An Iranian general killed in a strike in Syria's capital was a member of Hezbollah's Shura Council, the powerful Lebanese group's decision-making body, a source close to the movement said.The April 1 air strike levelled the Iranian embassy's consular annex in Damascus, killing seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members, including two generals.One of them was Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in the Quds Force, the Guards' foreign operations arm.Zahedi was the only non-Lebanese on Hezbollah's eight-member Shura Council, the equivalent of the powerful Shiite Muslim movement's political bureau, led by secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the source said, requesting anonymity because the matter is sensitive.Nasrallah in a speech Monday paid homage to Zahedi and his colleagues killed in the strike, which Tehran and Damascus have blamed on Israel.Zahedi "lived with us for long years, away from the spotlight, and provided important services to the resistance in Lebanon and the whole region," Nasrallah said Friday during a televised address.
Tuesday, April 09, 2024
- Tuesday, April 09, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
- Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, Naharnet
Western Democracy's Future Depends on Israel's Victory
If the Biden administration forces a "ceasefire" that leaves our closest ally in the region short of victory over an enemy that seeks to destroy it, sooner or later we shall all pay the price.WSJ: Denying weapons to Israel in the middle of a war is betrayal
Israel is battling, above all else, for its own survival. In a hostile region, it is also the sole standard-bearer of individual freedom, tolerant pluralism and self-rule. Contrast the condition of ethnic minorities, women, gays and dissidents in Israel with that of their counterparts anywhere else in the Middle East. We should give thanks every day for the sacrifices Israelis make at the fragile frontier of freedom.
Every Islamist terrorist Israel kills is one fewer threat to the rest of us. Every setback Israel can deal to the Iranian puppet masters of Hamas, Hizbullah and others inflicts a loss on the regime that is sworn to eliminate us, the "Great Satan."
There is no historical evidence that appeasing enemies committed to our extinction ever keeps us safe.
If Israel can somehow be bullied into forgoing victory over this enemy, our own capacity to wage wars inflicted on us will be dramatically diminished, setting a standard no nation taking necessary measures to protect itself would ever be able to meet, a standard to which our enemies will certainly never hold themselves.
If this is the way we fight modern wars, our enemies will have freedom to commit acts of bestial savagery on us, knowing that our own scruples will give them an insuperable advantage.
In World War II, the British political and military leadership decided on a strategy called "dehousing" German civilians: bombing cities to a level of destruction that would demoralize their inhabitants and make them turn on their Nazi government. The British people tolerated this morally doubtful approach because they had fresh in their minds the memory of the Blitz, when the Nazis successfully "dehoused" many British citizens.
Israel suffered an atrocity on Oct. 7 comparable to the Blitz, yet has worked with restraint to limit inevitable civilian losses. If it can't even be allowed to do that, we are placing impossible shackles on the fighting ability of democratic nations.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial board slammed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats in an editorial on Tuesday for their signing of a letter urging President Joe Biden to stop the transfer of weapons to Israel.Are the American Hostages American Enough for Biden?
"Denying weapons to an ally in the middle of a war is the definition of betrayal," the newspaper's editorial board wrote, labeling Pelosi a "sunshine ally."
The letter was signed by dozens of Democrats after Israel mistakenly killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers last week.
American hypocrisy?
In the editorial, the WSJ noted that the US was holding Israel to a standard that it, itself, had failed to meet.
"They ignore the Hellfire missile attack that killed seven children as the US sought to avenge the deaths of 13 Americans in Kabul as Mr. Biden pulled US forces from Afghanistan in 2021," the editorial said, adding that, unlike the US in that instance, "Israel has a history of accountability for such mistakes."
Joe Biden knows something about accusations of dual loyalty. In 2016, then-Vice President Biden delivered a speech at Dublin Castle heralding the “progress” Catholic Americans have made since John F. Kennedy made the trek to Ireland 50 years ago and was “attacked for being too close to a pope.”
Now, as five American-Israelis languish in Hamas captivity, Biden is turning his back on that progress.
This Sunday marked a grim milestone—six months since Hamas terrorists took hundreds of Israelis hostage on Oct. 7, including six American citizens—hopefully five still living—who remain in Gaza. But Americans can’t be blamed for forgetting. Joe Biden is more likely to call on Israel to accept an immediate ceasefire than to call on Hamas and Qatar to release our own citizens. We hear more about humanitarian aid for Gazans than about American citizens being killed and tortured in Gaza.
At a time when the president’s party insists we “Say his name!” or “Say her name!” Biden has not mentioned dual citizens Edan Alexander, Omer Neutra, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Sagui Dekel-Chen, or Keith Siegel. The president released a statement about Itay Chen on March 12, five months after the attack. This was only after his murder was announced, which supports Dara Horn’s poignant observation that dead Jews are more beloved than living ones.
The White House talks regularly about Evan Gershkovich (70-plus hits on the White House website), the Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter being held on false charges in Russia, as it did about Brittney Griner (more than 200 hits), a basketball player imprisoned by Russia until she was released in a controversial prisoner swap.
The six Jews whom Hamas kidnapped are as American as Gershkovich and Griner are, which raises the question: Why does the White House ignore these Jewish U.S. citizens?
It seems that Alexander, Neutra, Goldberg-Polin, Dekel-Chen, Siegel, and Chen are only half-American. One of the oldest anti-Semitic tropes in history is that Jews are only in business for themselves and their homeland. They just pass through countries without any sense of loyalty. They weren’t European enough in the Middle Ages, not German enough to the Nazis, and not American enough for the Biden administration to “say their names” and move heaven and earth to secure their release.
In today’s society, we like to pretend these disgusting sentiments are a relic of a less enlightened time. Stop pretending. The accusation of dual loyalty is a go-to attack on both the left and the right.
“They forgot what country they represent,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) wrote on Jan. 6, 2019 of those opposing the anti-Semitic boycott-Israel movement. Less than two months later, Tlaib’s sister-in-hate Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said about AIPAC, “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”
- Tuesday, April 09, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
When the inaugural California Jewish Open exhibit opens at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco in June, the gallery walls will have several blank spaces where works of art were supposed to hang.The spaces will represent the “missing perspectives” of seven self-identified Jewish anti-Zionist artists who withdrew their pieces in a coordinated protest after museum officials said they would not meet several of the artists’ demands.The artists, who are part of a group calling themselves California Jewish Artists for Palestine, had requested, among other things, that the museum divulge the names of its funders and divest from all funding sources associated with Israel. They also expressed concern about their art appearing alongside works that reflected different ideas about Israel from their own.
... {T]he artists sought extraordinary control over their artwork. They requested that the museum amend the terms they agreed to by giving them the ability to modify or withdraw their works from the exhibit at any time, and to have autonomy over wall texts, artists statements and other framing. (In their Instagram statement, the artists wrote that they were concerned about “potential curatorial both ‘sides-ism’” and about the possibility that their pieces would appear next to ones that “grieve Jewish deaths without acknowledging the genocide of Palestinians.”)
Artists initially chose to make a statement to the @jewseum by submitting to the Open Call in a coordinated effort to bring visibility to anti-zionist Jewish artists in California, with anticipation that their works would be rejected by museum curators. While several of the pieces were accepted, the museum’s responses and inability to meet artists’ demands, including transparency around funding and a commitment to BDS, reaffirmed for artists the importance of adhering to and demanding PACBI (The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel) in the Arts. The artists call on all cultural workers worldwide to join the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement to abstain from collaborating with institutions that continue to normalize genocide and Israeli Apartheid.
They are saying that they really never had the intention of exhibiting alongside any Jewish art that disagreed with their extremist anti-Israel positions. They wanted to be rejected and then blame the museum for "censorship."
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! |
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- Tuesday, April 09, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
- analysis, Daled Amos
By Daled Amos
There has been a huge spike in antisemitism following the Hamas massacre on October 7. The riots and chanting border on the bizarre, accusing Israel of deliberate genocide while attacking Jews around the world.
But of course, not all antisemitic claims are of recent vintage:
oh ok then pic.twitter.com/l8EWDyCiNp
— Affirm Reality 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱 (@MirabelleW18) April 1, 2024
The Holy Week referred to here is the week before Easter, where in Leon, Spain, it is popular to say, "Let's kill Jews!" but the actual meaning is supposed to refer to "drinking carbonated, spiked lemonade during Holy Week.”
The strange usage is rooted in Middle-Age pogroms in Spain during Holy Week. Eventually, around 1320 CE, authorities decided to permit the consumption of a soft alcoholic beverage, overriding the usual prohibition against alcoholic drinks during Holy Week in the hopes that people forming mobs would drink themselves into a stupor and be unable to assemble against the Jewish communities. The drink evolved into carbonated lemonade and the original description of the traditional Holy Week practice was applied to the drink’s name instead.
Unfortunately, it is unlikely to help control the antisemitic riots we hear about on a nearly daily basis.
Another explanation ascribes the source for this custom to a 15th-century knight, Suero de Quiñones, who owed money to a Jewish merchant. In 1449, he incited a mob of his fellow knights to follow him into the Jewish quarter, where they murdered the lender and others on Good Friday.
But despite the bloody history behind the phrase, the phrase "Let's kill Jews!" is now merely a custom:
Today, residents say the phrase is a social custom devoid of any connection to murder, religion or real-life Jews.
“People are used to it here, it’s an expression that is not racist at all,” said José Manuel, who works at Vychio Cafe Bar. “It’s an expression from a time period of racism but now, no, it’s an expression out of custom.” [emphasis added]
For Islamic militants, Ramadan allows them not only to reaffirm their religious observance but to strengthen their political ideological convictions as well. "Ramadan is a month of commitment and renewal to their faith and also to their cause, whether by military or nonmilitary jihad," says Prof. Nizar Hamzeh, a specialist on political Islam at the American University of Beirut. "It is a month of martyrdom and commitment to one's Islamic ideology."
Throughout Islamic history, Ramadan has been seen as a time of victory for Muslim armies - and a period when those who are martyred have a greater assurance of a place in paradise. [emphasis added; hat tip: Elder of Ziyon]
The tiny Spanish village of Castrillo Matajudios — which means “Camp Kill Jews” — on Monday officially changed its name back to Castrillo Mota de Judios (“Jews’ Hill Camp”) following a referendum and regional government approval.Apparently, the name of the town was changed to "Camp Kill Jews" in 1627 when a 1492 Spanish edict giving Jews the choice of either converting or leaving was enforced. Those Jews who remained faced the Spanish Inquisition and many were burned at the stake.
The village, with about 50 inhabitants, voted to change the name in 2014 after Mayor Lorenzo Rodriguez argued that the term was offensive and that the village should honor its Jewish origins. [emphasis added]
Others believe the antisemitic name was given by the Jews themselves. According to this theory, Jews who converted to Christianity wanted to emphasize their repudiation of Judaism and convince the Spanish authorities of their loyalty.
Another theory is that the name change from Castrillo Mota de Judios to Castrillo Matajudios was just a slip of the pen.
In 2016, they "twinned" with the Israeli town of Kfar Vradim in the north and a delegation from the Castrillo Mota de Judios arrived in Israel for the official ceremony linking the two towns.
We badly need many more.
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! |
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- Tuesday, April 09, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
On 25 March 1986, Israeli forces arrested Walid Daqqah, then 24, a Palestinian citizen of Israel. In March 1987, an Israeli military court sentenced him to life imprisonment after convicting him of commanding the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)-affiliated group that had abducted and killed Israeli soldier Moshe Tamam in 1984. Daqqah was not convicted of carrying out the murder himself, but of commanding the group, an accusation he always rejected, and his conviction was based on British emergency regulations dating back to 1945, which require a much lower standard of proof for conviction than Israeli criminal law.
[Daqqa] joined the ranks of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1983, and joined a military cell affiliated with the Front.In 1984, he conducted military training at the Front’s military bases in Syria, and then he contributed to the formation of a secret military apparatus for the Front inside the occupied interior, whose mission was to collect information about Zionist leaders and officials who participated in committing massacres in the invasion of Lebanon.The martyr Walid and his comrades within the military cell carried out a series of operations, including the kidnapping and killing of the Zionist soldier Moshe Tamam, as a result of which he and a group of comrades were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.
During his time in prison, Walid Daqqah wrote extensively about the Palestinian lived experience in Israeli prisons. He acted as a mentor and educator for generations of young Palestinian prisoners, including children. His writings, which included letters, essays, a celebrated play and a novel for young adults, were an act of resistance against the dehumanization of Palestinian prisoners. “Love is my modest and only victory against my jailer,” he once wrote.Walid Daqqah’s writings behind bars are a testament to a spirit never broken by decades of incarceration and oppression.
Amnesty International condemns the killing of Moshe Tamam as a violation of the Geneva Conventions’ absolute prohibition on violence to the life and person of armed forces members who have laid down their arms, including those in captivity.
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! |
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- Tuesday, April 09, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
“Over 33,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, are dead, 75,000 or more are injured, and at least 7,000 are presumed dead under the rubble. .... Huge swathes of Gaza have been bombed into oblivion. The Gaza Strip has changed forever,” spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told the biweekly press briefing in Geneva.
Monday, April 08, 2024
Biden would rather Israel surrender than defend itself
President Joe Biden has tried to pretend that he supports Israel since the terrorist attack against it on Oct. 7, but he has made it clear he would rather Israel surrender than win its war against Hamas.Recognition of a Palestinian State Will Be a Victory for Iran and a Reward for Islamist Terrorism
Biden is now telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “we won’t be able to support you” if Israel continues its war against Hamas, a terrorist group that slaughtered 1,200 civilians in Israel, is dedicated to destroying Israel completely, and is holding Israelis and Americans hostage. This comes after National Security Council spokesman John Kirby tried to claim that America’s support of Israel is “rock-solid and unwavering” even as Biden threatens to change U.S. policy toward Israel.
Meanwhile, Hamas has rejected yet another ceasefire deal. That makes at least three occasions since February that Hamas has rejected a ceasefire. In the meantime, Biden is calling on Israel to cease its plans to go into Rafah, where Hamas terrorists are again using Palestinian civilians as human shields to avoid being wiped out completely.
So Biden wants Israel to stop fighting and let Hamas survive, all while Hamas continues to refuse to stop fighting by rejecting ceasefire deals. What Biden is asking of Israel is to surrender, to let Hamas survive and regroup and continue to slaughter civilians and try to destroy the country. Biden is putting more pressure on Israel for trying to kill genocidal terrorists than he is on the terrorists who continue to hold Americans hostage.
The recognition of virtual Palestine is a victory for Iran’s ayatollahs and a reward for Islamist terrorism. A scourge controlled by the Iranian regime, which will soon have a nuclear arsenal, translates into a terrible calamity that will befall all the nations of Europe tomorrow.A paradigm for peace: Jordan as Palestine
In this tragic context, an official French confirmation to unilaterally recognize the State of Palestine will also confirm that France is no longer Israel’s ally and undoubtedly not a friendly country.
Biden’s America has the capability of preventing the creation of an Islamist terrorist state. The United States should stop publicly berating Israeli strategy and intervening in Israel’s political affairs. The American president should support Israel in its legitimate and existential fight against Hamas and Hizbullah and avoid, by all means, the creation of a Palestinian satellite of the ayatollahs in the heart of the Middle East.
Otherwise, the support of the United States for the European Palestine initiative will go down in the annals of modern political history as a great debacle of the West and a disgraceful cowardice about the Jewish State. It proves once again that Israel must rely only on itself and act according to its own national security interests.
Recognizing Jordan as a Palestinian state, while maintaining its status as a monarchy, reflects the national identity of a majority of its population. Highly popular Queen Rania is considered to be a Palestinian (via her parents). Palestinians are a growing segment of Jordan’s political life and its parliament. The country east of Israel is viable with a relatively stable economic and political structure. And it has vast areas of unused land, but lacks sufficient people and water.
Jordan/Palestine can become an oasis. It needs water, which would allow it to extend its population centers eastward. Utilizing abundant water sources in Turkey and/or the Caspian Sea – the largest body of fresh water in the world – would enable it to provide agricultural products, develop business and industrial centers, and create regional stability.
Another population source to help develop its huge and basically empty eastern portion – besides its current citizens – would be those Palestinians who would either come from the West Bank voluntarily, or be sent there because, as mentioned above, they choose not to live under Israeli sovereignty or abide by its laws and ethos as a Jewish state.
This would also include any Palestinians wherever they may live, including those in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, as well as Arab residents of Israel proper. All of them would rightfully be citizens of this newly realized Jordanian/Palestinian state: the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine.
The possibility that Jordan could become an economic trade center was recently given a boost when Israel proposed a rail link between it and Haifa, which would connect it to European markets, Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. The recently rebuilt rail line between Haifa and Beit She’an is the beginning of this plan.
Jordan is a strategic partner of Israel and, hopefully, will continue to be. The Jordanians, however, have a responsibility to Arab Palestinians, and Israel should not be expected to bear the burden of providing them with a national homeland.
Recognizing Jordan as the Palestinian state is in the national interests of both countries. It will bring them peace and prosperity, and ensure their security and stability and the entire region. A Jordanian-Israeli confederation will replace failure and despair with opportunity and hope, and it will inspire creativity, cooperation and freedom – the raison d’être of nation-states.
- Monday, April 08, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
- 2023-24 Gaza, gaza, Gaza Health Ministry
- Monday, April 08, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
In Six Months, Everything Has Changed for Israel
On Oct. 6, Israel appeared on the cusp of a new era of recognition from the Muslim world, close to a peace deal with Saudi Arabia that would move it to the center of a realigned Middle East after years on its fringes. The historic conflict with the Palestinians that had defined its existence for most of its 75-year history appeared to have finally receded into the background.Melanie Phillips: The Right Dishonourable Foreign Secretary
It all changed on Oct. 7.
Today, after a bloody attack that might have brought it the world’s sympathy, Israel is closer to being a global pariah than ever before. Its Saudi peace deal is on hold. The Palestinian question is again roiling its Arab neighbors. It is in open argument with its main ally, the U.S. And its physical living space has been shrunk by dangers on its northern and southern borders.
In six months, the world has turned upside down for this small nation. On Oct. 7—or Black Sabbath, as Israelis now call it—the Jewish state experienced a fundamental shock that upended its sense of security and belief in the strength of its military. It responded with a heavy-handed invasion of Gaza that in much of the world’s eyes left it the aggressor and its attackers the victims. The resulting isolation could be more of a threat to its future than the attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 people on Oct. 7. “Israel’s longevity is in question for the first time since its birth,” said Benny Morris, an Israeli historian. The only time Israel faced a similar existential threat, he said, was in its war for independence in 1948, when it battled five Arab countries and local Palestinian militias.
The outpouring of global sympathy on display after the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust has dwindled, having been replaced by images of starving and dead Palestinians in Gaza. Images projected across the world show swaths of the Gaza Strip turned into rubble. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities, whose numbers don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.
This week, the killing of seven aid workers trying to feed desperate Gazans appears to have punctured the notion for much of the world that the Israeli military isn’t running amok in Gaza and has caused a rethink by the U.S. about its support for Israel.
Normalization with Saudi Arabia is on hold, while ties with Arab allies such as Egypt and Jordan have frayed. Pro-Palestinian protesters have thronged the streets of Western capitals, at times calling for Israel’s demise. A surge in antisemitism has shocked and alarmed not only Israelis but Jews across the globe. It is all strengthening a feeling inside Israel that the country can only rely on itself.
Israel faces a dilemma where it wants to be loved by the West, but needs to be feared by its enemies in the Middle East to ensure its long-term existence, said Micah Goodman, an Israeli author and philosopher.
“That’s the catch-22 we’re in,” he said.
Is Britain’s Foreign Secretary unaware that Israel has again agreed terms for a ceasefire that Hamas has again rejected? Can he really not understand that the only conditions under which Hamas would release the hostages would be Israel’s total surrender and the release of all its Hamas prisoners?Kurt Schlichter: Israel Is Risking Losing This War by Caring What People Who Hate It Think
Does he really fail to grasp that the hostages with whom Yahya Sinwar has reportedly surrounded himself are the Hamas leader’s ultimate bargaining counter to protect his life, and so he will never voluntarily give them up? Is Cameron really so badly informed that he thinks a man like Sinwar would choose to go into exile rather than die the “martyr’s” death he craves if he is defeated, taking the hostages with him? Does he really imagine that the unconscionable threat posed by the psychopathic, religious fanatics of Hamas and its equally fanatical patron, Iran, can be solved by political means?
Surely Cameron, with his first-class degree from Oxford and reputedly stellar intellect, cannot possibly be so stupid and ignorant as to think like this? But the only alternative to that is that he is driven by profound malice towards Israel. And Cameron is an honourable man.
Then comes the article’s zinger. For it turns out that Cameron is indeed well aware that Hamas has refused a deal that releases the remaining hostages. So he says:
We all want to see an end to the fighting, but we must face up to the difficult question: what should we do if Hamas refuses a deal and if the conflict continues?
What indeed. And then he comes up with this astonishing answer:
We cannot stand by with our head in our hands, wishing for an end to the fighting that may well not come — and that means ensuring the protection of people in all of Gaza including Rafah.
As an occupying power, Israel has a responsibility to the people of Gaza. But it also means that the international community must work with Israel on humanitarian efforts to keep people safe and provide them with what they need.
Ordinary civilians must be safe and able to access food, water and medical care. We need the UN, with the support of the international community, to work with Israel to make practical, deliverable plans to achieve this in Rafah and across Gaza.
He doesn’t want a solution that ensures the protection of all the people of Israel. He want instead a solution to protect all the people of Gaza — while Israel, the victim of the monster born from the people of Gaza, has to produce it. The absolute and overriding requirement to protect Israel against further genocidal attack from Gaza is nowhere in Cameron's vision. His only gesture is a meaningless bromide about wanting
the people of Israel and the people of Gaza to be able to live their lives in peace and security.
Yes, Gaza’s civilians should be protected as far as possible from the war — but this cannot take precedence over the requirement to stop Hamas once and for all. It is Israel that is threatened with being wiped out, not the people of Gaza. They are the unfortunate casualties of the Hamas strategy to maximise the numbers who die in order to turn the west against Israel — an infernal manipulation of gullible westerners that has worked to the letter — plus the refusal by Egypt to open its border to the Gazan refugees, and indeed the refusal by every other Muslim state to allow any of them in.
Moreover, the majority of Gazans voted for Hamas, still support Hamas, and exulted over the October 7 pogrom. Untold numbers of “ordinary” Gazans took part in that pogrom, murdered Israelis, took them hostage and are currently keeping some of them locked up in their homes where they are reportedly using them as slaves. And the vast majority of Gazans, when asked, say they support the further killing of Jews and the destruction of Israel.
These are the people whose welfare Cameron is more concerned to protect than the lives of the Israelis who would continue to be subjected to genocidal attack if he had his way.
This is presumably what he means by Britain aiming to “exercise leadership in the region and at the United Nations”.
For Cameron is an honourable man.
Israel is risking losing this war because it is focusing more on avoiding criticism from its enemies than winning. I blame Benjamin Netanyahu in large part, but also our incompetent and loathsome alleged president. Now, I’m not one of those reflexive Bibi haters, and while I certainly don’t think the United States should have a say in who Israel chooses to lead it, I do believe in accountability. The disaster of October 7 happened on his watch, and he should’ve resigned the day after, but that’s not up to me or up to any American. What is up to me as an American is who our president will be next year, and it can’t be Biden again. But the desiccated old zombie aside, Bibi needs to go. He screwed up on October 7, and now he appears to be screwing up this war.
The problem is not that Netanyahu has been too harsh, as our idiot president claims. It’s that Netanyahu has been too gentle (Yes, I understand a war cabinet is leading Israel, but he is still the face of it.). And too slow. Joe Biden has betrayed every ally America has had, from South Vietnam to Afghanistan and Bibi somehow imagined that creep would not sell-out Israel? Speed was of the essence. Why was Rafah not glass months ago? Netanyahu waited, and that gave Biden the time to sell out Israel.
Restraining was a mistake. The fact is that Israel has, to a far too great extent, tried to fight this war on terms that would satisfy its leftist enemies in the United States and other anti-Semites around the world. That was an error from the beginning. Israel’s strategy should have focused on victory, not on trying to mollify its critics. They will cry no matter what. Let them cry over defeated terrorists. Do you know what mollifies critics most effectively? Winning. Israel should’ve done that, and fast. But it didn’t. Despite the courage and skill of the IDF, who are a credit to their great nation, Israel’s leadership chose to fight this war and is still fighting this war in a manner that allows others who do not have Israel’s best interest at heart to dictate its strategic and tactical prerogatives. That is a grave error. That is putting Israel in danger.
Israel has three main related strategic military objectives at the moment. First, Israel needs to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Second, Israel must eliminate Hezbollah on its northern border. This Jihadi militia is dug in inside Lebanon with enough Iranian-supplied rockets to devastate Israel’s infrastructure, as well as having the ability to launch October 7-style attacks. And third, Israel must destroy Hamas in Gaza. A surviving Hamas can launch more October 7-style attacks and has promised to do so if able.
- Monday, April 08, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
- Monday, April 08, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
- Monday, April 08, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
America does not take strikes to punish individuals; we act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people, and when there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat. And before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured -- the highest standard we can set.Now, this last point is critical, because much of the criticism about drone strikes -- both here at home and abroad -- understandably centers on reports of civilian casualties. There’s a wide gap between U.S. assessments of such casualties and nongovernmental reports. Nevertheless, it is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in every war. And for the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can justify their loss. For me, and those in my chain of command, those deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the civilian casualties that have occurred throughout conventional fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.But as Commander-in-Chief, I must weigh these heartbreaking tragedies against the alternatives. To do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties -- not just in our cities at home and our facilities abroad, but also in the very places like Sana’a and Kabul and Mogadishu where terrorists seek a foothold. Remember that the terrorists we are after target civilians, and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against Muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes. So doing nothing is not an option.
Shortly before 3 a.m. on July 19, 2016, American Special Operations forces bombed what they believed were three ISIS “staging areas” on the outskirts of Tokhar, a riverside hamlet in northern Syria. They reported 85 fighters killed. In fact, they hit houses far from the front line, where farmers, their families and other local people sought nighttime sanctuary from bombing and gunfire. More than 120 villagers were killed.In early 2017 in Iraq, an American war plane struck a dark-colored vehicle, believed to be a car bomb, stopped at an intersection in the Wadi Hajar neighborhood of West Mosul. Actually, the car had been bearing not a bomb but a man named Majid Mahmoud Ahmed, his wife and their two children, who were fleeing the fighting nearby. They and three other civilians were killed.In November 2015, after observing a man dragging an “unknown heavy object” into an ISIS “defensive fighting position,” American forces struck a building in Ramadi, Iraq. A military review found that the object was actually “a person of small stature” — a child — who died in the strike.None of these deadly failures resulted in a finding of wrongdoing.These cases are drawn from a hidden Pentagon archive of the American air war in the Middle East since 2014.The trove of documents — the military’s own confidential assessments of more than 1,300 reports of civilian casualties, obtained by The New York Times — lays bare how the air war has been marked by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and often imprecise targeting, and the deaths of thousands of civilians, many of them children, a sharp contrast to the American government’s image of war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs.The documents show, too, that despite the Pentagon’s highly codified system for examining civilian casualties, pledges of transparency and accountability have given way to opacity and impunity. In only a handful of cases were the assessments made public. Not a single record provided includes a finding of wrongdoing or disciplinary action. Fewer than a dozen condolence payments were made, even though many survivors were left with disabilities requiring expensive medical care. Documented efforts to identify root causes or lessons learned are rare.
Sunday, April 07, 2024
- Sunday, April 07, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
- book review
1. Dignity of mankind: All humans, friend and foe alike, were created in the image of God. This demands us to generally grant basic dignity to any person and not to cavalierly treat people as a means toward some desired end.2. Inherent wrong of illicit bloodshed: The commandment "Thou shall not kill" is reflective of this deep theological principle and demands that we do not take a life lightly. In fact, the ability to avoid unnecessary bloodshed is one of the factors that make the Jews worthy of settling the Land of Israel.3. Individual responsibility: Individuals bear primary responsibility for their actions and should ideally bear the sole weight of responsibility for their actions.4. Vision of world peace: The ultimate biblical vision is for the cessation of all warfare and is a goal toward which humanity must aspires)5. Take up arms for the sake of justice. ls Warfare in pursuit of justice: Until the Messianic Era, the Bible calls upon its followers to take up arms for the sake of justice. This can be:- to defend oneself,- to settle the Homeland, or- to rid the world of evil.6. Warfare, by its nature, is a collective affair. This entails citizens and soldiers endangering themselves for their nation alongside a willingness to kill individual members of the enemy nation. Accordingly, warfare creates a form of communal identity and responsibility .7. National partiality: The primary responsibility of political leaders and citizens is to protect their own people. Israel goes to war even to redeem one captive. This is part of a general ethos that people have particularistic obligations to their family, comrades, community, or nation. These "associative commitments" create a moral obligation not to shirk one's responsibility to fight on behalf of the collective.8, Bravery and courage: In warfare, bravery is a virtue and fearfulness is a vice It is virtuous to worry about killing someone illicitly, like Abraham and Jacob. Nonetheless, one must still fight courageously.9. National honor: As with all actions, the honor of both God and His people is a factor. This includes:- not acting in an unethical manner that will disgrace our reputation and- not becoming a downtrodden people subjugated to mass ridicule.
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! |
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