Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

The slanderous J-Street straw man that Israel misuses US aid for settlements or "annexation"

Jeremy Ben Ami of J-Street said on Sunday night:

Clarify that US assistance to Israel is to be used solely for the country's defense and that the United States will not foot the bill for annexation or pay for... a one state outcome. An important conversation has been started in this campaign about American policy regarding the uses for which American assistance to Israel can be put. Already in this presidential campaign we are hearing real conversations, real proposals, from several leading candidates, around ensuring that our assistance isn't being put to uses that actually deepen Israel's security challenges, whether it's annexation or settlement expansion. Current law is actually explicit as to the purposes that US security assistance can and can't be put by recipient countries including Israel. Our aid is not intended to be a blank check. Congress and the next administration at a minimum should take the necessary steps to gain visibility into how our assistance is being used, how our dollars are being spent, and to ensure that all existing laws regarding those uses are being followed.

Ben Ami is right about one thing: existing US laws allow for only certain uses of foreign aid.

But what he is demanding - and what some candidates are happily parroting from him - already exists. There are already audits as to how American money is being spent.

The US looks closely at how its aid is used, and when it finds a violation, it calls it out. The last time this happened for Israel was in 2006 when, as a recent Congressional Research Service report says,

After Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon, the State Department issued a preliminary report to Congress concluding that Israel may have violated the terms of agreements with the United States that restrict Israel’s use of U.S.-supplied cluster munitions to certain military targets in non-civilian areas.

No violations have been found since then.

In 2016 - during the Obama administration - some members of Congress formally asked for an investigation into whether Israel used American funds to allegedly extrajudically kill some specific Palestinians. The State Department investigated and found that no American money was involved in the incidents.

Similarly, the CRS report says that there is some aid to Israel that is specifically meant to be used within the Green Line - for immigrant absorption and for some binational foundations, such as the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation, and this is audited as well.

99.8% of US aid to Israel is earmarked for specific military purposes - the vast majority for missile defense systems, F-35s and anti-tunnel defense systems. None of that money can be repurposed. The remaining 0.2% goes to immigrant absorption and homeland security - research into technologies for first responders and early warning systems that can be used in the US.

This demand by J-Street to further investigate that which is already being carefully vetted is a straw man to imply that Israel has been misusing US aid. As such, it is a slander. It is also a slander against the US government by saying that the existing extensive audit mechanism is not adequate, and that Israel can somehow pull the wool over the eyes of the US.

If that is true, then aid to other countries really need to be looked at more closely as well. But J-Street doesn't care about whether US aid to Jordan or Egypt is audited and money secretly going to terrorists. They only accuse Israel of using American money to break the law.

This is reprehensible. But then again, this is J-Street.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

10/29 Links Pt1: Noah Rothman: How Trump Can Avoid Obama’s Terror Trap; Missing The Point Of The Latest Middle East Protests; Lebanese PM al-Hariri resigns

From Ian:

Noah Rothman: How Trump Can Avoid Obama’s Terror Trap

Obama’s impulse to dismiss the threat posed by Islamist insurgents in the wake of bin Laden’s death explains why he was so quick to dismiss the first wave of ISIS terrorists even as they sacked Iraqi cities. “The analogy we use around here sometimes,” the former president told the New Yorker’s David Remnick, “is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.” Obama’s commitment to this narrative applied not only politically but in terms of policy, too. Though he conceded that “terrorism” remained a threat to the American homeland in a May 2014 address to cadets at West Point, the former president also claimed that the terror threat could not be alleviated by military means alone. “A strategy that involves invading every country that harbors terrorist networks is naïve and unsustainable,” the president insisted. By the end of the year, though, ISIS would have conquered vast swaths of territory in the Middle East, and American troops and airpower would again be unleashed on targets in both Iraq and Syria.

And though Obama would eventually acknowledge his failure to anticipate ISIS’s rise or to develop a comprehensive strategy to combat it, his administration still stubbornly refused to acknowledge the obvious when it came to radical Islamist terror. As late as the summer of 2016, following the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, administration officials made a concerted effort to “shift the conversation more to hate and not just terrorism,” according to CBS News reporter Paula Reid. Indeed, it’s hard to explain why the Justice Department scrubbed references to ISIS and al-Baghdadi in the transcript of the shooter’s confessional 911 call in the absence of a directive aimed at minimizing the revivified Islamist terror threat.

Like his predecessor, Donald Trump seems committed to the idea that ISIS has been “decimated” and can no longer recruit foreign fighters or effectively export terrorism. He’s been saying as much since February, and the death of ISIS’s chief executive will only make that narrative more irresistible. The evidence that Trump has begun to believe his own hype is not hard to come by. Experts have warned that the abrupt withdrawal of U.S. forces from forward positions in Syria would sow the seeds for an ISIS resurgence at least since Trump began to flirt with the prospect last December. If anything, those expert analyses underestimated the humanitarian and strategic setbacks that would follow such a withdrawal. American military and diplomatic officials appear clear-eyed about the potential for an ISIS comeback, but the president remains far more sanguine about the Islamist terrorist threat than his subordinates.

The dispatching of al-Baghdadi is a welcome development, but it does not make up for the strategic initiative sacrificed in the lead-up to this weekend’s successful operation. Today, as American special forces reportedly retake Syrian positions they’d abandoned only weeks or days earlier, U.S. positions in eastern Syria are reinforced with mechanized forces, and the State Department rallies a Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in anticipation of the worst, it would behoove Trump to internalize a lesson his predecessor learned too late. He’d do well to hedge his bets.

Missing The Point Of The Latest Middle East Protests

In Lebanon and in Iraq, millennials have taken to the streets to protest their respective governments. It stands to reason — in both countries, services are minimal, jobs are non-existent, and the best way to make a living is to leave. Garbage piles up in the streets of Beirut and forest fires have decimated the country. In Iraq, corruption is endemic. But in both countries, there is more afoot.

The demonstrators, representing a variety of religious and ethnic groups in countries that have been wracked by sectarian fighting, are in agreement that the presence of Iran and its proxies in their homelands has deformed politics and economics alike.

Young people want Iran out.

Association with the Islamic Republic means that assets are taken and used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, not by the civilian government, and it means religious and ethnic tensions are stoked to ensure that a unified public cannot impede Iran’s regional ambitions. Iran wants Iraq for the oil and also for the passageway through Sunni territory to Syria, Lebanon, and the Mediterranean Sea. It helped create the instability of ISIS in Iraq by “offering” to help contain the threat via Shiite militias commanded by Iranian officers. Those Shiite militias remain in the largely Sunni western part of Iraq and in the Kurdish areas.

The story in Lebanon goes back farther — to the early days of the Islamic Republic. Iran created Hezbollah and had its hand in the 1982 Marine barracks bombing that killed 244 Americans. It fostered and enlarged Hezbollah and planted an arsenal of rockets and missiles in southern Lebanon (in violation of U.N. Resolution 1701) and missile factories closer to Beirut. Lebanese civilians live between the Iranian/Hezbollah arsenal and potential Israeli retaliation if that arsenal is used.

Permanent revolution, permanent warfare, permanent upheaval — stoked by an outside force — makes it impossible to create the workable, modern, growing economy millennials demand; particularly in Lebanon, where there is a well-educated generation that crosses sectarian divides.

The strategic utility of mocking Abu Bakr al Baghdadi

Announcing ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi's death, President Trump didn't hold back on Sunday. Baghdadi, Trump said, "died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way."

That was only the first of a number of insults Trump lobbed at Baghdadi and the Islamic State during his speech. But while some are condemning the president's rhetoric, I believe it was both morally justified and strategically valuable.

Although it might appear that Trump was resorting to standard-fare rhetorical excesses, the president seems to have intended his words to carry a broader strategic effect here. Note, for example, Trump's repeated focus on dogs, an animal regarded by most Islamic teachings as unclean and unworthy of companionship. Describing Baghdadi's desperate attempt to escape, Trump noted how "our dogs chased him down." Trump later observed that many ISIS fighters are "very frightened puppies" and concluded by saying that Baghdadi "died like a dog — he died like a coward."

This canine focus is extremely odd unless it is intentional, which I suspect it is. And that would be a good thing. ISIS presents itself as the holiest citadel of warriors, as a group serving God's pure and ordained will on Earth. But when the leader of ISIS's most hated adversary mocks its deceased caliph (emperor) as a fool who ran into a dead-end tunnel while being chased by lowly dogs, it erodes ISIS's credibility. It underscores how the organization, which at one point nearly qualified for its own seat at the United Nations, is now perceived as a sad joke.

This story from JIMENA has not received the publicity it requires:

The Cultural Property Advisory Committee at the U.S. Department of State has been signing Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) agreements with foreign governments that blockade the entry of cultural property to the USA and deny Jews and Christians from Arab countries the rights to their historic heritage. Through the MOU process, our government is transferring ownership of confiscated Jewish property to various Arab governments that expelled or forced their Jewish populations to flee antisemitic persecution under duress. Despite the protestations of Jewish communal organizations, including; ADL: The Anti-Defamation League, Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, B’nai Brith International, Simon Wiesenthal Center, World Jewish Congress of North America, and many others, MOU agreements have been signed with Algeria, Libya, Egypt and Syria.

The signing of the MOUs is done under the auspices of The Cultural Property Implementation Act (CPIA). This law provides for the US to enter into agreements with foreign nations to temporarily restrict the import of “significant” cultural items as part of a multi-nation effort to deter looting of ancient archeological sites. Over time the State Department has broadened the scope of the law to provide for “near permanent” bans on the import of ALL cultural items to the present time. The MOUs recognize those nation’s claims and seizures of all cultural property, including the personal property of individuals and the communal property of religious and ethnic groups.

The MOUs are based on a flawed premise – that Jewish cultural property constitutes the national heritage of Arab governments. In fact, under the color of law, Jewish cultural property in Arab countries was expropriated from private homes, schools, and synagogues. It is the heritage and patrimony of the Jewish people. Arab governments have done little to preserve the remnants or memory of Jewish history in the countries and verified reports describe Jewish synagogues, pilgrimage sites, homes, and cemeteries being looted and destroyed. Jewish holy sites throughout the Middle East and North Africa have been appropriated and many demolished.

There are hearings on this topic today and tomorrow to review the MOU for Yemen and Morocco.

Hopefully the State Department will realize that their stated desire to save cultural identity is actually erasing it.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Yesterday at the J-Street conference Bermie Sanders said that as president he would tell Israel, “If you want military aid, you’re going to have to fundamentally change your relationship with the people of Gaza. In fact, I think it is fair to think that some of that $3.8 billion should go to humanitarian aid to Gaza.”

Others have already noted how crazy what he said was:

Just when you thought Bernie Sanders couldn’t get any more radical, he outdid himself. He wants to take money we give to Israel to defend itself from terrorists, and give it to Gaza, which is run by terrorists?? Unreal. Why isn’t every other Dem pres candidate saying he’s wrong?
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) October 29, 2019

But Sanders doesn't even have his facts about Gaza right.

Gaza is a hellhole, no doubt about it. But Israel has been working to help the innocent people of Gaza, a fact that the media largely ignores.

Israel decided this year to allow day laborers into Israel from Gaza. Nearly 4000 Gazans now have entry permits into Israel, and another thousand are approved.

The number of Gazans entering Israel every month is now nearly double what it was in 2018.

The number of Gazans entering Israel is more than double the number that enter Egypt.

Sanders claimed that many of the items denied by Israel into Gaza were items that could not be used for military purposes. This hasn't been true for many years. If Gazans can order the items and find a seller, they can get it.

Israel allows and promotes infrastructure projects in Gaza. The amount of waste Gaza spills into the sea is now half what it was in January. The desalination plant is up and running.

Surprisingly, Gaza now imports about twice as much fuel from Egypt as from Israel, almost certainly because the PA cannot tax the fuel from Egypt so Hamas can get it for cheaper.

(Most of these statistics come from the UN.)

Israel has worked closely with Qatar to bring in aid to Gaza. The relationship started when Egypt refused to allow Qatar to ship construction materials into Gaza through its border. It was Israel that agreed with an Arab country that is friendly with Hamas in order to help ordinary Gazans.

The shortages of medicine and power in Gaza are usually more the fault of the Palestinian Authority which has been trying to use economic warfare against Hamas, collectively punishing all Gazans. When was the last time you heard the word "collective punishment" used against Palestinians that was not blaming Israel?

Israel has done other things but reserves the right to modify them (like how far Gaza fishermen can go into the Mediterranean) when there are rockets or other attacks from Gaza. Lately, things have been quieter and as a result things are getting slowly better for Gazans.

In many ways, Israel is helping Gazans more than any Arab country (including the PA) outside of Qatar. (Iran, meanwhile, payrolls Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, a small fact that wouldn't be mentioned at J-Street either.)

So what would Bernie propose, specifically, that Israel do more than it already is? Gaza's problems are a result of Hamas and Palestinian Authority infighting, Hamas prioritizing terror over governance, and Arabs at large sick and tired of supporting the Palestinian issue.

It isn't the blockade. It's not as if Gaza is exporting goods to Egypt. Nothing is stopping that - except Egypt doesn't want to buy. Would Bernie force Israel to buy Gaza goods it doesn't want?

Living in Gaza is awful. Israel is doing a great deal that the media (and of course J-Street panelists and speakers) do not report on, because demonizing Israel is the order of the day.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

"Students for Justice in Palestine" proud of harassing a Holocaust survivor

This video was proudly uploaded by a branch of Students for Justice in Palestine.

Earlier this week, Holocaust survivor Harold Kasimow spoke at Benedictine University about his experiences and the horrors of living as a Jew in Europe during the Shoah.

A Palestinian student named Ayah Ali decided to harass him, asking him whether he opposed the "exile and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people" that, she says, is "similar" to the systematic genocide of millions of Jews.

Although the question is ludicrous and patently offensive, Kasimow tried to be polite and say that he is not expert enough to opine on that, that it is a complicated issue and that others could discuss the Palestinian issue with more authority, although he did say he thinks Israel should exist and he hopes for peace between the two sides.

Ali did not deserve to be treated politely. Kasimow should have told her that if Israel existed in 1939, his family could have been saved - and she would have preferred that they die. He should have said that she has no idea what genocide and ethnic cleansing means and should take a basic class on the subject before lecturing him. He should have said that he knows a thing or two about antisemitism and she is the one who qualifies for wanting to continue the Nazi Final Solution.

The obnoxious student didn't stop and kept trying twice more to corner him into a yes or no answer that he politely refused to provide.

The student called herself a "survivor of the intifada," literally comparing herself to the Jews of Europe in the 1940s, as if the intifada was an Israeli action against Palestinians rather than a terror spree of bus bombings and shootings of Jews.

Ali left in a huff because she pretended to be so "hurt" that Kasimow didn't regard her suffering as comparable to the Shoah.

Benedictine SJP was very happy with the sick display of Arab antisemitism, tweeting:

Inspired by his words and beliefs, an SJP Benedictine member mentioned a current situation that is ongoing: the genocide, ethnic cleansing, and exile of Palestinians living in under occupation. Palestinian children have suffered from the lack of basic human rights and are targeted because of their identity. However, to our surprise, Mr. Kasimow was in full support of the Israeli state that is built upon the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

To make this even more absurd, in 2017, Ayah Ali explicitly advocated genocide of Jews.

She would love to see a genocide six million Jews.

(h/t American Zionism)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

10/28 Links Pt2: Jewish Unity Required to Combat Anti-Semitism; Islamists impersonating Jews; Disguised as Agricultural Work, French Pro-BDS Org also Supports Terrorism

From Ian:

Jewish Unity Required to Combat Anti-Semitism

A neo-Nazi gunman's attack in Halle, Germany, on Yom Kippur, the Jewish people's holiest day, made the mounting security threat we face that much clearer. For American Jews, the wake-up call came exactly one year ago in Pittsburgh, when the worst anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history struck the Tree of Life building housing three synagogues. Six months later, another synagogue attack occurred in Poway, California, on the final day of Passover.

The physical attacks are unmistakable signs of a long-brewing worldwide epidemic of anti-Semitism. Each day brings another harrowing headline. From cyber abuse to street insults, to vandalism of synagogues and cemeteries, to intimidation and threats in public, Jews around the world are living in a constant state of fear due to the simple fact that they are Jews.

Anti-Semites do not discriminate when it comes to their victims. Those looking to harm us could care less whether we wear a kippah or to which synagogue we belong, if at all. In the face of this shared threat, the Jewish people must stand united in purpose and action.

Protecting Jewish life from hatred and bigotry is a central component of the Jewish Agency's DNA. We are combating this surge in anti-Semitism by working closely with leaders across the globe to coordinate combating hate crimes against Jews, investing in education for tolerance and understanding, and increasing security for Jewish communities in need.

Ultimately, counteracting this scourge of hate goes far beyond bolstered security. It starts within our own hearts and minds, through an uncompromised commitment to Jewish unity.

The BDS mindset is a challenge to liberal democracy here, as well as in Israel. Centrists must defend a precious inheritance.

It is all too easy to dismiss the movement boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel (BDS) as insignificant—having sway only among academic radicals, student activists, and the extremist fringes of the Democratic party. But to do so would be a serious mistake, writes William Kolbrener:

[T]he ideas that inform BDS, and which have influenced parts of the Democratic Party, are part of an ideological status quo at humanities departments across the United States. Specifically, the creed of “intersectionality” positions Zionism and Israel as beyond the postmodern pale: the embodiment of fundamentalist religion, ultra-nationalist politics, and militarism. . . .

Like Satan in John Milton’s great epic Paradise Lost, in order to win BDS must merely create a moral equivalence between the heavenly and satanic angels. BDS does not need . . . to bring centrist liberals to their Devil’s party. Just suggesting a moral equivalence between Israel and its adversaries is enough to persuade life-long liberals to entertain the devil’s fictions: that, for example, the seventeen-year-old girl who was killed last month after swimming with her brother and father “was a settler, after all.” . . .

Those in the BDS movement, and especially their radical Islamist allies, understand the ideological exhaustion of liberals. They cultivate the growing, if still somewhat suppressed, notion among them that the institutions of democracy are irrevocably tainted by colonialism, racism, and sexism.

UK Lawyers for Israel tells YouTube it's promoting violence; Reinstate CNEPR

UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has sent a letter to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki demanding that the channel of the Center for Near Policy Research (CNEPR) be reinstated. The channel was shut down earlier this month for what the social video giant claimed were “repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines on Violence or Graphic content.”

CNEPR works to uncover corruption within the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. The organization has produced several mini documentaries that highlight violence, antisemitism and extremism in UNRWA schools.

Jonathan Turner, chief executive of UKLFI, signed the letter to Wojcicki. In it he wrote that “CNEPR... sought to demonstrate the existence, nature and consequences of the Indoctrination” of UNRWA’s work in its videos. “This was all done in context so as not to shock or disgust or encourage the commission of violent acts. On the contrary the aim was to stop the encouragement of violence. The videos complied with YouTube policies.”

Turner goes on to explain that in his legal estimation, “the censoring of these videos is an unjustified restriction of freedom of expression and information regarding the activities of UNRWA, contrary to the core values of YouTube.

“This censoring is all the more serious at the present time, since States that contribute to UNRWA are currently considering whether to renew its mandate and, if so, on what terms,” the letter continues. “In short, by restricting the visibility of CNEPR’s videos, YouTube risks contributing to a continuation of the promotion of violence, antisemitism and extremism.”

“What is going on in UNRWA schools is a very serious matter,” Turner said. “We should try to ensure [that the materials] get published and UNRWA gets stopped.”

Islamists impersonating Jews

We've uncovered a network of Islamists that are impersonating orthodox Jews to try and create the impression there's mass opposition to Israel from Jews. ???? 95% of the world's Jews support Israel ???? A tiny group of orthodox Jews do not That's why they need to fake it.

One of the most common challenges to the Divest-nista crowd is why they don’t call and march for divestment against Sudan, China, Syria or any of the totalitarian dictatorships whose daily human rights abuses dwarf anything Israel could have possibly done over the course of 60 years.

Generally, their first response is to ignore the question and move onto their next accusations (real or imagined) against Israel, hoping that no one will peek behind the curtain. While such stonewalling can work for a while, those trying to sell BDS to the general public must eventually explain the apparent double standard whereby Israel must be punished while its dictatorial critics are left alone. Some of the more easily dismissed excuses I’ve seen from US-based divestniks include:

· Israel is a democracy and thus our protests can have an impact there (ignoring the obvious corollary that the best way to avoid the wrath of these alleged “human rights” champions is to be a dictatorship)

· Israel is an ally of the US, and thus as Americans we are obliged to criticize our friends more than our foes (ignoring the obvious question as to why their limitless hostility does not extend to other US allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt)

· “Israel receives [pick your sum, ranging from three-billion to eleventy-jillion dollars] in US aid so as a US citizen it’s the use of my tax dollars I’m protesting” (never specifying why a country like Egypt, which receives 2/3 as much US aid as Israel - a formula calculated at Camp David decades ago - receives <1 66="" against="" boycotters="" direct="" hostility="" israel="" o:p="" of="" rather="" than="" the="">

Clearly, these are just excuses or rationalizations for people who have a political agenda (hostility towards the Jewish state) who feel a need to dress up their attitudes in the ill-fitting garments of legitimate principle. Yet even if such hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays to virtue, the excuses BDSers use to explain their obvious double standards only stretches so thin, often with embarrassing results.

My favorite example of over-reach in an effort to explain away the double standard was the UK academic boycotters who claimed their effort to sanction Israeli universities would be particularly effective because of the Jews unique love and respect for learning. Needless to say, this implied dissing of the scholarly passions of non-Jewish societies did not go over well with the boycotters' third-worlder constituency.

Within this rickety pile of excuses, the only one that is backed by enough fact to not be immediately dismissed as a smoke screen is the claim that the call for boycotting Israel welled up from the Palestinians themselves in the form of a 2002 boycott call from the Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (or PACBI). Because the PACBI BDS call (unlike so many divestment hoaxes) actually exists, poking holes in this argument takes a little more effort. But not much…

To be continued…

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Omar Shakir proves he has lied about his actions since joining @HRW and does advocate boycotting all of Israel, today

Omar Shakir from Human Rights Watch responded to his critics that wanted him deported from Israel last April:

Israeli authorities say they’re deporting me because I promote boycotts of Israel. Setting aside the paradox of the region’s self-proclaimed “only democracy” deporting a rights defender over peaceful expression, the claim isn’t true.

Human Rights Watch neither supports nor opposes boycotts of Israel, a fact that Israel’s Ministry of Interior acknowledged last year. Rather, we document the practices of businesses in settlements as part of our global efforts to urge companies, governments and other actors to meet their human rights responsibilities. We also defend the right of individuals to support or oppose boycotts peacefully, as a matter of freedom of speech and conscience.

Initially, the Israeli government said it revoked my work visa based on a dossier it compiled on my long-past student-activist days, before I became the Human Rights Watch Israel-Palestine director in October 2016. When we challenged the deportation in court, noting that the Interior Ministry’s own guidelines require support for a boycott to be “active and continuous,” they shifted to highlight Human Rights Watch research on the activities of businesses such as Airbnb and our recommendation that they cease operating in settlements.

His entire argument is that advocating businesses boycott settlements is not a boycott of Israel but a human rights activity against occupation. He says he hasn't advocated boycotting Israel since he was hired by HRW.

His latest tweet shows this to be an absolute lie:

Shakir is now explicitly calling for Airbnb to boycott Israel itself.

By this criterion, Airbnb couldn't operate anywhere in the Western Hemisphere or Australia because all land is "stolen." Is that HRW's position? Or is it, as always, only Israel that has to fit these bizarre and arbitrary criteria to be considered moral enough?

This also shows that the rhetoric against the "occupation" has always been a smokescreen by critics of Israel. They are against Israel, period, and they latch onto the "settlements" as an easier target, but their true aims are shown here.

Including the true aims of Human Rights Watch.

(h/t Michael Elgort)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

10/28 Links Pt1: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, rapist, led genocidal 'caliphate,' died in tunnel; Abbas Orders To Rebuild Home Of Mother Of Six Terrorists; PA child abuse: Kids taught to offer their "blood"

From Ian:

Seth J. Frantzman: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, rapist, led genocidal 'caliphate,' died in tunnel

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was a rapist. Like most jihadists, his main motivation was murder and genocide, combined with far-Right religious hatred. In Islamic State, the organization and "state" that he led, he was able to exploit various strands of followers to create the closest thing the Middle East has seen to a short-lived, Nazi-style country.

He spent his days as leader raping women the group had kidnapped while his men died on the front lines. Like Hitler, he enjoyed the good life while his Sunni soldiers suffered under the bombs of the US-led coalition and struggled to stop the rising tide of Shi’ite militias and Kurdish fighters arrayed against them.

For much of his time in the leadership of ISIS, the rapist Baghdadi was a kind of mirage, a shadowy figure who was reportedly killed several times. Yet he survived, escaping again and again as his enemies closed in. Baghdadi was a religious devotee as a young man, and was detained by the Americans after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Born in central Iraq, he joined an extremist group, was picked up near Falluja, and held at Camp Bucca in 2004. Rukmini Callimachi, the New York Times correspondent who covers ISIS, writes that by the time he was detained, he was not only radicalized but he “began inciting attacks against Shia prisoners, using metal shanks.”

In his hatred of Shi’ites, Baghdadi was channeling a new kind of jihadist zeal. While al-Qaeda and others had launched a war against the West and against local totalitarian and corrupted governments under the banner of “Islam,” the concepts floating around Iraq in 2004 viewed non-Sunnis as sub-humans. They all had to be killed: Christians, Shi’ites, Yazidis and other groups such as Kurds.

This was a truly Nazi-style ideology that saw the world in terms of believers and sub-humans. It was helped along by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq who pushed for more targeting of Shi’ites and minorities. Mass attacks in 2004 on Shi’ite shrines were carried out in Karbala, killing hundreds. Baghdadi was paying attention.

Seth J. Frantzman: Eight takeaways from the Baghdadi raid

The US raid that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was executed in the first hours of October 27. It has many similarities with the raid to kill al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in 2011. President Donald Trump’s theatrics have made it sound more interesting. We don’t know all the details, but here are some of the takeaways.

It took an hour to get there
Trump says that the eight helicopters had to fly over an hour to their target. This has led to speculation about where they came from. Martin Chulov at The Guardian says that the raid began just before 3:30 a.m. and the copters flew from Erbil in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region. It was a 70-minute flight. But Trump, in subsequent comments to the press on October 27 said the copters landed in a “friendly country” in a “port.” The port comment has led to a bit of a mystery, and it’s also not entirely clear if Trump would refer to Iraq as a friendly country.

Thank you: Russia, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Kurds

Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and the Syrian Kurds were all given thanks for their support. The Syrian Democratic Forces have been warning for months about Baghdadi trying to get to Idlib province in northwest Syria, where he was eventually found. In March, they had indicated that he might be there. The SDF is the main partner of the US on the ground in Syria, but Trump’s decision to leave Syria enabled a Turkish attack on the SDF.

The US had to fly over areas with Turkish and Russia air defense. It had to inform Russia, the Syrian regime and Turkey.

Trump was seeking to leave Syria as intel found Baghdadi
Trump was about to announce the US withdrawal from parts of Syria on October 6 when intelligence began to pinpoint Baghdadi, who had released tapes in September and April. Many believed he was in his home country of Iraq, or in the Syrian desert. There are up to 14,000 ISIS fighters there in the desert regions of Iraq and Syria, so he could hide with them. But as it turned out, a man appeared in mid-September before Iraqi intelligence who had smuggled two of Baghdadi’s wives through Turkey and two of his brothers. Iraqi intelligence was then able to penetrate Baghdadi’s family and handed details to the CIA.

As the information came in, Trump was already making his move to leave. But the intel led to several false starts. For weeks, Baghdadi was under surveillance. Three raids had to be cancelled, Trump said. Finally at the end of October they had him, in a house next to the Turkish border, home to another extremist group called Hurras al-Din. Baghdadi might have been seeking to go across into Turkey, or to revive ISIS in Idlib. He had to be taken down before he could move again. Trump agreed.

Col. Richard Kemp: Islamic State leader killed in Syria

Some experts claim the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is only a symbolic success against the Islamic State. That’s wrong. It’s a major blow to IS and Islamic jihadists around the world, at least as important as the killing of his former leader Osama Bin Laden in 2011.

Al-Baghdadi was a hugely influential and inspirational figure for radical Muslims everywhere, his claim to be directly descended from the prophet Muhammad’s grandson widely accepted. A Koranic scholar at the University of Baghdad, he had a religious authority that armed his followers to counter claims that IS was a distortion of Islam.

Al-Baghdadi had been on the run and his Islamic State in retreat for many months following intensive coalition attacks against them. His death signals their final defeat but only in its current form. It does not mean the end of al-Baghdadi’s brutal vision any more than Bin Laden’s death was the end of Al Qaida, which has since increased its strength in various parts of the world.

Two months ago he named his successor but experience shows that terrorist groups evolve like the hydra, sprouting multiple heads, with subordinate leaders freed to carry out their own malevolent and sometimes more effective plans. Al-Baghdadi himself gained power after the killing of his former boss Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Islamic State in Iraq.

Yamine Mohammed is an ex-Muslim who now helps Muslims and ex-Muslims deal with their circumstances with their communities and families.

Her recently published memoir, Unveiled, is a truly harrowing account of her life. It is ultimately a heroic story of how she managed to overcome a sickeningly abusive childhood and to escape her circumstances, while shining a light on how millions of Muslims are forced to live.

To be sure, most Muslims do not have to endure what Yasmine did. Her mother has severe psychological problems and turned to extreme Islam in order to find order in her own life. She married (according to Islam) an abusive man who was already married and who insisted on strict application of rules that he called Muslim. This man sexually abused Yasmine.

But the real abuse came from her mother. She only got pregnant with Yasmine in order to try to keep her first husband from leaving her and since that plot failed, she treated Yasmine like an unwanted excretion from her body that she was stuck with. (She would actually tell her that.)

Her mother embraced the most extreme Islam of her husband in order to find meaning in her own damaged life.

To a large extent, the book is Yasmine's relationship with, and attempts to break free from, her mother - a woman who would tell her husband that 6-year old Yasmine didn't do her prayers properly so that he would brutally beat his stepdaughter on the bottoms of her feet so the bruises wouldn't show.

Yasmine grew up believing that she was worthless and that her mother held the key to allow her into heaven, so she was in a never-ending cycle of trying to gain love from a woman who truly hated her. But she would always question the rules she was forced to live under, and sometimes she would meet others who liked her for who she was, giving her a glimmer of much-needed self-esteem under the crushing weight of the twin burdens of her family and Islam.

So many times in her life it looked like she would finally break free, only to be reeled back in by circumstances.

Chillingly, Yasmine finally gave in to be married to a man her mother chose for her that her mother herself tried to seduce. This man imprisoned her in every real sense, even beating her for idly singing the alphabet song when looking up something in a reference book. Their baby's birth both cemented her prison sentence and gave her the resolve to escape so her daughter would never have to live through the same hell she did.

She finally managed a (Canadian) divorce, and only later found out that her husband was a major Al Qaeda terrorist.

Slowly, sometimes agonizingly so, Yasmine manages to escape the hell of her upbringing.

How much of her awful childhood was a result of Islam and how much from a psychotic mother and abusive stepfather/"uncle"? Yasmine brings statistics and plenty of anecdotes from other Muslims and ex-Muslims about things like female genital mutilation, sexual assault and the psychological pain from wearing a hijab and (later) a full burka. She mentions a friend who broke free, and when she fell and hurt herself and her boyfriend ran to see if she was OK she assumed he would berate her for being so stupid. That's how generations of women are taught to think about themselves.

There is no way most Muslims grow up in such an environment, certainly not in Canada where Yasmine was born, but her story is not so different from how many Muslim women are forced to live in Muslim-majority countries. She had opportunities to meet others, especially the years she was allowed to go to public school, and to start to question things. Most Muslim women in Islamic countries do not even have that lifeline.

Her final chapter is an appeal to today's feminists, who are so anxious to find something to protest that they spend their time blowing up truly minor issues like whether to remove the "e" from "women" yet they ignore the patriarchy and often abuse that is imposed on hundreds of millions of girls and women, today, in Muslim-majority countries. Fear of being labeled "Islamophobic" wins out over helping so many who are imprisoned as Yasmine was. It is a damning indictment of today's Western feminism and a world where Nike would never consider to put its logo on Mormon women's underwear but happily places it on a hijab that so many wear not out of free will but out of fear.

This is a frightening and ultimately uplifting book about a remarkable woman and her incredible journey.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

J-Street's session on "The Trump Legacy on Israel/Palestine"

On Sunday, the J-Street conference hosted a panel session entitled "Scorched Earth: The Trump Legacy on Israel/Palestine."

The participants were:

Debra Shushan, Director of Policy and Government Relations, Americans for Peace Now (Moderator)
Khaled Elgindy, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
Ilan Goldenberg, Senior Fellow and Director of the Middle East Security Program, Center
for a New American Security
Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin, Political Analyst, Public Opinion Expert
Daniel Seidemann, Founder and Director, Terrestrial Jerusalem

Shushan gave a monologue at the beginning. She reviewed most of Donald Trump's moves, all of which she considered to be awful, and she wanted her panelists to describe how all of them can be rolled back in a future Democratic administration.

She called the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem "the hostile takeover of the consulate in Jerusalem by [David] Friedman's embassy."

She also encouraged the audience to boo Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel. It is axiomatic at J-Street that certain government officials must be treated with utmost disrespect, something Democrats complained bitterly about - rightly - when Obama was president.

In addition, Shushan sarcastically said that Israeli claims that annexation of the Golan Heights and the West Bank would be legal based on the principle that one can annex land won in a defensive war was a brand new, legally untenable position. While most modern legal scholars agree with Shushan that land cannot be legally annexed in any circumstances, it is not unanimous nor has it been uniformly applied since the UN Charter, as Eugene Kontorovich has demonstrated.

Daniel Seidemann described how he gave a tour of Jerusalem to Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt. He told them that Arabs in Jerusalem east of the Green Line "are not entitled to receive citizenship" in Israel.

He is lying and he knows he is lying. (He is an expert on Jerusalem so it is disappointing when he knowingly pushes lies.) The process has been difficult but thousands have become citizens and many more are on their way; Israel is trying to streamline the process.

Khaled Elgindy said during his main talk that Clinton and Obama tried to make peace - but for some reason never mentions that Palestinian rejectionism was what stopped the initiatives. Later on someone asked him bout whether Arafat missed the boat in rejecting the Clinton peace plan and Elgindy denied that Arafat did that, saying that both Barak and Arafat accepted the plan. He later tweeted me his proof:

I responded that Clinton had no desire to sabotage any chance for peace while he was in office by insulting Arafat but not long after he left office he made it clear that Arafat was the rejectionist and Barak was ready to give major concessions:

And this as well:

While I agree that technically both Arafat and Barak accepted the plan with reservations, Clinton showed afterwards that Barak was the only one serious about it and Arafat was playing games (which Barak elaborates on in great detail.)

The bigger point is that Jews have been accepting and proposing peace offers since before 1948 and each of them has been consistently rejected by the Palestinian Arabs. That is a key point in any discussion on peace, which J-Street claims it cares about, yet only Israel is blamed for the lack of peace. This is a major blind spot in the liberal world which then leaks into a blind spot for everyone who does not spend serious time researching the topic.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Arab media reveal super-secret plan by Jewish Agency to encourage aliyah

Al Araby, the British pan-Arab newspaper known in its English edition as The New Arab, has a scoop.

The Jewish Agency in Israel is secretly trying to get Jews to move to Israel!

YNet reported:

The Jewish Agency's board of trustees was meeting in Jerusalem on Sunday to approve a strategic action plan of action for the next decade, addressing the challenges facing the Jewish people in the modern era - and at its center the sharp rise in anti-Semitic incidents around the world.

According to the plan, the Jewish Agency will work to ensure the security of Jewish communities around the world, and will fight vigorously against the manifestations of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

The agency will work with the government of Israel, Jewish communities and other organizations in three key areas.

1. Political, which will include activities involving heads of state, parliaments and law enforcement bodies

2. Security, which will increase the protection for Jewish institutions

3. Educational, which will focus on eliminating the phenomenon of anti-Semitism through in-depth study, bolstered by hundreds of Israeli emissaries and working with local educators

The Jewish Agency will also encourage immigration to Israel – helping those immigrate freely as well as conducting clandestine "emergency aliyah" operations in hostile nations.

That last item becomes the most important on in Arab media, where the headline is on a "secret plan" to encourage Jews to move to "Palestine." They say "The main aim of the plan, described by the paper as 'an additional goal,' is to encourage Jewish immigration to Israel by providing assistance to those who choose voluntary immigration to Israel. "

Who knew the Jewish Agency encouraged aliyah?

Here is the illustration in the Al Araby article:

Scary religious Jews!

And that is not only in Al Araby. The same article in other Arab media uses a similar picture:

Scary Jews doing Talmudic rituals!

The idea of Jews moving to Israel causes panic among Arabs, ever since they got the British to limit immigration from Jews in the 1930s. And these pictures are of the scariest Jews around to them - the ones who actually have a spiritual attachment to the land.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Iran drops out of youth chess tournament for fear of being banned for refusing to compete with Israelis

Earlier this month, an Iranian youth chess champion refused to play with his Israeli counterpart.

For once, the FIDE chess federation made its displeasure public in this tweet from its vice president Nigel David Short:

Iran seems to be spooked.

From Radio Farda:

A series of "considerations" and "financial complications" has forced the Islamic Republic's Chess Federation not to dispatch Iran's team to the World Youth Under-16 Chess Olympiad in Turkey, says the federation president.

Without further elaboration, Mehrdad Pahlavanzadeh insisted on Sunday, October 26, that the international chess federation (FIDE) has not eliminated Iran from the list of competing countries, and Tehran has voluntarily decided to stay out of the championship.

Based on an "unwritten law," Iranian athletes are banned from competing with their Israeli counterparts or attending medal ceremonies alongside them.

Iranian athletes' refusal to compete with Israelis has triggered a series of disputes between Tehran and international sports federations.

Reacting to Iran's refusal to participate in the World Championship in Turkey, FIDE said in a statement last week that it would punish the Islamic Republic's Chess Federation in a way that would detrimental for the Iranian chess players.

Earlier this month the International Judo Federation (IJF) enacted a provisional ban on Iran over its refusal to allow its judokas to face Israelis.

Sports federations are finally starting to show some backbone.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

J-Street's conference had a panel on "Fighting Anti-Semitism and its Weaponization in American Politics."

Already by equating antisemitism with its supposed "weaponization" (which exists but is not nearly as big an issue,) the panel was doomed from the start from seriously looking at the problem.

The panelists were:

Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights (Moderator)
Peter Beinart, Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York
Maya Berry, Executive Director, Arab American Institute
Haile Soifer, Executive Director, Jewish Democratic Council of America
Eric Ward, Executive Director, Western States Center

The entire discussion was naturally about antisemitism on the Right. It is a real problem, but not the way it was framed here. Haile Soifer wasted no time in attacking Donald Trump, the only president who has a Jewish daughter and grandchildren. She claimed falsely that he excused the white supremacists in Charlottesville, and she claimed that he failed to condemn antisemitism ever (although she accidentally said "condone.") She also claimed that the white nationalists who have attacked blacks and Jews in the US all were aligned with Trump, when they almost all hated him because he was too philosemitic.

I do not disagree that Trump has said things that embolden racists in the US. There is plenty to criticize him for in dividing the nation. (It is not so clear that the number of racist incidents increased under Trump, when the 2018 FBI hate crimes statistics are released we'll have a better idea. 2017 showed a marked increase but also many more agencies were added to the reporting compared to 2016, so the data sets may not be comparable.) But when you criticize him, do it accurately.

Peter Beinart said "I agree with everything [Haile] said." So, truth is certainly not something that this J-Street panel prizes.

Beinart also said, to applause, that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, but his reasoning was quite bizarre:

"The vast majority of Palestinians are anti-Zionist...The Palestinian experience with Zionism has been a very bitter, painful, traumatic experience. You do not have to be an antisemite...to be in solidarity with the Palestinian experience...Any definition of antisemitism that dehumanizes and silences Palestinians is not a response to bigotry - it is an expression of bigotry."

Would Beinart say that Jews who say that there is no room for Palestinians to have any political power in the region are not bigots? Of course not. But Palestinians who say that Jews have no right to live in the region as anything but second class citizens - which is the standard and mainstream Palestinian position - cannot be called antisemitic because that would "silence" them!

Sorry, Peter, antisemitism's definition is not dependent on whose feelings it might hurt. Arab and Muslim antisemitism is a thing, as much as you don't want to admit it. Saying that the Jews are not a people - the official PLO position! - is antisemitic. Saying that they do not have the right for self-determination in their historic homeland is antisemitic. And having a different standard for what Jews can say about Palestinians and what Palestinians can say about Jews in the area is itself an example of bigotry.

Maya Berry of the Arab American Institute categorically rejected the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism with no dissent from the Jewish panelists:

"The reality is that the definition of antisemitism that was developed for use overseas that has been adopted by some here in the United States ...that they are attempting to use that definition on our college campuses, that is not an acceptable definition of antisemitism. As a result, we're entering in this sort of grey space...[During a time of worries about white supremacist violence] we're trying to decide how much I can criticize the State of Israel before I get labeled a certain thing. I think that's crazy. "

So now we are told by a Muslim that Jews cannot define what antisemitism is because she demands the right to compare Israel to Nazis or say Israeli Jews love to kill children and poison the wells. IHRA has no problem with criticism of Israel, and Berry knows that - but she wants the right to demonize any Jew who supports Israel or to demonize the Jewish state for actions that would be considered nothing in every single Arab state.

(I have yet to see a critic of the IHRA definition say which specific examples given there of anti-Zionist antisemitism they do not agree with. Because they know that double standards for Israel is in fact antisemitism.)

She also said, "I think one of the biggest mistakes J-Street makes is the position its taken on BDS. [Applause!] Because if you equate the entire movement with antisemitism then the logical conclusion is Rashida [Tlaib] is an antisemite. And that is a problem we should all be very concerned about."

This is after she noted that Jews never considered the previous Muslim members of Congress to be antisemitic, and it is only because Tlaib and Ilhan Omar support BDS that they are considered as such.

This is a mirror of Beinart's argument that if a definition of antisemitism ends up calling someone you like an antisemite, it must be wrong. That is not how definitions work.

(Also, J-Street does not say that BDS is antisemitic.)

Perhaps the most offensive part of the session was a question from a J-Street board member, Victor Kovner, that was itself antisemitic:

"I'd like to ask an easy question about whether white nationalism is rising within the Jewish community....Is it true, that because of policies about Israel, that white nationalism is rising among particularly the ultra-observant community? Is that true? And is it also rising in the Israeli settler movement?"

In other words, are religious Jews the disgusting racists I think they are?

Of course no one called Kovner out for his fairly clear bigotry. Beinart tackled the question but watered it down for public consumption, saying that some Zionists naturally will ally with like-minded political groups, as if Jews are willing to accept right-wing Tree of Life-level Jew-hatred for Israel. But the question revealed much more about how the (mostly elderly) leftist J-Street attendees really think.

In short, it was an antisemitic question that was tolerated at a panel supposedly about antisemitism.

Kovner, a major J-Street fundraiser, described J-Street's goal in a 2008 New York Times article this way: "Candidates would also be able to use the group’s endorsements as a shield against accusations that they were anti-Israel."

Does this sound like someone who loves either Israel or Jews?

This panel was a disgrace for a supposedly Jewish, pro-Israel organization that pretends to care about antisemitism.

(h/t Daled Amos)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

10/27 Links: Trump announces death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: He died like a dog; Islamic State leader’s death is important, but not a game changer; Gaza death cult celebrates the anniversary of the Qassam Rocket

From Ian:

Trump announces death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: He died like a dog

US President Donald Trump delivered a special announcement on Sunday announcing the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a US Special Ops raid, explaining that the success could not have been achieved without the acknowledgement and help of other nations such as "Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iraq."

"The United States has been searching for Baghdadi for many years," Trump began. "He died... whimpering and screaming. The only ones remaining were Baghdadi in the tunnel, and he had dragged three of his young children with him that were led to certain death. He reached the end of the tunnel as our dogs chased him down. He ignited his vest, killing himself and his three children.

"The thug that tried so hard to intimidate others spent his last moments in total fear," Trump continued. "Baghdadi's demise demonstrates... our commitment to the enduring and total defeat of ISIS and other terrorist organizations. Our reach is very long."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Trump for the killing of Baghdadi, calling it an “impressive achievement.”

Netanyahu, who released a statement within moments of Trump ending his press conference where he announced Baghdadi's killing, said that it “reflects our shared determination – of the United States and all free states – to fight terrorist organizations and terrorist states.”

Netanyahu said that while this was an “important milestone,” the campaign against terrorism is “still in front of us.”

Trump additionally clarified that no US personnel were killed in the operation, though one dog was injured entering the tunnel. He stated that the number of people killed on Baghdadi's end of the operation will be announced in the next 24 hours.

He described watching the operation, which he saw along with Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien, and several other military and intelligence officials, as something "like a movie."

"Today's events are another reminder that we will continue to pursue the remaining ISIS terrorists," Trump stated. "That also goes for other terrorist organizations. Baghdadi and the losers who work for him, and losers they are, had no idea what they were getting into. In some cases, they were very frightened puppies; in other cases, hardcore killers. Baghdadi was vicious and violent, and he died in a vicious and violent way; as a coward, running and crying."

Defense Officials Release Shocking Details Of Al-Baghdadi Raid: ‘Six Helicopters,’ ’50-70 Members Of Delta Force’

Defense Department officials are slowly leaking out details of the shocking raid in western Syria that resulted in the death of ISIS mastermind, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi — and there may even be video of the exact moment al-Baghdadi detonated his own suicide vest, killing himself and several members of his family so that he couldn’t be taken alive by the American military.

The Daily Mail reports that “between 50 and 70 members of the US Army Delta Force and Rangers flew in on six helicopters and surrounded al-Baghdadi during the overnight raid in Syria’s Idlib province,” per sources.

The attack had been planned for weeks, President Donald Trump told reporters during a press conference Sunday morning, and a special team of soldiers was amassed for the raid. The team knew, based on information from friendly intelligence sources in the area, that al-Baghdadi was “lurking in Syrian border towns, often wearing non-traditional or ‘regular’ clothes, using a civilian car, and making sure anyone around him had no mobile phones or electronic devices in order to bypass detection,” according to Fox News.

Al-Baghdadi arrived at the compound where he ultimately perished a mere 48 hours before the U.S. military’s raid. He was accompanied there by two of his wives and several of his children, all of whom were outfitted with suicide vests.

Islamic State leader’s death is important, but not a game changer

US special forces carried out a high-level raid in Syria against Abu Bakr al-Bahgdadi, killing the elusive Islamic State terror group’s leader. The assassination of Baghdadi is a major symbolic blow to the organization and everything it represents, but its impact must not be overstated. His death does not mean the end of IS.

The organization’s modus operandi will not change dramatically and its operations are more likely to be constrained by larger military and financial issues than by the death of one man. Now, after the disintegration of its territorial empire, the Islamic State is already more of an idea than a concrete reality and, as such, it is expected to continue, in a changed form, to plague the West for years to come.

The big question we should be asking at the moment is what will happen to the larger idea of Salafist jihad? After the death of Osama bin Laden, IS stepped into the newly created jihadist leadership vacuum. The organization ascended to new levels of brutality that surpassed, in many ways, even the tactics employed by the notoriously vicious al-Qaeda.

There are still several other competing jihadist groups, such as Tahrir a-Sham, operating in Syria’s Idlib province, where Baghdadi was killed. Harried by Syrian and Russian airstrikes, their capacities are limited, and it is more than likely that we will see the ascension of another organization, led by a figure no less charismatic than Baghdadi, that will push a radical agenda, perhaps more extreme than that of IS, if such a thing can be imagined.

With a $25 million US bounty on his head, Baghdadi was the world’s most wanted man, responsible for steering his chillingly violent organization into mass slaughter of opponents, and directing and inspiring terror attacks across continents and in the heart of Europe.

Shifting away from the airline hijackings and other mass-casualty attacks that came to define al-Qaeda, Baghdadi and other IS leaders supported smaller-scale acts of violence that would be harder for law enforcement to prepare for and prevent.