Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, December 23, 2023

12/23 Links: What Happened in the Hamas Attack on Be’eri, Israel; The year Israelophobia took over; Ken Roth walks out of Comedy Cellar interview!

From Ian:

Jake Wallis Simons: The year Israelophobia took over

As the end of the year draws close, it’s clear the oldest hatred is back with a vengeance.

Following Hamas’s pogrom in Israel on 7 October, and Israel’s assault on Hamas in response, every day has brought new examples of Israelophobia. One episode from December that stands out in my mind was a statement from the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols. He said that the Jewish state had shot two women in a church in Gaza ‘in a cold-blooded killing’. But how did the clergyman, from the comfort of his home in London and having carried out no investigation, know with such certainty that it was a ‘cold-blooded killing’?

Similarly, Alex Crawford, Sky News’ most prominent foreign correspondent, tweeted at the start of December that Israel was barring entry for journalists into Gaza in order to hide its ‘war crimes’. Charges of ‘war crimes’ would need to be proven by a court of law. Yet without even being in Gaza, and presumably without any legal training, Crawford felt entitled to place the black cap of the hanging judge upon her head.

The ease with which supposedly impartial observers have unwittingly become activists belies something darker – the willingness to believe the very worst of the Jewish State. It has become commonplace to airily assert that Israel is committing ‘genocide’. And it has become commonplace to talk of its disregard for Palestinian life, especially the life of Palestinian children. Little wonder the fate of neonatal babies has been placed by Hamas at the very centre of its propaganda campaign. Hamas knows this will be lapped up by the world’s media. Why is this? Could it be because there has been a racist association between Jews and the murder of Gentile children since 1144, when the blood libel was invented in Norwich? Whether people realise it or not, the Israelophobia we see today contains dark echoes of an old anti-Semitism.

The rivers of anti-Semitism run deep. Fascinating research by two German economic historians, Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth, has revealed that areas of Germany in which people burned Jews at the stake in the 14th century, blaming them for the Black Death, were more likely to vote for the Nazis 600 years later. This is despite the fact that Jews had been absent from the regions in question for 400 of those years. This illustrates how, once it has taken hold, the potent virus of anti-Semitism can be passed down through the generations, inclining people to believe stories, as George Orwell once put it, ‘that could not possibly be true’.

Seth Mandel: The Press Has Lost Its Mind, Experts Say

You may have noticed that anti-Israel media bias has gotten markedly worse recently. Sketchy sources are given unquestioning platforms so long as they creatively bash the Jewish state, and finding ethically defensible Gaza war reporting has become the 2023 version of Where’s Waldo?

Those aforementioned shady sources have somehow found their way to the center of news coverage about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. And their participation in a slew of dishonest reporting shines a light on the motivation behind the media’s turn toward unvarnished Hamas propaganda.

Outlets frequently cover Israel through the use of dubious comparisons. I’ve written about this phenomenon before: If you just explain Israel’s laws and policies, for example, you will prove that it is not an apartheid state. So writers instead deploy the comparison to apartheid South Africa and stop there.

The current trend in this type of misreporting is to find increasingly absurd apples to compare to Israel’s oranges and then quote some Ph.D. candidate calling them all apples. We were treated to a perfect example of this in yesterday’s Associated Press story, which begins: “The Israeli military campaign in Gaza, experts say, now sits among the deadliest and most destructive in history.”

Now, to be sure, the Gaza counteroffensive is obviously not anywhere close to the deadliest campaigns, and there is not a single legitimate way to defend that particular characterization.

But set that very clear lie aside. Although it means the AP editorial staff is full of people who have no business being in journalism, it’s not the real point of the article. The point is the “destructive” part. Because the word “destructive” is subjective enough that if you wanted to find some overeager researchers to lend their names to a dishonest interpretation of the term, you surely could.

Time: Inside the Israel-Hamas Information War

Amid cratering international support for Israel’s war, there is little debate over which side is winning the battle for hearts and minds. The number of Americans who want the U.S. to take Israel’s side has dropped from 43% in October to 37% in November, according to a survey conducted by the University of Maryland and Ipsos. After tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets in European capitals, some of the continent’s most prominent leaders dialed back their full-fledged embrace of the Israeli campaign, with French President Emmanuel Macron calling on Israel to halt the hostilities. The U.S. remains the only U.N. Security Council member to vote against a call for an immediate ceasefire. And now even the Biden administration, Israel’s staunchest ally and biggest supplier of military aid, is pushing the country to scale back its offensive in a matter of weeks. “They have to be careful,” President Joe Biden said on Dec. 11. "The whole world’s public opinion can shift overnight. We can’t let that happen.”

Interviews with dozens of current and former Israeli and U.S. officials reveal a recognition of the accelerating loss of global public support, and a scramble by the nation’s leaders in response. Behind the social media messaging of spokespeople like Michelson lies a rapidly growing operation to convince the world that Israel is fighting for nothing less than its own survival and is doing what it can to avoid civilian casualties. The IDF’s international communications office has doubled in size to more than 200 people. The IDF has taken reporters and prominent supporters—from Elon Musk and Jerry Seinfeld to a convoy of TikTok influencers—to visit the kibbutzim that became killing fields, in hopes of reminding the world of the scale and depravity of the Oct. 7 attack. The Israeli government has spent millions of dollars on online ad campaigns on platforms ranging from YouTube to the popular online game Angry Birds. Israeli embassies around the world continue to screen for journalists and politicians a 43-minute video of the Hamas atrocities, much of it filmed on the terrorists’ own cameras.

There are signs that the effort is working, to an extent; a Pew Research poll from early December found that 65% of Americans think Hamas is mostly responsible for the war. As the fighting in Gaza moves south and the U.S. pushes its ally to wind down the ground operation, the information war about the war is becoming more important than ever. If Israel wins the military battle but loses the war for worldwide public opinion, it could threaten the durability of American support, damage Israel’s ability to forge and maintain peace with its Arab neighbors, shape the perception of the Jewish state for the next generation, and put the safety and security of the Jewish diaspora at risk. “The stakes of the information war,” says Eylon Levy, an Israeli government spokesman, “are the stakes of the war itself.”

Three days after the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli officials brought a group of international journalists to Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where Hamas killed more than 50 people. The site was still an active crime scene. Corpses were everywhere: Israeli victims wrapped in body bags, Hamas fighters lying where they fell. Military officers led reporters into homes stained with blood, some still filled with mutilated bodies and the charred remains of burned victims. “You could smell the death in the air,” recalls Anshel Pfeffer, a veteran Israeli reporter who writes for The Economist.

12/22 Links Pt2: The racism of the intellectuals; Obama privately lobbied on Harvard President Claudine Gay’s behalf; Vox Worried That Antisemites Make DEI Look Bad

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The revival of an ancient calumny

There’s an unmistakable drumbeat to the antisemitism that’s erupted across the west in the wake of the October 7 pogrom. In response to the genocidal Jew-hatred fuelling Hamas and the Palestinian Arabs, an even older form of the oldest hatred has surfaced— Christian hostility to the Jews.

The wholly unwarranted western condemnation of the Israel Defence Forces for causing an allegedly disproportionate death rate among Gaza civilians echoes the ancient Christian calumny that the Jews are killers motivated by revenge and blood lust. The churches themselves are explicitly fuelling this demonisation.

Last Saturday, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem claimed in a statement that “a sniper of the IDF murdered two Christian women inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza, where the majority of Christian families has taken refuge since the start of the war. No warning was given, no notification was provided. They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the parish, where there are no belligerents.”

This incendiary allegation was repeated uncritically as fact across the western media.

The following day, however, Fox News reported an IDF statement that an incident took place instead “near the Latin Church in the Shejayia area,” a different church altogether in another part of Gaza where IDF troops had “operated against a threat that they identified in the area of the church”.

The Elder of Zion website reported that this didn’t stop The Christian Post from claiming the IDF had “confirmed” it had shot and killed the two women “on the grounds of Gaza City’s only Catholic church”. Yet confusingly, the paper also said the IDF had “confirmed” to Fox News that the incident took place near the church in the Shejayia area of Gaza during an operation against Hamas terrorists.

The racism of the intellectuals

‘Anti-Semitism is a symptom of ignorance, and the cure for ignorance is knowledge.’ These words were spoken by Harvard University president Claudine Gay during her congressional testimony about anti-Semitism earlier this month. This may seem like a simple, comforting homily, but parse that sentence and you will find a thin layer of self-serving hubris. Implicit is the message that because we are Harvard, we cannot be ignorant. So we can’t be anti-Semitic.

History teaches a different lesson. Gay would be well served by reading the speech delivered by late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia at the 1997 Day of Remembrance commemoration for Holocaust victims. It included these words: ‘The one message I want to convey today is that you will have missed the most frightening aspect of it all, if you do not appreciate that [the Holocaust] happened in one of the most educated, most progressive, most cultured countries in the world.’

Recent events in Cambridge, Massachusetts support that insight. Like other prestigious universities, Harvard is currently mired in anti-Semitism. Any doubt of this was dispelled by Rabbi David J Wolpe, an esteemed visiting scholar at the Harvard Divinity School. Wolpe recently resigned from the university’s anti-Semitism advisory group over ‘events on campus’ and Gay’s maladroit congressional testimony. The kinds of changes necessary at Harvard, Wolpe said, ‘are really deep and fundamental, and I’m not sure that my being on the anti-Semitism committee is, in one way or another, going to accelerate the pace of such change’.

Wolpe is right to be concerned about the extent of Harvard’s anti-Semitism problem. On the day of the 7 October Hamas attacks – while murderers, rapists and kidnappers were still active in Israel – 34 campus groups at Harvard signed a statement that declared: ‘We, the undersigned student organisations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.’ Take note: entirely responsible. And this was before Israel had even responded with an incursion into Gaza.

Call Me Back PodCast: An insider’s account of the Harvard Antisemitism Committee — with Rabbi David Wolpe

Hosted by Dan Senor
Understanding where and how antisemitism has come to exist at an institution like Harvard is the focus of today’s conversation. We will hear the perspective of Rabbi David Wolpe — visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School — who tried to advise Harvard’s leadership on how to address it; after October 7, he joined Harvard’s Antisemitism Advisory Group.

Rabbi Wolpe is also the inaugural rabbinic fellow at the Anti-Defamation League, and he was the long-time rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. He is the author of eight books, including the national bestseller “Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times”. His book “David: The Divided Heart” was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards.

Obama privately lobbied on Harvard President Claudine Gay’s behalf amid antisemitism controversy: Report

Former President Barack Obama went to bat for Harvard President Claudine Gay amid backlash she received following her testimony on antisemitism before Congress.

A confidential source familiar with the matter told Jewish Insider on Tuesday that Obama, a Harvard graduate, had privately lobbied on Gay's behalf following her congressional appearance about antisemitism and threats against Jewish students on the Ivy League campus.

"It sounded like people were being asked to close ranks to keep the broader administration stable—including its composition," the source said of Obama's involvement.

In early December, Gay sat before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, where she was asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews on campus violates the university's codes of conduct related to bullying and harassment.

Her claim that the alleged conduct would only warrant a response from the school based on the "context" drew criticism across social media and even prompted a response from the White House.

Gay issued an apology after the hearing and the fellows of the Harvard Corporation, the university's highest government body, released a Dec. 12 statement backing the Harvard president despite widespread calls for her resignation. The board also addressed allegations of plagiarism regarding Gay's academic writing first flagged in October.

Harvard controversy casts spotlight on Penny Pritzker, former Obama official atop university board

Even as Harvard continues to stand behind its embattled president, Claudine Gay, amid mounting backlash over her handling of campus antisemitism and new accusations of plagiarism, Penny Pritzker, who helms the university’s highest governing body, has so far remained conspicuously silent, drawing fresh scrutiny to her role atop the administration.

Pritzker, the billionaire Chicago hotel scion and former Obama administration official, was elected senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation last year, months after she had donated $100 million to the university. In her new position, she personally led the search committee that named Gay as president last December, praising her in an announcement at the time as “a remarkable leader who is profoundly devoted to sustaining and enhancing Harvard’s academic excellence.”

Notwithstanding her initial enthusiasm, Pritzker has in recent weeks avoided personally defending the newly installed president, who has faced calls to resign, instead joining a statement signed by the 11 members of Harvard’s top board, which has been criticized for a lack of transparency.

In their unanimous decision to back Gay last week, the board members affirmed their “confidence” in the university president, dismissing the plagiarism charges and accepting her apology for widely criticized comments at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism earlier this month, where she equivocated on whether calls for the genocide of Jews would violate Harvard’s code of conduct.

Before the Harvard Corporation had released its statement, however, Pritzker had dodged repeated questions from a reporter for the school’s student newspaper on whether she would ask the president to step down, even as Gay had claimed to have her support.

From Egypt's Gomhuria:

The enmity of the Jews is as old as time, but most people do not know. I present some established facts about the Jews, which every Arab and Muslim must be aware of and know in order to be safe from their evil and know how to act in the face of their hatred and hateful hostility.

The first of these established facts about the Jews is that they are a people with no covenant or security. They are the ones whose ancestors specialized in killing God’s prophets and staining the pages of history with their blood. Are we then surprised by their thirst for the blood of the Palestinians and their skill in killing their innocent children without them batting an eyelash? They are thugs!....The prophets of God themselves were not safe from their evil, so are ordinary humans safe from them?

Based on the above, we must teach our sons and daughters that there is no good expected from the Jews or their followers.

From Iraq's Buratha News:

The Jews lie and push others to believe their lies: Buying of receivables among the Jews is in full swing, with money, threats, forgery, and other methods that are still prevalent among them to this day, and how many weak souls there are.

Their entire history is a lie. They used lying as a means to reach their goals, and when their lies are discovered, they say that they lied for the benefit and glory of God or for the sake of His pampered people.

From Lebanon's Al-Mayadeen:

The Arabic language in Palestine is suffering from difficult circumstances. As a result of the occupation, it is waging a harsh struggle in the face of the Hebrew tyranny that accompanies the occupation of the land. Perhaps the invasion of the language is even more dangerous. Because Hebrew words, unnecessarily, occupies the Arabic tongue in a way that is far more significant than the foreign soldier’s occupation of the land. Arabic is defending itself against the hammer of Hebrew in light of the hateful occupation that is trying to erase all features of Arabism.

Open antisemitism in the Arab world, never far beneath the surface, is increasing in Arabic media at least as fast as it is rising in the rest of the world.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

12/22 Links Pt1: Israel Has Killed 8,000 Hamas Terrorists; First US hostage confirmed as murdered by Hamas; Hostages’ Family Sues Red Cross; Bocelli writes to freed hostage

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Rising from the ruins of a generation of Israeli doctrine

It will take years to correct the damage the generals wrought by reducing the size of the IDF and inducing its total dependence on the United States.

‘The IDF is changing its view’
But this week, the Defense Ministry let it be known that it is moving to correct the situation. On Tuesday, Ynet reported that the Defense Ministry is initiating what it refers to as “Independence Project.”

According to the report, the Defense Ministry is launching a crash program with Israel’s military industries and major industrialists to make Israel independent in everything related to ordnance. In the initial phase, Israel will begin producing bombs for its aircraft. Jerusalem also intends to expand its production of tank and artillery shells, as well as assault rifles and bullets. Separately, there is increased discussion regarding the establishment of a missile force as an independent arm of the IDF. The force would reduce reliance on the air force and develop more versatile, more easily defended missile launch platforms and massively expand Israel’s missile and drone arsenals.

After meeting with Defense Ministry Director General Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, Ron Tomer, the head of Israel’s Industrialists Union, told Ynet, “The war demonstrates our need for a powerful and advanced industrial base to ensure Israel’s national strength and independent capabilities. The IDF is changing its view of how it arms its forces, enlarging domestic production lines in order to be less dependent on ordnance from abroad. The ideal of a small high-tech military did not prove itself.”

Brick and others argue that had Hezbollah joined Hamas in invading and bombing Israel on Oct. 7, Israel may well have been destroyed that day. A combination of Hezbollah’s 10,000-man Radwan Brigades perched at the border and capable of invading the Galilee, and a barrage of up to 4,000 missiles with various payloads targeting Israel’s air bases, and other strategic sites and civilian population centers every day for weeks, would have caused irreparable damage equal in force to a nuclear bomb.

Iran’s decision not to involve Hezbollah on Oct. 7 has given Israel the opportunity to reorganize its forces and prepare for the multi-front war that awaits us. We don’t have a moment to lose.

West Point CTC: The Path to October 7: How Iran Built Up and Managed a Palestinian ‘Axis of Resistance’

Abstract: Since October 7, in the wake of the “al-Aqsa Flood” terrorist attacks by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and other Palestinian factions from across the ideological spectrum, Iran’s aid to and strategic management of these groups has taken on a new level of relevance. The methods Iran has used to cultivate and maintain influence and control over disparate Palestinian groups follows the same pragmatic carrot-and-stick formula it has used across the Middle East with other proxies, with incentives that include financial aid, weapons, and training. The use of sticks was particularly important in Tehran’s restoration of influence over Hamas and PIJ after the Syrian civil war drove a wedge between Palestinian groups and Iran. The withholding of funds and a divide-and-rule approach helped Tehran get these groups back in line. More generally, Iran has worked to create and leverage splinter groups, particularly from the Palestinian Authority’s dominant Fatah Movement, to grow its influence in Gaza and the West Bank. Tehran has also strived to build influence among leftist Palestinian groups to create a broad coalition of partners. And it uses umbrella groups and joint operations rooms to try to bolster the unity and coherence of its Palestinian network.

Iran allows for a level of autonomy among its proxies, but as this article has outlined, Tehran has moved to punish insufficiently obedient groups, allowing them to wither on the vine, or has engineered splinters to weaken them or pressure them into line.

Hamas’ takeover of Gaza served as the means for Iran to absorb splintered factions of Fatah into its orbit. Even if those factions could not be fully controlled, creating a reliance on Iran’s weapons, money, and other forms of political support facilitated their reformation into Iran’s umbrella. By cultivating ties with militant factions with differences with Abbas’ Fatah, Iran was able to recruit manpower to its “Axis of Resistance” and create a pressure point within Fatah. Furthermore, the continued presence of Fatah splinter fighters in Gaza has given Iran leverage to ensure the obedience of Hamas and PIJ. Small and less popular groups such as the PFLP, PFLP-GC, and DFLP were cultivated by Iran as part of a larger umbrella of Tehran-aligned groups, but likely simultaneously served other roles, including countering the Palestinian Authority and if necessary to put pressure on Hamas and PIJ.

As the Israeli offensive continues in Gaza, it is possible some armed Palestinian groups may be forced to shift their center of gravity to Lebanon. This would expose them to even deeper Iranian influence. On December 4, 2023, Hamas’ Lebanon section released a statement calling for the creation and recruitment for the Vanguards of the al-Aqsa Flood (Taliy’ah Tufan al-Aqsa), a group focused on “resisting [Israeli] occupation.”217 Given any armed activities by Hamas in Lebanon would have to be coordinated with Lebanese Hezbollah, these activities would also be subject to a degree of control by the Iranian decision makers that exert influence over Hezbollah. As previously seen with the PFLP, DFLP, and PFLP-GC, groups dependent on using Lebanon or Syria as staging areas have only become more beholden to their masters in Damascus or Tehran.

Even if Hamas and PIJ are militarily defeated in Gaza in the months ahead, Iran would still have many options to work with in both Gaza and the West Bank. As Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer stated in an October 31 piece, “The war is radicalizing far more Palestinians than Hamas propaganda ever could.”218 Iran will likely attempt to rebuild its network in Gaza from newly radicalized Palestinians, including among leftist actors, Islamists, and smaller factions they can more strongly control.

In this scenario, it should be expected that Iran will also continue to splinter off groups from Fatah/the Palestinian Authority. On November 5, a mysterious group claiming to represent members within the Palestinian Authority-affiliated security services emerged. Called the Sons of Abu Jandal, the group demanded that Mahmoud Abbas and the PA security forces engage in violence against Israel or revolt against Abbas.219 While no link to Iran has yet been established and the group has since gone quiet, it is these types of splinters that have been exploited by Tehran in the past.

In the months ahead, it is likely that Iran will continue to use the carrots (e.g., funding) and sticks (e.g., fostering splinter groups) in order to maintain and deepen control over its Palestinian “Axis of Resistance.” As Israel’s military campaign in Gaza puts these groups under increasing pressure, Iran’s leverage will only grow. Given Iran has aimed to provide support to a wide range of new and well-established groups, particularly those with more violent dispositions, the radicalizing effect of the war on Palestinians provides fertile terrain for Tehran.

Douglas Murray: Hamas terror tunnels were built with your money

Of course, billions of dollars have been given to them since that time. From a bewildering array of countries. All of whom seem to have thought that they were somehow helping the Palestinians in Gaza. Well, we weren’t.

All of this money was used by Hamas leaders to buy themselves luxury condos in Qatar and other foreign climes. Inside Gaza, almost none of this money went to help Palestinians in Gaza. Rather Hamas used the funds they didn’t pilfer to build this underground terror network which comes out in hospitals, mosques, and other places that the international community regards as sacred, but which Hamas does not.

And why do I say “we”? Because American taxpayers are among the people who were fooled into sending money to these terrorists.

Since 2007, the US has sent over $400 million in taxpayers’ money to Gaza. That is all after the coup where Hamas seized power. These are the official figures released by USAID (United States Agency for International Development. USAID also says that it has paid more than $500 million between 2021 and the end of this year.

That money may also have gone to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. And I can tell you from traveling there many times that I know where our taxpayer dollars went too. They went to the equally corrupt officials of Fatah who built themselves mansions that would cause envy to many homeowners in the Hamptons.

And even that isn’t the end of it. Because the US is also foolish enough to continue to fund the UN agency UNRWA. This is one of the most corrupt entities even at the UN. Which is saying something. And in 2021 alone the US was UNRWA’s largest single donor, shoveling an astonishing $338 million.

Other countries have also been taken for mugs.

The EU is spending more than $100 million in Gaza this year. But even the EU countries don’t give as much money to UNRWA as America does. The US is far and away the biggest donor. The next biggest is Germany with a mere $176 million going annually to the organization. In total, US agencies have funneled billions of dollars to Gaza in recent years. And all of this money has gone not to improving the lives of Palestinians, but to building palaces for Hamas and tunnels for their weaponry and terrorists.

Hamas officials have even said that they regard the tunnels as being for their terrorists. The rest of the world is meant to look after the actual civilians themselves.

I beg to differ. And I also beg American officials to wise up. Our taxpayer dollars have gone to a terrorist group every year since 2007. And now we know what we have got for it. An attack on our allies in Israel.

Want to save money? Here’s one way how.

Herzog: Three times more aid could be entering Gaza if not for UN’s ‘utter failure’

President Isaac Herzog averred Thursday that the United Nations has been failing to keep up with the amount of aid Israel is inspecting, and that the world body is to blame for the little amount of aid entering the Strip even after Israel has opened up its Kerem Shalom crossing to ease the bottleneck.

“Unfortunately, due to the utter failure of the UN in its work with other partners in the region, they have been unable to bring in more than 125 trucks [of aid] a day,” Herzog said in a meeting with visiting French Senate President Gérard Larcher.

“Today it is possible to provide three times the amount of humanitarian aid to Gaza if the UN — instead of complaining all day — would do its job,” Herzog said.

Israel has said that it has been inspecting hundreds of trucks per day at its Kerem Shalom and Nitzana Crossings and that many of the trucks subsequently remain outside Gaza. The UN and Egypt have argued that Israel’s military campaign has made it too dangerous to regularly deliver aid inside and through Gaza.

By Daled Amos

The 2024 presidential election is less than a year away.

And that means the pundits will be discussing "the Jewish vote." That is not to say there will be much to talk about. Jews, as a group, vote for Democrats. On top of that, Biden is perceived as a friend of Israel and the Jewish community. And on top of that, Biden's support for Israel against Hamas following the massacre on October 7 has only cemented the Jewish support for him.

After all, Israel is important to American Jews.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) regularly polls the Jewish community. Their poll in 2020 asked about the importance of Israel to Jewish identity:

Since 2020 was an election year, the AJC also asked about what issues were important to the Jewish community:

Despite the importance that Jews said Israel holds for their Jewish identity, Israel was not rated as one of the top 6 issues in the upcoming election.

Going further back, this attitude is consistent. In their 2007 poll, the AJC asked:

And yet

The fact that Jews consistently say that Israel is important to them and to their Jewish identity does not seem to correlate with how they vote on election day. So, for example, when he ran for president, Obama had no problem getting the Jewish vote, despite questions about whether he was a friend of Israel:

President Obama's support among Jewish voters has remained relatively steady from 2008, exit polls show.

National exit polls released Tuesday show Obama capturing 70 percent of the Jewish vote, versus 30 percent for Mitt Romney.

In 2008, exit polls showed him beating John McCain 78 percent to 21 percent. The Solomon Project estimated that his actual 2008 vote share among Jewish Americans was actually closer to 74 percent — taking into account the small sample size. [emphasis added]

Getting back to 2023, how do those surveys of the Jewish vote contrast with the growing anti-Israel attitude reflected in the recent poll by The New York Times of opinions of Biden's handling of the situation in Gaza?

According to The New York Times, "Poll Finds Wide Disapproval of Biden on Gaza, and Little Room to Shift Gears":

Voters broadly disapprove of the way President Biden is handling the bloody strife between Israelis and Palestinians, a New York Times/Siena College poll has found, with younger Americans far more critical than older voters of both Israel’s conduct and of the administration’s response to the war in Gaza.

The next paragraph goes on to clarify that "nearly as many Americans want Israel to continue its military campaign as want it to stop now to avoid further civilian casualties."

Here are the numbers:

Given a choice between two courses of action, a narrow plurality of voters, 44 percent, said Israel should stop its military campaign to protect against civilian casualties, already totaling nearly 20,000 people killed, according to Gaza health authorities. A similar number, 39 percent, advised the opposite course: Israel should continue its military campaign even if it means civilian casualties in Gaza mount. [emphasis added]

These numbers bear out the New York Times claim that the issue is divisive.

But Jim Geraghty of The National Review disagrees. He writes The ‘New York Times’ Misreads Its Own Poll. Geraghty questions just how much the issue of Israel's war with Hamas actually matters. Pointing to the full data collected from the poll, he notes that in response to the open-ended question "What do you think is the MOST important problem facing the country today?" 1% of registered voters responded "The Middle East/Israel/Palestinians" and 3% of those aged 18-29 gave that answer.

Other issues, like the economy and immigration, were more important -- both to registered voters and to 18-19-year-olds.

The data from The New York Times own poll seem to support Geraghty's interpretation that:

U.S. policy regarding the Israeli war against Hamas plays an extremely minor role in voters’ frustration with Biden...If the Israeli war against Hamas ended tomorrow, Biden’s numbers would still be lousy.

If Geraghty is right, we have a similar phenomenon between the Jewish vote on the one hand and the anti-Israel vote on the other. Despite the depth of feeling expressed by both, that feeling does not seem to translate into actual votes at the ballot box.

Jews respond that Israel is important to their sense of identity, but when it comes time to vote, they will vote on the issues. Those 18-19-year-olds will protest in the street against Israel, but issues like the economy hit much closer to home.

But is it that simple?

The AJC polls indicate American Jews, overall, draw a line between their connection with Israel and being civic-minded Americans. They vote on the issues that affect Americans.

The anti-Israel protestors, who generally fall within the 18-29-year-old range appear to be a small fraction of the electorate and may not be registered to vote or even interested. But the people showing up at the protests are not civic-minded. They are loud and express themselves by closing traffic on bridges and occupying buildings.

If they decide that opposing Biden and voting him out of office is another expression of their protest, the Democratic party may have something to worry about. As it is, Tlaib in Michigan is threatening “We will remember in 2024.” and a poll shows Biden polling poorly about Arab Americans. If the protestors are organized beyond Michigan, who is to say that other states could not be affected as well?

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The @WashingtonPost's investigation about Shifa Hospital misses the real story

On Thursday, the Washington Post published an investigation casting doubt on whether Shifa Hospital in Gaza was being used as a Hamas command center.

Its top major finding: "The rooms connected to the tunnel network discovered by IDF troops showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas."

The key to the story is the word "immediate:"

“The law is about what was in the mind of the attacker at the time the attacker planned and executed the mission with respect to both what they expected the collateral damage they expected to cause and the military advantage they anticipated gaining,” said Michael Schmitt, an emeritus professor at the U.S. Naval War College.

The IDF would not comment on the military advantage sought or achieved.

“What was the urgency? This is not yet being demonstrated,” said Yousuf Syed Khan, a senior lawyer with Global Rights Compliance, a law firm, who has drafted U.N. reports on siege warfare.

While the underground tunnel uncovered by Israeli forces after the raid does point to a possible militant presence underneath the hospital at some point, it does not prove that a command node was operating there during the war.

“We’re getting more of a granular, three-dimensional understanding of al-Shifa Hospital, the tunnels underneath it,” said Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser at the State Department and now a senior adviser at Crisis Group.

“What we’re really lacking here is a confident understanding of the fourth dimension, which is time. When were various elements of the hospital being used in certain ways? When were the tunnels beneath the hospital complex being used in certain ways?”

The Washington Post has its doubts:

The bare, white-tiled rooms showed no immediate evidence of use — for command and control or otherwise. There are no signs of recent habitation, including litter, food containers, clothing or other personal items.

Let's look at the context.

Hamas' use of the hospital for military purposes was well known as early as 2006. Even the Washington Post itself wrote in 2014 that it “has become a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.”

Israel had built bunkers under the hospital when Gaza was under Israeli control, but bunkers aren't tunnels. However, we know that there were tunnels under Gaza's Al Wehda Street that were bombed in the 2014 war, and that street leads directly to the hospital compound. Given that Hamas built hundreds of tunnel shafts underneath their offices and leaders' homes, it is apparent that there were connections between Hamas offices in the hospital basement and the tunnels under Al Wehda Street.

Israel might not have revealed the specific locations of each shaft, and that is hardly important considering that there is no doubt that these tunnels existed directly underneath a hospital.

Just as there is no doubt that the only purpose of these tunnels, underground rooms and bathrooms is military. They aren't hotels or summer camps.

The IDF first laid out a specific series of accusations about the Shifa Hospital on October 27, nearly three weeks before the raid, before the ground war even began. There were unofficial discussions of Shifa Hospital before that. It didn't show "urgency" - it showed unheard-of patience before moving in.

Hamas knew the IDF was coming for them. And they had weeks to clear out and clean up the evidence from the tunnels (even though they left behind plenty of weapons on the hospital grounds themselves, which were harder to clean up since there were so many people around.)

Here's the part that no one is talking about: The IDF knew quite well that they were giving Hamas a heads up that they were coming. They knew Hamas would not stay and it would hide evidence of explicit military use. So why give the warning at all? Why not surprise Hamas? What army tells the enemy where they will be going?

The warning was meant to force Hamas commanders to move to other areas.

This achieves three military aims. Firstly, it disrupts their operations temporarily. Secondly, it allows the IDF to go there, gather evidence and valuable intelligence like footage from cameras, and destroy the military infrastructure beneath Shifa without a firefight and endangering patients and civilians taking shelter. And thirdly, Hamas leaders moving to other areas allows Israel to attack them without worrying about the complexity of protecting hospital patients during a battle.

Israel has now released evidence that Hamas brought hostages to Shifa. The tunnels had electricity and plumbing that were attached to Shifa's infrastructure. Weapons were found in the radiology ward and in a garage on Shifa's grounds. We know that employees and even directors at other hospitals were also Hamas terrorists. The Gaza health ministry is Hamas and it admits its officials have Hamas military rank. While there might not be direct evidence of Hamas using those tunnels underneath Shifa in mid-November as their main headquarters, no one can seriously doubt that Hamas used the hospital for military purposes and that the reason was to use the patients as human shields.

Israel managed to clear Hamas out of the hospital it was using for military purposes with a minimum of fighting and a minimum of physical destruction. That is not violating international law - it is adhering to it in ways far beyond the limited imaginations of those whose entire worldview is poisoned by always assuming malevolence from Israel.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

There is still an assumption that there are two sides to this war, Gaza and Israel.

It isn't true. There are four distinct groups that are players (not counting other fronts:) Hamas (and other terror groups,) Gaza civilians, Israel and Israeli civilians.

One needs to separate the civilians from the armies because civilians are an integral part of Hamas' war strategy. Hamas targets the IDF and Israelis, the IDF tries to protect the Israeli civilians. Israel only targets Hamas. Hamas hides behind the Gazans as their main line of defense and the IDF tries to avoid hitting the Gazans.

What most people refuse to believe is that just as Hamas uses Gaza civilians as shields, Hamas will attack Gazans as well, when it helps their survival.

Gaza civilians only exist to help Hamas, from Hamas' perspective.

Which means that just as Hamas is happy to see Gaza civilians die in attacks that the IDF targets at Hamas, it has no hesitation to attack Gazans when it is helps them - sniping Christians in a church and elsewhere and blaming Israel, shooting at Gazans trying to flee to safer areas when Hamas instructed them to stay put and act as shields.

To Western ears, this sounds nearly impossible. But is there really any moral difference to Hamas between using civilians as defensive weapons and killing them when it is convenient?

Surely, you are saying, Hamas is evil, but we need more evidence that Hamas really doesn't care about Gaza civilians.

Here is a very incomplete list of specific attacks or threats that Hamas and other terror groups made to hurt their own people, directly or indirectly:

July 2007: Israel offered to allow thousands of stranded Gazans in Egypt to return to Gaza via Kerem Shalom; Hamas threatened to shoot them all dead if they came that way.

August 2007: Hamas shot mortars at Kerem Shalom crossing that is used for import/export to and from Gaza.

December 2007: More mortars at Kerem Shalom.

March 2008: Hamas fired on trucks with aid that already passed through the Sufa crossing.

March 2008: Hamas ally PRC shoots mortars into Kerem Shalom - during a "ceasefire."

April and May 2008: Numerous attacks on all crossings.

January 2009: Israel set up a field hospital for injured Gazans, Hamas stopped them from going.

January 2010: PRC fired mortars at crossings when exports of strawberries were resuming.

March 2012: Terror groups fire and hit aid trucks on the Palestinian side of Kerem Shalom.

June 2012: More mortars at Kerem Shalom (during a "truce".)

November 2012: Islamic Jihad boasts about, and releases video of, mortar attacks on Kerem Shalom.

July 2014: Hamas tortured and killed dozens of Gazans during fighting with Israel.

July 2014: Hamas shells field hospital Israel set up to help injured Gazans.

August 2014: Hamas accused of stealing humanitarian aid.

August 2014: Reports of Hamas firing on civilians trying to flee. Also shooting rivals in the legs to ensure they cannot flee if they wanted to.

August 2014: Fatah groups shooting at Kerem Shalom and Erez crossing, where medical patients go to Israel from.

May 2021: Both Hamas and Fatah shoot many mortars at Kerem Shalom, killing 2 Thai workers and stopping aid deliveries.

I'm not even talking about Hamas placing rockets and weapons in schools and houses, nor about "work accidents" that killed civilians. That is disregard for civilian lives, but Hamas has a record of attacking its own civilians and depriving them of aid for its own selfish ends.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

12/21 Links Pt2: The silence of the anti-racists; How Universities Instill a Conspiratorial Worldview; Sen. Blackburn calls for removal of UN Women deputy

From Ian:

The silence of the anti-racists

To say our elites have a blindspot where anti-Semitism is concerned is a grotesque understatement. Having spent years obsessing over fantasy forms of racism and fascism, having spent years soberly telling us that Boris Johnson was Eton’s answer to Hitler, the great and good look upon Jew-hating marches, attacks and even terror plots… and it barely registers.

Whether these people are ignoring anti-Semitism, making excuses for it, or participating in it, the story remains the same. Our supposedly ‘anti-racist’ betters, people who during the Black Lives Matter uprising just two years ago were taking knees and ‘doing the work’ and tweeting #SilenceIsViolence from their £4million townhouses, are so marinated in a divisive identity politics and a demented ‘anti-imperialism’ that they see Jews as ‘white’ oppressors, even when they’re being beaten up, and Israel as the aggressor, even when it is under attack.

The silence of the ‘anti-racists’ over the barbaric rise of anti-Semitism reminds us that these people were never anti-racists at all. Woke leftists and the liberal-left midwits who defer to them on these matters have just imbibed a new version of racial hierarchy, apportioning worth and solidarity not on the basis of phoney racial superiority but of questionable racial victimhood. What the new has in common with the old is that the Jews are still, at best, not to be trusted.

Rather than just shaking our heads at the moral self-immolation of the woke left, we need to do what they are so clearly incapable of doing and tackle this foul, racist scourge. We cannot allow Jew hatred to become the background noise of Western life. We cannot stand idly by while our fellow citizens are menaced for no other reason than who they are.

We need to fight this new Jew hatred with words and actions – in argument and in the streets. A society that allows anti-Semitism to become normalised is not only failing to defend its Jewish citizens, it is also a society that is deeply sick – that is overcome not only by hatred of a particular group, but by a deep-seated irrationalism and unreason, too. A society in which conspiracy theories about Jewish power – in which some people can convince themselves that 7 October didn’t happen, or wasn’t half as bad as ‘they’ are saying – is one that has become deranged and deprived of its moral bearings.

It’s high time we ignored the confected race rows that clutter public debate and confronted the very real hatred in our midst.

Former ADL, AJC leaders Abe Foxman and David Harris call for scrapping DEI

Abe Foxman and David Harris, two former longtime leaders of prominent Jewish communal organizations, called for an end to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy at colleges on Wednesday.

In separate statements, the former heads of the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee argued that DEI efforts on college campuses should be overhauled because of the major challenges it poses to the liberal understanding of societal aims.

Foxman and Harris’ stances contrast with their organizations’ current positions on how to deal with DEI. ADL and AJC leaders told JI this week their organizations are urging universities to better incorporate Jews into the DEI infrastructure, instead of calling on them to dismantle the ideology behind DEI altogether.

Foxman, who served as the Anti-Defamation League’s national director for 28 years until 2015, insisted that DEI “cannot be fixed.”

He said that part of the problem is that DEI is “based on a faulty premise — that racism is a function of oppressed and oppressors [and] that all white people are oppressors and all people of color [are] oppressed.”

The results, Foxman said, are “bias, illiberalism, reinforced, legitimized and institutionalized antisemitism in many institutions.”

Foxman added: “It has built a huge funded bureaucracy which is today difficult to change or amend. Efforts by communal Jewish organizations to include the Jewish community or soften its impact on antisemitism have failed. It cannot be fixed, it needs to be scrapped and replaced by a vigorous implementation of our civil rights laws that are color blind, and apply equally to all. If necessary some civil rights laws can be amended and strengthened. DEI was developed to eliminate bias but sadly it created bias.”

David Harris, the longtime CEO of the American Jewish Committee CEO, echoed similar criticisms of DEI.

“DEI has evolved into a mammoth, ideologically-driven presence on many campuses, some of which have literally hundreds of staff working exclusively in this space,” Harris told JI.

“Accordingly, I don’t believe that outside efforts, however well-intentioned, that nibble around the edges or simply seek to add Jews to the DEI agenda, address the heart of the problem. DEI today poses a major challenge to liberal understanding of American societal aims, so the goal of rethinking it conceptually is far more urgent than just trying to get along with it.”

Seth Mandel: How Universities Instill a Conspiratorial Worldview

Puar is a tenured professor at Rutgers University. Her rise to fame—expressing anti-Semitism is the quickest way to the top in higher education—came after a Vassar lecture she gave in 2016, which later became the book under discussion. Her main accusations are that the state of Israel engages in organ harvesting from Palestinians and that the Jewish state deliberately maims and stunts Palestinians.

As Cary Nelson has shown at length, these accusations can be definitively debunked, although it feels icky even engaging them. There is no organ-harvesting project, obviously, though a single doctor’s team 30 years ago took cornea extractions and the like almost certainly largely from Mizrachi Jews—illegal in Israel but legal in much of the West under presumed consent laws precisely because it is not “organ harvesting.” The growth of young Palestinians is monitored and studied regularly by the UN and Palestinian health bodies, all which refute the idea that there is a stunting crisis in the Palestinian territories and the that Israel was responsible by withholding nutritious food.

And the “maiming” accusation requires a special level of madness, since it is a criticism of Israeli troops shooting to injure instead of to kill in various situations. There is obviously no such thing as “shooting to maim,” a spectacularly idiotic invention that requires knowing less than nothing about all involved subjects, including basic science.

Puar is neither the first nor the last pseudoscience fanatic to incite the world against the Jews. She is, in fact, following a very old formula, hence the reference to medieval blood libels. And yet her work poses a very particular challenge to the concept of academic study, and it is one that the academy has failed.

As Nelson has pointed out, Puar announced her commitment to “an anti-Zionist hermeneutic,” which means she begins from an anti-Semitic position and interprets all information to fit that worldview. This is the opposite of honest inquiry, and it is what she teaches her students. Additionally, her accusations “represent the kinds of conspiratorial thinking that can influence faculty who are teaching about contemporary Israel.”

In other words, and this is a hugely important point, our most esteemed academic institutions are teaching students to think conspiratorially. They are rewiring the brains of generations of future leaders in public service and private industry to process information in an anti-intellectual manner.

If you think there is a predilection among the public to glom on to wild conspiracy theories, this is a major clue as to how it came into existence. Ivy League schools are teaching students to un-think. And we have only begun to see the consequences for wider society.

Arabic media is reporting that an Israeli soldier left Gaza, quit the army and made a video about the truth of what he witnessed: 3000 IDF soldiers killed, hundreds of tanks an other vehicles destroyed, no way to defeat Hamas.

He is obviously not an Israeli.

So a little research showed that there really was a video - but it wasn't of an IDF soldier. It was created by a "motivational speaker" named Chris Jones on TikTok a month ago who makes videos from his car. His "facts" are made up. (He also says witchcraft is real.)

Someone took his video, cropped it to only his face, and put it on TikTok claiming he was an IDF soldier and now it is going viral among equally stupid people dying to find anything that supports the Hamas narrative outside of Hamas itself. Others are copying it and adding their own lies.

This is only one example of thousands. On TikTok, on X, on Instagram, thousands of people share complete garbage that their audiences want to hear. Real videos and photos are miscaptioned, or fake ones are made from other wars. Al Jazeera in particular is making things up that get repeated by the world, including the UN, including American Muslim leaders - CAIR publishes all of these lies without any hesitation.

Yes, Israel needs to do a better job in countering these lies. Even though the people who spread them will never believe it, there needs to be a database where the lies can be looked up and exposed. there are simply too many of them, but one can see which ones are spreading the fastest and prioritize those. Perhaps more importantly, the sources for the more reasonable sounding lies (like the Gaza health ministry or Al Jazeera itself) often also spread lies that no one believes, and it would be worthwhile to pro-actively discredit these sources ahead of time.

Israel has a job to do and cannot let itself get distracted. But the war is also one of perception, and it needs to prioritize the cognitive war even more than it has been.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Hamas Detainees Photographed In Underwear Land Plus-Size Bra-Modeling Contract (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Shuja'iya, December 22 - Dozens of Gaza Strip militants who surrendered to Israeli forces recent weeks have received offers from lingerie marketers to display the products on their ample, curvy bodies, a spokesman for Israel's prison service disclosed today.

Lt. Col. Adi Poss told reporters that manufacturers and retailers of bras and underwear for the full-figured have contacted the prison service to express interest in using some of the captured Hamas fighters as models, having seen pictures of the men stripped to their underwear as a security measure, and thus displaying portions of the body well-suited to flattering presentation of the intimate apparel products.

"At least six companies shave expressed interest," noted Lt. Col. Poss. "The feasibility of any arrangement remains open to question, given the uncertainty of these men's futures. Will they still be in captivity when arrangements are finally made? Can modeling the bras take place within the prison? It's definitely possible, but obviously not a priority for us tight now."

A representative of Victoria's Secret volunteered that her company seeks to ascertain the practicality of using the well-fed captive Hamas personnel as models. "What first caught our attention was that they were obviously not unfamiliar with a good meal or two," recalled the Vice President for Marketing, Ella Stick. "Victoria's Secret switched back to more traditionally-shaped models last year, but we acknowledge the buying power of those whose bodies do not match the perfection on display in our advertising. VS still aims to signal to the full-figured woman that our products suit her, and the shapes of the men captured by Israel during the fighting would meet those requirements nicely."

She added that the presence of so many well-fed people in the photos caught executives by surprise. "We were told Gaza was running out of food, but that's clearly not the case," she stated. "That's what made the images all the more striking. Perhaps under other circumstances we wouldn't have given a second glance at the man-boobs on display, but notice them we did. I'm thinking with the specimens in the photos, we can find models for almost every size we manufacture."

Another company that declined at this stage to be identified revealed that it already has a formal name for the marketing initiative, the Al Moob Project. Lt. Col. Poss offered assurances that enough "big-boned" Hamas fighters remain available for all the interested companies.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

12/21 Links Pt1: Biden Has No Choice But To Stop the Houthis; Biden needs to sober up about the Palestinians; Hamas rejects ceasefire negotiations

From Ian:

Seth Fratnzman: Israel-Hamas war: Will Iran escalate or manage the Gaza war?

Iran has already keyed most of them in, so the question for Tehran is what to do next. Hezbollah has lost more than 115 of its members since October 7. Hamas has lost thousands of its terrorist fighters. The Houthis are unscathed. The Iranian proxies in Iraq and Syria are unscathed. Palestinian Islamic Jihad has suffered some losses, in the West Bank and in Gaza, but it was never a very large organization to begin with.

For Tehran, there are questions to be asked about their next phase. Iranian pro-regime media may reflect some of this thinking. They have toned down their coverage of Gaza. This could indicate a calm before the next storm. It could also indicate a very real decision to move away from too much coverage as Iran senses that it won’t get much more success in Gaza.

Tehran and Hamas may be suffering from diminishing returns. Iran will be asking itself who benefits from a war of attrition. I think that Hamas will benefit, the way Hezbollah benefited from the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. It thinks Hamas can benefit from a ceasefire and international pressure on Israel. Then, Hamas will leverage its claims of “winning” in Gaza to achieve influence in the West Bank and prepare for the next phase. Towards this end, the Iranian regime media accuses Israel of prolonging the conflict and not accepting a ceasefire.

The fact that Iran’s Fars News, which is close to the IRGC, had a main headline on December 21 about the president of Iran “solving problems, fixing the holes” would appear to mean Iran is focused a lot on domestic issues. It has distracted the region and the world by backing Hamas and creating war around the region. Now with the world distracted, Iran can focus domestically. Of course, that could be media reporting that is just for domestic consumption, while Iran prepares another surprise for the region. The only issue facing Tehran in this regard is that it has already tried to use its proxies to do their worst and they haven’t succeeded.

Seth Mandel: Biden Has No Choice But To Stop the Houthis

Some decisions are simple, which can be both a blessing (you know what to do) and a curse (you don’t have much excuse for not doing it). The Biden administration faces just such a situation at the moment: It must put a stop to the Houthi attacks on cargo ships traversing the Red Sea.

The Houthis are Iran’s proxy in Yemen. They have been firing upon merchant ships that pass through the Suez Canal, sometimes via drone. Attacks have increased since Israel’s latest war with Hamas began in October. The U.S. announced this week it is sending a multinational naval force to accompany ships through the troubled waters. That is a start but it won’t be enough: Naval escorts will likely slow the flow of commerce through the waterway and therefore aren’t a long-term solution to the market disruption. Biden & Co. have to be prepared to do more.

One reason the West’s hand is forced here is economics. One-fifth of all global container trade, as the Wall Street Journal reports, passes through the canal. Oil giant BP has for now stopped sending its ships through that route; others have started to follow suit. According to the New York Times, crude oil has already risen 8 percent since mid-December.

Other costs also get passed on to consumers: The alternate route for these ships runs around Africa, adding time and fuel to every trip. If the problem persists, the Times says, economic forecasters expect the price of oil to increase by as much as $4 a barrel. Insurance rates will also rise with either the increased danger of the normal trip or the extended time frame of the alternate route.

The other reason to act is that the Houthis, and by extension Iran, are gaining at the expense of the U.S. and our allies. “At the end of the day, what they really want is a bigger stake in Yemen, and perhaps they want to do that through becoming a global problem,” Yoel Guzansky, a senior research fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, told the Times. The Houthis are negotiating with Saudi Arabia for recognition in part of Yemen, so this display of strength only improves their hand.

Jonathan Tobin: Biden needs to sober up about the Palestinians

What Israelis understand, and Biden and most Americans refuse to accept, is that a diplomatic solution that would place Gaza under the role of the Palestinian Authority will simply be a formula for more terrorism. Even worse, should the Americans and the international community succeed in forcing the Israelis to accept a two-state deal removing Israeli forces from Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”), that would just repeat Sharon’s catastrophic Gaza experiment on a much larger scale.

As the most recent polls conducted by Palestinian analysts show, more than three-quarters of Palestinians support the Oct. 7 attacks. That is shocking but it is easier to understand when you remember that the majority—as well as their supposedly “moderate” leaders—have always rejected peace and an independent state if it meant accepting the legitimacy of a Jewish state, irrespective of its borders.

They share Hamas’s goal of destroying Israel and slaughtering its people because their national identity is inextricably tied up with their century-old war on Zionism.

The choice is security or Hamas
It’s hard for those, who believe in the two-state solution as something akin to a religion rather than a policy proposal, to accept that aspect of the Palestinian national identity.

It’s equally difficult to accept for politicians like Biden, who has spent his career advocating for a two-state solution. But if he is now in a minority in his own party about Israel, it’s because the “progressives,” who advocate for the woke diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) catechism, are likelier to support the Palestinians than Israel.

The further he goes to appease them, the more it strengthens the will of the Palestinians to continue their quest for Israel’s destruction. As with every previous attempt to impose a peace process on Israel, the only thing that will be achieved will be more terrorism and more Israeli blood shed.

After Oct. 7, it’s time for even liberal American Jews to say “enough” to this farce.

Those who purport to be friends of the Jewish state must speak up and support not so much Netanyahu or the members of his unity coalition but the Israeli people’s will. It’s important for those in the pro-Israel community to not just respect the opinion of the overwhelming majority of Israelis but to back it up with political advocacy—even if it’s not what Biden wants.

The choice isn’t between Netanyahu and peace. It’s between Israeli security and Hamas’s vision of endless war, in which most Palestinians believe.

Anyone with a shred of sense, or even the most minimal knowledge of Palestinian politics, knows that another two-state push will fail. But if you care about preventing more Oct. 7 slaughter, you need to respect the sensible desire of the Israelis to defend themselves and give up on fantasies about the Palestinians choosing peace.

The only way Palestinians will ever come to their senses will be after the complete defeat of Hamas. It will also require the Arab and Muslim worlds and the international community to cease propping up a national movement—whether it is led by Hamas or Fatah “moderates”—whose ultimate aim is wiping out the one Jewish state on the planet and killing its people. That is exactly what a return to two-state diplomacy won’t do.

Most Americans continue to support Israel. But supporters of Israel must not betray that stand by advocating for two-state diplomacy that Israelis deem to be not merely ill-advised but insane. Like the Israelis, Americans must draw conclusions from Oct. 7 and oppose giving the Palestinians the chance to do it again.