Tuesday, October 22, 2024

10/22 Links Pt1: Hamas Chief’s Death Was Hezbollah’s Nightmare; Why don’t they want Israel to win?; UNRWA is a front for terrorism; How Hezbollah Is Destroying Lebanon

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Israel’s Brilliant Way of Turning the Tables on Iran’s Proxies
Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis—the main terrorist organizations at war with Israel—mimic states. They do so even though they govern on behalf of a foreign power: Iran. South Lebanon (many would argue the whole of Lebanon) isn’t a territory dealing with an insurgency; it is Hezbollahland. There is no insurgency. The government has too much control over the population to allow one to develop.

The Houthis control part of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, in similar fashion. Before the current war, Hamas was the only game in Gaza. These aren’t resistance groups, they are the groups against whom a citizen would resist.

Terrorists sow terror through violence against innocents. But what if you could inject the same chaos by targeting the terrorists—a legal, ethical, and moral inversion of the evil and criminal methods of the terrorists themselves?

That’s what Israel appears to be doing. Iran has overextended itself, and Hezbollah has gotten too big for its britches. You can’t play at this level, Israel seems to be saying to the terrorist army occupying Lebanon. Hezbollah has made itself vulnerable to the weaknesses it has for so long exploited in others.

Suddenly, the citizenry is suspicious of the totalitarian thugs in charge. Don’t get too close to a Hezbollah soldier, his pager could explode at any moment. Stop believing that you’d starve without Hezbollah; those cash vaults underneath the hospital suggest they’ll starve without you. Remember that “generous” loan that you got from Al-Qard Al-Hassan, the “credit bank?” That place is where Hezbollah can use you to unknowingly wash its money for it—money that, if Hezbollah weren’t here siphoning Lebanese resources, might have been yours to begin with.

Meanwhile, that same suspicion can curtail Hezbollah’s recruitment. A lot of people may be having second thoughts about showing up to the job fair where they hand out the pagers. Or you might wonder: Am I talking to a Hezbollah commander or a Mossad agent dressed up like one for Purim?

Until now, Iran’s terror proxies have had all the advantages of actual nation-states with none of the limitations. They’ve essentially hacked the international system. Gaza’s borders are treated as Hamas’s sovereign territory, yet providing for the people within those borders is somehow Israel’s responsibility. Hezbollah gets a controlling stake in everything Lebanon does, but Israeli counterattacks on Hezbollah bases in Hezbollah territory are “collective punishment.”

Israel seems to have found a way to work within that biased system and use it against Hezbollah and Hamas. Hopefully we’ll see plenty more of this, and not just from Israel. Welcome to the NFL, martyrs.
Seth Mandel: Hamas Chief’s Death Was Hezbollah’s Nightmare
To many, the fact that Sinwar was the obstacle to a hostage deal was obvious, especially near the end. But it was contested by politicians and the media around the world, including in Israel, vociferously. Either way, we certainly know now: Pursuing Sinwar and the destruction of Hamas was Israel’s best strategy to attain all of its main war goals.

That fact may not change much on the ground, but it will alter the perception of the Israeli government and military as aimless or scattershot or making decisions based on electoral politics instead of prosecuting the war in the most effective way possible. That buys Israel some breathing room diplomatically, because, to put a fine point on it, a lot of people were wrong about what Israel was up to and that makes it easier for Israel to go on the offensive diplomatically, not just militarily.

Which means anyone seeking a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah now must reckon with this clarity. Israel has the upper hand in all ways at the moment, and it will press that advantage. Here’s what that looks like, via Axios:

“One Israeli demand is that the IDF be allowed to engage in ‘active enforcement’ to make sure Hezbollah doesn’t rearm and rebuild its military infrastructure in the areas of southern Lebanon that are close to the border, an Israeli official said.

“The official added that Israel also demands its air force have freedom of operation in Lebanese air space.”

That second one is especially important. But, as Axios notes, both the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and the Lebanese Armed Forces are likely to object.

Unfortunately for the UN, Israel is in a position to be making demands. Terror groups depend on the ability to regroup and rearm while relying on the international community to hold Israel to notions of sovereignty that the terrorists themselves won’t respect. Which means a ceasefire isn’t really a ceasefire, and it certainly won’t bring peace. If anything, it’ll guarantee more war.

Unless, that is, Israel is given the latitude to do what the UN is mandated to do but refuses: keep Hezbollah from regrowing its limbs between rounds. That would further the cause of peace not just in Israel but in Lebanon as well.

As long as Hamas is operationally headless, Israel can turn more attention to Hezbollah without losing ground in Gaza. Iran’s entire strategy for its proxies is to avoid a fair fight and force Israel to fend off multiple enemies on multiple fronts. A Sinwar-less Gaza, therefore, is Hezbollah’s nightmare. The pressure will be on Iran and its proxies to strike a deal before Israel can deliver a similar knockout punch to Hezbollah. The West should be in no rush to make this any easier for Tehran.
West's Political Elites Mourn the Death of a Terrorist Group
[T]he West's political "elites" condemned Israel for defending itself by targeting Hezbollah's leadership.

There was no mention of international law for Hezbollah's unprovoked, year-long attacks: bombardments of missiles and attack drones every day at a country smaller than New Jersey.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell lamented Israel's continued successful attempts at destroying one of Iran's proxy armies.

When Israel took out Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, one of the world's most dangerous arch-terrorists, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres could barely hold back his disappointment, counterfactually calling Hezbollah's unprovoked war against Israel and the IDF's response a "cycle of violence."

Only Argentina's President Javier Milei displayed a reaction fitting the removal of a terrorist mass murderer...

Israel, as has been noted, is doing the entire world an enormous service by taking out Hezbollah.

Iran, just since October 2023, through its militias in Syria and Iraq, has launched more than 160 attacks on the US forces in the Middle East.

[W]hen Israel killed Ibrahim Aqil, the mastermind of the 1983 attacks and a member of Hezbollah's Jihad Council, its highest military body, the US could not even bring itself to thank its ally.

The world's political elites apparently cannot forgive Israel for seeking to defend itself, and rid the world of terrorists working to destroy both America and Western civilization. Could these elites, wittingly or not, be working towards the same result?


Meir Y. Soloveichik: The Unexpected Psalm of Thanksgiving
I want to end today’s newsletter where it began: looking back to this time on the calendar last year. Rabbi Meir Soloveichik recalls an article he submitted for publication on October 6, 2023, about the enduring power of the book of Psalms, and reflects on the essential role these timeless prayers have played in Jewish religious life over the past year:

I found myself, on the morning of October 7, with only fragments of information, instructing my congregation to engage in a liturgical activity I could not really recall doing before on a festival day: reciting psalms of distress. Saying such psalms on Shabbat and the holidays as a form of beseeching [God] is permitted in Jewish law only in times of great crisis; and I could certainly not have predicted that such psalms, rather than joyous ones, would become our weekly fare. . . .

[On] April 14, 2024, when Iran launched its first missile attack on Israel at 2 a.m. local time, there was one term that bleary-eyed Israelis seem to have googled again and again. The most popular search during the Iranian missile attack on Israel, the Jerusalem Post informed us, was “T’hillim, the book of Psalms.” In a striking joining of ancient and modern, citizens sought Scripture on their iPhones, in order to commune with God in the words that David wrote when he faced his enemies in the very same land.

We must ponder how astonishing this is. One would wager that few, waking up after midnight in Rome or Athens in a moment of crisis in modern times, would turn to the original words of Virgil or Pericles. And no one in Iraq is seeking solace in the words of the Code of Hammurabi. But here Jews were reading words written in their land thousands of years ago, in the very same language.
Poll: 86 Percent of American Jews Support Israel
American Jews are almost universally supportive of Israel (86%), while a mere 5% say they are not, according to a poll of 658 Jewish registered voters across the U.S. conducted on Oct. 5-9, 2024.

87% of Reform, 93% of Conservative, and 91% of Orthodox Jews support Israel, as well as 77% of those not identifying with a denomination.

83% of Democratic Jews, 86% of Independents, and 94% of Republicans support Israel.

While they lean Democratic, Jewish voters are more likely to report high levels of concern over growing antisemitism in the Democratic Party than within the Republican Party.

Many are likely uncomfortable with the Democratic Party's tolerance of voices that criticize Israel in extreme terms.

Jewish voters support laws banning people from wearing masks with the intent to conceal their identity while congregating in a public place, like a public protest or encampment.


Why don’t they want Israel to win?
In the eyes of the Biden administration, there’s nothing worse than “escalation.” That’s what administration spokespeople say constantly. But in truth, there is something worse than escalation: allowing terrorist organizations to exist.

Hezbollah has murdered hundreds of Americans and Israelis. The Biden administration should be encouraging Israel and thanking its military for doing to Hezbollah what the United States itself should have done long ago. Instead, Biden is once again delaying or denying vital arms shipments that Israel desperately needs to defend itself. That’s outrageous.

The Biden administration has been doing the same thing in Gaza. For months, it has been demanding a “ceasefire,” meaning Israel should stop firing at Hamas. What’s so wrong about this is that Biden’s team knows full well that Hamas has never honored a ceasefire it agreed to.

Thousands of Hamas terrorists are still alive. So are some of Hamas’s top leaders. To cease firing at them now means allowing Hamas to regroup, rearm, and soon retake control of Gaza, so that it can start planning its next Oct. 7.

It’s obvious that the Biden administration does not want Israel to win. Instead, it wants whatever set of conditions will create temporary quiet and win votes in Michigan, regardless of what that will mean for Israel in a few weeks or months. An Israeli victory means that Arab-American voters will be angry at his party. Sadly, it appears to be that simple.

This isn’t the first time that the United States has tried to stop Israel from winning. It happened in 1973, too.

Henry Kissinger was secretary of state. Egypt and Syria were preparing to invade Israel. We know what occurred on the eve of the war, and the days to follow, from three reliable sources: Walter Isaacson’s definitive biography, Kissinger; the book The Secret Conversations of Henry Kissinger by Matti Golan, longtime chief diplomatic correspondent for Haaretz; and David Makovsky, formerly an Obama administration Middle East envoy.

On Yom Kippur morning, hours before the 1973 Arab invasion, Prime Minister Golda Meir was informed by her military intelligence officials that Egypt and Syria were massing their troops along Israel’s borders and would attack later that day. The Israelis immediately contacted Kissinger.

Matti Golan recounts what happened next: “Till the very outbreak of the fighting, Kissinger remained more concerned with the possibility of an Israeli preemptive strike than an Egyptian-Syrian attack.” Kissinger instructed the U.S. ambassador in Israel to present Meir with “a presidential entreaty”—that is, a warning, in the name of President Richard Nixon—“not to start a war” (p. 41).

Abba Eban, who was foreign minister at the time, confirmed in his autobiography that Israeli Army Chief of Staff David Elazar proposed a pre-emptive strike—but Prime Minister Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan rejected it on the grounds that “the United States would regard this as provocative” (p. 509).

As soon as the Arabs attacked, the Israelis requested a U.S. airlift of military supplies. Kissinger stalled them—for an entire brutal week. Kissinger’s strategy was to orchestrate “a limited Egyptian victory,” Makovsky wrote in The Jerusalem Post in 1993. The secretary of state feared that an Israeli victory “would cause Israel to strengthen its resolve not to make any territorial concessions in Sinai.”

“Kissinger opposed giving [Israel] major support that could make its victory too one-sided,” Isaacson confirms. Kissinger told Defense Secretary James Schlesinger that “The best result would be if Israel came out a little ahead but got bloodied in the process” (p. 514).

A “little bloodied”? Try 2,656 dead Israeli soldiers.

Kissinger’s pressure on Israel in 1973 undermined and endangered America’s only real ally in the Mideast. Biden’s pressure on Israel today is equally objectionable. And it’s a recipe for disaster for both countries. Because unless Israel defeats Hamas and Hezbollah, the terrorists inevitably will rise up again and murder more Americans and Israelis.
JPost Editorial: Bibi was right: How Israel’s recent military successes boost his leadership
Biden and Harris were wrong
These blows culminated last week in the killing of Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 attack, as the leader was discovered running away through the streets of Rafah. Each assassination revealed the depth of Israel’s intelligence and the sheer audacity of its military strategy, shaking the very foundations of Hamas, Hezbollah, and their allies.

Netanyahu has also had to deal with the US administration and its perceived mixed support for Israel throughout the war. Despite the replenishment of dwindling military supplies and the arrival of the US’s THAAD anti-missile system recently in anticipation of further escalation with Iran, the Biden administration has at times been prickly towards Israel’s conduct of the war. Most noticeably when it came to Rafah.

President Joe Biden stated in May that he would halt some shipments of American weapons if Netanyahu ordered a major invasion of Rafah. Vice President Kamala Harris also told interviewers that she had “studied the maps” and that a ground invasion of the southern Gaza Strip city would be “a mistake.”

As the death of Sinwar proved, Biden and Harris were wrong. Bibi was right.

He has also seen a political revival within Israel. The assumption over the past year was that Netanyahu, who built his reputation as the no-nonsense leader who would keep the country safe both from Palestinian terrorists and Iranian nukes, could not survive the biggest security failure in the country’s history. However, he has not only survived. His party is now almost back to pre-October 7 strength according to polls.

A Channel 13 survey held since the killing of Sinwar showed Likud reclaiming its position as Israel’s largest party.Netanyahu is benefiting from an uptick in Israel’s success in the war, along with the lack of anyone out there who can pose a real challenge. Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid, and Avigdor Liberman are doing nothing to enthuse the nation or rally it around their leadership – simply slamming Netanyahu, which is Lapid’s and Liberman’s default mode, is not doing the trick.

It is only natural that the popularity of the leader of a nation at war falls and rises with the fortunes of that war, and right now, Netanyahu’s numbers are on the rise as the war is going better than it was a few months ago. He still has a large percentage of the population angry with him; angry at the lack of a hostage deal; angry that responsibility for October 7 has not yet been taken; angry that thousands of citizens still cannot return to their homes, but Netanyahu has been around the block before and knows how to play the political game.

What Bibi has done is buy time, both hoping and gambling that his political fortunes will change as the tide of the war turns – from the very outset, he said this would be a long war. It seems the tide may have turned for the prime minister.
Though designated a terror group, Hamas funding thrives in Europe
The Hamas terror organization has managed to increase its fundraising efforts in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom since its terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, according to four reports that the European Leadership Network released this month.

The reports from ELNET, which convenes leaders to foster close relations between Europe and Israel, focus on the activities of Hamas-affiliated fundraising groups in the five countries.

“In all four reports, we have seen increasing levels of operations since Oct. 7,” Daniel Shadmy, an ELNET spokesman, told JNS.

The reports identify some 30 organizations, which operate under “civil fronts,” including nonprofits and lobbying groups, and people affiliated with Hamas who work in Europe.

Hamas’s funding operations are more deeply rooted in the United Kingdom and Germany than in the other countries upon which the report focuses. That makes them “harder to dismantle” in the two countries, according to Shadmy.

Hamas-affiliated groups operate relatively unscathed in Europe, despite European governments and the European Union designating Hamas a terror organization.

One way the groups stay ahead of authorities is by shifting operations to newer organizations, per the ELNET reports.

“One of the key findings of the report is that the Hamas-affiliated network has shut down three older, pan-European organizations, possibly in response to formal designations, and moved their operations to three newer organizations,” Shadmy told JNS.

“The ‘replacement organizations’ were established and are led in whole or in part by the same six individuals who led the initially dissolved groups,” per the reports, which name the six as Adel Abdallah Doghman, Mohammad Hannoun, Majed Al-Zeer, Amin Abou Rashed, Zaher Birawi and Mazen Kahel.

The organizations that make up the “new” circle include the Palestinians in Europe Conference, the European Palestinian Council for Political Relations and the European Palestinians Initiative for National Action.
U.S. reportedly sends message to Iran: “stop the attacks for a ceasefire”
The United States has reportedly conveyed a message to Iran, urging pro-Iranian groups to cease their attacks on Israel as a prerequisite for a potential ceasefire and diplomatic negotiations to end the ongoing conflict.

This information was highlighted in a report by the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida.

According to the report, the U.S. emphasized that halting missile launches and assaults by Iranian-backed factions could pave the way for Israel to agree to a ceasefire. The potential for negotiations hinges on a diplomatic formula aimed at restoring calm to the region.

In its communication, the U.S. also suggested that Iran consider evacuating certain military and security installations belonging to the Revolutionary Guards and Basij forces. This step is seen as a means to minimize Israeli attacks on those sites, thereby potentially resolving the current hostilities.

The United States has made it clear that while it supports Israel’s right to defend itself, it will not participate directly in any military actions against Iran. Instead, U.S. involvement will depend on reaching an understanding regarding Israel's response to Iranian provocations. Additionally, the U.S. has reiterated its commitment to defend Israel alongside its international and regional allies.

Moreover, the U.S. indicated that a successful diplomatic resolution to “stop the killing and calm the region” could lead to discussions about the possibility of returning to the nuclear deal that had previously defined U.S.-Iran relations.
'Outrageous Betrayal of Trust': Cotton Presses Biden-Harris Admin To Hold Biweekly Briefings on Explosive Leak of Classified US Intel on Israel
Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), a senior member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, is pressing the Biden-Harris administration to provide Congress with biweekly briefings on the status of its investigation into an explosive intelligence leak detailing Israel’s preparations for an attack on Iran, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Cotton, who also sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, informed the White House on Tuesday that he expects both committees to be briefed every two weeks on the administration’s efforts to identify the leaker and determine how classified intelligence about Israel’s military moves spilled into public view.

The request signals the seriousness with which Congress is treating a leak that exposed highly secretive information about America’s closest Middle East ally. With Israel carefully weighing its options for a widely expected counterstrike on Iran, the disclosure of its military movements—including the types of aircraft and munitions likely to be used—could be part of a pressure tactic to handicap the Jewish state ahead of the November election.

"This leak is an outrageous betrayal of an ally and a breach of trust that will undermine our relationship with partners for years to come," Cotton wrote to the White House, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Free Beacon. "I am deeply concerned as to whether your administration will adequately address this serious security breach."

The two classified documents—compiled by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency over the past several weeks—first appeared in an Iran-linked Telegram channel over the weekend, and quickly spread via social media.

They detail Israeli military preparations for a strike inside Iran as payback for the Islamic Republic’s Oct. 1 ballistic missile attack. Current and former U.S. officials who reviewed the top secret documents said they likely emanated from an American source and constitute a "deadly serious breach."

The White House said Monday that President Joe Biden is "deeply concerned" about the leak. White House spokesman John Kirby also raised the possibility of "additional documents like this finding their way into the public domain."

Cotton said the bombshell disclosure is the culmination of a longstanding campaign by the Biden-Harris administration to restrict Israel’s war maneuvers as it faces down Iran-backed terror proxies in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror spree.

"Officials in your administration have repeatedly leaked information clearly designed to pressure Israel to curb its righteous campaign against Iran and its terrorist proxies over the last year," Cotton wrote. "These leaks have ranged from reports of personal conversations between American and Israeli officials to assessments of Iranian intent and are clearly designed to handcuff Israel."


Gadi Taub: UNRWA is a front for terrorism
From the outset of the war, Israeli policy involved a delicate dance of defying American dictums just enough to wage effective war and to signal to our enemies that we would not be deterred, while not leading to an open breach with the U.S.

But there’s a context to this affair that goes beyond relations with the Biden administration, and even beyond the war itself. It should also be understood as one more skirmish in the ideological struggle that the Hudson Institute’s John Fonte identified at the dawn of the 21st century—the struggle between democratic sovereignty, on the one hand, and transnational progressivism, on the other.

The first invests full sovereignty in the nation state, while the latter seeks to subordinate nation states to a higher, and unaccountable, international authority.

This is not a zero-sum game. One can make a plausible argument for international law as an agreement between states that protects their sovereignty. But increasingly we hear about “aggregated” or “parceled” sovereignty, and we see more and more international institutions encroaching on state sovereignty in various ways, including by presuming to have authority over issues that international treaties did not cover.

The problem often is—all over the West—that jurists within nation states are beginning to confuse their own roles within their states with a view of themselves as emissaries of an allegedly higher authority outside the state. And that higher authority neither draws its legitimacy from the consent of the governed nor, increasingly, from the consent of sovereign states, as the convoluted logic of the two courts at the Hague—the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court—have recently demonstrated.

What the danger of this trend might be we can now clearly see: Drawing as it does on progressive woke views, the commitment to an allegedly higher authority has replaced morality with the double standards of woke elites. The beneficiaries of this trend are barbaric terrorists, who can watch with satisfaction how their victims are blamed for crimes of the terrorists—in this case, genocide.

And by this topsy-turvy logic we are supposed to cooperate with our own enemies, because human rights and international law bind our hands in just wars against them, while freeing theirs to commit the most unthinkable atrocities against us.

UNRWA is a uniquely grotesque example of this perverse logic: terrorists and their auxiliaries masquerading as human-rights activists. Remember Sinwar’s “UNRWA teacher” bodyguard.

Israel cannot by itself overthrow this growing regime of transnational progressivism, though it should always be aware that within its rules the Jewish state cannot win. It will always be the case that while we are asked to play by the rules of chess, the other side is allowed to beat us with a club.

That’s not a situation to which we can acquiesce, and indeed we don’t. We defy this regime in different ways, depending on the circumstances.

Israel can and should defy the United States with regard to UNRWA and refuse to accept the legitimacy of the ICJ proceedings on the malicious accusations of genocide. But in the case of UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, it seems better to work around them rather than risk a direct hit on this corrupt U.N. force, despite the fact that it is shielding Hezbollah.

One other thing we can do—as difficult as it is to imagine after the defeat of last year’s judicial reform attempts—is to rein in our own jurists and remind them that final decisions in democratic states are taken by the legally elected government, not by civil-service jurists who treat international law—and international tribunals and agencies—as if it were some objective set of rules based on objective values, and not the political arena that it is. They should be our foot soldiers in the fight to protect our sovereignty against the rising transnational progressive regime, not the enforcers of that regime in our midst.

If we want to withstand international pressure, we need our own ducks in a row. We need to wage lawfare effectively in a hostile international environment. Some smart Jewish lawyers who aim to resist, not serve, the transnational progressive regime would be very useful at this particular junction.
Nine hours, 14 floors: IDF soldiers recount raid on UNRWA building in Gaza
Soldiers from the IDF's Multidimensional Unit shared insights into a complex and high-risk raid on a 14-story UNRWA building in the Gaza Strip, the IDF cleared for publication on Tuesday.

The mission focused on a 14-story building used by Hamas operatives and located within a UNRWA facility. The operation aimed to dismantle terrorist infrastructure and eliminate key figures.

St.-Sgt. C., a combat soldier in the unit, spoke about the importance and risk of the mission. "We placed enormous significance on this operation," he said. "We had a detailed battle plan supported by precise intelligence, and our goal was to track down Hamas leaders hiding inside."

The mission proved perilous from the get-go, as the team encountered several improvised explosive devices (IEDs) while advancing toward the building in their armored vehicle.

Gunfire erupted from the target structure as they approached. "The radio was reporting armed individuals in the vicinity," Staff Sergeant C. recalled. "We knew we were heading straight into a confrontation with the enemy, who was prepared and waiting for us."

Upon reaching the building, the soldiers faced their first obstacle—blocked entrances. "As the breacher, it’s my responsibility to clear the way for the team," Staff Sergeant C. explained. His role required him to break through any barriers preventing the unit’s progress.

By the time they reached the fifth floor, the situation intensified. An IED struck their armored vehicle, injuring some of the team members. Despite their concern for their wounded comrades, the soldiers knew they had no option but to turn back. They continued the mission, advancing up nine more floors on their own.
Why UNRWA’s continued existence threatens Israel’s security post-October 7
We should be telling the truth about UNRWA.

And many, even on the Israeli Left such as former Labor party MK Einat Wilf, have begun to do so, recognizing how dangerous it really is.

There are nevertheless those who argue that UNRWA must be allowed to stay in place since the Palestinian Authority (PA) is useless at providing education, health and welfare services – tasks with which it is both entrusted and receives international support to perform – and then, in the same article, claim that the PA could one day become an independent state without international aid serving as training wheels: Those I suspect of being disingenuous.

UNRWA’s net contribution to its “clients” is a negative one – it has kept five generations trapped as eternal refugees, teaching them nothing but hatred and despair.

Asking “What will replace UNRWA?” is, therefore, a fallacy. It assumes a need that is not in evidence, and that exists nowhere else in the world. To be clear, even in Gaza, UNRWA “supports” less than a 10th of the population – and it does so at Hamas’s behest, allowing the terror organization to maintain its stranglehold on the population. Anyone who truly wishes Hamas gone should remember that UNRWA is effectively one of its only lifelines.

I can understand why a Jordanian minister would be concerned that Israel no longer seems to be cooperating with the idea of creating another failed Arab state on Jewish soil. He lives in just such a state – the moral foundation of which is questionable, to say the least.

But most Israelis, or at least, those who sincerely care about historical truth and the consequences of ignoring the dangers that UNRWA’s existence poses, know only too well why it is in the interests of Israel, the region, and in fact the world, to end it at long last.
Gantz to back Knesset bills against UNRWA, as Netanyahu may block
According to two sources, the two bills are still scheduled to reach the Knesset floor next week for final voting. However, one of the sources said that it is unlikely that Netanyahu will enable them to pass if the cost is a US arms embargo.

UNRWA Secretary-General Philippe Lazzarini warned of the growing humanitarian crisis in northern Gaza. He called for a temporary truce to allow people to leave areas of northern Gaza as health officials said they were running out of supplies to treat patients hurt in a three-week-old Israeli offensive.

Lazzarini said the humanitarian situation had reached a dire point, with bodies abandoned by roadsides or buried under rubble.

“In northern Gaza, people are just waiting to die,” he said on X/Twitter. “They feel deserted, hopeless, and alone.”

“I am calling for an immediate truce, even if for a few hours, to enable safe humanitarian passage for families who wish to leave the area & reach safer places,” he said.

United Nations Development Programme said quality of life indicators such as health and education had been knocked back 70 years.

In northern Gaza, residents said Israeli forces had besieged hospitals, schools, and other shelters housing displaced families and ordered them to leave and head south. They said forces detained dozens of men.

Footage obtained by Reuters showed dozens of residents fleeing their area, carrying some of their belongings.

Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, said medical services had completely collapsed.

“There are no blood units or tubes to drain bleeding from the chest. Most of the medical supplies are not available,” he said.

“People around the hospital are being asked to evacuate, and those who evacuated were shot on the way... the situation is more than catastrophic.”


EXCLUSIVE: Read the New York Times Obituary of Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar (satire)
he Washington Free Beacon has exclusively obtained the final draft of the New York Times obituary for Yahya Sinwar. The Hamas leader and architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack is believed to have been killed Wednesday in a firefight with Israeli forces.

Yahya Sinwar, a formerly incarcerated novelist and scholar known for his mastery of the Quran and Semitic languages, was martyred Wednesday while resisting Zionist bullets with his formidable brain in the southern Gaza Strip. He was 61.

An Arabic Studies major and father of three, Sinwar assumed leadership of Hamas, the anti-colonial activist organization, in February 2017 and was promoted to chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau following the martyrdom of Ismail Haniyeh in July 2024. A passionate planner, Sinwar spearheaded one of the most widely discussed hang-gliding excursions into the Palestinian territory sometimes referred to as "Israel" on Oct. 7, 2023.

Born in the Gaza Strip in 1962, Sinwar dedicated himself to the Palestinian cause and cofounded the Munazzamat al Jihad w'al-Dawa, commonly known as Majd, an anti-snitching collective known for its strict moral code and innovative interrogation techniques. He encountered the Zionist criminal justice system in 1989 and served 22 formative years in prison following his conviction for alleged crimes. While incarcerated, Sinwar taught himself Hebrew, extensively studied Jewish history, and authored a novel based on his life. Fellow inmates admired his resourcefulness and the zeal with which he continued to hold snitches accountable for their actions.

Sinwar became unhoused following the Zionist invasion of Gaza, but he continued to oversee resistance forces while residing in the Hamas tunnel network, widely renowned as a marvel of structural engineering. There, he cultivated a diverse group of companions, including a number of Jewish civilians visiting from the Occupied Territories.


IDF says it has confirmed presumed Nasrallah successor Safieddine was killed in Oct. 4 strike
The IDF announces that Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut earlier this month.

Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s executive council, was presumed to be the successor of Hassan Nasrallah following his assassination.

According to the military, Safieddine was killed alongside the head of the terror group’s intelligence division, Hussein Ali Hazima, during the strike on October 4.

The strike had targeted Hezbollah’s underground intelligence headquarters in Beirut, which the army says was “in the heart of a civilian population” in the Lebanese capital’s southern suburb, known as Dahiyeh.

The IDF says that more than 25 members of Hezbollah’s intelligence division were at the headquarters when the strike was carried out, including other top commanders.

Safieddine had been out of contact since the strike, but only today the IDF says it could confirm his death. Hezbollah has not yet announced his death.

Safieddine, whom the US State Department designated as a terrorist in 2017, is a cousin of Nasrallah and, like him, is a cleric who wears the black turban denoting ostensible descent from Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.
IDF: Hezbollah hiding $500 million in gold, cash in bunker under Beirut hospital
The Israel Defense Forces on Monday declassified intelligence on the Hezbollah terror group’s finance hub, including a bunker hidden underneath a hospital in south Beirut that it said contains hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold.

Israel expanded its campaign against Hezbollah on Sunday night, launching a series of strikes to degrade the Iran-backed terror group’s ability to fund its operations.

“The Israeli Air Force carried out a series of precise strikes on these Hezbollah financial strongholds,” IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a televised briefing.

“One of our main targets last night was an underground vault with tens of millions of dollars in cash and gold. The money was being used to finance Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel,” he said, without specifying whether all of the money was destroyed in the strike.

Hagari then referenced a separate bunker also allegedly filled with cash and gold under a hospital in the capital Beirut, but said the vault had not been targeted yet by the IDF.

“According to the estimates we have, there is at least half a billion dollars in dollar bills and gold stored in this bunker,” Hagari said. “This money could and still can be used to rebuild the state of Lebanon.”


Hezbollah drone scored direct hit on Netanyahu home
The drone attack launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon on Oct. 19 targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in Caesarea scored a direct hit on the home, the military censor cleared for publication on Tuesday.

Following the attempted assassination, security measures for government ministers and other officials have been “significantly” reinforced.

“Iran tried to eliminate the prime minister of Israel. It will not escape responsibility,” a senior Israeli government official told Ynet.

According to reports, the assault included three drones, one of which scored a direct hit on a bedroom window at the Caesarea residence. Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, were not home at the time.

“The attempt by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah to assassinate me and my wife today was a grave mistake,” the prime minister said in a statement on Saturday. “This will not deter me or the State of Israel from continuing our just war against our enemies in order to secure our future.

“I say to Iran and its proxies in its axis of evil: Anyone who tries to harm Israel’s citizens will pay a heavy price,” Netanyahu warned.


Several wounded as Hezbollah rockets pummel northern Israel, Tel Aviv
Several people were wounded, including one seriously, when a Hezbollah terrorist rocket hit Kibbutz Neot Mordechai in the Galilee panhandle on Tuesday afternoon.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that some 30 projectiles were launched at the Galilee from Southern Lebanon in Hezbollah’s latest terrorist assault on northern Israel, some of which were intercepted.

Ziv Medical Center in Safed announced that two moderately wounded victims of the attack on Neot Mordechai were being treated in its trauma room. The victims were said to be conscious as they were being treated.

Early Tuesday morning, Hezbollah terrorists fired about five rockets at central Israel, setting off sirens across the region including in Tel Aviv.

Air-defense systems downed most of the projectiles, with one striking an open area, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Simultaneously, the Iranian terror proxy fired some 15 rockets at the Upper Galilee and northern Golan Heights, most of which were intercepted.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

Earlier, Hezbollah targeted the Haifa region with five projectiles, which were intercepted by the Israeli Air Force.

Parts of an Iron Dome interceptor missile from one of the rocket barrages targeting Haifa fell in Ma’agan Michael, a kibbutz located about 25 miles south of the city, damaging vehicles and a building.


Two IDF reservists killed as Hezbollah rockets pound north, drone triggers alarms
Two Israeli reservists were killed and three others were wounded on Tuesday, as the Israeli military battled Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Iran-backed terror group fired dozens of projectiles at north Israel, with a drone infiltration sending a million people to bomb shelters for an hour.

One of the slain soldiers — named as Maj. (res.) Aviram Hariv, 42, the deputy commander of the Alon Brigade’s 9308th Battalion, from Dolev — was killed during fighting in southern Lebanon.

Another — named as Master Sgt. (res.) Saar Eliad Navarsky, 27, of the 7338th “Adirim” Artillery Regiment’s 508th Battalion, from Tel Aviv — was killed in a rocket barrage on northern Israel.

Three other soldiers of the artillery battalion were seriously wounded in the rocket barrage, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.


IDF announces fallen soldier Yishai Mann, killed near the Gaza Strip
Staff-Sergeant Yishai Mann was killed in a traffic accident during operational activity, the IDF announced on Tuesday.

St.-Sgt. Mann, 21, from Mitzpe Jericho, served in the 50 Battalion of the Nahal Brigade.

Mann fell in near the Gaza Strip.

IDF death tally
According to the IDF's tally, the death of St.-Sgt. Mann raises the total of soldiers killed on or since October 7 of last year to 749.

Some 356 of this number were killed since the start of the military's ground operations in the Strip on October 27.
Hezbollah cyberattack targets Haifa hospitals after Beirut hospital bombing
Hackers identifying as Hezbollah supporters have been spreading photos of Carmel and Assuta hospitals on social media, following the bombing of a Hezbollah hospital in Beirut. The posts ask, “What is underneath?”

These hackers have launched a cyberattack targeting Israeli hospitals. Following the bombing of a Hezbollah hospital in Beirut earlier on Monday, users sympathetic to the terror group began circulating speculations about hidden materials beneath northern Israeli hospitals.

One tweet featured a picture of Assuta Hospital in Ramat Hahayal, Tel Aviv, with the caption: “Assuta Hospital in Haifa, what is underneath it?” However, the image falsely portrayed the medical center since its real location is in Tel Aviv.

Another hacker posted a photo of Carmel Hospital, writing: “Urgent report! Carmel Medical Center in Haifa. The basement and second floor contain weapons, missile ammunition, and millions of dollars in cash. Take this seriously and target it with precise missiles and drones. God, do not soften toward the enemy.”

It should be noted that there are no weapons or military equipment beneath Israeli medical centers.


Hamas shooting Palestinians seeking to flee Gaza fighting
Palestinian civilians trying to evacuate intense fighting in the northern Gaza Strip are being shot by Hamas terrorists trying to prevent them from leaving, an Israel Defense Forces medic said on Monday.

Cpl. Shai Gilboa, a medic in the IDF’s 9th Battalion, who was photographed in Jabaliya tending to a Gazan woman with a facial injury, told Israel’s Channel 12 in an interview that Hamas is now resorting to gunfire to prevent Palestinian civilians from heeding Israeli orders to evacuate to designated safe zones during the renewed fighting.

“Our battalion went into action to exert as much military pressure as possible on Hamas terrorists, who held the civilian population in the area and forbade them from evacuating to a safe area,” Gilboa said.

During the clashes, she noted, terrorists in the area opened fire and wounded some of the Gazans who were trying to flee.

“The wounded came to us and we provided them with first aid in the field, which mostly entailed stopping the bleeding,” she said.

The injured civilians were then evacuated from the area and directed toward “local medical forces” for further treatment.

In the interview, Gilboa said that the language barrier was one of several reasons that interactions between Israeli troops and the local population was limited.

“But they smile at us; they wave at us,” she said, “and they curse Hamas in front of us. Not only are they not afraid of us, but many of them are on our side.”

The IDF said that thousands of Palestinian civilians have adhered to the military’s calls to evacuate Jabaliya amid a renewed military offensive aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping in the area.


Interview: Getting Gaza wrong
As we began our Zoom call, John Spencer made a statement that should resonate globally. “Everything that the world has heard about Gaza has actually been counterfactual. It has been wrong. What Israel has done to protect civilians, and despite what Hamas has wanted, has been an amazing achievement that I didn’t even, personally as an urban warfare scholar, think was possible.”

Major John Spencer speaks from extensive experience. After a long combat career in the US Army, including two tours in Iraq as both soldier and commander, Spencer emerged as one of the world’s foremost experts in urban warfare. Many consider him the top authority in the field.

Currently, he leads Urban Warfare Studies at West Point, the US Military Academy, regularly advising top brass in the US military and other armies. Spencer also co-founded the “International Working Group on Subterranean Warfare” and has authored three books in these fields.

Recently, he visited Israel for the annual Shabtai Shavit International Conference on October 6 & 7, organised by the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at Reichman University.

He claims the war Israel has waged since October 7 defies comparison to any previous military conflict. “I wrote an article explaining that it’s like comparing apples to oranges,” Spencer said.

“Israel has once again proven that when attacked, it can achieve the impossible. Its actions in Gaza since October 7, despite Hamas’ 15 years of fortification and preparation, 385 miles of tunnels, a strategy of human shields, the hostage crisis, and simultaneous attacks from Hezbollah, Iran, and the Houthis – are unprecedented. No other army in the world has done this, and I believe none is capable of it. Some might interpret this as Israeli weakness. As a military analyst, I see it as a testament to Israel’s unique capabilities.”

He adds, “I acknowledge Hamas’ planning for October 7, likely supported by another state. But the attack wasn’t worse only because the Israelis have been fighting back ever since.”
Caroline Glick: Jew Exposes Arab Muslim Beliefs From the Inside
Forget what you thought you knew about mainstream Arab and Muslim culture. Moriel Bareli is here to explain how Jews and the West have it totally wrong when it comes to understanding Islam’s war against Israel and its perception of Jews.

What’s even more unexpected is the way Bareli managed to connect to everyday Arabs, as he explains in his new book, "When a Jew and a Muslim Talk."


Hezbollah attacks: 160 missiles launched into Israel
Approximately 160 Hezbollah rockets crossed into northern Israel from Lebanon as of 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, the IDF says. Joining LiveNOW from FOX to further the discussion of the crisis in the Middle East is Caroline Glick, senior contributing editor of Jewish News Syndicate and host of the “Caroline Glick Show” on JNS.

This comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house was struck by an explosive drone on Saturday. There were no casualties as fighting with Lebanon-based Hezbollah intensified.

Israel’s military said dozens of projectiles were launched from Hezbollah, as sirens sounded, marking a new phase in fighting. Netanyahu’s office said the drone targeted his house in the Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea.


Caroline Glick Analyzes Israel's Response to Yahya Sinwar's Fall
Caroline Glick, Senior Contributing Editor of Jewish News Syndicate, provides an update from Israel on the developments following the elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the October 7 terrorist attack.


Ben Shapiro Slams UCLA For ‘Coddling’ A ‘Generation Of Losers’ As Students Protest Outside Speech
Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro returned to his alma mater, the University of California, Los Angeles, on Monday night where he slammed the school for its handling of anti-Semitic students, as a new, short-lived anti-Israel encampment was forming outside.

Shapiro opened by speaking fondly of his time at UCLA and of the fact that he met his wife near the campus when she was a student. He went on to describe how the toxic politics of the campus changed him from an aspiring music and biology major to a regular columnist for the campus paper, until he was publicly fired for wanting to write a controversial article about the radicalization of the Muslim Students Association.

“The only thing that has changed is that it’s just gotten significantly worse and significantly more open,” he said. “The question becomes, why did it become so much worse? And the answer is that this university, among other universities, has decided to coddle an entire generation of losers.”

Shapiro cited the intersectional coalition of contradictory groups that are anti-Israel, including Queers for Palestine while the LGBTQ+ community is persecuted in Gaza. He slammed the school for continuing its record of anti-Israel bias by allowing the anti-Israel encampments last semester, which prevented some Jewish students from getting to class and which Shapiro dubbed the “tentafada.”

“Of course there was last year when we all sort of watched agog as the administration simply allowed the ‘tentafada’ to take place on campus, people blocking off the quad because apparently they experience a certain joy living in their own feces.”


PodCast: How Hezbollah Is Destroying Lebanon
In the last year, we’ve witnessed a disturbing trend among some on the fringe left, who cheer those they think are resisting Western imperialism. Even when those anti-imperialists are. . . designated terrorist groups. This misguided support was on full display on the anniversary of October 7, when protesters marched through London chanting, “I love Hezbollah”, and in New York, where they flew flags for the Iran-backed militia group flags and carried “New York for Hezbollah” signs.

It was a remarkable sight, but unsurprising when you consider the distorted lens through which these extremists look at the war in the Middle East. To them, Hezbollah, the group responsible for killing 241 Americans in a 1983 terror attack and for murdering 85 innocents in Argentina in 1994, is simply a resistance group defending Lebanon from Israeli aggression.

But is that how the Lebanese see Hezbollah? An armed Shia group as the defender of Lebanon, a country of many different religious and cultural communities? Defender of Beirut, a city that one Lebanese journalist recently called “a tolerant and diverse cosmopolitan center”?

On today’s show, Michael Moynihan sits down with three people with intimate knowledge of what Hezbollah really is: a totalitarian force in Lebanon, an occupying force in Syria, the perpetrators of narco-terrorism and sex slavery, and the foot soldiers of Iran’s imperial project in the Middle East.

Joseph Braude is an expert on Arab culture and politics, and the founder of The Center for Peace Communications, which partnered with The Free Press to produce the animated series Hezbollah’s Hostages. Hezbollah’s Hostages, which you can watch on The Free Press’s YouTube channel, interviews the victims of the terrorist group in Lebanon and Syria, who have spoken out at great personal risk. Episodes have covered the story of a Lebanese fighter’s indoctrination from childhood, the account of a Syrian woman abducted and forced into sex slavery, and the enlightening narrative of a Syrian who became a drug smuggler for the organization. Please check the series out, if you haven’t already.

Makram Rabah is a history lecturer at the American University of Beirut and, through his frequent appearances on pan-Arab television, a fierce and courageous critic of Hezbollah. Makram lives in Lebanon, where his life is routinely threatened.

Finally, Hanin Ghaddar is a Lebanese journalist and author of the book Hezbollahland: Mapping Dahiya and Lebanon's Shia Community. She is a leading expert on the group’s history and its role within Lebanese society.
“You Are a PARASITE!” Hamas Leader’s Son vs Cenk Uygur On Sinwar Death
Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas and the architect of the October 7th attack, is dead. The IDF boast of his demise while others may mourn, but the question on everyone's mind is will this single killing bring the war in Gaza to an end? Will Israeli troops now go home? Will the rising civilian death toll finally come to a halt? The resounding answer from Piers Morgan's guests is no, and that is the only thing on which they agree.

Ex-Palestinian militant turned Israeli defector Mosab Hassan Yousef and founder of the Young Turks Cenk Uygur take chunks out of each other in this frenzied debate, as Piers Morgan tries to learn what he can.

00:00 Introduction
01:55 Mosab discusses the significance of Yahya Sinwar’s assassination
03:42 “It’s a milestone, but not the end, there is still a lot of work to do”
04:35 "What are we still doing in Gaza?”
07:35 Cenk tells Piers: “The solution is special forces”
10:16 Is there any legitimate form of resistance the Palestinians could do?
11:22 “Killing, looting, raping are not a form of resistence”
15:18 “The children of Gaza have been born to hate”
15:47 “Palestinian is a syndrome, a mental illness”
16:12 Cenk calls Mosab an Israeli agent
22:32 'Stop being brutal, Palestinians are not Nazis!'
26:00 'Learn how to control yourself before you try to control the world!'
32:55 Netanyahu’s popularity
33:50 “This is not Bibi’s fight, this is the fight of the Jewish people”




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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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