Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, October 14, 2024

10/14 Links Pt1: Israel’s best strategic position in decades; UNIFIL’s failure means it must leave or reform; Hezbollah drone attack on IDF base marks major escalation

From Ian:

Israel’s best strategic position in decades

Likewise, on Israel’s northern border, the threat of Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal prevented Israel from taking offensive action. The thought of another conflict with Hezbollah was enough to paralyze decision-makers, including senior IDF commanders, intelligence officials, and political leaders Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid. They were ready to throw in the towel and stop a war with Lebanon. But Netanyahu didn’t listen to those voices. In a series of daring, James Bond-like operations, Israel took out Hezbollah’s mid-level leadership with precision-targeted attacks that eliminated its command structure.

These strikes were a turning point in the war against Hezbollah, whose long-range rocket attacks are also being disrupted. And as it did in Gaza, the IDF is systematically dismantling Hezbollah’s vast tunnel network and confiscating weapons the terror group stored to use in a massive infiltration, which would have been worse than the Oct. 7 attack.

In another display of daring, Netanyahu took out Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the heart of Beirut. He did so without informing the Biden administration and, in true Israeli fashion, aimed to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. (And for the record, rather than forgiveness, the United States owes Israel its thanks for eliminating an evil dictator with American blood on his hands.)

Despite the pain and tragedy of Oct. 7, Israel is in a far better situation strategically than it has been at any time since its founding in 1948. Sadly, it took the horrors of that fateful day to awaken the Jewish spirit and finally do what was needed to defend ourselves. Today, we are a stronger, better-prepared nation, ready to face our enemies.

Netanyahu’s leadership has been instrumental in achieving this reality. He has demonstrated that Israel will not be bullied or dictated to when it comes to its survival. As the only freedom-loving country in the region, Israel is willing to take on Iran, the largest state sponsor of terror in the world, and destroy its capabilities, which threatens not just Israel but the entire region.

Israel is at the point where it can take the fight to its enemies. The threat of Hamas in Gaza is being neutralized, Hezbollah’s infrastructure is being dismantled and offensive strikes are also destroying terrorist strongholds in Judea and Samaria. Israel is no longer waiting for the next attack. Rather, it is taking the upper hand to prevent future attacks.

As we begin the new Jewish year, we begin it with hope. Israel is safer and stronger, having taken decisive action to ensure a more secure future, not just for itself but for the entire Middle East and the freedom-loving world. The pain, mourning and trauma of Oct. 7 continues, along with a stronger Israel that is shaping the future of the region and the world with a renewed sense of purpose.

Alan Dershowitz: President Biden Can Still Save the World in His Remaining Time in Office

"[I]n 1933 a French premier ought to have said (and if I had been the French premier I would have said it): 'The new Reich Chancellor is the man who wrote Mein Kampf, which says this and that. This man cannot be tolerated in our vicinity. Either he disappears or we march!' But they didn't do it. They left us alone and let us slip through the risky zone, and we were able to sail around all dangerous reefs. And when we were done, and well-armed, better than they, then they started the war!" — Joseph Goebbels, Germany's Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda from 1933-1945.

Obama has been the "Chamberlain" in this 21st-century version of Great Britain's and France's appeasement of an evil and dangerous regime.

The Biden administration has extended Obama's destructive policy, resulting in an even stronger and more dangerous Iran. Under the Trump administration, Iran was considerably weakened economically and thus militarily. Now it is on the verge of acquiring a nuclear arsenal which will allow its proxies to operate under the protection of Iran's nuclear umbrella.

The other step that Biden could take would be to work with Israel on preventing Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal. Unfortunately, this cannot be achieved by more treaties or negotiations. As recent history shows, Iran will simply cheat, as it did after Obama's 2015 JCPOA "nuclear deal." The only way to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is through a military attack against its nuclear facilities, many of which are very deep underground. This can be achieved through U.S.-Israeli military and intelligence cooperation.

Israel should not give up any military advantage in exchange for intangible promises. Just look at how Russia violated its commitment, in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine in exchange for the latter giving up its nuclear weapons. Ukraine gave the weapons up; in 2014 and 2022, Russia invaded anyway.

Although the United States, even as far back as the Obama administration, has pledged to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no reason why Iran should believe that, considering US appeasement tactics under Democratic administrations.

So the only realistic alternative – the least bad among the series of not very good alternatives – is a joint military attack, as surgical as possible, on Iran's nearly-completed nuclear weapons program. To allow Iran to cross the threshold and acquire nuclear weapons would pose a catastrophic threat to world peace. Stopping Iran from having a nuclear arsenal would, on the other hand, be a great accomplishment and a lasting positive legacy for the Biden presidency.

The result of inaction will be a terrorist regime with a nuclear arsenal, followed by a global nuclear-arms race. The fault for such a dangerous outcome will lie squarely with the "Chamberlain" Democrats.

UNIFIL’s failure means it must leave or reform

Hezbollah’s use of UNIFIL as a human shield not only endangers the peacekeeping force but also hampers Israel’s ability to defend itself from Hezbollah’s aggression. On Oct. 12, according to Shoshani, an IDF tank carrying wounded soldiers backed a few meters into a UNIFIL post because it was under fire and dealing with a mass-casualty event involving the evacuation of dozens of wounded soldiers.

“Again we were communicating with them. They [UNIFIL] were in their safe area. No UNIFIL people were in danger at the time of the event because of our communications with them,” he stressed. “Every time we operate in the area against Hezbollah, we give them [UNIFIL] a heads up to make sure they have a chance to get out of harm’s way or to go to the safe areas that they have in their posts.”

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s Oct. 13 visit to Israel’s northern border further underscores the severity of Hezbollah’s military buildup in Southern Lebanon, which was totally ignored by UNIFIL and absent from its annual reports.

Gallant toured IDF operations aimed at dismantling Hezbollah’s tunnels and weapon stockpiles, which included hundreds of RPGs, munitions and anti-tank missiles. Hezbollah has established extensive military infrastructure in Southern Lebanon, including sophisticated missile-launching systems capable of targeting Israeli civilians with pinpoint accuracy. Don’t expect to find any of these weapons or plans for a mass-murder invasion of northern Israel in UNIFIL’s reports.

Gallant emphasized the IDF’s mission to dismantle these immediate threats, noting that Hezbollah launchers, located in civilian areas, could strike Israeli homes in seconds. Yet, UNIFIL has consistently overlooked these violations.

UNIFIL’s inability to prevent Hezbollah from rearming and operating freely in southern Lebanon has rendered its mission a failure. As such, its two logical choices should be to either leave the area, where it is doing more harm than good, or to seriously reform. The status quo, in which an international community convinces itself that its faux peacekeepers are contributing to stability in Lebanon, should not continue, as it has benefited Hezbollah almost exclusively.

The mounting evidence of Hezbollah’s exploitation of UNIFIL positions, combined with the force’s inability to report or monitor these violations, demonstrates that UNIFIL’s presence is not only ineffective but dangerous.

The situation calls for immediate decisions. UNIFIL must either adapt to the current realities on the ground or withdraw entirely from Southern Lebanon. A reformed UNIFIL, as suggested by the Alma Center in July, would involve a shift from its current model of a large force of 10,000 personnel to a more agile, reporting-driven approach. This would involve developing capabilities for Access, Reporting and Communication (ARC), allowing UNIFIL to monitor and report violations in real time, rather than serving as a static and vulnerable presence.

However, any discussion of dismantling Hezbollah’s military infrastructure will likely require international supervision beyond UNIFIL, which has proven unwilling to confront Hezbollah directly.

Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Washington D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former U.S. Army officer who taught at West Point, stated on a webinar on Oct. 3, “What’s going to happen when the IDF leaves? Well of course we know what’s going to happen: Hezbollah is going to move back in, and you can’t count on the UNFIL forces to do anything of course, if past is prologue. So that means Israel will have to have the means, the weapons, and the political permission, if you will, to periodically go back into Lebanon as necessary to take things out. And that’s where the United States comes in.”

Amnesty USA tweeted:

Palestinians in Gaza have been subjected to relentless bombardment and multiple waves of mass displacement by Israel for over a year.

Amnesty International reiterates its calls for an immediate ceasefire to end civilian suffering. The Israeli military must stop issuing mass evacuation orders which amount to forced displacement of the civilian population.

The only reason Gazans have been fleeing from one area to another within Gaza is because they are barred from fleeing Gaza altogether. That is, to a large part, the fault of Amnesty and Human Rights Watch.

Since the start of the war, Gaza civilians have been begging to flee to Egypt. Several thousand lucky ones were able to pay exorbitant sums to pay bribes to leave before Egypt closed the Rafah crossing.

But Egypt put up a massive wall specifically to stop any Gazans from entering. And neither Amnesty nor Human Rights Watch said a word.

Refugee protection is one of the topics that human rights groups should excel at. Nations are not likely to condemn Egypt for its stand against Palestinians refugees, because they don't want to endanger their own rights to choose whom to allow in their own borders. But human rights groups have in the past publicized the plight of refugees, from Myanmar to Syria and Sudan, and successfully pressured governments to allow refugees to enter.

If HRW and Human Rights Watch had created campaigns of the type they regularly mount against Israel, they would have caused public pressure on Egypt pointing out its hypocrisy in pretending to support Palestinians but not willing to save any of them. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans could be in semi-permanent housing in Egypt instead of being forced to go from one area to another since Hamas insists on using them as human shields wherever they go.

Thousands of lives could have been saved.

Outside of one article in The Hill by the HRW head refugee affairs (not a Middle East analyst) who mildly suggested that Gazans have the human right to flee, I cannot find a single statement by any human rights group demanding Egypt or any other country open their borders for Gazans to take refuge. The human rights groups seemingly fully swallow the propaganda that flight would result in the Gazans never being allowed to return because Israel would annex Gaza.

Everyone has the right to leave a country, the right to seek asylum, and the right not to be forced to return to face persecution or other serious threats. Egypt additionally has signed the the 1969 Organization of African Unity Refugee Convention which says they agree to not block any refugees in need from entering their country. These are basic human rights that the human rights community have conveniently decided don't apply to Palestinians.

When Amnesty condemns Israel for telling Gazans to move out of areas they intend to attack Hamas - something meant to save their lives - it is pointedly misdirecting from the real issue: why has it never called for Gazans to have the right to take refuge elsewhere, a right they insist upon for every other war zone?

Hamas is responsible for most Gaza civilian deaths, but Egypt and HRW and Amnesty should not be left off the hook for their role in denying Gazans their human rights and blocking them from being able to flee to a safe place.

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In 2010, The Guardian wrote an article about Wikileaks memos on the Iraq war.

It found that US troops often shot and killed innocent Iraqi civilians, including families, at checkpoints when they wouldn't slow down or stop after being instructed to and warning shots.

The interesting thing about the article is that The Guardian, while quite sympathetic towards the victims, is also sympathetic towards the soldiers who make these tragic mistakes and it explains the difficulties of avoiding killing civilians in wartime:

In the secret logs the killings mainly figure as "escalation of force incidents". Commanders send in reports outlining how soldiers faithfully followed the rules of engagement: first signals, then warning shots, and as a last resort direct fire to disable a vehicle or its driver.

The relentless drumbeat of civilian deaths illustrates the nature of 21st century warfare and key differences from the way the Americans conducted themselves in their eight-year war in Vietnam.

Suicide attacks were unknown in America's last major foreign conflict before Iraq. There was no expectation that anything on wheels or indeed any pedestrian could be a moving bomb. The second difference is a change in western military doctrine, common to other Nato armies during counter-insurgencies.

Known since 2001 as force protection, it puts a high premium on minimising all conceivable risk by permitting troops to bypass traditional methods of detecting friend from foe in favour of extreme pre-emptive action.

Notice how different the tone is from all the articles about Israeli actions during war in The Guardian and elsewhere. This is real reporting, describing the difficulties for modern professional armies in urban environments to avoid civilian deaths. In no way does The Guardian accuse the soldiers of deliberately targeting civilians or of even being reckless in enforcing their own policies. Additionally, the article points out that the US soldiers do what all NATO nations do under similar circumstances.

In short, this article provides context.

It is jarring to read something like this after a year of anti-Israel articles that consistently assume Israeli mendacity, Israeli guilt, Israeli depravity.

The other interesting thing about providing context of how Western armies acted in other conflicts is that they had no transparency. These incidents - and much more egregious ones, involving actual executions of innocent civilians including women and children - were covered up and only mentioned in secret memos, or the soldiers engaged in these actions were exonerated or given a slap on the wrist many years later after the incidents were publicized.

The contrast with the relative transparency of IDF investigations in incidents could not be starker. The IDF admits mistakes far more readily and quickly than the US Army ever has, often within days instead of years. And when the IDF finds that it did nothing wrong, as the US Army usually does when it mounts its own investigations, it is accused of covering up the truth or outright lying.

Here we have an example of journalism in The Guardian. Ask yourself why we aren't seeing this context and even-handedness in the mainstream media during the current war.

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Evidence mounts that the @NYTimes published faked X-ray pictures of bullets in Gaza children (update)

On Friday, the New York Times published an op-ed that claimed that Israel deliberately executes children in Gaza.

The top photo shows three X-rays and a caption that sets the tone for the article.

The caption:

These photographs of X-rays were provided by Dr. Mimi Syed, who worked in Khan Younis from Aug. 8 to Sept. 5. She said: “I had multiple pediatric patients, mostly under the age of 12, who were shot in the head or the left side of the chest. Usually, these were single shots. The patients came in either dead or critical, and died shortly after arriving.”

"Head or left side of chest" is an accusation of cold blooded executions.

People who know what they are talking about questioned these images.

Matt Tardio, who is a former sniper:

As a former Law Enforcement Officer, Ret. Special Forces Soldier (Green Beret) and Sniper, I feel confident in saying I know the effects of 5.56 NATO (M855).

Conclusion:
The NYT lied or failed to verify the information presented to them. This is based on the MV and BC of the M855 Ball ammo currently being used by the IDF.

| Analysis |

Dr. Mimi stated she worked in Khan Younis from Aug. 8 to Sept. 5. The IDF announced on Aug 9th, 2024 they were beginning another ground operation in Khan Younis. Major combat operations by the IDF were completed on Aug 30th.

This means Dr. Mimi was on the ground in Khan Younis for the entire operation according to her claim. ...

There are two issues with her accusations provided in the photo's and statements.

1- Accuracy
2- Velocity and Penetration

| Ballistics Of The M855 Fired From A 14" Barrel (M4) |

Muzzle Velocity: 2,841 ft/s
Ballistic Coefficient: 0.151 (G7 Drag Scale)
Accuracy: About 4 Minutes Of Angle (MOA)

Even at sea level with high humidity, the M855 fired from an M4 will remain supersonic beyond 500 meters. The M855 Green Tip ammo is designed to penetrate body armor and defeat barricades/cover.

However, this comes at a cost in accuracy. An M4 shooting the M855 round has an average accuracy of around 4 Minutes Of Angle. That is roughly a 4-inch shot group at 100 yards. At 200 yards, the shot group expands to 8 inches. At 300 yards, it increases to 12 inches.

The average diameter of the adult male head is about 8 inches. The size of a child's head will vary based on age. Hitting a 4-inch to 8-inch target at greater than 100 meters with an M4 is a challenge on the range with stationary targets. In combat conditions with moving targets, it would be almost impossible.

The M855 travels too fast at that range and is designed to penetrate. It would easily, without question, pass completely through a child's skull at those ranges. This leads to the next question.

Were the x-ray images the result of ricochets?
Well, no. When projectiles traveling that fast strike another object, they tend to deform and tumble. We would see that represented in the x-rays. We do not.

Cheryl, a forensics ballistics specialist responding to a tweet about the article:

1. The damage to the body by bullet shot depends on the weapon and caliber used. A small low caliber pistol will always have less damage than a high caliber rifle such as the 5.56 you and the article mention.
2. The most important factor that determines the level of damage is velocity. And a 5.56 caliber high velocity rifle as is used by the IDF will therefore have a high degree of damage to the head and skull. None of the most obvious types of damage from any gunshot wound to the head nevertheless a 5.56 high velocity rifle shot are visible.
3. When the bullet hits the skull at high velocity, it bevels into the skull, which means as it’s passing through the skull, the immediate entry is small and clean whereas the exit at the front of the skull inside the head is wider and flared. It splinters the skull bone on entry and creates bone shards that then move with the bullet and cause even more damage.
4. Once the bullet enters the head, especially at high velocity, it heats up and creates a shockwave in front of the bullet which widens as the bullet travels through the head causing more damage. The brain is a solid, soft and highly inelastic organ, which means the damage to the brain is such that it literally mushes. The shockwave on entry causes external gases to enter the head in front of the bullet and thus significant displacement of brain matter very rapidly which in turn causes the head to expand rapidly thus causing primary and secondary fractures in various areas of the skull. NONE such fractures are visible in these X-rays.
5. Back to the velocity of the 5.56 rifle shot, for any bullet to stop in the area shown in any of the X-ray images, the bullets would need to travel at very low velocity. That means either the bullets were fired by low velocity small caliber pistols or the rifle shots would need to have been fired from a very long distance (many hundreds of meters) with pinpoint accuracy. When looking at the images, the caliber of bullets are not the same. The first image has a much shorter bullet than the second, meaning it could not be the same caliber.
Now if the children were deliberately shot in the head and neck, it would mean it would be from close range. With a high velocity 5.56 rifle of the type the IDF use, the bullet would never stop so quickly, ever. The bullet would travel so quickly due to VELOCITY that they would almost always exit the skull or body causing much larger exit wounds. None are visible as the bullets are all magically stopped for the perfect X-ray pose. As you can see, there is no damage to the brain in the X-rays. This is even more true of the neck shots where the bullets barely travel an inch and stop at the spine. This would happen only with very low velocity small caliber handguns such as .22 caliber pistols.
6. Basically, for any of the X-rays to be true, these would need to be low velocity pistols, and not high velocity rifles. The distance of fire would still not be very close range, as the damage is not significant enough. Very close range has higher velocity thus more damage.
I’m quite happy for any other ballistics experts to come and debate the post and article and my analysis above. What I can pretty comfortably say is that these are not head and neck shots by high velocity 5.56 rifles. At best these may be wounds from ricochets which would mean they are not deliberate and completely accidental, and also not from close range, but would account for the much lower velocity. At worst, and more likely, this entire post of yours, and the article, is complete and utter bullshit.

A radiologist:

I am a radiologist, and I believe the images are fake because there is only one view available for all cases and the edge of the bullets is irregular while the edge of bones is smooth.
what we can see on the image:

and the most important is that we DON'T SEE any skull damage along the route of the bullet, while we see a realy small fracture and a suture.

The upshot is that these photos could not come from an IDF sniper deliberately aiming at children. The distance away from the target for the possibility that a bullet would lodge in the skull or neck is far too high for an exact shot at the head or "left side of chest", And if the bullet traveled more than the half mile or so needed for it to pass through a skull and lodge there, it could not be a deliberate shot.

Most likely one or more of these photos are Photoshopped, or otherwise manipulated (i.e., a bullet placed behind the head of a child.)

The entire article, with all the doctors and medics testimony, does not show any evidence of IDF fire in the cases they saw in Gaza. After all, Hamas and the other armed groups in Gaza fire bullets too, and a lot more indiscriminately.

The medics who travel to Gaza are typically anti-Israel to begin with. The author of the article heatedly denied that Hamas ever uses human shields, for example.

The entire piece is a sham, and the faked X-rays are only the tip of the iceberg.

UPDATE: Another thing just hit me about the three X-ray photos.

All of the bullets are perfectly perpendicular to the camera.

In real life, the head is 3-dimensional - a bullet could come any angle. It is highly unlikely that most bullets would enter exactly from the front or back of a head, no matter how the person is positioned or which direction they are looking, perfectly positioned for a lateral X-ray image.

But they make for great photos for the media.

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From Morocco World News:

A legislative petition calling for Morocco to grant Moroccan citizenship to all children and grandchildren of Moroccan Jews has been submitted to parliament this week through the national citizen participation portal “Eparticipation.ma.”

The petition, which has garnered only 16 votes online so far, has reignited discussions about Morocco’s relationship with its Jewish diaspora and drawn criticism from anti-normalization activists.

However, the proposal has faced strong opposition from anti-normalization activists. Critics argue that granting citizenship to descendants of Moroccan Jews could potentially include individuals who have served in the Israeli military or supported the ongoing genocide against Palestinians.

This legislative petition, which has been circulating for over a year, has resurfaced in public debate despite its continuous presence on the national citizen participation portal.

Aziz Hanaoui, secretary general of the Moroccan Observatory Against Normalization, warned about the petition on his Facebook account, describing it as “a Zionist petition aimed at Zionizing and Israelizing the Moroccan state, its position, stance, constitutional institutions, and public policies.”

The Moroccan Front for Supporting Palestine and Opposing Normalization also issued a statement condemning the petition, describing it as a “treasonous act against the Moroccan people” and warned that it “poses a danger to Morocco’s sovereignty as it would grant citizenship to settlers, criminals, and recruits in an army known for its terrorism, criminality, and genocide against the Palestinian people.”

The petition was drafted over a year ago. In 18 months it has only gathered 16 signatures. For a petition to be considered by the Moroccan government, it must have 20,000 signatures. (As of last June, it had 8 signatures.)

The people upset at the petition aren't concerned it will pass. They are using this non-story as an excuse for them to mainstream antisemitism even further.

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10/13 Links: How the Israel-Iran rope-a-dope ends; The sanctity of international law has been compromised to demonise Israel; Over 60 wounded in Hezbollah drone strikes

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Netanyahu’s ‘day after’ plan

Despite the comprehensiveness of its echo-chamber strategy of flooding the media with anti-Netanyahu innuendo, demoralizing messages of Israeli weakness and claims that Israel is trying to pull the U.S. into an unnecessary war, the administration’s messaging is hitting a wall.

Israel’s astounding success in devastating Hezbollah’s leadership and a large percentage of its massive arsenal of projectiles increased American support for Israeli victory. Whereas a few months ago, “experts” scoffed at Netanyahu’s pledge to bring Israel “Absolute Victory” in the war, now experts like Richard Dearlove, the former head of Britain’s MI6 spy agency, are saying that Israel is on the road to achieving just that.

And so we come to Netanyahu’s day-after plan. Rebuffed by Biden-Harris, Netanyahu waited until after Israel turned the tide in the war to present his actual strategic vision for a post-war Middle East to the administration. He outlined it in two English-language video messages, first to the Iranian people and then to the Lebanese people.

In both videos, he described how Iran and Hezbollah, respectively, have destroyed Iran and Lebanon. Israel, he explained to the Lebanese, has weakened Hezbollah sufficiently for the Lebanese people to rise up against it.

In his words, “We have degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities; we took out thousands of terrorists, including Nasrallah himself, and Nasrallah’s replacement, and the replacement of his replacement. Today, Hezbollah is weaker than it has been for many, many years.

“Now you, the Lebanese people, you stand at a significant crossroads. It is your choice. You can now take back your country.”

He told the Iranians, “You know one simple thing, Iran’s tyrants don’t care about your future. But you do.”

He told the Iranian people that Iran will be freed from the regime “a lot sooner than people think,” and presented them with a vision of peace after its fall.

“Our two countries, Israel and Iran, will be at peace. When that day comes, the terror network that the regime built in five continents will be bankrupt, dismantled. Iran will thrive as never before.”

Netanyahu’s vision is the opposite of the Obama-Biden-Harris vision. And the American public supports it. This state of affairs limits the administration’s capacity to block Israel’s plans in relation to its much-vaunted retaliatory strike following Iran’s missile assault on Oct. 1.

The Biden-Harris team’s efforts to bar Israel from attacking either Iran’s nuclear installations or its oil installations involve the familiar mix of contradictory messaging and political and strategic subversion that we have experienced from Democratic administrations since 2009. On the one hand, the U.S. supports Israel. On the other hand, the administration has flooded the media with its claims that Israel is too weak to take effective action, that its efforts are geared towards dragging the U.S. into a war, and that Iran poses no threat to anyone.

All the same, Israel’s unexpected and demoralizing delays in carrying out its retaliatory attack on Iran raise fears that the administration is successfully blocking Israel from taking any strategically meaningful action against the regime. If that is in fact the case, the momentum Israel gained from its stunning intelligence operations and airstrikes against Hezbollah will be squandered. The conviction will resurface that Israel doesn’t have what it takes to win the war.

While a source of anxiety, the prospect that Netanyahu will stand down now is minuscule. Israel’s momentum is too strong. Iranians and Lebanese, empowered by Israel’s achievement, are already echoing his messaging. The administration’s continued demands for immediate ceasefires and Israeli strategic reticence strike the average American and U.S. ally as irrational and out of step with events.

While the shape of things to come is still unknowable, it is clear that Iran wasn’t the only party whose strategic goals were undermined by Israel’s seizure of the upper hand in this war. The Obama-Biden-Harris foreign policy establishment’s Iran-centric vision of the Middle East was also scuttled.

Michael Oren: How the Israel-Iran rope-a-dope ends

Iran’s haymaker is coming, and the only question is whether Israel is prepared to deliver ours first. Can Israel, in classic boxing fashion, use Iran’s strategy against it? Will Israel emulate Muhammad Ali, the greatest pugilist of all time, in adopting the tactic of “rope-a-dope?”

Though not taught to me by my father, “rope-a-dope” was known to all sports fans of my generation. Ali would simply put his gloves up, covering his face, and let his opponent pound them repeatedly to no effect. Finally, with the challenger utterly fatigued, Ali would inflict his lethal right. An eight-count would follow, concluding with a bell.

Israel, too, could play rope-a-dope with Iran, parlaying its proxies’ attacks while wearing down the Ayatollahs’ resources. We could also lead them to believe that we’re concentrating solely on their left jabs and ignoring their impending right. We could lull them into a worn-out sense of security and then, unexpectedly, deliver the knock-out.

My father’s lessons worked. When next accosted by the Jew-hating bully, I suggested that we fight like gentlemen and challenged him to a match. We each got a pair of the Everlasts and started to box. Hackneyed as it sounds, he never laid a glove on me. Rather, I let him tire and fluster himself blocking my lefts until I could exploit his unguarded face. The bell – had there been one – pealed my victory.

I recalled that experience while reviewing our many rounds of conflict with Iran. They cannot conclude with a tie. My father, of blessed memory, would tell us, as he once assured me, now is our chance to strike. We may not get another.

Victor Davis Hanson: Biden and Harris, own up: your Iran policies ignited Israel’s war

It was the terrorists of Hamas who surprise-attacked and murdered 1,200 Israeli civilians during peace and on a Jewish holiday.

Their slaughtering, torturing, raping and hostage-taking revealed a level of pre-civilization barbarism rarely seen in the modern era.

Israel was simultaneously targeted by rockets from Hamas and Hezbollah that would eventually number over 20,000.

It did not respond to the bloodbath with a full-scale invasion of Gaza until Oct. 27, some three weeks after the slaughtering.

During that interim, for most of the Muslim world and both US Muslim communities and on American campuses, there was rejoicing at the news of slaughtered Jews.

For over three years, Biden-Harris had signaled Israel’s enemies that the United States no longer acted like a close ally of the past.

The administration lifted sanctions on a hostile Iran, giving it $100 billion in oil windfalls.

It begged Iran to reenter the disastrous Iran deal.

It abandoned the Abraham Accords.

It lifted the terrorist designation from the terrorist Houthis.

It restored fungible aid to the Hamas tunnel builders.

It gave new aid to Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon.

Israel’s enemies got the Biden message: Attack the Jewish state and perhaps Americans for the first time in a half-century may not really mind that much.

And so they did, in unison.

Rather than admitting their own role in igniting the Middle East, Biden and Harris now blame the victims of their own incendiary foreign policy.

The final irony?

Israel has concluded that Biden-Harris foolhardiness can be toxic — and endanger its very survival — and so will not agree to its own suicide.

What do you think? Post a comment.

Instead, Israel seeks to finish a multifaceted war it did not seek.

And one of the beneficiaries of Israeli blood and treasure will be the United States itself, given Israel is now systematically weakening America’s own existential enemies.

Airbrushing history: Israel haters now Photoshopping Palestine Mandate coins to erase "Eretz Yisrael"

Someone named Paul Williams - with 500,000 X/Twitter followers - posted this photo:

A journalist named Sulaiman Ahmed - 600,000 followers - ran with it:

Yet the original image was Photoshopped to remove the two Hebrew letters that indicated that the Hebrew name for "Palestine" was "Eretz Yisrael," something that no Arab would ever put on their coins.

If the truth was on their side, why do they have to go to such extremes to lie?

It remands me of a similar story I had in 2011. An official Palestinian textbook had, on its cover, a photo of a stamp of "Palestine."

But they had Photoshopped the Hebrew out of the stamp:

The myth of a Palestinian state before 1948 is essential to the Palestinian narrative. The fact that it is a lie is simply something they think can be airbrushed from history.

And the funniest part is that when Great Britain put those two letters on the stamp, Palestinian Arabs were upset and wanted to either remove the "EY" initials or to put their own real name after the Arabic "Felesteen" on the stamp.: "Suria El Jenobia," or Southern Syria.

Because in 1925, plenty of Palestinian Arabs still considered - and desired - "Palestine" to be part of Syria.

So, ironically, the real history of British Mandate stamps and coins proves that even Palestinians never considered Palestine to be a separate political entity - the exact opposite of what the historical revisionists are claiming today.

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!

Hezbollah is part and parcel of Lebanese security policy. Its terrorist army is not an illegal militia; rather, its role as an official separate entity is enshrined in Lebanon's security formula of "the army, the people and the resistance."

Most reporting on Lebanon takes as a given that while Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government, its armed forces are considered an illegal (or perhaps only distasteful) reality that the Lebanese armed forces are too weak to dismantle.

For example, UNIFIL's mandate, under UN Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006), says that it is supposed to

Assist the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) in taking steps towards the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL deployed in this area.

But the Lebanese armed forces has not worked with UNIFIL to accomplish that. Part of the reason is that the Lebanese government itself has given Hezbollah a special status, where it has all the rights of a legitimate army but none of the responsibilities.

A 2021 Chatham House article by Lina Khatib explains how this came to be:

In May 2008, an internal political dispute in Lebanon saw Hezbollah use its weapons against fellow Lebanese citizens. The Lebanese government at the time tried to dismiss the pro-Hezbollah head of airport security, Wafik Choucair, and dismantle Hezbollah’s telecommunications network, which operated without any state oversight. In response, Hezbollah forced a military takeover of Beirut, leading to a government crisis that was resolved with the formation of a new national unity administration in which Hezbollah and its allies had veto rights for the first time.

The ministerial statement of this new cabinet referred to a formula previously unseen in government documents, that of Lebanon’s security architecture being composed of ‘the army, the people and the resistance’ to defend Lebanon from any aggression. This statement amounted to a de facto change in the constitution. The same security formula was repeated in the ministerial statement of the next – also Hezbollah-dominated – cabinet formed in 2009, with the additional undertaking that the government would ‘work on uniting the position of the Lebanese through agreeing on a comprehensive national defence strategy’.

Hezbollah’s use of weapons to intimidate its opponents paved the way for it to entrench – by force – its special status within the Lebanese state and thus increase its political influence. Since 2008, Hezbollah has regularly invoked the ‘army, people, resistance’ formula to justify its actions. For example, following Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian conflict, the group has used the formula to argue that it has strengthened Lebanon against what it calls ‘takfiri’ jihadist threats as well as Israeli threats.

The tripartite formula of "people, army and resistance" is invoked countless times in Lebanese and Iranian media. While the original ministerial statements invoked the formula in the context of defending the areas that Lebanon claims Israel is occupying, like the Shebaa Farms, Hezbollah has used this formula to justify any and every offensive decision it makes as the only official "resistance" part of the triangle - a part that is, explicitly, separate from the army.

The ministerial statements that give Hezbollah carte blanche to do whatever it wants, absurdly, also invoke UNSC 1701, proving that Lebanon only pays that resolution lip service when in fact it fuly supports Hezbollah as a separate yet official militia.

The Lebanese government has given Hezbollah the right to do whatever it wants, as part of its own security architecture. In fact, even the Lebanese army itself accepts and promotes this formula, as this 2009 article shows:

Lebanese Army Commander General Jean Kahwaji called on the military units deployed in the southern region of Lebanon to be vigilant, fully prepared and ready on the ground for various possibilities and to constantly monitor the violations and activities carried out by the Israeli army along the Lebanese border, which indicate the existence of premeditated intentions against Lebanon, its people, army and resistance... stressing the use of all national energies to thwart them.
General Kahwaji's speech came during an inspection tour he made today of the military units deployed in the area south of the Litani River, during which he was briefed on the field measures taken to confront any possible Israeli aggression on Lebanon.

The head of the Lebanese Army went to the areas they are supposed to control to be briefed by Hezbollah on what it is doing. He justified Hezbollah's presence there as part of Lebanese policy. Hezbollah is not at odds with the Lebanese army - they are full partners.

Hezbollah can even justify its attacks on Israel since October 8, 2023, as "resistance." "Resistance" is whatever Hezbollah says it is - because it defines itself as "the resistance." The government of Lebanon accepts this definition.

Israel has said that it does not intend to attack Lebanon, but only Hezbollah. Yet Hezbollah is an integral part of Lebanon's security posture.

While Lebanon may not give Hezbollah any responsibilities, Israel has every legal right to hold Lebanon's government responsible for Hezbollah's actions.

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!

How can you explain Palestinians supporting Hamas when Hamas hates Palestinian civilians?

Although we knew this, the New York Times reviewed some internal Hamas meeting minutes, and among the discoveries was that Hamas deceived Israel into thinking it wanted calm. It didn't get involved in the mini-war with Islamic Jihad in 2022, for example.

Interestingly, I don't think the NYT ever mentioned Hamas' deception plan before. In the article it says "While Hamas leaders have spoken vaguely in public about how they tried to deceive Israel in the years leading to the attack, the minutes reveal the extent of that deception." The hyperlink points to an Arabic-only interview with Hamas' Khaled Meshal, saying pretty explicitly that Hamas wanted to give Israel the impression that it wanted calm and to help the people of Gaza receive aid, fuel and electricity.

What the NYT and other media don't seem to recognize is that while Hamas was deceiving Israel, it was deceiving Gazans as well.

As of October 6, 2023:

* More truckloads of aid were entering Gaza than at any time since before Hamas took over Gaza. Gaza was also exporting near-record numbers of goods to Arab and European countries.

* The GDP per capita in Gaza had, for the first time in a decade, increased two years in a row before October 7 2023.

* The unemployment rate had gone down in 2022 and was probably down in 2023 before October as well.

* In 2023, Israel allowed some 18,000 Gazans to have jobs in Israel for the first time in many years.

We've all seen the videos of how Gaza had thriving fancy restaurants, malls, high end shopping and catering halls.

Things were getting better in Gaza because there was calm. The calm did foot the Israelis - into providing more services for Gaza. The situation on October 6 proves not only that Israel never had any "genocidal" plans for Gaza, but it wanted Gaza's economy to thrive and give Gazans a reason to want to continue the calm.

Hamas used the Gazans to fool Israel. They made a conscious decision to start a war that they knew would destroy Gaza's economy, kill thousands of Palestinians, and cause far more damage than the 2009 or 2014 wars did.

This is besides building a tunnel network directly underneath civilian apartments, schools and mosques.

If Hamas hates Palestinian civilians so much, then how come most Palestinians (outside Gaza) support Hamas so enthusiastically? And the same question goes for Western supporters of Hamas - if they were really pro-Palestinian, how could they support a group that has made it blindingly clear that they look at Palestinian civilians as only valuable when they are suffering, injured or dead?

The answer to this (and, indeed, most similar questions of seeming illogical decisions by Palestinians and their supporters) is antisemitism.

As the NYT article shows, Hamas originally wanted to do much worse. They hoped for simultaneous attacks by Iran and Hezbollah, they had considered a 9/11 style attack on the Azrieli Towers in Tel Aviv - in short, they wanted to murder tens of thousands of Jews, not just 1,200.

People who are pro-Hamas are not pro-Palestinian in the Western sense - they share Hamas' antisemitic desire to perform a genocide of all Jews in the region.

#ICYMI: Children at Brooklyn October 7 Anniversary March: F*** Israel!; Hamas Needs to Build More Tunnels, Go into Israel and Attack Them pic.twitter.com/gbKniMmNki
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 12, 2024

To them, wanting to kill Jews is the definition of being "pro-Palestinian."

No matter the cost.

If the goal is to destroy the Jewish state and not to help Palestinians, then there is no daylight between the "pro-Palestinian" crowd and the neo-Nazis. They pretend to care about Palestinian civilians but their support for Hamas proves that they, like Hamas, only value Palestinians who can be used for propaganda purposes.

It is a cynical way to manipulate Western opinion by appealing to Western values, when in fact these people despise Western values. They only want to see dead Jews.

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!

10/12 Links: Hamas Tried to Persuade Iran to Join Its Oct. 7 Attack; Jimmy Carter, friend of dictators and champion of terrorists; Eli Lake: The Hundred Year Holy War

From Ian:

NYTs: Secret Documents Show Hamas Tried to Persuade Iran to Join Its Oct. 7 Attack

Minutes of Hamas’s secret meetings, seized by the Israeli military and obtained by The New York Times, provide a detailed record of the planning for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, as well as Mr. Sinwar’s determination to persuade Hamas’s allies, Iran and Hezbollah, to join the assault or at least commit to a broader fight with Israel if Hamas staged a surprise cross-border raid. The documents, which represent a breakthrough in understanding Hamas, also show extensive efforts to deceive Israel about its intentions as the group laid the groundwork for a bold assault and a regional conflagration that Mr. Sinwar hoped would cause Israel to “collapse.”

The documents consist of minutes from 10 secret planning meetings of a small group of Hamas political and military leaders in the run-up to the attack, on Oct. 7, 2023. The minutes include 30 pages of previously undisclosed details about the way Hamas’s leadership works and the preparations that went into its attack.

The documents, which were verified by The Times, lay out the main strategies and assessments of the leadership group:
- Hamas initially planned to carry out the attack, which it code-named “the big project,” in the fall of 2022. But the group delayed executing the plan as it tried to persuade Iran and Hezbollah to participate.
- As they prepared arguments aimed at Hezbollah, the Hamas leaders said that Israel’s “internal situation” — an apparent reference to turmoil over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious plans to overhaul the judiciary — was among the reasons they were “compelled to move toward a strategic battle.”
- In July 2023, Hamas dispatched a top official to Lebanon, where he met with a senior Iranian commander and requested help with striking sensitive sites at the start of the assault.
- The senior Iranian commander told Hamas that Iran and Hezbollah were supportive in principle, but needed more time to prepare; the minutes do not say how detailed a plan was presented by Hamas to its allies.
- The documents also say that Hamas planned to discuss the attack in more detail at a subsequent meeting with Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader at the time, but do not clarify whether the discussion happened.
- Hamas felt assured of its allies’ general support, but concluded it might need to go ahead without their full involvement — in part to stop Israel from deploying an advanced new air-defense system before the assault took place.
- The decision to attack was also influenced by Hamas’s desire to disrupt efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the entrenchment of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Israeli efforts to exert greater control over the Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, sacred in both Islam and Judaism and known to Jews as the Temple Mount.
- Hamas deliberately avoided major confrontations with Israel for two years from 2021, in order to maximize the surprise of the Oct. 7 attack. As the leaders saw it, they “must keep the enemy convinced that Hamas in Gaza wants calm.”
- Hamas leaders in Gaza said they briefed Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s Qatar-based political leader, on “the big project.” It was not previously known whether Mr. Haniyeh, who was assassinated by Israel in July, had been briefed on the attack before it happened.

Hamas delayed terror attack on Israel by a year in an effort to rope in Iran, Hezbollah into plot

The minutes detailing the planning before the attack were found on a computer in late January by Israel Defense Forces soldiers who were searching an underground Hamas command post in Khan Younis, the New York Times said.

The documents were verified by experts, including Salah al-Din al-Awawdeh, a Hamas member and a former fighter in its military wing who is now an analyst in Istanbul.

The discovery also set off a flurry of questions within Israel’s intelligence agencies, as an internal military review demanded to know how Israel’s spies failed to obtain the information before the Oct. 7 attack or to understand what they described, the Times noted.

While Israel did obtain Hamas’s battle plans before the attack, Israeli commanders repeatedly dismissed the idea that Hamas had the ability or intention to carry them out.

The Iranian Mission to the United Nations denied the allegations made in the minutes.

“All the planning, decision-making and directing were solely executed by Hamas’s military wing based in Gaza, any claim attempting to link it to Iran or Hezbollah — either partially or wholly — is devoid of credence and comes from fabricated documents,” the statement to the New York Times read.

Back in February, the Director of National Intelligence’s threat assessment said this:

“We assess that Iranian leaders did not orchestrate nor had foreknowledge of the HAMAS attack against Israel.”

When the Israelis had found evidence from Hamas to the contrary a MONTH prior. https://t.co/4O77bLP5Ni pic.twitter.com/uDzX4DvAFD
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) October 12, 2024

10/11 Links Pt2: 365 Days of October 7; The creepy thought experiments of Ta-Nehisi Coates; BBC Iranian expert who ranted about ‘chosen people’ pictured in IRGC uniform

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Jewish Moment

It’s the same environment in which the deranged hatred of Israel and the Jewish people in the general population has become mainstream and is overwhelming the culture.

This is obviously very frightening. However, it’s important for Jews to view these tumultuous events not through corrupted Western eyes, which peer through a prism of demoralization and despair, but through Jewish eyes, which gaze through a prism of clarity and hope.

We Jews are not alone. There are good people who support us. They are people who still understand the distinction between right and wrong, truth and lies, victim and victimizer.

Although there are millions of them, they don’t possess cultural and political power. They have been effectively disenfranchised by those who aim to destroy Western civilization, who despise Israel and the Jews, and who dominate the elite positions within Western society.

With the decent millions fighting back through the democratic avenues available to them, a titanic civilizational struggle is under way.

The Jews are the leaders of that resistance. Israel is leading it in geopolitical and military terms, fighting to defeat the forces of evil in Iran and the Islamic world.

More generally, the historic culture of the Jewish people reaffirms the core values of civilization against the forces upholding lies, hatred and the abuse of power.

Those forces are embedded within the left-wing establishment in every country. In the Diaspora, many Jews themselves are signed up to the ideologies that have unleashed them. Some of these Jews have been deeply dismayed since Oct. 7 to find their supposed fellow “progressives” have turned against them.

These Jews have a choice. They can recognize the unique value of the inherited, specific precepts of Judaism that have bound the Jewish people together over the centuries and enabled it to survive every culture that has tried to annihilate it. Or else they can stick with a Western culture which, unless it dramatically changes course, is going down.

This weekend is Yom Kippur. Rarely has its central theme of teshuvah—“return”—seemed more apposite.

In the Middle East, the enemies of the Jewish people are now on the back foot. In Israel, there’s a quiet certainty that we are winning.

More than that, it’s astounding that this tiny country is standing alone to defend civilization against barbarism—a service to humanity that it’s delivering on behalf of the entire world.

No one is under any illusion. Many perils and maybe even more suffering lie ahead. What’s certain, however, is that Israel and the Jewish people will survive and thrive.

As Poilievre so movingly declared: “One thing I know—even a thousand years from now, on Friday as the sun sets and Shabbat begins in Israel, the songs of Shabbat will continue to be heard, and the Jewish people will continue to exist.”

We are living through a seismic chapter in Jewish destiny. The world may rage and shout and scream—because they know it, too. This is the Jewish moment.

The New Zionist Renaissance

The Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent “Iron Swords” war have thrust profound philosophical and political questions to the forefront that will in turn shape the future of Zionism and with it, the fate of the Jewish people. What role should the State of Israel play in the life of the Jewish people? What is the meaning of Jewish consciousness in the life of the individual? What historical lessons should be learned from the events of the past year that might help ensure the survival of the Jewish nation?

Grappling with these questions has yielded an unequivocal conclusion: a resurgence of the relevance of the “Zionist idea” in the 21st century, both in Israel and in the diaspora.

Since the dawn of the Jewish emancipation in the 18th century, the Jewish people have wrestled with the question of their collective fate. Some argued that Jews should strive for full cultural integration into non-Jewish society, while abandoning religious, social, and cultural traditions and instead adopting the customs of the host countries. Conversely, others contended that one should not trust foreign societies or rely on the aid of host nations during times of crisis. According to this view, the Jewish people should direct most of their resources and efforts toward building internal Jewish resilience—culturally and politically. After the Holocaust, this debate was largely settled by the comprehensive vision of Zionism.

In addressing the distress among the Jews of Eastern Europe, and assimilation in the West, the Zionist movement sought to revitalize the Jewish people economically, socially, and most of all, politically and culturally. It aimed to ensure the continuity of an autonomous Jewish life through the ingathering of Jews to their ancestral homeland and the establishment of an independent sociopolitical base that would secure their existence, security, and well-being. Otherwise, assimilation within host societies and persecution from without would lead to their physical and spiritual destruction.

The Holocaust proved the prescience of the Zionist prognosis, at least regarding physical existence in the diaspora, in such a definitive manner that even its most ardent proponents could not have dared to imagine. It became evident that the Jewish people could not count on help or shelter from other nations, but must rely solely on an independent army and state.

In the ensuing decades, as Jews integrated into Western society alongside the establishment of the State of Israel, these hard-learned truths began to fade. Many came to believe that this existential diagnosis was a relic of the past with no relevance to contemporary reality. Senior political and security figures, both from within the Israeli establishment and the international community, exerted significant influence on decision-makers in Jerusalem to rely on international guarantees for existential issues concerning security and well-being.

The attacks of Oct. 7 have once again thrown into stark relief the “normal” historical condition of the Jews throughout history, including now. The attacks did not uncover unknown facts. However, only after their occurrence did these facts transform from abstract concepts into a bitter reality that could no longer be ignored. For many Israelis, Oct. 7 catalyzed an experiential and ideological shift in their fundamental beliefs, leading back to the Zionist idea.

Andrew Fox: Reflections on a week of remembrance

Dear all,
The subtitle of this piece might be misleading, but I’m going with it. This letter isn’t just to the new friends I’ve made this past year, both Jews in the UK and people in Israel. It’s also to my non-Jewish readers who may wonder why I have been quite as vociferous as I have over the last year, on a topic where I don’t really have a dog in the fight.

It starts, as do all acts of remembrance this week, on 7th October last year. I’m a former Army officer; my academic areas of interest were (and are) strategy in the Middle East, and the psychology of disinformation. So when a war began in the Middle East that raised many strategic questions, whilst soaked in the patterns of disinformation I know intimately from my studies… well, I had something to say.

Of course I knew of the events of 7th October: I’m a Middle East researcher. On the day itself, the Telegram channels I follow were writhing like a bag of snakes with snuff movie after snuff movie. All so abhorrent; all so shocking; even for a reasonably experienced soldier.

My early strategic analysis was about right. I guessed Israel’s strategic goals and I looked at their tactics, and felt they all looked logical. They fought a contested urban battle against a dug-in defence in pretty much the same way British Army doctrine advises. Isolation; break-in; seize objectives; clearance.

Obviously, the isolation and break-in phases to Gaza City drew the world’s ire. The global public was unprepared for the live-streaming of the effects of modern weaponry in an urban setting. The closest most people have come to it is Call of Duty. They were primed on decades of Palestinian information operations about Israel, and swam in a rising sea of antisemitism. They didn’t understand what 7th October meant and why Israel had to respond the way it did. When Hamas’ ringmasters presented them with a narrative of genocide that fit their prejudices and biases, they clung to it with both hands.

Israel’s great mistake was in assuming that the horrors of 7th October would buy them some credit. They wildly overestimated their bank balances of sympathy, and as victims of disinformation fraud they rapidly became overdrawn.

So, there was I, in my Twitter/X stovepipe, merrily analysing away in broad support of Israel’s strategy. Until April 2024.

I was invited on a trip to Israel by the Military Expert Panel. We were granted decent access by the IDF and they briefed us their plans, which I noted smugly were just about what I’d predicted. Situation: no change.

What changed everything for me was visiting the massacre sites and seeing those hurt by it: victims and hostage family members. I wasn’t prepared for it conceptually or emotionally. It turned those snuff films of months earlier into 3-D.

Before, it was just another set of horrors in a world full of horrors, of which I had seen my fair share firsthand.

After, it was a lurid kaleidoscope of pain, misery, inhuman rape and torture; sadism, dehumanisation, and bloody, mutilating murder of the utmost savagery, carried out with Satanic glee. I walked in human ashes mixed with the remnants of the fires in kibbutzim where innocents were burned alive. I have seen the evidence of rape. I have seen the sites of these obscenities against humanity.

Before, I knew. After, I understood.

John Podhoretz: Antisemitism's Rise after Oct. 7 Should Scare Us All

A new study released on the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel finds that 3.5 million American Jews say they have experienced some form of antisemitism in the year since.

The study by the National Opinion Research Council at the University of Chicago found that a quarter of Jewish respondents avoid displaying their Jewish identity in the workplace, an increase of 33% over the past year.

A quarter of those affiliated with a synagogue or other Jewish institution "report that their institution has been targeted with graffiti, threats, or attacks since Oct. 7."

At universities, 39% of Jewish students report they have felt uncomfortable or unsafe at a campus event due to their identity, while 29% have felt or been excluded from a group or event because they are Jewish.

We Jews don't just feel like we're in danger. We are in danger.

10/11 Links Pt1: Winning This Regional War Is the First Step to Creating Regional Peace; The Nobel Peace Prize has become a sick joke

From Ian:

Winning This Regional War Is the First Step to Creating Regional Peace

Following the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, the strategic goal of Israel's counteroffensive was to restore its shattered deterrence. Israelis across the political spectrum agreed that the first step was destroying Hamas's ability to govern, not allowing the regime responsible for Oct. 7 to remain on Israel's border.

Destroying the Hamas regime meant denying it immunity. Terrorists would not be allowed to massacre Israeli civilians, cross back into Gaza and hide behind Palestinian civilians. Destroying Hamas's capacity to govern required pursuing terrorists wherever they operated, including inside hospitals and mosques. It meant entering Hamas's vast network of tunnels.

But the war that began in Gaza was never about Gaza alone. Defeating Hamas was only the first stage of a regional conflict between Israel and the Iranian-led axis of radical Islamism. Israel's stunning success against Hizbullah has gone a long way to restoring our military credibility.

Today, Iran sits at the nuclear threshold. No country, including the U.S., is likely to use force to prevent the Iranian regime from developing a nuclear bomb - except Israel. The Jewish state, founded on the promise of providing a safe refuge for the Jewish people, cannot allow the ayatollahs to attain the means to fulfill Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei's prophesy of the destruction of Israel.

Israel's determination to prevent a nuclear Iran is precisely what has attracted Sunni Muslim states to seek normalization with the Jewish state. Arab leaders are terrified not of Israel but of an imperial Iran, which seeks hegemony over the region. The worst-kept secret in the Middle East is that Arab leaders are quietly hoping for an Israeli victory over Hamas and Hizbullah and, most of all, Iran. Winning this regional war is the first step to creating a regional peace.

What the West Could Learn from Israel

While the U.S. under Biden and the yesterday nations of Europe continue to view the Middle East through their twin doctrines of Iran appeasement and two-state solutionism, Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE understand - as Israel does - that Western good intentions are a dangerous indulgence in this region, and that responsible statecraft means dealing firmly with Tehran and its proxies.

As commentator Andrew Klavan notes: "I just hope Israel can save Western civilization before Western civilization can stop them."

Truth be told, Israel isn't in the business of saving Western civilization, it's in the business of saving itself.

It just so happens that doing so benefits a Western civilization that is busy dismantling itself.

IDF: We Are Dismantling Iran's Stranglehold, Piece by Piece

IDF Major Roy Ofir, commander of the 71st Armored Battalion Tactical Command Post, described the fighting in southern Lebanon.

"We just returned from one of the villages. We hit Hizbullah hard, destroyed their infrastructure, and neutralized several of their forces and enemy squads. We found a lot of weapons, some of which we've brought back for research in Israel. We crushed anyone who confronted us."

"We're coming in with significant force. Hizbullah can't even lift its head. They're taking hit after hit. The IDF has prepared for this... we've been preparing for Lebanon and Hizbullah."

Ofir, who began the war in the Gaza sector, continued: "In the end, we are dismantling the stranglehold Iran has built around us, piece by piece."

Iran Gives in to Spy Mania

This week, there have been numerous unconfirmed reports about the fate of Esmail Qaani, who is the head of the Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Benny Avni writes:

On Thursday, Sky News Arabic reported that Mr. Qaani was rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack. He became [the Quds Force] commander in 2020, after an American drone strike killed his predecessor, Qassem Suleimani. The unit oversees the Islamic Republic’s various Mideast proxies, as well as the exporting of the Iranian revolution to the region and beyond.

The Sky News report attempts to put to rest earlier claims that Mr. Qaani was killed at Beirut. It follows several reports asserting he has been arrested and interrogated at Tehran over suspicion that he, or a top lieutenant, leaked information to Israel. Five days ago, the Arabic-language al-Arabiya network reported that Mr. Qaani “is under surveillance and isolation, following the Israeli assassinations of prominent Iranian leaders.”

Iranians are desperately scrambling to plug possible leaks that gave Israel precise intelligence to conduct pinpoint strikes against Hizballah commanders. . . . “I find it hard to believe that Qaani was compromised,” an Iran watcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, Beni Sabti, tells the Sun. Perhaps one or more of [Qaani’s] top aides have been recruited by Israel, he says, adding that “psychological warfare” could well be stoking the rumor mill.

If so, prominent Iranians seem to be exacerbating the internal turmoil by alleging that the country’s security apparatus has been infiltrated.