Monday, October 21, 2024

10/21 Links Pt1: How Israel Got Its Mojo Back; Poetic justice for the Satan of Oct. 7; Former UN peacekeeper: 'We were completely at Hezbollah's mercy,'

From Ian:

Jonathan Schanzer: How Israel Got Its Mojo Back
After months of watching Israel struggle to gain the upper hand, supporters of the Jewish state became euphoric, heartened by Israel’s stunning achievements. But this is not a time to celebrate. Wars are not linear. Isolated victories in battle do not lead inexorably to winning in a wider war.

Israel remains small and vulnerable to attack. The Iranian regime still arms and directs proxies across the Middle East. Its “ring of fire” still surrounds Israel and continues to darken its skies with drones, missiles, and rockets.

Israeli ground forces are now fighting another tactical battle, this time in Lebanon, against a Hezbollah terrorist army that is better trained and equipped than perhaps any other foe they have encountered since the founding of the state. Terror attacks launched against Israel inside its borders and on the West Bank continue to be carried out by Iran’s Palestinian proxies. These battles will claim lives, erode morale, and sap the country’s resources. In other words, a brutal war continues.

Then again, Iran’s proxies are weakening. The soldiers of the IDF understand the stakes, and they are fighting accordingly. The Islamic Republic, meanwhile, lacks a competent air force, and it has not seen a war on its on soil since the Iran-Iraq War, which was fought from 1980 to 1988 and concluded only when that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini chose to “drink from the poison chalice” and end a war he knew he could not win.

The Israelis, through capabilities and innovations developed with painstaking patience and mastery over decades in anticipation of this moment, now aim to neutralize the Iranian regime’s long war launched on October 7. Some in Israel merely seek to get Supreme Leader Ali Khameini to drink from Khomeini’s chalice. Others seek nothing less than the downfall of the Islamic Republic. Whatever surprises the Israelis have in store to achieve that ambitious end are unknowable to us. But one thing we do know: Israel has gotten its mojo back.
Col. Kemp: Harris doesn’t know how to defeat Hamas. Israel should press the advantage
With Hamas’s hard-line leader out of the picture, is it now time for Israel to sue for peace? Both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris think so and have together fired the starting gun for what will no doubt be another round of intensive pressure on Israel to end the war.

In both cases their judgement so far in this war has not been unimpeachable. For example, Biden and Harris demanded that the IDF should not enter Rafah earlier this year and threatened “consequences” if it did. Prime Minister Netanyahu was having none of that and, in the face of domestic political and military opposition as well, ordered an offensive against Hamas inside Rafah. With minimal civilian casualties, that move destroyed the rump Hamas military formations in the city and severed the terrorist lifeline beneath the Egyptian border.

It also led directly to the death of Sinwar. Immediately after that both Biden and Harris tried to claim some of the credit for the terrorist leader’s elimination but the reality is that if they’d had their way Sinwar would still be alive today.

The priority for President and Vice President, though, is not victory for Israel in an existential war, but victory for Harris at the polls, which they calculate a supposed peace deal would help secure.

But now is certainly not the time for Israel to give even lip-service to the exhortations of the miscalculating Biden and Harris. As in the past their demands that Israel stop fighting rather than calling for Hamas’s surrender give hope and strength to the terrorists, and to their Iranian masters, and help prolong the bloodshed. Instead, with Hamas reeling, now is the time to intensify the fight and drive home the advantage.

Netanyahu’s policy of attrition against the terror armies while eliminating their leadership, whether in Gaza, Lebanon or Iran, is certainly working. What would not work in any of these places is the Western obsession with ceasefires, peace deals and de-escalation. Against jihadist enemies, all such appeasement of those dedicated to your annihilation can at best only store up the same threat for another day, or an even greater one. We only have to look at the nightmare of Afghanistan, now a haven for global terrorist gangs after Biden catastrophically ceded the country to the Taliban.

In any case, Hamas doesn’t seem to want to play ball with the Biden-Harris desire for a peace deal. In the wake of Sinwar’s death, senior terrorist Khalil al Hayya made clear that Hamas will not free the hostages until the IDF has completely withdrawn from Gaza and released Palestinian terrorists from custody. That was of course Sinwar’s position and it’s not clear why Biden and Harris should think whoever takes over from him will be any less hard-line. Optimism is not a strategy.
Brendan O'Neill: The tragedy of Palestine
The category error of these garment-renders is to view Hamas as a ‘national liberation movement’. In truth, Hamas aspires not to ‘free Palestine’ but to subjugate it to the unforgiving dominion of Islamist diktat. Hamas’s aim is not the creation of a democratic, independent Palestine but the ruthless subsumption of all Palestinian territory – and Israel, of course – into the ideology of the Caliphate. By its own confession, Hamas longs to enforce not the rule of the Palestinian people but the rule of God. Until the ‘sovereignty of Islam’ is imposed ‘in this region’, it decrees, there will be ‘nothing but carnage, displacement and terror’. So it’s Islamism or death, bowing down to Allah or butchery – does that sound like liberation to you?

As I argue in my book, After the Pogrom, Hamas is ‘as far from an anti-colonial movement as it is possible to get’. Where past national liberation movements aspired, at least, to represent ‘the people’, Hamas conceives of itself as a narrow instrument of God. Where those old movements dreamed of creating a nation, Hamas dreams of subjecting a nation to God’s will – we will ‘raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine’, it promises (my italics). It wants to impose on Palestine the ‘sovereignty of Islam’ – the sovereignty of the edicts of Sharia with their blind intolerance of manmade law, women’s rights and democracy itself.

The current war is a direct consequence of the Islamist delusions of the hysterics of Hamas. In their eyes, Gaza is not a terrestrial plane that ought to enjoy self-governance – it’s another front in the cosmic showdown between the ‘sovereignty of Islam’ and the ‘Jews’ usurpation of Palestine’. And the people of Gaza are not individuals deserving of life and respect – they’re mere martyrs-in-the-making, fleshy fodder for Hamas’s fanatical war on the Jews. In the words of Article 8 of the Hamas Covenant, ‘death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of [our] wishes’. Sinwar himself updated this deathly creed following the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel when he said dead Gazans are ‘necessary sacrifices’ to get ‘the Israelis right where we want them’.

Hamas is not a liberation movement – it’s a death cult. This is the central difference between the old armies of national liberation and Hamas’s army of God: where the former believed their people had a right to live freely, the latter thinks their people should embrace death happily. Statehood is no longer the ‘loftiest’ of goals – death is. Gazans are promised not democracy, but martyrdom; not independence, but oblivion. In declaring a religious war on Israel, in slaughtering 1,200 Jews on 7 October, Hamas brought war to Gaza and reduced an aspiring nation to a theatre of holy warfare, and its people to bit-part players in the Hamas psychosis, underlings of fundamentalism, whose highest duty is to die.

Hamas is not alone in subjugating Palestine to its own lethal narcissism. Its Islamist hijacking of the Palestine issue is more than matched by the woke hijacking of it by the lost elites of the West. They, too, bend Palestine to their vain agendas. Palestine has become the omnicause of our cultural establishments. It’s the issue through which they express their self-absorbed angst with the West itself, with modernity, with this thing we call ‘civilisation’. On our campuses, in our streets, in the media world and art world, ‘Palestine’ has become a vessel for the fashionable anxieties of the privileged. Like Hamas, these ostentatious pitiers of the Palestinians turn Palestine from a real place with real people into an abstract moral landscape in which what really matters is my hang-ups, not their aspirations.

This is the fate of the Palestinians, then: physical fodder for the holy warmongering of Hamas and moral fodder for the virtue-signalling of the West’s elites. Playthings of both the Islamist theocracy and the cultural aristocracy. And thus do those who claim to be on the side of Palestinians dehumanise them far more than Israel does, turning them into a stage army for fundamentalism, whether of the Islamist variety or the woke variety. It is hard to see where the Palestinians go from here. The dream of a Palestinian state – or even a two-state solution – has been broken on the wheel of nihilism.


Matthew Continetti: The Biden Doctrine Goes Bust
It’s the same in the Middle East. Biden entered office determined to revive the Iran nuclear deal. He projected weakness by lifting sanctions, offering diplomatic carrots, and turning a blind eye to Iran’s malign behavior. What happened next was predictable. Tehran accelerated its nuclear program. The mullahs used their new cash flow to suppress internal dissent and arm terrorist proxies. And they built a ring of fire around the Jewish State of Israel.

The ring of fire caught fire. On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded Israel and committed the worst atrocity against Jews since the Holocaust. The next day, Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel’s north and forced the evacuation of Israeli civilians. The next month, Yemen’s Houthis attacked international shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting commercial traffic and provoking the longest sustained U.S. naval operation since World War II.

Biden has spent the past year proclaiming his support for Israel while trying to constrain Israel’s fight against Hamas and Hezbollah. Worried about gas prices and domestic political fallout, Biden has urged the parties to deescalate to avoid a regional war. No one listens. The regional war has been raging for a while.

As I write, some 100 captives, including seven Americans, remain in Hamas’s dungeons. Whereas Benjamin Netanyahu desires victory over Israel’s genocidal enemies, Biden wants a cease-fire and a Palestinian state that he believes will induce normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. He’s out of it. A Palestinian state is a nonstarter after October 7. Only a strong Israel, backed by a strong America, will entice the Saudis to join the Abraham Accords.

“If America wants to protect its security and create opportunities for its people,” writes Antony Blinken, “it must stand with those who have a stake in a free, open, and prosperous world and stand up to those who threaten that world.” His language is revealing. Anyone can “take a stand.” What matters is how you act. Joe Biden’s foreign policy has taken plenty of stands, but his actions have not matched his ideals. His dislike of hard power has given autocrats and barbarians the advantage.

The more the president’s friends describe the world he’s made, the more they indict his tenure in office. Joe Biden didn’t bring about renewal. He ushered in decline. That will be his legacy.
Bret Stephens: If Israel Is Alone, What Do We Do About It?
There is a lesson in this for how Israel should move forward. As I write, in late September, the Netanyahu government is under intense international and domestic pressure to reach a deal with Hamas that might free at least some of the hostages in exchange for a cease-fire that would effectively guarantee Hamas’s long-term survival as Gaza’s dominant political and military entity. It’s a deal fraught with peril, because Hamas will use the hostages it doesn’t release to extract ever-greater concessions (and treat those remaining hostages even more cruelly), and because a Hamas that survives will eventually recover its strength, resume its assault, and re-gain an aura of invincibility.

But the greatest danger will be to Israel’s reputation: to the belief, among enemies and allies alike, that the Jewish state knows how to pick itself up, that it can win wars against inferior enemies, that it doesn’t capitulate in the face of moral pressure, that it is the strong horse of the Middle East.

Precisely the same logic applies to Israel’s other conflicts, above all with Hezbollah. The brilliance of the pager/walkie-talkie strike in Lebanon has done more to restore Israel’s regional reputation than 11 months of relative restraint and tit-for-tat reprisals against enemies to the north. A similar lesson will also have to be given to the Houthis, especially since the Biden administration seems incapable of doing so. “Who Dares, Wins,” the motto (borrowed from the British) of Israel’s special forces, should be the motto for the Jewish state as a whole. The path out of loneliness is always a path of action.

What about American Jews?
The resurgence of anti-Semitism in the United States has begun to force a fundamental rethink of the way in which at least some American Jews contemplate their place in society: I call them “October 8 Jews”—those who woke up the day after the attack with a clear understanding of who our friends are not. Those Jews include the donors who revolted at the idea of continuing to give money to Harvard, Penn, Brown, or Columbia; who are investing heavily in new educational institutions that adhere to classically liberal values; who are calling out the DEI/anti-racism complex for being the anti-Semitism incubator that it is; who are breaking out of the stale orthodoxies of traditional media; who are investing all of their philanthropic energies in strengthening Jewish life.

They are the vanguard, but we are only at the beginning. So many institutions in American life that were once welcoming places for American Jews have turned bad: elite private schools; human-rights organizations; the literary world; social work; Mideast-studies departments; public-school curriculums—the list is long. In every one of these fields or institutions, October 8 Jews have a clear choice: Reject, reform, or reinvent them. What’s no longer possible is to pretend that what we have now is acceptable, or that indifference and inaction are viable options.

Just as the Bush administration spoke of a “whole of government effort” after September 11, 2001, we need a “whole of American Jewry” effort after October 7: to make high-quality Jewish day-school education available and affordable to every Jewish family that wants one; to cut off all giving to colleges and universities that are hostile to open and vibrant Jewish life and Zionist expression; to create a new ecosystem of literary prizes, faculty chairs, “genius awards,” and grants that reward and celebrate true merit; to fund and tell stories on large and small screens that richly and empathically explore the Jewish experience; to deepen American ties to Israel through corporate and academic partnerships; to expose and shut down the opaque and potentially illicit networks that fund and support the anti-Israel student protests. This is a partial list, but you get the point. If we don’t want to wind up alone, we cannot afford to stand still, think small, or look back. The questions are no longer “Who betrayed us?” or “Why is the world this way?” They are “What do we do now?” and “How soon can we get it done?”

Israel and the Jewish people aren’t alone—yet. Ensuring that we never wind up alone is going to take courage, work, nerve. And a demand for respect.
‘Israel doesn’t trust us,’ Pompeo says after US leaked intelligence on Iran
Mike Pompeo, a former U.S. secretary of state and former CIA director, urged attendees on a Republican Jewish Coalition call to vote for former President Donald Trump—the current GOP presidential candidate—and said the Jewish state suspects its American counterparts after U.S. officials leaked Israeli intelligence documents about Iran to the press.

“They don’t trust us,” Pompeo said. “Israel has to hide information from our intelligence committee.” (Washington is investigating the incident.)

Pompeo also criticized the Biden administration for discouraging Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear capabilities, noting that a nuclear Iran could exert power in troubling ways.

“If this was a nuclear-armed Iran, this would be very different, and they would be exercising that leverage,” he said.

The former U.S. official said that it is important to rely on states in the region that are also concerned about Iran.

“The Gulf Arab states know the threat doesn’t come from Jerusalem,” he said. “It comes from Tehran.”
Kamala Harris, Iran's Pick, Is the Wrong Choice for American Jews
Now consider Trump's accomplishments. Under his presidency, the U.S. recognized the Golan Heights as part of Israel, moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and cut annual aid to the Palestinian Authority and the UN Relief and Works Agency for their roles in promoting Palestinian terrorism. Trump also oversaw the most significant peace accords in the Middle East in a generation—the Abraham Accords.

And if anything, Trump has become an even bigger ally of international Jewry since his first term. Whereas Harris flirts with the anti-Jewish intifada enthusiasts at universities, Trump promised that "When I'm president we will not allow our colleges to be taken over by violent radicals" and "If you come here from another country to bring jihadism or anti-Americanism or antisemitism to our campuses, we will immediately deport you." Trump has also tried to shame Harris into returning campaign money from one of the main funders of the intifada movement in America. And Trump has encouraged Israel to "hit" Iranian nuclear facilities rather than preserve then.

JCDA often tweets that "Vice President Harris aligns with the vast majority of Jewish voters on every key issue, including reproductive rights." It's of course true that American Jews care about many issues unrelated to antisemitism, like abortion-access. To the Jews who prioritize such issues, voting for Kamala may make perfect sense.

But for Jews who prioritize their own safety, Harris is the wrong choice, regardless of what her Democratic friends say. At the very least, American Jews should be given accurate information on all the issues that they care about to make an informed voting decision.


Seven Israelis arrested for spying for Iran, providing info on army bases
Seven Israelis were arrested on suspicion of espionage for Iran, Israel Police and the Shin Bet announced Monday.

Prosecutors allege that the suspects completed some 600 missions for Iran, including gathering intelligence on sensitive military and infrastructure sites and identifying potential human targets for the Islamic Republic.

Notable sites involved in their alleged espionage included Ramat David Airbase, Nevatim Airbase, Glilot, and the Golani Brigade base, where four soldiers were killed in a Hezbollah drone attack last week.

The suspects "were given maps of strategic sites from their handlers, including of the Golani Brigade base," the State Attorney said.

The seven suspects, Jewish Israelis of Azeri origin from Haifa and Haifa’s bayside suburbs, some of whom are relatives and one of whom is an AWOL soldier, have been in custody for around 35 days. Two are minors, according to police.

Charges, expected by the end of the week, are anticipated to include assisting the enemy during wartime.

Actions by the suspects "inflicted security damage on the state," according to Israeli assessments, a senior Israel Security Agency (ISA) said Monday.

The "severity and scope" of the incident is "among the most serious known to Israel," Israel Police said.


Douglas Murray: Inside the utter devastation — and the very chair — where Hamas despot Yahya Sinwar met his demise in Gaza
As I stood in the same room yesterday, I had the chance to look out at the final piece of this Earth that Sinwar saw.

Every window of the building was already blown out, like every building around it. What had once been a pleasant, even luxurious Gaza villa was now like every other building — covered in rubble, if not reduced to rubble. As far as the eye could see were the consequences of the war that Sinwar and Hamas started.

I wonder whether, on this rare — maybe sole — trip up from the tunnels, Sinwar for a moment recognized how much destruction he had brought.

Not just on the people of Israel — he was proud of that. But on the Palestinians of Gaza. As he was bleeding out — isolated, abandoned and defeated — did he spend any of his final moments wondering whether this had been such a great idea? This whole bloody, unnecessary war that he started?

The chair that he sat dying in was there in the room, and I took a seat, noting the bloodstains on the side.

There is no remorse for this monster. For he had no remorse for anyone else. Least of all the hostages he kidnapped, tortured and, in a number of known cases (DNA evidence suggests), probably personally killed.

Coward’s way out
The fact that he was found with large amounts of cash, passports and UN IDs on him suggests he may have decided at the last moment to abandon the Palestinian people and flee to Egypt.

It didn’t work. This wasteland is where his hate-filled, wasted life ended.

What did work was the IDF, its commanders and the politicians who have directed them. Every leading Democrat, among others, kept telling Israel not to go deeper into Gaza, not to enter Rafah, to reach a cease-fire. If Israel had followed this advice, Hamas would still be strong, half the hostages would never have been rescued and Sinwar would have lived to breathe another day.

It wasn’t “luck” that the IDF finished him here. It was the culmination of a year of hard, grueling work by Israel’s soldiers, and brave and careful decisions made by the country´s politicians.

The region, and the whole civilized world, owes them an apology and a debt of thanks.
John Spencer: What Yayha Sinwar's Death Revealed About Hamas's Waning Capabilities
Last week, in a surprising chance contact, Israeli forces eliminated the leader of Hamas and the mastermind of the October 7 massacre, Yayha Sinwar. Like the death of Osama bin Laden 10 years after 9-11, Sinwar's death gives strategic closure to many people in Israel; Sinwar was the mastermind and commander of the deadliest massacre against Jews since the Holocaust, and the atrocities of October 7 caused deep psychological trauma for Jews, along with a loss of personal security that will be felt for a long time. The closure Sinwar's death provides Israeli's population is important for their moving forward and healing as a nation.

But there's also poetic justice in the facts surrounding who killed Sinwar, when, and where. Sinwar was not killed by Israeli Special Forces acting on information collected by their elite intelligence organizations. He was killed by regular Israeli soldiers with tanks from the IDF's Gaza division. It was the same division that collapsed on October 7. Videos and photos of their tanks and crews pillaged, burned, and desecrated were spread by so called journalists who travelled with Hamas on their massacre. The soldiers that killed Sinwar were also from the same unit that accidentally killed three Israeli hostages in Norther Gaza nine months ago.

Sinwar was also killed on the first day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, a seven-day festival period during which Jews recall the days when the Israelites lived in huts (sukkot) during their years after the Exodus from Egypt. Sinwar initiated the October 7 massacre on the last day of Sukkot last year.

Then there's the fact that Sinwar was killed in the city of Rafah in Southern Gaza. Israel's government had to overrule the strong objections and threats of the international community to move into Rafah, yet that is where six Israeli hostages were found after they were brutally murdered last month. Over 100 cross-border tunnels being used to arm and supply Hamas were also found there.

But the details of Sinwar's death also tell us a lot about the state of Hamas. Much like when U.S. forces discovered Saddam Hussein cowering in a hole, the myth about Sinwar has been busted. He was not found looking defiant and capable, surrounded by an elite bodyguard force in one of the luxury bunkers discovered in areas of Gaza like Khan Yunis. Sinwar was killed looking desperate, dirty, and disheveled, living in fear, running from tunnel to tunnel, rubbled house to rubbled house, with only a couple other men, in a district he had hidden in because the world told the IDF they could not go there.

He was not commanding a military force with any capability. He oversaw nothing.

He had the pocket litter of a bum: a pack of mentos, tissues, some money, and a fake passport with the occupation listed as employee of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Hamas is clearly broken. It clearly is operating without leadership, on autopilot and functioning as separate, disconnected guerrilla gangs completely unable to do organized acts.
Ruthie Blum: Poetic justice for the Satan of Oct. 7
Iris Haim, whose son was among the three hostages killed by “friendly fire,” hails the brigade behind the tragic error for eliminating Yahya Sinwar.

Beyond that—they admire her ability to set aside politics and blame Hamas exclusively for what befell even her own child, from the moment of his being carted away into Gaza on that fateful Black Sabbath by gleeful terrorists to the minute of his death at the hands of fellow Israelis.

This is no easy feat, given the surrounding cacophony on the part of activists pointing the finger at the powers-that-be in Jerusalem. Yet she managed to remain graceful and gracious through her tears, including after being informed of the manner in which Yotam lost his life.

Grasping the impossible situation on the asymmetrical battlefield—with a military that abides by international laws of war confronting Iran-backed, Sinwar-led terrorists above and below ground—Iris knew in her heart that the boys behind the “friendly fire” must have believed they were facing the enemy. She also clearly understood that they would never forgive themselves.

As a result, despite the depths of her loss, within a few days of the awful event, she sent a recording to their unit.

“Hello to Brigade 7828 Bislach Battalion 17, this is Iris Haim,” she said. “I am Yotam’s mother. I wanted to tell you that I love you very much and I’m hugging you from afar. I know that everything that happened wasn’t your fault at all; it was no one’s fault except for Hamas, may their name and memory be erased from the face of the earth.”

She then extended an invitation.

“At the first opportunity, you are welcome to come to visit us … We want to see you with our own eyes, to embrace you and tell you that what you did, as painful and sad as it is to say such a thing, was probably the right thing to do at that moment. None of us is judging you or angry—not me, not my husband, Raviv, not my daughter, Noya, not Yotam of blessed memory, and not Tuval, Yotam’s brother. We love you very much, and that’s all.”

Nothing can erase the sorrow of the Haim clan or of the guys from Bislach. But there is some comfort in the poetic—or divine—justice that led the latter to Sinwar’s location.


WSJ Editorial: After Sinwar, the ICC Stands Exposed
The moral equivalence was offensive, but now that all three Hamas chiefs have been killed, Israel has stripped Mr. Khan of his fig leaf. He is prosecuting Israelis alone for their defensive war to free hostages and defeat the death squads who want to repeat their Oct. 7 attack.

There was never any chance of Sinwar standing trial in The Hague or being deterred by the prospect. While an ICC indictment means something to a democracy like Israel, it is meaningless to terrorists who have no respect for international opinion, and already live in hiding to escape being killed as illegal enemy combatants under the traditional rules of war.

Mr. Khan knows all of this. He rushed to seek arrest warrants, before seriously investigating or even talking to the Israelis, as he had promised U.S. Senators he would, for its effect on Israel. When Mr. Khan was dangling his threat, the goal seemed to be to deter Israel from entering Hamas’s stronghold of Rafah. After Israel went in, Mr. Khan made his announcement to try to stop the tanks.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proved him wrong by safely evacuating Rafah’s civilians. Then Israel uncovered tunnels to Egypt, hostages and now Sinwar in Rafah. The Hamas No. 1 seems to have been flushed out of his tunnels by Israel’s military pressure.

Mr. Khan was wrong about Rafah, as were President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who said she had “studied the maps.” They blocked arms to Israel over it. But Rafah’s centrality to Israel’s mission and to the chance of peace in postwar Gaza is now clear.

Yet the White House is still protecting the ICC. Over Mr. Biden’s objections, 42 House Democrats joined Republicans in early June to pass a bill sanctioning the ICC. The measure likely could pass the Senate, but Sens. Chuck Schumer and Ben Cardin have done the White House’s bidding and sat on it, despite pressure by Sen. Jim Risch and other Republicans.

Mr. Schumer promised bipartisan negotiations on an ICC sanctions bill. He never delivered, so the U.S. does nothing as the ICC expands its jurisdiction and stands poised to take up Hamas’s political struggle against Israel.
Caroline Glick: What’s behind the ICC sex SCANDAL & Kamala’s RADICAL pandering?
It’s been revealed that ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan was accused of sexually harassing one of his employees a couple of weeks before he requested arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Meanwhile, in America, Vice President and Democrat candidate for president Kamala Harris apparently thinks that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. We’ll discuss what ties these two stories together, and more, on today’s episode of Caroline Glick’s In Focus.

Chapters
00:00 Kareem Khan's Controversial Arrest Warrants
15:41 Kamala Harris and the Accusation of Genocide
28:05 The Implications of U.S. Foreign Policy on Israel
28:29 Consequences of Military Operations in Rafa
32:37 Israel's Strategy and American Pressure
34:32 Political Dynamics and Accountability
38:22 Intelligence Leaks and National Security
52:27 Israel's Resilience and U.S. Relations


Israel facing U.S., European pressure over proposed UNRWA ban
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, as well as several of his European counterparts, have pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other key figures in the Knesset to drop two bills that would effectively shut down the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), even though some employees of the U.N. agency aiding Palestinians took part in the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks.

Israel’s security cabinet discussed international opposition to the UNRWA bills on Sunday night, amid the diplomatic blitz.

Lew, as well as ambassadors from the U.K., E.U., Canada, Germany, Norway and other countries – one Knesset member said “almost all Western countries” – and Sigrid Kaag, the senior U.N. coordinator for humanitarian action and reconstruction in Gaza, have held meetings and phone calls with Netanyahu and other leaders of parties whose members sponsored the bills, Israeli lawmakers told Jewish Insider.

Israeli political sources said that some ambassadors raised the possibility of consequences in the U.N. Security Council or the G7 if the bills become law.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s recent letter threatening U.S. military aid if Israel does not accelerate humanitarian aid to Gaza also states that the U.S. officials are “deeply concerned” about the bills banning UNRWA.

“While we share your concerns about the serious allegations of certain UNRWA employees participating in the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks and Hamas misusing UNRWA facilities, enactment of such restrictions would devastate the Gaza humanitarian response at this critical moment…which could have implications under relevant U.S. law and policy,” they wrote. “We ask that you take all possible steps…to ensure this does not come to pass.”

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres also wrote a letter to Netanyahu expressing his concern.

The bills in question are set to go to a final vote in the Knesset next Monday. One prohibits UNRWA from operating in sovereign Israeli territory – such as east Jerusalem, where UNRWA has offices – and the other prohibits any Israeli government agencies from having contact with UNRWA and requires the National Security Council to track its implementation. Both bills were co-sponsored by coalition and opposition lawmakers.

“We all witnessed UNRWA’s activities on Oct. 7… We know that some of the hostages were held by workers of the organization… UNRWA is out,” Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein, one target of the international pressure, said at the meeting earlier this month in which the bills were authorized for a final vote.


JPost Editorial: The 'day after' the Israel-Hamas war is now
After Sinwar's assassination, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that it marks the end of Hamas's rule in the enclave and, as such, opens up the possibility of ending the Iranian-led Axis and creates new options to free the hostages.

Those who lay down their “weapons and return our hostages” would be allowed to “leave and live,” Netanyahu said, hinting at a plan that would allow those captors to be exiled in exchange for the release of the hostages. He issued a stern warning as well: “Whoever harms our hostages – their blood on his head. We will settle accounts with him. The return of our hostages is an opportunity to achieve all our goals, and it brings the end of the war closer,” Netanyahu stated, promising that this is his “highest commitment.”

Israel must use this opportunity to establish a stable governing force in Gaza, whether that’s Palestinian-led, backed by moderate Arab allies, or both. This kind of forward-looking approach must be part of the conversation.

What happens in Gaza now could affect the entire war against Iran and its proxies. Netanyahu said, “We have a great opportunity to halt the [Iranian-led] axis of evil and to create a different future.” This will be a “future of peace, a future of prosperity for the entire region.”

In May, when the IDF began its invasion of Rafah, the resistance was massive. Yet it was where Sinwar was killed and what IDF chief spokesman R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari said Saturday night was the defense establishment’s prediction, that he was wandering between Khan Yunis and Rafah to survive.

The IDF must be able to do what it needs. It knows what it is doing and is doing so methodically. Everyone opposed the invasion back then, but it brought results.

Now is the time to push the diplomatic pedal; military might won’t be enough, it never is. The day-after plan has become more urgent than ever. Left unsettled, it leaves Israel stuck and pushes the strain on the nation even further.


Seth Frantzman: Will Israel’s strikes on Hezbollah's financial network shift war?
Hezbollah's financial backbone
For those Shi’ites, the only other choice is basically Amal, and Amal is also allied to Hezbollah. Hezbollah preys on this system by using organizations such as al-Qard al-Hassan. If the people who trusted in Hezbollah institutions see them literally collapse because of IDF bombing, will they walk away from Hezbollah?This is a big question mark.

Bombing banks and eviscerating the wealth of local people could backfire. It could also show that all the state-building Hezbollah has done is now empty, because Hezbollah itself is incapable of “defending” Lebanon.

Hezbollah poses as a “resistance” but it looks increasingly hollow. On the other hand, Hezbollah could now pose as “too big to fail” and demand that the Lebanese state make up for its losses.

Lebanon may now be at a new crossroads. Israel is trying to give the state a chance to reclaim itself from Hezbollah. By weakening the Hezbollah parallel state system, such as al-Qard al-Hassan, the state could swoop in and help the affected locals. The Lebanese state has shown it is not ready or capable of doing this.

Israel has carried out its war on Hezbollah in a series of phases. The first one was what one might call the “phony war” of October 8 to September 17. This was a war where Hezbollah attacked Israel daily but the attacks mostly targeted IDF sites near the border and also Israeli communities on the border. Those communities were evacuated.

Then Hezbollah suffered losses from the pager incident and also the IDF’s strikes on Hezbollah command and control in the last two weeks of September. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed. The IDF launched Operation Northern Arrows on September 23 with 1,600 airstrikes. Thus began the third phase, the air war that pummeled Hezbollah. On October 1 the ground war began, which could be seen as the fourth phase.

Now the phase of striking Hezbollah institutions has begun. This could cut into Hezbollah’s balance sheet and bankrupt the group. However, Hezbollah doesn’t need that much money to keep functioning. Iran backs Hezbollah with cash from Iran and also cash and oil swaps in Syria that help fund Hezbollah.

It’s plausible Iran’s foreign minister and Iranian officials brought cash for Hezbollah aboard planes flown to Beirut this month. For a million dollars, around 1,000 Hezbollah fighters can be funded for a month. For $50m., 50,000 could be funded. Hezbollah likely can still keep up the fight and some of its men are likely fine with being paid in arrears.

The question then relates to their families and social network. Will supporters of Hezbollah feel the organization has failed them? Will they demand it concede and accept a ceasefire?

Western officials want a ceasefire. But Hezbollah likely won’t agree to UN Resolution 1701 and withdraw from the border. If it won’t withdraw then it must be forced off the high ground it controls near Israel’s border.

The IDF is doing this slowly so far. This war on Hezbollah has lasted almost a month. The 2006 war lasted a month. The question is whether this war will stretch into next year or if the new phase of strikes is a game-changer.


Hezbollah's gold mine catches fire: Nasrallah's bunker under hospital held half billion dollars
IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari revealed on Monday night that the former Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah's bunker in Dahieh in southern Beirut was located underneath a hospital - which held gold and half a billion dollars in cash.

One of his bunkers was located beneath the Al-Sahel Hospital and was used as Nasrallah's emergency bunker, according to the IDF. The hospital has been evacuated following Israeli claims a Hezbollah cash bunker is located beneath it, hospital director Fadi Alameh told Reuters on Monday. Hagari said that Israel will not strike the hospital.

Alameh denied the allegation and called on the Lebanese army to visit the site.

Video with graphics displaying Nasrallah's bunker underneath a hospital holding hundreds of millions of dollars (credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

An N12 report said that it serves as Hezbollah's central money warehouse, where the vast majority of the organization's money stolen from Lebanese citizens and used for terrorism is hidden.

The IDF revealed a graphic photo and a video simulation of the structure. "This bunker is deliberately placed under the hospital and on both sides of it," Hagari continued. "You can see the buildings under which the entrance shafts to the bunker are located.

"This money could and still can go to rebuilding the state of Lebanon. This money had been intended to go exclusively to arming the terrorist organization Hezbollah and had no other destination."

He said that IAF aircraft are monitoring the compound "and will continue to do so.


Dramatic testimony suggests UN peacekeepers bribed by Hezbollah
Hezbollah operatives captured during recent Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ground operations in southern Lebanon have disclosed during interrogations that the organization paid off UNIFIL personnel to use their positions in the region, according to security sources who spoke to Israel Hayom.

These sources, privy to the details, revealed that Hezbollah also took control of UNIFIL cameras in compounds near the Israeli border and utilized them for their own purposes. In light of these revelations and UNIFIL's glaring failure to prevent Hezbollah's entrenchment along the border Israel plans to rely primarily on commitments from the Lebanese army in any future arrangement with Lebanon, rather than on UNIFIL, which has proven ineffective over the years and is now accused of frequently collaborating with Hezbollah operatives.
Former Danish soldier with UN stationed in Lebanon: ‘We were totally subject to Hezbollah’
A former U.N. soldier in Southern Lebanon told the Danish tabloid B.T. on Sunday that during his service there 10 years ago, “we were totally subject to Hezbollah.”

The Danish citizen, who the article named “Michael,” was deployed as part of UNTSO (U.N. Truce Supervision Organization), which works closely with the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL.

UNTSO is tasked with observing and reporting violations of U.N. Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006 and calls on the Iranian terror proxy to disarm and not venture south of the Litani River, which flows east to west and runs parallel to the Israeli-Lebanon border.

“We were totally subject to Hezbollah,” says Michael. “We clearly had limited freedom of movement. For example, we never operated after dark for fear of Hezbollah. So they had free time in the evening and night hours.”

He emphasized that he was speaking for himself as a private individual and not on behalf of UNTSO. He said when he and his colleagues at UNTSO and UNIFIL would drive around different cities in Southern Lebanon, Hezbollah members would often stop them when they were attempting to enter areas where they believed that Hezbollah might be operating.

“They simply blocked the road. They were not visibly armed but aggressive, and it was quite clear that they were members of Hezbollah. We knew very well who decided things, especially in the Shi’ite cities. They didn’t want us to see what they were doing,” said Michael.

“When we patrolled the Blue Line, we often saw ‘civilians’ very close to the Israeli military installations taking pictures. When that happened, we withdrew and observed from a distance; we were simply instructed to do so,” he added.

They were not allowed to document any of the activities.

“It was forbidden to film and take pictures. And if we did, we could end up with the locals confiscating our cameras. It happened to my colleagues in UNIFIL and UNTSO,” he said.

He also discussed Hezbollah’s control of Southern Lebanon.

“The civilians who did not care about Hezbollah, especially the Christians, were afraid to speak out against them. There was a widespread fear of them. But at the same time, we experienced cooperation with the Shia Muslims. For example, we had a number of interpreters who were indoctrinated into Hezbollah. I ended up throwing one of them out of my car once while he was praising Hassan Nasrallah. I simply didn’t want to listen to it,” he recalled.

Michael described how no actions were taken against the violations of U.N. Resolution 1701.
Hochstein in talks with Israel, Lebanon about ceasefire based on 1701
US special envoy Amos Hochstein is in the region to hold talks with Israel and Lebanese officials about an IDF-Hezbollah ceasefire based on United Security Council resolution 1701, which set the ceasefire terms that ended the Second Lebanon war in 2006.

“We’re going to have a substantive conversation with the government of Lebanon [and] with the government of Israel about how best to bring about a cessation of hostilities to end this conflict,” Hochstein told reporters at a press event in Beirut. He said that Lebanon and Israel just committing to UN resolution 1701 was not enough and that the United States was working to devise a formula to end the conflict once and for all.

He spoke more than a year into the IDF-Hezbollah war, which has escalated in the last month to include an IDF ground invasion into southern Lebanon and intensive Israeli aerial strikes against Hezbollah targets in Beirut.

“This is my sixth, or maybe seventh visit to Lebanon in the past year,” Hochstein said.

“While we spent 11 months containing the conflict, we were not able to resolve it. In each of my visits, I cautioned that the situation was urgent and the status quo was not sustainable. We were either going to reach a solution or things are going to escalate out of control,” the special envoy said.

He recalled that on past visits he had cautioned about the urgency of resolving the situation, noting that options to resolve the conflict had been rejected.


Soldier killed in Gaza had no Israeli citizenship, Hebrew Israelite
Sgt. Elishai Young, who was killed in battle while fighting in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, was a member of the African Hebrew Israelites community and reportedly not an Israeli citizen, media reported on Sunday.

The Jerusalem Post has been unable to confirm Young’s citizenship status, though members of his community have told media that he does not have citizenship.

The community is largely based in Dimona, having arrived in Israel from the US in the late 1960s.

Bitton wrote, “Dimona bows its head. Sgt. Elishai Young, from the city of Dimona, a member of the Hebrew community in the city, fell in battle in Gaza. The city of Dimona mourns his passing, and we send our condolences to his family. May his memory be a blessing.”

Bitton also provided details for Young’s funeral, which took place on October 12 at Dimona’s cemetery in the section for fallen soldiers and security forces.

Yair Israel, a member of Dimona’s African Hebrew Israelites community, told Walla, “He [Young] was a wonderful boy. His father passed away a few years ago, and he was his mother’s youngest of two sons.”

“He is the first from the community to fall, even though many of our children serve in the army,” Israel told Walla.

“Everyone is in total shock […] it’s hard to see our children fighting for a country that doesn’t respect us. He didn’t have citizenship […] he’s fighting for the country, but once he’s done, he still has to apply for citizenship? It’s absurd,” Israel said of Young and his citizenship status.

Asriel Mor, a relative of Young, spoke to KAN News on Sunday about the predicament but expressed hope that Young’s death would shed light on the issue and prompt the government to acknowledge the African Hebrew Israelites community.
Second IDF colonel killed in Gaza
The Israel Defense Forces announced on Sunday that Col. Ehsan Daksa, commander of the IDF’s 401st Armored Brigade, was killed in battle in the northern Gaza Strip.

A member of the country’s Druze minority, the 41-year-old from Daliyat al-Karmel is the highest-ranking officer killed during the Gaza operation, alongside Col. Itzhak Ben Basat, head of the Golani Brigade chief’s forward command team, who was killed in an ambush in Gaza City on Dec. 12.

Daksa was fatally wounded when an explosive device was detonated after he exited a tank in Jabaliya, where IDF soldiers have been operating since Oct. 6 to thwart a Hamas resurgence in the city.

The commander of the 52nd Battalion was seriously wounded in the incident that killed Daksa. Two other officers were also wounded—one moderately and the other lightly.

A decorated veteran of the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Daksa took command of the 401st in June.

He is the sixth IDF colonel to have been killed in combat against Hamas. Another Druze officer, Lt. Col. Salman Habaka, was killed in Gaza on Nov. 2.

Daksa’s death brings the total IDF death toll on all fronts since Oct. 7, 2023 to 749.

“The State of Israel lost a bold and courageous commander, a leader who dedicated his life and work to the security of our nation,” said Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.


The U.S. Threatens Israel over an Imaginary Famine
Because of the Sukkot holiday, the death of Yahya Sinwar, the attack on Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence (see below), and other developments, it’s easy to forget some of last week’s events. One that certainly deserves further attention is a leaked October 13 letter to Israel from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense of Lloyd Austin, accusing it (based on highly dubious evidence) of having “contributed to starvation and widespread suffering” in Gaza, and “particularly in the enclave’s north,” where the IDF has renewed intensive activity. The letter threatens the cutting off of the resupply of munitions if Jerusalem doesn’t take appropriate steps within 30 days. Noah Rothman argues that the Biden administration is presenting Israel with “an impossible conundrum.”

If Israel has just 30 days to wrap up new counterinsurgency operations in the Gaza Strip’s northern territories, it would have to do so with unnecessary disregard for the lives of both the IDF and Gaza’s civilians. Speedy military operations in densely populated urban areas are also bloody operations, and the Biden administration would surely react with just as much horror to that outcome as it has to the tactics Israel is presently employing. But a more methodical approach designed to preserve as much life as possible may extend beyond Washington’s arbitrary timeline.

What’s more, the circumstances that are contributing to Washington’s apprehension may be yet another product of an imperfect information environment and the selective interpretation of facts on the ground by Israel’s monomaniacal critics in the UN.

[But] the impression that the threat of a humanitarian catastrophe looms forever just over the horizon appears to be an impression the administration wants to cultivate.


Blaming the Victims | The Legal Case for Israel With Natasha Hausdorff
Israel is being attacked by the Iranian regime and its proxy armies on SEVEN FRONTS…. But multiple dimensions. There’s a media war. There’s also a legal war. Lawfare. The way international law is being twisted, legal definitions that only apply to Israel… the weaponization of international institutions.

Natasha Hausdorff is a British barrister specializing in public international law, human rights, and national security. Hausdorff has been involved in high-profile legal cases, particularly those concerning national security issues and international humanitarian law. Hausdorff is a fierce advocate for Israel, frequently taking on public debates and speaking engagements to take the fight for Israel to the global stage. Alongside her legal career, she is known for her work in policy circles, often speaking on topics related to international law and Middle Eastern geopolitics.


Triggernometry: Israel, Iran and the Middle East Proxy Wars Explained - Colonel Richard Kemp
Colonel Richard Kemp CBE is a retired British Army officer who served from 1977 to 2006. He joined us to discuss current events in the Middle East.

Chapters
00:00 Trailer
01:00 Why Biden Doesn’t Want Israel To Win
03:52: How Can Israel Win?
07:00 Are Hamas Still Operational?
10:44 Do Israeli Actions Radicalise Palestinians?
14:18 The Iranian Regime Is The ‘Head Of The Octopus’
18:29 Ground News Advert
19:37 Iranian Nuclear Program
22:00 Do We Need Israel As An Ally?
28:36 Understanding Collateral Damage
39:21 Ketone IQ Advert
40:37 The Geopolitics of Lebanon
48:51 Why The Two State Solution Is Impossible
55:55 Trump Vs Kamala
01:02:50 Western Defeatism
01:07:11 What's The One Thing We're Not Talking About?


Call Me Back PodCast: The fate of the hostages, post Sinwar – with Maya Roman and Gil Dickmann
Hosted by Dan Senor
The extraordinary success of the elimination of Yahya Sinwar has raised a number of questions about what happens next in the war. And among those asking questions is the community of families of Israeli hostages. In today’s episode, we sat down with two of those family members – Maya Roman and Gil Dickmann.


‘Celebrating terrorism’: Sharri Markson slams pro-Palestinian protests for Yahya Sinwar
Sky News host Sharri Markson slams the pro-Palestinian protests celebrating the life of deceased Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar

“Authorities have failed to enforce the law as pro-Palestinian protesters celebrated the life of Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar,” Ms Markson said.

“These are scenes I never imagined we would see in our safe country … it is racism I never imagined would be tolerated by political leaders.”




‘Law enforcement crisis’: James Paterson condemns protesters praising Hamas leader
Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson has hit out at Australians praising Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar after he was killed in an Israeli strike.

Demonstrators at a pro-Palestine protest in Sydney on Sunday were seen celebrating the life of the now-deceased terrorist leader.

Mr Paterson warned Australia had entered a “law enforcement crisis” after a failure to deter protesters. “It is the failing to enact meaningful consequences for repeated instances of behaviour like this over the last year that has led extremists in our country to become emboldened and openly defy the law,” Mr Paterson told Sky News host Chris Kenny.


ABC torched for ‘reprehensible’ correction following Hezbollah ‘propaganda video’
Sky News Digital Editor Jack Houghton slams the ABC for pushing a “propaganda video” about the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and how they issued a “pathetic” correction.






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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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