Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, April 04, 2024

The Lebanese people are the key to avoid a catastrophic war in Lebanon (@CSIS)

A couple of weeks ago, the Center for Strategic and International Studies issued a detailed report, "The Coming Conflict with Hezbollah." It is comprehensive and describes the current situation, comparative military strengths of both Israel and Hezbollah, possible scenarios and recommendations of what the US could do to try to forestall or avoid a major, devastating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

Its main recommendation is for the US to engage in "coercive diplomacy:"

Another approach is to use coercive diplomacy to compel Hezbollah to abide by UNSCR 1701. To this end, the United States, often represented by mediator Amos Hochstein, is using diplomacy to negotiate with Lebanese leaders, and thus indirectly with Hezbollah, while Israel is putting military pressure on the group through a mix of strikes on Hezbollah forces and leaders. The renewed threat of an all-out war gives this pressure additional strength. Hezbollah, however, does not want to be seen as surrendering to Israeli pressure, particularly at a time when Israeli attacks on Palestinians are dominating the headlines.

That last line undermines the approach, but CSIS cannot come up with anything better.

Yet there is an alternative, and the seeds for it can be seen in the same document. It says, "Hezbollah seeks broader popularity in Lebanon, and triggering a destructive war could grievously undermine support, particularly outside its Shiite core constituency."

Hezbollah is not afraid of Israeli escalation, because it positions itself as the resistance against Israel. Its honor/shame mindset would never allow it to back down and appear to kowtow to Israel.

It is not afraid of the Lebanese government or army, which is can bully at will.

But Hezbollah is afraid of Lebanese public opinion.

As I've argued previously, the Lebanese people hold the key to stop a true catastrophe that nobody wants. Only if they rise up and protest Hezbollah's escalations can Hezbollah end its attacks on Israel and maintain its perceived honor, by doing the will of the people it pretends to defend.

The Lebanese people know that Hezbollah is not "defending Lebanon," but rather bringing Lebanon closer to destruction. Most of them oppose Hezbollah and a few are speaking up. They need to be supported by the world community.

In 2020, there were some small protests by Lebanese citizens in Beirut demanding Hezbollah adhere to UNSCR 1701 and Lebanon implement UNSCR 1559 disarming Hezbollah among other demands.

The Lebanese know that Hezbollah is sensitive to their public opinion. During anti-Hezbollah protests in 2019, the terror group got very nervous, and they sent thugs to threaten and attack the demonstrators, as well as the army that tried to separate the two groups. They threw stones and, according to reports, "explosive devices."

Part of the reason that anti-Hezbollah protests are not in the streets in force is that the Lebanese majority does not feel like they have any real political, financial or moral support from the rest of the world. Those protests fizzled just as the anti-Iran protests fizzled - they did not get enough external support, and that support is critical to shore up the bravery necessary to stand up to Iranian intimidation in both countries.

There is no shortage of governments that say they do not want to see a war in Lebanon. There is no shortage of NGOs on Earth that advocate peace. There are plenty of media organizations who write passionate op-eds decrying the devastation of Gaza who would write the same about Lebanon during any war.

Now is the time to act against war, not when it breaks out.

Lebanese anti-Hezbollah groups need to be identified and promoted in the media. Anti-Hezbollah voices need to be highlighted now by NGOs who claim to care about peace and human rights. Governments, especially the US and France, must work to publicly support the Lebanese people against the Iranian proxy that is bringing Lebanon to the brink. This is not a time for wishy-washy "both sides"-ism.

Behind the scenes, the West can engage in the sorts of covert social media initiatives that are now ubiquitous by Russia, by anti-Israel forces and by political campaigns. Financial incentives to help Lebanon's economy can be conditioned on Hezbollah's withdrawal from the southern border.

There are plenty of things the West can do to weaken Hezbollah, but the main power comes from the Lebanese people, and those people need to be strengthened by everyone who wants to avoid Lebanon's collapse.

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

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At the White House press briefing on Monday, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked for an official reaction to the news that Israel Knesset passed a law giving the prime minister the power to shutter foreign news networks, specifically aimed at Al Jazeera.

She answered, "If it is true, if it is true, a move like this is concerning. We believe in the freedom of the press. It is critical. It is critically important. And the United States supports the critically important work journalists around the world do. And that includes those who are reporting in the conflict in Gaza. So we believe that work is important, the freedom of the press is important, and if those reports are true, it is concerning to us."

In 2006, the US designated Al Manar TV - a Hezbollah-allied Lebanese TV station - on its terrorist list as a " "Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity." Al Manar TV was banned from being broadcast into the US. The Treasury Department also placed Al Nour Radio and the Lebanese Media Group on the same list as affiliates of Hezbollah.

Al Manar remains on the State Department Terrorist Exclusion list even today.

Two years earlier, Al Manar was placed on the US terrorist watchlist. But it is hardly the only media company on that OFAC Sanctions List. The database shows all these (apparent) media outlets, amd I found several more after making this list:

Name	Address	Program(s)
AL RA'Y SATELLITE TELEVISION STATION	Near Damascus in the Yaafur area	IRAQ3
AL ZAWRAH TELEVISION		IRAQ3
AL-AQSA SATELLITE TELEVISION		SDGT
AL-DONYA TELEVISION CHANNEL	Information Free Zone	SYRIA
AL-DUNYA TELEVISION	Information Free Zone	SYRIA
AL-RA'Y SATELLITE TELEVISION CHANNEL	Near Damascus in the Yaafur area	IRAQ3
AL-ZAWARA SATELLITE TELEVISION STATION		IRAQ3
AL-ZAWRA TELEVISION STATION		IRAQ3
DUNIA TELEVISION	Information Free Zone	SYRIA
GENERAL RADIO AND TELEVISION CORPORATION	Al Oumaween Square; P.O. Box 250	SYRIA
ISLAMIC RADIO AND TELEVISION UNION		ELECTION-EO13848
NATIONAL IRANIAN RADIO AND TELEVISION	Jamejam Street, Valiasr Avenue	IRAN-TRA
RADIO AND TELEVISION CORPORATION	Al Oumaween Square; P.O. Box 250	SYRIA
SATELLITE TELEVISION CHANNEL AL RA'Y	Near Damascus in the Yaafur area	IRAQ3
SBC TELEVISION	Al Sufara' Street in the Ya'fur district	IRAQ3
SYRIAN DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF RADIO & TELEVISION EST	Al Oumaween Square; P.O. Box 250	SYRIA
TELEVISION STATION RUSSIA-1	5th Yamskogo Polya street, 19-21, building 1, Begovoy	RUSSIA-EO14024
THE OPINION SATELLITE TELEVISION CHANNEL	Near Damascus in the Yaafur area	IRAQ3
AL NOUR RADIO	Abed Al Nour Street, PO Box 197/25, Alghobeiri; Haret Hriek	SDGT
AL NUR RADIO	Abed Al Nour Street, PO Box 197/25, Alghobeiri; Haret Hriek	SDGT
LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY RADIO REKLAMA NN	32 Belinskogo Street; Office 301	RUSSIA-EO14024
LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY RADIO REKLAMA VOLOGDA	7 Lesnaya Street; Tverskoy Municipal District	RUSSIA-EO14024
OOO KHOLDING VYBERI RADIO	4 Olkhovskaya Street; Building 2, Floor 5, Suite Part 544; Basmannyy Municipal District	RUSSIA-EO14024
OOO RADIO REKLAMA VOLOGDA	7 Lesnaya Street; Tverskoy Municipal District	RUSSIA-EO14024
RADIO ANNOUR	Abed Al Nour Street, PO Box 197/25, Alghobeiri; Haret Hriek	SDGT
AMAQ NEWS AGENCY		FTO; SDGT
FARS NEWS AGENCY	Number 1, Shahrood Alley, Ferdowsi Square	IFSR; IRAN-HR; IRGC
FEDERAL NEWS AGENCY LLC	d. 18 litera A. pom. 2-N, UL. Vsevoloda Vishnevskogo	CYBER2
NEVSKIY NEWS LLC	d. 11 korp. 2 pom. 327-N, ul. Staroderevenskaya	CYBER2
NEWS AGENCY INFOROS		CAATSA - RUSSIA; CYBER2; NPWMD
ONLY NEWS	Vul. Hotkevicha Gnata 12, Of. 177	ELECTION-EO13848
TASNIM NEWS AGENCY	South Side First Floor, 2 Plaque 12 Pourfallah Street-Shahid Doctor Hassan Azdi St	IFSR; IRAN-HR; IRGC

The EU banned several Russian media companies as well in 2022.

What is the difference, exactly, between these dozens of media outlets that the US and EU designates as being terrorist and those that would be limited under Israel's new law?

If anything, Al Jazeera is more directly implicated in terrorism than, say, Russia Today. As MEMRI's damning report showing the links between Al Jazeera and Hamas mentions:

Since the October 7 attack, Hamas's leaders have been managing the war from Doha and conveying their messages mostly via Al-Jazeera. The network has been operating as a propaganda outlet in the service of Hamas 24/7, with hardly any coverage of other topics. The channel expresses unreserved support for Hamas, justifying the deadly attack, showing footage of it obtained from the body-cams of the terrorists, and celebrating it as a victory that brought pride and honor to the Islamic nation.

Some Al-Jazeera journalists have recently been "outed" as Hamas and PIJ fighters. A Palestinian journalist working for Al-Jazeera, Muhammad Wishah, appears to have also been a commander in the military wing of Hamas, according to documents on a laptop found by the Israeli army in a Hamas base in northern Gaza. Wishah, from Al-Buriej in the central Gaza Strip, has featured in Al-Jazeera broadcasts in recent months, with the station calling him one of their journalists. According to the Israeli military sources, however, Wishah is a prominent commander in Hamas's anti-tank missile unit, who began, in late 2022, to work in R&D for the terror group's air unit.[68] A photo that emerged of Wishah together with Yahya Sinwar suggests warm relations between the two.

Another Al-Jazeera correspondent, Ismail Abu Omar, who participated in the October 7 attack, documenting it from within the Gaza Envelope, was airlifted to Doha for medical treatment on February 19 after having been wounded in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah a week earlier. He has been identified as a Hamas platoon deputy commander.[69]

Mustafa Thuraya, an independent journalist who worked with Al-Jazeera TV and Agence France-Press, was, according to documents found by the Israeli army in Gaza, an operative in the Al-Qassam Brigades' Gaza City Brigade, and he specialized in developing drones. Hamza Al-Dahdouh, another Al-Jazeera journalist and photojournalist, was a member of the electronic engineering unit of the PIJ's Northern Gaza Brigade.

The "concern" the US is showing over sanctioning Al Jazeera is just as hypocritical as its "outrage" over the accidental killing of civilians, something the US has done many times over the years, and rarely apologized for.

(h/t Avi)

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!

04/03 Links Pt2: A Day that Will Live On in Infamy; Eve Barlow: Parasites; Protests in Amman are linked to Iranian goal to ‘swallow’ Jordan

From Ian:

A Day that Will Live On in Infamy

Today is a dark day for the Western world; a day that will live on in infamy. The decision by the United Nations Security Council to impose a ceasefire on Israel without condemning Hamas for instigating the current war, or insisting on the immediate return of hostages before a ceasefire begins, is surely one of great injustices imposed on a country since the creation of the United Nations in the wake of the Second World War.

Since its establishment in 1945, the United Nations has ostensibly aimed to be the fulcrum of global peace and security, intervening in conflicts to halt wars and foster negotiations. However, the decision today by the UN Security Council marks a stark departure from historical precedents. It is also galling hypocrisy to use Ramadan as a foil for this resolution, when Hamas deliberately chose a Jewish festival day as the date to launch its violent bloodbath against Jews.

These omissions are not just notable; they are literally unprecedented, except when it comes to Israel. In past interventions when the Jewish state wasn’t involved, the UN has repeatedly taken a more balanced approach, recognizing aggressions and violations of international law by all parties involved. This latest stance, with a resolution that is void of any condemnation of Hamas or demands for the return of hostages for there to be a ceasefire, raises questions about fairness and the underlying principles guiding the UN’s decisions in international conflicts.

Just by way of comparison, in January, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2722, which called for the maintenance of international peace and security in the face of Houthi attacks on commercial navigation in the Red Sea. The resolution unequivocally condemned the Houthi’s aggressive actions, including the seizure of the ship, Galaxy Leader, and its crew, emphasizing the vital importance of unimpeded maritime commerce and the exercise of navigational rights under international law. The resolution demanded an immediate halt to such attacks and called for the release of the seized vessel and its crew, highlighting the broader implications of these actions on global trade and regional stability.

Stephen Pollard: Only science fiction explains the UN’s parallel universe

See what I mean about parallel universes? Those who cite Hamas’ casualty figures are living in a parallel universe where 2+2 does not equal 4 but whatever Hamas declares it to be.

It's the same phenomenon over aid and the supposed famine that is engulfing Gaza as a result of Israel – in this other parallel universe – refusing to allow enough food or medical supplies in. (You hardly need me to tell you that the UN operates in a parallel universe. The UN Human Rights Council, after all, exists not so much in a parallel universe as in a deranged antisemitic fantasy world.)

The recent report by the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Famine Review Committee (FRC) said that famine was likely by May in northern Gaza, and by July in other parts of the Strip. Last week, however, COGAT, the Israeli Defense Ministry body responsible for civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories (COGAT stands for Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories) demolished the “multiple factual and methodological flaws” in the IPC’s report, which was – of course – based on Hamas supplied figures.

For one thing, the IPC simply repeated as fact the Hamas health ministry’s assertion that less than one litre of water per person was available per day, when the actual figure is 20. COGAT has provided incontrovertible photographic and other evidence of between 150 and 200 aid trucks entering daily – what is actually an 80 per cent increase in food supplies since before October 7. The problem, as anyone who lives in our actual universe rather than the parallel one in which the Jews are trying to starve the Gazans, is that the UN’s own agencies in Gaza, and some of the aid organisations, have been unable to distribute supplies which are waiting on the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom crossing for UN distribution by aid workers – in large part because of Hamas, which is deliberately pushing the narrative of starvation by the Israelis. And the UN, of course, repeats it as fact.

This week a series of pictures has emerged on social and Palestinian media showing markets in Gaza full of food – indeed there is now so much available that, as one vendor told reporters, "an average family can now buy products for a hearty meal with 100 shekels, compared to 200 shekels required for such a meal just a few days ago."

As 3 Body Problem shows, there are an infinite number of these parallel universes. The accusation, for example, that Israel is engaged in genocide, rather than in an astonishingly precise and carefully planned attempt to destroy a terrorist organisation, is patently the product of a parallel universe. You can, I am afraid, take your pick from many more.

Col Kemp: Civilian casualties aplenty inside war's foggy lens

The implication of that is whoever ordered and conducted the strikes believed the vehicles that were hit contained terrorists, suggesting incorrect intelligence or failure of surveillance, possibly compounded by human error. There are many variables. We don’t yet know whether those who conducted the strikes were acting according to IDF rules of engagement or were negligent. Sometimes soldiers and commanders behave recklessly or irresponsibly in all armies including the IDF.

Nor do we know whether accurate information on their movements was passed by the WCK staff or whether it was correctly understood by the IDF or shared with the strike commander. We do, however, know that differentiating between enemy forces and uninvolved civilians is made much more challenging by Hamas terrorists’ use of human shields, always moving and fighting in civilian clothes and sometimes using civilian vehicles such as ambulances and aid trucks.

Unfortunately, nightmares like this occur frequently in the fog of war, with its confusion, chaos, danger, death, destruction, mental overload, human pressure, and technical failure. For example, during President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, a US drone strike in Kabul mistakenly killed an aid worker and nine members of his family including seven children. General Mark Milley, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff explained: “In a dynamic high-threat environment, the commanders on the ground had appropriate authority and had reasonable certainty that the target was valid. But after deeper post strike analysis we conclude that innocent civilians were killed.” This strike also occurred as a result of a misidentified vehicle.

Another tragedy occurred in October 2015 when a US gunship attacked a hospital in Kunduz operated by Doctors Without Borders in which 42 staff and patients were killed and many wounded. The US attributed the incident to “avoidable human error compounded by process and equipment failures”, with the aircrew misidentifying the hospital as a Taliban-controlled building.

I have not had personal experience of the killing of innocent civilians but during different campaigns, I was involved with so-called “blue-on-blue” or “friendly fire” incidents, which are not dissimilar. They often occur in conditions of poor visibility or on difficult ground such as urban or wooded areas, when I know firsthand that it is all too easy to misidentify your own troops. Three soldiers from my own regiment were killed by a US air strike in Afghanistan in August 2007 due to human error by both the American strike commander and the British ground controller. The challenges of inherent battlefield chaos and consequent errors — which applies also to civilian casualties - is illustrated by estimates that suggest up to 25% of US casualties in war have been due to friendly fire.

I have no doubt the independent investigation will reveal the full facts and be made public. If there is intentional malice, breaches of IDF rules of engagement, or reckless behavior, individuals will be held accountable under military justice. Lessons will also be learned by the IDF to help them avoid repetition, although the unfortunate reality of war is that other tragic incidents will re-occur during this and other conflicts around the world, especially where terrorists use human shields. In this war in Gaza, there are two fail-safe means of preventing further major violence against civilians as well as soldiers. The first is for Hamas to surrender and release all the hostages. The second is the destruction of Hamas by the IDF.

CAIR's Islamophobia methodology is garbage

Yesterday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a report saying that CAIR had received 8,061 complaints nationwide in 2023, the highest number of complaints CAIR has ever recorded.

So I looked at their methodology.

Each year, thousands of Americans contact CAIR through a variety of media, including telephone, email, and our online complaint system. When possible, CAIR staff also may also reach out to offer their services to individuals whose incidents were reported in news sources and not directly to CAIR. With each complaint, case intake staffers review preliminary materials and conduct interviews with prospective clients as part of the confidential intake process. These nationwide intake staff will then classify the case using the complaint category definitions provided earlier in this report. Each CAIR office that does intakes then submits their annual totals to the research and advocacy team.

Notice anything missing? CAIR doesn't even pretend to vet the complaints. Anyone can fill out anything in the online form and it gets counted as an incident.

Compare to the ADL's annual report on antisemitic incidents:

ADL staff verify the credibility of every incident, eliminate duplicates and weed out trolling and spam before including them in the Audit.

CAIR's list includes pretty much anything. If a Muslim man thinks that he is not getting his coffee fast enough because of his religion, that would be a complaint that gets counted.

Moreover, even if there is good reason for a Muslim to be treated differently because of his or her actions, it gets counted anyway. For example:

Banking-specific discrimination based on perceived identity/social class such as religion, race, ethnicity, or disability. This type of discrimination may result in an individual’s bank account or credit being closed for unexplained reasons. It includes peer-to-peer payment apps such as Venmo, CashApp, and Zelle and money transfer services like Western Union.

If a bank or payment service refuses to do business with someone, it is because that person violated their policies, not because they are Muslim. They could be sued if it was religious discrimination, and no one wants that.

Or this:

FBI Interrogation: An FBI agent approaches an individual and conducts, or attempts to conduct, an interview. FBI agents commonly approach individuals at work, school, or their home. The individual who has been approached may not know why the FBI is interested in speaking with them.

There isn't even a hint here that the person's religion has anything to do with the FBUI speaking to them - but CAIR considers this to be a valid complaint and it counts it.

CAIR have 20 categories of complaints. They categorize them but do not even pretend to vet them to see if they are in fact discriminatory.

And the report is largely based on this self-reported, unverified list of over 8,000 "complaints."

One other aspect of this report is worth mentioning.

It defines "anti-Palestinian racism" as “a form of anti-Arab racism that silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, defames or dehumanizes Palestinians or their narratives."

This means if historians say that the Second Temple was on the Temple Mount before Al Aqsa Mosque was built, they are erasing a Palestinian narrative that the Temples were myths - and that makes them racist.

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!

Here is a video of a Muslim woman in London berating a gay supporter of Hamas at an anti-Israel demonstration:

The one-way relationship between "Queers for Palestine" and Muslim supporters of Hamas is one of the most bizarre aspects of modern antisemitism.

There is no possible reason for people to support those who want to see them dead - unless they want to see Jews dead even more.

So many people try to contextualize anything bad Palestinians do, while ignoring the antisemitism that underlies Israel-bashing. Context is wonderful when used in only one direction. "There is homophobia everywhere!" Yes, but not enshrined into law, and not subject to the death penalty. Sheesh.

Haaretz today writes about documentation Israel discovered in the tunnels under Khan Younis giving first hand details of the torture and eventual execution of a senior Hamas member, Mahmoud Ishtiwi.

"I went through torture that no one has gone through in Palestine, not by the Palestinian Authority, not even at the hands of the Jews, but by Hamas internal security," Mahmoud Ishtiwi wrote before his execution in February 2016.

The documents collected by IDF soldiers also show that following Ishtiwi's execution, Hamas continued to locate, dismiss, interrogate, and torture any member thought to be gay. A secret internal Hamas document from December 2019 discusses the discovery of "un-Islamic" activity by members, including drug use, prohibited relations with young women, theft, and pedophilia.

The file suggests that the organization feared anyone engaging in such activities was exposed to blackmail by Israeli security forces. But it seems that the most severe measures were taken against gay men, who were automatically marked as collaborators with Israel – a capital crime punishable by death.

The papers cite examples from 2018, when five Hamas members were arrested and interrogated for "committing the abomination of lying with a man, having illegal relations by a man with young women, taking sleeping pills, watching pornographic films, illegal relations with a young woman online, relations with young children, adultery, lying with a man, and harassment."

The reflexive response to these kinds of stories from gay Hamas supporters is "shut up!" Or, as with wife beating, it is "They only oppress gays because of the occupation!" Or, "Jews are homophobic too!"

Dr. Sa'ed Atshan, a professor of anthropology and peace and conflict studies at Swarthmore College, wrote a book called Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique. He engages in a couple of these responses:

It's very dangerous to pathologize Palestinian society as uniquely homophobic or that homophobia is endemic to the society without this broader context, as well as without understanding the ways that life under brutal military occupation exacerbates homophobia within Palestinian society as well. In order for us to deal with questions of how queer people are treated in Palestine, we have to address the broader landscape of the denial of freedom to Palestinians more generally speaking.

Really? Why? Is it impossible for Palestinians to work towards solving any problems at all as long as Israel exists?

Because that is the real message being given.

(h/t Yoel)

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!

04/03 Links Pt1: Blame terrorists, not Israelis, for the suffering in Gaza; Iran Is Winning the War; Haniyeh: Hamas won't back down from hostage deal demands

From Ian:

Iran Is Winning the War

Weakness in Washington: Advantage Iran
Do Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin signal fearsome intent when they fire missiles at Iranian proxies while telling Tehran the United States has no desire to escalate? When Secretary of State Tony Blinken says to Iran, “we would like to see them tell the Houthis to stop,” do you think Iran feels the heat?

The questions answer themselves.

Amazingly, some senior Biden administration officials give the impression that the supreme leader’s supposed fatwa banning nukes just might be real—despite the history of Ali Khamenei driving the country’s once-clandestine nuclear-weapons project. Nothing about the Islamic Republic’s “peaceful” nuclear research since 2002, when the weapons program was first publicly revealed, makes sense unless one assumes the supreme leader’s original objective remains.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the regime currently has enough 60 percent enriched uranium for three nuclear weapons, which could rapidly be spun up to 90 percent, the ideal bomb-grade. The stockpile of 20 percent uranium would allow for several more. As it stands now, according to the Institute for Science and International Security, which closely monitors the Iranian nuclear program, Tehran could produce bomb-grade uranium for one weapon in seven days; one month would give enough for six bombs; five months would allow for 12 weapons.

Washington went through a similar experience with North Korea. There, U.S. officials wanted to believe that there was a chance that Pyongyang could be bought off short of a nuclear test, and if it couldn’t, then nuclearization was better than risking war on the peninsula.

Barring some monumental miscalculation by Tehran, Biden surely will be no more bold against the Islamic Republic than George W. Bush was against North Korea. The president’s recent decision to release $10 billion held in escrow for Iraq’s electricity payments to Iran, combined with the not-so-secret indirect talks between U.S. and Iranian officials in Oman, strongly suggest that the White House is trying hard to appease Tehran. Washington wants the clerical regime to halt its proxy attacks on U.S. forces and its atomic advance short of a fissile test—at least before the November election.

So What Can Be Done?
Americans and Israelis have for decades shied away from militarily punishing the mullahs for their malevolence. This hesitancy—an unwillingness to escalate—has fed an Islamist appetite for violence. But diplomacy and its euphemisms, sanctions, and whack-a-mole retaliatory strikes have run their course. And what Jerusalem is doing right now—beating back Iran’s proxies—will become a lot dicier once Tehran goes nuclear. Jerusalem might be obliged to accept as permanent a low-level, bloody duel with Iranian proxies. An insoluble Palestinian problem will gnaw at Israel from the West Bank, Gaza, and possibly from within Israel itself. Khamenei’s vision for destroying the “Zionist colonial settler-state”—an approach that will surely survive his death—is to erode Israeli happiness and foreign investment, not a catastrophic nuclear confrontation. Iranian nuclear weapons, the ultimate check on Israel and the United States, are a means to that end.

We are way past time pretending that any other avenue than military action against Iran has a chance of checking an Islamist nuclear-threshold state that is close to dominating the Middle East. The Biden administration’s preferred path—encouraging regime change in Israel, pining for a two-state solution, and importuning the Saudi crown prince to recognize Israel (while granting more sanctions relief to Iran and quietly sending emissaries to Oman)—is guaranteed to make a bad situation worse. As everyone in the Middle East knows, and as the Israelis momentarily forgot before October 7, hard power is the only coin of the realm.

Col. Richard Kemp: What happens if Israel does not go into Rafah? Look at Afghanistan

There is no doubting Israel’s spectacular military success so far in Gaza. I have been on the ground inside the Strip several times since the war began, and have seen first hand the remarkable combat actions of the IDF.

They have all but taken apart Hamas as a coherent fighting organisation, while doing everything in their power to minimise civilian casualties and working round the clock to get humanitarian aid to the Gazan population, which I have also witnessed.

Despite all this, the IDF has not yet accomplished its mission in Gaza: to destroy Hamas’s ability to threaten Israel and govern the Gaza Strip and to rescue the hostages. To achieve that, the IDF must launch a major offensive against the four Hamas battalions in Rafah. Focused now on its own survival, Hamas is determined to prevent that from happening and increasingly the international community seems intent on helping them.

That was underlined this week when the UN Security Council demanded a ceasefire in Gaza, which Britain supported and the US failed to veto. That historically shameful resolution was the culmination of a decades-long propaganda campaign under which Israel is an illegitimate entity. As the narrative goes, whatever is done to Israel, including the October 7 massacre, it had it coming; and whatever Israel does in its own defence, including finishing off Hamas in Rafah, it is wrong and uniquely evil.

Many supposed military experts say Israel should not mount an offensive in Rafah. I have not heard any of them put forward a single viable alternative. The White House is apparently recommending a strategy based on pinpoint, clinical strikes into the city, targeting Hamas leaders. Their template seems to be US special forces operations in Afghanistan, and we all know how that ultimately worked out. The Taliban survived, gained strength and eventually re-conquered the country. Under Taliban rule, Isis in Afghanistan has launched multiple global terrorist attacks including last week’s massacre in Moscow, according to US intelligence. A salutary lesson for those who think Israel does not need to finish off Hamas in Gaza.

In any case, in a heavily defended area like Rafah, no military operations can be “clinical”. In February, Operation Golden Hand showed us the necessity for overwhelming violence to enable special forces to extricate a single Israeli hostage from Rafah. The rescue mission had to be backed up by air strikes which reportedly killed dozens of people to enable the withdrawal of the hostage and the rescuers. Left intact, the Hamas battalions in Rafah will fight furiously against any “pinpoint” raids, which will not achieve the level of surprise of Operation Golden Hand if they become part of a series of such operations.

The Rafah conundrum: Crafting an effective strategy to crush Hamas

On Monday, the Israeli and U.S. national security advisors, along with other senior officials, had a video call in which they discussed the IDF’s current plans to evacuate civilians from Rafah, the city on the southern tip of Gaza where Hamas’s military strength is now concentrated. Israeli television reported that the American participants rejected the plan, and that their reaction was “harsh.” But, absent a Hamas surrender, one way or another the IDF will have to find have to find a way to deal with the terrorists in the city.

Amos Yadlin and Udi Evental explain that such an operation is necessary to eliminate the four Hamas battalions in Rafah, to kill or capture the group’s other leaders, and if possible to free the remaining hostages. There is yet another reason, which, Yadlin and Evental claim, is “far more important,” namely

the need to cut off the smuggling routes from the Sinai, aboveground and primarily underground, along the Egypt-Gaza border (the “Philadelphi” route). This smuggling activity has enabled Hamas to amass an enormous quantity of weaponry, which the citizens of Israel and IDF forces have encountered in the war. Without thoroughly addressing this issue, the smuggling tunnels will enable Hamas to reap profits, receive assistance from its supporters in the Muslim world, and ultimately restore its military capacity and resume its military buildup.

It should also be emphasized that complete Israeli control in Rafah does not guarantee the success of blocking the smuggling tunnels and effectively monitoring the Rafah crossing (and the adjacent Saladin Gate). These objectives depend, in part, on effective action by Egyptian forces on the other side of the border, who rake in profits from the smuggling and conduct a policy of calibrating pressures vis-à-vis Gaza.

They go on to explain how Jerusalem might deal with this diplomatic and military conundrum:

[T]he threat of an extensive operation in Rafah serves as leverage vis-à-vis Hamas in the context of a hostage deal. The IDF should take advantage of the Ramadan period to start to evacuate civilians and amass forces along the outskirts of Rafah.

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese tweeted:

Knowing how Israel operates, my assessment is that Israeli forces intentionally killed #WCK workers so that donors would pull out & civilians in Gaza could continue to be starved quietly.Israel knows Western countries & most Arab countries won't move a finger for the Palestinians.

Who needs an investigation? we have an expert who knows what happened without any pesky things like proof!

This is a blood libel being proudly published by a supposed defender of human rights.

Albanese, with her amazing mind-reading abilities, "knows how Israel operates." It murders aid workers in order to be able to indirectly murder two million Palestinians.

For reasons known only to her and other antisemitic conspiracy theorists, Israel spends a lot of time and money pretending to only target Hamas when it really wants to kill every Gazan and probably every Palestinian. It has struck more targets in Gaza than the number of people killed but that must be just to make Jews look less bloodthirsty they really are.

And the conspiracy to hide Israeli atrocities runs very deep. Look how hard they try to hide their determination to stop all humanitarian aid:

243 humanitarian aid trucks were inspected and transferred to the Gaza Strip yesterday (Apr. 1). 162 trucks were distributed within the Gaza Strip by UN aid agencies.
216 packages with hundreds and thousands of meals were airdropped over northern Gaza yesterday (Apr. 1).
13 trucks carrying food aid were transferred directly to northern Gaza. So far, 60 food trucks were transferred directly to northern Gaza via a designated delivery route.
Yesterday, (Apr. 1) 4 tankers of cooking gas and 3 tankers of fuel designated for the operation of essential infrastructure in Gaza, have entered the Gaza Strip.
A delegation of 22 doctors by the Rahma organization entered the Gaza Strip yesterday (Apr. 1).

All of this humanitarianism is meant to hide Israel's efforts to perform genocide against Palestinians!

People like Albanese know the truth: when Israel kills civilians, it is deliberate murder. When Israel helps civilians, it is to hide their intent to murder civilians. When Israel goes to great lengths to target militants, it is to hide the fact that they really want to kill civilians.

Everything Israel does is evil and Francesca Albanese has the brilliant mind that can figure out how.

There is absolutely no difference between how Albanese judges Israel and how neo-Nazis look at Jews. Everything they do is immoral and with the intention to subjugate the goyim. All evidence to the contrary is either twisted to be evidence supporting the conspiracy theories, or quietly ignored.

When will the world wake up to the fact that antisemites from the Left are just as reprehensible and bigoted as those from the Right?

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

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On Monday, Israel apparently bombed an Iranian "consular building" that was part of the Iranian Embassy complex in Damascus. Seven members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards were killed, chief among them General Mohamad Reza Zahedi, who was the leader of the Quds Force for Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. Two other senior generals were also among the 11 who were killed.

No civilians were killed.

Was this attack legal under international law?

The New York Times interviewed several law experts, and it appears that this did not violate international law, although it is highly unusual and violated longstanding practice.

Most of the literature on diplomatic immunity discusses immunity from the hosting state against embassy personnel who are diplomats. If they commit even the most heinous crimes, they cannot be prosecuted by the hosting country; they can only be declared persona non grata and deported back. Even the murderers of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul could not be prosecuted by Turkish authorities.

But does a third party have any responsibility to respect the inviolability of an embassy or consulate, especially when that third party has no relations with the either the hosting country of the consulate nation?

“Israel is a third state and is not bound by the law of diplomatic relations with regard to Iran’s Embassy in Syria,” said Aurel Sari, a professor of international law at Exeter University in the United Kingdom.

In practice, there is a strong taboo in international relations against attacking embassies, said Marko Milanovic, a professor of public international law at Reading University in the United Kingdom. But that custom is broader than what international law actually prohibits, he said.

“Symbolically, for Iran, destroying its embassy or consulate, it’s just seen as a bigger blow,” he said, than “if you killed the generals in a trench somewhere.” But, he added, “the difference is not legal. The difference is really one of symbolism, of perception.”

The closest similar situation I could find was the US bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, but the US called that an accident and Bill Clinton apologized.

The NYT quotes legal expert Yuval Shany saying that an embassy has no greater protection than any other civilian object like a school, and if it is used for military purposes against Israel then it becomes legal to attack it.

Was the building even a diplomatic site to begin with? Israel says it was not.

CNN reports:

A military spokesperson said Israel believes the target struck was a “military building of Quds forces” — a unit of the IRGC responsible for foreign operations.

“According to our intelligence, this is no consulate and this is no embassy,” Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told CNN. “I repeat, this is no consulate and this is no embassy. This is a military building of Quds forces disguised as a civilian building in Damascus.”

News media are referring to the site as an Iranian consular building on the Iranian embassy compound. I have never heard of a consulate in the same city as an embassy. A consulate does only a subset of what embassies do, typically in major cities outside the capital.

The NYT article notes,

Iran has long blurred the lines between its diplomatic missions and its military operations in the Middle East. It selects its ambassadors to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen — countries that make up the “axis of resistance” — from the commanders of the Quds Forces, the external branch of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, rather than its career diplomats. In 2021, Mohammad Javad Zarif, then Iran’s foreign minister, said in a leaked recording that Iran’s foreign policy in the region is determined by its field military operations and not traditional diplomacy set by the foreign ministry.

It appears likely that this building was meant for military, not diplomatic, purposes. Iran using proxies to fight a war with Israel doesn't mean that they are not military targets. The IRGC generals were meeting with leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group which receives its funding and often its orders from the IRGC.

The only legal question is whether Israel can attack a third country when defending itself in a war. From Israel's perspective, this is no different than its many airstrikes in Syria meant to stop the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon and certainly self defense. It would be difficult to argue against it when the West routinely has been attacking terrorists in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere, usually without permission from those governments.

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

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The mistaken targeting of the aid workers from the World Central Kitchen should never have happened. Whoever was responsible for the airstrike decision should be removed from their posts immediately. It is not only a human rights catastrophe, but it also hurts Israel and the IDF tremendously.

However, the reaction from the world is more indicative of assuming that this is a pattern of neglect by the IDF, which is an absolute falsehood.

It is woefully underreported that the IDF is doing an amazing job in this war. Most of the things the IDF is doing are literally unprecedented by any army in history. Military colleges will study this campaign for decades to come.

While some of the groundwork was of course set up beforehand - notably the tight integration between the air force, navy, ground troops and artillery, where ground troops can call in a strike from the other parties and - the actual implementation was done on the fly, with mostly reservists learning the procedures on the job with only a couple of weeks of training.

The IDF has been able to retrieve intelligence and make it actionable in hours or days, not months. It has been able to test out brand new methods of urban and tunnel warfare never before seen - face recognition and other new technologies, robotics, AI, and many new methods that are still under wraps.

Importantly, the IDF is flexible. It has changed the military campaign at the turn of a dime several times. It has improved itself in real time.

Even more impressive are the logistics - the dividing up Gaza into hundreds of areas and directing people to avoid airstrikes using phone messages and drones with speakers, as well as old fashioned leaflets. Scanning and passing through humanitarian aid. Coordinating the aid with multiple third parties.

Much of this is brand new and never before seen in any war. All wars are complicated, but the complexity of this war is far beyond what any media is talking about. Israel didn't choose the timing for this war. It is like building a basic space shuttle to take off in two weeks and being expected to upgrade it every day while it is flying. Every mistake is magnified and criticized, while the fact that it is even off the ground and improving every day on the fly is beyond amazing.

It is doing all of this under the most scrutiny of any army in history. And it has gone beyond what other Western armies have done to minimize civilian loss of life in urban warfare. Never before Hamas has an enemy relied on civilian deaths as a major part of their strategy.

The US, UK and other Western powers have killed tens of thousands of civilians over the past two decades during wars. No one accused them of targeting civilians deliberately even though they killed thousands of civilians in much less challenging environments.

9,000 civilians were killed by the US-led coalition in Iraq between 2003-2005.

In July 2008, the US hit an Afghan wedding party, thinking they were a large number of terrorists. 47 Afghan civilians were killed including the bride. And in November, a similar airstrike at a wedding killed 37 civilians, mostly women and children.

Between 86 and 147 Afghan civilians were killed in another 2009 US airstrike.

In September 2012, a US drone shot at a truck in Yemen, killing 12 civilians, including three children and a pregnant woman.

In 2015, the US fired over 200 shells at a hospital building in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 42 patients and staff. Days later, it admitted the mistake, saying that it had intelligence that the Taliban were in the building.

In March 2017 , the US dropped a 500-pound bomb on a building where about 50 people were sheltering in ISIS-controlled Syria.

In 2018, the US Army shot a Hellfire missile at a mother and daughter in Somalia, and when one tried to flee, it hit them again, killing them. .

In 2021, a US drone shot and killed 10 civilians in Kabul, including an aid worker and seven children. It wasn't a split second decision - they watched the vehicle for eight hours without considering that perhaps the people they were watching were innocent.

Last May, the US announced the killing of an Al Qaeda leader - but the victim was really a 56-year old former bricklayer.

As recently as February of this year, US airstrikes in Iraq killed civilians.

In nearly all of these cases, the US didn't admit their mistakes until weeks or months later, if ever, and only when pressured would they release any results of investigations.

So when Joe Biden, who was president and vice president during a great number of these US airstrikes killing so many civilians, says he is "outraged" at Israel, he is being more than a little hypocritical The US track record on transparently investigating mistakes and taking responsibility is horrible compared to Israel's.

There is one other difference between US and Israeli airstrikes. US citizens are not directly threatened by terrorists in the Middle East, but the spouses and parents of Israeli soldiers are only a minute away from being killed by a rocket or a terrorist every day. A mistake in the other direction, allowing a terrorist to live, can have devastating consequences for the people who live, work or study only a couple of hours drive away.

Wars are complex. There are a lot of people doing a lot of things and the communications between the different sections are not always perfect. Mistakes are made by even the best armies. And the most professional armies in the world, with the best human rights protections, sometimes kill civilians despite their best efforts to avoid it.

If Biden is so outraged at Israel's mistakes, he should take personal responsibility for the US killings of civilians to the extent that Israel does. As far as I can tell, he hasn't publicly apologized for a single killing of civilians by his armed forces as Netanyahu did Tuesday.

Not to excuse Israel's airstrike - it shouldn't have happened and you can be certain that the mistakes that led to that strike will be reviewed and fixed. But this outrage over what happens in every war by every Western power is more than a little disingenuous.

Hamas started this war, Hamas benefits from the deaths of aid workers, and Hamas is the party ultimately responsible for their deaths. Defeating the terrorists is the moral thing to do, and that cannot always be done as antiseptically as everyone would like.

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!