Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, March 01, 2024

03/01 Links Pt1: Israel’s heroes will ensure victory; Hamas Seeks to Use Gaza Stampede to Stop the War; If Protests Are Not Anti-Jewish, Stop Attacking Jews

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The terror of the right

Some people dismiss the realities of Israeli opinion about the war and the “two-state solution” because all they can see is the apparently demonic figure of Netanyahu. Such people are obsessed with him. Many Israeli journalists see nothing but this hate-figure looming in front of them. He fills the entire visual space between the hater and the political horizon.

But it’s perfectly possible to dislike Netanyahu and want to see him gone from office, and yet support his determination to destroy Hamas or oppose the imposition of a Palestinian state on the grounds that there is no alternative strategy that would protect Israelis against further genocidal attack.

So why are so many unable to distinguish between the man and the measures?

For a start, it’s so much easier to blame a man who can be removed from office rather than face up to a terrifying reality that’s far harder to address, such as the Palestinian Arabs’ implacable and brainwashed hatred of the Jews.

For exactly the same reason, it’s so much easier to believe that a Palestinian state would end that enmity, rather than face up to the actual evidence of a century of murderous Palestinian rejectionism that continues without end.

There’s also another reason, a clue to which was provided by certain reactions to the October 7 pogrom both in Israel and abroad.

Among many “progressives,” the atrocities produced a profound sense of disorientation. This was because the Palestinians — people whose cause they had promoted as the acme of conscience and enlightenment — turned out to be barbaric savages.

Even worse, people the progressives had opposed and stigmatised as the “far-right” because they had regarded the Palestinians as murderous foes turned out to have been correct all along.

Worse yet again, some people on their own side actually turned on them for supporting Israel against Hamas. This was a terrible and destabilising shock. That’s because the left is governed by a herd mentality. Their views have to conform to the opinion of similarly “enlightened” people. Anyone who isn’t part of the progressive herd is “right-wing” and wrong about everything.

Moreover, since progressives believe that they embody virtue itself, right-wingers aren’t just wrong but evil. Yet the October 7 massacre revealed that the people supported by the progressives were evil.

This put progressives in a terrible bind. They couldn’t accept anything that revealed their own narrative to be so morally bankrupt.

So they exaggerated the plight of Gaza civilians in the war, for which they blamed Israel not Hamas. In response to the tsunami of antisemitism consuming the west as a result of the Palestinian cause they themselves promoted, they focused instead on the evils of “Islamophobia”. And they redoubled the attack on Netanyahu as their scapegoat.

As a result, both the Biden administration and others who demonise “the right” are supporting the insupportable. If they have their way, more Israelis will be murdered, raped, beheaded and taken hostage; there will be more Islamist intimidation, subversion and violence in Britain and America; and the west will find itself in a terrible war for its survival not against “right-wing” bogeymen, but against truly sinister enemies whom western folly has so catastrophically empowered.

Seth Mandel: A Plan for Postwar Gaza

So how might that better future be facilitated?

The task force recommends the creation of an International Trust for Gaza Reconstruction, funded by the U.S. and partner states in the region. The trust would deal with the two sides of reconstruction: on the one hand, humanitarian relief and restoring services; on the other, governance and administration. It would be advised by a council of Palestinians—crucially, the authors suggest, this would include Palestinians in the diaspora alongside Gazans and West Bank residents.

The de-Hamasification of the Strip would be an ongoing process and one that Israel would, from a security standpoint, continue to oversee. For the rest, a coalition of states such as the U.S., Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia would fund and manage the transition to a new Palestinian government in Gaza. The task force envisions the phasing out of the UN refugee agency’s participation, to be replaced by Palestinian civil-society groups.

If the past few months, and especially tragic events like today’s, have taught us anything, it is that security is paramount. Hamas will not go quietly but neither can militant gangs fill the vacuum. Food, supplies, equipment, and people will need to be safely moved in and out of Gaza for an extended period of time. The projects within the Strip will need to be protected not only from Hamas dead-enders but from any armed gangs that would do what they did today and shoot fellow Palestinians while hijacking aid.

We know from Iran and Syria’s long campaign of assassination in Lebanon that standing up a Palestinian government will be seen as a provocation to the colonizing powers in Tehran and that any foreign presence aligned with the U.S. will be targeted. With security, however, can come true representative Palestinian governance and Palestinian-led economic institutions.

None of this will be easy, but it is essential, and it will only be possible with serious investment and planning from those who want to see the Palestinians live free of the terror and tyranny they experienced under Hamas.

Israel’s heroes will ensure victory

The parents of a brave 21-year-old commander at the Erez Crossing military base emotionally but proudly shared the story of their son, who led his soldiers to safety while fighting Hamas terrorists. He chose to leave his men in a saferoom to save others and then fell in battle. His heroism saved lives at the expense of his own. His parents were remarkably brave in telling their son’s story and pleased to share that their 17-year-old son is excited to join the unit in which his older brother served with such distinction. Like so many with whom we met, these parents were focused on Israel’s future, sharing the common understanding that this war must be the last.

One of the hostages told his father several months before the attack that if he were ever kidnapped, he did not want Palestinian terrorists released in exchange for him. His father, rifle slung over his shoulder, explained why he and about one-third of the families of hostages do not want Israel to release terrorists to save a family member. The epitome of altruism is their focus on Israel’s future. They know that every deal made with terrorists will promote more kidnapping and more wars. The father described “the spirit of our house” revolving around a selfless commitment to the future of the State of Israel and that the lives of its nine million citizens outweigh the life of one.

Up north, we visited the Alma Research Institute, founded by Sarit Zehavi, who bravely monitors the border with Lebanon and documents Hezbollah infiltrations and reconnaissance. She refuses to leave her home despite the constant missile barrages and imminent danger. 60,000 Israelis from the north remain displaced. 500 homes have been destroyed by Hezbollah missiles.

The Druze living in the north also refuse to leave. They welcomed us into their homes and shared stories of their personal losses to Palestinian terrorists and their hope for Israel’s victory. As so often during our stay, we heard that Israel must win this war. Former MK Shachiv Shnaan, whose son was murdered in a terror attack on the Temple Mount, shared that not only is Israel the best place in the world to be a Jew, but also to be a Druze.

All of these meetings exemplified the Israeli spirit and determination to win, to defeat Hamas, Hezbollah and all those who seek Israel and the Jewish people’s annihilation. They all recognize that only when Israel’s enemies are defeated will there be peace.

So what does victory look like? Destroying Hamas’ ability to repeat Oct. 7 is imperative. But one soldier shared that victory is not just finding and killing Yahya Sinwar. It is another music festival with dancing and singing, bringing the lush fields back, opening the schools for children to safely attend, bringing critical factories back online, fixing the fence, rebuilding the military’s defenses and bringing life back to people’s homes.

He concluded that the answer to Hamas and what is owed to those who lost their lives is proving that life was not destroyed and that Israel is stronger than ever. I have no doubt that Israel’s heroes will ensure victory.

A week ago, a woman visited Islam's holiest spot, the Kabaa in Mecca, and unfurled a Palestinian flag while smiling for a camera.

Saudi security quickly came to tell her to put the flag away, which she did.

That was the entire incident. But video of it caused an uproar on social media,where people claimed she was "arrested" (she wasn't.) and that she had every right to display the flag.

Haaretz reports that Saudi officials have responded:

Speaking with Al-Ekhbariya TV, Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais stressed that the holy site is a place of worship where only religious slogans and chants should be heard.

Al-Sudais, one of the nine imams of the Grand Mosque, said that visitors come to the site to pray and worship, not to express political views. He urged worshippers not to let their emotions distract them from their prayers, suggesting that they pray to God (Allah) for salvation over their concerns rather than expressing demands at the holy site.

This is a policy. Whether one agrees or not, the Saudis have a policy for their holy sites and are trying to enforce it.

Compare this to what regularly happens on the Temple Mount with the full permission of the Waqf:

But they do prohibit the Israeli flag from being shown.

Meaning the only consistent policy shown by the Waqf is antisemitism.

I'm still waiting to hear from any human rights group that Jews should have equal rights to worship on their holiest site.

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 evidence to the "massacre" that the @NYTimes believes

The New York Times sifts through the evidence of the stampede in northern Gaza yesterday. As usual, it shows skepticism for anything the IDF says and implicit trust in whatever Gaza "witnesses" say.

The crucial question is whether the IDF shot at people waiting for humanitarian aid. The Times isn't convinced by the IDF drone video:

The drone video, which does not include audio, was edited by the Israeli military with multiple clips spliced together, leaving out a key moment before many in the crowd start running away from the trucks, with some people crawling behind walls, appearing to take cover.

After a cut in the drone video, at least a dozen bodies are visible on the ground at the scene; it is not clear whether the people are injured or dead. A small number of people may have been struck by aid trucks during the panic, and two Israeli military vehicles are also visible at the scene.

But another video, from propaganda channel Al Jazeera, is described without any skepticism:

A separate video released by Al Jazeera of the crowd near the aid convoy captures the sound of gunfire and shows multiple tracer rounds, originating from the southwest where an Israeli military base is located.

That video is also heavily edited, but the NYT doesn't mention that.

But most importantly is that the Al Jazeera video shows that all the tracer rounds visible were shot well above the heads of any people.

Al Jazeera captions the video as "The first moments of the occupation shooting towards Palestinians waiting for aid" when the video shows that they are clearly not shooting at them.

People do duck when they hear the gunshots, but there is no indication of anyone shot or injured.

اللحظات الأولى لإطلاق الاحتلال النار باتجاه فلسطينيين ينتظرون وصول المساعدات في شارع الرشيد غربي #غزة #حرب_غزة pic.twitter.com/7VOHuZ2ygI
— قناة الجزيرة (@AJArabic) February 29, 2024

The AJ video doesn't refute the IDF account that they first fired warning shots at a crowd that approached them away from the convoy. It confirms it.

But the NYT also has "witnesses."

Around 100 people with gunshot wounds were brought to Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City, according to its director, Husam Abu Safiya. The hospital had also received 12 bodies, he said. Another witness at the hospital, Hussam Shabat, 22, a journalist, said all the casualties he had seen had bullet wounds, including to the chest, jaw and shoulder.

Husam Abu Safiya has been interviewed numerous times during the war, consistently attacking Israel. In December he told Al Jazeera that the IDF placed weapons in the hospital, photographed them, and then arrested innocent people. He told other outlets that "The occupation shoots anyone who passes in the streets or looks through the windows."

He also accused the IDF of unleashing dogs in the hospital to attack doctors and patients, “They unleashed dogs on us to maul us.”

And only on Wednesday, he claimed that there was no electricity in the hospital and it was out of service. Yet photo and videos of the hospital treating the injured Thursday showed the lights on and it was obviously open, if chaotic.

This hospital director is employed by and paid by Hamas. He will say what Hamas wants him to say. And the Western media knows this. They choose to report on only the accusations that sound credible, because they want to use him for stories like this one.

What about the other "journalist" who claims that "all" the casualties he had seen had bullet wounds?

Hussam Shabat is not a journalist. He doesn't have a media outlet. He only has an Instagram an Facebook page and managed to get a "Press" jacket.

His report from Thursday shows injured or dead people on a donkey cart. No gunshot wounds are visible, and some certainly look like they were trampled.

If he is a journalist with a camera, why not show the evidence?

But Shabat also has a side gig. He started a GoFundMe page to supposedly provide food and shelter to people in northern Gaza, all by himself.

He raised $75,000 in a week, with no accountability at all. No organization, no auditing, nothing but a promise that he will provide aid to Gazans and a couple of videos of him giving children food.

There is an obvious conflict of interest. He wouldn't raise as much money if he says that Gazans were trampled while trying to get food as he would from claiming that Israel shot them. And, very possibly, a large portion of the money he raises goes to...Hussam Shabat.

These are the witnesses that the New York Times deems credible enough to quote without any caveats, any research, any compunction, all at the same time that every Israeli statement and evidence is examined with a fine-toothed comb for inconsistency.

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!

Al Araby writes that Zionist Jews control American universities with huge donations:

Jewish capital plays a pivotal role in supporting and developing major American universities , which enhances Israel's ability to influence all US decisions.

The influence of Jewish capital in the United States is not limited to Wall Street, nor even to parties seeking to finance their election campaigns. Rather, it is permeated in the educational sector, as it has the largest scientific, technical, and military power in the world.

The presidents of Harvard and Pennsylvania, Claudine Guy and Liz Magill, were removed from their positions, not because of administrative or academic shortcomings, but because they failed to “stamp down anti-Semitic manifestations,” in the words of members of Congress, as they did not stand up to student demonstrations sympathetic to Gaza in the face of Israeli aggression.

Two Jewish businessmen, Bill Ackman and Len Blavatnik, temporarily froze support for Harvard due to their position on its former president, knowing that they gave the prestigious educational institution together more than $330 million.

The latest chapter in Jewish funding for American universities was announced by Ruth Gottesman, the widow of businessman David Gottesman, through her donation of one billion dollars to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, to cover tuition fees for all students.

The largest financier ever is Michael Bloomberg, who gave about $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University.

In conclusion, through these numbers, which are considered a link in a larger chain, it becomes clear how much influence Jewish capital has on American higher education, which in turn produces the elite that rules and has the largest military and economic power in the world.

Between 2014 and 2020, Muslim-majority countries together donated nearly $5 billion to American higher-educational institutions. Most of those came from Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

And that is just what was reported officially. Much of the money donated to universities is not reported publicly. Mitchell Bard has done more on this topic than anyone, and he found billions of dollars in donations from Qatar that were not reported.

Some of these donations come with strings attached, like the funding for the Edward Said Chair of Middle East Studies at Columbia. It is obvious that foreign nations spending billions expect to exert some sort of influence. Economically troubled Egypt ($125M), Lebanon ($24M), and the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority ($10M) have given donations to US universities, with Harvard receiving the most. The only reason that makes any sense is that they expect to reap dividends in the future, directly or indirectly. Recipients include political centers like Harvard's Kennedy School.

Even seemingly innocuous donations to medical research and the like can be problematic: universities are chasing after donors, and they may believe that if the school is known for being pro-Israel it wouldn't get anything from Arab countries.

It gets worse. A recent report from the Network Contagion Research Institute found a correlation between the amount of money universities received from Middle Eastern countries and antisemitism.

From 2015–2020, institutions that accepted money from Middle Eastern donors had, on average, three times as many antisemitic incidents as those institutions that did not.

This study has received some publicity - hence this article trying to claim that it is Jews, not Arabs, who are using money to influence universities. Even though Jewish donors don't have political agendas. They typically want to simply show appreciation for their alma maters.

All becomes clear when you understand that Al Araby is based out of...Qatar. Almost certainly, the newspaper was told to write this article to help deflect from the pressure Qatar is feeling on having their donations to be more transparent.

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!

02/29 Links Pt2: Bari Weiss: What It Means to Choose Freedom; If Berkeley Wants to Protect Free Speech It Will Expel Its Rioters; The “Occupation” Dodge

From Ian:

Lipstadt urges US Jews not to ‘go underground’ amid surging antisemitism

She told the congregation that bad actors, particularly autocratic regimes, are fanning the flames of antisemitism to undermine faith in democracies, and that “all government leaders” agree with that assessment, as do members of the US intelligence community.

When members of the public buy into antisemitic conspiracies claiming Jews control elections, the media, or banks, they have “essentially given up on democracy,” she told the audience at Central Synagogue, indicating a loss of faith in the system or that the government cannot ensure their welfare.

She said that trend had become more pronounced since October 7. She highlighted increased antisemitism on social media platforms controlled by the Chinese government, speculating that promoting antisemitic messages could be a way to subvert American interests.

She compared efforts to stoke antisemitism to a “cooking spoon to stir up the pot” of societal discord. If people don’t feel safe due to real or perceived threats, they lose faith in their governing system, she told the congregation.

“If you think you’re a failed state, if you think the government can’t protect you if you think terrible things are going on, then you feel unstable,” she said.

Lipstadt was in New York for a series of meetings, including on Wednesday at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Ahead of the trip to New York, she traveled to Germany for the Munich Security Conference and held meetings in London. Her visit to Central Synagogue and conversation with its rabbi, Angela Buchdahl, was co-sponsored by the synagogue and UJA Federation of New York.

During her visit this month to Europe, she met with American United Nations representatives and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, whom she applauded for speaking “passionately” about Hamas hostages and antisemitism. Guterres has come under fire from Israel and its advocates for saying in October that Hamas’s brutal incursion “did not happen in a vacuum,” as well as repeatedly expressing concern about Israel’s military operations in Gaza alongside his condemnations of Hamas.

Lipstadt decried rhetoric from others in the international community, however, saying recent statements by the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinians, Francesca Albanese, were “beneath contempt” and “overtly antisemitic.” Albanese, who once said that the “Jewish lobby” controls the US and has compared Israel to Nazi Germany, said this month that October 7 victims were not targeted because of Judaism, but because of “Israeli oppression.” The statements drew public rebukes from Israel, the US, France and Germany.

The “Occupation” Dodge

A naïve interlocuter might ask the throngs of young people clamoring for Palestinian liberation what makes Palestine “occupied.” There is only one answer: Jews are sovereign over it. Hamas and its cheerleaders want to liberate Palestine from Jewish control. Is there a difference between murdering Israelis because one hates Jews and doing so because one would sooner burn them alive than accept Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish ancestral homeland?

Recognizing that this line of reasoning does not end well, most anti-Israel activists today have taken an additional step. They argue that removing Jewish sovereignty from Israel is not necessary because Jews are Jews, per se, but because Jews are not “indigenous” to the territory. Liberating Palestine is thus an anti-colonial struggle to restore property to its original national owner. Western students and progressive activists have increasingly adopted this position to deflect accusations of anti-Semitism.

This logic has many problems, too, but let’s focus on just one: If Jews are non-indigenous occupiers in the land that was once called Judea, where do they belong? Where are Jews indigenous? For those who refuse to say, “Israel,” the question yields only bad answers. The most common one is that Jews belong in Europe—a very bad answer indeed. Many Jews, including a majority of Jews in Israel, are Mizrahi or Sephardi, meaning that their forebears spent their diasporic millennia in the Middle East and North Africa. Most of these Jews never lived in Europe. Even Ashkenazi Jews have distinct genetic markers showing that we are quite similar genetically to Levantine Arabs.

What the indigeneity argument (or any other attempt to deny the Jewish connection to Israel) amounts to is a doubly unacceptable claim: first, that Jews are not a unified ethno-religious group that traces its ancestry to ancient Israel, as Jews claim; second, that today’s Jews are impostors who pretend to descend from the ancient Israelites so they can steal property from downtrodden natives.

If these excuses for so-called anti-Zionism end up sounding like the deranged rantings of a conspiracy theorist, that is no coincidence. After all, in some quarters—say, college campuses, the UN, or Hamas—advancing wild theories about the perfidious Jews duping the world is a sure road to advancing your career.

Bari Weiss: What It Means to Choose Freedom

This past Sunday, I gave a speech at the 92nd Street Y called “The State of World Jewry.” The address is a historic one. Over four decades, it has been delivered by the likes of Elie Wiesel, Abba Eban, Amos Oz, and more.

But for a sense of the state of Jewish life in America these days, you need only to have walked by the building that night. You would’ve found that police had cordoned off the entire block—and for good reason. Anti-Israel protesters, many wearing masks, gathered to intimidate those who came to the lecture. On the way in, you would’ve been screamed at—told you were a “baby killer” and “genocide supporter” among other choice phrases. You might have even glimpsed Jerry Seinfeld being heckled and called “Nazi scum” on his way out of the talk. (Classy.)

This is of a piece with what’s happening across the country at Jewish events.

On Monday at the University of Berkeley, to choose one of so many examples, a violent mob gathered outside an event featuring an IDF reservist. The students who gathered to hear him—and never got a chance to—were forced to evacuate. One student reported being physically assaulted. Another says he was spat on. Various students say the mob yelled slurs including “Jew, Jew, Jew.”

I am beyond grateful to the NYPD, and the entire staff of the 92nd Street Y, for making sure that everyone who attended the talk was able to do so safely. But everyone must ask themselves: Do we want to live in a country in which simply giving a speech about a Jewish subject requires serious police protection? What does that reality say about the state of our country and our freedoms?

I hope the words I delivered offer some measure of explanation about the moment we find ourselves in and how we might emerge from it. You can watch the video just below. The transcript follows.

A "destroyed" Gaza hospital is miraculously resurrected

Two months ago, the World Health Organization condemned the "effective destruction" of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

It was bulldozed! Burying Palestinians alive!

Yesterday, Al Jazeera filed a video report from that same hospital, claiming that babies are starving from malnutrition there.

But the video shows the electricity is on, the incubators and equipment is working, and everything we see is intact.

Not only that, but the hospital is - according to the report - busier than ever! The doctor was quoted as saying, "We used to admit 500 to 600 babies a day into the hospital. Now we admit between 1,000 and 1,200 babies a day."

If this is true, then the even babies who supposedly died of malnutrition may have died of natural causes. The infant mortality rate in the US is about 5.4 deaths per thousand; if they are seeing that many every day then one would expect several to die every day.

As usual, the world is being fed propaganda, not truth.

(h/t Irene)

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!

Leaders Who Dislike Bibi Also Ensuring Israelis Will Reelect Bibi (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Washington, February 29 - Heads of nations who for years have blamed Binyamin Netanyahu for stifling prospects for a peaceful, long-term solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continued this week to speak and act in ways that all but guarantee the embattled prime minister will secure another term in office when the time comes, since their rhetoric and decisions play into Netanyahu's established image as an unabashed fighter for Israeli security in the face of unjust opposition.

Netanyahu, who has stood at the helm of Israeli politics for almost all of the last fifteen years, faced a deepening crisis of confidence with voters following the systemic failure of intelligence and preparedness of October 7 and sparking the current war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. His persistent legal troubles, a fizzled attempt to reform the judiciary, and a well-funded opposition protest movement had eroded much of his popular support, even if no single credible alternative leader had yet to emerge. In the meantime, internationally, proponents of deep Israeli concessions to Palestinian demands expressed continual frustration at Netanyahu's refusal to play along with the notion that Palestinians would be ready for peace anytime soon, and many of those global leaders openly spoke of sidelining or ousting him, at least by empowering or funding the opposition.

His administration's prosecution of Operation Iron Swords, however, put the domestic political concerns in abeyance while Israel came together to fight the enemy of the moment - Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah. Netanyahu's much-forecasted political doom became something of a consensus prospect in Israel - until the continued international pressure to reward the terrorism of October 7 with concessions came to bear on the Jewish State, allowing Bibi to position himself once again as standing in the breach against a hostile international community that refuses to take Israel's security concerns seriously.

For example, reports of a leak several weeks ago from the US State Department that the Biden Administration intends to recognize a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, whether true or not, galvanized Israelis in a way that only the war effort had been able to achieve until now. Some analysts expected the opposition to seize on the reports as evidence that Netanyahu's decisions have alienated the country's most important ally, but those expectations failed to materialize; Israeli voters, united in a more bunker-like mentality, instead blamed American and global naivety and rallied together instead of against Netanyahu; even the center-left elements of his wartime unity coalition rejected the purported move.

In response to these internal Israeli political developments, international opponents of Netanyahu prepared further moves to prove him correct.

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!

02/29 Links Pt1: Peace can be achieved only through decisive victory; How the Free World Is Failing the Hostages; Sinwar hopes for a high civilian death toll in Rafah

From Ian:

Peace can be achieved only through decisive victory

That is why Israel must destroy Hamas to ensure that, despite the terrorist group’s promises to repeat those atrocities over and over, they will never happen again. Israel must execute this war and save the hostages on its own terms and timetable, as well as implement strategies, protocols, and tactics that will truly prevent 10/7 from ever occurring again.

Everyone with whom we met – ministers and MKs from the Left, Center, and Right; government officials; reservists and active-duty soldiers; retired military personnel, police, and commanders of regional security; intelligence experts; parents of the fallen and a father of a hostage; and members of the Druze community – passionately asserted that Israel must win. In fact, one MK went so far as to suggest that had Israel adopted the MEF Victory Project ideals, October 7 may not have happened. Nonetheless, there is now a nationwide consensus that winning is not an option; it is an imperative.

ISRAEL AND THE WEST share enemies who are watching. That’s why any discussion of rewarding the Palestinians with a state of their own sends the message that terrorism works. The mere mention of two states sends the absolutely wrong message at this dangerous time. Radical Islam understands this. Biden and the West? Apparently not.

Israel’s regional friends are watching as well. Hamas’s intention was to disrupt normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. It succeeded – temporarily. The Gulf nations are also observing, and they seek to ally with a strong horse. Without victory, the future of the Abraham Accords is at risk.

While the West seems to have forgotten what it means to win (think Afghanistan and Iraq), Israel can no longer afford to spend its days fighting the next war between wars. Israelis understand that this must be the last.

Too many policymakers in Israel and the West ignorantly mistook Palestinians as a people in search of peace, prosperity, and opportunity. Palestinian aspirations do not align with those of the West. Everyone from Jake “the Mideast has never been quieter” Sullivan to the hopeful Jews living on the kibbutzim in the South failed to recognize this reality. And while 10/7 apparently was not a wake-up call for Western policymakers, Israelis learned the hard way that victory must be achieved in order to end the barbarians’ ambitions of destroying Israel.

The response to the October 7 massacre is an inflection point for Israel’s – and the West’s – survival. If peace is the goal, decisive victory is the only means to its achievement.

Gerald Steinberg: No, Most People in Gaza Are Not “Just Like Us”

According to the mantras of peace activists, the way to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is by recognizing that the people on the other side are "just like us." This article of faith is also passionately repeated by Western diplomats. But is Palestinian society "just like" Israeli society?

Israelis look at Gaza and see that many supported the horrendous brutality in the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7. Large crowds turned out to cheer the terrorists returning from their heinous spree of torture, murder, rape and kidnapping. Some of the "ordinary civilians" ran immediately to join in the looting. Long before Oct. 7, everyone living in Gaza (including UNRWA employees) knew that Hamas was stealing international aid to build a massive underground terror infrastructure.

In contrast to the majority of Israelis, many Palestinian mothers repeatedly encourage their children to become "martyrs" and express pride when they are killed while murdering and brutalizing Jews. No, they are not "just like us." In what Prof. Richard Landes calls "honor-shame cultures," humiliation (such as defeat in an aggressive war) leads to unbounded determination to exact revenge. This is the essence of the Palestinian nakba - the ongoing humiliation of the 1948 war in which the Arab armies were defeated by Jews and Zionists. If Palestinians were "just like us," they would instead examine their own shortcomings.

In contrast to Palestinian textbooks, in which Jews and Israelis are depicted as monsters, Israeli children are not systematically raised on hate and incitement. The fundamental differences in our identities are deeply embedded in cultural values taught to children.

To avoid more disasters, Israelis must firmly reject the temptations of "common humanity" and other messianic illusions. As long as the goal of the Palestinians, Iran, and their allies is the elimination of Israel, sufficient military power must be available and displayed so that they understand that attacks on Israel will result in their own destruction. A strong and "disproportionate" deterrent force is the best option for survival.

Why a Palestinian State Isn't Going to Happen

The Palestinians will never accept a state within reasonable parameters. They have painted themselves into a corner with their non-negotiable "right of return" claim, as if 5.9 million "refugees" have the God-given right to "return" to the villages in Israel that their grandparents left 75 years ago. Many of the villages don't exist anymore. Anyway, that demand would mean that while the Palestinians would have their own state, they would insist that the majority of their people must go and live in someone else's state, namely Israel.

Creation or even declaration of a Palestinian state would relieve Israel of several burdensome chores under the Oslo process, which would be automatically canceled. No more Palestinian use of Israeli seaports. Israel would no longer collect taxes for the Palestinians. Coordination of customs duties would end. So would security cooperation.

Israel could close its borders to a Palestinian state completely if it so decided, just as Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon are closed. Tens of thousands of Palestinian workers in Israel? Treatment of Palestinian patients in Israeli hospitals? Commerce? Not unless Israel agrees.

Jordanian air force aid airdrops miss all of Gaza - twice

Jordan has been proud of its role in airdropping aid to people in north Gaza.

But its air force is having problems hitting...Gaza.

On Monday, one of the drops landed in the Mediterranean, and some reports say in southern Gaza, not the north where it was intended.

Today, another one landed in Israel instead of Gaza.

Arab caricaturists are making fun of the mistakes.

There have been lots of articles (falsely) accusing Israel of inaccuracy in its bombing terrorist targets. But Jordan can't even hit Gaza accurately!

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!

We don't know exactly what happened in the stampede on Al Rashid street - but we do know Palestinians are lying (update)

Israel National News reports:

The IDF on Thursday reported that as aid trucks were brought into northern Gaza on Thursday morning, Gazan residents gathered around the trucks, acting violently and looting the supplies.

"Early this morning, during the entry of humanitarian aid trucks into the northern Gaza Strip, Gazan residents surrounded the trucks, and looted the supplies being delivered," the IDF confirmed. "During the incident, dozens of Gazans were injured as a result of pushing and trampling."

According to the reports, some of the masses neared the IDF troops in a dangerous fashion, threatening to harm the troops.

The soldiers, whose job it was to allow safe distribution of the aid, felt threatened by the masses and responded with live fire.

The IDF released a video showing the crowds massing around the aid trucks, some climbing on top of them, but it doesn't show the shootings or any panicked fleeing to my eye.

It seems likely that some people fell off the trucks and some might have been crushed.

The reporting in Arab media is quite different:

In a new massacre committed by the Israeli occupation tanks and artillery strikes, at least 104 civilians were killed and dozens were injured today while waiting for food aid in Al-Rashid Street southwest of Gaza City.

Medical sources said that occupation forces opened heavy machine-gun fire towards thousands of citizens from the northern Gaza Strip, specifically from Gaza City, Jabalia and Beit Hanoun, who were waiting for the arrival of trucks loaded with humanitarian aid in Al-Rashid Street southwest of Gaza City, resulting in the killing of over 104 persons.

104 dead from troops shooting? Machine gun fire? And other reports claim artillery as well.

Others are now claiming 150 killed.

One site claims to have video of the "massacre" - but it shows nothing, no gunshots or even panic.

ما حدث صباح اليوم فعل أكثر من وصفه بالمجزرة الكبيرة بحق المواطنين الذين كانوا ينتظرون وصول المساعدات بالقرب من دوار النابلسي على شارع الرشيد .. حتى اللحظة هناك عدد كبير من الشهداء ، واصابات غالبيتها تعرضت للبتر ، المشهد مفجع للغاية داخل مجمع الشفاء الطبي ،، أعداد كبيرة من… pic.twitter.com/AdUpcmhGW9
— الحـكـيم (@Hakeam_ps) February 29, 2024

All we know is that the IDF did shoot at some people. 104 or 150 is an insanely huge number to be killed. Normally as soon as the first shots ring out everyone else scatters.

With hundreds of people there, one would expect to find lots of videos being shared on social media of the shootings. The most gruesome photo I could find shows several bodies, but I cannot see any gunshots - their injuries seem more consistent with a stampede than shootings.

I count seven or eight bodies in an Al Jazeera video.

What seems most likely is that some - maybe dozens - of Palestinians were killed in a stampede, perhaps as they were crowding around the trucks and perhaps fleeing the IDF defensive shooting. Even if the stampede was running away from live fire, there wouldn't be that many dead, because it was an open area and high casualty deadly stampedes only happen in spaces where the crowds have nowhere to go.

Palestinian officials are inflating the death count by an order of magnitude, which they have been doing since the beginning of the war as we saw in the Al Ahli Islamic Jihad rocket explosion. They look at any incident where civilians are killed as an opportunity to demonize Israel, a higher priority than saving lives or grieving.

There was at least one tragic incident this morning. But there is no way that over a hundred people died.

UPDATE: The IDF says it hit no more than 10 people and shot at their legs. They say it was a separate incident and not connected with the convoy.

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!

Jordan's Foreign Minister called out Israel as the only guilty party on October 7.

Adopting Hamas talking points, Foreign Minister Ayman Al-Safadi justified what he called the “Al-Aqsa Flood” massacre on October 7th, saying it must be looked upon in "context" of Israeli actions against Palestinians.

This came during a press conference with his Austrian counterpart, Alexander Schallenberg, in Amman.

A reporter asked Al Safadi why he is only calling for Israel to stop fighting in Gaza, "Why haven't you called on Hamas to release the hostages, and maybe lay down their arms so that this war could end?"

Al-Safadi didn't answer the question. Instead, he dissembled for a couple of minutes, falsely claiming that "the whole Arab world condemned the killings of Israeli civilians on October 7." This is an absolute lie. Most official statements were of "concern" over "escalation of violence on both sides" while the Arab world itself was supportive of the attacks as "legitimate resistance." Outside of the UAE and Bahrain, who issued clarifying statements days later after Israeli complaints on their "all lives matter" statements, I don't see any Arab nation condemning Hamas. Including Jordan.

He then falsely compared this faux condemnation to the lack of condemnation of Israeli officials for the "killing of 30,000 Palestinian civilians." Yes, he called 12,000 Hamas terrorists "civilians."

Al-Safadi then claimed that there can be no peace without a Palestinian state as he continued to refuse to call for Hamas to release hostages or lay down their arms.

But that wasn't the worst part.

He then added this disgusting addendum: “We have to remember that October 7th did not happen out of a vacuum, there's a context,” and he then went through a laundry list of supposed Israeli crimes. He then said that if Palestinians don't get a state, there will be more October 7ths in coming years, justifying not only last year's massacre but peremptorily justifying whatever outrages Palestinian terrorists do in the future.

All of this was said in fluent English.

There are scores of separatist movements in the world demanding their own state. No one says that violence is justified in their pursuit of their goals. Only for Palestinians are world leaders saying, sure, what can you expect, of course they will be violent forever unless they get their demands met.

Schallenberg, for his part, did not say anything to disagree with al-Safadi's words, and he even thanked Safadi "for the warm welcome and thought-provoking discussions."

I'm tweeting Schallenberg to ask whether blaming Jews for being slaughtered is considered "thought provoking" to him.

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!

02/28 Links Pt2: A never again moment — again; Israel, Indonesia were on track to normalize ties before Oct. 7; The Jews of West Point

From Ian:

What Jews Mean to America

Taking a long view of Jewish history, Meir Soloveichik observes that there is nothing especially surprising about the surge of anti-Semitism in the U.S. since October 7. What is surprising, he writes, are the “stalwart, public defenses of Jews” from public figures. Soloveichik believes such attitudes have deep roots in the American founding, and are summed up in Abraham Lincoln’s description of Americans as God’s “almost chosen people,” by which he meant that

America is not biblical Israel’s replacement; it does not seek to supersede or supplant the Jews. It does not envy Israel’s eternity but seeks to learn from it and be blessed by it; it is biblical Israel’s imitator, learning the lessons of Israel’s story. Whereas other nations saw in Jewish eternity a reminder of their own ultimate demise, America, as Lincoln argued, learned from the biblical story that it could hope that it would not “perish from the earth” if it remained true to its covenantal calling. The phrase “almost chosen people” warns and inspires America, implicitly embracing the faith that, despite centuries of exile, God’s covenant with the original “chosen people” remained.

Such attitudes, Soloveichik argues, bolster both American sympathy and antipathy toward Zionism:
It is not merely that many Americans of faith support Israel but that Israel’s story supports faith. Many religious Americans . . . find in Israel the vindication of traditional Western, and especially American, beliefs. Israel’s story is seen as the ultimate indication that “God exists; he drives history; he performs miracles in real time; God’s word in the Bible is true.”

It is only with this in mind that we can truly understand the intense hatred directed at Israel from the American left. . . . Progressives elementally understand that Israel, ancient and modern, is a profound source of inspiration in the way America sees itself as a covenantal people. Many progressives, meanwhile, are driven by the fierce belief that America has never been a nation dedicated to a great idea, . . . and its story is entirely a tale of evil and oppression. Woke progressives hate Israel because they hate America; they work, above all, to undermine the notion that America can consider itself a covenantal nation, and they therefore hate the embodiment of the original covenantal nation.

This is why the more the righteousness of Israel’s current cause is revealed, the more agitated and angry the anti-Semites become. Thus we have those who claw at posters of child hostages, destroying evidence of the evil of Israel’s enemies.

Benny Morris: The NYT Misrepresents the History of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict

Earlier this month, the New York Times Magazine published a long article, titled “The Road to 1948,” drawn from a conversation among six professors, three Arab and three Jewish. But even the composition of the panel fits what Benny Morris terms the article’s “misleading attempt to project even-handedness,” as two of the Jewish participants betray a sharply critical attitude toward Zionism, while the three Arab scholars “almost uniformly toe the PLO (or Hamas) line, which is indistinguishable from propaganda.” Morris also notes:
Five of the six people involved can hardly be deemed experts on either the Arab-Israeli conflict or the 1948 war. Only one—Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington—has published works of some relevance.

Morris dissects the article’s numerous errors, half-truths, and omissions. For instance:
Emily Bazelon, [the piece’s moderator and editor], informs readers that the first bout of violence took place when the 1920 Muslim Nebi Musa festivities in Jerusalem “turned into a deadly riot,” in which “five Jews and four Arabs [were] killed.” Neither she nor any of the panelists mention that an Arab mob attacked, murdered, and wounded Jews or that the crowd of perpetrators chanted “nashrab dam al-yahud” (“we will drink the blood of the Jews”). Nor does she tell us that the crowd shouted, “Mohammad’s religion was born with the sword,” according to the eyewitness Khalil al-Sakakini, a Christian Arab educator.

The other errors are more severe still, but I found this point about the Bir Zeit University sociologist Salim Tamari especially noteworthy:
Tamari blithely dismisses the [1948] war by saying that the Palestinians and the Arab states were weak and that “the Arab defeat was almost a foregone conclusion.” But this only seems true in retrospect. In May 1948, the American and British intelligence services predicted an Arab victory.

Tamari and the others thus seem to go beyond the standard academic argument that Israel independence was built on the terrible and inhuman mass-dispossession of Palestinians. They also want to defend the collective honor of the four Arab armies that lost to a group of Jews they outnumbered and outgunned.

Michal Cotler-Wunsh: A never again moment — again

All of this is reminiscent of the “denial spectrum” witnessed in response to the Holocaust — including distortion, minimization and trivialization. It is echoed in the contextualization of the Oct. 7 attacks, which seeks to offer understanding of the perpetrators, paving the way for justification, dressing up mass murder as “resistance.”

All these arguments have now become common. But it’s the response from institutions and organizations that were created and entrusted to uphold and protect the international rules-based order and human rights that have been most shocking: U.N. Secretary General António Guterres contextualized the massacre by saying it “did not occur in a vacuum.” A former director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division disputed the veracity of the Oct. 7 attacks and the atrocities committed.

Meanwhile, American university presidents were unable to determine if calling for the genocide of Jews in the “context” of Oct. 7 violated their codes of conduct, whereas calling for the genocide of any other group would have almost certainly been considered such a violation. Instead, a Cornell University professor was “exhilarated” by the massacre; the director of the campus sexual assault center at a Canadian university disputed whether any sexual violence had been committed on Oct. 7; and a column in the Yale University student paper was edited to remove the line “unsubstantiated claims that Hamas raped women and beheaded men.”

No wonder a recent Harvard-Harris poll in the U.S. found that 66 percent of respondents aged 18 to 24 believed Oct. 7 was genocide, while an astounding 60 percent believed the assault could be “justified.”

In the streets, protestors around the world, including in countries that designated Hamas a terror entity, have justified the “resistance,” echoing the genocidal Hamas charter with their chants of “from the river to the sea” — and it takes just one look at a map of Israel to understand this is a call for its annihilation. Unfathomably, the spectrum of responses has now “legitimized” a tsunami of antisemitic attacks — of Jews and all those who support Israel’s right to defend herself.

Unequivocal condemnation — without a “but” at the end of the sentence — remains the only ethical response to the barbaric war crimes and crimes against humanity that were perpetrated on Oct. 7. Silence, denial, contextualization, justification and anything in between points to a shocking collapse of morality, of the rules-based international order, of the mechanisms, institutions and principles established in the aftermath of the Holocaust, so that “never again” would become a reality.

Alarmingly, we are at a never again moment — again.

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Contrary to popular antisemitic belief, Jews are not “white Europeans” who so rudely colonized land where “Palestinian” Arabs had lived for thousands of years. First of all, Jews are neither European nor white. Secondly, one cannot colonize one’s own land. Thirdly, “Palestinian” Arabs did not live in pre-state Israel for thousands of years.

It’s all a big, fat lie.

Middle Eastern Political and Religious History Analyst Joseph E. Katz, citing a 1937 Palestine Royal Commission Report out of London, writes:

“The Jewish presence in ‘the Holy Land’ -- at times tenuous -- persisted throughout its bloody history. In fact, the Jewish claim -- whether Arab-born or European-born Jew -- to the land now called Palestine does not depend on a two-thousand-year-old promise. Buried beneath the propaganda -- which has it that Jews ‘returned’ to the Holy Land after two thousand years of separation, where they found crowds of ‘indigenous Palestinian Arabs’ -- is the bald fact that the Jews are indigenous people on that land who never left, but who have continuously stayed on their ‘Holy Land.’ Not only were there the little-known Oriental Jewish communities in adjacent Arab lands, but there had been an unceasing strain of ‘Oriental’ or ‘Palestinian’ Jews in ‘Palestine’ for millennia.”

Katz goes on to cite Reverend James Parkes, an authority on relations between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East. In 1949, Parkes assessed what he called the Jews’ “real title deeds” censuring the Zionist movement for its failure to stress that the Land of Israel has NEVER been without Jews.

It was, perhaps, inevitable that Zionists should look back to the heroic period of the Maccabees and Bar-Cochba, but their real title deeds were written by the less dramatic but equally heroic endurance of those who had maintained the Jewish presence in The Land all through the centuries, and in spite of every discouragement. This page of Jewish history found no place in the constant flood of Zionist propaganda.... The omission allowed the anti-Zionists, whether Jewish, Arab, or European, to paint an entirely false picture of the wickedness of Jewry trying to re-establish a two thousand-year-old claim to the country, indifferent to everything that had happened in the intervening period. It allowed a picture of The Land as a territory which had once been "Jewish," but which for many centuries had been "Arab." In point of fact any picture of a total change of population is false....

It seems possible, even probable, that the failure of Zionist Movement to depict the Jewish presence in the Land in its proper context, is what led to the myth à la mode that Jews are “white” Europeans who up and stole “Palestine” from poor peaceful Arabs who’d lived there for “centuries.” The fact is that there has been a continual Jewish presence in the Land of Israel. There was never a time when there were no Jews living in the Land of Israel, and in fact there is robust evidence that there were significant numbers of Jews living in the Land, throughout time.

Katz tells us that despite physical violence against Jews in the Holy Land by post-Roman Christians, there were over forty Jewish communities that could be traced to the 6^th century, comprising "twelve towns on the coast, in the Negev, and east of the Jordan, and thirty-one villages in Galilee and in the Jordan Valley.”

In 438 CE, says Katz, Galilean Jews declared an end to the exile when Empress Eudocia allowed Jews to once again pray on the Temple Mount. Archaeological findings, Katz tells us, bear testimony that in 614 CE, the Jews fought alongside invading Persians to overwhelm the Byzantine garrison in Jerusalem. Yet when the Arabs seized Jerusalem two decades later, they found a city with a strong Jewish identity. The prevailing culture of Jerusalem was Jewish. Despite all the foreigners who had come and gone, raping and pillaging Jewish land, the Holy City remained Jewish in everybody’s minds. Because it was, is, and always will be.

Katz goes on to describe the tragedy that was life for the Jews under Arab Muslim invaders and occupiers. Spoiler Alert: it wasn’t good for the Jews. And still, the Jews, as stiff-necked as their reputation, clung on to the Holy Land, however they could. Sometimes they couldn’t, against their will. So they wandered the earth, and some of them settled in Europe, praying to return.

Other Jews however, never left but stayed in the Land of Israel. They stayed and stayed. It was hard. But they stayed in the Land, their indigenous territory. Only here could they fulfil the commandments.

And here is where people get stuck. They don’t understand or don’t want to understand that Jews and the Land of Israel are indivisible. The Jews have to be in Israel. This is commanded of them by God.

We pray “Shema Yisrael!” Listen Israel! The Jews are called “Israel.” The Land of Israel literally means "Land of the Jews."

Even in faraway non-Jewish lands, the Jewish people are synonymous with the Land. They read the same prayers with variations related specifically to living outside the Land, outside the place where Land and Jews are one. And still, these exiled Jews are tied to the Land in ways that can never be undone. All Jews are. We all have that holy connection.

When a European minyan, a quorum of ten, prays for rain, they are praying for rain in Israel. When a Jew in Cleveland eats bread, he says an after-blessing, thanking God for giving him the Land of Israel, and praying for the Temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem, speedily in our time.

The enemy in Gaza and under the PA has none of this weighty history, and no valid claim to any land at all. They are but an odd admixture of people who call themselves “Palestinian” while claiming Jewish land—it’s right out of the Roman playbook. But there are censuses. And people with brains can think for themselves. The enemy is a liar and a thief, or rather a wannabe thief, because the land will never be theirs.

The Land will always be Jewish land, and there’s nothing they can do about it. Even after October 7, even now, there is nothing that can ever change this singular fact: The Land of Israel belongs to the Jews, forever.

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!

SpyTalk writes:

What has made the war in Gaza so much deadlier and destructive than Israel’s previous operations against Hamas is the combination of its use of artificial intelligence, which generates more targets than ever before, and the IDF’s relaxation of rules limiting strikes against non-military targets and civilians, according to little noticed statements by current and former IDF officials, as well as an investigation by the Israeli-Palestinian +972 online magazine and the Hebrew-language news site, Sikha Mekomit, or Local Call.

According to the IDF’s official website (which was down on Saturday), the military’s intelligence branch created its AI-assisted targeting directorate in 2019. The website disclosed it employs an AI-assisted target creation platform called Habsora in Hebrew (the Gospel, in English) in the IDF’s war against Hamas “to produce targets at a fast pace.”

In an interview published a few months before the Gaza war, retired Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, who stepped down as the IDF’s chief of staff last year, described the AI-assisted targeting platform as “a machine that processes vast amounts of data faster and more effectively than any human, translating them into actionable targets.”

To illustrate the impact that the system has had on targeting, Kochavi said that before the platform was created, the IDF’s intelligence branch would produce 50 targets in Gaza in a year. “Once this machine was activated, it generated 100 new targets every day,” Kochavi said.

There have been a number of articles like this that claim that AI is helping the IDF kill more civilians. They base their claims by relying on the ignorance of people about AI, about the IDF and natural hatred for Israel that overwhelms any attempts at fairness.

All of the articles mention this much larger number of potential targets being identified. What very few say is that the ultimate decision on what will be hit is made by humans.

As Bloomberg reported in its own biased piece before October 7:

Though the military won’t comment on specific operations, officials say it now uses an AI recommendation system that can crunch huge amounts of data to select targets for airstrikes. Ensuing raids can then be rapidly assembled with another artificial intelligence model called Fire Factory, which uses data about military-approved targets to calculate munition loads, prioritize and assign thousands of targets to aircraft and drones, and propose a schedule.
While both systems are overseen by human operators who vet and approve individual targets and air raid plans, according to an IDF official, the technology is still not subject to any international or state-level regulation. Proponents argue that the advanced algorithms may surpass human capabilities and could help the military minimize casualties, while critics warn of the potentially deadly consequences of relying on increasingly autonomous systems.

Generating targets based on AI is exactly the same as generating targets based on other kinds of intelligence, just much faster. There is no change in procedures. There is no change in policy. If anything, these AI tools can minimize mistakes.

These articles all have the same pattern. They call upon "experts" who know literally nothing about the IDF or its policies, and then spin nightmare scenarios where "with the push of a button" the IDF could choose to have the machines take over and make all the decisions.

The SpyTalk article relies on two retired, anonymous CIA officials who compare Israel's AI with Vietnam War-era technology used by the US. Really.

They say things like:

“In war, AI systems require the ingestion of quality inputs of intelligence at a massive level,” he said. “This is particularly true for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems input. But that’s not effective when you have little current intel on the enemy, who is hiding underground and who doesn’t maneuver as armies do, but rather as insurgents amidst a civilian population.”

If the old method took a week to identify a target, how timely would that information be by the time the target is attacked? Isn't a system that identifies them faster going to be inherently more accurate?

And, yes, targets are now underground. AI doesn't make that issue worse than it was, and arguably it can identify entrance and exit points of tunnels much better than humans can by identifying people entering one building and exiting another, for example, of seeing when cell phone signatures jump from one place to another. Of course computers would do a better job than humans would.

And, again, humans review the AI data for accuracy, just as they would have reviewed the recommendations of humans beforehand. There is literally no difference - except that this is much better.

Another criticism often leveled at AI is that it is sometimes impossible to understand how it reaches a decision. But this is something that Israel recognized and appears to have fixed long ago. Bloomberg says:

Many algorithms are developed by private companies and militaries that do not disclose propriety information, and critics have underlined the built-in lack of transparency in how algorithms reach their conclusions. The IDF acknowledged the problem, but said output is carefully reviewed by soldiers and that its military AI systems leave behind technical breadcrumbs, giving human operators the ability to recreate their steps.

In other words, the "experts" are basing their knowledge of AI on playing with ChatGPT rather than understanding the state of the art.

These same "experts" predicted thousands of IDF deaths and Gaza cities being deathtraps. Ai isn't the only reason that the IDF performance has surpassed expectations, but it is a major one.

The effectiveness cannot be denied. Hamas deaths outnumber IDF deaths by a 50-1 ratio even when Hamas deploys teams of only two or three people at a time while there will be at least 10 IDF soldiers deployed on any given mission.

West Point's Articles of War blog summarized things nicely last year:

One encouraging aspect is that it seems the IDF seeks to use tools that complement human decision making, rather than as substitutes for the human factor. It is important to maintain a human in the loop in order to promote accountability, because we are not fully aware of the capabilities and the risks of AI tools. In this regard, Israel is setting a positive example that should be followed.

Too many articles on Israel's use of AI are based on science fiction scenarios of robots running amok. The IDF has been researching AI for over a decade, and it applies its own moral code to the tools as it does for every other tool. They've thought through these problems, and solved them, way before the "experts" started charging consulting fees for their uninformed opinions.

(h/t Martin)

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!