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Tuesday, December 10, 2024

12/10 Links Pt1: Assad’s Fall Has Humiliated Washington; World Central Kitchen Fires 60 Gaza Workers for Failing Israeli Security Checks

From Ian:

Eli Lake: Assad’s Fall Has Humiliated Washington
The end of Bashar al-Assad's tyranny in Syria was made possible not because President Biden had the foresight to unleash the Jewish state against America's enemies in the Middle East. It's because Israel defied Biden's efforts to restrain it. When Israel took the very steps that have weakened Iran and its proxies, it was greeted by threats and disapproval from Washington.

Biden's approach has been to prevent regional escalation. That may sound sensible on the surface, but it has meant trying to limit Israel's war to a purely defensive one against Iran's proxies - one at a time - while preventing Israel from taking the fight to Iran, the patron of those proxies. It goes back to President Obama's policy of respecting Iran's regional ambitions.

It turns out that another regional power - Israel - was able to extinguish much of Iran's vaunted "ring of fire," despite the warnings, arm-twisting, and weapon-shipment delays from the Biden administration. The Israelis did not have to "share" the region with a regime intent on dominating it.

While the Washington foreign policy establishment had persuaded itself of the futility of fighting a regime dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state, Israel could not afford that illusion. It demonstrated the fragility of Iran's imperium and the delusions about that imperium.
Seth Mandel: The Wages of Peace with Israel
If you had the opportunity to start a new Middle East state from scratch, would you rather it be at peace with Israel or at war with Israel?

I genuinely wish regional leaders would ask themselves this question once in a while. And the fall of the house of Assad is a great time to do so.

Israel’s offer of peace has been on the table to all comers from the start. If you want peace with the Jewish state, you can have it. Should you take the offer?

If the citizens of your state are of any concern to you, it’s pretty obvious you should take the deal.

Israel borders Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt. In recent weeks and months, we have watched Lebanon continue its long history of abridged sovereignty and political decay. The Iranian/Hezbollah statelet in South Lebanon persists, though in a weakened state. That occupation exists to regularly plunge the country into war with Israel. Before the area was Hezbollah’s playground, it was the mini-state of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which instigated two types of armed conflict: war with Israel and civil war within Lebanon. After Israel ousted the PLO from southern Lebanon in 1982, Syria intervened to ensure there would be no peace with Israel by killing Lebanese politicians who wanted an end to the bloodshed.

Syria, meanwhile, has been in the news because a decade-long revolt finally succeeded in ousting Bashar al-Assad, who has only been able to stay in power with the help of Hezbollah terrorists, Iranian generals, and chemical weapons that Assad’s forces used on civilians. Three-quarters of a century into Israel’s existence, such is the reality of life in the neighboring countries that insist on permanent hostility to Israel’s existence.

It is no coincidence that this is not the state of affairs in Jordan or Egypt. Peace with Israel isn’t the only reason for their relative stability. But not being at war with a first-rate military and ally of the Western democracies is a pretty big factor.

What might a Sliding Doors-style alternate history look like? We have a useful model in the Sinai Peninsula.
Seth Mandel: Israel Deserves More Credit for Eliminating Syria’s Loose Weapons
The situation regarding the chemical weapons is more complicated, thanks to one of the Obama administration’s bizarre mistakes in the region. A decade ago, after Assad was found to have used chemical weapons against his own civilians, which President Obama had designated as America’s “red line,” a scheme cooked up by the administration and the Russians enabled Obama to forgo punitive strikes and pretend the crisis was being handled. Assad declared 1,300 chemical weapons to international inspection regimes, but that was far from its total reserves. Ever since then, inspectors had been stymied by Assad and unable to tally Syria’s full stock of illegal weapons.

“To date, this work has continued, and the Syrian declaration of its chemical weapons program still cannot be considered as accurate and complete,” the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said in a statement yesterday.

“It costs millions and millions of dollars without making any progress,” one source told Reuters. “So it really is a great opportunity now to get rid of (chemical weapons) for good. This is the moment.”

Unlike the Israeli Air Force, OPCW inspectors require comprehensive security planning to search Syria. That means the new regime, which technically doesn’t exist yet (Syria only has a transitional government at the moment), would have to arrange it. That seems a long way off.

Meantime, therefore, the presence of those weapons poses a “proliferation risk,” according to the U.S. That risk is believed to include undeclared full-scale production sites.

The regime’s 2013 chemical attack on Ghouta killed over a thousand. Assad’s forces were found to have used sarin gas, which is heavier than air and thus sinks. Families hiding with children in their basements might have survived a conventional bombing, but were sitting ducks for the sarin gas.

Israel’s current actions are reminiscent of its successful secret mission in 2007 to destroy Syria’s nascent nuclear reactor, likely constructed with North Korean help. The threat that Syria poses to the region was and remains acute. The threat it poses to the rest of the world is, once again thanks to Israel, far more limited.


World Central Kitchen Fires 60 Gaza Workers for Failing Israeli Security Checks
World Central Kitchen (WCK), the food relief organization founded by left-wing celebrity chef Jose Andres, reportedly fired 60 of its Gaza-based workers after they failed to pass Israeli background checks.

One WCK member, Fadi Hamad, said the nonprofit suspended him following "a security check that recommended that I no longer continue working," according to Bloomberg. Andres's group submitted names to Israel for the security checks after the Jewish state struck a vehicle that carried Hamas terrorists who participated in the Oct. 7 terror spree, including one WCK employee. The Israel Defense Forces said that employee, Hazmi Kadih, "infiltrated Israel and took part in the murderous October 7th massacre in Kibbutz Nir Oz."

In the wake of the strike, the Israeli government pressed "the WCK administration to clarify the issue and order an urgent examination regarding the hiring of workers who took part in the October 7th massacre and terrorist attacks against the State of Israel," the IDF told the Washington Free Beacon last week. The examination led to the firing of more than 10 percent of WCK's Gaza staff, according to Bloomberg.

WCK confirmed in an internal message viewed by the outlet that it recently presented a list of its Gaza-based employees to Israel for security checks. "In this process," the organization said, "some members of the team were flagged as security threats."

Israel has clashed multiple times with WCK throughout its war against Hamas, alleging that terrorists are infiltrating the nonprofit and using their humanitarian credentials to more freely move in Gaza.


WSJ Editorial: After the Fall of Syria's Assad
The collapse at long last of the Assad regime in Syria is no cause for mourning unless you are the leaders of Russia and Iran. Russian state media said Sunday that Bashar al-Assad had been granted asylum in Russia. It's a particular defeat for Iran, which loses its Alawite ally to what is likely to be a Sunni Arab government. Iran's arms supply route to Hizbullah in Lebanon will be disrupted.

Iran and its proxies imagined they had Israel on the run. But Israel turned the tables, first by diminishing Hamas in Gaza, then by eliminating Hizbullah's leadership, and demonstrating it can strike even heavily defended targets in Iran. Tehran's mullahs couldn't protect Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, and now Assad in Syria. All of this is the result of Israel's daring and fortitude in self-defense.

The Oct. 7 Hamas massacre is turning out to be a miscalculation for the ages, leading to defeats for the forces of Mideast mayhem.
Assad Falls Thanks to a Weak Tehran
On the eve of Oct. 7, 2023, Iran's proxy system seemed at the height of its power. Iran had a formidable ballistic-missile array and nuclear ambitions. A year on, however, everything looks different.

The Oct. 7 attack, in addition to being a massacre, was a strategically absurd decision by a tiny statelet to launch a conventional offensive against a vastly more powerful neighbor. Hizbullah's choice to bombard Israel in the following days constituted a similar misstep. Iran's decision in April 2024 to abandon proxy warfare and launch a direct attack on Israel compounded the error.

In each case, Israel's response laid bare the profound inferiority of the Iranians and their allies in direct confrontation. The result: Hamas and Hizbullah are decimated, Gaza is a smoking ruin, Southern Lebanon is a pile of rubble, and Iran is exposed as helpless before Israeli air power. The region now sees Iran and its axis of resistance as a paper tiger. The rebels' assault in Syria and the stunning collapse of the Assad regime are the first fruits of this new look. More will doubtless come.
After the Fall of Assad, Macron Persists to Create a Palestinian State
After the fall of Bashar Assad, French President Emmanuel Macron is campaigning fiercely to offer PA President Mahmoud Abbas an independent state. The French president loves grandiose ceremonies and dreams of one day being able to bring together all the world's great leaders at the Palace of Versailles to witness the signing of a new Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty. Listening to him, one gets the impression that France is still ruling in our region.

The French president's megalomania seems to blind him to the reality on the ground. Does he really think that the Jewish state will give in to the creation of a new terrorist state after the terrible events of Oct. 7, 2023? Israelis reject diktat, unnecessary risks, and suicide.

The West, led by Macron, is wrong to focus its concern only on the territorial conflict with the Palestinians. The real problem remains the presence of Shiite and Sunni Islamists in our region, God-crazed people who want to take over from the Arab-Muslim regimes and then destroy the Jewish state. They will not stop there, their next step will take place in Europe.

How does Emmanuel Macron dare to imagine the creation of a Palestinian state? Who will lead this new state? Hamas, which already has a presence in Jenin and Hebron? Has Macron not yet understood the meaning of the pro-Palestinian slogans in street demonstrations, on campuses, and in Paris chanting: "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free"? After the massacre of Oct. 7, no Israeli government will accept the two-state formula.
Khamenei Loses Everything
When Hamas's Yahya Sinwar launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against Israel on October 7, 2023, he intended to deal a decisive blow against a powerful nation-state - and he succeeded. But the state his attack has devastated turned out not to be Israel, but Iran, his key sponsor.

It is a persistent folly to believe that wars do not achieve meaningful political consequences. The past 15 months in the Middle East suggest otherwise.

After suffering terribly on Oct. 7, Israel has pulverized Hamas, ending the threat it posed as an organized military force. Israel has likewise shattered Hizbullah in Lebanon, forcing it to accept a ceasefire after losing not only thousands of foot soldiers but much of its middle management and senior leadership.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin's brutal but botched war of conquest in Ukraine has undermined his other strategic goals. In Syria, Russia's one solid foothold in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine has leached away Russian forces, depriving it of the ability to influence events. All of this set the stage for the dramatic collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria.

With the defeats of Hamas and Hizbullah, and with the collapse of the Assad regime, Iran has suffered irrecoverable losses. It no longer has a land route to Lebanon; it has lost its most disciplined, well-armed, and effective proxies; and it failed in its two attempts to attack Israel directly while losing its main air defenses in a retaliatory strike.
Iran’s armed forces ‘at war with themselves’ over fall of Assad
A furious blame game is unfolding among Iran’s armed forces over the fall of Bashar al-Assad, The Telegraph has learned.

Officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said commanders of the elite military force were blaming each other “in angry terms” for the collapse of Assad’s regime and the loss of Iranian influence in the region.

“The atmosphere is like something between almost punching each other, punching the walls, yelling at each other and kicking rubbish bins. They are blaming each other, and no one is taking responsibility,” one official from Tehran told The Telegraph.

“No one ever imagined seeing Assad fleeing, as the focus for 10 years had been only on keeping him in power. And it was not because we were in love with him, it was because we wanted to maintain proximity to Israel and Hezbollah.”

Iran spent billions of dollars propping up Assad’s regime after intervening in the Syrian civil war in the mid-2010s.

His government was also the lynchpin in a regional “axis of resistance” masterminded by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and Qassim Soleimani, a former commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force who was killed by a US air strike in 2020.

That network had already been badly mauled over the past 14 months by Israel’s wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and British and American airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

But the loss of Syria could be fatal because it was the main route for supplying Hezbollah, whose arsenal in southern Lebanon had projected Iranian military power directly to the border of Israel.

“You need someone there to send arms to [but] they are either getting killed or escaping. Now the focus is on how to move forward from this impasse,” a second IRGC official told The Telegraph.

“For now, there are no discussions about arms, as everyone is trying to understand what is really happening and how dangerous it is for Iran,” he said.

He added that some are blaming Brig Gen Esmail Qaani, the present commander of the Quds Force for allowing Assad’s army to disperse.
HTS is no ‘liberation movement’
Jolani has attempted to present himself and his militia as a more ‘moderate’ force in recent years. In 2016, he severed al-Nusra’s ties with al-Qaeda, renaming his group Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, before rebranding it again a year later as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Leading the group in the late 2010s, he proceeded to fight and defeat both al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliates as he fought to establish HTS’s so-called government of salvation in Idlib. Yet despite claiming to have moved away from hardline Islamism, few are convinced. In 2022, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom said that HTS ‘restricts religious freedom’ and threatens the safety of religious minorities in the part of Idlib it controls. This does not bode well for Syria’s Shia, Alawite, Christian and Druze religious minorities.

The UK and the West more generally should remember what has happened in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over in 2021. At the time, the Taliban, like HTS, also offered a rebranded, moderate image of itself to the world. Within months, however, it had turned Afghanistan into a hardline ‘Islamic Emirate’, something it was close to being before the Western occupation began in 2001. There is little reason to think HTS does not harbour similar aspirations.

Still, the status of HTS as a proscribed terrorist organisation may become a major headache for the UK government – especially if it wants to secure the organised return of Syrian refugees. After all, how could it justify such a return if HTS assumes control of Syria, but remains a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK?

Assad’s fall is to be welcomed. But that doesn’t mean Britain or the West should uncritically embrace HTS. When it comes to Islamist militias, you would hope that caution would be every politician’s watchword.
Kassy Akiva: Who Is Syrian Rebel Leader Mohammad al-Jolani?
While al-Jolani in 2014 threatened to attack U.S. troops if his fighters continued to be attacked with airstrikes, he has spoken about his opposition to fighting the United States and the West as early as 2014.

al-Jolani bluntly said he will not support any attacks on the United States in his PBS interview.

“I repeat and reiterate that the era — our involvement with Al Qaeda in the past was an era, and it ended, and even at that time when we were with Al Qaeda, we were against external attacks, and it’s completely against our policies to carry out external operations from Syria to target European or American people,” he said.

The interview was his first time speaking to a Western reporter, in what appears to be an effort at overhauling his image to Western audiences. He even shed his terrorist military garb for attire that many have pointed out is similar to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s style.

In the interview, he denied that he is a terrorist.

“That is an unfair characterization,” he said. “It’s a political label that carries no truth or credibility. We haven’t posed any threat to Western or European society. No security threat, no economic threat, nothing.”

“Our message to them is brief: We here do not pose any threat to you, so there is no need for you to classify people as terrorists and announce rewards for killing them,” he said.

Jolani reached out to the Trump administration during Donald Trump’s first term, asking to partner, claiming they weren’t terrorists but only opposed Assad. Former Ambassador James Franklin Jeffrey, who was the U.S. Special Representative for Syria Engagement told PBS he did nothing in response.

“Why should I take the high risk position of urging someone to get dropped from the terrorist list?” Jeffrey said.

In a rare interview last week with CNN, al-Jolani blamed his youth for his radical affiliations with Al-Qaeda when he was younger.

“A person in their twenties will have a different personality than someone in their thirties or forties, and certainly someone in their fifties,” he told CNN. “This is human nature.”

While ruling Idlib, al-Jolani has tried to appeal to various minority communities including the Druze and the Kurds, PBS reported.

During the CNN interview, al-Jolani acknowledged that minority groups such as Christians have suffered from jihadist groups during the Syrian civil war but said they will live safely under the new regime.

“There were some violations against [minorities] by certain individuals during periods of chaos, but we addressed these issues,” al-Jolani said. “No one has the right to erase another group. These sects have coexisted in this region for hundreds of years, and no one has the right to eliminate them.”

Since capturing Damascus, al-Jolani has attempted to set the tone for what comes next, making an appearance in the city’s Umayyad Mosque where he declared the fall of Assad and declared “victory for the entire Islamic nation.”

A senior rebel commander appeared on state TV later on, declaring, “Our message to all the sects of Syria, is that we tell them that Syria is for everyone.”

As the situation continues to develop, it is unknown how Islamic Sharia will impact Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities as well as the secular Muslims living in the country.
Elliott Abrams breaks down the path forward in Syria
Elliott Abrams, the former U.S. special representative for Iran during the first Trump administration, said he doesn’t expect much U.S. involvement in Syria following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, but that the newly volatile situation creates both new opportunities and perils in the region.

Abrams said during a Monday webinar with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America that he doesn’t expect the Trump administration to invest much diplomatic energy or capital into the situation in Syria, but argued that it’s “critical from the American national security point of view,” that a post-Assad Syria not become a terrorist state, an Iranian proxy or a conduit for supplies from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

He said that the fall of the Syrian regime had created new opportunities for Israel to strike Syrian military facilities to destroy Iranian missiles and Syria’s chemical weapons.

“They don’t know … what’s coming next,” Abrams said. “If it’s going to be a somewhat hostile government, then obviously they want it to be as weak as possible militarily. So they’re trying to weaken it.”

He also noted that the nom de guerre of the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces that ousted Assad, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, “suggests he might have a particular interest in trying to recover the Golan,” from where his family originates.

Abrams said that Israel’s moves into Syria along the border with the Golan Heights are designed to send a message to Syrian forces not to attempt aggression against Israel.

“It’s also, of course, a gesture of lack of confidence in the U.N. to protect that border, should Syrian forces really try to come at it,” Abrams said. “It’s hard to believe that this rebel army, which now has to worry about governing the whole country, would want to start a fight with Israel — could even do it if they wanted to — but it’s a kind of preemptive move by Israel.”
Netanyahu warns Syrian regime against giving Iran foothold in country
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned during a meeting at the headquarters of the Israel Defense Forces in Tel Aviv on Tuesday that if the new Syrian jihadist regime befriends Iran, Israel will take decisive action against it.

“If this regime allows Iran to regain its foothold in Syria—or allows the transfer of Iranian weapons or any other weapons to Hezbollah—or attacks us, we will respond forcefully and we will exact a heavy price from it,” he said.

“What happened to the previous regime will happen to this regime as well,” he warned.

Israel has no intention of interfering in Syria’s internal affairs, the prime minister said, but would take action it deemed necessary for its security.

In this context, he said he had authorized the Israeli Air Force to bomb “strategic military capabilities left by the Syrian army so that they would not fall into the hands of the jihadists.”

Since Sunday’s ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad, the IAF has conducted 300 strikes in Syria, marking the heaviest air campaign in the country since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

The aerial assault is mainly targeting air force bases, including entire squadrons of fighter jets.

It is believed that the Syrian Air Force could be destroyed in its entirety “within a few days,” Ynet reported, which would substantially reduce the threat posed to the Jewish state by the incoming Syrian government.

Netanyahu compared the move to the British bombing of the French Vichy regime’s fleet during World War II to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Nazis.


The Syrian Rebels Used Everyday Vehicles to Conquer Damascus. A Demilitarized Palestinian State Could Do the Same
In the Middle East, periods of calm aren't seen as stepping stones to lasting peace but as temporary pauses in an ongoing cycle. You can't negotiate away deeply held religious aspirations.

Turkey's ambitions, for instance, are deeply rooted in Ottoman history.

At the Iranian pavilion in a Shanghai exhibition, I saw a massive map of the ancient Persian Empire. This wasn't mere decoration - it was a statement of aspiration.

For American strategists still seeking to impose stable order in the region, think of the Middle East less like a chess board and more like a weather system, where hurricanes form and strike with a force beyond human control.

Yes, conflicts can be temporarily contained, but even the most promising peace arrangements remain vulnerable to sudden, unpredictable shifts.

The tactical implications of recent events are equally sobering.

The rebels' offensive, much like the Oct. 7 attacks, used motorcycles, jeeps, and pickup trucks to launch devastating surprise attacks.

It's a sobering reminder that even a supposedly demilitarized Palestinian state could quickly mobilize such civilian resources for military purposes.
Syria Was an Incubator of Islamic Fanaticism, Not a Bulwark against It
In yesterday’s newsletter, I mentioned some of the myths that collapsed along with the Assad regime. Noah Rothman adds four more, perhaps the most pervasive of which was that Bashar al-Assad used his brutal rule to rein in jihadists:

This binary dichotomy—a brutal secular dictatorship vs. the Islamist theocrats who attacked the United States on 9/11—is one that is preferred by Assad and his backers. The dithering they encouraged allowed the regime and its Iranian and Russian backers to neutralize pro-Western elements among Syria’s rebel ranks, but Assad’s flatterers were promulgating a fiction.

Even as Damascus’s friends in the West insisted that the Assadist-Russian-Iranian concordat was dismantling Islamist elements, Assad was incubating Islamist groups like what became Islamic State, allowing IS forces to maneuver and reconstitute themselves, and even coordinating with the terrorist outfit to eliminate [the most serious non-jihadist rebels]. That behavior continued long after the United States reluctantly concluded that it could not rely on Moscow to preserve its interests in the region. And we’re about to learn more about the nature of the Assad regime’s support for terrorism.

Following the fall of Damascus, the United States and Israel conducted a series of airstrikes on Assad’s chemical weapons facilities (the stuff Barack Obama said Russia would dispose of for us) and on Islamic State targets inside erstwhile regime-controlled areas of Syria.
Commentary Podcast: Deep Dive on Syria
Jonathan Schanzer joins the podcast to talk about the fall of the Assad regime and why it's not purely good news. What happens next? Is Iran done? And, if it is, does Israel (and maybe even the U.S.) finish off the regime?
Ben Shapiro SYRIA FALLS
After 50 years, the Assad regime falls in Syria. We examine how and why it happened…and what comes next.


'A Totally Different Middle East': FDD Fellow Explains What Syria's Regime Collapse Means For Israel
On "Forbes Newsroom," Jonathan Conricus, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, joins Brittany Lewis to discuss what's next for Syria after rebels seized control of the country's capital, Damascus, and effectively toppled the Assad regime.


The world is in a period of ‘elevated terrorism risk’
International Security Expert Max Abrahms claims there is an “elevated international terrorism risk” following the Syrian rebels ousting Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

“Personally, I think that we’re in a period of elevated international terrorism risk,” Mr Abrahms told Sky News host Caroline Di Russo.

“There are real questions about will there be an Islamic State resurgence without the Syrian Arab Army.”




IDF denies reports ground troops 16 miles from Damascus
Israeli ground forces have not left the buffer zone on the Israel-Syria border, a Israel Defense Forces spokesperson told Reuters on Tuesday, denying claims that the IDF had progressed further inside the country’s territory.

“It’s not true. The forces have not left the buffer zone,” the spokesperson stated.

Local and regional “security sources” told the press agency earlier on Tuesday that Israeli forces operating to thwart terrorist threats in Syria progressed some 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Israel’s northern border.

Two regional sources told the press agency that the IDF soldiers, who crossed the border following the ouster of President Bashar Assad on Sunday, were approximately 25 kilometers (16 miles) from Damascus.

A Syrian source claimed the troops reached the town of Qatana, which is located some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the outskirts of Damascus.

Earlier on Tuesday, Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen, which is closely affiliated with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group, reported that IDF tanks reached positions some 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from the Qatana area.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Monday morning that he ordered the military to set up a secure area free of strategic weapons and terror infrastructure inside Syrian territory, beyond the buffer zone on the Israel-Syria border. The 210th “Bashan” Division began proactive operations on Sunday to ensure “the protection of the residents of the Golan Heights in light of the internal events in Syria,” the IDF said.


IDF hit over 300 Syrian targets, ‘effectively wiping out air force’
The Israel Defense Forces has conducted 300 strikes in Syria since Sunday’s ouster of Bashar Assad, Israeli media reported on Tuesday, marking the heaviest air campaign in the country since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Israel’s Ynet news outlet cited Western intelligence sources late Monday night as confirming the figure, saying that the aerial assault is mainly targeting air force bases, including entire squadrons of fighter jets.

It is believed that the Syrian Air Force could be destroyed in its entirety “within a few days,” Ynet noted, which would substantially reduce the threat posed to the Jewish state by the incoming Syrian government.

The last time Israel destroyed an entire air force was in 1967, when the Egyptian Air Force was wiped out in the first hours of the Six-Day War.

Local security sources told Reuters on Monday that the Israeli Air Force had attacked at least three army bases that housed dozens of helicopters and jets in the largest wave of strikes on the Syrian Air Force since Assad was toppled.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based war monitor with links to the Syrian opposition, was cited by AFP as confirming that Israel carried out more than 100 strikes on Monday, including on a suspected chemical weapons production site. The IDF did not immediately comment on the strikes.

Early on Tuesday morning, AFP and Al Jazeera reported loud blasts in Damascus, with the latter outlet attributing the explosions to Israel.


‘Apologise!’ Corbyn heckled by Labour MP as he criticises Israel instead of condemning Assad
A Labour MP heckled Jeremy Corbyn during a parliamentary debate on Syria on Monday evening, demanding he “apologise” as the former Labour leader failed to condemn Assad but criticised Israel instead.

David Taylor, who represents Hemel Hempstead, chanted “no apology then”, and “apologise” during a fractious session in the House.

Corbyn did not mention former Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad in his intervention in the House of Commons, but spoke generally of the “horrors of war, torture and imprisonment”.

Instead, the independent MP for Islington North asked whether Foreign Secretary David Lammy was “satisfied that Israel will withdraw immediately from the area that it has illegally occupied over the past couple of days, just north of the already illegally occupied Golan heights?”

He also asked about the presence of Turkish troops in northern Syria.

Although not clearly picked up by either the television microphones or the Deputy Speaker in the chair, Taylor confirmed that he heckled Corbyn to the JC.

He added: “It's well-documented that Corbyn and co spent more energy casting doubt on whether chemical weapons were being used than on ways to protect civilians. I'm glad our party has moved on from this period.”

He continued: “What's crucial now is that Syrian voices are at the forefront of our approach going forward, and I'm confident they are, particularly with the £300m increase in funding for the White Helmets announced by the Labour Government last week. I hope we can find a political solution for a free Syria and the international community steps up to help with the humanitarian situation and reconstruction.”

In 2016, human rights activists, including Peter Tatchell, disrupted a speech given by Corbyn to demand he do more to condemn Assad and Russia’s role in the conflict in Syria.

In 2018, he refused to blame President Assad for a chemical weapons attack that killed civilians.


House Republicans urge congressional leaders to ensure prohibition on UNRWA funding in 2025
As lawmakers work to finalize a stopgap spending package before a funding deadline later this month, a group of House Republicans is urging congressional leaders to ensure that U.S. funding to U.N. Relief and Works Agency remains banned in the upcoming bill and that the U.S. works to begin to dismantle the agency.

Lawmakers have blocked funding to UNRWA in several recent spending bills, following the revelation that some of its employees were involved in the Oct. 7 attacks. Subsequent revelations have tied other staffers to terrorist organizations as well. Republicans have made UNRWA funding a red line in those debates, while a growing number of Democrats have pushed for the funding to be restored.

“Terror is woven into the fabric of UNRWA, and there is no hope for peace in the Middle East if UNRWA is allowed to continue to operate, which is why we call for a continued prohibition on providing federal funding for UNWA,” the lawmakers said in a letter to the top four congressional leaders.

The Republicans said that “UNRWA has refused to change its practices and continues to allow the infiltration of terror into its ranks,” in spite of pressure from the U.S., once UNRWA’s largest supporter before it cut off funding at the beginning of the year.

“It is critical” that the U.S. work to “finally do away with the agency that is responsible for so much suffering and focus more on constituting more effective aid distribution mechanisms.”

The Republicans said the U.S. “must continue to work in lock step” with Israel, which passed a law banning UNRWA, and that the agency “has lost our faith in its ability to operate in the best interest of the people it is meant to help.”

The letter was led by Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) and co-signed by Reps. Joe Wilson (R-SC), Warren Davidson (R-OH), Keith Self (R-TX), Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ), Randy Weber (R-TX), Dan Meuser (R-PA), Diana Harshbarger (R-TN) and Tom Tiffany (R-WI).

“UNRWA is an organization compromised by terrorist sympathizers and far-left globalists!” Jackson said in a statement to JI. He added that the agency “is more interested in fueling terror and supporting Hamas than it is in helping innocent civilians.”
ICC Arrest Warrants and the Unacceptable Weaponization of International Law
A whistle-blower told [ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim] Khan that he knew about the sexual misconduct and Khan responded in apparent shock that he, Khan, was "finished and will need to resign." Instead of resigning, however, he reportedly threatened both the whistleblower and the victim to not press the matter further. And then he decided to announce the application for arrest warrants....

Why, by the way, did both Khan and ICC President Piotr Hofmanski meet with Qatar's ambassador to the Netherlands last year? Surely Qatar had nothing to do with influencing the decision to issue the arrest warrants?

The ICC arrest warrants are the final proof that the entire international system is beyond broken. Between South Africa's baseless case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant by the ICC, justice, accountability and the upholding of international law lie in shambles, as the obsession with the world's only Jewish state continues for the benefit of the world's actual war criminals.

What is remarkable is that no arrest warrants to date have been issued for any of the following actual war criminals....

"The ICC is a kangaroo court and Karim Khan is a deranged fanatic. Woe to him and anyone who tries to enforce these outlaw warrants. Let me give them all a friendly reminder: the American law on the ICC is known as The Hague Invasion Act for a reason. Think about it." — US Senator Tom Cotton, X, November 21, 2024.
The ICC’s illegitimate, antisemitic ruling against Israel
The ICC is outright lying when it says that Israel is intentionally starving the citizens of Gaza when, in reality, it’s let in 900 kilotons of food over the past year. Hamas, on the other hand, steals the humanitarian aid trucks and doesn’t care if Gazans starve. And while Israel drops leaflets and sends warnings to Gazans when there is going to be an airstrike or a bombing, Hamas uses human shields to increase the number of casualties. If Israel were truly committing war crimes or genocide, the population of Gaza would be shrinking, when, in fact, it grew by 2.88%, or 22,000-plus people, in the last year.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the ICC arrest warrants antisemitic, stating that what’s happening is a “modern Dreyfus trial,” a reference to the French army officer who was accused of treason. It’s no surprise that countries like Spain and Ireland, which recognized Palestine as a sovereign state, are now saying that they would uphold the ICC’s ruling and arrest Netanyahu should he visit their countries.

The moral dishonesty perpetrated by the ICC shows how biased and illegitimate it is. While other war crimes happen around the world—like Turkey cutting off water and electricity last month to more than 1 million people in Syria—the ICC chooses to hurl false accusations at the world’s only Jewish state and show its true colors as Jew-haters.

Thankfully, in the United States, there has been bipartisan support for Israel and condemnation of the ICC’s decision across the board. A White House spokesperson said that the United States “fundamentally rejects the court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials.” Staunch Israel supporter Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) came to Israel’s defense on X, as did Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), who wrote that the ICC is a “kangaroo court” which “cannot let facts get in the way of its ideological crusade against the Jewish State.” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), who is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national security adviser, stated, “Israel has lawfully defended its people & borders from genocidal terrorists. You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & U.N. come January.”

It’s clear that the ICC is a sham, and this ruling should not be taken seriously. In the meantime, Israel will keep defending itself until Hamas is destroyed, its hostages are home, and its citizens are safe once again—as it rightfully should.


Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Arabs and Muslims "Betrayed" Hamas
When Hamas launched the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israeli communities near the border with Gaza, its leaders were hoping that many Arabs and Muslims would join the fight to eliminate Israel. The hope was that Hizbullah in Lebanon would launch a similar invasion of Israel, that Iran would unleash thousands of ballistic missiles against Israel, and that tens of thousands of Muslims would invade Israel from Jordan.

The only parties that chose to join Hamas's war on Israel were Iran's other terror proxies: Hizbullah, the Houthis in Yemen, some Shiite armed groups in Iraq, and several Iran-backed armed groups, consisting mostly of Palestinian Islamic Jihad members in the West Bank.

Hamas leaders view the involvement of Iran's other proxies in the Jihad against Israel as insufficient. "We truly feel let down by the [Islamic] nation in an unprecedented manner," said senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya. Many Palestinians and Arabs are openly talking about the "betrayal" of the Arabs and Muslims.

The reason more Arabs didn't join in is that many Arabs and Muslims are aware that Iran's mullahs want to use them to export the Iranian "Islamic Revolution" to their countries and to expand Iran's control over the Middle East. It appears that a large number of Arabs and Muslims are tired of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations constantly entangling the Palestinians in pointless and lethal conflicts with Israel.
70 Percent of Hizbullah's Weapons Were Russian-Made
Hizbullah obtained large quantities of advanced Russian arms originally sent to the Syrian military.

A senior officer in the Israel Defense Forces' enemy equipment collection unit said that 70% of Hizbullah's weapons seized by the Israeli military in Lebanon were Russian-made.

Russia also provided a supply route to Hizbullah that was protected from Israeli airstrikes thanks to the Russian navy base at Tartus in Syria, where the weapons were shipped.

In October, the Lebanese daily An-Nahar cited intelligence sources saying that Russia transferred drones to Hizbullah and that Russian soldiers trained its operatives on how to use them.


Call Me Back: A WINDOW OPENS FOR A HOSTAGE DEAL – with Nadav Eyal
Hosted by Dan Senor
As we witness Iran’s proxy system unravelling, there may be an opportunity for a new hostage deal and temporary ceasefire in Gaza.

Over the past few months, Israel has seen a number of successes, from the deaths of key Hamas and Hezbollah figures, to the destruction of Iran’s air defenses, a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah, and finally the fall of the Assad regime, which has collapsed Iran’s proxy strategy.

With Hamas in its weakest position yet, will they try to negotiate a hostage deal?

Are there common threads between this new development, the fall of Assad, the ceasefire in Lebanon, and the incoming US administration? To discuss, Nadav Eyal returns to the podcast.

Nadav Eyal is a columnist for Yediiot. He is one of Israel’s leading journalists. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.


Pro-Israel firebrand Rep. Brian Mast to be next Foreign Affairs chair
Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), an outspoken supporter of Israel and one of the most ardent opponents of a two-state solution in the House, is set to become the next chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee following a surprise vote on Monday by House Republican leadership.

Mast’s upset victory, which now must be ratified by the GOP conference, marks a clear shift from the tenure of outgoing Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) — a more moderate and internationalist dealmaker — to a firebrand conservative.

Mast beat out more establishment-aligned candidates who were believed to be favored — Reps. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Ann Wagner (R-MO) — as well as Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), for the slot in a surprise victory.

President-elect Donald Trump helped push Mast to victory, personally calling members of the GOP steering committee, which voted for Mast, to pressure them to support the Florida legislator, a source familiar with the situation told Jewish Insider.

Mast, a military veteran who lost his legs in an IED blast while serving in Afghanistan as an explosive ordnance disposal technician and later volunteered as a civilian in a support role for the Israeli Defense Forces, attracted attention on Capitol Hill when he wore an IDF uniform to Capitol Hill shortly after the Oct. 7 attack, in what he described as partly a response to Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) hanging a Palestinian flag outside her office.

He has been a vocal opponent of any U.S. aid to the Palestinians, and has questioned whether any Palestinians can be considered “innocent,” given support for Hamas inside Gaza and the West Bank. He’s attracted fury and condemnation from Democratic colleagues over such comments.

“I would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of innocent Palestinian civilians,” Mast said on the House floor earlier this year, arguing that, ideologically, most Palestinians could be described as terrorists. “I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term innocent Nazi civilians during World War II … There’s very few innocent Palestinian civilians.”

On the subject of a two-state solution, Mast has argued that a Palestinian state would inevitably become a launchpad for terrorist attacks on Israel.


Trump DOJ civil rights pick blasted campus protests, opposed Antisemitism Awareness Act
President-elect Donald Trump announced on Monday that he’s selecting Harmeet Dhillon, a legal advisor to his 2020 campaign who worked to challenge the election results and a Republican Party official, to lead the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

Dhillon and her firm have advocated an aggressive legal approach to antisemitism on college campuses, targeting both universities and protesters, but she also opposes the Antisemitism Awareness Act.

The legislation, currently stuck in Congress, codifies existing federal guidance first promulgated under the Trump administration that deem antisemitism a banned form of discrimination on college campuses and instruct the federal government to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism to evaluate such cases. The Biden administration extended that guidance to include a broader array of federal departments.

“Sue Yale. Sue every university that refuses to keep students safe based on their religion. Make them regret their choices,” Dhillon said on X in April, responding to a Jewish student who was attacked by anti-Israel demonstrators. “Deplete their endowments. Sue each and every violent protester and organizers.”

She criticized college campus protesters as play-acting without any real knowledge or understanding of what is happening in Gaza or the Oct. 7 attack.

“They’re just swept up in a mob,” Dhillon said. “They’re ill-informed, they’re poorly educated. They have no good parental guidance at home.”

Responding to protests on the University of California, Los Angeles campus, she said, “I defend the right of these jackass terrorist apologists to protest, but they do NOT have the right to block access to other students or prevent them from going to class. My tax dollars are subsidizing UCLA and the Regents need to get their act together ASAP or be sued!”

She has described members of the progressive Squad as the “Hamas caucus” and has criticized “Hamas professors and students.”




Nomad sentencing - No conviction for swastika
Restauranteur Al Yazbek “regrets every minute” that he displayed a swastika superimposed on an Israeli flag at a pro-Palestine rally on October 6, a magistrate said on Tuesday, as the Nomad founder was sentenced to a Community Release Order without conviction.

Yazbek had previously pleaded guilty at the Downing Centre Local Court to displaying a Nazi symbol in public.

When confronted by police at the October 6 rally, he initially questioned the offensiveness of the symbol, calling it an “Israeli swastika,” before complying and removing it.

In court, Yazbek apologised, saying he had intended to provoke thought about perceived parallels between Nazi Germany’s actions and the Israeli government’s policies. He admitted he failed to grasp the deep trauma the swastika represents for the Jewish community.

Magistrate Miranda Moody acknowledged Yazbek’s remorse and accepted that “he is no neo-Nazi or right wing extremist” and “in no way antisemitic”, but criticised his actions as “ignorant and provocative”.

She noted he had already faced severe repercussions for his actions, including resigning from his hospitality business and enduring threats against his family.

Speaking outside the court, Yazbek said, “I got it horribly wrong.

“I’m profoundly sorry. I hope the Jewish community can forgive me over time.”




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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

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