a “rogue state.”


‘You Will Have The Most Anti-Israel President By Far’: Trump Warns Of Israel’s Peril If Kamala Wins
On Thursday, former President Donald Trump addressed the Israeli American Council National Summit in Washington, D.C., and told the crowd that the “sacred bond” between the United States and Israel was in serious trouble due to the machinations of the Biden-Harris administration.

“We’re gathered tonight to talk about the sacred bond between the United States and Israel, and it’s a bond that’s in serious trouble,” Trump stated. “In less than three weeks, we will mark the one-year anniversary of the deadliest attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Trump noted. “On October 7, Hamas terrorists slaughtered more than 1,200 Israelis, including men, women, children, and even little, beautiful babies. They tortured, wounded, kidnapped, and horribly maimed thousands more. Unthinkable.”

“This evening, we repeat the vow that we have kept in our hearts since the terrible day in October: Never again,” he declared. “This should never have ever happened. … Weak leadership in the United States allowed this to happen, and it should never have happened.”

“If we continue down our current path, with four more years of Kamala, Israel will be faced not just with an attack, but with total annihilation,” he asserted. “You don’t have a protector. You have a big protector in me; you don’t have a protector on the other side. And I’ve said long and loud, anybody, and especially over the last few years, anybody who’s Jewish and loves being Jewish and loves Israel is a fool if they vote for a Democrat.”

Israel will face “unceasing, bloody war to obliterate the Jewish state and drive Jews out of the Holy Land. That’s what they want to do. They want to drive Jews out of the Holy Land,” he said.

“Let me spell out bluntly the danger of four more years of weakness in this White House,” he warned. “If Kamala is re-elected, Iran will quickly obtain nuclear weapons. … Iran will, right now, quickly obtain nuclear weapons capable of killing millions and millions of people, Jewish people, non-Jewish people. There’s no discrimination with nuclear weapons. … the regime will be free to unleash its militant terror brigades to turn the Jewish homeland into hell on earth. They’ve already started with October 7. Rockets will rain down from above until the Iron Dome has been exhausted. … Terrorist death squads will conduct constant raids into Israeli territory from all sides, going door-to-door and torturing, raping, kidnapping, and massacring innocent civilians.”


World on a ‘knife’s edge’ following attacks on Hezbollah
Sky News host Erin Molan has warned the world is on a “knife’s edge” amid rising tensions.

This comes after a series of attacks on Hezbollah this week in the form of communication devices exploding and air strikes in the south of Lebanon.

“Israel has not officially claimed responsibility, but it’s pretty obvious to most,” Ms Molan said.

“Nobody knows what will happen next in the Middle East, but I know without any doubt in my mind who I’m rooting for.”




NBC's Simmons_ Israel Didn't Bring Hezbollah Commander Responsible for Killing Americans to Justice by Killing Him
On Saturday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Velshi,” NBC News Chief International Correspondent Keir Simmons reacted to National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan praising the death of Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil in a recent Israeli strike as a positive outcome because it means that Aqil was brought to justice for his involvement in the Beirut barracks bombing in 1983 that killed 241 American military personnel by stating that “Of course, this, what is an assassination is not bringing somebody to justice.”

While discussing recent Israeli strikes, Simmons said, “The Israeli Defense Forces saying that the strike killed 16 Hezbollah members, including 12 senior commanders, now, Ali, among those commanders, Ibrahim Aqil. This is a Hezbollah commander who, according to the U.S., was responsible back in the 1980s — in 1983, was connected to the bombing of the Israeli — of the American embassy here and barracks. And we just actually heard from National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, he’s described Ibrahim Aqil as having American blood on his hands, and says, any time a terrorist who has killed Americans is brought to justice, that is a good outcome. Of course, this, what is an assassination is not bringing somebody to justice. He wasn’t pressed on that.”


While turning down defense portfolio, Sa’ar doesn’t rule out joining government in another role
Despite announcing he will not take up the post of defense minister in light of the recent escalation in the north, New Hope chairman Gideon Sa’ar defends his qualifications to serve in the role.

In a lengthy statement, the hawkish opposition politician argues that he has a “deep familiarity with Israel’s national security challenges” based on his time serving in the security cabinet and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and that he remains “convinced of my ability to successfully fulfill the role of minister of defense, as I have excelled in all my ministerial roles.”

Asserting that his security positions have been vindicated by developments, Sa’ar says that Israel requires “an up-to-date security concept” and a rebuilding of the armed forces to allow it to meet future challenges and insists that a veteran of the security establishment, “contaminated with failed concepts” cannot be the person to enact the necessary changes to the military — without actually naming Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Citing the conclusions of the Winograd Commission, which probed the failure of the Second Lebanon War, Sa’ar says that it is advantageous to have an outsider “deep knowledge of political-security issues and experience as a member of the government” as defense minister.

Arguing that he has such experience, Sa’ar links a number of Israel’s historic security achievements to civilian defense ministers while contending that “the greatest military and strategic disasters in the history of the State of Israel occurred during the time of security ministers who were former IDF.”

These include “the October 7 massacre, the Yom Kippur War, the reckless unilateral withdrawals from Gaza and Lebanon, [the] Oslo Accords. [All] events which resulted in the greatest bloodshed in Israel’s history,” he says.

Despite turning down what he says was Netanyahu’s offer to replace Gallant, Sa’ar doesn’t rule out joining the government in another capacity while vowing to continue promoting his security vision and expressing hope that the recent escalation in the north “will rise another level to the level of damage to Hezbollah’s strategic capabilities.”
Israel expels British Jewish activist who tried to immigrate under Law of Return
Franks’ immigration troubles don’t stem from any doubts about his Jewishness, an obstacle that some aliyah applicants face. Rather, the problems began after Franks’ left-wing views took him to a West Bank flashpoint and an anti-government protest in Jerusalem, where he was briefly detained. Franks believes he was deliberately punished for his political activism and prevented from making aliyah by officials in Israel’s Interior Ministry, which handles immigration and citizenship.

“The story here is that the courts have given the Ministry of Interior free rein to make decisions about who can be a Jew in Israel on the basis of his politics,” he said in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The degree to which Franks’ activism factored into his immigration troubles — his citizenship application was mysteriously closed, and he currently faces an order to leave the country by Sunday — is not clear. The Interior Ministry did not respond to questions from JTA. While it raised concerns about his entanglements with law enforcement and about his motivation for being in the country in communications with Franks, the ministry did not directly say it was ordering him to leave because of his political activity.

Still, he and his attorney, as well as a number of others who have been tracking the Israeli government’s handling of left-wing activists, believe there is a strong connection.

“Was the ministry targeting him because he is some kind of activist? I can’t say. It’s clear the police want these activists to leave the country, and that was the end result of the ministry’s actions,” said Franks’ Israeli immigration attorney, Ira Rozina.

“This is a person with a right to make aliyah,” she said. “To prevent someone from exercising that basic right should require a very significant justification.”

It could seem reasonable for a country to want to deny citizenship to someone who has protested against it. But Israel’s Law of Return, which guarantees citizenship to all Jews and their children and grandchildren, outlines very narrow conditions under which a request can be denied. People with criminal records can be rejected, but they do not have to be.

While some Jews have been denied entry to Israel for their political views, such as supporting the boycott movement against Israel, no one is known to have been denied aliyah on such a basis.

“Even a criminal record isn’t enough,” Rozina said. “The person has got to represent a serious danger to take away their right.”

Rozina said she had never heard of a case like his, and while she declined to draw any sweeping conclusions about Israel’s commitment to taking in Jews under the Law of Return, she said the outcome was “surprising and alarming.”


To The EU: Time To Stand Against Iran's Regime, Terror Groups, Nukes
Moreover, maintaining... economic ties grants legitimacy to the regime, signaling that the European Union is willing to overlook Iran's role in supporting aggression against Ukraine.

To stanch this, the EU urgently needs to stop its economic dealings with Iran.

Along with cutting economic ties, the EU would also do well to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization and close all Iranian embassies in Europe. The IRGC is the primary force behind Iran's military support for Russia. Isolating it would be a crucial step in weakening Tehran's capacity to destabilize the entire Middle East.

It [the EU] really has become a principal enabler of Russia's war against Ukraine.

The longer the EU allows the Islamist regime of Iran to operate with no repercussions, the more it strengthens both Iran's and Russia's war machines. For the wellbeing of the EU, the Middle East and the Free World, the EU severing its ties with Iran cannot take place soon enough.


Is Stand Up to Racism ignoring antisemitism?
The statement included a call to “stand up to antisemitism”. But although the protest rallies’ ostensible purpose was to expose the supposed role of the far-Right in the riots, they also focused on the Israel–Palestine conflict. Speakers at several SUTR events last month blamed “Zionists” for the riots. For example, addressing protesters in Birmingham on 17 August, Abdullah Saif, from the Muslim campaign group MEND, told his audience that Zionism had a “massive role” in “platforming the far-Right narrative” that triggered them, as it was “fully documented” that “the likes of Tommy Robinson are funded by Zionists”.

The claim that Robinson and others who had instigated the disorder were funded and controlled by Zionists was also made by platform speakers in several other English cities. In Newcastle, the journalist Yvonne Ridley suggested on 10 August that Robinson was “Israel’s poster boy”, instructed by his paymasters to foment the riots in order to “knock Gaza off the front pages”. She was joined by Chandi Chopra, chair of the Newcastle Palestine Solidarity Campaign, who said that “the Zionist squatter enemy” was the reason why “we are seeing racism against predominantly Muslim communities” in Britain.

SUTR announced on 29 August that its leaders had been “delighted” to attend the launch of another organisation fronted by Altikriti, the Islamophobia Action Group, stating on social media that the riots had underlined the case for urgent action to deal with this form of racism.

Indeed, Altikriti’s links to SUTR go back at least to 2017. He also spoke at an SUTR rally in Harrow in northwest London on 7 August, where he said that Robinson and the rest of the far-Right were “directly linked to the Zionist state of Israel”, and that the riots were their “payback for Gaza” — by which, he said, they meant to “punish” Britons who had protested against Israel’s conduct of the war.

Altikriti has long been a controversial figure. His father Osama was a leader of the Iraqi branch of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, and Anas said in 2004 that the “struggle of the Iraqi people, militarily and politically, must continue until the occupier leaves”. At the time, Iraqi insurgents were killing substantial numbers of British and American troops. He has visited the Hamas leadership in Gaza, posting photos of himself with its late leader Ismail Haniyeh. In 2014 he asked online “where pro-Israel Jewish Brits’ loyalties lie, whether with Britain or Israel”?

On the day after last October’s massacre, Altikriti signed a statement that affirmed Palestinians’ “inalienable right” to “armed struggle”, said “acts of the Palestinian resistance” should not be described as “terrorism”, and demanded “the dismantling of the settler-colonialist state of Israel”. He also supported the taking of Israeli hostages, calling this “a very important part of any strategic military action or act of resistance”, while he has denied that Hamas fighters committed rapes.

Daniel Sugarman, the public affairs director of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, suggested on X this week that not having Jewish speakers at the upcoming SUTR fringe meeting was a “small mercy”. Given the organisation’s record, it seems he has a point.

A flyer issued by SUTR on Saturday, 21 September mentioned further speakers in addition to those named in the conference programme, including Edie Friedman, describing her as a Jewish race equality and refugee rights campaigner.


Toronto students forced to wear ‘Colonizers’ shirts at anti-Israel protest
Middle school students were forced to take part in a protest in Toronto earlier this week, where teachers allegedly instructed them to wear blue shirts to identify themselves as “settlers” and “colonizers,” Canadian media and government officials reported on Friday.

Parents had been told the 7th and 8th-grade students were at the protest to “observe,” but videos and witnesses who spoke to the Toronto Sun revealed that the students were encouraged to take an active role.

'You'll get over it'

While the protest had been in support of the Grassy Narrows First Nation and the ongoing water crisis, anti-Israel chants reportedly quickly took over.

One Jewish student expressed their discomfort to their teacher about the anti-Israel chants, the student’s cousin told the Sun. The teacher allegedly responded, “You’ll get over it.”

“It is very frustrating that elements of the anti-Israel mob are using their positions as educators to drive this agenda on impressionable children who know nothing about this conflict in the Middle East,” Toronto City Councillor James Pasternak told the Sun. “Our education system must nurture young minds in a positive way and not teach them to demonize those they don’t agree with.”

An Indian student who recently migrated to Canada also reportedly asked the teacher to stop referring to him as a “colonizer.”

One parent told Toronto 640 that they felt duped into giving permission for their child to be taken into a protest.
Gil Troy: TikTok Banned My New Book Even Before It Was Published
Last month, I interviewed my brother Tevi Troy during the Jerusalem book launch of his latest, “The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry.” Eventually, he turned the tables, asking me about my book, “To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream,” published September 17. I summarized the argument: that the spread of aggressive, doctrinaire anti-Zionism in academia “isn’t just a Jewish crisis” and “isn’t just a Zionist crisis,” but is “a crisis of liberalism” and higher education. Somehow, TikTok decided to remove my two minute, eight second riff, declaring: “This video violates our Community Guidelines” by passing on “misinformation.” Apparently, TikTok and its Chinese owners are more bullish about America’s universities than most of us are.

I tried understanding what triggered the ban. It mocked TikTok executives’ repeated denials that TikTok has an antisemitism problem. The managers were reacting to assessments that in one year, the Jew-hating comments on the popular app rose 912 percent, that Jew-haters use code-words like “juice” for Jews and “H!tl3r” and that the all-powerful algorithm, which pushes videos through TikTok’s FYP For You Page tends to send viewers down conspiracy-oriented “rabbit holes,” spewing Jew-hatred.

TikTok’s Jew-hating problem predates October 7. Back in 2020, NBC News interviewed half a dozen teenagers who reported that “they experience antisemitism nearly every time they post content to the platform… whether or not the content is about their Judaism.” Julia Massey told reporters that “Before, I guess, I ‘came out’ as Jewish on my TikTok … I was getting almost all positive response.” But since one Jewish-oriented video, “I’ve received antisemitic comments, regardless of the content.”

American Jews face double-trouble these days. Jew-hatred has gone from the margins to the Big Tent. America’s Silenced Majority remains pro-Jewish and overwhelmingly pro-Israel. But dynamics on social media, and a polarized political culture that broadcasts extremists too loudly, has given the haters an outsized profile. And since Oct. 7, the intensity of pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist Jew-haters has shaped public discourse, eclipsing the quiet but less passionate support Jews and the Jewish State enjoy.

At the same time, Jew-hatred, the longest and most plastic hatred, has also become the invisible hatred, the overlooked hatred, the excused hatred. Especially in universities, the zero-tolerance for other prejudices disappears when it comes to Jews. So Jews find them targeted by more American bullies than ever – as many American institutions downplay this growing scourge.

The TikTok problem reflects this double bind – while transcending the Jewish question too. TikTok’s Chinese ownership worries Americans so much that Congress passed the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” which President Joe Biden signed. It demands that TikTok be sold, to avoid this nefarious Chinese influence. While the Chinese enjoy access to 170 million users’ private information, they also orchestrate the conversation. Somehow TikTok suppresses videos sympathetic to Tibetans and Uighurs oppressed by China, while boosting support for the Palestinians, among others.
Albany Book Festival cancels panel with Jewish moderator, citing ‘impasse’ over her Zionism
An authors’ panel at an Albany book festival Saturday has been canceled after organizers said two panelists refused to share a stage with the “Zionist” moderator.

Elisa Albert, who is Jewish, was set to moderate a panel at the Albany Book Festival on Saturday called “Girls, Coming of Age.” But on Thursday, she received an email from a festival organizer informing her that the event had been canceled: Two of the three panelists — authors Lisa Ko and Aisha Abdel Gawad — objected to sitting on the panel with Albert because they did not want to appear with a “Zionist.” The third panelist was to be Emily Layden.

Albert said the cancellation is of a piece with her experiences since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

“Unfortunately, I’m not surprised,” Albert told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday. “I’ve been really vocal from the get-go, and I’ve lost many friends. I’ve seen my whole professional life wildly altered. I’m not surprised at all. I’ve seen all kinds of people behaving in all kinds of ways that are on the spectrum of this exact same kind of bigotry, complicity, fear — all of it.”

Albert, who lives in Albany, first learned about the panelists’ objections on Thursday afternoon when she got an email from Mark Koplik, the assistant director of the New York State Writers Institute, which is organizing the festival.

“We have a crazy situation developing and we’d love to talk on the phone,” Koplik wrote in a message that JTA obtained.

“Basically, not to sugar coat this, Aisha Gawad and Lisa Ko don’t want to be on a panel with a ‘Zionist,’” he added. “We’re taken by surprise, and somewhat nonplussed, and want to talk this out.”

By Thursday evening, Albert had been notified by Paul Grondahl, director of the Writers Institute, that the event had been canceled.

“We regret this situation, which was out of our control,” Grondahl wrote in an email obtained by JTA. “It is unfortunate for everyone involved.”

Grondahl added, “I wish this were otherwise. We will find a way to air these issues we have discussed in a deeper, more considered, more carefully planned event with intentionality and context.”


BBC bias on Israel: How did the UK broadcaster lose impartiality?
The flagship BBC news and comment TV program Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg is transmitted first thing every Sunday morning, and then is available indefinitely via the BBC iPlayer, its video on demand (VOD) service. The program always starts with a review of the UK’s Sunday newspapers, showing their front pages and headlines.

On Sunday morning, September 8, Kuenssberg, the BBC’s political editor, provided her viewers with a glimpse of every leading UK newspaper except the Sunday Telegraph. Why was it omitted? Perhaps because that morning the Telegraph headline read:

“BBC ‘breached guidelines 1,500 times’ over Israel-Hamas war. Coverage was heavily biased against Israel, report into corporation’s output finds.”

The report referred to presented an analysis of the BBC’s news coverage during a four-month period beginning Oct. 7, 2023 – the day Hamas terrorists burst into Israel and carried out their brutal massacre of some 1,200 people, taking another 251 into Gaza as hostages.

A team of around 20 lawyers and 20 data scientists had contributed to the research, which used artificial intelligence to analyze nine million words of BBC output.

Researchers identified a total of 1,553 breaches of the BBC’s editorial guidelines, which demand impartiality, accuracy, and adherence to editorial values and the public interest.

“The findings,” said the report, “reveal a deeply worrying pattern of bias and multiple breaches by the BBC of its own editorial guidelines.”

It also found that the BBC repeatedly downplayed Hamas terrorism, while presenting Israel as a militaristic and aggressive nation, and that some journalists used by the BBC in its coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict had previously shown sympathy for Hamas and even celebrated its acts of terrorism.

The report bears the name of Trevor Asserson, a British-born lawyer. Founder and senior partner of an international law firm, he now runs the Israeli arm of the firm from Tel Aviv.


The anti-Israel cartoonist dividing Britain’s art crowd
Promising “kick-ass superheroes, future worlds, fantastical creatures and zombies”, the Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF), should begin next weekend in Cumbria. Yet a row about a Palestinian artist accused of antisemitism threatens to derail the prestigious graphic art event.

The festival, founded in 2013, will also be showcasing Mohammad Sabaaneh, whose work is alleged to contain antisemitic tropes. UnHerd has learned that one former LICAF board member, Peter Kessler, resigned from his position in July over Sabaaneh’s involvement, as well as over what he considered to be the board’s decision not to challenge the artist’s previous work.

Earlier this year, LICAF invited Sabaaneh to co-curate an exhibition on Palestinian comic-book art, alongside the writer and comic book expert George Khoury. But during online discussions with festival director Julie Tait in June, Kessler expressed concern about Sabaaneh. Citing images in which the Palestinian artist depicted Israel as an octopus in control of the global financial system, and as a locust with an oversized nose, as well as one showing a Jewish concentration camp internee in 1945 transforming into an Israeli settler, he claimed that “in putting [Sabaaneh’s] work on display, and in allowing him to speak, I’m concerned that we are giving a platform for a racist”.

“I’m concerned that we are giving a platform for a racist”

Kessler added that the images in question were designed “to stir up racial hatred in the viewers” and recommended seeking advice from the British Council, which is both co-organising and contributing £15,000 towards the event. In an email response at the start of July, Tait denied that Sabaaneh was a racist and argued that “his ‘job’ is to question, to challenge […] a wide range of ‘targets’ to convey a message”. Tait added that the Palestinian artist is “a brave man, a humane man and his only ‘crime’ is his relentless pursuit of what he sees as justice for Palestinian people”. In the same message, she stressed LICAF’s “duty to uphold freedom of speech”.

Later that month, on 11 July, six members of the LICAF board, including Tait and Kessler, convened to discuss the festival’s response to Sabaaneh’s appearance. In a presentation delivered during the meeting, Kessler argued that “Sabaaneh should attend LICAF and speak at his session, but with the conditions that he is questioned about his antisemitic material and that he doesn’t use the festival as an opportunity to attack what he sees as Israeli propaganda”. Kessler added that “there is severe danger to LICAF’s reputation both in cancelling [Sabaaneh] and in allowing him to continue as planned”.

After this proposal was rejected, Kessler resigned from the LICAF board and wrote to the British Council explaining what had happened, attaching some of Sabaaneh’s more contentious cartoons. He stated that he felt inviting the artist “without addressing this more controversial aspect of his work would be tantamount to ignoring hate speech”. The next day, Paul Thompson, chair of the British Council, replied, agreeing that the images — which do not feature in the LICAF exhibition — contain “some extremely distasteful tropes”.


Herzog visits Albania honoring WWII heroes who saved Jews from the Holocaust
President Isaac Herzog visited Tirana, the capital of Albania, last week on a historic visit, the first of its kind since Israel and Albania established diplomatic relations 33 years ago.

The working visit, at the invitation of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, allowed Herzog to pay his respects to the Albanians who saved the lives of Jews during World War II. Albania, which until recently had a majority of Muslim inhabitants, became a haven during the Holocaust for hundreds of Jews fleeing neighboring countries, despite the fact Albania was occupied first by Italy and later by Germany.

Albania was the only occupied state in Europe that, at the end of the war, had on its soil more Jews than before the war. Yad Vashem has recognized some 75 Albanians as Righteous Among the Nations.

“After World War II, there were 10 times more Jews in Albania than before the war,” Valentina Leskaj, former labor and social affairs minister and currently the first Muslim member of the advisory board of the Combat Antisemitism Movement, told The Jerusalem Post.

“Albania is considered as a Muslim country, but it is not. We have three main religious groups: Muslims, Christian Orthodox, and Catholics. Jews were protected in Albania by members of all religious groups without any exception. This happened because, in Albania, religion was never a dividing factor. The religion of the Albanians is Albanian. National identity was always stronger here than religion.

“Jews were protected despite the heavy price of doing so. Albania was a poor country at the time. Those protecting Jews were often poor people, and they shared the little they had with the Jews. People also forged ID documents for the Jews despite the risk they took by doing so.

“Some say that the Jews paid their saviors. This is not true. The Jews who managed to cross the border to Albania had hardly anything with them.


Remembering Alex Dancyg: A bridge between Poland and Israel, killed by Hamas
Alex Dancyg was a man who defied simple categorization.

To some, he was 100% Israeli; to others, he was 100% Polish. To his students and colleagues, he was a devoted Zionist, a kibbutznik, a passionate educator, but also a proud Pole. He was a man deeply committed to peace, yet tragically his life came to an end as a Hamas hostage.

Born in Poland in 1948, just three years after the end of World War II, Dancyg grew up in a world shaped by the Holocaust. His parents were Holocaust survivors, and though they managed to rebuild their lives in Poland after the war, the antisemitic climate of Communist Poland in the 1950s drove the family to make aliyah. At just nine years old, Dancyg found himself in Tel Aviv, struggling with loneliness as he adapted to a new language and culture.

But Dancyg’s shaping of his unique identity was evident from a young age. He quickly integrated into Israeli life, joining the Zionist-socialist pioneering youth movement Hashomer Hatzair, and soon became part of the kibbutz movement, which would shape his identity for the rest of his life. He served in the Paratroopers during the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. After the wars, he turned his attention to teaching, and later became a pivotal figure in fostering Israeli-Polish relations.

Despite his love for Israel and his work on Kibbutz Nir Oz, Dancyg was deeply connected to Poland and worked to build a bridge destroyed by the Holocaust. He was an ardent believer in the power of dialogue and understanding, particularly between Israelis and Poles. He accomplished his pioneering role by helping establish and leading Israeli tour groups to Poland, educating young Israelis on Polish history and the Holocaust. His unique perspective as someone who straddled both cultures gave him the ability to present a nuanced view of the complex relationship between Jews and Poles, easier said than done in an environment where many Jews viewed themselves as victims of Polish persecution.

In a recorded interview, Dancyg said, “I have this dialogue inside myself between my Polish identity and Jewish identity, which aren’t in conflict. I want our two nations to have a dialogue because I live here [in Israel] and I’m Jewish, but culturally, part of my heart is there in Poland.”
German soccer fans honor murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin ahead of game
Supporters of Germany’s SV Werder Bremen soccer club paid tribute on Saturday to murdered Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin before their friendly match against Bayern Munich.

The fans held a giant poster of Hersh alongside banners reading “Shalom, salam, peace” and “May your memory be a revolution, achi!”

“Achi” in Hebrew means “my brother.”

The banners were in both green and white, the colors of SV Werder Bremen, and red and black, the colors of Hapoel Jerusalem which Goldberg-Polin supported.

In July, while Goldberg-Polin was still alive in captivity, SV Werder Bremen displayed a banner of him outside their stadium that read “Let Hersch Free.”

German soccer teams have been notably supportive of hostages held by Hamas.

Bayern Munich hosted hostage families at a game in November, and FC St. Pauli hosted former hostage Liam Or in March after he was released from captivity during a temporary truce in November.

Goldberg-Polin was executed in captivity alongside five other hostages last month. Their bodies were found a few days later by Israeli forces, which led to an intensification of mass protests calling for a deal to release the remaining hostages.




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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 20 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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