Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

01/14 Links Pt1: No final answer from Hamas regarding hostage deal; Hegseth: ‘I support Israel destroying, killing every last member of Hamas’

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Deal: A Guide for the Perplexed

What’s good about this for Israel:
—The reunions of more than two dozen hostages with their families is obviously top-of-mind. The country has been tormented for fifteen months over its missing, during which time Hamas’s cruelty has been boundless. Hostages have been tortured, abused, starved and humiliated—children and adults alike—and many of their families have been left to wonder if they are even still alive. Unlike Hamas, Israelis so value the lives of their fellows that every returned captive brings some relief to a suffering country.

—Israel will also have delivered for Donald Trump, whose envoys bulldozed all Israeli concerns so that he could begin his second term with a win. Delivering for an incoming president rather than an outgoing president means Israeli leaders believe (or live in hopes) that their concerns on other regional issues will be heard. That could mean an improvement in the flow of U.S. arms and aid, cooperation on limiting or destroying Iran’s nuclear program, support for Israel’s operations in Syria and Lebanon, Saudi normalization, and a suitably aggressive posture toward the ICC and the UN as well as any countries that are tempted to join their extrajudicial harassment of Israel and Israelis.

—Retaining some control over the Philadelphi Corridor is crucial to preventing the resumption of smuggling routes underneath Rafah and into Egyptian territory. Holding buffer zones along the rest of the border means the Israeli communities in the “Gaza envelope” will be better protected and will facilitate the deployment of troops back into Gaza hotspots. So long as Israeli troops control both sides of all Israel-Gaza borders, those borders will be more secure than they have been, arguably since 1948.

—Any significant reduction in fighting, even if temporary, will boost Israel’s economy and relieve some of the strain on its 300,000 reservists.

What’s bad about this for Israel:
—The withdrawal of troops to a buffer zone will guarantee Hamas survives for now and coalesces support and recruits while it has the chance. In turn, that means the IDF will be back in the parts of Gaza it is currently leaving. The war goes on under the façade of “peace.”

—The honeymoon from conventional Western policy toward the Middle East is over. In Trump’s first term, he put together a team of envoys that questioned stale thinking and thereby facilitated perhaps the most important regional diplomatic breakthroughs since the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace deal. This team featured US Ambassador David Friedman, Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and others. This time, Trump’s envoy is Steve Witkoff, who is content to carry the outgoing Biden administration’s policies across the finish line, which are based on the age-old—and failed—protection of Hamas’s legitimacy and a bias toward the status quo.

—Israel has agreed to leave the Netzarim Corridor, a road that bisects Gaza and enables the IDF to contain recurring spurts of violence from spilling over into the rest of the enclave. That corridor begins right near Kibbutz Be’eri, where Hamas terrorists slaughtered over 100 civilians and took thirty hostages in the early hours of its Oct. 7 invasion. Israel’s disengagement from the corridor will mean it is facilitating the return of Gazans to their homes in the north before many of Israel’s own citizens can safely return to their homes near Gaza.

—The release of violent Palestinian terrorists and inmates will represent security threats, boost loyalty to Hamas and in some cases Hamas’s manpower, and incentivize the taking of future hostages. Hostage-taking, in fact, will be seen as the only successful method of Palestinian “resistance” and the only consistent advantage that terrorist groups have over the West.

—Qatar, the longtime patron of Hamas, facilitated this deal, and in doing so, displayed the considerable influence it will have over a Trump White House.

What’s good about the deal for the Palestinians:
—The ability for many to return to their homes amid a reprieve in Gaza’s longest war. Israel will continue providing the strip with humanitarian aid.

What’s bad about it for the Palestinians:
—Hamas was the reason for the devastation in Gaza, and Hamas is being left in power, which means any reprieve is temporary.

~The survival of Hamas, even in a greatly weakened state, means Mahmoud Abbas will die without seeing the return of the Palestinian Authority to the territory it lost to Hamas. This means Hamas’s influence in the West Bank will surge despite Israel’s devastation of it. The Hamasification of the West Bank, in turn, would sound the death knell for Palestinian self-determination, since there will be no Palestinian party to negotiate with Israel and both Palestinian territories will slide into Iranian satrapy.

Will Palestinians Give Peace a Chance?

If there's ever going to be lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the Palestinians must do something they've avoided for nearly 80 years: accept the permanency and legitimacy of the Jewish state.

Since Oct. 7, most Israelis have become increasingly disillusioned when it comes to peace with the Palestinians. On the Palestinian side, a series of recent polls found that many Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank still believe Hamas was justified in carrying out their Oct. 7 assault. Moreover, Palestinians remain broadly opposed to the idea of a two-state solution, the favored approach of international politicians, scholars, and peace advocates for decades.

Since Israel's founding, the complete ideological rejection of any Jewish state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea has been a pillar of Palestinian identity. Treating Israel as anything but a blemish or temporary aberration that can and will be undone with enough determination would be sacrilege in many Palestinian homes. It is precisely this maximalist Palestinian ideology that is at the heart of the conflict.

Going forward, earnest diplomats and committed mediators who have continually avoided this long-held rejectionist view will need to wake up, get real, and have honest discussions with Palestinians. As a first step, outsiders should resist the common knee-jerk reaction of dismissing hard truths. The deep-seated Palestinian vision anchored to endless struggle and never-ending resistance is what keeps the conflict going.

Unless the Palestinians finally acknowledge Israel's right to exist, no land, no new borders, and no other concessions will lead to lasting peace. Palestinians have the power to end the conflict - and it's time we recognize that.

Terrorist releases in exchange for hostages threaten even more Israeli lives

Many Israelis will say that the hostage release deal under discussion is sad but necessary—that it is the government’s moral obligation to free as many hostages as possible, as soon as possible, despite the high price, and that the suffering of our hostages and their families is intolerable on the personal and national levels.

Many will say that giving freed hostages a national hug will be the greatest triumph of all—something so necessary for Israel’s collective spirit and its resilience over the long term.

Many Israelis might feel this to be so even if the deal entails a near-total withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from the Gaza Strip. In other words, even if Hamas retains power and survives to fight another day.

However one finesses the diplomatic and defense dilemmas here, there is one additional grand security calculus that seems absent from public discourse: the piercingly high price of releasing many Palestinian terrorists from Israeli jails which will be part of any deal.

The released terrorists assuredly will strike again with God-only-knows how many Israeli casualties in the future. Their release certainly will incentivize future kidnappings, pour gasoline onto the terrorist fires already raging in Judea and Samaria, and catapult Hamas toward its intended takeover of Judea and Samaria, too.

I know this because its has been the case with every previous terrorist release. Israel has repeatedly erred by letting terrorists loose to murder more Israelis.

Each time, in advance of every deal, the Israeli “security establishment” arrogantly and falsely has assured Israeli politicians and the public that it “would know how to manage the situation,” i.e., how to track the terrorists and crush any nascent return to terrorist activity without too much harm done.

But this has never proven to be true. Every deal involving the release of terrorists has led to more bloodshed, planned and carried out by these released terrorists.

Hey @IDF: Fix your website!

I and others have been frustrated by the IDF not being as responsive to queries from us and from reporters as we would like.

But many of the questions could be answered if the IDF website was updated, and easy to navigate. It contains lots of evidence of Hamas violating international law and the IDF adhering to it, but finding specific information is not easy for me, with an IT background. It is even worse for people who aren't conversant in searching sites.

One solution is to hire a librarian.

Library science is designed to categorize information and make it easy to find. A list of press releases is not necessarily the best thing to search on - finding everything about Shifa hospital would be much better. Librarians are trained to do this sort of thing. How hard could this be?

Also, keep things up to date. There is a mediocre page (not easy to find) showing evidence of Hamas use of hospitals from 2023, and it says it will be continuously updated with new information.

It never was.

Don't make promises you can't keep - and better yet, keep your promises!

Another way that might appeal more to the IDF is to add an artificial intelligence engine in front of the site so people can ask questions and get answers in plain language. There are plenty of AI products that can slurp up a database of disorganized information and answer questions. It would have to be well tested, of course, to make sure the AI is not saying anything that violates IDF positions or policies, but again - how hard can this be?

The war is now 15 months old. Even if there is a ceasefire, the cognitive war is still going to go on. Having a place where a reporter can ask "Show me evidence of Hamas activity in schools" would be priceless.

What is stopping the IDF from doing something that is such a no-brainer?

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The San Diego Journal of International Law, Spring 2025, will include an article by Avraham Russell Shalev about siege warfare and the double standards of the international community towards Israel.

The abstract:

On October 9th, 2023, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared a “complete siege on the Gaza Strip” following Hamas’s attack on Israel. This siege, aimed at severing all supplies, quickly drew international condemnation from humanitarian NGOs and scholars, who argued it violated laws of war due to Gaza’s civilian population. Despite evidence of Hamas diverting aid, Israel faced pressure to lift the siege and allow humanitarian aid. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) took significant steps, with the ICJ mandating Israel to enable humanitarian assistance and the ICC seeking arrest warrants against Israeli leaders for war crimes, including “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.”

This article explores whether the international response to Israel’s actions marks a shift in the legal standards governing siege warfare, potentially setting stricter regulations that could effectively ban the tactic in populated areas. It reviews the legal framework of armed conflict relevant to sieges, including The Hague Regulations and the Geneva Conventions, and examines recent Security Council Resolutions concerning the Syrian conflict. The article analyzes Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian obligations during the Gaza siege and considers any special duties Israel might have towards Gaza.

Additionally, the article discusses how recent ICJ and ICC developments may signal reduced tolerance for siege warfare, and the implications for future conflicts. By comparing the international acceptance of siege tactics in other conflicts, such as Fallujah, Mosul, and Marawi, the article argues that the criticism of Israel’s actions may reflect a double standard. It concludes by emphasizing the need for objective legal standards and cautioning against politicizing neutral legal rules.

The paper, after reviewing the relevant laws, concludes that siege is legal under specific circumstances:

Siege can be considered a lawful military tactic within the bounds of established armed conflict laws, such as distinction and proportionality. While besieging parties are not actively required to provide humanitarian aid, they are generally expected to permit third party relief efforts under appropriate conditions. The provision of humanitarian assistance is subject to the principle of military necessity but cannot be denied capriciously or arbitrarily. Humanitarian aid is conditioned on reaching its destination, with no serious concern for diversion or the enemy’s accrual of military or economic advantage. The besieging party may set the technical arrangements for the delivery of aid. The prohibition of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare refers to intentional starvation as the goal of the siege, as opposed to incidental deprivation in a siege aimed at weakening and defeating enemy forces.

Shalev notes that the South Africa ICC case says that a legal siege is really genocide. "While there are legitimate disagreements among states and jurists as to the exact contours of permitted siege under international law, South Africa has alleged that this military tactic is none other than genocide, the “crime of crimes” under international law."

His conclusion:

As seen in Fallujah, Mosul, and Marawi, siege tactics are sometimes employed when other military strategies could lead to even greater civilian harm. Restricting this tactic could require states to rely on more intense force, complicating operations within densely populated areas. Reevaluating siege as a military strategy might unintentionally encourage hostile groups to establish bases in urban zones, anticipating that the international community would be highly cautious about the civilian costs of such operations.

Concerns persist that the criticism of Israeli siege tactics represents a lex specialis directed solely at Israel, rather than a standard applied universally to other states in similar circumstances. Despite condemnations by the United Nations and various human rights organizations, major military powers have recognized siege warfare’s legality in other contexts, such as Fallujah, Mosul, and Marawi. While states and jurists may in good faith debate the specific boundaries of permissible siege tactics, these disagreements differ substantially from accusations of war crimes or genocide. The selective politicization of neutral legal standards risks undermining the international community’s credibility as impartial arbiters and may alienate states that feel subjected to inconsistent treatment.

Which is a polite way to say that the rules are different for Jews.

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The "State of Palestine" says international law protects Hamas using hospitals as military bases

In my last post, I discussed a small part of the insanely biased UN Human Rights report on Israeli actions around hospitals in Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority wrote a response to the report, and it whined that the report was not anti-Israel enough.

The tone is set by its first complaint:

We reiterate the importance of using precise terminology, as we have emphasized previously. Specifically, the term "Israeli illegal occupying forces" have to be used rather than "Israeli defense forces," particularly in light of the recent advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice in July 2024, which reaffirmed the illegality of this occupation. Consequently, it is important to refer to the situation not as "military operations," but as "violations of international law in the context of prolonged illegal occupation."

Someone should write to the UN insisting that they never refer to the "State of Palestine" but to "a gang of terrorists who engage in, support and celebrate murdering Jews." It is certainly a more accurate description.

The other complaints are equally nonsensical and lacking in any supporting evidence. For example, the response says flatly that Israel bombed the Al-Ahli Hospital, claiming "numerous independent investigations" have proven that. Therefore they insist that the UN refer to the incident as an Israeli missile and not allow any doubt on the matter. Yet even Human Rights Watch says that it was an Islamic Jihad rocket that exploded.

Furthermore, the PA accuses Israel of an "indirect form of biological warfare against the besieged Palestinian population" because of infectious diseases and the false accusation that Israel is denying allowing vaccines into Gaza. This is a blood libel.

But perhaps the most notable part of the response is that it denies even the existence of any international law that exonerates Israel.

We disagree with the notion that hospitals in Gaza may forfeit their protection, as innocent civilians are seeking refuge there.

The ICRC says quite explicitly:

[T]he protection of medical units ceases when they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy. This exception is provided for in the First and Fourth Geneva Conventions and in both Additional Protocols. It is contained in numerous military manuals and military orders. It is also supported by other practice.

According to the Commentary on the First Geneva Convention, examples of acts harmful to the enemy include the use of medical units to shelter able-bodied combatants, to store arms or munitions, as a military observation post or as a shield for military action.

The Palestinian Authority explicitly rejects international law. The PA supports Hamas using hospitals as military bases that may never be attacked under any circumstances.

This is an official response by the "State of Palestine." It is not an off-the-cuff remark by some minor official on social media - these are their official positions. While Israel's response to the UN report includes five pages and dozens of links and references to videos, photos and interviews that prove its case, the Palestinian response has none.

Lying is official policy of the Palestinian Authority.

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Two weeks ago the UN Human Rights Office issued a "Thematic Report – Attacks on hospitals during the escalation of hostilities in Gaza (7 October 2023 – 30 June 2024)."

Here is one example of how biased against Israel the UN is.

Israel says that it is only attacking terrorist elements in the hospitals. Here is how the UN describes Israel's claims:

In all instances where the Israeli military has attacked hospitals, apart from Al Awda Hospital in Northern Gaza and Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah in Middle Gaza, Israel has alleged that the hospitals were being used by Palestinian armed groups.[32] In its comments on this report, the Government of Israel makes these arguments specifically in reference to Rantisi, Sheikh Hamad, Al Quds, Indonesia and Nasser hospitals. [33] However, insufficient information has so far been made publicly available to substantiate these allegations, which have remained vague and broad, and in some cases appear contradicted by publicly available information.[34]

Let's compare the footnotes for the competing claims.

Footnote 32 points to an eleven page report from Israel describing in detail terror activity in the hospitals and IDF efforts to not hurt patients. Footnote 33 points to four links from the IDF and Israeli newspapers detailing, with photos and videos, that tunnels and weapons were found in the hospitals.

And the footnote that says that the claims were vague and contradicted by other information? It points to an interview with ICC prosecutor Andrew Cayley in The Guardian:

Cayley said the ICC faced “great difficulty assessing” the level of Hamas militant presence in hospitals “because clearly there are lies being spoken, but that is really something we do need to get to the bottom of as a prosecution office”.

He added: “I think that has been grossly exaggerated, but we need to be able to demonstrate very clearly what the level of military presence was, if at all, in these hospitals because I think we’ve been misled about that in the press.”

Cayley indicated that Israeli operations against Gaza’s healthcare facilities would be examined. “Looking at damage to health facilities, destruction of health facilities, we will be coming on to that probably later next year. We’re having to do this in stages simply because of the resources that we have,” he added.

Cayley says that he thinks Israel is exaggerating its claims, he does not bring one iota of evidence that anything they say is wrong. It's just a gut feeling.

The ICC prosecution - by its own admittance - has not done any investigation and is making statements without any facts.

There is nothing in the article that says that Israel's claims are contradicted by publicly available information. The UN made that up.

The UN points to that one article with no information as a counter-proof to specific Israeli claims that include videos, photos and statements by terrorists themselves who were captured.

Later on in he report the UN dismisses photos of weapons found in the hospitals:

The IDF published pictures of some weapons reportedly found at Al Shifa Medical Complex, although these appeared to be mainly a small number of small weapons and therefore not necessarily of a nature to conclude that hostilities had been launched or directed from the hospital.

The weapons found were just the normal kinds of things one would find at a hospital: automatic weapons, grenades, ammunition and flak jackets.

Why are there any weapons at a hospital? Why would some be hidden in incubators? What is the exact amount of weapons that the IDF must find to prove that a hospital was not being used as a hospital?

The UN is a joke. A very bad one.

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01/13 Links Pt2: CBS 60 Minutes Platforms Anti-Israel Voices in Skewed Segment; Uproar as Antisemitic Irish president announced as guest of honour at Holocaust event

From Ian:

Meir Soloveichik: Don Pacifico Trump

Considering the inadequate U.S. efforts to free its citizens being held by Hamas, Meir Soloveichik looks to the example of the great Victorian statesman Lord Palmerston:

In 1848, a series of anti-Semitic riots took place in Athens, and a Sephardi Jew by the name of Don Pacifico issued claims for damages to his property. Pacifico had never set foot in England, but he had been born in Gibraltar, and therefore submitted his case as a British subject to the government of Lord John Russell, in which Palmerston was serving as foreign secretary. Palmerston seized upon these claims, as he had already been angered by other purported grievances by the Greek government, and he ordered the British fleet to blockade Greek ports until Pacifico’s grievances were addressed.

This response, Soloveichik writes, reflected a general view of Britain’s role in the world that can “serve as a worthy polestar for the United States.”

The Don Pacifico affair is not the only aspect of Palmerston’s career worth rediscovering; his own approach to freedom and foreign policy has much to teach us today. Palmerston did not believe that free societies could be created overnight, but he did believe that British power ought to be used in celebration, and at times in the defense, of societies that sought to be free.

Biased Science: The Lancet Claims Gaza Casualty Count Underreported

The Lancet has a history of publishing agenda-driven and politicized anti-Israel content that goes way beyond the field of healthcare and medicine.

In July 2024, the medical journal was called out for outrageously claiming that as many as 186,000 Gazans had been killed in the current war. Many media rushed to print dramatic headlines under the imprimatur of The Lancet — a significant error given that the casualty claims came not from a peer-reviewed study but from a letter sent to The Lancet, whose writers included at least one with a history of defending Palestinian terrorism.

Now, The Lancet has published a study claiming the Gaza death toll may have been underreported by 41%. While this time claims concerning Gaza casualty figures appear in The Lancet in the form of an actual scientific study, it still has numerous similarities with the previous claims, namely a reliance on faulty Hamas sources and a disturbing lack of impartiality on the part of its authors, including one who justified Hamas’ October 7 massacre.

The Media Coverage
Throughout the conflict, the media have unquestioningly republished Gazan casualty figures whose ultimate source is Hamas. This, despite adding caveats whenever Israel has offered its own estimates, particularly concerning the number of dead terrorists.

So it’s hardly surprising that numerous outlets saw fit to cover The Lancet’s study.

Disappointingly, given its previous in-depth coverage of the Henry Jackson Society’s study on inflated Gaza casualty figures, The Telegraph‘s report on The Lancet study failed even to mention that the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s data was courtesy of the Hamas-run ministry in Gaza.

The BBC and The Guardian, meanwhile, took the opportunity to blame Israel for not letting foreign journalists into Gaza as the reason why casualty figures could not be independently verified by the media.

These outlets and Reuters did at least include some Israeli reaction (albeit relatively generic), as well as the fact that the study’s figures don’t differentiate between combatants and civilians.

Outlets like CNN and Politico, however, simply parroted the study without any caveat.

But the fact remains that all these outlets should have been more critical of The Lancet’s study, which was thoroughly debunked on social media. Because, unlike those who did the debunking, journalists still have no issue with relying on sources like the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in their everyday reporting, and nor did they do any due diligence on the study’s authors.

Thanks to The Lancet’s professional (albeit undeserved) reputation and the media’s penchant for reporting a source that it treats as beyond criticism, this latest anti-Israel claim has the potential to become part of a narrative that has already accepted disputed casualty figures as fact.

01/13 Links Pt1: Hostage deal may be ‘days or hours’ away, Israeli official says; America should declare UNRWA a terrorist organization; How many more attacks before Australia defends its Jewish community?

From Ian:

Hostage deal may be ‘days or hours’ away, Israeli official says

Negotiations for Hamas to release Israeli hostages in Gaza in exchange for a cease-fire and Palestinian terrorists freed from prison have reached advanced stages, but the deal is not yet finalized, two Israeli diplomatic sources confirmed on Monday.

“There are advances in all components of the agreement,” said one source. “We are certainly in advanced stages … Reaching an agreement could be a matter of hours or of days.”

While the agreement was still not final, the sources said Hamas was showing greater seriousness than it had in the past year, during which “Hamas was not part of the negotiations” that were taking place between the Israeli team, the U.S. and Qatari mediators.

“We are now in a different reality, very similar to November 2023 [when the previous hostage release took place], when there were effective negotiations towards a deal about the details of implementation. This is a very significant change,” a source said.

Both Israeli sources attributed the change in Hamas’ approach to a combination of Israeli military achievements and President-elect Donald Trump’s threats that “all hell will break out” if the hostages are not released by the time of his inauguration next week.

“Why are there cracks now in Hamas’ [resolve]?” one source said. “There was the ground incursion in Lebanon, the assassination of [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah, the assassination of [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar, crazy [IDF] military pressure on the north of Gaza. This isolated Hamas. We struck the Shiite Iranian axis and Hamas is alone. They don’t have Hezbollah or Iran, they only have the Houthis.”

In addition, the source said, Trump began to involve himself in the negotiations, making it clear that he is serious about pushing for the hostages to be released.

Israel, Hamas close to deal with 33 hostages released in phase one

Israel and Hamas are close to a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal that will likely be announced by the end of the day – though it is not fully guaranteed and is subject to change – in which 33 hostages will be released during the first phase, with a staged withdrawal of military forces from Gaza, notwithstanding the maintenance of an undefined security perimeter, diplomatic sources said on Monday.

Israel’s senior delegation in Doha, which includes Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head Ronen Bar and Mossad Director David Barnea, will remain in Qatar “for the time being,” potentially until a deal is signed.

A Hamas delegation said Gaza ceasefire talks were progressing well, with the group dealing with developments in a positive manner, it said in a statement following a meeting with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani in Doha.

Once 15 days of the ceasefire have passed, on the 16th, negotiations would start regarding the next stages of the deal – with the goal of releasing all the hostages – and IDF withdrawals. The diplomatic sources did not provide a definite time frame, but some expect the first phase will last 42 days.

The source added that, as of Monday, none of the 33 hostages expected to be released in the first phase of a possible deal are confirmed dead. Sources said they believe that most – though not all – of the 33 hostages are alive and that the body of Youssef Ziyadne, whose body was recovered by the IDF last week, was initially on the list.

There is no certainty as to when the deal will be signed. Sources reiterated that the IDF would not fully withdraw from Gaza until every single hostage was released.

Sources said that a cabinet vote and an expected High Court of Justice ruling on petitions to block the deal would also be necessary for the deal to come through.

Should this happen, the first hostages could be released fairly quickly, the source estimated.

The security perimeter is something Israel would retain independent of the withdrawal of troops. It appeared that some soldiers would remain there during Phase 1 but not at some later phases when forces would only be at a security perimeter, which sources emphasized would include the full length of the enclave, not just northern Gaza.

All indications were that the IDF would, broadly speaking, withdraw from the Netzarim corridor, which splits northern and southern Gaza. There would be unspecified “security arrangements” to review those who would be allowed to return to the north.

Israel will not release Nukhba terrorists in possible Gaza hostage deal

Israel will not release any Hamas terrorist belonging to the Nukhba forces, which took part in the October 7 massacre of southern Israel, as part of a possible hostage deal, diplomatic sources told The Jerusalem Post on Monday evening.

The list of terrorists expected to be released from Israeli prisons as part of the deal's first phase does include some sentenced to life, the source added. However, none are part of the Nukhba forces that carried out the October 7 attacks.

In addition, none of the 33 hostages expected to be released in the first phase of a possible deal are confirmed to be dead as of Monday, as per the diplomatic source.

Israel is expected to retain "territorial assets," which could include the Philadelphi Corridor and an undefined security perimeter, as reported by the Post's Yonah Jeremy Bob.

This is the Southern Sydney Synagogue, a modern Orthodox congregation in Allawah, Australia.

You can see that unlike synagogues in western Europe and major North American cities, there is no fence, no planters to block suicide car bombs. It looks like it is in a nice, safe neighborhood.

The synagogue was vandalized with graffiti on Friday morning. Here I stitched two photos together so you can see the entire message given by the vandals to the Jewish community.

Hitler on top

Allah hu Akbar

Free Palestine

[SWASTIKA]

In one scene you can see a pro-Nazi, pro-Islamic terror, pro-Palestinian and antisemitic message.

They are one and the same.

A "progressive" Jewish anti-Zionist group condemned the Nazi graffiti, but didn't mention the "Free Palestine" part, which they heartily agree with. Nor did they mention the Allah Hu Akbar, not wanting to upset their Islamist political allies. They keep pretending that there is a difference between the antisemitism that would write "Free Palestine" on a synagogue and one who would draw a swastika. They are a joke.

Amazingly, this is not the first major wave of attacks on synagogues in Australia, including this one. In 1991, five synagogues in Sydney were firebombed, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and the closure of one of the synagogues (which merged with this one.)

The government pledged to increase security and to take these incidents seriously.

The arsonists were never found.

But whether they were Left, Right or Center, they were on the same side as today's anti-Zionist, antisemitic, pro-terror crowd.

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Al Jazeera today has an article about how evil Chabad is and how it performs its "Talmudic rituals" in Gaza, the West Bank and now Syria. It starts off:

Just three days after the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria was announced, a number of rabbis from a Jewish movement calling itself Chabad performed prayers and Talmudic rituals in the village of Hadar, located in the buffer zone in the Golan Heights between Israel and Syria.

The official website of this extremist Jewish movement confirmed, on December 12, that a group of its followers performed their prayers with their children in the Syrian territories that were recently controlled by Israeli forces.

This is then a springboard into attacking Chabad and all religious Jews as expansionist fanatics.

This is not the first time Al Jazeera showed its disgust at Jews supposedly "performing Talmudic rituals" in Syria. It published the same story in December when the videos started circulating.

However, the videos were jokes. The Jerusalem Post headline was "Faux 'Chabad house in Syria' causes uproar on social media" and reported that it was a lighthearted video that Al Jazeera and other outlets condemned. Times of Israel confirmed that no Chabad members were given permission to enter Syria (let alone bring children!) and the video was taken in Israel. even the video itself doesn't seem to say that the were physically in Syria, only at the (Israeli) foot of Mount Hermon, to emphasize the Chabad teaching that its seminal work the Tanya must be read everywhere on Earth.

After a month, during which Al Jazeera reads all Israeli media, there is no way that the Qatari media outlet doesn't know that the story was false.

The story itself is unimportant. But it proves, yet again, that no one should trust the reporting at Al Jazeera.

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Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party issued a strong anti-Hamas statement on Saturday. It is worth reading in full and analyzing.

The Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) said that Hamas, which mortgaged itself to Iran and other regional axes, and provided free pretexts for the occupation to carry out the largest war of extermination against our people in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, which led to the destruction of the Gaza Strip, and the martyrdom, loss, injury and capture of more than two hundred thousand children, women and men, whom Hamas took refuge in [hid under] instead of protecting them and their homes, and also caused the catastrophic conditions in the Gaza Strip to spread, from hunger and poverty and deprivation of the most basic human needs, and the collapse of the basic services system of education, health and others, has no right to reproduce its adventures in the West Bank.

Fatah added that Hamas' insistence on the rhetoric of outbidding and treason based on slander and fabrications that are not related to reality and facts, in open alignment with the occupation's plans, through attempts to fuel security chaos and anarchy in the West Bank, through explicit support for groups of outlaws, confirms that Hamas is still pursuing its policy that has brought nothing but disasters, death and destruction to the Palestinian people .
Fatah stressed that the contradictions and fabrications contained in Hamas’s latest statement, through which it sought to divert attention from its practices in Gaza since its bloody coup in 2007, until today, whether field executions, kidnappings, or the policy of breaking bones and intimidation in the name of religion and resistance, all the way to stealing humanitarian aid, legitimizing organized crime, etc., will not fool our people with their awareness, and these misleading speeches meet in their goals with the goals of the occupation to implement its plans against our people .

Fatah explained that the Palestinian security services, as the natural and historical extension of the contemporary Palestinian revolution, offer the best of their sons as martyrs to preserve the Palestinian national project from tampering or confiscation in favor of regional parties that only want to achieve their interests and use the just Palestinian cause for their own ends, and in particular; the expansionist Iranian aims aimed at turning Palestine into a zone of influence for them even at the expense of the blood of the last Palestinian child, adding that our people, who have offered thousands of martyrs in defense of their independent national decision, will not allow any attempts to usurp this decision from any party and no matter the price.

This statement tells us a lot about the Palestinian leadership.

First of all, notice that there is no condemnation of Hamas' attacks on Jews. On the contrary, those are considered sacred by Fatah.

The problem they have with Hamas is that they are losing the war.

For 15 months, Fatah didn't say anything as Hamas stole aid, used human shields and hid under and within Gaza schools, mosques and hospitals. Only now is Fatah emboldened enough to criticize Hamas for endangering the lives of it citizens. The only thing that has changed is their perception of Hamas, from brave freedom fighters to cowards who use civilians as cannon fodder and endanger thousands of lives for their own survival.

The reason is that the Palestinian public, even in the West Bank, is starting to look at Hamas as the loser in this war.

Not only that, but its patron Iran is also seen as being weak, between Israel's decimating Hezbollah, the fall of Syria and Hamas' own disintegration. as a unified fighting force.

Like most Arabs, Fatah does not want the shame of being associated with losers.

Of course, Fatah's own antisemitism is clear: their biggest insult for Hamas is that they are helping Israel. For decades, the biggest insult Arabs could hurl at other Arabs was to call them Zionists, and Fatah never changed.

The other impetus for this change in public rhetoric is that Donald Trump is entering office, and Fatah doesn't want to be on his bad side any more than they have to. Also, if a hostage deal and ceasefire really does happen, Fatah wants to be in an advantageous position.

Only when Hamas is seen as weak, and the Palestinian Authority sees an opportunity to take over Gaza, has Fatah chosen to publicly criticize Hamas. The PA cannot even be considered a serious player in the "day after" of governing Gaza if it cannot control its own areas. It has let Jenin become a terror hub for years, with its own police and security forces forced out. The PA preferred to pretend there was no problem and allow Israel to kill the terrorists than to act as the leader of the West Bank. Only now that it sees Hamas weakening is it asserting authority.

But notice the cowardice here: This isn't a statement from the PA, but from Fatah. The official PA position is not that Hamas is endangering Gazans. By making this statement in the name of only Fatah, if things go south they can claim this is not the official Palestinian position.

And there is more cowardice, in that the Palestinian Authority news agency only published this in Arabic, not English. They are afraid of the backlash from Hamas groupies worldwide calling them Zionists for being harsh on the "resistance."

Even with this obvious hypocrisy and opportunism, seeing Fatah publicly call out Hamas for being responsible for the deaths in Gaza - even indirectly - puts these cowardly, lying antisemites on a higher moral plane than any Western "progressive" organization. One cannot even imagine Code Pink or JVP or SJP or The Intercept or The Nation publicly criticizing Hamas for its endangering Gazans - to them, anything that takes away from portraying Israel as the ultimate evil must be avoided. Fatah still considers Israel the greater evil, but they at least acknowledge that Hamas has responsibility for the people it governed, a pretty basic fact that the "progressives" cannot bring themselves to say because of their own antisemitism.

The bottom line is that even the Arab world sees Israel is winning and they are adjusting their attitudes to reflect that reality. We've seen that the Lebanese are now willing to criticize Hezbollah publicly, something which was rare as recently as September, and Palestinians are starting to do the same to Hamas.

If it wasn't for Israel winning, none of this would be happening. Pretending to be upset at Hamas for its actions in the eleventh hour of the war is not a sudden assertion of morality; it is a reaction to wanting to avoid the stigma of appearing to support the losers in a war.

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Palestinian propagandists know that novels, movies and videogames are great mediums for them to brainwash unsuspecting people enjoying the entertainment. Since the story itself is obviously fiction, players and viewers believe that the are based on real events, and the background descriptions of history are assumed to be accurate.

In this way, lies about history can be presented without the worries that newspapers and academics have about being exposed as liars. After all, it is a work of fiction!

The latest example of blood libels against Jews being presented as entertainment is an upcoming videogame called "Dreams on a Pillow."

According to the crowdsourcing site that is funding it, it is based on a true story - but it isn't. It is based on a folktale:

Like all oral folktales, the story of Omm has numerous variations, however, all stories share the same fundamental elements: a young mother living in Palestine had her husband murdered by the Zionist invaders, and she ran to her home to retrieve her newborn child from the bed. She fled out of town in a panic, only to realize later that she had carried along a pillow instead of her child. The ending of the folktale differs wildly based on the audience - in most stories, the mother loses her mind - in others, she is murdered, or successfully avoids the roaming Zionist gangs and military groups to make it out of her homeland - not to return in her lifetime.

Each detail is more lurid and more antisemitic than the last.

Throughout the game, Omm, Pillow, and the player will experience often untold stories of Palestinian history. As Omm travels from the massacre of al-Tantura to the concentration camps of Atlit, she will later encounter the campaign of terror that led to the fall of Haifa, the bioweapon poisoning of Acre, and the Zionist attacks on refugees towards the Lebanese border.

The game developer, Rasheed Abueideh, tells a personal story that appears to be as filled with propaganda lies his game.

Rasheed struggled to carve out a sustainable career in the games industry, facing a decade of rejection and avoidance from funding partners and publishers who deemed supporting a Palestinian “too risky” or “controversial”. While he continued to tinker on small games projects, he opened a nut roastery near his hometown of Nablus to support his family.
Today, the building sits empty as Israeli colonists terrorize the roads of the West Bank, making travel to his roastery unsafe. With Israel’s assaults on Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon intensifying daily, Rasheed -unsure of his continued safety in the face of relentless colonist attacks on the West Bank- has set his sights on continuing to following the path he was forced to abandon a decade ago: using games to not just tell the story of the 1948 Nakba, but to let people experience it through a game. To share the catastrophe that has haunted generations of Palestinians with displacement, apartheid, occupation, and violence.

It appears that Rasheed is very good at spinning Palestinian folktales.

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01/12 Links: Today’s Palestinian advocates should be ashamed of themselves; British Islamic org. calls for boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day

From Ian:

Alan M. Dershowitz: Who Really Denied Statehood to the Palestinian People?

One of the most pervasive myths of the Palestinian protest movement is that Israel has denied statehood to the Palestinian people.

To the contrary, Israel agreed to Palestinian statehood in 1937-1938, 1947-1948, 1967, 2000-2001, and 2007.

In each case, it was the Palestinian leadership that refused to agree to the two-state solution that would have created a Palestinian state alongside a state for Jewish inhabitants.

Other stateless groups such as the Tibetans, the Kurds, and the Chechens have never even been offered statehood, let alone repeatedly turned it down.

It was the Palestinians themselves, through their anti-Jewish leadership, that has made the Palestinian people stateless.

The current anti-Israel protesters in the West are not calling for a Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel. They just want to end Israel's existence.

It is not going to happen. Until the Palestinians recognize this reality, they will be denying themselves any possibility of statehood.

Today’s Palestinian advocates should be ashamed of themselves

Palestinians and their advocates should be embarrassed by their conduct, not rationalizing it to the world. The Palestinian Authority (PA) is one of the most corrupt governing bodies in the world. It is ripe with graft and nepotism. Unlike the freedom-loving countries that support it, the PA and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, haven’t held an election in 20 years.

The PA hasn’t abandoned its terrorist past. Its “pay-to-slay” program costs $400 million a year and incentivizes its people to commit terrorist acts. The program is so dastardly, the United State Congress passed the Taylor Force Act that made it illegal for the US to provide any aid to the PA as long as it kept up its pay to slay program.

Israel’s Defense and Security Forum wrote, “Fatah’s own terror group, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, has also claimed that its fighters participated in October 7. Its spokesperson has released videos of terrorists abducting and taunting victims from Israel, wearing clearly recognizable yellow scarves associated with Fatah (as opposed to the green color associated with Hamas). The video says: First we “liberate the Gaza Strip,” then the rest of “Palestine” and “tomorrow [we will be] at the gates of Jerusalem.”

Instead of disavowing the attacks and demanding that Palestinians holding Israeli hostages release them, Hamas members and other Palestinian non-combatants have used Israeli hostages as pawns and bargaining chips to shame Israel and try to gain the release of other Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons.

Kidnapping is one of the most despicable acts, together with rape and murder. All three acts have been utilized, justified, and praised by Palestinians as policy since October 7. What kind of a people justify raping young women and holding a baby hostage?

Palestinian society has a problem today. Unlike Arab Israelis, their people are corrupt, anti-freedom, and antisemitic. They never call for peace alongside the Jewish State of Israel. They call for an independent Palestinian state to replace it. They maintain that they are justified in all acts of resistance against Israel’s Jews, including, and especially, violence and terrorism.

Palestinian leadership today falls into one of two camps, Hamas, a terror organization conducting regular terrorism, or the PA, a corrupt repressive institution that promotes terrorism. Anyone siding with Palestinians today, instead of calling for Palestinian reform, joins a culture of corruption, antisemitism, and violence and should be ashamed of themselves.

Anyone promoting a two-state solution that omits the transformative changes which must take place in Palestinian society should be ashamed.

It is time for the world to stop emboldening the Palestinians and further entrenching them in their self-destructive behavior and policies that have impeded their success for over a century.

Change the Map of Gaza to Signal that Terrorism Doesn't Pay

Hamas sees the suffering of the Gazan people as a benefit, not a cost. Terrorists who locate their headquarters in hospitals, schools and kindergartens do so not only to protect themselves from possible attacks but also to exploit the inevitable killing of civilians for propaganda: More killing equals more world empathy.

In the Middle East, nothing hurts more than loss of territory. The worst outcome of a war meant to conquer Israel would be Israel's ending with more territory than when it began. The world demands that Israel withdraw to its original borders after every conflict it wins. Is it surprising that aggressors repeatedly try to destroy the Jewish state, knowing that they face little to no threat of loss of territory? This status quo must change.

There is nothing sacred about Gaza's borders, which were created in 1949 to mark the line of separation between Egypt and Israel. There is a clear security justification for shrinking Gaza's borders: Annexing a 1-mile perimeter around Gaza would create a buffer zone between Hamas-governed territory and the Israeli communities that Hamas brutally attacked on Oct. 7. The zone should also include a 3-mile stretch along the northern border of Gaza, an area Hamas converted into terrorist bases. Changing the map of Gaza would signal that terrorism doesn't pay, and could represent a significant advancement toward peace in the Middle East.

Displaying the truth about Hamas at bus shelters

For a couple of years, anti-Israel activists have been using bus shelters as a preferred venue to display anti-Israel messages.

This is hugely ironic, since bus stops and bus stations have been the site of numerous Palestinian terror attacks against Jews.

I quickly created an incomplete list of such attacks as a demonstration of what an honest bus shelter advertisement would look like.

The tweet has been seen over 16,000 times and "liked" 1,300 times.

I also made up a mock advertisement for buses themselves.

Some people have suggested that this be done for real.

Another suggestion was to simply print up stickers for people to place themselves at bus shelters where they live.

An ad at a bus shelter in a major city would cost about $2,000 a month. One an be certain that the ad would be defaced within a day in most cities, just as the "kidnapped" posters were.

Is this a worthwhile thing to do? I think it should be done by an organization that can properly publicize it, and I'd be happy to work with any that is interested. Let me know.

As far as stickers are concerned, I like the idea. The problem is that it is officially illegal to place stickers on bus shelters or public spaces like light poles. On the other hand, everyone ignores that law, and it should be fairly easy for me to create an online store to sell stickers. (I'd have to decide whether to print stickers that are easy to remove, which means the haters can get rid of them fast, or hard to remove, which means that the city workers have to hassle to remove them.)

The other advantage of stickers is that I can make lots of other designs, and in fact already have plenty of them in the memes I've created. (Here are a bunch from before 2014, most of which would still be fine.) It would be an easy way to counter the haters on campus.

So...what do you think?

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I will donate $500 to @CAIRNational if they condemn this desecration of a mosque in Jenin

Every day, the Council of American-Islamic relations issues press releases condemning Israel for whatever made up crimes they read on Arab media.

Yet even though they claim to oppose terrorism, CAIR has not condemned Hamas or other Palestinian terror groups once through decades of horrific attacks on civilians.

Their press releases after October 7 were attempts to blame Israel for Israelis getting shot, stabbed, raped, burned and kidnapped.

This weekend, the IDF released a video from November of a mosque in Jenin that was used as a center for military activity. It has not been covered in mainstream media - as of this writing, the YouTube video has been viewed only a few dozen times.

The video shows clearly that the upper floor of the mosque was used as a lookout and firing position.

Terrorists set up areas of the mosque for shooting practice against their supposedly sacred walls.

Numerous bullet casings were on the floor. Slits were opened in the walls to shoot from. The soldiers found a cable to trigger an explosive device. By any definition, the mosque was a miliary position.

The IDF released information about two other mosques in Jenin that had been sources of gunfire and explosives by terror groups.

Today, the same Jenin terrorists are shooting not at the IDF but at the Palestinian Authority as it tries to re-assert control on the city that has been taken over by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Will CAIR condemn the terrorists for using a mosque for shooting?

I'm willing to bet $500 they will never mention it.

If CAIR condemns Palestinian terror groups turning mosques in Jenin into military bases, I will donate $500 to the terror supporting American organization.

My money has never been safer.

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