Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

1970's era Fatah posters show that "peace" is another word that Palestinians changed the meaning of

The Palestine Poster Project has been collecting thousands of posters about Israel and Palestinians, including some of mine.

I did a search for posters with doves of peace. A significant number of them were created by Fatah or the PLO in the 1970s - and many of those included weapons as prominently as the dove in the same posters.

Peace and violence co-existed in the minds of Palestinian leaders of the time.

"War is peace" was a the totalitarian government's slogan in Orwell's 1984. Palestinian leaders said the same thing that Big Brother did without any irony.

And they have been brainwashing the world the way Big Brother did as well, by changing the definitions of words like "justice" and "peace" to mean killing Jews.

There is no indication that anything has changed. After all, the Fatah logo still features weapons like rifles and a hand grenade even today.

No dove there.

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Iran appears to be using the Gaza ceasefire as a means to climb down from its promise to attack Israel

For over two months, Iran has pledged to respond to Israel's late October attack with a devastating blow they call "True Promise 3."

They know that Israel attacked with impunity and that their air defenses did literally nothing to stop it. So they have been stuck between a solemn promise to respond - which Iranian officials have pledged hundreds of times since then - and the knowledge that any Israeli response would be no holds barred, likely targeting economic targets like ports and oil depots, unlike the October operation.

Iran's already tenuous economy cannot absorb such a blow. But its honor makes it difficult for it to abandon this "promise" of an attack.

Right before the ceasefire, Khabar Online gave the first excuse for Iran not attacking: Iran wants to deter Israel but does not want to things to escalate into a war. It is seeking a "balanced approach to reducing tensions."

Over the past week, with the Gaza ceasefire, Iran's propagandists appear to have struck a new way to avoid fulfilling the "promise": by declaring victory by the Axis of Resistance, and claiming that the previous two attacks have been instrumental in that victory.

Iranian media is filled with declarations of victory, including this hilarious article in the IRGC-run Defa Press that celebrates "victory" by showing a billboard with major "axis of resistance" leaders killed by Israel.

Iran is soliciting its terrorist allies to thank them for their role in Hamas' "victory."

Islamic Jihad's secretary-general Ziad Al-Nakhala said, "Our brothers in the Islamic Republic of Iran have been providing us with full support for the past decades and continue to do so. The Islamic Republic of Iran reached its peak of support with Operation True Promise. We cannot forget our brothers in the Islamic Republic of Iran who stood by our people with all their resources."

A Hamas official similarly thanked Iran for its attacks on Israel in April and early October, claiming that they helped Hamas' supposed victory. So did popular Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida. So did the deputy political head of Hamas Khalil al-Hayya.

These are not spontaneous expressions. Iran told its clients to issue these statements - apparently so it could claim that there is no longer a reason for the promised crushing revenge Iran pledged to inflict on Israel.

At least one Iranian newspaper literally said that the ceasefire fulfilled "True Promise," implying that a third attack is not necessary.

The head of the Islamic Propaganda Coordination Council of Khorasan Razavi said that Iranian unity is effectively the same as an armed attack. "This year's Bahman 22 march will fulfill the work of Operation True Promise 3. The presence of the people will expose the soft power of the Islamic Republic regime to the enemies. The enemy is seeking to distance the people from the Islamic Republic regime through high prices and maximum sanctions. All organs and departments must have a lively presence with all their personnel in the Bahman 22 march." Apparently, Iran not falling yet is another victory, and not only that, but it may even obviate the need for another attack on Israel.

While there are still some noises about the promised attack - for example, a staged rally of women in Mashhad demanding the revenge attack on Israel - it sure looks from Iranian media that the regime has finally found a way to excuse itself from its promise.

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The ceasefire agreement in Lebanon requires Israel withdraws from southern Lebanon by January 27. So far, Israel is claiming that the Lebanese Armed Forces are not doing their part of ridding southern Lebanon of Hezbollah forces and weapons.

Last week, US negotiator Amos Hochstein insisted Israel will withdraw by the deadline, but more recent stories indicate that it may not.

Naharnet reports:

A meeting Monday of the ceasefire monitoring committee witnessed a negative atmosphere that does not indicate that Israel intends to withdraw from south Lebanon by the weekend, when the 60-day timeframe expires, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Tuesday.

“No statement was issued after the meeting,” the daily noted.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati had announced overnight, during a TV interview, that the head of the ceasefire committee, U.S. major general Jasper Jeffers, had told him that “the Israeli withdrawal might be delayed for several days.”

An informed source meanwhile told al-Akhbar that the Israeli army “has complained that the Lebanese Army has refused to seize resistance assets from depots and homes, or to confiscate arms at a time Lebanese authorities are in a transitional phase, which prompted it to act on the ground by itself, as it did in al-Salhani, Wadi al-Slouki, Tallousa and Bani Hayyan.”

“The Israeli enemy has threatened through UNIFIL to bomb new sites suspected of containing resistance weapons should the (Lebanese) Army fail to raid them, while (Lebanese) military officials have refused to turn into a security force that works at the enemy’s instructions and clashes with residents,” the source said.

This sounds consistent with what has been happening during the past two months. When the LAF shows that it can take over an area and village, Israel withdraws, but it has gone slowly.

Israeli analyst Yoni ben Menachem wrote yesterday:

As things currently stand, the Lebanese army has deployed in the western sector of southern Lebanon, in the Naqoura area. The day before yesterday, the Lebanese army also deployed in the town of Bint Jbeil, but senior security officials doubt its ability to enforce the ceasefire agreement and withdraw Hezbollah forces from north of the Litani River, as stipulated in UN Resolution 1701.

The fear in the Lebanese political system is that Israel will not fully withdraw from southern Lebanon and will continue to hold several strategic points, which could reignite the fire in Lebanon and provide Hezbollah with the excuse that it is "defending Lebanon." Hezbollah has already begun vigorously rebuilding its military force, which was damaged in the war.

The expectation in Lebanon is that President Trump will prevent Israel from doing this and oblige it to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon according to the agreement.

The new Lebanese president Joseph Aoun said that only the Lebanese Army should have weapons, meaning Hezbollah should not. Hezbollah has indicated that it will maintain its army but north of the Litani River. It has been attempting to rebuild its military capabilities after being routed by Israel.

Meanwhile, a Hezbollah officer from the Radwan forces spoke anonymously with Al Arabiya and admitted that Israel inflicted major blows on the group and it would be difficult for it to reconstitute itself in the south:

He pointed out that the Israeli warplanes and drones were able to destroy the largest part of those [missile] sites, in addition to hundreds of tunnels in more than one border town in the south, some of which were close to reaching the edge of more than one Israeli settlement.

When asked whether Hezbollah is able to rebuild its capabilities again, especially after its presence in the south of the Litani River was prevented under the provisions of UN Resolution 1701, as well as not getting a weapons from Syria after the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, he stressed that the matter had become difficult.

He said: “Things have become difficult for us, and yes, we misjudged the strength of Israel." However, he stressed that Hezbollah will rebuild again in the north of the Litani River and other areas in the southern suburbs of Beirut and Bekaa.

He also admitted that the pager attack was devastating to Hezbollah's military capacity:

The officer added that "the biggest blow Hezbollah suffered was the pagers operation that struck the arteries of its military and logistic. It paralyzed his military column after disabling about 3,000 of its cadres by injuring them in their faces, eyes and hands.”

Notice that he doesn't even pretend to claim that it was an attack on civilians as Hezbollah apologist in the West claim.

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01/21 Links Pt2: The Red Cross Abets Hamas’s Crimes; Only Hamas can claim victory and genocide at the same time; A happy 20th anniversary for Mahmoud Abbas

From Ian:

The UK still hasn’t come to terms with the Muslim Brotherhood

Islam is no longer something that only matters in Islamic countries. It has a global reach and therefore global influence. That has been the case for decades, though we have tried to pretend otherwise. Most Muslims are perfectly at ease in the West. But Islamists by definition see our societies as corrupt and decadent and our political systems as illegitimate. Revelation, not rationally discovered secular law, should determine how we live and are governed.

Given the symbolic power for Muslims of Islam – which Islamists seek to harness for their own ends – and the growing numbers of Muslims in Europe, that is a challenge to the liberal order of a magnitude we haven’t experienced since the Cold War. So when the UAE decides to proscribe organisations and individuals which they claim are linked to the MB, and some of those are resident or registered in the UK, we should pay attention. This is not necessarily because we know that the UAE are right or – if they are right – that we should take legal action ourselves. The MB is not a proscribed organisation here – though Hamas, which arose out of the Palestinian MB certainly is. The issue is rather different. Successive British governments have seemed to believe that if only we ignore Islamism or pay attention only when a bomb goes off on the Tube or someone is horribly murdered on Westminster Bridge, at Borough Market or on a street in Woolwich, then everyone will get along nicely and everything will be fine. It won’t.

The Islamist challenge to the foundational norms of western societies is clear enough in the current debate over Islamophobia. We have seen the results in Batley, in Wakefield and in Birmingham, where there has been a sustained effort to pretend that the so-called Trojan Horse affair never happened (Policy Exchange, the think tank where I work, has begged to differ). The French see this with Cartesian clarity: its interior minister spoke about the threat from Brotherhood-inflected Islamism on 6 January. So do politicians in Austria, Germany and Sweden. They continue to have difficulty formulating a coherent and collective response. But acknowledging you have a problem is the first step to resolving it. British governments continue to be reluctant to do even that. So reviews like the MBR or those by Shawcross and Sara Khan come and go. Whitehall is repeatedly urged to set up proper structures, to develop proper expertise and use that to shape policies designed at the very least to resist Islamist efforts to create parallel structures or separate societies, promote dependency, disguise funding flows, dismantle the connection between rights and the individual and constrain criticism by restrictions on free speech. The response under the Tories was feeble: they were admittedly distracted. But the response of the current government seems likely to be more regulation, more legal constraints and perhaps the adoption of an expansive and unnecessary Islamophobia definition. That isn’t the answer. The UAE shows what can be done if you know what you’re talking about and have the confidence of your convictions. Perhaps we should try learning from them?

The Red Cross Abets Hamas’s Crimes

While any hope of reforming UNRWA is a fantasy, that isn’t to say the organization is completely incapable of self-correction. In 2019, writes Richard Pollock, its director Pierre Krähenbühl

was forced to resign . . . because of immoral and unethical behavior, including creating a “toxic environment” within the organization, according to the official investigation. . . . The devastating ten-page UN report said he and his top associates, “engaged in abuses of authority for personal gain, to suppress legitimate dissent and to otherwise achieve their personal objectives.”

So what happens to the disgraced former head of UNRWA? In 2021, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) made him its personal envoy to the president of China. He became the organization’s director-general in December 2023. And that brings us to the events of Sunday, when ICRC officials supervised the handover of three Israeli hostages. As Pollock observes, these officials “stood by and permitted Hamas gunmen and frenzied Gaza City residents to surround and shake the vehicles [transporting the women] as they were about to be released.” This was

the final human-rights indignity supervised by the International Red Cross, which has steadfastly ignored its obligation and mandate to protect unarmed hostages. Unlike . . . in other conflicts, not once did the ICRC never meet with a single hostage during their captivity since they were seized on October 7. The relief agency never provided them with comfort, delivered needed medicines, or assured their safety.

It’s not well known, but in fiscal year 2022, the State Department contributed more than $622 million to the ICRC, making it the largest single donor to the relief agency. . . . The new Congress most likely will hold hearings to investigate the ICRC and consider withholding funds from it.

Only Hamas can claim victory and genocide at the same time

Hamas wasted no time declaring victory, even before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the existence of a hostage release deal. Despite its losses, the destruction of its leadership and the devastation in Gaza’s streets, the terror group’s propaganda arm pressed forward. "The Al-Aqsa Flood brought pride," they claimed in a flurry of social media graphics, showcasing their creative team working overtime.

This is a population uniquely capable of claiming both genocide and victory simultaneously. The objective is clear: to entrench Palestinian consciousness and reinforce Hamas' grip on Gaza. The armed terrorists who emerged amid celebrations as the cease-fire began underscore this.

Yet, beyond the absurdity lies a critical reminder of the parallel battle for public perception. The potential silence on the battlefield in the coming weeks doesn't necessarily signal a reduction in this campaign. On the contrary, it’s likely to intensify in the absence of physical fighting.

Israel faces a steep challenge countering Hamas’ messaging to its own population. If the Palestinians haven’t realized by now that their actions led to disaster, no Israeli awareness campaign will change that anytime soon.

But the Palestinian public isn't Israel’s primary target audience. The focus should be on the international audience, which has lost sight of why Israel is fighting and what it has yet to achieve. The world needs a reminder of the cruelty of the enemy and the reality that Israel’s national trauma won’t begin to heal until every hostage is returned.

In this sense, the hostage deal represents not only a source of joy, hope and worry among many— but also an opportunity to provide the world with critical context. While the IDF prepares the operation for the hostages’ return, "Wings of Freedom," Israel must also plan a parallel campaign: "Freedom of Truth."

Amid the inevitable flood of media coverage surrounding the deal, Israel should embed content that advances its interests — personalizing the hostages, putting faces and names to those coming home and underscoring that Israel won't rest until all are freed.

It must be made clear that their abduction is not just a personal tragedy but a collective catastrophe and that Hamas' existence remains a dire threat requiring its complete eradication.

01/21 Links Pt1: Hamas held hostages at new Gaza hospital as UN health agency criticized for inaction; Report: Four female hostages to be released Saturday; Australia is in the grip of an anti-Semitic nightmare

From Ian:

Israel Enters Truce with Unfulfilled Goal: Destroying Hamas

As a ceasefire begins in Gaza, Israel hasn't fulfilled its top war aim: to destroy Hamas. Hamas is claiming a win despite its heavy losses, and parading its fighters in the streets of Gaza, because it has reached its own goal of surviving the onslaught. Yet the strategic gains from 15 months of war are almost all on Israel's side. The country has emerged stronger, having cut several of its adversaries down to size.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian cause is facing its bleakest prospects for decades. Despite widespread international sympathy, the Palestinians are more divided internally, more isolated in the region, and face an Israel that, after Oct. 7, 2023, is even more firmly against a Palestinian state.

"On the Israeli side, there is disappointment and frustration about the war in Gaza," said Michael Milshtein, a former head of Palestinian affairs for Israeli military intelligence. "But Israel has a lot of strategic achievements. It caused severe damage to all its enemies. They are not the same threats that they were on Oct. 7. Israel's deterrence is much improved, and the society demonstrated its resilience."

The real defeat for Hamas came on Israel's other fronts, where Hamas's allies in what is known as Iran's axis of resistance suffered a string of setbacks. The all-out regional war on Israel that was dreamed of by Hamas's Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of Oct. 7, turned into a fiasco.

"Hamas lost a lot of fighters and equipment and infrastructure, but what forced it to the negotiating table was the changed regional situation, plus the arrival of Trump," said Ofer Fridman, a former Israeli officer and war-studies scholar at King's College London.

Seth Mandel: What the Pardon Controversies and the Israeli Hostage Deals Have in Common

In 2013, the Israeli High Court of Justice rejected a petition by family members of terror victims seeking to halt a Palestinian prisoner release. The families also argued that, just as in criminal clemency cases, the victims should have an opportunity to register their opposition before the court. In probably the most significant part of the decision, the court said that families of victims don’t retain the same rights if the clemency being granted is through a political deal and not through the normal legal process.

It is crucial to understand how much this concept—that political decisions override the government’s legal obligations—irritates the public. Some of that sentiment seems to be building in the U.S. as well in the wake of bipartisan misuse of the pardon power.

There is one other consideration in Israel’s case that helps explain why Katz might have tied his administrative-detention change to the ceasefire deal. As one Israeli academic warned in 2018: “there is a correlation between people who demonstrated their desire to punish terrorist Palestinians more harshly in [a recent public opinion] survey and the people who showed mistrust in Israeli institutions and their capability to deal with terrorism. It is possible that Israelis do not trust their justice system and government to keep perpetrators behind bars.”

Repeated attempts to severely limit the government’s power to make such deals have failed, and the death penalty is not coming back into use. Similarly, in the U.S. the pardon power is constitutionally explicit and broad, and therefore difficult to limit. But mistrust of the legal system in a democracy will have its own corrosive effect if politicians neglect to maintain the political legitimacy they need to make these decisions.

Israeli intel indicates Hamas held hostages at new Gaza hospital as UN health agency criticized for inaction

With the first three Israeli hostages freed in the cease-fire for hostages deal, Fox News Digital has exclusively learned that several terrorists captured by Israeli forces last month confessed that Israeli captives were held at different times at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) recently completed a major raid on the hospital, arresting some 240 terrorists. The director of the hospital, Hussam Abu Safiya, the Israelis claim, had gathered intelligence showing that he not only allowed Hamas to infiltrate the hospital, but actively collaborated with the terror group.

Another captured terrorist, Anas Muhammad Faiz al-Sharif, who worked at the hospital as a cleaning supervisor and joined the Nukhba forces of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades in 2021, told Israeli interrogators that the northern Gaza facility was viewed as "a safe haven for them because the [Israeli] military cannot directly target it."

He revealed that inside the hospital, terrorists distributed grenades and mortars, along with equipment for ambushing IDF troops and tanks.

Fox News Digital asked a World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman if, based on the IDF's new allegations about holding hostages at Adwan Hospital, they would condemn Hamas' use of hospitals for military use.

In a statement, the spokesman said, "The International Humanitarian Law is very clear. Healthcare workers and healthcare facilities are off limits. They must not be attacked. They must not be used for military purposes. They must be protected at all times. The point is both to protect civilians, as well as to protect the health systems and infrastructure that communities depend on for life-giving care and continuity of services.

"Failure to protect and respect healthcare devastates twice. First, in the initial harm, and then again for the months or years it takes to rebuild the health systems."

The statement concluded without condemning or singling out Hamas. "The protection of healthcare also includes the prohibition against combatants using health facilities for military purposes. IHL is also clear that even if healthcare facilities are being used for military purposes, there are stringent conditions which apply to taking action against them, including a duty to warn and to wait after warning and even then, disproportionate attacks are strictly prohibited."

Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former Trump National Security Council official, claimed, "Several international organizations operating in Gaza likely had direct knowledge of Hamas using hospitals as terror headquarters and only publicly protested Israel’s attempt to clear the terrorists. The Red Cross, UNRWA, World Health Organization - they were all collaborators." Ambulances carrying patients from Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahya, northern Gaza Strip since services stopped within 24 hours due to lack of fuel, arrive at Shifa Hospital, accompanied by UN teams, in Gaza City, Gaza, on Oct. 12, 2024.

Annexing the West Bank is a "most serious violation" - but only when done by Jews

Yesterday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told a Security Council meeting on the Middle East that any annexation of part or all of Judea and Samaria "would constitute a most serious violation of international law."

For international law to have any meaning, it must be applied equally to all. Luckily, we have a case where a country did indeed annex the exact same territory, in 1950, when Jordan illegally annexed what they call the West Bank.

Who condemned it? Only the Arab League, which was concerned that Jordan was about to implement a plan to make itself the leader of a Greater Syria that would encompass Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and "Palestine."

I looked for any UN resolutions condemning this "most serious violation of international law." There aren't any.

The world largely knew the annexation was illegal. Almost no one recognized it (outside Great Britain, Iraq and maybe Pakistan.) Most other countries and the media accepted the west bank of the Jordan as de facto Jordanian territory, if not de jure.

That includes the UN.

In November 1966, a Fatah terrorist cell exploded a mine under an Israeli jeep, killing three. Israel responded with an reprisal invasion aimed at Fatah cells in the village of Samu, near Hebron which resulted in a large battle with Jordanian forces.

Naturally the UN Security Council condemned the response but not the initial attack. However, the wording of UNSC resolution 228 is most interesting. It called Israel's action "a largescale and carefully planned military action on the territory of Jordan by the armed forces of Israel."

This indicates that the UN accepted the West Bank as being fully Jordanian territory, not occupied or illegally annexed.

There are some annexations the UN has condemned (Israel/east Jerusalem, Israel/Golan, Iraq/Kuwait, Russia/Crimea, South Africa/Namibia) and others they didn't at the time (China/Tibet, Indonesia/East Timor, India/Goa, Morocco/Western Sahara.) If annexation is a most serious violation of international law, why wouldn't the UN condemn all of them? What makes some terrible and others, like Jordan's, acceptable?

It doesn't take too much to realize that politics trumps international law, and the UN is far more political than it is a neutral arbiter of what is right and wrong.

(h/t (((JyrkiWahlstedt))) )

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Hamas is deliberately psychologically torturing Israelis during the hostage releases

Terrorism is, by definition, the attempt to instill fear and terror in a civilian population. Usually this comes from bombs, bullets, airplane hijackings, knives and car rammings, but the effect desired is always psychological, not physical.

Every single move Hamas has made with the hostages has been specifically and deliberately designed to cause the maximum pain to Israelis. In other words, the hostage releases are a continuation of October 7, not a conclusion.

The entire process over the past week has been one of torturing Israelis in general, and the families of hostages in particular:

* Refusing to confirm how many and which hostages are alive.

* Delaying giving the names of those to be released until (and beyond) the last possible moment.

* Claiming that Israeli bombs killed a female hostage right before the ceasefire.

* Delaying telling Israel whether the hostages released in every handover are alive or dead.

* The entire process of dragging out the release of hostages over weeks.

* Giving the hostages "gift bags" as if their imprisonment was merely a summer camp they enjoyed.

* Staging mobs of people when the hostages were handed to the Red Cross to make them fearful to the last second.

* Forcing Red Cross representatives to sign a form upon the hostage release calling them "prisoners" in order to make it appear that the international community agrees that they were prisoners of war, not kidnapped civilians.

* Choosing Saturday for the successive hostage releases to force Israeli Jews to violate the Sabbath (although of course this is perfectly allowed for saving lives.) Hamas changed the date back and forth, further causing anguish.

* Celebrating the release of murderers as if this was a prisoner swap.

* Celebrating the ceasefire as if it was a victory.

* Using the deal as an opportunity to make it appear that Hamas is in full control of Gaza and the war was a waste of time.

This is besides the psychological torture of the hostages themselves while in captivity. Dr. Itai Pessach, director of the Safra Children's Hospital at Sheba Medical Center, described some of this to CBS News after the first hostage release in November 2023:

"There's not a single person that came back that didn't have a significant physical injury or a medical problem. On top of that, some of them were getting [psychological] medication, to look better than they actually were."

There were also stories of hostages being branded (a common practice inflicted on Jews and other prisoners of Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust), and of being sexually abused. "Yes, we did see signs of branding," Pessach said. "We definitely saw signs of being handcuffed. We did hear and see evidence of sexual abuse in a significant part of the people we have treated. We also heard evidence – and that was one of the hardest parts – of abuse against those that [are still there], both physical and sexual."

Pessach also said hostages were subjected to psychological torture (as in being told that Israel no longer exists). "What really struck me is how prepared the Hamas terrorists were with their psychological torment," he said. "It was structured and preplanned. They're constantly saying, 'Nobody cares about you. You are here alone. You hear the bombs falling? They don't care about you. We're here to protect you.' And this really played with their minds.

"There have been some episodes where they separated two family members, and then put them back together, then separated them, then put them back together. And so, as a parent you would do anything to have your child with you, even when you are in captivity," he said.

This torture, and more like the hostage videos Hamas would release, is all part of the same war from Hamas' perspective. From the start, Hamas understood that this was a cognitive war far more than a kinetic war, and they have waged this war - and continue to wage that war - as such. Some of it is aimed at hostages themselves, some at their families, some at Israelis -all to maximize the pain of Israelis and Jews worldwide. (The other component of the Hamas' cognitive war is aimed at world public opinion, with very different messages for the liberal West and for the decidedly illiberal Arab world.)

For Hamas, the ceasefire is another phase of the war, and an unparalleled opportunity for Hamas to continue to attack Israelis in public with the media being characteristically clueless as to how they are being manipulated.

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It seems a little early for a report card, but the first 12 hours of Donald Trump's second term started off pretty good.

His team, apparently at the last minute, canceled a planned prayer by a pro-Iran imam who had refused to call Hezbollah terrorist. The rabbi who spoke, Rabbi Ari Berman, did speak and highlighted the hostages while wearing a hostage pin.

Trump invited hostage families on stage and greeted every one of them at a post-inauguration event.

Trump revoked Executive Order 14115, which had sanctioned some Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

He restored sanctions on the International Criminal Court, reversing their cancellation under Biden.

He placed a 90-day pause on all U.S. foreign developmental assistance programs to review their alignment with administration policy, which includes UNRWA.

He authorized the deportation of visa holders who support hateful ideologies, terrorism, or national security threats, such as individuals involved in pro-Hamas protests, riots, or fundraising efforts.

He lifted restrictions on arms sales to Israel, including the supply of 2,000-pound bombs, to reaffirm U.S. support for Israel’s defense.

Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff spoke at the rally, signaling a continuing role for him. The billionaire with strong Qatar ties is a source of concern and the hostage deal he forced on Netanyahu was not good for Israel at all. My guess is that his main priority will be to bring Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords and while that would be a huge deal it will require more concessions from Israel that may compromise its security. It is too early to say.

The Democrats tried to make an issue of Elon Musk doing what they called a "sieg hail" salute, but when you watch the actual video Musk says exactly what is meant: "My heart goes out here" to the voters. There was nothing in the context that indicated a secret Nazi message, and even the ADL said that it looked like an awkward over-enthusiastic gesture, nothing more. (Not that it was the brightest thing to do.)

Altogether I give Trump's first half day a B+, which is far better than any of the previous 2,921 half days of the Biden White House.

(h/t Eitan Fischberger)

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Al Jazeera unwittingly proves yet again that Hamas lies constantly

From Al Jazeera:

The Palestinian Civil Defence agency said it estimated there are 10,000 bodies under destroyed structures across the strip.

At least 2,840 bodies were melted and there are no traces of them, said Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson of the Palestinian Civil Emergency Services in Gaza.

2,840 is a curiously specific statistic for bodies that, by definition, have no evidence of ever existing. How can they count bodies that leave no trace?

If you that Gaza civil defense is simply counting missing people, then why not assume that they are missing under the rubble and simply not found yet? How could they possibly determine that 2,840 bodies are invisible under rubble and 10,000 are not? (Actually, Hamas just updated the number of people missing to be exactly 14,222, which must mean 2,840 melted and 11,382 buried.)

It is impossible to count thousands of invisible people. The "2,840" figure by itself is 100% proof that Hamas makes up very specific casualty statistics out of thin air.

Combine this with the facts that the 10,000 buried under rubble number has also been made up by Hamas with no evidence or procedure for counting them, and that there is no known weapon short of a nuclear bomb that leaves no trace of a human body, this gives us 100% proof from Al Jazeera itself that Hamas lies about Gaza casualties.

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01/20 Links Pt2: How the left’s missteps shaped Israel’s struggles; Poll: 21% of US voters support Hamas over Israel in conflict; Palestine Red Crescent Spokesman Photographed with Terrorists

From Ian:

How the left’s missteps shaped Israel’s struggles

The 2025 hostage deal: A tragic moral dilemma
In the Israel-Hamas hostage deal, two good values are pitted against each other and are mutually exclusive. On one side is the profound Jewish value of redeeming captives (pidyon shvuyim), based on deep compassion for victims and their families. On the other side is the equally compelling need to prevent future murders, deter further hostage-taking and avoid another Oct. 7 tragedy. The left has championed the former value—redeeming captives—at the expense of the latter, which it has made sacrosanct. They have pressured for a deal at almost any cost.

The success of the left’s marketing campaign has been striking, wielding the same PR machinery that rallied relentless domestic and global pressure for the Shalit deal and more recently against judicial reform. The influence blitz turned the hostage issue into an untouchable ideal; it was a PR triumph, practically transforming the hostage issue into a form of worship. It succeeded in swaying many Jews in Israel and abroad to focus on one value while inadvertently sidelining the other and thereby pressuring for a hostage deal even at a very high price.

Yet, the costs of this deal are staggering; not only an IDF withdrawal from strategic areas that will allow Hamas to rebuild and restock, but in the first stage alone, Israel is expected to release 1,904 Palestinian prisoners—many of them mass murderers and attempted murderers. These include 737 individuals serving life sentences for heinous crimes, such as one responsible for six murders and another for forty-five. Disturbingly, 47 of these prisoners are repeat offenders—terrorists previously released in the 2011 Shalit deal who later committed additional attacks. The numbers paint a grim picture. Hard evidence from too many past deals provides hard evidence of what we can expect: for one Israeli saved, Gilad Shalit, well over 1,000 were murdered. Eighty-two percent of the 1,000 terrorists freed in the Shalit exchange returned to terrorism, according to the Israel Security Agency. Applying similar math to the 2025 deal sends chills down the spine.

The deal forced upon us by the left considers the deep, real and tragic pain of the hostages and their families. But what of the unspeakable anguish of those whose loved ones were murdered by the terrorists now set free? What of the grief of the families of soldiers who died heroically—who fought to eradicate Hamas, to make evil pay and to prevent another Oct. 7, only to see their sacrifices undermined as the terrorists grow emboldened?

And what of the pain of the civilians and families who will inevitably suffer when these released monsters strike again—those who will be murdered or abducted because of this decision?

The pattern of mistakes
The left’s idealism, while rooted in genuine desire for peace and justice, has repeatedly ignored the harsh realities of the region. These decisions have not only cost lives but have emboldened those who seek Israel’s destruction. The right has consistently warned against these dangers, often standing alone as the defenders of Israel’s security. The right has been consistently and unmistakably right since 1993. The left has consistently left reality behind and led the Jewish people to multiple disasters.

Maybe there is something we don’t know; I hope so. But our people and leaders need to exercise better judgment, using wisdom and humility to ensure that critical decisions reflect both practical reality and higher moral principles.

The way forward
Stopping the left’s destructive influence requires an honest reckoning. Strategic decisions are always complex and filled with difficult moral calculations, but security must always trump sentimentality and naivete. As history shows, Israel’s survival hinges on pragmatic, hard-headed policies that prioritize the safety of its citizens over fleeting hopes of appeasement driven by the blind idealism of one side that ignores the antisemitic reality of the other. It is time to learn from the past, to stop repeating the mistakes that have cost so much and to stand united as one people in the face of an enduring threat.

Our children have now paid the price for the mistakes of the older and unwise generation. Israeli youth rose to the occasion as Jewish lions. As Israeli President Isaac Herzog said, “We saw how the ‘TikTok Generation’ emerged as a generation of historic strength, whose bravery will be etched in the annals of Israeli history.” But now we grapple with whether the superhuman sacrifices of the soldiers and their families, while unquestionably heroic, will achieve the lasting impact they fought for.

While it’s too early to definitively label this deal a disaster—especially since there’s a strong likelihood that Hamas will undermine the agreement—it is both scary and deeply unsettling to consider what may lie ahead. While the prospect of bringing hostages home is incredibly heartening, decisions must ultimately be guided by calculated probabilities and strategic foresight.

At this time, our whole people is in a collective state of trauma brought on by the Oct. 7 massacre, almost a year and a half of war, missiles and hostages, and the devastating antisemitic response and betrayal of so much of the world.

Will the left at last fulfill another Jewish value, that of having the humility to admit its mistakes and stop pressuring for dangerous policies? If they do, two critical outcomes will be achieved: Jewish lives will be safer, and peace with our neighbors will be closer.

Cary Nelson and Joe Lockard: The Decline and Fall of Katherine Franke

When Columbia issued its correction, Franke had a clear professional responsibility as a faculty member to withdraw her claim about Israeli students. Instead, she ignored an ethical imperative to withdraw a false accusation that placed Israeli students under a cloud of suspicion and possibly endangered their physical safety. It is no accident that Franke decided to post her statement on the AAUP’s Academe blog, which has long been a committed vehicle for pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel opinion.

Threats to academic freedom in the United States arise largely from structural causes. These include the casualisation of academic labour, deterioration of faculty governance provisions, corporatisation of research enterprise, dismissal of humanities and arts studies, and so on. That is not the picture one gets from the Academe blog, where the primary obsession has been campus reaction to the Gaza war.

Readers of the blog in 2024 will have learned that a Holocaust-themed campus opera production embodies Zionist silencing over a “genocide” in Gaza, that there is no difference between free speech and campus building take-overs and obstruction, and that a university’s study of and proposed action against antisemitism not only suppresses political speech but undermines “the legitimacy and autonomy of democratic institutions, including universities, public K-12 schools, and unions.”

In short, browsers of the official AAUP blog will discover that Jewish forces manipulate campus life and pose the most pressing threat to US academic freedom. It is an old conspiracy in new clothes. The Academe blog has published dozens of articles that constitute a false martyrology of campus free speech over Gaza. The uncritical republication of Katherine Franke’s statement alleging her forced retirement is simply the latest example of this dispiriting trend—a consequence of lax editorial scrutiny and insufficient critical thought.

The question then turns to why an organ of the American Association of University Professors would publish a falsification of such an easily discernible record. That editorial credulity speaks to an a priori willingness to believe some preferred voices rather than ask searching questions. This same credulity led Franke to both endorse and intensify anti-Zionist myths that have proliferated on campuses since 7 October 2023. The editorial credulity represents a collective delusion; Franke’s represents a more personal one.

Franke first attracted international attention in 2018 when she was denied entry to Israel on the basis of its law allowing the government to bar entry to BDS leaders. Israel later reversed its ruling and no other faculty members were affected. But in the way that all anti-Israel news acquires an infinite lifetime, her initial denial stands as permanent evidence of her alleged martyrdom. It was evidently time to breathe new life into this self-serving legend.

Poll: 21% of US voters support Hamas over Israel in conflict

Twenty-one percent of American voters say they support Hamas over Israel in Jerusalem’s ongoing war against the U.S.-designated terrorist organization, according to a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll published over the weekend.

Harvard/Harris surveyed a representative sample of 2,650 registered voters on Jan. 15-16. (The reported margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus 1.9 percentage points at a confidence level of 95%.)

Asked “Do you support more Israel or more Hamas?” in the war, 75% of Democrats backed the Jewish state, while 25% expressed more approval for the Palestinian terrorist group. Among Republican voters, 81% said they supported Jerusalem more, compared to 19% for Hamas.

Support for Hamas polled the highest among the 25 to 34 age group, where almost one-third said they favored the terrorists over Israel.

The Harvard/Harris survey also found that a majority of the American public believes that the negotiations led by the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump led to the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents said that Hamas “agreed to the deal because of negotiations” led by Trump’s team, compared to 43% who thought that outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden made it happen.

Eighty-four percent of Republicans said Trump was responsible, compared to 75% of Democrats who thought that Biden’s negotiations led Hamas to accept the truce. Among independent voters, 60% credited Trump and 40% Biden.

The vast majority of respondents, 82%, said they backed “the ceasefire deal reached between Israel and Hamas which aims to end the war in Gaza and release hostages.”

Support for the deal was higher among Democrats, 87% of whom said they backed the deal, with 81% of Republicans expressing approval.

01/20 Links Pt1: Destroying the Illusion of Israel-Hamas Equivalence; Trump to Halt Funding to UNRWA; Correcting the Record on the IDF and Lethal Targeting

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Destroying the Illusion of Israel-Hamas Equivalence

On Sunday, this trend was no longer puzzling. If you were going to support Hamas in the war against the IDF, you had to perform the following mental gymnastics: The worse Hamas behaved, the worse you thought of Israel—or you’d be forced to face your own twisted depravity for instinctively siding with Hamas.

Hamas soldiers changed out of their civilian clothes and into their uniforms and swarmed out around hospitals along with gleeful civilians and “journalists” who’d taken off their media vests to join the celebrations—none of which were taking place among rubble and famine, despite al Jazeera’s claim that Israel destroyed about three out of every four homes in the strip.

The world got to see a very different Gaza on Sunday. “Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yahood” they chanted, a popular refrain commemorating a famous Muslim massacre of Jews.

So Hamas sent back to their families Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, and Doron Steinbrecher. Who is Israel releasing in return, as demanded by Hamas? There’s Zakaria Zubeidi, who was involved in a terror attack in which six people were killed. There’s Mohammad Abu Warda, in prison for his role in bombings that killed 45. Mohammed Naifeh was serving consecutive life sentences for attacks that killed five. Three members of a Hamas cell responsible for the deaths of 30 innocents are reportedly on the list. And on it goes.

To be sure, not every Palestinian inmate has this much blood on his hands. But more than enough do to make one cringe at the clash of values between the two armies.

Israelis are going into this deal with eyes open; they are not naïve. They just believe that life is valuable, though their enemy does not. The asymmetry has clearly inspired some in the pro-Hamas camp to manufacture a false equivalence. The cease-fire has made fools of those who believed it.

Richard Kemp: Hamas terrorists have stopped dressing as women. They’ll soon have to start again

Hamas have been trying to replace their dead terrorists with untrained and inexperienced volunteers from the population. Their capabilities will be boosted by the release of over 1,000 terrorist prisoners in the first stage of the deal alone, some of whom will be battle-hardened.

While they remain free from IDF attack, Hamas will be working overtime to regroup and rebuild their lost strength.

Any and all suitable construction materials and humanitarian supplies allowed into the Strip will be immediately re-purposed for military use rather than to alleviate the suffering of civilians whose houses have been destroyed as a result of Hamas’s war.

They will continue to operate the weapons manufacturing factories that have not been taken apart and do all they can to replenish weapons and ammunition from outside. That is why the IDF must retain its stranglehold on the border with Egypt as well as the blockade of the coastline.

Outside Gaza, Hamas and their sponsors and supporters will be aiming to bring international pressure to bear on Israel to prevent a resumption of hostilities, while holding on to as many hostages as they feel they need for longer term leverage.

In these circumstances the sooner Israel can return to the attack the better, reducing time and opportunity Hamas will have to increase the dangers they still present.

The fight will certainly have to be resumed. It is for Jerusalem to calibrate when and how that is done, balancing the maximum number of hostages that can be got out against the growing risks presented by the breathing space Hamas can be allowed.

Into that equation will also have to be factored wider strategic imperatives, not least a potential strike on Iran’s nuclear programme which now becomes a more realistic proposition with Donald Trump back in the White House.

Stephen Pollard: The picture of Hamas surrounding the hostages says everything

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And in truth, I really don’t need to write this piece at all. All I need to do to make my point is to publish the picture above. Because it says almost everything that needs to be said not just about Hamas, about the hostage release, and about what is happening in Gaza but also about the state of the West and about those useful idiots in the West who march in support of Hamas.

All that in one photograph.

It’s not just that it shows a braying army of armed men and one solitary woman (although there were, of course, two other women in the car who were also being released from 471 days of captivity). Yes, that matters, because when we focus on Hamas’ bestial behaviour we sometimes forget that it is an Islamist group which hates women and uses them as chattels – in this case, as valuable hostages to be traded. And we should never forget that, because not only do we need to understand Hamas in order to defeat it, we need to understand this in order to set about defeating its support in the West.

It’s not just that it’s another example, on its own sick terms, of how professional Hamas is in how it operates. This was not some spontaneous gathering of an out of control mob but a carefully planned piece of propaganda, designed down to the last detail to show the world that Hamas is in control. Take the ‘goody bags’ given to each of the released hostages, with a map of Gaza, pictures from their captivity and a perverse certificate marking their time as hostages. These weren’t assembled ad hoc on the day but will have been plotted long before for the moment of release – as was every other element of the scene when the hostages were handed over to the Red Cross.

But sitting here now, the day after the hostage release and two days after tens of thousands demonstrated their support for Hamas in London (and don’t you dare try and tell me that’s not what they were doing) it’s that picture – and the other image of a Hamas fighter on the roof of a Red Cross van - which tells the real story. The story, that is, of how so many in the West are taken in by tales of resistance and colonialism and have bought into the idea that they are on ‘the right side of history’ as they march with their keffiyehs and chant From the River to the Sea.

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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

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Israel is seen more favorably than CNN and the EU by Americans - and young Americans now support Israel more than most other age groups!

A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll was just released, and it shows that Americans remain strongly pro-Israel.

Taken on January 15-16, the survey asked 2,650 US voters a series of questions about the political environment ahead of President-elect Trump's inauguration today.

One question asked how favorably Americans judged a series of institutions:

Israel is seen more favorably by Americans than the European Union, CNN. MSNBC and X. The gap of favorable over unfavorable is better for Israel than the US Supreme Court, the Department of Justice and Fox News. (If you calculate the percentage of favorable answers over all people who held an opinion, Israel also edges Facebook.)

Given the huge amount of anti-Israel reporting and coverage of anti-Israel events for the past 15 months, this is pretty remarkable.

Another response is perhaps even more surprising:

It is not surprising that 4 out of 5 Americans support Israel over Hamas. But the age breakdown shatters the impression that has been given that young Americans are inexorably becoming more anti-Israel.

A higher percentage of US voters 18-24 say they support Israel than any other age group under 55!

The pattern of younger people becoming more and more anti-Israel appears to have been broken by Gen Z.

This is something worth investigating. Did the pro-Hamas college encampments turn them off? Are they now getting most of their news from social media and therefore not as exposed to the toxic hate from the mainstream media? Is hasbara actually working for the first time in decades?

I hope some organizations look at this further (and I wish I had the resources to do this myself.)

(h/t JW)

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)