Monday, May 27, 2024
From Ian:
Yisrael Medad: The principle of no victory for Israel during the war
Yisrael Medad: The principle of no victory for Israel during the war
To grasp the machinations of President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, one first needs to understand that a fundamental aspect of the US policy toward Israel, since its founding, has been to prevent Israel from gaining as complete a victory as possible over its enemies.JPost Editorial: Israel's government has failed and must do more
A review of the past 76 years and research from the FRUS archives of the State Department make that obvious.
The second aspect is that since the Carter administration and with an extra Oslo Accords boost from the Clinton administration, and now being pushed by the Obama clique, the Biden Administration’s goal is to have Hamas survive this war victorious and to achieve the lost-but-now-found two-state solution in the post-war period.
As the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal noted on May 22, the Biden Administration for months opposed an Israeli invasion of Rafah. The United States doubts Israel
Their spokesmen asserted there was “no credible plan” for civilian evacuation. The brief arms embargo was based on that assumption. President Biden said, “We’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas.” Secretary of State Blinken also doubted Israel had a good enough plan.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said, “We still believe it would be a mistake to launch a major military operation into the heart of Rafah.”
Now that over 900,000 Gazans have been safely evacuated and the operation is proceeding well, like the story of the insect on the elephant’s ear, the US Administration is claiming credit.
“[Israel] incorporated many of the concerns that we have expressed,” a senior US official told reporters and added, that the operation might create “opportunities for getting the hostage deal back on track.”
However, the underlying current of maliciousness remains.Already on March 19, Blinken falsely accused Israel of “causing a famine” in Gaza, leaving out Hamas’ role in all this. He joined the “starvation chorus,” adding that “100 percent of the population in Gaza is at severe levels of acute food insecurity.”
On April 11, David Satterfield, US humanitarian envoy, remarked “There is an imminent risk of starvation for the majority, if not all, the 2.2 million population of Gaza.” Gaza, in fact, receives food supplies. However, much of the aid is stolen by Hamas or by crime families who have killed Gazans in the process.
Additionally, Biden’s $320 million floating pier is not that much of a success. Although completed and working, the Pentagon admits now that very little aid, if any, has been delivered to the general Gaza population via the pier. The US and the UN are still trying to fix safe routes.
Was Hamas lambasted after crowds looted aid trucks coming from the port and one Palestinian man was killed?
After more than seven months of war in Gaza, mediators in the ceasefire talks have struggled to secure a breakthrough while the military is working to locate and return the hostages.A special forces hasbara unit: Eylon Levy's strategy for turning the narrative war for Israel
The protests followed on from last week’s news that several hostage bodies had been recovered from Gaza. The IDF located the bodies of three additional hostages on Thursday night that Hamas had taken to Gaza on October 7, the military announced on Friday morning.
November’s hostage deal feels like a distant memory in terms of this war. We are now almost in June, and Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of at least 39 more, while 17 bodies of hostages have been recovered.
The numbers reflect the stark reality that efforts to bring all hostages home have not been successful enough, and the situation remains dire.
For 232 days, the hostages have been in captivity. That’s 232 days that Israel’s military has failed to bring them all home. The longer the war drags on, the less chance there is of getting them back alive.
One of the significant factors Israel claimed in the need for a military operation in Rafah was the return of the hostages.
The operation that Israel launched earlier this month has been limited for the time being. If Israel wants to succeed in its stated goal of bringing home the hostages, perhaps it is time to consider doing more.
There are many things for the IDF to take into account, not least the welfare of its soldiers and minimizing Gazan civilian deaths. However, the political and military leadership of Israel needs to consider what would make the Rafah operation a success.
While we should commend the IDF for successfully bringing back seven bodies in the past week to Israel for a proper burial, time is of the essence now more than it has ever been.
Israel’s government has failed the hostages and their families. Israel’s military has failed the hostages and their families. At some point, they need to be held responsible.
For now, all we are doing is viewing kidnapping videos from October 7, watching more dead bodies being returned to Israel, and absorbing the pain and anger of the hostage families.
Before he became a government spokesman, Eylon Levy participated in anti-government demonstrations. As a government spokesman, he became a media star because the combination of his quick mind, glib tongue, and expressive eyebrows appealed to English-speaking people around the world.
But then his past political activity came to haunt him, and as good a job as he was doing for Israel, it wasn't sufficiently impressive in some circles for his past to be ignored.
Of course, it would have been more to Israel's advantage if the people who dismissed him had demonstrated greater faith in the national slogan, 'Together we will win.'
But Levy is not the least bit bitter because he can now be completely honest. Not that he wasn't honest before – at least in matters that he believes to be true, but Israeli journalists frequently have to report on issues and incidents about which they have doubts – and it's beginning to irk them. Only a few days ago, KAN 11's political and diplomatic reporter Gili Cohen, in an angry monologue, declared that it was time to tell the truth.
Finding balance
A major problem that has confronted Israeli journalists for 75 years is finding a happy medium between patriotism and professionalism.
If Israel did not face an existential threat on many fronts, Israeli journalists could afford to be less circumspect.
But when national security is at stake, they have to censor themselves and repeat material contained in government press releases in which there are sins of either omission or commission.
Levy did not stay idle following his dismissal. He's busy interviewing and broadcasting on his podcast State of a Nation, which is a mix of politics, news, and rebuttals of lies told about Israel by antisemites and ignoramuses.
But Levy isn't content with just what he's doing on the podcast; in his view, that is simply not enough.
He's gone a step further and launched the Israel Citizen's Spokespersons' Office, a voluntary team of well-informed ordinary citizens (mostly immigrants) who speak in their native languages and advocate for Israel and the Jewish People.
"You don't have to be an official spokesperson to speak up for Israel," he says. "The Jewish People and Israel are under attack all around the world." To counter this situation, Levy is building a team of citizen spokespeople to share the facts, truth, and messages needed to fight against the lies that are being disseminated.
Daily updates are provided Sunday through Thursday on all social media platforms at 3 p.m. Israel Time, 8 a.m. Eastern Time.
But now, he envisages an even broader horizon. He shared his views this week at the annual B'nai B'rith World Center Awards ceremony for Excellence in Diaspora Reportage.
