Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, November 19, 2023

CNN never questions displays of captured weapons - unless it is Israel capturing them. The media message: "The Jews cannot be trusted."

In 2019, CNN reported:

Italian police have seized “an arsenal of military weapons,” including an air-to-air missile, and a collection of Nazi paraphernalia from three men, one of whom is a former political candidate for an extreme right party.

In 2022, CNN published a photo of weapons found associated with a jailbreak:

In 2023, CNN published this arsenal that police found in Virginia Beach:

In these cases and plenty of others, the display of weapons were clearly set up by police to show the weapons all together. It is obvious the police didn't find the weapons in these positions; they moved them for the media to take photos.

But when Israel shows Hamas weapons it finds in Gaza hospitals, suddenly the rules change:

An Israel Defense Forces video on November 15 showing a tour of Hamas weaponry found at Al-Shifa hospital shows less weaponry at the scene than in later footage filmed by international news crews, indicating the weaponry may have been moved or placed there prior to news crews arriving.

Yes, the IDF responded to the charges, saying they had found more weapons in the interim and placed them there for the media.

But the fact that CNN questions whether the IDF was faking the evidence, when it never asks that question from anyone else, is the real problem.

Too much of the reporting from Gaza is based on the idea that Jews simply cannot be trusted. If the IDF says something, it is suspected of lying from the outset.

Yet casualty figures, and anecdotes from Hamas sources or "witnesses" who are in serious danger from Hamas if they say something the terror group doesn't like, or who openly cheer Hamas atrocities, are not questioned.

This is media bias. But it is worse than that, because it plays into antisemitic tropes that Jews are not trustworthy, that they are always up to something, that they are trying to pull one over on the "goyim."

In 1890, a newspaper asked prominent Americans about anti-Jewish prejudice. One question asked:

The president of Harvard University, Charles W. Eliot, answered:

This opinion didn't make the businessmen less honorable in his eyes.

This is the underlying prejudice behind so much reporting from Gaza. Even though Israel has every reason to tell the truth - and if it wanted to fake evidence of Hamas presence at the hospitals, it could have planted a great deal more weapons than it displayed. But that must all be part of the sly Jewish plan to make everyone think the weapons were really there, right?

Consciously or not, the news media are promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

CAIR condemns alleged "hate crime" - and doesn't issue a correction when it is proven a hoax

CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, issued a press release last month:

CAIR-Cleveland Seeks Hate Crime Probe After Vehicular Assault on Palestinian-American by Driver Shouting ‘Kill all Palestinians,’ ‘Long live Israel’

(CLEVELAND, OH, 10/23/23) – The Cleveland chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Cleveland) today called on state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate an alleged vehicular assault on a Palestinian-American man as a hate crime.

On Sunday afternoon,an individual in a dark SUV reportedly hit the 20-year-old victim while he was walking on Cook Road on the border of Olmsted Falls and North Ridgeville.

The victim of the reported hit and run said he was walking home from eating lunch when a car slowed down and rolled down the window. The driver of the car allegedly started yelling at him using anti-Palestinian statements like “Kill all Palestinians,” “Long live Israel,” as he swerved his car to intimidate the victim. The driver then allegedly turned around and hit the man while shouting “DIE!”

He was transferred by EMS to St. John Westshore Hospital for his injuries.

Last week, police said it was all a hoax:

A North Olmsted man is facing multiple misdemeanor charges after police say he faked an alleged hate crime attack near North Ridgeville last month.

According to investigators, 20-year-old Hesham A. Ayyad was originally taken to the hospital on Oct. 22 after telling officers he had been hit by a car in an incident that was "racially motivated." He claimed the collision took place on Cook Road in Olmsted Township, and North Ridgeville detectives subsequently began looking into the case.

An article posted the next day by the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Cleveland branch shed more light on Ayyad's version of events. Per the organization, Ayyad claimed he was waking home from lunch when a vehicle approached and the driver rolled his window down. Ayyad reported hearing the driver say things like "Kill all Palestinians" and "Long live Israel" before swerving his car and hitting Ayyad, driving away while screaming, "DIE!"

However, as North Ridgeville police continued to investigate and view surveillance video from the day of the alleged crime, they eventually determined Ayyad had made the whole thing up. A release from the department insists Ayyad not only wasn't struck by a vehicle nor subjected to racial slurs, but that he was actually injured during an earlier fight with his brother, 19-year-old Khalil A. Ayyad. Footage from the scene confirms the altercation occurred, authorities say.

Both Hesham and Khalil Ayyad were arrested Tuesday and charged with domestic violence and assault. In addition, Hersham Ayyad is accused of making false alarms, falsification, and obstructing official business.

Although this hoax was revealed on Wednesday, CAIR's false accusation remains on its webpage, with no correction.

Which is typical. CAIR still claims that the Islamic Jihad rocket hitting a hospital in Gaza was from Israel, and it has reproduced other absurd claims from anti-Israel media sources as factual.

But no one pressures CAIR to issue corrections. Because honesty is not as important as anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

11/18 Links: The Return of the Progressive Atrocity; The Corruption of Human Rights; UNRWA: Ostacle to Peace; The BBC’s Israelophobia is out of control

From Ian:

The Return of the Progressive Atrocity

In recent years, the Left’s embrace of terror seemed to have ebbed; you won’t find many defenders of al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban, or Boko Haram. The notable exception has been groups devoted to the destruction of Israel: Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah, all of which still garner enthusiasm and deluded admiration. One might have thought that an orgy of sadistic murder, of the kind that Hamas committed on October 7th, would have inspired serious moral and political self-interrogation. As the past four weeks have illustrated, however, the exact opposite is the case.

The extraordinary nature of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have swept through the capitals of the West—demonstrations that began before Israel dropped a single bomb on Gaza—has, perhaps, not been fully appreciated. Horrific massacres of unarmed civilians are, unfortunately, taking place right now in South Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia, Syria, and Darfur. Unforgivably, the so-called international community usually ignores them. But none inspires cries of esteem for the perpetrators and acclaim for their crimes. And nowhere are the victims—defenseless civilians, including children and their mothers—blamed for being murdered. That is what is happening now. The deadliest single day in the post-Holocaust history of the Jewish people has been greeted in some quarters with joy and—to be blunt—an entirely undisguised hatred of Jews.

Many of the sentiments that have been expressed—on social media, during street marches, and in the pages of various publications—reveal an astonishing distance from anything that might be considered rational political judgment and ordinary humanity. At the “All Out for Palestine” rally in Times Square, held just one day after the massacre, elated chants of “700!”—the number of estimated Israeli deaths at the time—rang out, and demonstrators made throat-slitting gestures. A speaker at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign rally in Brighton, England, also held on October 8th, described the attacks as “beautiful and inspiring.” The image of a hang-glider—just like the ones Hamas used!—with a Palestinian flag has gone viral on the web, posted by everyone from Black Lives Matter/Chicago to neo-Nazi groups, which gives intersectionality a whole new meaning.

It is likely that many of these groups—especially those composed of privileged students who promiscuously toss about words like “genocide,” “settler-colonialism,” and “fascism”—have scant (if any) knowledge of Middle East politics or history, and couldn’t tell you the difference between the river and the sea. Many are simply advertising their “anticolonial” credentials, though I imagine that the usually stern Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran must be smiling in amazement as he sees just how many protestors in the West echo his thoughts and subscribe to his plans—openly articulated—to destroy the “Zionist entity,” even if they don’t quite know that they’re doing so.

But (presumably) knowledgeable intellectuals were also quick to jump into the fray. In the New Left Review, Britain’s leading Marxist journal, Tariq Ali praised the terrorists for “rising up against the colonizers” and implied, bizarrely, that the murders resulted from Palestinian frustration with Israel’s recent enormous pro-democracy demonstrations. In the London Review of Books, Amjad Iraqi noted the horrifying nature of the attacks but praised them for “shatter[ing] a psychological barrier,” though it might be argued that civilization depends on the maintenance of such barriers.

In Dissent, a journal with which I have long been associated and that was formerly the home of Michael Walzer’s liberal-left Zionism, history professor Gabriel Winant described Israel as a “genocide machine” and argued that Israeli victims should not be grieved. Joseph Massad, a tenured professor at Columbia who teaches Middle Eastern studies and intellectual history, was unable to contain his enthusiasm: the attacks were “innovative,” “astonishing,” a “major achievement,” “awesome,” “incredible,” and “a stunning victory”; he wondered with excitement “if this is the start of the Palestinian War of Liberation.” (Thousands have signed a petition demanding that Massad be fired; tempting though this is, I maintain that these are the times to defend free-speech principles.) Some student organizations do have ties to the region and, presumably, know what’s going on there. The inaptly named Students for Justice in Palestine, the most bloodthirsty of student groups, declared “Glory to Our Martyrs”; described the massacre as “a historic win”; and demanded, “Do not let Western media call this terrorism. This is DECOLONIZATION.”

Jake Wallis Simons: The BBC’s Israelophobia is out of control

Never trust a Jew. That was one of the adages that we thought had mostly faded into history. But it has been back in vogue ever since 7 October, when 1,200 Jews in Israel had the temerity to be massacred in their homes and hundreds got themselves taken hostage.

For years, it has been common knowledge that Hamas’s subterranean command centre in Gaza lies underneath al-Shifa hospital. It even appeared in season two of the Netflix show, Fauda. Yet, as Israeli forces entered the hospital yesterday and then shared pictures of weapons and tunnels, the world was still sceptical.

The IDF’s images ‘have not proved the existence of the sprawling Hamas base that the Israeli military said the hospital had concealed, and which Hamas and the hospital leadership have denied’, insisted the New York Times. ‘That claim has been central to Israel’s justification for the death toll in Gaza… which has killed more than 11,000 people, according to Gazan health officials.’ Gazan health officials? You mean Hamas, the same lot that decapitated the babies? Great source.

Similarly, the BBC interviewed a woman this week who had previously worked at the hospital. She was asked whether Israel’s claims could possibly contain even a grain of truth. ‘Over the years we have never seen any evidence of any military activity in the hospital, period’, she said, adamantly, as if Hamas would surely have asked her down to the tunnels for a cup of tea by now. ‘This Israeli soldier who’s finding ammunitions, does this justify bombing a hospital?’, she then asks. ‘Does this justify raiding a hospital and interrogating patients and basically killing patients?’ Oh, the insinuation.

This journalism affects public opinion. In response to footage of a tunnel shaft just outside al-Shifa, one X / Twitter user wrote: ‘It’s Iraq and weapons of mass destruction all over again.’ No, it’s not. But you just can’t trust those Jews, you see. They’re shifty. They’re probably just the types who would invent a terror base to slake their appetite for the blood of hospital patients. Remember when they marked the Easter of 1144 by kidnapping, torturing and crucifying little William of Norwich? Remember, for that matter, when they manipulated the Allies to start the Second World War? With them, it’s all about the blood.

11/17 Links Pt2: Douglas Murray: Britain is the new capital of anti-Israel hate; Israeli group slams int’l journalists body for acting as Hamas propagandists

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Britain is the new capital of anti-Israel hate

I have spent recent weeks in Israel, and goodness knows this is a country that has plenty of challenges. But one question I have been asked a lot by an alarmingly wide array of Israelis is: “What happened to Britain?”

Generally, I get protective after this question, and reassure people that Britain is still Britain and that our core of decency remains as it always was. But the response is always the same: “But these marches?” Now perhaps they will say “... and the vote?”

It amazes most Israelis – as it amazes me – that Britain has seen some of the worst scenes of all the anti-Israel marches across the world. And I say “anti-Israel” for a reason. The first protests in London happened before Israel had even begun its military response to October 7. Rallies were held within hours of the massacres. To most Israelis this is nearly unfeasible.

What other country would see 1,400 of its citizens slaughtered, 240 kidnapped and countless more wounded for life, and not be allowed even a day to mourn? What other country, having suffered a set of atrocities hardly superseded in the whole history of violence wouldn’t get even one day of sympathy?

Only the Jewish state. And everybody in Israel knows as much. Pakistan is currently in the process of forcibly deporting two million Afghans. Nobody cares. Bashar al-Assad is in his twelfth year of killing Muslims in Syria and the world’s cameras turned away long ago. Only Israel, when involved in any military action, or even when it is simply on the receiving end of extreme violence, cannot rely even on the world’s understanding.

And it is in this light that Israel notices the British politicians calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The ignorance of a large number of figures in British political life, from Humza Yousaf to Jess Phillips, can hardly be exaggerated. As it happens, a ceasefire of a kind existed in Gaza. Israel withdrew from Gaza unilaterally, and very painfully, in 2005 – removing every Jew from the strip. They handed over the land and got rockets in return.

Melanie Phillips: Is Britain going wobbly on Israel?

Cameron, who is due to visit Israel next week, is taking pains to stress that Britain’s foreign policy positions remain unchanged. Yet there is alarm that his appointment signifies a hardening of attitude towards Israel.

On a visit to Turkey in 2010, for example, Cameron notoriously remarked: “Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp.”

Even before his return, there were signs that the government was increasing pressure on Israel and weaponizing Hamas propaganda. In a speech on Monday, Sunak stated that “too many civilians” had died in Gaza and that Israel “must take all possible measures to protect innocent civilians, including at hospitals.”

But there is no way of knowing how many Gazan civilians have died since Hamas makes the incredible claim that the numbers it says have been killed were all civilians with no acknowledgment of any terrorists among them.

More ominously still, Cameron’s second-in-command Andrew Mitchell, who is now the Foreign Office spokesman in the Commons, has a history of hostility towards Israel.

On Tuesday, he lurched into one-sided sympathy for Gaza and sniping at Israel. Making no mention of the evidence that Hamas has been blocking fuel and other essential supplies to Gaza’s hospitals, he said, “Hospitals should be places of safety. … It is impossible to comprehend the pain and loss that innocent Palestinians are enduring.”

Worse, Mitchell quoted Robert Mardini, the director-general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, saying that Gaza hospitals cannot be targeted under any circumstances. The ICRC, said Mitchell, was the guardian of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions.

But Mardini’s strictures misrepresent Israel’s position and ignore the misuse by Hamas of Gaza’s hospitals. International law stipulates that if hospitals are used as weapons or rocket bases from which attacks are planned and delivered, as Hamas uses them, they lose all protections and are considered a legitimate military target provided they’re given advance warnings. Israel has followed these legal conditions to the letter.

More ominously still, Mitchell—who is also from the liberal establishment wing of the Tory party—indicated that the British government is no longer supporting Israel over the attempt by the Palestinian Authority to arraign it for “war crimes” before the International Criminal Court.

When Boris Johnson was prime minister, he said the ICC had no jurisdiction in Israel, that Palestine was not a sovereign state and that such an inquiry was a prejudicial attack on a friend and ally of the United Kingdom.

This week, however, Mitchell said: “It is not for ministers to seek to state where the ICC has jurisdiction; that is for the chief prosecutor,” who has said his office has “jurisdiction over all crimes committed within the territory of the state of Palestine by either party, including events currently taking place in Gaza and the West Bank.”

Sunak’s support for Israel and the Jewish people is doubtless genuine; but without a proper understanding of what that involves, such support can only be shallow.

He has been outmaneuvered, it would seem, by the poisonously anti-Israel Foreign Office with its deep connections to that very same liberal establishment that Sunak hopes will deliver him political victory—and which, it is now feared, will once again hang Israel out to dry.

Sunak may not have just delivered the final blow to the Tories’ electoral prospects. He may also have shown, at this seismic moment, that he doesn’t have what it takes to defend civilization against barbarism.

Josh Hammer: After Hamas Pogrom, Qatar Must Finally Pay For Its Sponsor of Terrorism

In a now-infamous recent podcast recording on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, former President Barack Obama lectured: "You have to admit that nobody's hands are clean, that all of us are complicit to some degree."

Ironically for such a narcissist, Obama is painfully lacking in self-awareness. It is Obama himself who doggedly pursued a grand strategic "realignment" in the Middle East, away from Israel and America's traditional Sunni Arab allies and toward the terrorist Iranian regime and the Muslim Brotherhood (for which Hamas is the Palestinian-Arab offshoot). The Biden administration, reliably acting as a third Obama term, has stayed the course—evinced by a brand-new alleged U.S. sanctions waiver that would enrich the Tehran mullahcracy to the tune of $10 billion.

The Iranian regime is the "head of the snake," as Israeli intelligence is known to refer to it, when it comes to state-funded Islamism and jihadism across the Middle East. But often absent from the discussion is Iran's chief Sunni ally, a fabulously wealthy tiny emirate that funds and houses Hamas and disseminates Muslim Brotherhood-style Islamism throughout the region via its state-owned network, Al Jazeera: Qatar.

In the aftermath of the single largest slaughter of Jews since the defeat of Nazi Germany, as well as the single biggest American hostage crisis since Tehran in 1979, Qatar cannot be allowed to get away with its duplicity any longer.

Along with Iran, Qatar is one of the primary state bankrollers of Hamas. It is also the physical home of Hamas' organizational leaders, who live lavishly in five-star luxury hotels in Doha, far removed from the mayhem in Gaza. The Qatari regime has provided material aid and comfort to myriad other Islamist outfits, once even offering banking services for the branch of ISIS responsible for the brutal on-camera beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff in 2014.

Qatar, via both diplomatic support and Al Jazeera's fanning of the flames of Islamism, was also the tip of the spear of the tumultuous Arab Spring uprisings a decade ago. Today, Qatar's state-sponsored Islamism makes it a convenient ally of Iran—although the emirate's non-Islamist Gulf Cooperation Council neighbors, such as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, view it with skepticism if not outright disdain.

Qatar manages to evade Western scrutiny for its sundry malign activities via a multifaceted strategy, centered around Al Udeid Air Base, strategic Western investments, and a sprawling, deeply sophisticated information operation.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

11/17 Links Pt1: Israel’s strategic imperative; Hamas are cruelly turning hospitals into targets; MeToo unless you’re a Jew; Where are the yellow ribbons?

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Israel’s strategic imperative

Since Oct. 7, Israel has shown its operational competence and national determination. But it has also shown its utter subservience to the United States, a power widely perceived by the nations of the region as both waning and treacherous to its allies.

For its part, the Biden administration is openly subverting Israel’s campaign by demanding it resupply Hamas through so-called “humanitarian aid,” including fuel that Hamas openly diverts to its forces. The administration is also demanding that Israel end the war in a manner that will exact no price on the Palestinians for their bloodlust.

The administration’s demand that Israel abandon Gaza after the war; permit Hamas’s junior partner the Palestinian Authority to take over on the backs of IDF soldiers; and commit to the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, and Jerusalem is a demand that Israel hand Hamas’s supporters and partners a strategic victory for their mass slaughter.

Last Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected this U.S. demand. In response, U.S. officials and former officials began briefing reporters that they seek the replacement of the government with “more moderate” actors. In other words, to secure a Palestinian strategic victory, the United States seeks to overthrow the Israeli government in the midst of war. Opposition leader Yair Lapid’s sudden announcement on Wednesday that he seeks to oust Netanyahu from power immediately indicated that the U.S. statements are part of a bid coordinated with Israel’s political left and disgruntled Likud MKs.

As to Lebanon, Netanyahu and the War Cabinet are reportedly abstaining from ordering a preemptive attack on Hezbollah’s strategic assets due to operational constraints, with the bulk of Israel’s forces concentrated in Gaza, and due to U.S. pressure. President Joe Biden and his top advisers have openly expressed their opposition to any significant IDF effort to degrade the existential threat Hezbollah poses.

The current state of affairs was easily anticipated by anyone watching the Biden administration’s open collusion with opposition forces that have sought to oust Netanyahu from power since the results of the November 2022 elections became known. And they were doubtlessly considered by Israel’s enemies as they gamed the current war in the months before Oct. 7.

Many, including Netanyahu, have argued that the strategic goal of Hamas’s invasion was to undermine the burgeoning peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and the full economic and strategic integration of Israel into the region. He and others have argued that the success of that integration is contingent on Israel’s victory in the war. This is true.

But it is also true that Gaza is but one front—and the weakest front—in Iran’s war against Israel. If Israel lays waste to Hamas and Gaza but leaves the principal fronts intact, it will not gain deterrence because it will not have won. To win the war, Israel cannot end the war until it decimates Hezbollah’s strategic capacity to lay waste to the Jewish state through a combined missile assault and a ground invasion. And that, too, must be seen as a stepping stone to defeating Iran, either by enabling the Iranian people to overthrow the regime or by massively degrading Iran’s missile and nuclear capabilities or both.

Helprin’s claim that Gaza is not an existential threat is wrong in one sense: The assault Israel suffered on Oct. 7 was so massive that it placed Israel’s ability to defend itself and survive in question. As a consequence, it is of existential importance for Israel to utterly wipe out Hamas. But to prove beyond any doubt that Israel will survive, it needs to deny Hezbollah and Iran the continued means to annihilate it. Any military outcome short of this will not be considered a victory where it matters—in the minds of Israel’s partners and enemies.

Seth Mandel: The Heroes of October 7

There is a remarkable story up at the Times of Israel today about Oz Davidian, an Israeli farmer who saved 120 people at the Nova music festival that was the site of a Hamas massacre on Oct. 7. When I first opened the article, I thought it was going to be about Youssef Ziadna, a Bedouin minibus driver I read about a couple weeks ago who saved 30 from that festival by responding to a call to pick up a customer from the event. Ziadna drove into Hamas’s attack and drove out with a minibus full of Jewish Israelis who are alive because of him.

Also today I received an email from an Israeli streaming service promoting the pilot episode of a new documentary series about Oct. 7. The show is called Heroes and the first episode is about Noam Tibon. Noam’s son, Amir, is a reporter for Haaretz whose story of survival on Oct. 7 has been featured in numerous press accounts since the attacks. They survived, in fact, because Noam Tibon, a retired IDF general, is one of the heroes of that dark day, helping to free his son’s kibbutz from the Hamas terrorists who had taken it.

I’ve known Amir for several years and am relieved anew each time I see a different telling of the story, and, reading about Ziadna and Davidian and the others sure to come out, I realized how common that feeling must be by now. This terrible tragedy is also a story of heroes and of survival—it is the story of the Jews.

Ziadna began that day driving a group to the outdoor concert at 1 a.m. He got a distress call from someone in that group five hours later and got back in his car. He thought, he told JTA, it was due to a rocket alarm, part of life as an Israeli in that part of the country. “I didn’t wash my face, I didn’t even get dressed. This is standard over here in the south.”

Once it became clear what was happening, Ziadna drove on through a hail of bullets, filled his car with terrified revelers, and drove off to safety as a machine-gun-firing Hamas paraglider floated above them. Four of Ziadna’s family members have been missing since the attack and a fifth—his cousin—was killed that day.

Arsen Ostrovsky: Hamas are cruelly turning hospitals into targets

In principle, each of these hospitals, which Hamas has totally usurped for purposes of shielding their fighters and weapons, and using them as control and command centers, lose their protected status under international law and become legitimate military targets.

Article 8(2) of the Rome Statute and Article 52(2) of the First Protocol to the Geneva Convention of 1949 both make clear that intentionally directing attacks against hospitals and medical locations, can only be permissible, provided there is a distinct military objective.

In this case, the military objective is clear and defined: to eliminate the threat of Hamas, which continues to use hospitals and other civilian areas in Gaza to plan and execute acts of terror against Israel, as well as rescue the 239 hostages that the terror group is holding captive.

However, merely because Hamas has seized hospitals as their own personal launching pads, does not give Israel carte blanche to automatically attack.

International humanitarian law also dictates that, in the event a decision is made to attack a hospital or such target that would otherwise hold special protected status, there must be sufficient advanced warning provided that goes unheeded, and then ultimately, if an attack should proceed, that it still adhere to the principles of proportionality.

In each case, Israel has been providing repeated warnings for civilians to evacuate and have created safe passages for them to do so. In circumstances where warranted, the IDF have even aborted what would otherwise be deemed legitimate military strikes. In the meantime, Israel continues to facilitate the provision of humanitarian goods and medical supplies into Gaza, and to the hospitals.

Quite simply, the IDF have gone to unprecedented lengths, not seen in the history of modern warfare, to avoid and minimize civilian casualties, whereas Hamas are doing everything possible to maximise casualties.

Having discharged its duty to provide ample warning, Israel is also adhering to the doctrine of proportionality, that is, should there be any potential loss of civilian life, that it not exceed the military advantage to be gained from such a strike or action.

The goal here is clear: eliminate Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that seeks Israel’s destruction, and bring back the hostages, following the heinous October 7th massacre.

If the international community truly cares about the wellbeing of civilians in Gaza and is rightfully aghast at the scenes coming out of Shifa, it would be well advised to direct its outrage at Hamas, which continues to unconscionably and illegally, turn hospitals into their personal control and command centers.

Fake "progressive Jews" stoke antisemitism

There is an insidious secondary effect from all of the protests by "Jewish Voice for Peace" and "IfNotNow."

The so-called "progressive Jews" have been shutting down federal buildings, major bridges, and major commuter hubs, with banners and T-Shirts and signs saying "JEWS SAY CEASEFIRE NOW!"

Here are a few dozen of these idiots blocking a major bridge in Boston. They've also shut down Grand Central Station, the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, streets in Los Angeles and other thoroughfares.

And some media is referring to them as "Jewish activists" even though they represent no one in the Jewish community besides themselves.

But think about it: average working people, who don't have the privilege these pseudo-Jews have to spend all day protesting, just want to get to their work or home to his or her family.

Who's stopping them from living their lives? All these jerks with big signs claiming they are JEWS.

Not only are these self-entitled, privileged asses directly promoting antisemitism with their "anti-Zionist" rhetoric, they are potentially causing ordinary Americans to hate Jews because they see these "Jews" disrupting their lives for a cause most don't care about.

These progressive "Jews" are not only antisemites. They are actively choosing to piss normal people off as Jews.

This is what is known in real Judaism as a "chilul Hashem," a desecration of God's name, by making all Jews look bad. There are very few sins that are worse than this.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

One reason Hamas attacked: They really believed Arab/Iranian propaganda that Israel was weak. They are clueless about Jewish unity.

In the months before October 7, Arabic and Iranian media were as always filled with the usual articles about Jews "storming Al Aqsa."

But there was also intense interest in covering the protests against the government quoting Jews about how the country was being torn apart. About how some Israelis were leaving to live elsewhere. About how the "curse of the eighth decade" ensures Israel's imminent doom. About how Israeli society is irrevocably split between secular/religious, or Ashkenaz/Mizrahi, or white/Ethiopian.

To an extent, this narrative of Israel's self-destruction was always a fixture in Arab and Muslim media. Iranian leaders have claimed for years that Israel was "weaker than a spider's web." But the anti-government protests really made it appear, to the Arabs, that this time Israel was on the brink.

Hamas - and Iran - may have drunk their own Kool-Aid.

There are plenty of Arab analysts who specialize in Israel, Zionism and Judaism, but only rarely have I seen any of them say anything that was remotely accurate. Their analyses has always been leavened with antisemitism, above all with the absolute certainty that Judaism is merely a religion and Jews aren't a people.

What none of them have ever noticed is that Jews are a family. We jokingly refer to each other as MOTD, fellow "members of the tribe."

Real families bicker, argue, and scream at each other. (cf. Knesset.) You won't see so much passion between strangers on the streets of the US as in Israel, because everyone in the US is frightened that the person they are upset at might pull out a gun or a knife. But generally people are far more impassioned in family arguments because they are secure that deep down, everyone loves each other. That closeness, paradoxically, allows the informality that can be interpreted as a lack of respect and manners.

Yes, millions of Israelis were passionate about judicial reform. But the argument was over whether the Supreme Court should go back to the powers it had 30 years ago or not. It was not the existential issue that the media played it up to be.

Hamas' pogrom is an existential issue. And when faced with a real threat, Jews come together.

Hamas and Iran thought that Israel was on the brink, and a push would topple it. Bizarrely, the Palestinians still believe that. The AWRAD poll I reported on shows that 75% of Palestinians still expect a Hamas victory.

They primarily get their news from Al Jazeera and social media, especially Telegram.

So we have a society that has no ability or desire to understand Israel, and whose impressions of Israel come from propagandists. They make life and death decisions based on this propaganda - the vast majority of Gazans do not believe Israeli pamphlets air-dropped telling them where to go safely. They look at the anti-Israel demonstrations and believe the world supports Hamas. It is a feedback loop where their delusions become entrenched and reality cannot enter.

Of course, we see the same delusions every day on social media worldwide.

There can never be peace with people who cannot tell the difference between truth and falsehood.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

In October, I predicted "If polls come out about the Simchat Torah massacre, the results (from Palestinians) will almost certainly be overwhelmingly in support. 84% supported the Mercaz Harav massacre in 2008, 77% a 2008 suicide attack that killed a woman in Dimona, 80% supported the wave of stabbing attacks in 2014 including the murder of four rabbis in Har Nof."

I was right.

A new poll from AWRAD, Arab World for Research and Development, shows that the vast majority of Palestinians support the October 7 pogrom. 75% of all Palestinians supported the massacre while only 12.7% opposed it.

The Gazans polled were generally in temporary housing in southern Gaza, and "only" 63% supported the murder and raping spree. But in the "moderate" West Bank, an astonishing 83% supported the massacre.

This poll was taken after the details were publicized, after the videos were shared, after everyone know the death toll. That didn't dampen their enthusiasm for the attack - it may have increased it.

Palestinian women are just about as bloodthirsty as the men are with their enthusiasm for murdering Jews well within the margin of error for the poll.

When asked about their preference between a one-state solution for Jews and Arabs, a two state solution for two peoples, or a single Arab Palestinian state from the river to the sea, things were just as lopsided. 75% want to see a Judenrein Arab Palestinian state from the river to the sea - the question used those exact words. All the apologists for the term who claim it means a single state with equal rights are gaslighting everyone: only 5.4% of Palestinians support their utopian dream.

And the attack made Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades terror wing the most popular entity in the territories, with nearly 89% of all Palestinians feeling positive about that group, higher than every other political party, terror group or country.

The poll is crystal clear and cannot be spun: Palestinians overwhelmingly support the most heinous terrorism against Jews. Palestinians want to rid the Middle East of Jews.

As I've been emphasizing, the obstacle to peace isn't Israel. It is Palestinian Jew-hatred, hatred that predates the "occupation" and "siege" and "nakba." Unless there is a new Palestinian leadership and a generation of Palestinians who grow up learning about coexistence and tolerance, there is no chance for peace.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

11/16 Links Pt2: Scalia’s Prophecy; Outgoing HRW editor blasts group’s ‘infected’ work on Israel; The Scandal of Robert Malley; The University Horrors: Chapter and Verse

From Ian:

‘They Forgot to Be Afraid’

Inquiries into the Yom Kippur War failures led to major changes in Israel’s military structure and political leadership—including the end of Prime Minister Golda Meir’s storied career. And yet here we are, 50 years later, grappling with another catastrophic failure of sensemaking on the part of Israel’s political, intelligence, and military elites. And this could be the hardest lesson of the post–October 7 reckoning: Identifying and even punishing these failed leaders might be necessary, and indeed, cathartic. But it won’t be sufficient. The problems lie deeper than any group of individuals. “Locating blame in individuals perpetuates the problem,” Vaughan writes. The people thought to be at fault can be fired or even jailed, “but unless the organizational causes of the problems are fixed, the next person to occupy the same position will experience the same pressures and the harmful outcomes will repeat.”

It’s natural to be outraged at the leaders who failed to anticipate this horrific assault. But, unlike in a disaster, we should reserve our deepest anger for the people who ordered and carried out this exercise in primitive barbarity. Emily Harding, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, writes that intelligence collapses like 9/11 and October 7 “are often failures of imagination.” They occur when leaders and analysts “neglect to think as big and as ruthlessly as their enemy.” Maybe we shouldn’t be shocked that Israel’s military and intelligence leaders failed to imagine the depths of Hamas’s depravity. Perhaps—and I know this is asking a lot—we should try to summon a bit of empathy for officials whose notions of military threats didn’t include mass rape and babies in ovens.

No doubt all these questions will be hashed out in the coming years of inquiry and attempts at reform. But that will have to wait. As Israeli forces were still engaging the last Hamas terrorists, a reporter asked IDF military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, about the status of the investigation into military and intelligence failures. His response: “First, we fight, then we investigate.”

Noah Rothman: The Anti-Jewish Violence Is Happening

The academic theories that buttress anti-Semitism were made operational in 2019 in the effort to compel House Democratic leaders to back down from their effort to censure Representative Ilhan Omar for her flagrant anti-Semitism. The backlash from the left was wildly successful. Because she wanted the censure, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was dubbed by Linda Sarsour a “typical white feminist upholding the patriarchy doing the dirty work of powerful white men.” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez agreed. “No one seeks this level of reprimand when members make statements about Latinx + other communities,” she insisted. “We all have a responsibility to speak out against anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and all forms of hatred and bigotry,” then senator Kamala Harris wrote. And yet, “the spotlight being put on Congresswoman Omar may put her at risk.”

A united front emerged, and Democratic leadership was convinced to subordinate its better instincts to the social justice solidarity movement that formed around Omar. In the end, the caucus produced not a censure of Omar’s prejudice but a watery statement of general opposition to bigotry in whatever form it takes. Sound familiar?

The least charitable interpretation of the Democratic establishment’s internal turmoil in the weeks that passed since the 10/7 attack is that its leading lights are inveighing against the scourge of Islamophobia to give cover to anti-Semitic elements within their coalition. And it is not without evidence—the evidence of years of cowardice, caviling, and making deals with the devil.

Progressives and liberals alike abetted decades of policy preferences, campaigns to coerce and cajole donors, indefensible tenure-track recommendations, efforts to debase humanities departments, and the creation of a media-academic industrial complex designed to house the products of this ill-considered education. They built an elaborate new lie—the threat of “Islamophobia”—that hijacked the enduring reality of the world’s oldest lie. It should be a source of profound unease to all people of good will, and to all people who fear the consequences of these apologia for anti-Semitism, that the White House’s first instinct when confronted with the rotten fruits of their coalition’s labors is to throw yet another lie on the pile.

Meir Y. Soloveichik: Scalia’s Prophecy

On May 8, 1997, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia delivered what may have been the most important speech of his life. Strikingly, the address had nothing to do with jurisprudence; it made no mention of the Constitution or of the originalism that had marked his career. Delivered in the Capitol Rotunda, the justice’s remarks focused on the horrors of history, yet Scalia looked to not only the past but also the future. His words, now printed in the vital volume Scalia Speaks, have proved terrifyingly prescient.

The occasion of the address was a ceremony marking Holocaust Memorial Day. The justice reflected that, as honored as he was to participate, he found the invitation difficult to undertake as a non-Jew: “I am an outsider speaking to an ancient people about a tragedy of unimaginable proportions that is intensely personal to them.” Scalia further reflected, “I am not only not a Jew, I am a Christian,” and said he believed that the anti-Semitism in Christendom had “helped set the stage for the mad tragedy that the National Socialists produced.” He stressed, however, that for him, the ceremony of the day was personal: “When I was a young man in college, spending my junior year abroad, I saw Dachau. Later, in the year after I graduated from law school, I saw Auschwitz. I will of course never forget the impression they made upon me.”

These remarks were interesting enough, but the most important part of the speech was yet to come. Scalia stressed that it was not enough to remember the Holocaust. Rather, he said, one must mark the sort of society in which it occurred: “The one message I want to convey today is that you will have missed the most frightening aspect of it all, if you do not appreciate that it happened in one of the most educated, most progressive, most cultured countries in the world.” The Germany of the early-20th century, he noted, “was a world leader in most fields of art, science, and intellect.” Its universities were some of the most celebrated on earth. Yet this did not prevent Nazism from suffusing society; in fact, German education and Nazism went hand in hand.

Then, suddenly, Scalia switched from past to present and focused on his own family: “This aspect of the matter is perhaps so prominent in my mind because I am undergoing, currently, the task of selecting a college for the youngest of my children—or perhaps more accurately, trying to help her select it.” American parents, Scalia reflected, place so much value today on what is taught in academic institutions, yet the opportunities afforded there, he argued, are “of only secondary importance—to our children, and to the society that their generation will create.” The Holocaust, Scalia argued, is a reminder of the importance of imparting moral wisdom above all else, and it is this, he was implicitly saying, that parents must bear in mind as they ponder the intellectual future of their progeny.

The Inside Story of How Palestinians Took Over the World

The brilliant Palestinian plan to capture the pliable minds of American college students was laid out in front of me 25 years ago, during a very sinister business meeting in Israel.

It was around the time of the Oslo Accords. I had been hired by the Ford Foundation to create a marketing institute for their grantees in the country. Ford was funding the operations of both Jewish and Arab organizations within the Israeli green line, in an effort to help build a vibrant liberal civil society.

Ford put me in partnership with a young Israeli woman, Debra London. (Debra, now one of my closest friends, has just been selected to head up fundraising for the rebuilding of Kibbutz Be’eri.) She and I drew up a plan to interview each of the grantees, as well as Israeli ad agencies and media firms. While we wanted to learn about the grantees, we also planned to secure free marketing work and media to be an essential part of the institute.

When we interviewed the Jewish organizations, the atmosphere was almost giddy with hope, possibility and belief in Shimon Peres’s new Middle East. Each organization we interviewed talked excitedly about peace and co-existence, a flourishing economy among both the Jews and the Palestinians, collaborative projects and interchanges.

But when we interviewed the Arab organizations, the word “peace” never passed their lips. They spoke of independence, dignity, self-rule, a state. One person even told me she would never use the word “du-kiyum” (co-existence). “There is no such thing as co-existence,” she stressed. “We are just the tenants living on the property that the Jews now own. That’s not a balanced co-existence.”

I tried to explain to my fellow Jewish liberals that we — the Jews and the Arabs — were having two very separate conversations. We were talking “peace.” They were talking “independence.” But as the weeks of interviews progressed, I found the Arab organizations were talking about a whole lot more.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

On international law, morality and Gaza

The Geneva Conventions of 1949 are quite brilliant. They balance the rights of civilians with the needs of the armed forces. They protect the innocent but do not make an army's job impossible.

They were written with input from humanitarian and military experts after World War II. They are considered customary international law nowadays, even for those who did not sign them.

Israel is adhering to the Geneva Conventions in every aspect in this Gaza war. Waving your hands and saying "children are being killed!" is not an argument. Every single attack has a specific target and a specific goal. Every single attack is weighed between the expected military advantage and the expected casualties.

And Israel has attacked roughly 15,000 targets.

Even if Hamas' casualty numbers are accurate - and previous wars show that usually the ratio of terrorists killed to civilians is higher than in any conflicts in history in urban areas - - that's less than one death per for each attack. That is hardly evidence for a policy of wanton killing!

Not to sound trite, but if you do not know what Israeli intelligence says about a target, and you do not know the military value of the target, you cannot say the attack is disproportionate. You can say it is tragic, you can call it unfair, but you cannot say it violates either international law or morality unless you know what was being targeted. You need both sides of the equation before making an accusation.

In Gaza, most of the targets are hidden. They are underground. Israel relies on intelligence to know what to hit. It is not going to share that intel with the world, nor is it obligated to, for obvious reasons. But according to the laws of armed conflict, , IDF commanders have to weigh what a reasonable military commander would do with the information they have at the moment of attack - knowledge of both the value of the target and the expected civilian loss.

That is international law. And that is the only moral choice. Because allowing Hamas to continue to exist, and to have fighting capability, is profoundly immoral.

If you are assuming that the IDF, with the massive amounts of information it gathers about every square meter of Gaza from SIGINT, HUMINT, IMINT and OSINT collated and cross checked in huge databases, is purposefully targeting civilians, or that they are recklessly endangering civilians for no good reason, and shooting very expensive smart weapons at apartment buildings without warning just for fun or without knowing the target underneath - I'm sorry, but you are simply an antisemite. Because any sane observer would see that Israel is a professional army, with multiple layers of oversight (including multiple layers of legal experts) and a very sophisticated integrated system for finding and firing at targets. It is not a two year old baby throwing a temper tantrum.

But some people cannot conceive of that.

Yes, the optics of thousands of dead Gazans is terrible. Israel knows this better than anyone - because it is on the receiving end of the world's wrath. It has zero incentive to kill Gaza civilians. It doesn't help the war effort. On the contrary, civilian casualties makes thee IDF's job harder. It has every incentive to save civilians.

The only party with incentive to see Gaza civilians dead is Hamas. This is exactly why they choose to place their military centers and bunkers and tunnels in and under schools and hospitals and apartment buildings. Denying that is denying reality.

And we know that Hamas has attacked their own people many times over the years. Sometimes accidentally with errant rockets (which they blame on Israel) and sometimes on purpose . Just yesterday a former USAID leader in Gaza said he has first hand knowledge of Hamas shooting civilians trying to escape a war zone in 2014. And there have been several reports of Hamas shooting at civilians fleeing from the north of Gaza to safety. Hams warned the people not to go from the start. So who has incentive to shoot them if they decide to flee?

This is the reality. And Israel will do whatever it takes - within the law and its own moral code that goes way beyond the law - to accomplish its mission.

If you want to see Israel fail in its mission to destroy Hamas, especially after October 7, then you are the one with a defective moral code.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

11/16 Links Pt1: It’s Not the ‘Occupation,’ Stupid; Police make arrest in killing of American Jew Paul Kessler; IDF finds body of Gaza hostage near Al-Shifa hospital

From Ian:

It’s Not the ‘Occupation,’ Stupid

Like other days of infamy and horror, including December 7, 1941 and 9/11, October 7 should be remembered as a moment of illumination and clarity. Eighteen years after Israel unilaterally evacuated the Gaza Strip, Hamas sent its killing squads across the border to fight what the group believes is an “occupation.” For Hamas, though, the goal is to end the 75-year-old Zionist occupation of Tel Aviv and every other city and settlement in Israel today. Or, to put it more directly, the Jewish state is still fighting its war of independence.

Even the allegedly more moderate Palestinian Authority declares that the 1948 war is still ongoing every Nakba Day when it sends tens of thousands of violent demonstrators to the streets, chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” The very same slogan is now also routinely chanted at college campuses and public squares all over the Unites States.

The mass-murder events of October 7 have understandably evoked memories of the Holocaust. In a phone call with President Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hamas committed acts “as in Babyn Yar where Jews where machine-gunned in killing pits.” Although morally correct, the comparison is not quite precise enough. Babyn Yar occurred a thousand miles away from the Middle East; Haj Amin al-Hussein and Hassan al-Banna worked for a Final Solution for the Jews of Palestine.

It’s more appropriate now for Israelis to focus on the strictly local political and religious antecedents of the October 7 massacres. The Hamas shahids of today are the spiritual children of al-Husseini and al-Banna, and of the alliance between Islamic Jew-hatred and Nazi eliminationist anti-Semitism.

Hamas was created in 1987 as the Palestinian branch of the Egyptian Brotherhood. Its founding charter speaks of a sharia state similar to the Caliphate. Its religious slogan is “Islam is the solution.” But it is the legacy of al-Husseini and his embrace of Nazi Jew-hatred that drives Hamas’s political and military policies.

How dispiriting it is, then, to recall the many occasions over the past hundred years on which otherwise well-meaning British and Israeli officials fell into the trap of believing that this Islamist/Nazi ideological movement could be bribed into relative normalcy with political gifts and accommodations. Even the allegedly hardline Netanyahu governments of the past 15 years willfully ignored the lessons of history and complacently believed that Hamas had been deterred by bundles of cash.

The slogan “never again” has historically referred to the catastrophe in Europe where defenseless Jews were led to the slaughter. It must now take on a second meaning in the Jewish homeland. Self-defense is not the issue there. The people, the ordinary citizens of Israel, have shown over and over again that they can come together as one, rise to the occasion and defend their communities. It is rather that Israel’s governments and politicians must now pledge, “Never again.” Meaning, never again will we be lulled into complacency or forget the brutal lesson of the past 100 years. When avowed enemies steeped in Nazi and Islamic Jew-hatred announce they want to kill us, we should take them seriously and prepare to kill them first. Finally, never again will we believe that such enemies can be bribed into decent human behavior.

JPost Editorial: Israel must be given time to complete its mission in Gaza

US President Joe Biden’s call that Israel take “less intrusive action” at hospitals across Gaza aside, Sullivan’s remarks and others he made on Monday, demonstrate that the US understood Israel was obliged to continue focusing on Gaza hospitals due to Hamas’s practices.

The Israeli army is facing “murderous terrorists who continue to say that their goal is the destruction of the State of Israel,” Sullivan stated. “You are dealing with a terrorist organization, Hamas, that takes civilians, hostages, including little children, that uses civilians as human shields, that uses civilian infrastructure – even hospitals, in the most cynical ways possible – as fighting positions, as military operation centers,” he said.

“Israel has to confront that while at the same time not wanting to go assaulting hospitals in firefights that could put innocent people who are getting life-saving medical care in the crossfire. This is the complexity, this is the burden that the Israel Defense Forces are facing as they conduct their operations,” he explained.

The other truth that has emerged during the war is the scope of what Hamas was planning to do to Israel on October 7, and the realization that this war must end the threat the terrorist group poses to Israel and its citizens once and for all.

According to The Washington Post report published this week, Hamas had hoped to push into large Israeli cities and even to the West Bank. Their aim was to provoke a huge Israeli response and launch a regional war.

Those elements, bolstered by Hamas statements made since October 7 that it will continue to launch more murderous strikes against Israel whenever it can, provide more than enough evidence that Israel must continue its morally just battle against the evil force that controls Gaza, and holds hostage not only the 240 people in captivity, but also all the innocent Palestinian residents of the enclave.

Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told reporters on Monday, citing growing international calls for a ceasefire, that Israel has “two to three weeks” to complete its war against Hamas.

Israel has made the case that it is fighting this war not just for itself, but for the democracies of the West, as part of the battle against Iran’s influence across the globe.

The most productive move the leaders of the free world can take right now is to provide Israel with all the time it needs to finish the job and eradicate Hamas, now and forever.

Seth Mandel: Israel’s Narrative Busting

Israel’s much anticipated raid on Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital produced far less drama than many expected, and it should reset many people’s prior assumptions about the IDF’s war conduct—and Hamas’s.

The troops deployed to the Gaza City compound last night have already left the hospital, according to those inside. So far, events have borne out Israel’s account of the war in three key ways.

First, that al-Shifa hospital and others are used by Hamas’s military. “I can confirm for you that we have information that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad use some hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including Al-Shifa, and tunnels underneath them, to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters yesterday, adding that “Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad—J.I.D.—members operate a command and control node from Al-Shifa in Gaza City. They have stored weapons there, and they’re prepared to respond to an Israeli military operation against that facility.”

The U.S. confirmed this with its own intelligence assessment, he stressed. Dave Harden, the former West Bank and Gaza mission director for USAID, chimed in this morning to note that Hamas’s practice of using hospitals was widely understood in Palestinian circles as well. According to international law, he explained, the protection of a hospital from attack would be void “if a hospital is used as a base from which to launch an attack; as an observation post to transmit information of military value; as a weapons depot; as a center for liaison with fighting troops.”

That also helps explain why Kirby specifically said this morning that Hamas has violated the laws of war.

Second, Hamas was specifically using patients in the hospital as human shields. Israel’s demonstrated ability to transfer patients and medical equipment to and from al-Shifa backs up the fact that, as John Podhoretz noted over the weekend, “Every single patient, every single doctor, every single nurse, and every single piece of medical equipment in that building could have been moved, carefully and without molestation from Israel, over the course of the three weeks that Israel’s military task seemed to be to soften the battleground miles and miles north of al-Shifa.”

Israel finds body of Gaza hostage near Al-Shifa hospital

The IDF announced on Thursday evening that it had found the body of Yehudit Weiss, an Israeli civilian thought to have been taken hostage by Hamas on October 7.

The remains of Weiss, a resident of the southern kibbutz of Be'eri, were found near a structure adjacent to the Al-Shifa Hospital which serves as a military weapons cache, the IDF said.

Her body was found by the IDF's 603rd Combat Engineering Battalion operating in Gaza as part of Operation Swords of Iron.

Weiss was battling cancer before her death at the hands of Hamas.