Tuesday, September 24, 2024

09/24 Links Pt1: The West’s reckless dishonesty over Lebanon; U.S. Diplomatic Magical Thinking; Proof the Gaza Death Toll is FAKED

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: The West’s reckless dishonesty over Lebanon
Another thing that gets redacted in the facile sermonising of Israel’s haters is the question of who Israel is targeting. It’s Hezbollah, the soldiers of that anti-Semitic army that views the Jewish State as a ‘cancerous growth’ that must be excised from the Middle East. You wouldn’t know it from the MSM’s pained and infantile coverage, but Hezbollah has named more than 500 of its members who’ve been taken out by Israel in recent months. That’s not a slaughter of innocents – it’s payback for terrorism. Last week’s pagers attack was expressly targeted at the Hezbollah militants who use such archaic devices. And the strikes on Lebanon in recent days have eliminated many Hezbollah operatives, including a top commander: Ibrahim Aqil.

No one denies the horror of civilian casualties. But it is a flagrant lie to call Israel’s actions in Lebanon a war on civilians. It’s a war on terrorists, and it’s been a year brewing, ever since Hezbollah chose to bombard Israel to rub salt in the wound of Hamas’s pogrom. In more normal times, the French president, and the US president, would be thanking Israel for its removal of a terror commander like Aqil. After all, Aqil is widely suspected of assisting in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings that killed 241 US and 58 French military personnel. It is a testament to the moral disarray of the West’s elites, if not their outright moral collapse, that they’ve responded to the just killing of a West-hating mass murderer by tut-tutting at those who brought him to justice. So where Macron bemoans Israeli aggression in Lebanon, Joe Biden’s America is ‘like a deer in the headlights’, says one DC think-tanker. Way to commemorate your servicemen and women that Aqil helped to butcher, France and America.

The media’s ruthless decontextualisation of the Israel-Lebanon clash is a kind of war censorship. It might not be as brutal as war censorship of old, when stuffy officials would simply starve the public of inconvenient facts. But in failing to situate this war in the post-7 October persecution of Israel by the anti-Semitic proxies on its borders, and in failing to give an honest account of the numbers of Hezbollah militants successfully injured or killed by Israel, the media give us a warped, borderline fraudulent take on these tensions. They turn a war on terrorists into a war on people, whitewash Hezbollah’s culpability and further inflame the fashionable Israelophobia of the graduate elites. It is a reckless dishonesty. And it is motored by a patrician urge to feed the people a pre-approved moral narrative rather than the truth.

As to the noisy left, for whom Israel is pursuing yet another ‘slaughter of innocents’ in Lebanon, where were you when Hezbollah’s missiles forced 60,000 civilians to evacuate their homes in northern Israel? And when Hezbollah’s missiles started fires that destroyed thousands of acres of land in Israel? And when a Hezbollah missile killed the Druze children? If you said nothing about all of that, we don’t care what you think about what’s happening in Lebanon. If you had told me a few years back that one day the self-styled anti-racist left would be silent when tens of thousands of Jews were forced into internal exile by militant anti-Semites, but would fume and rage when the Jewish State fought for the right of those Jews to return home, I’d have struggled to believe you.

The terrible truth is that Israel has little choice but to seek the weakening of Hezbollah. Both economically and spiritually, Israel cannot tolerate the wholesale evacuation of the north of its country. Nor can it risk ‘another 7 October’, which Hezbollah had been mulling. Back to Macron: what would he do if tens of thousands of French civilians were driven from their homes and many French children were slaughtered by a foreign-sponsored army across the border in Belgium? I wager he would take action, and that he would expect his allies to at least name the terror group that menaced France in such dire fashion. That’s all Israel wants too, M Macron.
Caroline Glick: Israel’s quandary: Can it afford to win in the face of international opprobrium?
International law turned on its head
And this brings us to the second half of the screen. As Israel fights the free world’s fight against Iran and its terrorist forces, the nations of the world have congregated at the U.N. General Assembly for their annual diplomatic lynch mob against the lone Jewish state. The General Assembly opened last week by passing a resolution demanding that Israel remove 800,000 citizens from their homes in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria within a year and transfer their communities to the Palestinian Authority, which shares the goal of Iran and its other proxies to annihilate Israel.

If Israel fails to abide by the U.N. dictate, or even if it does, the resolution calls on the U.N. member states to enact an arms embargo on Israel. António Guterres, the U.N.’s Israel-hating secretary-general helpfully proclaimed that he will use his powers of office to enforce the resolution.

It was all downhill from there. At the United Nations, in Paris, in Washington, policymakers and lawmakers have spared no effort to demonize Israel. President Joe Biden and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, met in Washington on Monday. Rather than congratulate (or thank) Israel for systematically removing the gravest threats to the stability and security of the Middle East, including to the UAE and the United States, Biden and MBZ focused their statements on demanding that Israel move to establish a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea and Samaria—and Jerusalem.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and his fellow progressives in Congress responded with rage to the simultaneous detonation of Hezbollah’s pages and walkie-talkies that took out thousands of terrorists in one fell swoop. They called it international terrorism and demanded a U.S. arms embargo on Israel. Even Leon Panetta, former secretary of defense, also called the strike that decimated the leadership of the most powerful terror army in the world a terror attack.

All of those clamoring to declare Israel the enemy of all that is good, and Hezbollah and Hamas as the good guys, predicate their condemnations on an entirely imaginary version of international law that turns morality and the very concept of legality on their heads to punish defenders—or one specific defender, Israel—and reward aggressors.

The dissonance between the reality on the ground and the diplomatic assault on Israel—now joined by nearly every nation on earth at the United Nations—presents Israel with an epic quandary.

Obviously, it cannot scale back the level or nature of the assault with reason. People cannot be reasoned out of positions they weren’t reasoned into. The international community’s hostility towards Israel owes to a poisonous mix of political expedience, greed, opportunism and prejudice.

And so, we come to the quandary. Can Israel afford to ignore these forces and just fight to victory or not?

Can Israel afford not to ignore them?

The Biden administration and its comrades at the United Nations are betting that Israel will decide that it cannot afford to ignore these voices. But in reaching this conclusion, they ignore the one overriding factor that has informed Israel’s actions since Oct. 7.

This is a war for Israel’s survival. Israelis back this war because they understand that the lesson of Oct. 7 is that the can has been kicked to the end of the road. Claims that we can stop and pick up where we left off in a year or so fall like artillery duds. No one will accept them because no one can accept them. It is literally now or never.

And so the United Nations and the United States, and their diplomatic lynch mob, will be ignored. Maybe the diplomatic chips falling today can be picked up at a later date. But this war must be won. And after the stunning successes in Lebanon, more and more Israelis are reinforced in their conviction that it is being won.
Seth Mandel: The Post-Ceasefire Phase of the War?
Meanwhile, the fallout from Israel’s successful pager plot continues as Iran has become predictably paranoid about communications. Senior Iranian security officials told Reuters that Tehran has ordered its scattered foot soldiers to keep their distance from electronic devices, and that “a large-scale operation is underway by the IRGC to inspect all devices, not just communication equipment.” (One can picture a tech support operator asking Ayatollah Khamenei if he has tried turning Iran off and back on again.)

But the key to Sinwar’s ability to stay low-tech and remain effective is that other people in the chain use phones and electronic devices. Last week the Wall Street Journal described it this way: “A typical message from Sinwar will now be handwritten and first passed to a trusted Hamas member who moves it along a chain of couriers, some of whom might be civilians, the mediators said.… The note might then reach an Arab mediator who has entered Gaza or another Hamas operative who uses a phone or other method to send it to the U.S.-designated terrorist group’s members abroad.”

One top commander can operate this way, but entire armies cannot. The Pony Express is not cut out for modern warfare.

In order for Sinwar to use this communications process, he must have someone to pass notes to—and his couriers must then have someone to pass those messages along to. Does Sinwar even know who in Hamas and Hezbollah’s senior command—at least as it stood when he developed the note-passing system—is still alive? Because Israel has been picking them off with astonishing efficiency.

If this is indeed the state of play, then politicians can say they’re working toward a ceasefire but they will increasingly look behind the times.

This has been a problem for Kamala Harris all along. Her comments on civilian casualties and Israel’s need to shift strategy and weaponry, for example, have remained identical even as Israel shifted strategy and weaponry according to the Biden-Harris administration’s own directives. But she will look completely lost in the woods if she continues talking about negotiating a ceasefire when everyone knows there’s no one on the other end of the line.

There are bleak implications to this new phase, if that is indeed where we are. First and foremost, the fate of the hostages: It was widely believed that Sinwar kept some hostages in proximity as human shields; if he has been harmed, it might mean they have been harmed as well. If Sinwar is incommunicado, it’s possible not even senior Hamas officials abroad can say who is still alive and who isn’t.

Which means the worst thing Western governments—and especially the Biden White House—can do is try to pull Israel’s foot off the pedal here. Nobody should be waiting to hear from Sinwar. Furthermore, the administration must stop framing any action taken by the Israeli government as if it were coming at the expense of a ceasefire and hostage deal. (Yes, this should have been the case all along.)

If Hamas is on the threshold of defeat, holding Israel back would be an even bigger mistake now than before. Politicians involved in the negotiations genuinely wanted a ceasefire. But we may have left the era in which getting a deal was difficult and entered a post-ceasefire phase altogether. If so, everyone in a position of power in this war must act accordingly.


Walter Russell Mead: U.S. Diplomatic Magical Thinking
President Biden's emissaries continue to urge all parties to calm down and dial back the violence. No one is listening. Biden tried and failed to get Iran back into a nuclear agreement with the U.S. He tried and failed to get a new Israeli-Palestinian dialogue on track. He tried to settle the war in Yemen through diplomacy, and when that failed and the Houthis began attacking shipping in the Red Sea, he sought a diplomatic solution to that problem too and failed again.

For nearly a year, Team Biden has given its all to the diplomatic effort to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Repeatedly, administration officials have hailed progress toward an agreement. But senior officials are conceding privately that the chances of a ceasefire deal during Biden's remaining months in office are slim.

U.S. diplomacy is aimed at preserving a regional order that depends on the kind of American power projection the president desperately wants to avoid. The metastasizing conflicts across the Middle East are the natural and inevitable consequence of Biden's own policies. As America withdraws, or attempts to withdraw, from the region, its influence diminishes. The less reliable America looks, the less value anyone attaches to promises of American support. The more obviously America looks toward the exits, the less anyone fears American power.
Iran offers to resume indirect nuke talks with Biden admin

Col Kemp: No, Israel's War Against Hamas Is Not Floundering
The London Times' Middle East Editor Richard Spencer describes Israel's military campaign against Hamas in Gaza as floundering.

The opposite is the reality. In almost a year of fighting on the most complex battlefield in the history of war, the Israel Defense Forces has taken Hamas apart to the extent it no longer presents a serious threat to the Israeli population.

I have met hundreds of Israeli soldiers and commanders in headquarters as well as inside Gaza and on the border with Lebanon as recently as last week.

Everywhere morale was high and conviction in the fight absolute.

There exists a unity I have never before witnessed between the most seasoned generals and the teenagers on the battlefront.
Amb. Michael Oren: Those Who Support Israel's Right to Defend Itself, "But..."
Those who condition their support for Israel on the conclusion of a ceasefire in Gaza and the establishment of Palestinian statehood risk reducing that support to meaningless.

Moreover, some imply that, if Israel cannot defeat terrorists without causing large numbers of civilian casualties, it must be defenseless.

Since no one in Washington or elsewhere in the world can prescribe how an enemy that hides behind and beneath millions of civilians can be fought without causing collateral damage, this view effectively neuters the IDF.
Why War in Lebanon Is Inevitable
I spent a lovely Friday evening this summer on a friend's terrace in northern Israel a few km. from the Lebanese border. The scene was idyllic, except for the Iranian missiles falling from the sky and the Israeli rockets flying up to stop them. While U.S. envoys have been unable to stop Hizbullah's attacks through diplomacy, Israelis are demanding action.

I asked my friend how she and her family, Israeli Christians, got on amid such chaos. "This happens every day," she answered. "You get used to it." Feeling the booms reverberate in my chest, I couldn't understand how. "How will this end?" I asked her. She replied, "We destroy Hizbullah - it's the only way." Most Israelis agree with her, and after seeing the situation with my own eyes, I couldn't help but join them.

I'd heard the same sentiments two days earlier in Tel Aviv from Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of research for military intelligence and director-general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs. He said, "The lesson of Oct. 7 is that Israel cannot tolerate heavily armed radical Islamists on its borders, even if they stay quiet for years. They must be destroyed, preemptively if necessary."

Israelis almost always prefer quiet "live-and-let-live" deals with their enemies over military confrontations. Harboring no illusions about changing hostile societies through force, they avoid grand adventures and apply violence only in limited circumstances. Yet many in Israel now believe it was their very aversion to war and willingness to embrace a modus vivendi in Gaza that made the horrors of Oct. 7 possible.

Israel's previous policy had been to contain Hamas in Gaza, periodically degrading its military infrastructure in short wars, yet keeping the Hamas regime afloat with cash infusions from Iranian ally Qatar. "I helped design that policy," Kuperwasser said. "And yes, it worked - until it didn't." But "honestly, what was the alternative: a preemptive Israeli invasion and regime change in Gaza? No one would have supported such a thing before Oct. 7....[Yet] the idea that religious fanatics sworn to our destruction would ever live quietly on our borders was delusional."

"We need to finish the war in Gaza, turn to Hizbullah in Lebanon - and then to Iran. Whoever wants to destroy us, we must destroy them first. What choice do we have?"
The wars in Gaza and Ukraine are the same war
Another reason Washington should welcome seeing Israel cripple, or at least batter, Iran’s most strategic asset is because of its global strategic posture, which also includes the war in Ukraine. Russia, it’s worth remembering, has refused to condemn Hamas, entertained its representatives, fought alongside Hizballah, and bought drones and missiles from Iran. In short, the Kremlin and the Iran-led axis are allies, something missed by the American conversation. Michael Mandelbaum writes:

Anyone who supports Israel should support Ukraine and vice-versa, because in fundamental ways the two countries are waging the same war.

Both conflicts began with cross-border aggression against internationally recognized sovereign states, which is the most basic violation of international law. The aggressor in each case is a vicious dictatorship with a clearly stated goal: to wipe the country it has attacked off the face of the earth. . . . The attacks by Hamas and Russia have a common goal: giving radically anti-Western regimes dominance in their home regions.

The regional supremacy that each is pursuing requires ejecting the United States from their respective regions, and that is a major Iranian as well as Russian aim. . . . The United States, and the democratic world in general, thus have an immense investment in the military success of Israel and Ukraine. Both are fighting to defend the West’s interests as well as its values.
Israel's War Makes Gazans Less Radical
Gazans are being deradicalized. Recent polling suggests that the war is teaching Gazans that terrorism is both futile and costly.

According to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll in September, satisfaction with Hamas has declined to 39% in Gaza, and satisfaction with Sinwar to 29%.

Only 39% of Gazans think perpetrating the Oct. 7 massacres was a "correct" decision.

Two other local polling services, Arab World for Research and Development and the Institute for Social and Economic Progress, put Gazan support for Hamas's postwar governance at single digits early in the summer.

Gazans are learning that Hamas is a losing cause, because the group is no match for the Israel Defense Forces.

Most Gazans have been out of their homes for months.
In General Assembly speech, UN head takes shots at Israel
António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, opened the U.N. General Assembly’s high-level debate week by repeatedly criticizing the Jewish state.

Complaining of a “world of impunity,” Guterres assessed that “a growing number of governments and others feel entitled to a ‘get out of jail free’ card.”

“They can trample international law. They can violate the United Nations charter,” he said on Tuesday. “They can turn a blind eye to international human rights conventions or the decisions of international courts.”

“We see this age of impunity everywhere,” including in the Middle East, Guterres added.

The secretary-general, who is largely persona non grata to Israeli diplomats due to what pro-Israel critics largely view as his justification of the Hamas’s terrorist attacks, murder and atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7 and his repeated critiques of Israeli military operations in response to attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah and others. He has said that Hamas’s attack didn’t occur “in a vacuum.”

Guterres said that Gaza “is a nonstop nightmare that threatens to take the entire region with it,” adding, “look no further than Lebanon. We must do everything in our power to prevent Lebanon from becoming another Gaza.”

“Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. The speed and scale of the killing and destruction in Gaza are unlike anything in my years as secretary-general,” he added. “More than 200 of our own staff have been killed, many with their families.”

The U.N. head did not mention that internationally-designated terror groups control both Lebanon and Gaza, and that those groups attacked Israel, launching the nearly year-long conflict in the region.

“Nothing can justify the abhorrent acts of terror committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 or the taking of hostages—both of which I have repeatedly condemned,” Guterres said.

Guterres called on the international community to “mobilize for an immediate ceasefire, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and the beginning of an irreversible process towards a two-state solution.”

“For those who go on undermining that goal with more settlements, more land grabs, more incitement—I ask: What is the alternative?” he said on Tuesday.

The U.N. head also questioned how the world could “accept a one-state future that includes such a large number of Palestinians without any freedom, rights or dignity?”

In his speech, Guterres did not mention Israeli security concerns.
Immunity claim in Oct. 7 civil suit doesn’t extend to UNRWA staff who were part of attack, UN says
The United Nations was criticized widely after it claimed immunity for its staff—some of whom Israel says participated directly in Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre—in a lawsuit, which victims of the attack filed in U.S. federal court.

Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesman for António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, told JNS on Monday that the global body’s immunity claims are specific to the suit and do not extend to U.N. staff members alleged to have participated in the Oct. 7 attack.

“Reporting that we’ve seen on different Israeli media is often not specifically well-informed,” Dujarric told JNS during a U.N. press briefing. The U.N. spokesman added that the global body has, in the past, “often acted clearly and taken action against staff found to have committed criminal wrongdoing and referred them to national authorities.”

“We do that on a regular basis,” he said.

Dujarric added that the United Nations “does not consider immunity to be a barrier to investigations or national court investigations in criminal misconduct, and I think the immunity is there to protect staff from harassment. It is not there to protect staff from criminal investigations.”

The civil suit, filed in June, targets high-ranking past and present officials of The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) whom it alleges supported and collaborated with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror organization.

Shortly after the suit was filed, Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for Guterres, told JNS that the United Nations, “including UNRWA, enjoys immunity from legal process, as do United Nations officials, including those serving with UNRWA.”

Haq added at the time that the global body “will liaise with the United States authorities as necessary in this matter.”

A filing in the case by Merrick Garland, the U.S. attorney general, indicates that the Biden administration agrees with the U.N. position.


Israel Advocacy Movement: Proof the Gaza Death Toll is FAKED
We have uncovered new evidence that proves the Gaza Ministry of Health have been faking the data.


Kassy Akiva: What’s Behind Israel’s Attack On Hezbollah? Experts Weigh In.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that some Shiite Muslims in southern Lebanon are “paid monthly rent by Hezbollah” to keep rocket launchers in their homes, which are used to “shoot rockets at Israeli communities on demand.”

Videos circulated on social media Monday showing secondary explosions of Hezbollah munitions set off after an initial Israeli air strike. Israel gave several evacuation warnings to Lebanese civilians in southern Lebanon near military targets.

“This is Hezbollah’s plan — to turn southern Lebanon into a battlefield for its attacks on Israel,” Hagari said in a statement. “We cannot accept a terrorist group storing weapons inside people’s homes, and using them to fire at other civilian communities.”

According to Brigadier General Amir Avivi (res.), Israel is well positioned to attack Hezbollah now that Hamas combat brigades have been largely destroyed.

“Israel couldn’t attack on both fronts at the same time,” Avivi, who is also the founder of Israel Defense and Security Forum, said. “At this stage, Israel decided to shift the center of gravity from Gaza to the north to create the deterrence needed to bring back all of the citizens of the north safely home.”

Avivi said Israel plans to be as swift as possible with its attack, using “everything that Israel has” to hit “everything that Hezbollah has built in the last 20 years: all of the technologies, all of the capabilities.”

Avivi added that Israel is “more than willing to go to a full-scale war if needed” including a ground incursion to degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities “to such an extent that Hezbollah is not going to pose a threat to Israel for a very very long time.”

Hagari did not rule out the possibility of a ground invasion on Monday, noting that the army is in “full readiness” and will do “whatever is necessary” to bring back the displaced residents to their homes in the north, the Jewish News Syndicate reported.

Some experts who once supported a ground invasion, like Fredman, have been pleasantly surprised by the effectiveness of the recent airstrikes, and now think an invasion may not be necessary.

“I think if you’d asked me that 72 hours ago, I would have said that the ground invasion is going to be necessary, but the success of the airstrikes has been unbelievable,” he said.

According to Jonathan Schanzer, Senior Vice President for Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, with the Gaza war largely under control, Israel is less burdened by criticism from the Biden-Harris administration.

“The Israelis are getting an earful right now from the Biden White House, which has tried to restrain the Israelis from the moment Hezbollah opened fire on October 8,” he said. “That may have worked while the Gaza fighting was heavy but now that things are largely under control there, Israel has the flexibility to pivot north to tackle the next front.”

Schanzer added that any threats from the Biden-Harris Administration to withhold weapons — as it has done to influence IDF strategy in Gaza — may “prove futile if Hezbollah cannot find an off-ramp for the war that it started.”

“Israel is seizing the offensive for the first time in this war, and at least for now, it appears to be working,” Schanzer said.

Eugene Kontorovich, a professor at George Mason University Scalia Law School and scholar at the Kohelet Policy Forum, thinks the war has only dragged on because of the Biden-Harris administration.

“It took the IDF longer than expected to destroy Hamas because Biden was holding them back,” Kontorovich told The Daily Wire. “The Biden-Harris Administration inadvertently extended the war and extended it into the election season. If they had let Israel fight normally, both fronts would have been over in the summer.”

Kontorovich added that the latest offensive is important for boosting national morale ahead of the first anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 attack and massacre of Israeli civilians.




Daniel Greenfield: Rape is Resistance and Beepers are Genocide
No one except the occasional military expert who tours the battlefield is impressed by Israeli restraint. And restraint will win not a single concession from the same establishment that can’t bring itself to condemn by name the mobs waving Hamas flags and assaulting Jewish students.

Israel has been held hostage trying to win over those who cannot be won over. Much of the liberal establishment has either become radicalized into permanently opposing Israel or has become complicit with those who do. The only narrative it will accept is the same demands that Israel be dismantled piece by piece and parceled out to Islamic terrorists in exchange for peace.

That the peace has never come, that the negotiations are worthless and that the only product of two generations of concessions is endless war will not change a single mind. Just as the implication of the revelation that Hamas planned to murder Israeli hostages before handing them over in exchange for live Islamic terrorists was hardly even discussed in the media.

After nine months of demanding a deal with Hamas at any cost, the Biden administration has belatedly decided that the terrorist group is not serious about a deal, but that news hasn’t changed Kamala’s set talking point about the urgent need to end the war and cut a deal. Nor will it change her policy should she be in a position to stop talking and start making the rules.

Israel has been divided by the need to balance winning wars against winning over public opinion, but the public opinion of the establishment was never winnable and if it is winnable, it can only be won by winning wars. The Biden administration’s policymakers will never admit it, but they were far more impressed by the pager attacks than by 9 months of negotiations. The same is more obviously true of Arab Muslim countries who despise Hezbollah and fear Iran.

No one cheers weakness, they only respect strength.

Israel will never have even the grudging acceptance of those who believe that rape is resistance and beepers are genocide. Accommodating military tactics to their accusations has led to a loop of defeatism that culminated in the deadly infiltration, invasion and massacres of Oct 7. But it can best be a player on the world stage by showing its strength rather than its weakness.

One Pagergeddon was worth a hundred Nova documentaries and exhibitions about the unhappy victims who were assaulted at the dance festival to morale, national security and the reputation of a nation built on repudiating the helplessness and victimhood of its long exile.

Oct 7 incited the dark glee of a movement that believes it can taste Israel’s destruction. Protestations of innocence and victimhood only feed its triumphalism. What it fears isn’t a documentary about the atrocities of Oct 7, but the destruction of its Jihadist armies.

The issue was never Israel’s tactics, but Israel’s existence. The only way to win… is to win.
Syrians Praise Blows to Hizbullah, Remember Its Atrocities in Civil War
In Syria, there are many who are glad to see the repeated blows that Hizbullah has received in recent days.

Many Syrians, especially the Sunni population, have not forgotten Hizbullah's brutal role in their country's civil war, where it indiscriminately slaughtered their friends and families.

Hizbullah is blamed for numerous atrocities during the conflict.

The joy on Syria's social media has been unmistakable.

When Hizbullah released the names of senior Radwan Force commanders killed in Beirut, Syrians were quick to react to the announced death of Hussein Ali Ghandour.

Ghandour was known as the "Butcher of Madaya" in Syria - responsible for starving Syrians and burying them alive.
Blinded Hizbullah Terrorists Shouldn't Expect Sympathy in Iran
Two years ago, Mahsa Amini, 22, an Iranian Kurdish woman, was beaten to death in custody after being arrested for allegedly violating the Iranian regime's strict dress code.

Outrage exploded across Iran as millions of women and their male supporters poured into the streets in the largest and most sustained protests ever in the Islamic Republic.

Because the regime worried that some of their own security forces would not fire indiscriminately on Iranian schoolgirls, they allegedly imported Lebanese Hizbullah to do their dirty work and reinforce Iran's mechanism of repression.

Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, a post that a Quds Force general always fills, is now blind in one eye after the systematic explosion of Hizbullah pagers on Sep. 17.

Ordinary Iranians look at a Hizbullah member blinded in one eye as a job half done, and a Hizbullah member completely blind as appropriate vengeance for what the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxies did to them.


Andrew Klavan: Here’s My Favorite Joke About Hezbollah's Exploding Pagers



Beirut strike: IDF kills head of Hezbollah’s missile array
The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday afternoon carried out a second precision strike in Beirut’s Dahiyeh district in as many days, killing Ibrahim Qubaisi, who heads Hezbollah’s missile and rocket array.

The strike came less than 24 hours after the attempted assassination of Hezbollah’s No. 3 terrorist commander, Ali Karaki, in the same area.

Qubaisi joined Hezbollah in the 1980s and held a series of key positions in the terror organization, according to the IDF. As part of his role, he “was responsible for the planning and execution of many terrorist actions against the IDF forces and Israeli citizens,” the army said.

“Qubaisi commanded Hezbollah’s various missile units, including the precision missile units. Over the years and during the [current] war, he was responsible for launches towards the Israeli home front. Qubaisi was a central source of knowledge in the field of missiles and was close to the senior military leadership of Hezbollah,” the IDF continued.

The top terrorist also planned the October 2000 kidnapping of IDF Staff Sgts. Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Souad from the Mount Dov border area. The soldiers were killed by their captors either during or shortly after their abduction, and their remains were only returned to Israel four years later as part of a terrorist release deal with Hezbollah.

According to the Israeli military, Qubaisi was surrounded by “other key commanders in Hezbollah’s missile and rocket array” when the attack was launched. At least five other people were killed and several more were injured in the airstrike, according to initial Lebanese reports.
Seth Frantzman: Calling Nasrallah's bluff: IDF strikes bring turning point in Israel-Hezbollah war - analysis
This huge arsenal painted a picture of a war in which thousands of rockets would rain down across Israel, threatening most of the country. This is because Hezbollah was assumed to have a large number of long-range rockets as well.

Hezbollah benefited from the Syrian civil war. Even though it suffered losses in Syria due to its involvement from 2012-2018, it also achieved a lot. Its fighters gained experience fighting as a conventional ground force. It also was able to penetrate Syria deeply and knit itself in with other Iranian-backed militias. Hezbollah sought to expand the threat to Israel to include the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.

Iran also used Hezbollah to expand its own concept of a multifront or multi-arena war. This is what gave Hezbollah the sense it could get involved in the war against Israel after October 7. Hezbollah broke through any sense of Israel’s ability to deter it by beginning its attacks on Israel on October 8. Hezbollah forced Israel to evacuate the North. Fears that it could carry out an October 7-type attack led to the evacuations. In addition, there was hesitancy about creating a larger war with Hezbollah. The limited proportional war began to take shape, which benefited Hezbollah.

Israel called Hezbollah’s bluff on September 23. It was able to do this by eliminating Hezbollah’s commanders in an airstrike on September 20. In addition, Israel was able to accomplish this via other means. The exploding pagers hurt Hezbollah and caused numerous casualties. Hezbollah struggled to respond, but it found itself in chaos.

Hezbollah was seen as a major bogeyman, but it’s possible it never put in place an ability to launch thousands of rockets a day. Hamas had achieved this on October 7. Hezbollah may not have actually been able to do what Hamas did. In addition, the chaos that emerged after September 18 also enabled Israel to increase its strikes on Hezbollah launchers. The lessons of August 25, when Hezbollah sought to launch thousands of projectiles at Israel, also helped Israel understand how Hezbollah would react.

The overall story here is that Hezbollah became arrogant and complacent. It also came to overly rely on Iran and Iran’s multifront strategy. This reined in Hezbollah. This restrained it and turned it into a kind of secondary front for Iran. Iran wants to preserve Hezbollah, and therefore, it is afraid of Hezbollah entering a major war. This left Hezbollah open to the kinds of attacks it suffered from September 17-23.

It’s possible Hezbollah will be able to get its house in order and carry out large-scale attacks against Israel. It’s possible Iran will enter the conflict or push the Houthis to increase their attacks. Many things can happen in a war. Once you decide to go to war, there is contact with the enemy, and one cannot know how the war will unfold.

Israel will also have to decide what to do. Israel shaped the battlefield in strikes on September 20-22. That is why September 23 will ring out as a major shift in this conflict. Israel has sought to turn the tide on the Iranian-backed terrorist group. It has called Iran’s bluff and pushed away the bogeyman of Hezbollah. Now, the sum of all our fears about Hezbollah’s capabilities has been deflated a bit.

I drove along the border of northern Israel on September 23 and expected to see wide-ranging Hezbollah rocket fire. I expected to see the enemy launch anti-tank-guided missiles along the border.

As I drove home at sunset, after most of Israel’s 1,300 airstrikes had been carried out, I saw numerous barrages of Hezbollah rockets over my head. But it appeared that Hezbollah’s capabilities to launch its arsenal of rockets had been degraded to a similar level that Hamas had in October 2023. It’s still a major threat, but the fear of Hezbollah has now diminished.
Israeli jets hit 1,600 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in 24 hours
The Israeli Air Force struck over 1,600 Hezbollah targets in Southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley over the past 24 hours as part of “Operation Northern Arrows,” according to the Israeli military.

Among the targets hit was a terror cell that launched 20 rockets in three barrages at the Afula and HaAmakim areas in northern Israel overnight Monday. The launchers used in those attacks were also destroyed.

Also overnight, Israel Defense Forces artillery and tanks struck additional Hezbollah targets in the area of Ayta ash Shab and Ramyeh in Southern Lebanon.

The overnight strikes came after Monday’s massive Israeli aerial offensive, during which fighter jets hit rocket launchers, command posts and structures, including civilian residences, used by Hezbollah to store munitions.

According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, 558 people were killed and 1,835 were wounded in the Israeli attacks. The ministry’s figures did not distinguish between combatants and noncombatants.

Thousands of Lebanese have evacuated from the south as Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah terror targets intensifies after the IDF instructed civilians to move away from homes where Hezbollah has stored munitions.

In addition to Southern Lebanon, the IAF continued striking Hezbollah terror targets in the Bekaa Valley deep inside Lebanese territory on Tuesday morning.

Hezbollah continued to launch rocket attacks on Tuesday, firing more than 100 rockets at northern Israel and causing multiple injuries, including a 25-year-old man moderately wounded by shrapnel during a barrage towards the Mount Carmel area.

Sirens sounded in the northern Israeli coastal city of Nahariya and surrounding areas. Two rockets from Lebanon fell into the sea, according to the IDF. There were no injuries or damage.

Rocket alerts were also heard in communities in the Galilee region and near the large port city of Haifa. Rocket fire was reported in Afula and Nazareth.
IDF ‘demolishing’ Hezbollah terror sites built over 20 years
The Israel Defense Forces is destroying terror infrastructure in Southern Lebanon built up by Hezbollah over the past two decades, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday.

“A few weeks ago, we decided to shift the ‘center of gravity’ of our operations from the southern to the northern arena. Our goal is to ensure the safe return of [residents of] Israel’s northern communities to their homes,” Gallant said during a situation assessment at the command center of the IDF’s Operations Directorate.

“Over the course of one week, it may be determined that in many ways, [Hezbollah terror chief Hassan] Nasrallah remains alone at the top,” said Gallant. The terror group’s Radwan Force “suffered a fatal blow following the elimination of their top commanders, including regional and brigade commanders, and the staff led by [Ibrahim] Aqil,” he added.

“Entire units were taken out of battle as a result of the activities conducted at the beginning of the week in which numerous terrorists were injured,” continued the minister.

A targeted strike by the IDF in Beirut on Friday killed senior Hezbollah terrorist Aqil—alias Al-Hajj Abdul Khader—in the predominately Shi’ite Dahiyeh neighborhood.

Aqil was a member of Hezbollah’s top “military” body, the Jihad Council, which is subordinate to the Shura Council and under the direct control of Nasrallah. He was also responsible for the Radwan Force commandos and led Hezbollah’s tunnel project in Lebanon.

“Today is a significant peak—on this day we have taken out tens of thousands of rockets and precise munitions,” said Gallant. “What Hezbollah has built over a period of 20 years since the Second Lebanon War, is in fact being demolished by the IDF.”

“This is the most difficult week for Hezbollah since its establishment—the results speak for themselves. A blow has been dealt to the chain of command, to the terrorists themselves on different levels, to their shooting capabilities and to their morale,” he added.


Role Reversal: Mahmoud Abbas Condemns Israel for ‘Acts of Terror’ Against Hezbollah
While ignoring the thousands of rockets and drones fired at northern Israel by the Iranian-backed Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah since the start of the current Gaza war, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its ruling party, Fatah, continue to express support for Hezbollah against Israel by painting Hezbollah as a victim.

Following Israel’s recent pager and device attacks against Hezbollah, both the PA and Fatah hurried to express their support for “sister Lebanon.”

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ office “condemned” the attacks as “acts of terror,” claiming they “harmed innocent civilians”:

The Palestinian [PA] presidential office again strongly condemned the acts of terror against sister Lebanon…

The presidential office emphasized that the State of Palestine and the Palestinian people stand alongside the government and people in sister Lebanon, at a time when it is being subjected to terror that harmed innocent civilians …

The presidential office warned against the results of this severe escalation, which violates Lebanese sovereignty and threatens international peace and security.”

[WAFA, official PA news agency, Sept. 18, 2024]

Also ignoring Hezbollah’s numerous attacks on Israeli civilian areas — and the murder of more than 40 Israelis, including 12 children who were playing soccer — Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash accused Israel of “escalating” the situation and seeking to “undermine the region’s stability” with its “aggressive operations”:

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “The Israeli government is continuing its attempts to escalate the situation and the tension more and more. These aggressive operations that the occupation state [i.e., Israel] and the occupation army are carrying out, whether in Lebanon, in Palestine, or anywhere else, strive to create additional tension and escalation on the military and security level in order to undermine the region’s stability.” [emphasis added]

[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Sept. 18, 2024]

Abbas’ Fatah movement also condemned Israel’s “aggressive and criminal operation,” stressing its continued support for Lebanon and its “great appreciation for the support” that Lebanon [ i.e., the terror organization Hezbollah] “has given the [Palestinian] cause”:


The Mark Levin Show: Ambassador to Israel and author David Friedman talks about the constant attacks that Israel faces
Mark speaks with former Ambassador to Israel and author David Friedman about the constant attacks that Israel faces every day by Hamas and other Iran-backed terror groups, and about his book One Jewish State: The Last, Best Hope to Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.


The Israel Guys: BREAKING: Israel Officially Begins Operation NORTHERN ARROWS Against Hezbollah
Today, Israel officially announced their operation to restore peace to their northern border and they’re calling it, Operation Northern Arrows. This began last week when Israel blew up the pagers of thousands of Hezbollah terrorists. From there, things have gone from unbelievable, to insane. Israel is fighting this war in a way no one thought they would.


The Israel Guys: Is Iraq Joining the War Against ISRAEL?
Iraq, desperate in their attempt to join the war to annihilate the Jews launched, attack drones at the nation of Israel.

In Lebanon, Israel is smashing Hezbollah targets left and right, even taking out major leadership in the terrorist organization in a targeted strike. Hezbollah has been raining rockets on Israel’s North causing over 300,000 Israelis to run to bomb shelters multiple times a day.

The US administration is doing everything they can to stop Israel from a full-scale war with Hezbollah despite the fact that Israel is already at full-scale war with Hezbollah. Also, the ceasefire/hostage deal with Hamas just completely crashed!


“ALL-OUT WAR” Israel Attacks Lebanon | Rania Khalek x Gideon Levy x Alan Dershowitz
Israel has both astounded and horrified the world with a lethal attack on Hezbollah fighters, by surreptitiously planting explosives in their pagers and other electronic devices. It's reported that many were killed in the attack, as well as thousands being injured, but in the broader geopolitical sense, the operation has brought the states of Israel and Lebanon close to war.

Always favouring a passionate debate, Piers Morgan brings Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, Lebanese-American journalist Rania Khalek, Israeli columnist at Haaretz Gideon Levy and lawyer and author Alan Dershowitz onto Uncensored.

00:00 - Introduction
01:10 - Israeli ambassador Danny Dannon on Lebanon attacks
15:49 - Legality of pager bombs
20:27 - Rania Khalek clashes with Alan Dershowitz
25:32 - Gideon Levy says Israel is ‘going wild’
34:28 - Where did Hezbollah ‘come from’?
37:54 - Israel shutting down Al Jazeera




Israel: State of a Nation: “Hamas are funded by your paymasters in Qatar” Eylon Levy vs. Mehdi Hasan FULL DEBATE
Eylon Levy vs Mehdi Hasan - Debate of the Century

"Were Israel's actions in the Gaza War justified?"

Eylon Levy proves: Mehdi Hasan won’t condemn Hamas’s strategy – because he’s part of Hamas’s strategy. This debate between Eylon Levy and Mehdi Hasan took place in New York City on September 21, 2024. It was hosted by Open to Debate and moderated by John Donvan.

Eylon Levy is co-founder of the Israeli Citizen Spokespersons’ Office and host of the State of a Nation podcast. He served as an Israeli Government Spokesman in the October 7 War with Hamas, becoming one of the leading voices for Israel.






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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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