Monday, December 30, 2024
From Ian:
Ruthie Blum: The Gray Lady’s latest anti-Israel hit job
Ruthie Blum: The Gray Lady’s latest anti-Israel hit job
The Times hastened to explain what it referred to as a change in IDF rules of engagement by citing a “senior military officer” saying that the army “believed that Israel faced an existential threat.”Institute that studies antisemitism hosts another Israel-basher
Believed. Lucky the authors found a nameless, faceless source to confirm the IDF’s “belief” that the country was in particular danger on that Black Sabbath nearly 15 months ago.
Not to hold this against the journalists, however, who assured us that they’d reviewed “dozens of military records,” and interviewed “more than 100 soldiers and officials, including more than 25 people who helped vet, approve or strike targets.”
That most of said interviewees weren’t at liberty to reveal their identities wasn’t the fault of the NYT; it was due to the “sensitivity” of the subject.
This delicacy didn’t prevent the Times from declaring its findings: “that Israel severely weakened its system of safeguards meant to protect civilians; adopted flawed methods to find targets and assess the risk of civilian casualties; routinely failed to conduct post-strike reviews of civilian harm or punish officers for wrongdoing; and ignored warnings from within its own ranks and from senior U.S. military officials about these failings.”
Never mind that this list could have been written by Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry and honed by the United Nations for the purpose of depicting Israel as the culprit in the ongoing, multi-front effort to wipe the Jewish state off the map. It also happens to be false, as a multitude of IDF soldiers and officers can and do testify—at least those who are still alive to tell the tales of what they’ve been enduring on the battlefield.
Ditto for many military experts from abroad. Take Col. Richard Kemp, for instance.
Criticizing what he called the “slanted” nature of the NYT piece, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan told Israel National News, “In my experience of observing the IDF in action, they scrupulously stick to the laws of war in their targeting policies and actions. Of course, errors will be made and lessons learnt and procedures modified accordingly, … and I know that no other army has had such sophisticated or effective means of mitigating harm to civilians.”
John Spencer, chairman of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, has repeatedly made similar points. As he reiterated at a recent Zionist Federation of Australia event in Melbourne, “There’s never been a war in the history of war … where any nation has been asked, ‘But what’s your civilian-to-combat ratio?’ Because that’s not how war works—just not how the law of war works.”
Meanwhile, lest the Times be accused of basing its entire screed on nameless individuals, it made sure to include a quote from—you guessed it—a Gazan.
“Blood was splattered all over the neighbor’s wall—as though some sheep had just been slaughtered,” said the brother of Shaldan al-Najjar, “a senior commander in a militia allied with Hamas that joined the Oct. 7 attacks,” whose family members “were among the first casualties of Israel’s loosened standards.”
To explain why anyone should care, let alone be appalled, the story clarified, “When the military struck his home in a war nine years earlier, it took several precautions to avoid civilian harm—and no one was killed, including Mr. al-Najjar. When it targeted him in this war, it killed not just him but also 20 members of his extended family, including a 2-month-old baby. … Some relatives were blown from the building. His niece’s severed hand was found in the rubble.”
The piece ended with an abrupt indictment.
“The military said that a panel appointed by the military chief of staff was investigating the circumstances of hundreds of strikes,” it concluded. “No one has been charged.”
It’s a wonder that the Times hasn’t been charged with changing its banner to depict the drivel in its pages as “All the news that’s unfit to print.”
One of Great Britain’s most prominent institutes for the study of antisemitism is quickly turning into a home for extreme Israel-bashers.Ireland has a serious case of ‘keffiyeh brain’
When the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism was created at the University of London in 2010, there was great hope that it would live up to its declared mission of promoting research and teaching to combat “antisemitism, racialization and religious intolerance.” The public had no reason to doubt the institute, which was originally named after its founder, the Pears Foundation, would live up to its mission “to promote genuine advances in the understanding of complex issues.”
Instead, sadly, speakers who have been featured at Birkbeck in recent months—and one who is slated to talk in January—have fostered misunderstanding and worse by promoting anti-Israel libels.
On Jan. 14, Birkbeck will host professor Omer Bartov of Brown University. Bartov has become infamous in recent months for claiming that Israel is committing “genocide” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. His announcement for the Bartov lecture says he will speak about how Zionism has become “an ideology of ethno-nationalism, exclusion and domination of Palestinians.”
Let’s be clear: Bartov’s problem is not what is happening in Gaza. His problem is Israel’s very existence. He has been bashing Israel long before the Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 7. Back in August 2023—more than two months before Israeli troops even entered Gaza—he was one of the organizers of a protest letter accusing Israel of conspiring to “ethnically cleanse all territories under Israeli rule of their Palestinian population.” The letter was featured by anti-Israel publications throughout the world. And he has a long record of similar pronouncements.
Another recent speaker at the Birkbeck Institute was Harvard professor Derek Penslar. In an interview with the London Jewish Chronicle on March 14, 2013, Penslar asserted: “What happened to the Palestinians [in 1948] wasn’t genocide. It was ethnic cleansing.” Writing in Fathom in April 2021, Penslar accused Israel of “perpetuat[ing] oppression, resistance, and hatred.”
It is, of course, understandable to lament the destruction in Gaza. But affiliating with figures like Abbas, just a week after Israel withdrew its embassy from Dublin over Ireland’s extreme ‘anti-Israel’ stance, crossed another line. Uncritically repeating Hamas death tolls, as Harris did on Monday, further cemented Dublin’s status as an anti-Israel mouthpiece.
So, what was achieved by the call? Admirable as it sounds, Dublin’s bid to set the world’s agenda didn’t move the dial: the war rages on, undaunted by Harris’s proclamation.
Indeed, global events are exposing the limits of this kind of fluffy diplomacy. It wasn’t solemn words from Dublin but two events – both abhorred by the Irish government – that have brought peace closer than ever. First, Israel pummelled Hamas and Hezbollah into the rubble, despite Dublin’s protests. Second, Donald Trump was re-elected. Soon after, he warned Hamas – and reiterated last week – that if the hostages aren’t returned when he assumes office, ‘all hell is going to break out.’
This is language Hamas and their Tehran backers understand. Counting on global outrage, amplified by countries such as Ireland, to erode US support for Israel, they pressed on, believing there was light at the end of the tunnel. Instead, Trump’s silhouette now greets them, and they’re scrambling to cut deals.
For all their controversies, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu instinctively grasp that some forces yield only to hard power. Both leaders have shouldered life-and-death decisions, making them more realistic operators in this increasingly perilous world than politicians in Ireland, which relies on the RAF to guard its skies. Perched safely on the edge of western Europe, it remains insulated from the dangers baked into Israeli life.
From this position of comfort – much like that of elite western university campuses – what we might call ‘keffiyeh brain’ sets in. It’s easy to play the radical, cry ‘justice’ from the soapbox, and admonish those grappling with real-world problems. But this isn’t diplomacy; it’s performance art, unbecoming of a serious country.
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