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Tuesday, December 03, 2024

12/03 Links Pt1: Ben Shapiro: A 60 Day Ceasefire; The ICC Throws Itself a Giant Pity Party; Gulf countries talk like Iran, act like Israel; Biden’s Radical Reading

From Ian:

Ben Shapiro: A 60 Day Ceasefire
Let’s be clear about why Israel signed onto this ceasefire. There are three reasons:
1. Joe Biden has been slow-walking aid to Israel. That slow-walking has gotten Israeli troops killed. The ceasefire is designed to allow Biden to leave and Israel to be re-armed by the incoming Trump administration.

2. Joe Biden has been threatening Israel with U.N. abstentions on his way out the door if Israel does not end action in Lebanon; furthermore, Israel is attempting to broker a deal with France to end France’s support for the antisemitic International Criminal Court targeting of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.

3. Even under these conditions, Israel has an interest in taking Hezbollah off the board as a chess piece with regard to Hamas. Hamas has attempted throughout the Oct. 7 war to rope in other powers to save it. Hezbollah openly pledged that it would not stop its war until Hamas was preserved. Hezbollah failed. Its leadership is dead, its weapons caches largely destroyed, all at an insanely low military cost to Israel. Now Hezbollah is no longer there to split Israel’s attention and prolong Hamas’s resistance. What does this mean? It means that Israel sees this ceasefire as just that: a ceasefire until Joe Biden is gone. It is a 60 day ceasefire. Joe Biden leaves office in 54 days. That is not a coincidence.

If Hezbollah abides by the terms, so much the better: Israelis go home and live in security in the north. But Israel is working under the likely correct assumption that Hezbollah will not abide by the terms, and that the agreement as interpreted by the Trump administration will actually allow Israel freedom of action (a freedom of action denied by Biden under his spurious and ugly interpretation of the same agreement).

How can you tell all this is true? Netanyahu in his statement openly said that if the agreement is violated, they will go back in, and that the goal in the north is the return of the residents—and he hasn’t called for them to go home yet. The durability of the ceasefire is completely dependent on Hezbollah and Lebanon abiding by it. If they don’t, and Jan. 20 comes, Israel will do what it must.
Seth Mandel: The ICC Throws Itself a Giant Pity Party
The degree to which the ICC has shredded its own credibility cannot be exaggerated. The current head prosecutor is Karim Khan. In 2013, Khan wrote a blistering report about the ICC’s lawless, corrupt assault on the “fundamental rights” of the accused as laid out in the treaty that established the ICC. The clear point was: The ICC is in noncompliance with its own founding document. That Khan now spearheads the corrupt process he once decried and is leading the court into its biggest crisis of legitimacy is poetic, and arguably reinforces the point.

Meanwhile, the solution to this problem is hidden in one of the supposed pieces of evidence that the court is in crisis. Per the AP: “The court, which has long faced accusations of ineffectiveness, will have no trials pending after two conclude in December. While it has issued a number of arrest warrants in recent months, many high-profile suspects remain at large.”

Is it a bad thing that the ICC will have no trials pending after December? This is a good example of the upside-down incentives of a permanent international court: If it isn’t putting anyone on trial at the moment, it must be failing in its responsibilities. And so it has doled out a few extra arrest warrants in the hope that someone—the court doesn’t really care who—gets hauled in to the Hague so salaries can be justified. If the ICC cannot adjudicate any of the current war-crimes accusations, then it’ll just have to invent some.

What did the world do before the advent of the permanent court in 2002? It assembled courts to adjudicate specific cases of crimes against humanity. The Nuremberg Trials predated the ICC by a half-century. In 1994, a comprehensive international court was established to adjudicate the Rwandan genocide. The same is true regarding the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.

The ICC’s need to justify its budget should not be Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant’s problem.

Cleveland State international-law professor Milena Sterio criticized the attacks on the ICC and the broad opposition to its recent arrest warrants as impediments to the court’s work.

“It becomes very difficult to justify the court’s existence,” Sterio told the AP. Indeed it does, professor.
FDD: Gulf countries talk like Iran, act like Israel
Israel might read the GCC statement and take offense, seeing that Saudi Arabia remains adamant on an impossible two-state solution as its only pathway to normalization with Israel.

Iran might also read the statement as Saudi Arabia staying away from Israel, and therefore remaining defensively more vulnerable to Tehran and its regional proxies.

But a closer look suggests that while the GCC rhetoric sounds pro-Iran, Gulf policies are against the Islamic Republic. And while the GCC bashes Israel, Gulf policies align perfectly with everything that Israel has been pushing for – both militarily and diplomatically.

Perhaps it is time for Gulf countries to reconcile what they say with what they want to see happen.

Israel has been trying to change the region to serve its interests, and these happen to overlap with Gulf interests. It’s only fair that the Gulf give Israel a hand, not only implicitly and behind closed doors, but also openly. Should the GCC do that, the momentum resulting from its shift in rhetoric would go much further than tying money rewards to what they want to see happen.
IDF troops kill seven Hamas terrorists who took part in Oct. 7 massacre
Seven Hamas terrorists who participated in the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre in Israel’s northwestern Negev were killed in Israel Defense Forces operations in central Gaza in recent weeks, the military announced on Tuesday.

Troops from the 99th Division’s 990th Reserve Artillery Regiment eliminated many terrorists, including the Oct. 7 perpetrators, whom the army named as Abd al-Razzeq, Marzouk al-Hur, Maaz al-Hur, Abd Abu-Awad Yusri, Omar Abu-Abdallah, Ahmed Zahid and Maad Abu-Garboua.

On that day, thousands of Hamas terrorists, followed by Gazan civilians stormed across the border, murdering 1,200 people, wounding thousands more and kidnapping 251 to Gaza, where 101 are still being held, including 97 from Oct. 7. Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer reportedly told U.S. President-elect Donald Trump last month that 60 are believed to be alive.

Additionally, the IDF said that troops from the 179th and 551st brigades conducted several targeted raids in the Central Gaza Strip Corridor, dismantling Hamas military sites, including observation posts and sniper positions.


10 Things Washington Should Do to Hold Hamas Accountable
U.S. citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, was executed by Hamas in late August after being taken hostage from an Israeli music festival and held in Gaza for more than 300 days. In response, a bipartisan roster of U.S. officials immediately pledged to hold Hamas accountable. On August 31, 2024, President Joe Biden issued a statement saying, “Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes,” while Vice President Kamala Harris issued a statement saying, “The threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel—and American citizens in Israel—must be eliminated and Hamas cannot control Gaza.” On September 1, 2024, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin vowed that “Hamas will be held accountable.”

Washington policymakers should make good on these promises in the following ways:
1. Hamas leadership: Support Israel’s campaign to kill or capture Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and other Hamas leaders at large, both inside and outside Gaza. This support starts with recently unsealed Justice Department indictments for the murder and hostage-taking of Americans but continues with demands made of countries like Qatar, Turkey, and Lebanon for extraditions, and an advertising campaign in Gaza offering a very large reward for information leading to the capture or death of Yahya Sinwar. The United States should also make clear to all countries that it supports Israeli efforts to kill or capture Hamas officials wherever they reside.

2. Hamas and partner networks: Within the United States and overseas, lead a crackdown on Hamas networks. The Department of Justice should move forward with indictments of known individuals and groups in the United States providing material support to Hamas and those associated with Hamas, domestically and abroad. The Departments of the Treasury and State should also target Hamas’s support network of terrorist entities in and out of the Gaza Strip. Sanctions have not yet been imposed on organizations such as the Popular Resistance Committees, Abdul al-Qadir al-Husseini Brigades, and the Palestinian Freedom Movement. These armed organizations coordinate attacks on Israeli troops and territory with known designated Palestinian terrorist factions. Palestinian organizations that provide material support to Hamas and coordinate attacks with them should be held accountable for their actions. Hamas networks in foreign countries, including South Africa, should be targeted with sanctions as well.

3. Munitions to Israel: With U.S partners, publicly send Israel a series of additional munitions to help it wage an offensive against Iran’s terrorist proxies. Alongside a public show of materiel support for Israel, provided without conditions or caveats, the administration should use its leverage and influence to compel the United Kingdom and Canada to lift any holds or restrictions on defense exports to Israel. Sinwar must see momentum shifting toward international support for Israel and be disabused of any dreams of the United States again withholding weapons from Israel.

4. Qatar: Bring immediate and intense pressure to bear on Qatar to cut off all political and financial lifelines it provides to Hamas. Pressure on Qatar should include threats to remove Qatar’s status as a major non-NATO ally; move Al Udeid Air Base assets; impose sanctions on Qatari officials, instrumentalities, and assets; and impose sanctions on Qatar’s Al-Jazeera Media Network. Qatar should be compelled to close all Hamas offices and operations, freeze and turn over to the United States all Hamas-connected assets, and turn over to the United States or Israel all Hamas officials who remain in the country.

5. Egypt: Bring immediate and intense pressure to bear on Egypt to permanently cut off Hamas supply routes above and below the Egypt-Gaza border. Pressure on Egypt should include threats to withhold a significant amount of U.S. foreign assistance and impose sanctions on Egyptian officials and instrumentalities responsible for the Hamas smuggling operation. The United States must articulate that an underground wall built on the Egypt side of the border with Gaza — like the one that exists on the Israeli-Gaza border — is a priority for the United States and is in our national long-term interests. Egypt should also be compelled to fully cooperate with Israel in a joint monitoring operation to prevent above-ground smuggling.

6. Turkey: Bring immediate and intense pressure to bear on Turkey to cut off all political and financial lifelines provided to Hamas. Pressure should include threats to impose sanctions on Turkish officials or entities that provide material support to Hamas. Turkey should be compelled to close all Hamas offices and operations, freeze and turn over to the United States all Hamas-connected assets, including Ismail Haniyeh’s assets reportedly in Turkish banks, and turn over to the United States or Israel all Hamas officials who remain in the country.

7. Lebanon: Bring immediate and intense pressure to bear on Lebanon to cut off all political and financial lifelines provided to Hamas. Pressure should include threats to withhold a significant level of foreign assistance and impose sanctions on Lebanese officials or entities that provide material support to Hamas. Lebanon should be placed on the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list — and if no action is taken, on its black list — for facilitating support to a terrorist organization. Further, the United States should provide intelligence support for Israeli strikes anywhere in Lebanon, including Beirut, to kill Hamas operatives and destroy their infrastructure – including any co-located with Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and/or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Lebanon should be compelled to close all Hamas offices and operations, freeze and turn over to the United States all Hamas-connected assets, and turn over to the United States or Israel all Hamas officials who remain in the country.

8. China: Target China with economic and political pressure for subsidizing Hamas through oil imports and from Iran. U.S. oil sanctions on Iran are already on the books, they just aren’t being enforced. President Biden should inform President Xi Jinping that the United States will be pursuing maximalist sanctions enforcement targeting all Chinese entities involved in illicit trade with Iran, Hamas’s chief terror sponsor, including state-owned enterprises. The administration should move forward with identifying Chinese ports that accept Iranian oil, as mandated by the newly enacted SHIP Act, and impose secondary sanctions on those ports.

9. Iran: Increase other forms of pressure on Iran. Pressure should include ending Iranian access to previously inaccessible Iraqi electricity payments and any other funds made available for Iran’s use, triggering the snapback of UN sanctions on Iran at the Security Council, and an all-out diplomatic push to get the United Kingdom and the European Union to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization.

10. International Organizations: Fight back against Hamas allies within international organizations. Hamas counts the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC) as key allies. The current U.S. unwillingness to confront these institutions gives Sinwar hope. The White House should end its opposition to sanctions threats against the ICC and its chief prosecutor and instead lead an aggressive diplomatic campaign to get the ICC’s top donors — Japan and Germany among them — to end the illegitimate and baseless investigation of Israeli leaders (which also puts Americans at risk). The administration should put forward a UN Security Council resolution condemning Hamas and all its state sponsors — forcing Russia and China to defend Hamas and potentially veto it. The administration should also leverage U.S. funding of the UN regular budget and other agencies to fight back against pro-Hamas, anti-Israel activity.
Netanyahu praises Trump for threatening ‘all hell to pay’ if Hamas doesn’t release hostages
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday for the latter’s “strong statement” calling on Hamas to release the 101 hostages it has held in Gaza for 424 days.

“It is a forceful statement, which makes it clear that there is only one responsible for this situation, and that is Hamas,” the Israeli premier said.

Netanyahu addressed the president-elect’s remarks ahead of an Israeli government meeting in Nahariya, a northern city that has often been the target of cross-border attacks by Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon over the past 14 months.

“Hamas needs to release the hostages,” Netanyahu said. “President Trump put the emphasis in the correct place, on Hamas, and not on the Israeli government, as is customary in some places.”

Since shortly after Oct. 7, there have been global calls for Jerusalem to give in to Hamas’s terms for a hostages-for-ceasefire agreement.

In his Monday statement, Trump vowed that there will be consequences for Hamas if the terror group does not release the hostages before his Jan. 20 inauguration.

“If the hostages are not released prior to Jan. 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume office as president of the United States, there will be all hell to pay in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against humanity,” Trump stated.


Biden’s Radical Reading
So, I asked him: What would you have me study? He looked at me for a moment. The room was eerily quiet. “Palestinian poetry,” he said. And with that, our meeting soon concluded. I would not be getting a Ph.D. at University of Chicago.

I was despondent for several months. As it turned out, Chicago was not the only place that was a poor fit for me. I soon found that American universities were simply not inclined or geared to support academic work with a view toward national security. Certainly not in the Middle East.

In the wake of 9/11, some seven months after our meeting in his office and just days after the attack I had a thought: Given the stakes, Khalidi might reconsider. I called him and asked if he remembered me. He said he did. I asked him what he thought about my proposed field of work after the attacks that rocked America. He was unmoved. This is a topic that should be studied by Muslims, he said. Our conversation ended abruptly.

In that phone call, Khalidi invoked the ideas of Edward Said, who wrote Orientalism in 1978. The book argued, inter alia, that Westerners are ill-equipped to study the Orient. Said’s book has dominated the field of Middle Eastern studies ever since, leading to the rot and group think that has only recently become obvious to most Americans.

One American-Israeli scholar understood the extent of that rot early on. In 2001, Martin Kramer published a blistering critique of the field of Middle Eastern studies in America, noting the ways in which professors apologized for Islamist terrorism and pilloried Israel, and in the process undermined Middle East and U.S. national security. Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America is still a must read.

Khalidi ranked among Kramer’s top targets in his book. Deservedly so. But Kramer didn’t stop at Khalidi’s problematic scholarship. He dug deeper into Khalidi’s history. In 2008, Kramer exposed Khalidi as a former spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization. Indeed, Khalidi represented the PLO in Lebanon back when the group was still designated in the United States as a terrorist organization. Apparently, that did not get in the way of his tenured position at University of Chicago.

Nor did it stop him from becoming the Edward Said professor at Columbia University in 2003. His new position, fittingly named, afforded him a platform for scholar-activism—something all too common among Middle East professors at Columbia, and a host of other schools.

Kramer’s spadework was well-timed. In 2008, Khalidi became something of a public person. In the presidential race between Barack Obama and John McCain, it emerged that Obama had delivered a speech during a 2003 farewell dinner for Khalidi, before his departure from the University of Chicago. We still don’t know what was said during that dinner. The Los Angeles Times obtained a copy of the video, but has refused to release it for reasons that were never clear. One can only surmise that the speech would have been embarrassing for both Khalidi and the future president of the United States.

Khalidi has written five books in the years since I met him. I’ve read two of them. Both were screeds. On his latest book—the one Biden bought in Nantucket —even the New York Times notes that Khalidi’s “persuasiveness is undermined at times by a tendency to shave the rhetorical corner.” The Times also notes how Khalidi’s credibility was undermined by his own sources: “if the writer himself notes that the source of a quote is probably wrong, then it’s deeply problematic to use that quote.” Indeed, Khalidi has become a poster child for what Colombia and too many other universities have embraced: unserious scholarship by radical, tenured activists.

It will now take years to undo the damage that has been done to America’s universities. But it’s now beyond academics. The lack of even-handed inquiry is now overshadowed by an overt strain of anti-Semitism not seen in this country for decades. By brandishing Khalidi’s most recent screed outside a bookstore in Nantucket, and engaging in naked virtue signaling, Biden is now a walking billboard for the corruption of Middle Eastern studies in America.
The mystery behind Biden’s anti-Israel book purchase
What’s not clear is how the book found its way into the hands of Biden, who has often described himself as a Zionist. Nadia Bilbassy-Charters, Washington bureau chief of the Saudi-owned network Al Arabiya, described the book as “the most famous book narrating the Palestinian Nakkba,” referring to the Arabic word for “catastrophe,” which many Arabs use to describe the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 during which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were displaced.

A Nantucket Bookworks employee who answered the phone on Monday declined to say if Biden picked up the book himself or if someone — a family member, an employee or someone else — suggested it to him. “We don’t comment on anything, we just respect his privacy and his coming into the store,” the employee said before hanging up. The book is now out of stock at the bookstore, according to another employee reached by phone.

With Biden in the store were First Lady Jill Biden; their daughter Ashley; and their son Hunter, his wife Melissa Cohen Biden and their son, Beau.

John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, said Biden’s purchase of the book reflects only an interest in reading and learning about history.

“It doesn’t surprise me that he would go into a bookstore and get a book of history, particularly about the Middle East, to try to keep learning. He really does believe in speaking, learning and thinking broadly, and that’s what that tells me,” Kirby told reporters on Monday, noting that he had not spoken to Biden about the purchase.

A White House spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment about why Biden picked up the book.

Displays of books about Palestinian history have become commonplace at bookstores, particularly those in liberal communities, after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks sparked the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Described as a “history of settler colonialism and resistance from 1917 to 2017,” Khalidi’s book spent 39 weeks on the bestseller list after last Oct. 7, despite being first released in 2020.

The incident marks something of a coda to the Obama-Biden era before it formally draws to a close on Jan. 20. The final days of the 2008 presidential campaign saw Barack Obama face scrutiny for his ties to Khalidi, with whom he had once been close when they both lived in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood.

A Los Angeles Times story that year spotlighted Obama’s friendship with Khalidi, reporting that at Khalidi’s 2003 goodbye party as he prepared to move to New York, Obama offered a toast: His dinners with the scholar had provided “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases,” Obama said, and he pledged to “continue that conversation, a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid’s dinner table … [but around] this entire world.”


UK pledges additional funding for controversial aid agency Unrwa
The British government has committed an additional £19 million of aid to Gaza, including £7 million to the controversial UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa.

A total of £12 million would be directed to the United Nations’ Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and World Food Programme (WFP) and £7 million to Unrwa’s Flash Humanitarian Appeal for Gaza, the government said on Monday.

The announcement came as Development Minister Annelise Dodds took part in a humanitarian conference in Cairo focused on alleviating suffering in Gaza as part of a three-day visit to the Middle East.

In a trip to the West Bank, she is set to meet Palestinian Prime Minister Dr Mohammad Mustafa, visit an Unrwa-operated refugee camp as well as visit areas affected by settler violence.

Dodds will then arrive in Israel and, according to a government statement, hold “meetings with Israeli representatives” and “call on Israel to remove impediments to getting aid into Gaza and discuss finding a lasting resolution to the conflict”.

The minister will also meet the families of UK and UK-linked hostages in Israel and “will reiterate that the UK continues to exercise every possible diplomatic lever to see the hostages immediately and unconditionally released”, the statement said.

Dodds said ahead of the conference that the situation in Gaza was “catastrophic. Gazans are in desperate need of food, and shelter with the onset of winter. The Cairo conference will be an opportunity to get leading voices in one room and put forward real-world solutions to the humanitarian crisis.”


Why is our government hosting Qatar while threatening Israeli leaders with arrest?
There have been so many incidents that have seemed upside down since October 7 that sometimes it is all too much to bear. The celebrations in the street on October 8, the way the BBC keeps parroting Hamas lies, the fact that the murder of Israelis led to record antisemitism in the UK, the Jew hate marching down our streets every weekend while the police watch on. I could go on.

But few examples have been more stark, in my eyes, than what is happening this week.

Yesterday I watched our Prime Minister tell a Labour Friends of Israel lunch that his government stands behind the ‘independence’ of the ICC to issue warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. That means – however much they are presently pussyfooting around the issue - our government will attempt to arrest the Israeli politicians should they step foot on UK soil.

Meanwhile, just a day later, we are literally rolling out the red carpet for the leaders of Qatar, the nation which has for years, housed and funded Hamas.

So eager are our leaders to show a huge welcome to the Qataris that the poor Princess of Wales disturbed her cancer recovery to be dragged out to Horse Guard Parade, joining King Charles, Prince William and the Qatari Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and the first of his three wives.

A lunch, golden carriages and a fancy pants Buckingham Palace state banquet await. But I’m thinking about the British hostage Emily Damari. Who knows what her last meal was? What rags she is dressed in? Has anyone even mentioned Emily to the Sheikh as they gladhand and grin in photographs with him?

Let me repeat: Qatar is the country which has both housed and supported Hamas as well as many other Muslim Brotherhood terror networks. They are a danger to the world.

There is an irony too that of the many things Israel is accused of doing, Qatar gets away with barely a peep from the sanctimonious crew.


John Spencer: Israel’s New Approach to Tunnels: A Paradigm Shift in Underground Warfare
Before the war against Hamas in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces were the only army in the world to have a full brigade-sized unit dedicated to training, researching, and developing new technologies and tactics solely for underground warfare.

Their responses to these challenges signal a paradigm shift in modern approaches to underground warfare.

The IDF faced a Hamas military organization that had spent fifteen years engineering the infrastructure of an entire region for war, with a vast and expensively constructed subterranean network under Gaza's population centers.

No military had faced anything like it in the past.

On Oct. 7, 2023, the IDF's Yahalom unit, a brigade of special operations forces engineers, was fully equipped with technologies and tactics to detect and map tunnels and bunkers, and to clear and destroy them.

It used drones and robotic devices designed to work underground.

In some cases, military dogs with cameras mounted on their backs were deployed, but the risk of losing dogs to booby traps made this tactic rare.

After careful study of Hamas tunnels, the IDF changed its approach, sending special operations forces into uncleared tunnels at the exact same time it was maneuvering on enemy forces on the surface.

These forces were equipped with all the specialized equipment needed to breathe, navigate, see, communicate, and shoot underground.

They turned tunnels from obstacles controlled by the defending enemy into maneuver corridors for the attacker.

The lessons learned by the IDF will save the lives of other soldiers in other battlefields.
Israel-Lebanon: The Truce Is Fragile But Necessary
Hizbullah dares proclaim it achieved "a great victory" but it finds itself isolated. It has lost its leaders, a large part of its fighters, its powerful military arsenal, its destructive missiles, and, above all, the trust of the Lebanese. They can no longer count on Hizbullah to defend their country and live in security. Yet we know Hizbullah's true intentions. It will undoubtedly reorganize for a second round and continue the Islamist fight against the Jewish state.

Israel is currently in a position of strength that can dictate the course of action and guarantee stability in the north of the country for many years. Israel must seize all opportunities and intervene quickly in the event of a violation.
Why This Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire Agreement Is Different
The changed factor in the recent ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon is Israel itself. The Oct. 7, 2023, attack changed Israel's deterrence concept to preventing the presence of potential threats in its immediate geographical vicinity.

Israel considered that attack an existential threat, prompting a reconsideration of border coexistence with hostile groups. For this reason, it decided to eliminate Hamas, weaken Hizbullah, and prevent both organizations from threatening its existence.

Israel has changed its policy from "mowing the grass" to "uprooting it." The agreement authorizes Israel to intervene and operate in Lebanon's airspace. It includes explicit conditions for monitoring border crossings and preventing rearmament.

Israel has proven to be a devastating regional military power capable of waging and winning long and multiple wars. It surprised Hizbullah with its decisive superiority. It will be difficult for Hizbullah to return as a regional player threatening Israel under the current balance of power.


Katz warns Lebanon will not be spared if ceasefire collapses
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Beirut on Tuesday that should the Nov. 27 ceasefire collapse, Jerusalem’s response would potentially go beyond just targeting Hezbollah.

Speaking during a visit to Israel’s northern border, Katz said that Israel would “work with all our might” to enforce the terms of the truce, vowing “maximum response and zero tolerance” with regard to violations, according to Reuters.

“Yesterday was the first test, [Hezbollah] shooting at Mount Dov,” he said, adding, “We reacted strongly and this is exactly what we will do.”

The Israeli Air Force struck Hezbollah targets across Lebanon on Monday night in response to the Iranian proxy’s firing of two mortar shells across the border hours earlier, in violation of the Nov. 27 ceasefire.

“We will not allow Hezbollah to return to the old methods they had, such as the tent that was set up [by Hezbollah on the border several years ago] and not attacked,” Katz continued.

He called on the Lebanese government to ensure that the Lebanese Armed Forces fulfilled Beirut’s obligation under the truce to keep Hezbollah forces north of the Litani River and dismantle the Iranian proxy force’s infrastructure.

Should it fail to do so, he continued, the agreement will collapse and “then the reality will be very clear.”

If the deal collapses, “The most important thing they need to know is that there will no longer be an exemption for the state of Lebanon,” he emphasized.


Disabled IDF Veteran Volunteers for Reserve Duty
Actor Dean Miroshnikov, 36, who has business ventures in the bustling nightlife center of Nachalat Binyamin in Tel Aviv, volunteered in November 2023 for the "Magen Be'eri" reserve battalion (a group of veterans from elite IDF units).

As a disabled IDF veteran, Miroshnikov was not required to serve. In 2010, while serving in the Shayetet 13 marine commando unit, he was injured during the Gaza flotilla raid.

By December, his battalion entered Gaza. He spent most of the past year in Gaza and the West Bank.

He says, "One of the reasons I serve in the reserves is because of what I see in the West Bank. Every night, we arrest people trying to harm us, infiltrate the country, and carry out attacks."

"If my team and I can stop even ten terrorists who could have reached Nachalat Binyamin to carry out attacks, that's why I do it....If we don't do this, there won't be a country."


Hamas Is Not Invincible
It has become conventional wisdom in Washington that Hamas will survive no matter how hard it is pummeled by Israel. Yet Islamic history is littered with failed insurgencies and vanquished militants. Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar envisioned an imminent triumph over Israel in a holy war to drive the Jews from Palestine. This is the kind of delusional hope that once powered al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

For most Palestinians in Gaza, Hamas's rule has been hell. Hamas, like Hizbullah in Lebanon, didn't moderate once in power. Hamas's creed promised young men not just martyrdom but victory. But as the Islamic State can attest, when Islamists start to lose wars, the faithful soon lose heart. Asking young men to kill themselves for the cause can be alluring. But such fanaticism always fades when the death toll gets too high, and the promised conquest fails to materialize.

Hamas's future now depends on whether young men who have been part of it - and, more importantly, the far larger number who have not - want to support a movement that has done its part to make most Gazans homeless. Whatever comes next likely won't have the spiritual allure - the promise that comes with past or expected success - that made Hamas a redoubtable insurgent movement.

For supporters of Hamas, Oct. 7 was a modern re-enactment of the Prophet Muhammad's slaughter of the Jewish tribe of Khaybar, which ended Jewish resistance to the Prophet's call. Yet the "glory" of Oct. 7 is unlikely to sustain Hamas's young men - and the Palestinian population more broadly - through the years of misery that lie ahead for all of Gaza.
IDF intercepts rocket from northern Gaza
After air-raid sirens sounded in Kibbutz Erez in southern Israel, the Israeli Air Force intercepted one rocket launch that crossed from the northern Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces reported on Tuesday.

While Hamas rocket fire has significantly decreased since the early days of the war as the IDF has consistently and severely degraded the terror group’s capabilities, it has not been eliminated.

Terrorist forces in Gaza launched a rocket at the border community of Kerem Shalom on Nov. 21, triggering sirens in the kibbutz, located at the Gaza-Israel-Egypt border near the crossing of the same name.

The rocket was successfully intercepted, causing no injuries or damage, according to the IDF.

A rocket from Gaza set off sirens in Kibbutz Erez on Nov. 13, impacting in an open area. No injuries were reported. The community is located less than a mile from the Strip’s northern border and is the namesake of the Erez Crossing.

On Nov. 25, the Israeli military reported that Abd el-Halim Abu Hussein, the head of rocket operations for Hamas’s Western Jabalia battalion, was among several terrorists killed in an Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza city. He was responsible for numerous rocket and mortar attacks against Israeli civilians, as well as against Israeli forces in Gaza.

The strike also eliminated Muhammad Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Zakout, one of the Hamas terrorists who carried out the massacre of 1,200 men, women and children in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.


Syria: Israeli strike kills Hezbollah rep to Assad’s army
An Israeli strike in Syria killed Salman Nemer Jamaa, Iranian-backed Hezbollah’s terrorist representative to the Syrian military, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed in a statement on Tuesday night.

“As part of his role, Jamaa was responsible for coordinating between Hezbollah operatives and the Syrian military, including supporting weapons smuggling from Syria to Hezbollah,” the IDF stated.

The senior terrorist stood in “close contact” with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, according to the Israeli military statement.

Syrian state media reported earlier on Tuesday that the IDF had carried out an airstrike against a vehicle on the road to Damascus International Airport. An Israeli official confirmed the Damascus strike to Kan News.


Two said to be killed in IDF drone strike on terror cell in Jordan Valley
The Israel Defense Forces carried out a drone strike on an armed terrorist cell near the village of Aqaba in the Jordan Valley on Tuesday, resulting in two fatalities, according to Palestinian reports.

Members of the cell were en route to carry out an attack, according to Israel’s Channel 12 News.

The Palestinian Authority’s official WAFA news outlet reported that Israeli forces stormed a nearby hospital following the drone strike and prevented ambulances from reaching the terrorists.

Aqaba is located near Jenin in northern Samaria, an area currently experiencing heightened terrorist activity.

The Israeli military carried out a drone strike against a Palestinian terrorist cell near Jenin on Sunday morning, killing a Hamas operative responsible for a deadly shooting in the Jordan Valley last summer.

Three other terrorists were eliminated in the attack, who according to the IDF had carried out several shootings against Israeli communities in the Gilboa area.


Israel rejects claims it is restricting Gaza aid, says hundreds of trucks waiting
Israel pushed back Tuesday against European criticism of efforts to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, as the military carried out strikes in the north of the enclave and issued fresh evacuation orders for its south.

Responding to a call from Britain, France and Germany to deal with what UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy called “the unacceptable humanitarian situation in Gaza,” the Foreign Ministry insisted that there were no restrictions on the amount of aid entering Gaza.

“It is disappointing that the foreign ministers of the E3 (Britain, France and Germany) failed to address the October 7 massacre and the daily attacks on Israeli civilians since then in their letter,” spokesman Oren Marmorstein said in a statement.

“Israel is facilitating the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and does not impose any restrictions on the quantity of aid entering the Strip,” he added.

Marmorstein said international organizations had failed “to distribute the aid due to looting by Hamas.”

According to the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT, some 780 truckloads of aid were awaiting pickup on the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip Tuesday, after just 43 were picked up the previous day by international organizations.


Rebels Take Aleppo, a Fragile Ceasefire and a Middle East on Edge
This week marked a dramatic escalation in Syria’s 13-year civil war. Rebel factions launched their most audacious offensive in years, capturing Aleppo, the focal point of the war for over a decade. This marked the most serious challenge to President Bashar al-Assad’s government and its Russian- and Iranian-backed allies in nearly a decade.

Syrian and Russian forces are currently unleashing joint air strikes in a desperate attempt to reclaim the city. Iran has thrown its weight behind al-Assad, promising increased support to shore up his faltering grip on power.

But Syria is just one piece of a much larger—and far more dangerous—puzzle.

The Middle East is on a knife’s edge. Just last week, Israel and Hezbollah reached a fragile ceasefire along the Lebanon border, but tensions remain high. In Gaza, Israel has continued its operations against Hamas, who still hold 63 hostages. And then there’s Iran—the architect of much of the region’s instability—whose escalating provocations make it seem like a direct war with Israel is no longer a question of if, but when.

These conflicts are deeply interconnected, and the fall of one domino could set off far-reaching consequences. The potential power vacuum left by a weakened al-Assad regime could reshape alliances and alter the balance of power in ways that reverberate from Tehran to Tel Aviv, and from Moscow to Washington.

To help us make sense of these rapidly unfolding events and their implications for the region, Michael Moynihan is joined today by Haviv Rettig Gur, a senior analyst at The Times of Israel and one of the sharpest minds on Middle East politics.

In this conversation, they unpack what’s going on in Syria, the root causes of tribal war and dysfunction across the Arab world, the ceasefire in Lebanon, what comes next in Gaza, the weakening of Iran, and what all of this means for Israel and the United States.


Caroline Glick: As Iran Falls, Who Will Rise in the Middle East? w/ David Wurmser
Out with the old, in with the new! David Wurmser, a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., joins JNS senior contributing editor Caroline Glick for an in-depth conversation on the changing face of the Middle East.

Hear who’s making power grabs and what Israel and the United States can do to limit Turkey and Iran’s malign ambitions. Don’t miss this episode of "The Caroline Glick Show"! #MiddleEastPolitics #Geopolitics

Chapters
00:00 Strategic decisions and long-term planning for Israel
01:07 The Syrian civil war: shifting alliances
02:51 The Iranian-Russian axis vs. the Turkish-Islamist axis
05:55 The role of the Kurds in the Syrian conflict
09:01 The rise of Turkey and its implications for Israel
11:50 Egypt’s changing alliances and military strength
15:01 U.S. foreign policy missteps and their consequences
17:51 The nature of peace agreements in the Middle East
21:09 The current U.S. administration’s impact on Israel
23:55 Israel’s strategic response to regional threats
31:28 The ceasefire dilemma and Israel’s strategic choices
38:01 Egypt’s evolving role in regional politics
42:58 The Iranian threat and Israel’s strategic response
49:58 Turkey’s position and NATO's challenges
55:39 Israel’s long-term strategic planning


The Quad: CRISIS: Is the Hezbollah-Israel Ceasefire About to Blow Up?
In this episode of "The Quad," Israeli innovation envoy Fleur Hassan-Nahoum tries to make sense of the not-so-civil war in Syria and the current Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire.

Hassan-Nahoum is joined by former Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief Avi Mayer and activist and writer Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll.

And, of course, get ready for the Scumbags and Heroes of the Week with a special submission from actor and comedian Michael Rapaport! #Hezbollah #israel

Chapters
00:00 Analyzing the current Middle East situation
02:47 Ceasefire dynamics and regional implications
05:59 The Syrian conflict and its consequences
09:13 The role of the U.S. in Middle Eastern affairs
12:04 Scumbags of the Week
24:00 Heroes of the Week


The Israel Guys: ISRAEL Planning to Stay in Gaza?? The Shocking Truth Explained
Gaza has been a constant source of conflict for Israel throughout history, from ancient biblical times with the Philistines to modern-day struggles with Hamas. In this video, we dive deep into the history of Gaza’s significance to Israel and discuss why its role in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is still such a major security concern today. Also Israel just might be taking steps to rebuild the Israeli communities they destroyed in 2005.


Australia to switch stance on UN votes as a pathway to two-state solution
The Albanese government is preparing to again break with Israel by switching Australia’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a series of high-profile United Nations votes, including on a resolution aimed at creating an “irreversible pathway” to a Palestinian state.

The United Nations General Assembly in New York was on Tuesday night preparing to vote on three motions concerning Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Foreign Minister Penny Wong.

Government sources not permitted to speak publicly said Australia was considering switching from its voting record on some issues, in line with Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s view that it was important for the international community to create momentum towards a two-state solution.

The move will anger Israel but again please Palestinian advocates in Australia, who have welcomed several recent Australian votes at the UN.

Diplomatic relations between Australia and Israel have been tested by the former’s voting on UN resolutions over the past year, as well as Australia’s refusal two weeks ago to condemn the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the decision by Home Affairs to deny entry to a former Israeli minister on character grounds.

One of the draft resolutions under discussion at the UN demanded that Israel “bring an end to its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as rapidly as possible, to cease immediately all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

The seven-page resolution, titled Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine, also stresses “the need to urgently exert collective efforts to launch credible negotiations on all final status issues in the Middle East peace process”.

An annex to the resolution calls for a high-level international conference to be held next June in New York.

The conference would aim to produce a document that would “urgently chart an irreversible pathway towards the peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine and the implementation of the two-state solution”.

A separate motion condemns Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, while a third concerns procedural matters relating to Palestinian representation at the United Nations.


Albanese government treating Israeli hostages as an ‘afterthought’
Sky News host Sharri Markson says there has been “weak international leadership” from the Albanese government.

Donald Trump has threatened to unleash hell if the hostages are not returned by Hamas.

Ms Markson said the Albanese government are treating Israeli hostages as an “afterthought”.


travelingisrael.com: The Real Reason Behind the OBSESSION many Muslims have with Israel (and it’s not the Palestinians)



Police launch investigation after ‘unknown substance’ found at Israel embassy
ACT Police has launched an investigation after an "unknown substance" was found at the the Israeli Embassy in Canberra on Tuesday.

Police and emergency services received a call about 11am Tuesday from the embassy after the discovery of a substance.

Testing of the substance was done on arrival and it revealed it to be "non-hazardous".

"The matter is under current investigation by ACT Policing," an ACT police spokeswoman said.

This incident follows a series of events taken place across Australia this year involving antisemitic incidents, being vandalism attacks.

In November, vandals torched cars and spray painted anti-Isreal slurs in Sydney's eastern suburbs of Woollahra.

The overnight crime spree saw the words "f**k Israel" and "PKK coming" on vehicles and the windows of popular Chiswick Restaurant, owned by celebrity chef Matt Moran.

Late last month in Melbourne, another vandal spree occurred at the Chabad St Kilda synagogue.

The words "Free Gaza' and "Jews kill babies" were defaced on the front gate, door, and a vehicle.


Anti-Israel Protesters Don't Want to Save "Palestine." They Want to Destroy Western Civilization
As if further proof was needed of the pro-Palestinian movement's true motives - hatred of the West, of all that is good in the world, and, of course, the fevered desire to legitimize attacks on Israel - the Palestinian solidarity brigade made their agenda clear, for the second year running, at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in New York.

Another jolly, fun-filled affair for children and families, patriotic and festive in nature, made ugly and disrupted by people with nasty, extreme views, waving flags, chanting "Free, free Palestine" and jumping barricades. The NYPD said it arrested 21 people.

They are monomaniacal, obsessed, and amoral. They show no sustained attention to any other conflict in the world.

It is only when Israel stands up to bullies and terrorists that the placards, the chants, the demands for divestment, and the public exposition of blood-curdling cries and threats become utterly commonplace.




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

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