Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, August 02, 2024

08/02 Links: Report: Iran plans to attack Israel on Tisha B’Av; Hamas Leader Was Killed in Tehran by a Bomb in His Room; The Antisemitism Behind "Genocide Josh"

Ian could not do the links today, so I am trying my hand. Apologies in advance!

Hamas Leader Was Killed in Tehran by a Bomb in His Room

The assailants who pulled off the mysterious killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh this week in Tehran did so by getting a bomb into his heavily guarded room at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps guesthouse, people familiar with the circumstances said.
The use of a bomb to carry out the killing shows a significant intelligence and operational capability within Iran’s borders and represents a major failure of Iranian security to protect a diplomatic guest. Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of the country’s new president.
The planners somehow penetrated an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps facility, learned which room was Haniyeh’s and were able to confirm he was there in order to detonate the bomb.
“They were able to kill him from a relatively close distance,” said Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank. “That’s got to show Khamenei the extent to which Mossad has deeply penetrated their system.”

Israel Brings Deterrence Back to the War on Terror

To most Israelis, ending the war with the installation of a Hamas-led government in the West Bank is unthinkable. It would reward terror and give Israel’s enemies greater power than ever before. Even so, many Israelis wanted to keep the Haniyeh negotiating channel open in the desperate hope that it might lead to the release of more hostages. This put Mr. Netanyahu between a rock and a hard place. He had to reject a cease-fire that rewarded Hamas, but he had to seek a cease-fire to free hostages. The killings of Haniyeh, Shukr and Deif help Mr. Netanyahu manage both his domestic and his international problems.

In Israel, removing key figures in the Hamas and Hezbollah terror structures is popular. The beleaguered prime minister will likely benefit from an uptick in popularity even as the nation prepares for an escalating war. The moves against Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas will also reassure Israel’s Gulf Arab partners that Israel has the capacity and will to take action in its interest, and to inflict humiliating blows on its foes.

However frustrated the Americans are with the attacks, Washington can hardly condemn Israel for eliminating three of the top targets on America’s list of global terrorists. And with Vice President Kamala Harris’s national security adviser under fire for ties to figures accused of cooperating with Iranian influence operations in the U.S., the administration won’t want to advertise a breach with Israel in the runup to the November election.

Why Netanyahu has now decided to escalate attacks

The timing is important.
First, Israel has largely completed its intensive operations in Gaza, severely diminishing Hamas’s capacities and punishing the Palestinians living there for supporting a terror organization.
Second, there is no strong U.S. president right now. Joe Biden is counting the days until his term ends. Democratic nominee and current Vice President Kamala Harris is in the political battle for her life campaigning.
Former President Donald Trump is on the trail as well.
Netanyahu knows from his recent meetings in Washington that if Harris becomes president, she is likely to be much tougher on Israel than Biden, who continually refers to himself as a Zionist—irrespective of whether his policies have been supportive of Israel or not.
By contrast, Harris would put major pressure on Netanyahu to abort military offensives.
While Trump is liable to give stronger backing, as he did during his previous term, he is not seeking to start or expand wars. On the contrary, he wants to restore order and end conflicts. Thus, there is no guarantee that he would give the green light to Israel to launch a major offensive against Hezbollah or Iran.

The U.S. Owes Israel $5 Million

Israel killed Fuad Shukr, a leader of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council who was guilty of murdering hundreds of Americans as well as Israelis. Shukr masterminded a recent strike that killed a dozen children in Northern Israel. In 1983 he orchestrated the infamous Beirut Marine barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. servicemen. The State Department subsequently offered a $5 million reward for information on him and listed him as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.” Years of inaction followed—until now. America should cut Israel a $5 million check.

A confidential 1986 Central Intelligence Agency assessment attributed diminishing jihadiist terrorism to the West’s “unprecedented military, diplomatic, and economic retaliatory measures.” The next year’s assessment concluded that “enhanced” counterterrorism operations “kept terrorists off balance.”

These findings may offend the conflict-averse Western mind. But that doesn’t change the truth: Negotiating with jihadists telegraphs weakness. Americans should stop demanding cease-fires and trying to mollify the perpetrators of terror. Only by projecting power, unifying the West behind Israel and intimidating Iran and its lackeys can the U.S. restore global stability. America owes Israel a debt of gratitude for taking the lead—plus $5 million.

Israel assassinated 5 Hamas leaders in a tunnel under Gaza City — Arab media report

Israel recently assassinated two Hamas politburo leaders and three military commanders in a tunnel under Gaza City, according to sources from the terror group quoted by the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.
According to the report, the IDF strike killed Hamas political leaders Rawhi Mushtaha and Sameh al-Siraj along with three commanders from the group’s military wing, the Izz a-Din al-Qassam Brigades; Abdul Hadi Siam, Sami Odeh and Muhammad Hadid.
Mushtaha has served as de facto prime minister of the Gaza Strip and is in charge of financial affairs within the Hamas politburo. He reportedly helped establish the Hamas military wing and was arrested by Israel in 1988 before being released in 2011 as part of the Shalit prisoner swap.
He is said to be a close confidant of Hamas Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar and is seen as one of the terror group’s most hawkish members.
Siraj has served in the Hamas politburo since 2021 and is also in charge of internal security within the Strip. He reportedly headed a secret intelligence unit operating out of Turkey.

IAF strike killed Oct. 7 terrorist employed by ‘Al Jazeera’

An Israeli Air Force strike in Gaza City on July 31 killed Ismail al-Ghoul, a senior Hamas operative who took part in the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 invasion, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Thursday.
Al-Ghoul, who doubled as a journalist for Qatar’s Al Jazeera, participated in the murderous onslaught and instructed other terrorists on how to record and distribute videos of their attacks, the IDF said.
The statement stressed that the activities of al-Ghoul, a member of Hamas’s elite Nukba Force that led the Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israeli communities, were a “vital part” of the Islamist movement’s terrorist actions.

Iran plans to attack Israel on Tisha B’Av - the Jewish day of disasters, Western intelligence says

Western intelligence sources told Sky News Arabia that they had evidence Iran plans to attack Israel on Tisha B’Av in response to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which begins on August 12 and ends on August 13, the site reported on Friday.
Iran’s attack will reportedly be coordinated with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terror group embedded in Lebanon.
On Tisha B’Av, Jews lament the destruction of the first and second Temples. During the annual event, there is fasting, mourning and a practice of self-denial.

Why Turkey's Erdogan threatened Israel with a proxy war - analysis

Erdogan’s listeners would have understood well what their president was referring to in his remarks. The Turkish leader was hinting that the methods of proxy warfare which have characterized Turkish activity in the region over the last decade might be applied also to the Israeli-Palestinian context.
Erdogan is known for his rhetorical verbosity and extravagance. In this case, however, it would be a mistake to dismiss the statement as mere hot air.
Turkey’s continued domiciling of an active Hamas office and its provision of passports to Hamas operatives are a matter of public record.
In July 2023, Israeli customs authorities intercepted 16 tons of explosive material on its way from Turkey to Gaza, disguised as building material. Thus, Erdogan and Turkey’s support for Hamas is already far beyond the realm of rhetoric.
A close watch on Turkey’s proxy war activities, and in particular on the role of SADAT, is in order.

The Turkish leader sounds like, and acts like, an enemy of Israel. It is overdue that he be properly recognized as one.

Jewish lawmakers groan at "Genocide Josh" campaign

A campaign to scuttle Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as a Democratic vice presidential prospect, largely over his support for Israel, is facing pushback from Jewish members of Congress across the political spectrum.

The uniquely fierce opposition to Shapiro — who is Jewish and whose views on Israel are similar to other potential VP candidates — is an all-too-familiar dynamic for some Jewish lawmakers.

A story in The Atlantic on Wednesday noted that Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the two other top VP contenders, are not facing such campaigns despite having similarly pro-Israel politics.

"Activists have not organized in force to discredit any of the non-Jewish contenders for vice president on these grounds. There are no viral memes against 'Killer Kelly' or 'War-Crimes Walz,'" author Yair Rosenberg wrote.

Several high-profile Jewish lawmakers, including Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), have since called out what they say is an antisemitic double standard.

On The Ground In Gaza: What I Saw Of Israel’s Military Operations

Gaza presents an extraordinarily difficult adversary environment. Yet the Israel Defense Forces face the acute challenge of defending their nation while striving to protect Palestinian civilians. Unfortunately, negative perceptions on social media and elsewhere, based on a combination of disinformation, ignorance, and anti-Semitism, indicates there is a wide gap between the reality I witnessed and the perceptions abroad. Sadly, war always involves civilian casualties. But there are many complex factors unfolding on the ground in this war between Israel and Hamas.
Entering Gaza, just past the Kerem Shalom crossing, there was a new road lined on both sides with dozens of trucks, most of them carrying food. The road was constructed by the IDF to make it easier to get food, water, fuel, and other essential supplies to the civilian population. An Israeli Druze colonel in the IDF, responsible for coordinating humanitarian access, explained to me that the numbers vary on average between 200 to 240 trucks entering Gaza every day to deliver food and other humanitarian aid. Some days that number goes even higher.

The military activities I saw, as well as the processes and procedures followed by the Israeli military, are indicative of the IDF complying with the laws of armed conflict.

Australian probe finds Israel didn’t target WCK aid workers in Gaza

The April 1 Gaza strike that killed seven international aid workers from World Central Kitchen was the result of a mistaken identification, an Australian government investigation found on Friday, confirming an IDF probe into the incident.

“Based on the information available to me, it is my assessment that the IDF strike on the WCK aid workers was not knowingly or deliberately directed against the WCK,” wrote former Australian Defence Force chief Air Chief Marshal (ret.) Mark Binskin, whom Canberra appointed to investigate the strike that killed Australian aid worker Lalzawmi Frankcom, 43, and six others.

Binskin’s investigation found that lower-level IDF officers decided to strike the convoy after mistakenly believing it was being hijacked by Hamas terrorists who were, in fact, unarmed local security guards.

“It appears that the IDF controls failed, leading to errors in decision-making and a misidentification, likely compounded by a level of confirmation bias,” said Binskin, who visited Israel as part of the probe.

The former military chief noted in his conclusions that the IDF probe was “timely, appropriate and, with some exceptions, sufficient.”

St Andrews rector dismissed from governing body over Israel genocide accusation

The rector of St Andrews University has been dismissed from the institution’s governing body and her position as a trustee after she accused Israel of genocide and apartheid.

Stella Maris criticised the decision to remove her from the two roles, which came after the university commissioned an investigation into an email she sent in November to all St Andrews students calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The investigation by Morag Ross KC, published on Thursday, said it would be “disproportionate” to dismiss Maris. But the university court – St Andrews’ governing body – said it had acted because she repeatedly declined to accept Ross’s conclusions, including that she had made some students “fear for their safety”.

Head of an Elite New York School Resigns After Turmoil Over Gaza War

The leader of one of New York’s most elite private schools has left his post after an academic year marked by infighting among parents, students, faculty and alumni over the war in Gaza.

Joe Algrant stepped down on Thursday as the head of school at Ethical Culture Fieldston School after a two-year tenure.

This spring, Fieldston was torn apart by pro-Palestinian student activism, including graffiti on the high school that drew widespread public attention. Parents complained that school administrators did not do enough to bring factions together or to articulate and enforce rules around activism, antisemitism and Islamophobia.

MEMRI: In Times Square, "The Martyr Is Beloved By Allah! Israel Is The Enemy Of Allah!"

On July 31, 2024, following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and top Hizbullah military leader Fuad Shukr, Within Our Lifetime held a rally in New York City. Protesters, waved flags of Hamas, Hizbullah, Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam, and held up photos of Haniyeh and Shukr. Some protesters made an inverted triangle gesture towards NYPD officers. According to the ADL, the inverted triangle hand gesture is "used to represent Hamas itself and glorify its use of violence in many popular anti-Zionist memes and political cartoons." Nerdeen Kiswani, the leader of Within Our Lifetime accused Israel of raping children. A protester with his face covered by a keffiyeh held up a framed photo of Haniyeh, pointed at it and chanted: "The martyr is beloved by Allah! Israel is the Enemy of Allah!" Abdullah Akl, a student at Harvard University and the advocacy director of MAS Staten Island Center,

Jewish Community Celebrates Release of Jewish American Journalist Evan Gershkovich From Russian Imprisonment

Jewish groups are celebrating a prisoner-swap deal which secured the release of Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich, along with more than a dozen other individuals, from Russian prison on Thursday.

xxx

When Biden pressures Israel to respond mildly to Iranian aggression, Israel looks weak in the eyes of Tehran. And this tempts Iran's leaders to go further. I discuss what I think is next in this war with @NewsNation: pic.twitter.com/Y7heZ6c63z
— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) August 1, 2024

.@JulieMasonShow1 and I review the Iranian 'Ring of Fire' strategy. The Israeli government understands that they are not just fighting against Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis - Iran is the real aggressor. The Biden Administration is having a difficult time wrapping their heads… pic.twitter.com/HB9Nu0Hd4w
— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) August 1, 2024

If you are waving a Hamas flag in the heart of Times Square to protest the death of one of the world’s worst terrorists, Ismail Haniyeh, you are not “pro-Palestinian.” You are pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, anti-American—anything but “pro-Palestinian.”

Shilling for a barbaric… pic.twitter.com/gPPzgvAU0F
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) August 1, 2024

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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The Institute for the Study of War has the best dispassionate analysis of the current war, which from the start they always identified as Iran (not Hamas) against Israel.

As it appears that Iran is readying a major attack on Israel, it is worth reading their analysis, and subscribing to their daily reports.

Here is their report from yesterday on the threat:

Iran and the Axis of Resistance are messaging that they will conduct a coordinated, large-scale attack on Israel in retaliation for Israel killing several Axis of Resistance leaders, including Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh, in recent days. Senior Iranian security officials, including Armed Forces General Staff Chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri and Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Akbar Ahmadian, suggested that both Iran and the Axis of Resistance will retaliate against Israel.[1] Iranian leaders met with senior Axis of Resistance officials, many of whom were already in Tehran for the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, to coordinate their combined attack.[2] Iranian state media has furthermore suggested that the upcoming Iranian-led attack on Israel would be similar to but greater than the drone and missile attack that Iran launched on Israel in April 2024.[3]

Iran and the Axis of Resistance are almost certainly considering how to cause greater damage to Israel than the April 2024 attack did since that attack failed to impose a serious cost on Israel and thus failed to deter. Iran and its allies fired around 170 one-way attack drones, 30 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles at Israel in the April 2024 attack.[4] Iran designed this strike package of over 300 projectiles to inflict serious damage on Israel. Iran specifically targeted two remote Israeli targets—an airbase in the southern Israeli desert and an intelligence center in the Golan Heights.[5] Lebanese Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets, while the Houthis launched a few drones and missiles in the April 2024 attack.[6] Iran modeled its attack on Russian strike packages used in Ukraine.[7] Iran has observed how Russian forces have combined drones and missiles in attacks on Ukrainian targets and likely concluded that it could similarly use such a strike package to overwhelm Israeli air defenses and get some projectiles to strike their targets as CTP-ISW has previously assessed.[8]

But the United States, Israel, and their allies intercepted the vast majority of the projectiles, so that the Iranian attack did significantly less damage than Tehran intended.[9] The United States and Israel benefitted from the fact that the Iranian attack drones took hours to fly from Iran to Israel across nearly a thousand kilometers. That hours-long period gave the United States, Israel, and their allies time to prepare their defenses and intercept all the drones as well as many of the subsequent ballistic and cruise missiles. Iranian leaders likely calculate that they failed to deter Israel with their April 2024 attack because they did not inflict serious damage.

Iran is likely now planning for its next attack in order to establish deterrence with Israel while still avoiding a large-scale war. One of the most dangerous but increasingly likely scenarios is that Iran and the Axis of Resistance launch a combined, large-scale drone and missile attack that incorporates lessons from the April 2024 attack. Iranian leaders, in this scenario, could increase the volume of projectiles fired at Israel by launching more from Iran, from the surrounding countries, or both. Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria could launch simultaneous attacks to further strain Israeli air defenses as well. Drones and missiles launched from Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria would be much harder to intercept than the ones from Iran given the shorter distances and flight times to Israel. US and Israeli forces would have significantly less time to intercept those projectiles. It would take Hezbollah drones around 15 minutes to reach Haifa and around 40 minutes flying on direct paths to reach Tel Aviv, for instance (although many drones will likely fly indirect and longer routes).[10] Iran could alternatively exploit the short flight times to concentrate a smaller volume of fire against a single target in Israel rather than against two. Shorter flight times for the drones could make it easier to coordinate them with ballistic missiles fired from Iran, whose flight times are generally less than 10 minutes. If Iran and its partners and proxies can concentrate drones and missiles on Israeli targets simultaneously, they may have reason to expect that the distractions caused by the one can facilitate penetration by the other.

Iran and the Axis of Resistance will also benefit from the fact that they have probed Israeli air defenses extensively since April 2024 and thus learned how to attack them more effectively. Hezbollah and the Houthis have both conducted attacks that have successfully bypassed Israeli air defenses since April 2024. The most notable example was the Houthi drone attack on Tel Aviv on July 19 that killed an Israeli and injured four others.[11] Israeli air defenses have similarly struggled to intercept Hezbollah drones in recent months because of the short flight time and mountainous terrain.[12] The success that Israel and its allies and partners had in defeating the April 2024 strike should not be cause for complacency in the face of a new attack. But Israel and its supporters have multiple systems to engage various kinds of targets and are aware of the capabilities Hezbollah’s drones have shown, so neither is there cause for pessimism.

Iran could inadvertently trigger an expanded conflict with Israel and even the United States if Iran launches an attack along the lines described here. Launching hundreds of projectiles is inherently risky, particularly given the failure rate that Iranian missiles have shown.[13] Technical errors could cause severe collateral damage, as demonstrated by the recent Hezbollah attack that killed 12 Israeli children in the Golan Heights.[14] This risk is higher given reports that Iran is planning to target locations near Haifa and Tel Aviv.[15] Both cities are far more populated than the two remote locations that Iran targeted in April 2024. The risk of civilian casualties is thus very high even if Iran does not mean to strike civilian targets around Haifa and Tel Aviv. Iran could trigger an expanded war if it kills Israeli civilians or inflicts severe damage—regardless of whether Iran intends to avoid an overt war. It may not be immediately obvious to Israeli leaders that a large strike aimed at one or two targets is not, in fact, aimed at a much wider target set, moreover. Drones have long ranges and often fly far beyond their targets before turning to hit them from the rear. The risk of miscalculation in a strike such as the one described is very high.

Some Iranian officials and state media have called for targeting Israeli political and military leaders in response to Haniyeh’s death. Martyrs and Veterans Affairs Foundation President Amir Hossein Ghazi Zadeh Hashemi called on August 1 for killing one of Israel’s “main” leaders.[16] IRGC-affiliated media similarly argued on August 1 that “every [Israeli] political and military official will be a potential target.”[17]

Lebanese Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah warned on August 1 of an "inevitable” retaliation against Israel in response to Israel killing senior Hezbollah official Fuad Shukr.[18] Nasrallah made this remark in a televised speech at a funeral for Shukr.[19] The IDF conducted an airstrike killing Shukr, who was considered Nasrallah’s “right hand man,” in Beirut on July 30.[20] The IDF killed Shukr in response to Hezbollah conducting a rocket attack into the Golan Heights killing 12 Israeli children.[21]

Nasrallah said that Israel did not realize “which lines [it] has crossed” in killing Shukr and announced a new phase of Hezbollah operations on “all support fronts.”[22] Nasrallah suggested that this new phase would include continued attacks into northern Israel.[23] Hezbollah had conducted regular attacks into northern Israel beginning in October 2023 but largely paused these attacks after killing the 12 Israeli children on July 13. Nasrallah said in his speech that these attacks would resume the morning of August 2.[24] Nasrallah also explained that this new phase of escalation will involve an unspecified retaliation for the killing of Shukr.[25] Nasrallah claimed that the Israeli airstrike that killed Shukr also killed five Lebanese civilians.[26] This framing is especially noteworthy given that Nasrallah threatened on July 17 to attack civilian targets deep in Israel if Israeli airstrikes kill Lebanese civilians.

The Israeli airstrike targeting Fuad Shukr in Beirut on July 30 also killed an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force officer, Milad Beydi.[27] IRGC Commander Major General Hossein Salami released a statement mourning the killing of Beydi and blaming Israel for his death.[28] Salami described Beydi as one of the Iranian military advisers in Lebanon and Syria.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that it killed Hamas’ top military commander, Mohammad Deif, in an airstrike in the al Mawasi humanitarian zone on July 13.[29] The IDF confirmed that the airstrike killed Deif in a statement on August 1.[30] An Israeli military correspondent reported that the IDF received definitive intelligence that confirmed Deif’s death in the hours prior to the announcement.[31] The al Qassem Brigades—Hamas‘ military wing—has not released a statement acknowledging the IDF statement as of this writing.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Given that Israel's Iron Beam laser defense against rockets has had successful tests, could it be rushed into being used ahead of the expected massive coordinated attack expected and promised by Iran's leader?

Unfortunately, it appears not.

Newsweek asked that question a month ago in anticipation of increased hostilities in the north.

Israel will not have its pioneering Iron Beam high-energy laser weapon system up and running ahead of schedule, despite the looming possibility of full-scale war breaking out across its northern border with Lebanon-based Hezbollah.

The Iron Beam uses laser technology to slice through airborne targets, such as drones. It can intercept threats from up to several miles away, according to Rafael, the prime contractor for the system. Israel said tests have shown the Iron Beam can intercept rockets, mortars and anti-tank missiles, as well as uncrewed vehicles—a threat militaries across the world are increasingly working to combat.

Israel's Defense Ministry and industries are doing all they can to speed up the deployment of the Iron Beam, but the tail end of 2025 is still the earliest the first-of-its-kind air defense system will be fielded, Newsweek understands. This timeline has long been in place.

Gideon Weiss, the head of international marketing and business development for Israel's state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, said there had been no changes to the timeline since October, with the Iron Beam still expected to be operational from the end of next year.

My question is - if Israel has a laser system that can destroy fast moving aerial threats, why can it not be used offensively as well? It is essentially a very large ray gun that can take out any objects within its range of several miles with no time delay and no mistakes - if the weapon is aimed at an object, it could burn a hole through it at the speed of light.

It would need to be defended, but if it is placed on a high area it should be able to neutralize any invading army by itself.

Maybe that is stage 2. Or maybe the US, which is funding it, has added provisions to the agreement that it would only be used defensively.

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!

Turkey is inciting war against Israel - and Jews

Turkey's president Recep Erdogan declared today to be a national day of mourning in Turkey for the leader of a murderous, raping terrorist organization. memorial services for one of the architects of the October 7 pogrom were held in every one of Turkey's mosques.

Turkey is still a member of NATO.

Yesterday, Erdoğan told President Biden that Israel is working to "spread the fire in Gaza to the entire region. "

His threats and slanders are being reflected in Turkish media, where they now have carte blanche to spread the most absurd conspiracy theories and antisemitism. There is a combination of insane paranoia and Jew-hatred as Turkey is inciting the people to support a war against Israel.

In Telgraf, a columnist spins a truly crazy antisemitic conspiracy theory that the entire world is preparing war against Turkey:

It is only a matter of time before America and Western countries declare war on us as a result of the war spreading to Turkey. Turkey is the target of a great world game. Unfortunately, even the countries we consider Muslim and brotherly are in this game. If there is a war in Turkey, will they enslave us or will they commit genocide like they did in Palestine and Gaza? Turkey is a strong country but how long can it withstand traitors?
When we accept immigrants with pity, I wonder with what intention did they come and settle among us?
Our president gave the message that we can enter Israel in his statement.
Where are these countries we consider Muslim?
Is the world preparing for a new World War?
We know that Israel is America's puppet and pawn. We are content with just watching everything. The wealth of the Jews is shifting to China every moment, and after this process is over, China will be the new superpower of the world. When Jews do business, they will now hide behind China. There will be two superpowers in the world. There will be two superpowers, the Jews and the Muslims. The Jewish headquarters will be China. The Muslims' headquarters will be Turkey.

A lawyer writes about another deranged theory that Israel has territorial designs on Turkey. He says since the Torah says the Israelites would inherit the land of the Hittites, and the Hittite Empire reached today's Turkey, that southeastern Turkey are in the Jews' crosshairs. And Ismail Haniyeh was defending Turkey from Israel.

Another newspaper says "Treacherous Jews target women especially" in Gaza. They don't even pretend they mean "Zionists."

Here's how another site described Israel's attack on Fuad Shukr in Beirut and a US airstrike on terrorists in Iraq:

Christians and Jews are killing Muslims in the Middle East

Following the Jewish religious state of Israel's attack on Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, the Evangelical radical religious state of the United States has now launched an airstrike on the headquarters of the Shiite militia force Hashd al-Shaabi in the Babil province of Iraq.

Yet another newspaper writer, Hüseyin Besli, said that the Holocaust was a myth, and the Jews are the worst people in history:

All the evidence presented for the existence of the Holocaust is a lie and a fabrication.

It is a lie that Jews were burned in ovens.

It is a lie that Jews were massacred with poisonous gas.

It is a lie that Jews were massacred and thrown into pits...

Apparently, we see from today's practices that all of these are things invented by the Jewish mind.

...In other words, throughout human history, there has never been another nation as brutal, liar, genocidal, and disruptive as the Jews; no one has committed cruelty and genocide equal to what they did.

In yet another example of incitement, this columnist repeats Israel's supposed goal of conquering parts of Turkey and curses the Jews.

We will never and never forget and will not let it be forgotten: Murderer and terrorist Israel, this savage nation of Jews; with the same justification, also claim rights on the lands of the Republic of Turkey and will do so.

This determination is not a fairy tale, paranoia or delusion.

Zionist Jews have distorted the holy texts and fabricated laws, and they claim that our country's lands were promised to them...

Israel and the Zionist Jews are cursed all over the world because of the terrible genocide they have committed, and will continue to be cursed until the end of time. In order to cover up the heinous crime of genocide they have committed, they are attacking everyone who opposes them… President Erdoğan has always been a great obstacle to the ambitions of the imperialist cannibals and the perverse dreams of the genocidal/murderer Israeli government. For this reason, the person they attack the most is President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The tongues of the genocidal, murderous, and enemies of the Republic of Turkey, President/President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, will be cut off and their hands will be broken, and they will be held accountable for the genocide. We will see this with the permission of GOD.

One liberal politician, Cem Toker, went on TV and said that Haniyeh was a terrorist and deserved to die. The responses were withering as the media went after Toker.

And at least one of them gave him the biggest insult that is possible in Turkey today: They called him a Jew. And, for good measure, they asked and answered what patriotic Turks should do to those "Kemalist Jews amongst us.": "Gaza also serves as a litmus test by exposing these Jews. Explode thoroughly so that Muslim Anatolia does not hesitate to crush you!"

This is mass hysteria, directed by Turkey's leader, inciting violence against Jews and war against Israel. It is not a fringe phenomenon - on the contrary, the liberals who are against antisemitism are (at least in the media) the fringe.

Europe has not woken up to the problem in their midst. So far, there has been only silence in response to Erdogan's threats of war. They do not realize that the vitriol against "Christians" is almost as crazed as against Jews.

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Jordanian newspaper: Hitler was right to murder the Jews

From Jordanian newspaper Al Saa, which gets about million pageviews a month:

Since October 7, the world has witnessed the longest war in history...

Whoever killed the Jews in Germany, or what is called the Holocaust, knew very well who the Jews were and what they would do if they spread out on earth. He knew how much hatred they harbored for other peoples among this group of people, and he knew very well that they must be gotten rid of so that humanity could be relieved of their evils.

Today we see another holocaust, but it is the opposite of what happened to them in Germany. We see what the Jews who lived after their holocaust are doing. We see what they are doing in Gaza, crimes that we cannot find a name for except that they are among the most heinous crimes and their ugliness exceeds what happened to them in Germany at the hands of Hitler. Today we see bodies without heads and without limbs. We see children being burned, and rape by animals that were trained to do these acts to humans. We see torn bodies and limbs that were stolen from the corpses of the martyrs, and we ask ourselves, was burning enough for them for humanity to be rid of them?

Revenge for their Holocaust at the hands of Hitler has gone beyond reason. They live in a cycle of revenge that will not end until they are eliminated. Hitler did not destroy the infrastructure or cut off the electricity or water. He only took revenge by burning them so that future generations would learn what kind of people they are and what they hide within themselves towards the world.

The only thing missing is "Seig Heil."

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

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08/01 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Israel’s treacherous frenemies; The Ottoman American Empire; In Israel I Heard the Cries of a Determined People

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Israel’s treacherous frenemies

At the moment that Israel is fighting for its very life, Starmer has decided to side with Israel’s barbaric enemies. Yet his government regularly intones its “support for Israel’s right to self-defense,” just as members of the Biden administration routinely declare that America’s commitment to Israel is “ironclad.”

This is all utter humbug. Astoundingly, the U.S. is going out of its way to protect Iran. Not only has it helped enrich and empower Iran by lifting sanctions; not only does it persistently grovel to Tehran; but the administration has been compromised by clandestine ties to the terrorist regime—ties that also implicate the Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.

The Washington Free Beacon has revealed that Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) this week wrote to Harris expressing concern over links between her National Security Adviser Philip Gordon and Ariane Tabatabai, chief of staff to the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict.

Shortly before the Oct. 7 pogrom, Tabatabei was named as an agent of influence for Iran—at the heart of the U.S. government and with the highest level of security clearance—as part of an “Iran Experts Initiative” created by Iranian officials to bolster Tehran’s position on global security issues within the Beltway.

She had been infiltrated into the U.S. State Department by Robert Malley, who was the point man on Iran under both the Obama and Biden administrations until he was removed in June 2023 following a still unexplained “mishandling of classified materials.”

Gordon, who is likely to play a central national security role in a Harris White House, was the co-author with Tabatabei of at least three opinion pieces that the lawmakers said had been “blatantly promoting the Iranian regime’s perspective and interests,” claiming that sanctions against Iran would create “catastrophe” and cause Tehran to “lash out.”

Cotton and Stefanik also claimed that Gordon was “closely associated with the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), another Iranian influence organization that allegedly collaborates with Tehran.”

Yet more explosively still, the two lawmakers added that Amos Hochstein, a senior energy official who has become an unofficial envoy to Lebanon, “allegedly passed intelligence about Israeli airstrikes to Hezbollah potentially as recently as this weekend.”

These astounding claims that the Biden administration has been suborned by Iran seem to have caused barely a ripple in the American media. Instead, like others across the progressive West, they are busily complaining that the assassinations of Shakr and Haniyeh have set back the chances of a ceasefire in Gaza.

In any normal universe, the insistence that a war by Iran aimed at destroying the West is nothing more than a conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza that could be ended by a ceasefire that would give Iran victory would be regarded as evidence of either insanity or treason.

In the Democratic Party and in liberal circles throughout the West, however, it’s mandatory.

Seth Mandel: UK’s ‘Symbolic’ Moves Against Israel Do Real Damage

Elections have consequences, as we’re routinely told. And in the UK, the recent elections have brought about quite the shift in British policy toward Israel.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer got off to a good start when he took over the Labour Party from bitter anti-Semite Jeremy Corbyn four years ago. Starmer immediately apologized for the party’s incubation of open Jew-hatred. He sought to cleanse the “stain” of it from Labour and invited the public to judge his results by whether Jews—who abandoned Labour in Corbyn’s general election—would return to the party. It worked, Labour has kept its anti-Semites from the levers of power within the party, and Starmer became prime minister upon Labour’s recent historic wipeout of the Tories.

But now Starmer is leading a shift on Israel policy, and the way in which he is choosing to do so will be a boon to global anti-Semitism. The changes are mostly symbolic, but they illustrate how destructive symbolic actions can be in the realm of foreign affairs.

The first move Starmer’s Britain made was to drop its challenge to the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction over Israeli leaders regarding the issuing of arrest warrants. The ICC is deliberating over whether to seek such warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Initially, the UK was to join Germany in filing an objection. But the Conservatives are now out of power and Labour has decided not to pursue it further.

Starmer’s explanation is risible: “I think you would note that the courts have already received a number of submissions on either side, so they are well seized of the arguments to make their independent determinations.” Really? Britain is satisfied to leave up to others the question of whether the Israeli prime minister can visit Britain without fear of arrest?

Whether or not it affects the outcome of the case, if Sir Keir has an objection to the possible arrest of the leader of an allied democracy, that is the sort of thing he should want to go on record with. Perhaps filing that objection is a mostly symbolic act, but not registering such an objection is symbolic of something else—namely, that the prime minister of Israel is a war criminal if a kangaroo court says so. At the very least, the British public might find it alarming that Sir Keir is so bored by the question of British sovereignty.

Tony Badran: The Ottoman American Empire

According to a recent report, the Biden administration “is coalescing around plans for an interim ‘Palestinian Council’ to govern Gaza and a security coalition in which the U.S. military will play a major role.” It’s perhaps a little on the nose, within the scope of the Ottoman analogy, for the United States to set up an “administrative council” for the Palestine mutasarrifate, but there it is. As with the “government of Lebanon,” the point of a council, whether it’s packed with notables or “technocrats,” is to provide cover for the Iranian clients who will continue to wield real power, propping up the American sick man of the Middle East.

In the Lebanese Special Province, the United States has assembled a consultative group with the ambassadors of four other nations (France, Egypt, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia) to manage the selection of a new “president”—a post that’s been vacant since 2022. The administration’s public pronouncements emphasize the importance of a new “president” for Lebanon. In reality, the administration’s point man on Lebanon, Special Adviser Hochstein, deals with Hezbollah through its ally, Shiite militia leader and “Speaker of Parliament,” Nabih Berri, among other cutouts, like former Director of General Security Abbas Ibrahim. The Lebanese government is a facade, an official channel to funnel U.S. aid and to cover for the fact that the administration is dealing as directly as possible with Hezbollah.

In fact, that’s precisely what the administration did in 2022 when it imposed its maritime boundary agreement, which in reality functioned as an official American designation of the Special Province of Lebanon as a U.S. protectorate, thereby discouraging Israeli military operations in that territory. Hochstein, then as now, talked as directly as he could with Hezbollah and advanced Iran’s interests, which he then pressed a client minority prime minister in Israel to accept in their entirety. One measure of the authority of this designation is that Israeli operations in Lebanon still haven’t happened, despite the “loss of sovereignty” declared by the U.S. secretary of state—who apparently gets to declare such things without the Israelis feeling able to say “boo.” Even after the Majdal Shams slaughter, Hochstein reportedly told Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that the United States opposed a strike on Beirut.

Intensified U.S. meddling in Israeli domestic affairs as well as the direct interference in Israel’s foreign and security policy since the maritime deal was sealed provide insight into where the state of Israel fits in the Obama-Biden team’s regional architecture alongside the joint U.S.-Iranian special provinces. Israel is a troublesome client, to be managed when possible by the U.S.-aligned Herodian faction inside the country, combined with external pressure like having Israel’s prime minister declared a war criminal by the International Criminal Court.

In the same vein, Washington’s framing of Iran’s April 13 direct missile and drone attack against Israel is instructive. Israel was constrained from retaliating against the Iranians. Instead, the United States made clear that the only legitimate defensive arrangement is one by the American-led integrated regional missile defense, which will effectively calibrate the “hit” that Israel is required to take, while ruling out of bounds any Israeli response to being attacked. That is to say, not only would Israel be denied the autonomous decision-making to go on the offensive, but also, even its defense would be contingent on what the United States deemed acceptable. Accordingly, following Hezbollah’s rocket attack on Majdal Shams, the administration reportedly listed targets in Lebanon that it considers to be out of bounds for Israel, including Hezbollah’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

The Obama team sees Jewish sovereignty as a destabilizing factor in the regional arrangement with Iran, which therefore must be constrained, if not outright abolished. To fit in Obama’s “regional integration” vision, Israel has to be reduced to a province, with no sovereign control over its defense policy with regard to the Iranians and their holdings in the U.S.-managed regional architecture, in which you’ll have the subdivision, or kaza, of Gaza and the kaza of the West Bank united within a new mutasarrifate of Palestine. Jerusalem will be a special jurisdiction shared with Israel under international supervision. The Lebanon mutasarrifate will be in the north, and the Israel sanjak (in keeping with Ottoman terminology), minus Jerusalem, in the middle. Within these units, “administrative councils” will be the official governing bodies, which we will refer to as “governments” while actual power resides elsewhere.

In the Lebanon mutasarrifate Hezbollah, as Iran’s local mutasarrif, is the recognized ruler that the United States deals with through the administrative council. In the Palestine mutasarrifate, a council including notables, clans, bedouins, technocrats, and the PA will serve the same function, as Hamas retains its position as the de facto authority and representative of Iran. The U.S. envoy to the Palestine mutasarrifate will manage the former. In the Israel sanjak, a “unity government” and a strong judicial council will serve as the American clients answering to the U.S. proconsul and the security coordinator.

Any 19th-century Ottoman administrator, or French or British Middle East diplomat, would look at a map of these arrangements and smile at how familiar they are. Local rulers and potentates who are not familiar with Ottoman maps and who believe themselves to be the elected leaders of sovereign nations may have a surprise coming, though.

08/01 Links Pt1: Israeli Lives Aren’t Cheap; An Iran Crisis Demands a Full-Time President; Debunking John Oliver's LIES about Israel

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Israeli Lives Aren’t Cheap

In the 2004 Israeli movie Walk on Water, a Mossad agent played by Lior Ashkenazi is tasked with tracking down and eliminating an aging Nazi in Germany. In trying to understand the decision to prioritize killing an evil but elderly man, he asks his boss: “Get him before God does?” To which his boss responds: “Yes, get him before God does.”

Ismail Haniyeh was not yet an old man, and his earthly punishment, too, has come before his heavenly penance. Israel’s reported assassination of the Hamas leader in Tehran last night will be mourned by the terrible people of the world. Media reaction has followed its predictable nature. Reuters called him a “moderate” in an article republished by Voice of America. Most other press reaction has consolidated behind the idea that the strike will sabotage ceasefire talks.

The more important lesson, however, is the one expressed in the Walk on Water scene above: Jewish blood is no longer cheap. There is a price to be paid for taking Jewish life. Most of the time, this is interpreted through the lens of Israel’s enemies—that is, as a threat. But more important is what this reality says to citizens of Israel. To them, it’s a promise.

This is the value of being a citizen of Israel, and it cannot be underestimated. It is the same value behind the constant search for a hostage deal. The Israel that took out Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran is the Israel that agrees to lopsided trades to bring its captives home, one at a time if necessary. No matter how communal its practices or collectivist its apportionment of responsibility for the rest of the nation, Judaism has never stopped valuing every individual life.

Those who worry about the fate of a ceasefire deal should be encouraged by Haniyeh’s date with destiny. There are different ways to protect Jewish life, and Israel takes each opportunity when it presents itself.

That does not just go for Jewish citizens of Israel, needless to say. The day before Haniyeh’s elimination, Israel killed Fuad Shukr in a targeted strike on Beirut. Shukr had two prominent claims to fame: He was responsible for the massacre of a dozen Druze children in northern Israel last week, and he was behind the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, an attack that killed 241 Americans. There was a $5 million reward on his head from the U.S. government.

Which means that 40 years and nine months after he helped kill 241 Americans, Shukr was still a wanted man. Four days after he helped kill 12 Druze, he was a dead man.

Seth Mandel: If Haniyeh Can Be Killed, So Can Hamas

The implications of Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran will become clearer in the coming days, but it should finally bury one of the more absurd claims made by Israel’s critics—that there is no military solution to the problem posed by Hamas.

Sometimes this is phrased as: “Hamas is an idea, and you can’t kill an idea.” Sometimes we’re told those eliminated in targeted assassinations—and even battlefield routs—will be replaced by interchangeable cogs.

But the Haniyeh killing so defies that logic that it ought to prompt some reconsideration of this part of Israel’s strategy by its critics.

Start with why Haniyeh’s forced exit is such a game changer: He has been integral to the development of Hamas as an organization and a governing force.

Haniyeh was pulled into the inner circle of the group’s founder, Ahmed Yassin, in the late 1990s. Both Yassin and his deputy/successor were killed in 2004, quickly thinning out the ranks. In 2006, Haniyeh led Hamas’s slate of candidates in the Palestinian elections and won. Fatah head Mahmoud Abbas refused to recognize the terror group’s victory—this was after Haniyeh claimed Fatah had tried to assassinate him—and by early 2007 Gaza had become a civil war battleground.

A Saudi-brokered truce collapsed and the strip fell into anarchy. As COMMENTARY contributing editor Jonathan Schanzer wrote in his book Hamas vs. Fatah, “While Hamas and Fatah forces were killing one another, no one was policing the streets.” After Haniyeh and Hamas’s victory, public works projects were halted and infrastructure quickly degraded.

The disorder in Haniyeh’s early days opened the gate to Hamas’s “Talibanization” of the Gaza Strip. The fleeing of aid groups brought in under the Palestinian Authority left Hamas in total control of what came into the strip. Christian targets were repeatedly attacked by Islamist thugs. All of this violence and corruption brought Hamas into immediate tension with Gaza’s prominent clans.

Brendan O'Neill: Ismail Haniyeh was a monster, not a ‘moderate’

What apparently made him a ‘moderate’ is that he was open to talks with Israel. He was cool with having backdoor channels with the Jewish State. Okay, but he was also cool with having underground tunnels from which the Jewish State’s demise was feverishly plotted by fanatics. He supported the fascist terror of 7 October. He cheered the spilling of Palestinian blood, too. ‘[The] blood of the women, children and elderly… we need this blood so that it will ignite with us the spirit of revolution’, he said. I can think of a word that begins with ‘m’ to describe a man who lived in luxury in Qatar while wallowing in the deaths of his own people in Gaza – it’s not moderate, it’s monster. Not only Israelis but Palestinians too are better off following the assassination of this creep.

The very circumstances of his death call into question the delusional view of him as ‘moderate’. He was in Tehran for the inauguration of Iran’s new president. There are clips showing attendees chanting ‘Death to America, Death to Israel!’. I am going to go out on a limb and say that if you head up the political wing of a Jew-killing movement and bask in cries for the destruction of the Jewish State, you have forfeited your right to be called ‘moderate’. The West’s woke media really has lost the plot. They treat Trump voters as lunatics, brand JD Vance as ‘weird’ and damn the likes of Nigel Farage as deranged zealots, and yet they wonder out loud if Ismail Haniyeh was low-key agreeable.

There is a palpable fretting among the West’s political and media elites following the assassination of Haniyeh. Especially as it came just hours after Israel killed a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, in Lebanon. Oh no, the West’s talking heads cry, what will happen next? Might there be escalation? ‘Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is killed in Iran by an alleged Israel airstrike, threatening escalation’, says one headline, capturing the general commentariat dread in the aftermath of this killing. These are Orwellian levels of moral contortionism. It was Haniyeh and his movement that ‘escalated’ tensions in the Middle East when they green-lighted the rape, kidnap and murder of more than a thousand people in Israel on 7 October. Assassinating the racist killers of Jews is not escalation – it’s justice.

Western observers seem obsessed with ‘de-escalation’ in the Middle East. They want calm. But what is calm for them is potential catastrophe for the Jewish State. The ‘peace’ these people call for would be the peace of the grave for many Israelis. Hamas has promised to carry out more 7 Octobers. For Israel to leave such a movement intact would be risky in the extreme. The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh sends a clear message to the world, and it’s one that every true progressive ought to welcome: namely, that you cannot kill Jews with impunity anymore. Fascist violence has consequences now.

IDF To Send Soldiers Accused Of Torturing Terrorists To NYC Where DA Will Drop Charges (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Tel Aviv, August 4 - Israel's chief military prosecutor announced today that she intends to transfer to the jurisdiction of the Manhattan District Attorney the cases of Israeli military personnel who, prosecutors allege, engaged in physical and sexual abuse of Hamas militants who invaded the country on October 7 of last year on a murder, looting, kidnapping, torture, and rape rampage, with the case now all but assured to end with no formal indictment of the men because the Manhattan prosecutor's policy favors not prosecuting violent crimes.

Military Advocate General Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi issued a notice this morning that her office will move nine soldiers, who stand accused of torturing terrorists captured on October 7, to New York City, to face potential prosecution there and not in Israel, under Alvin Bragg. There, she noted, criminal offenders of the most unpleasant sort face routine release and dropped charges, unless they carry the name Donald Trump.

"We have already begun filing the paperwork," she disclosed. "Under current procedures, the process takes two to three weeks at most. Military police will escort the accused to Manhattan where New York authorities will take them into custody. From that point, given the precedent of the District Attorney there, we expect the men to face arraignment, a setting of bail if the presiding judge so orders, followed by a withdrawal of the DA from the case and the return of the accused to Israel."

The nine men face accusations that they sexually, psychologically, and physically tortured Hamas terrorists whom they were guarding after the latter fell captive amid the IDF and civilian response to Hamas's "Al-Aqsa Flood" invasion of southern Israel last October. The operation claimed the lives of about 1200 Israelis and injured thousands more, in addition to mass rape and the kidnapping of about 250 Israelis into the Gaza Strip. More than a hundred hostages or bodies of hostages still remain in Gaza following several negotiated releases and a few IDF operations to rescue hostages or retrieve bodies.

Right-wing Israelis, egged on by certain political figures, attempted to storm the facilities earlier this week where the nine men were held, demonstrating against the attitude that the terrorists have any remaining humanity, and therefore human rights - or at the very least postponing any inquiries into the torture allegations until after the war against Hamas has wound down. MAG Tomer-Yerushalmi acknowledged she might consider dropping charges against some of those arrested for the riot if they identify as the traditionally-immune anti-Netanyahu protesters.

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It isn't that difficult: Iran wants Israel to be destroyed. Israel disagrees.

Vivian Nereim, Gulf bureau chief for The New York Times based in Riyadh, tries to make sense of it all:

Diplomats around the world are telling these parties to keep a lid on it. And the groups themselves say they do not want a wider regional war. Israel’s defense minister repeated the message on Wednesday. Iran has said the same thing, and so has Hezbollah. (Hamas has said it wants a wider war, but it is depleted from nearly 10 months of conflict in Gaza.)

Yet the violence persists, as each party claims its attacks are reactions to previous ones. That’s why, in the span of a few months, Israeli bombs have hit Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen. It’s why Hezbollah and Houthi fighters have repeatedly targeted Israel (and also ships passing through the Red Sea, disrupting global trade). It’s why American airstrikes have pummeled Yemen for nearly seven months.

The entire article is the same gibberish, where Israel defending itself from unprovoked attacks from Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iran are all characterized as Israeli aggression.

She's confused. Why so many attacks in so many directions?

It is interesting that the multi-front war that Israel has been in for nine months has suddenly been recognized by the media, which was only interested in Gaza for most of that time. But, the media being what it is, they must spin it to be anti-Israel, so the basic truths are obfuscated.

Here are those truths that the mainstream media refuses to admit out loud:

Iran wants Israel to be destroyed.

Israel does not want to be destroyed.

The first point is made by Iran every day of every year since 1979. Here's a random news story from 1982:

That's two generations of Iranians brought up to want to see Israel eradicated.

Ms. Nereim seems oblivious to the fact that every one of the groups attacking Israel is part of the Iranian "axis of resistance."

How difficult is it to understand that this is an orchestrated assault on Israel's existence by Iran and its proxies?

Unfortunately, according to these media professionals, we have point 2: Israel refuses to act like frightened Jews in the shtetls or ghettos, willing to accept being slaughtered every once in a while as one price of living in an antisemitic neighborhood.

Why does Israel have to be so intransigent on that position? Don't they want "peace"?

The reason the media doesn't simplify its coverage to be based o these two, obvious, irrefutable facts, it that it would force them to cover the conflict differently. They want to pretend they are evenhanded; they want to cast Israel as Goliath against lots of Davids.

Whatever the reason, it doesn't matter. No one can seriously argue that these two facts are untrue.

And no one can argue that the media refuses to make this part of their basic coverage.

That's why things are so confusing.

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The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists last week issued the results of a months-long investigation into ethics concerns around Israel Bonds fundraising. It was published in The Guardian.

When you read the actual report, the investigators did not find a thing. But why waste all those hours of painstaking research? So they spun what they found and framed it as a major news story.

The ICIJ headline says:

Inside the sophisticated sales operation funneling billions from US state and local governments to Israel

Thousands of pages of email records obtained by ICIJ reveal Israel Bonds’ campaign to court senior U.S. financial officials with highly personalized sales pitches and pro-Israel messaging.

So Israel Bonds is guilty of ....being good at marketing and supporting Israel.

The Guardian editors, perhaps noticing that this is not a story, changed the focus from Israel Bonds sales tactics to implying that US state officials who have purchased Israel Bonds were, maybe, crossing an ill-defined ethics line:

Revealed: US officials are investing public funds in Israeli bonds in deals that raise ethics concerns

The headlines tell you what you need to know about the story. The investigators found very little but try to inflate the importance of what they did find.

For example:

In March 2023, the organization hosted a conference in Washington, D.C., to commemorate Israel’s 75th anniversary. In an email message to [Ohio treasurer Robert] Sprague’s office, a sales executive for Israel Bonds said he had reserved a hotel room for Sprague at the four-star Grand Hyatt.

The Washington event featured a cocktail reception, dinner and a Q&A with Sprague and Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs....

Three months later, Sprague’s office reimbursed Israel Bonds $727 for his hotel and meal expenses at the event.

So...no ethics violations. Sprague paid back the expenses.

All the examples are similar.

Some state treasuries invest tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions, into Israel Bonds along with their tens of billions in other investments. The investments increased after October 7 in a show of solidarity with Israel, and this is obviously terrible to these journalists.

Israel Bonds has been in the crosshairs of anti-Israel groups since October 7, with several lawsuits to force states to divest from those investments. The article is written with sympathy towards those lawsuits and critically of the state treasurers who invest in Israel Bonds.

Whether Israel Bonds is a good investment altogether is not addressed, outside quoting the officials who say it is. The investigators don't bother checking those facts.

Indiana's treasurer announced an increase in purchases of Israel Bonds in May, and his office told the Indiana Capital Chronicle that their November investment was at a bond rate of 5.28%.16 basis points higher than comparable notes from the US Treasury, and that the more recent purchase had a three-year term at 5.5%, or 65 basis points over US Treasury notes.

Which makes Israel Bonds sounding like a good and safe investment for state funds, which should be the primary consideration for treasurers.

The article implies that Israel Bonds facilitating meetings between investors and Israeli officials is an unethical perk, but investment firms routinely hold conferences and roadshows where investors can meet with and ask questions from experts to understand what their money is being invested in. True, they don't usually hold gala dinners, but Israel Bonds tries to appeal primarily to proud Jews and that is how to reach them.

Every investment vehicle markets itself, Israel Bonds' marketing techniques are more like those of a Jewish charity than a hedge fund, because of its primary target audience. I don't think Fidelity will be hosting a challah bake event anytime soon. There is nothing unethical about it.

If state treasurers are violating their own laws and policies, by all means, report them. This article does not find one example of that, instead relying on innuendo, "experts" saying that ethical lines "may have" been crossed, and a general anti-Israel focus.

(h/t MtTB)

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Iran just threatened to violate international law by attacking Israel. No one even points it out.

The New York Times reports:

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has issued an order for Iran to strike Israel directly, in retaliation for the killing in Tehran of Hamas’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, according to three Iranian officials briefed on the order.

Mr. Khamenei gave the order at an emergency meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council on Wednesday morning, shortly after Iran announced that Mr. Haniyeh had been killed, said the three Iranian officials, including two members of the Revolutionary Guards.

Mr. Khamenei, who has the last word on all state matters and is also the commander in chief of the armed forces, instructed military commanders from the Revolutionary Guards and the army to prepare plans for both an attack and a defense in the event that the war expands and Israel or the United States strike Iran, the officials said.

In his public statement about Mr. Haniyeh’s death, Mr. Khamenei signaled that Iran would retaliate directly, saying, “we see avenging his blood our duty,” because it happened on the territory of the Islamic Republic. He said Israel had set the stage for receiving “a severe punishment.”

A banner seen in Tehran shows a photo of Ismail Haniyeh amd says, in Hebrew, "Expect severe punishment."

I have not seen anyone even mention that there is no legal justification under international law for Iran to strike Israel, either as reprisal or as "punishment."

The UN Charter says "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."

Reprisals are heavily restricted under international humanitarian law in any case and according to some, prohibited altogether.

While not formal international law, a UN General Assembly resolution from 1970 states flatly that "States have a duty to refrain from acts of reprisal involving the use of force."

The planned Iranian attack is not self-defense but explicitly meant to be "punishment" and vengeance. That is simply illegal.

When international law is used as a club against Israel for imaginary or perceived infractions, yet is ignored whenever anyone else clearly violates it, the term "international law" loses all meaning.

Anyone who accuses Israel of violating international law who suddenly becomes mute when a state threatens Israel with "punishment" and "avenging blood" clearly doesn't care about international law to begin with.

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Israel announced Fuad Shukr's death before his body was found. Isn't that interesting?

With all the events happening over the past couple of days, this one is quite interesting.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

Hezbollah confirmed on Wednesday that its military commander, Fuad Shukr, was killed in the IDF's strike in Beirut on Tuesday, the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Mayadeen said.

Earlier on Wednesday, two security sources told Reuters that the body of Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr has been found in rubble in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, Beirut,

Lebanon's Hezbollah said early on Wednesday its senior commander was in the building in the southern suburbs of Beirut targeted by an Israeli strike.

The IDF announced late on Tuesday it had killed Shukr, whom it named as Hezbollah's most senior commander and blamed for an attack at the weekend that left a dozen youths dead in the Golan Heights.

If you follow IDF statements, you find something interesting: They never lie.

If they say something, it ends up being true. If they deny something, it ends up being true.

Israel-haters point to IDF statements about Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh's death claiming that Israel lied and said that it wasn't the IDF that killed her, but they never said that. They said they "don't think they killed" her.

Like all professional organizations, the IDF is very careful about their public statements. During the Gaza war they have investigated incidents remarkably quickly and issued findings in timeframes far faster than any army in history, but even with those time constraints, they have not once been found to be wrong in any definitive statement they make.

So when the IDF said on Tuesday night that they had killed top Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr, they knew they had. Even though the people on the ground in Lebanon didn't confirm it.

Even though his body was apparently not recovered until the following morning.

Perhaps terrorist leaders should be more frightened of the IDF confident announcement that they had killed Shukr more than the actual killing. Because it indicates that the IDF knows more about what is happening on the ground in Lebanon than the Lebanese officials themselves know, better than Hezbollah knows.

A strike like this, and like the one that killed Ismail Haniyeh, requires incredible, timely intelligence. It almost certainly requires inside knowledge.

Which means that the terrorists cannot trust each other. Probably because they all know they themselves would sell their colleagues down the river given the right incentive.

Today, the IDF announced that they had confirmed "100%" that they eliminated Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif in a July 13 airstrike. Even though the IDF was reasonably certain they had killed Deif, they did not make a definitive announcement until today. Remember, Hamas officials have denied Deif's death, claiming that he was laughing at reports of his probable death.

Which brings up the other issue of why the media still keeps giving IDF and Hamas statements equal weight when the IDF track record of telling the truth is stellar while Hamas' history is abysmal.

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