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Monday, April 01, 2024
Monday, April 01, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
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Sunday, March 31, 2024
Sunday, March 31, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
The nun stood in front of a group of young students at a Lebanese Christian school and asked them to pray for the "men of the resistance" in southern Lebanon who she said were defending the country.The men to whom nun Maya Ziadeh was referring are members of the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which has been clashing with Israel across a volatile border for nearly six months, becoming a critical regional player as the Israel-Hamas war persists in Gaza.A video capturing Ziadeh's comments was widely circulated online earlier this month, outraging some who accused her of "brainwashing" the children and imposing her political views. Others rallied to her support, commending her stance as courageous and honorable.
Ziadeh called for praying for the "children, people and mothers of the south and ... for the men of the resistance," describing those who fail to do so as "traitors," a characterization that many found troubling, especially given the young age of her audience.
We should never wish harm on other Lebanese or side with any foreign power over our own, but that doesn’t mean we should agree with each other’s political choices or else be labeled as traitors. No one in his right mind should support a military group ruling the country, imposing its decisions on us all and taking us on deadly adventures without bearing any of the consequences.
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Israeli Historian Benny Morris: "Hamas Must Be Destroyed"
Israeli historian Benny Morris, 75, was foremost among the "New Historians" who shook Israel with their revisionist accounts of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Yet in the year 2000, when Prime Minister Ehud Barak and President Bill Clinton offered a two-state solution and Yasser Arafat rejected it, Morris said in an interview, "I thought this was a terrible decision by the Palestinians, and I wrote that."Israel is fighting a humane ground war - just ask experts
When the Palestinians, in response to the offer of peace and statehood, then launched a wave of terrorism and suicide bombings unlike any before, Morris disapproved of that, too. "People always forgive the Palestinians, who don't take responsibility," he says. "It's accepted that they are the victim and therefore can do whatever they like."
"As we [Israelis] see it, we are surrounded by the Muslim world, organized in some way by Iran, and the West is turning its back on us. So we see ourselves as the underdog. Now, the Palestinians are the underdog, and the underdog is always right, even if it does the wrong things, like Oct. 7. They were joyous in the West Bank and Gaza when 1,200 Jews were killed and 250 were taken hostage....It was a sick ideology and sick people carrying out murder and rape in the name of that ideology."
Morris stresses the costs of that Palestinian decision. "There was never destruction like what has happened in Gaza over the past five months in any of Israel's wars. Israel conquered the West Bank [in 1967] with almost no houses being destroyed, and the same applies in '56 in Gaza, and the same applies in '48." Probably, Palestinian nationalists "will look back to Oct. 7 as a sort of minor victory over Zionism and disregard the casualties which they paid as a result."
"Not only has each of their big decisions made life worse for their people, but they ensure that each time the idea of a two-state solution is proposed, less of Palestine is offered to them....Each time they're given less of Palestine as a result of being defeated in their efforts to get all of Palestine."
"Israelis today don't want to look at the two-state solution. Most Israelis fear Hamas would take over the West Bank" - a fear amply justified by Hamas' popularity - "and that it would be a springboard for attacks on Israel, as Gaza was."
"The Israeli public, myself included, thinks that we've begun the job and we must finish the job. We must destroy Hamas, and that will include taking Rafah....Hamas must be destroyed after what it did. We can't allow that on our border, in addition to having Hizbullah on our northern border and Iran."
Rather than swallowing such easily disprovable claims, it would be better to rely upon the verifiable evidence of experts like John Spencer, the world’s foremost authority on urban warfare. Chair of urban warfare studies at the United State Military Academy at West Point, he served as an infantryman for 25 years, including two combat tours in Iraq. Israel, he says, protects civilians more effectively than anyone else in the history of warfare.Ruthie Blum: Bashing Bibi helps Hamas
Spencer recently visited Israel and Gaza – including the IDF’s civilian harm mitigation unit – to observe the facts on the ground. “All available evidence shows that Israel has followed the laws of war, legal obligations, best practices in civilian harm mitigation and still found a way to reduce civilian casualties to historically low levels,” he concluded.
Warfighting is an ugly business and soldiers are soldiers. But overall, the IDF’s actions have been deeply humane, Spencer said, moving civilians out of harm’s way to an unprecedented extent and deploying “technologies never used anywhere in the world” to preserve life. This has included 70,000 telephone calls, 13 million text messages and 15 million voicemails warning people to evacuate by designated routes to safe areas.
Giant speakers have been dropped by parachute that begin broadcasting warnings once they touch the ground. Military maps have been handed out and tracking technology has been used to keep people safe. “Ironically, the careful approach Israel has taken may have actually led to more destruction,” Spencer pointed out, since by assisting Hamas it likely prolonged the war.
The credible casualty figures stand testament to these efforts. Gaining exact data is impossible, but the true ratio, Spencer concluded, is about 1 combatant to 1.5 civilians. By comparison, when Britain, the US and other allies destroyed Islamic State in Mosul in 2016-17, the ratio was about 1 to 2.5; and according to the UN and the EU, the global average is 1 to 9. “Given Hamas’s likely inflation of the death count, the real figure could be closer to 1 to 1,” Spencer wrote. “Either way, the number would be historically low for modern urban warfare.”
What madness has possessed us? We would never dream of trusting data from the Kremlin or Islamic State. The statistics coming out of Gaza are obviously bogus. A paper by three distinguished academics, published this week, found that “the casualty figures concerning women and children are statistically impossible”, at one point even involving “the statistical equivalent of the resurrection of over a thousand men”. The 70 per cent figure has been decisively debunked.
Yet this very misinformation is still used by the UN, White House and the media. The BBC even relied upon it to supposedly disprove Israel’s claims to the contrary. “The BBC ‘factcheckers’ and other western media could easily have determined this for themselves, using publicly available information,” the academics lamented.
The illusory truth is all around us. How shameful. It is incumbent on people of conscience to dispel it whenever we can.
In the first place, every move by Netanyahu and his government since that Black Sabbath nearly six months ago has been made with the hostages in mind. Indeed, much of the prosecution of the war in Gaza is based on fear of killing captives in the process of destroying Hamas.
Such a calculation was taken for granted from the very beginning by Israel Defense Forces soldiers, many of whom have fallen in battle, leaving their bereft families begging Netanyahu not to let those heroic deaths be in vain.
Secondly, through a combination of military pressure and the War Cabinet’s willingness to compromise, Netanyahu succeeded in securing the release of 112 hostages—in addition to three others saved by the IDF in rescue operations.
Third, anti-Netanyahu rallies for the “immediate release” of the hostages—as though Bibi has them handcuffed in his basement—serve only to encourage Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar to harden his already untenable stance.
His goal, after all, is remaining in power. You know, to rebuild his subterranean empire and arsenal with which to perform as many repeats of Oct. 7 as possible.
Fourth, Netanyahu’s brother, Yoni, was killed in the 1976 Entebbe Raid, a commando mission to free more than 100 Israeli and Jewish hostages held by Palestinian and West German hijackers of a flight from Israel to France. To suggest, let alone scream into a megaphone, that he is indifferent to the suffering of those in Hamas clutches is outrageous.
Thankfully, most of the hostage families do not agree with the view or tactics of their activist counterparts. Those who showed up on Saturday were relatives of 20 captives out of a total of 134.
But they came by their methods honestly, so to speak, with a little help from PR hack (aka “political strategist”) Ronen Tzur. Tzur, a veteran “anybody but Bibi” mover and shaker, took it upon himself to head the campaign on behalf of the hostage families.
He tried to use the perch as a platform for his anti-Netanyahu agenda. But his plan ultimately backfired.
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Sunday, March 31, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
Testimonies of Gazans show that patients and their companions are subjected to continuous humiliation and are deprived of the most basic rights. The testimony of "A.K.," who is accompanying her mother to be treated for cancer, explains the severity of these restrictions, as she indicates that she stayed with her mother inside the ambulance on the Egyptian side of the crossing for eight hours before moving to the hospital, which left them extremely exhausted, and when she asked the officials why they used the excuse of sorting out the names of patients.At her first request to leave the hospital, the security officer was late in coming for two hours, and “when I asked for a security woman to accompany me and not a man, the response was that there were no women, so I asked for a woman working in the hospital to accompany me, and this was approved. But the security man kept walking behind me as if I was a dangerous and unwanted person, and I also felt that I was living in a prison and not a hospital, as the door of the department was locked with a key and we were not allowed to approach it.”In an interview with Ultra Palestine, another woman who was being treated for an eye injury said that the ambulance was delayed 12 hours before moving from the Rafah crossing towards Cairo, which doubled the feeling of pain in her injured eye.She added: "After we arrived at the hospital, I asked for a SIM card to communicate with my family, but my request was rejected on the grounds that I did not have a passport. After insisting, security provided me with a special SIM card that only receives calls, and there is no internet service either."She continued in a tone of amazement, "I do not know what danger a sick woman who sees with only one eye could pose to the security of Egypt, that we are treated like prisoners who go to the hospital to receive treatment." The woman indicated that security prohibited her and her accompanying daughter from leaving the hospital to buy their needs, which forced her to request some of their special needs from one of her relatives residing in Egypt.The injured woman says, “If someone who is not a first-degree relative visits me, security will remain with him at the moment of the visit, and in the event of a first-degree relative visiting me, security limits the duration of the visit to 10 minutes only.”
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Sunday, March 31, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
2023-24 Gaza, gaza, Gaza Health Ministry
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Weapons recovered from Shifa's maternity ward |
Israeli forces began their most recent operation there on March 18, saying they are conducting “precise operational activities against terrorists” located at Al-Shifa – a statement also echoed in November’s raid.The IDF had returned in force to Al-Shifa despite Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in January announcing that the most intensive phase of operations in northern Gaza was complete.Speaking to his troops in a video shared by the Defense Ministry, Gallant on March 26 hailed the operation, saying the hospital was reached “in a flash” and that Hamas operatives still holed up at the hospital “are considering their future: surrender or death.”Throughout its 11-day operation, the Israeli military this month said it had detained hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in and around the hospital, killing dozens of others.Around Al-Shifa, the IDF said in an update Wednesday, “approximately 200 terrorists have been eliminated in the area of the hospital since the beginning of the activity.” The IDF also claimed that “terrorists fired at IDF troops from within and outside of the ER (emergency room) building at the Shifa Hospital.”CNN is unable to verify these numbers.Israel has for years claimed that Hamas fighters are sheltering in mosques, hospitals and other civilian places to avoid Israeli attacks. Hamas has repeatedly denied the claims.
Israeli officials have echoed the accusations since October 7, and following their first raid in November escorted CNN into Gaza to see a newly exposed tunnel shaft discovered at the compound of Al-Shifa Hospital.
The evidence did not establish without a doubt that there was a Hamas command center underneath the hospital as Israel had claimed.
Of course, since CNN's tour, more evidence has been uncovered - US intelligence confirmed that the hospital was used by Hamas and the New York Times reported that the tunnels underneath were much more extensive than what CNN has reported in November.
Residents of the area around Al-Shifa told CNN there was heavy firing in the vicinity. One family said their home was shelled, and that children – some still alive – were buried under the rubble.
Targeting hospitals in wartime is prohibited under international law, but those standards change if enemy combatants are using the facility to attack an enemy.One eyewitness said that, on the eve of the raid, they spotted hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad members inside the hospital.The eyewitness, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, estimated about 400 to 500 Hamas and Islamic Jihad members and their families arrived at the hospital in mid-March. Some of them appeared to be members of Hamas’ political branch, while others were armed militants.The eyewitness said some of the militants were carrying guns inside the hospital.CNN is unable to independently verify the numbers due to lack of reporting access to the strip, and has asked the Gaza health ministry for comment.
"The actual operation was a tactical success," confirms Veronika Poniscjakova, a specialist in international security issues and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the University of Portsmouth in the UK. The Israeli army “let Hamas think that they would attack elsewhere – in the central refugee camps of the Strip – and when Hamas returned to Shifa, the Israelis closed in on them", and took many prisoners, according to Ahron Bregman, a specialist in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at King's College London.The Israeli action enabled Israel to recover “extremely valuable intelligence” about their enemy, as suggested by the images and videos of the interrogations that the Israeli army has made public, notes Omri Brinner, an analyst and specialist in Middle East geopolitics at the International Team for the Study of Security (ITSS) in Verona, Italy.[I]n the current offensive, "the Israelis have been far more sophisticated in the way they are presenting this operation" and "they are using a much more precise way to message to the world that the threat inside the complex is real and credible," says Clive Jones, a specialist in Israel and the Middle East at Durham University in the UK. The army is using drone footage of gun battles and photos of the discovery of weapons caches to "try to convince international opinion that they had legitimate reasons for returning to fight in this hospital", adds Jones.Israel also needs to prove it has the ability to carry out this type of highly sensitive operation with as few civilian casualties as possible. The precedent of the US-Iraq war in 2003 shows that “as soon as an army leaves an area, insurgents seek to return", says Bregman. This view is shared by other analysts. "We can expect Hamas to do the same thing in other hospitals, but also in schools or refugee camps where there are civilian populations", notes Shahin Modarres, an independent expert on international security and the Middle East.By taking its time in the Al Shifa operation, the Israeli army is “signaling to Hamas that it will target it even if it harbours in places considered safe havens, such as hospitals, UNRWA compounds, mosques and schools”, says Brinner. At the same time, it's trying to prove to the international community that it knows how to do it” with a level of restraint.
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Sunday, March 31, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
Perhaps one of the best references for reading the Jewish theological mind is provided by the prominent Jewish academic, Professor Israel Shahak, in his important book, “Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years” The content of this book gains special importance because it comes from a Jew - an “insider” - who is supposed to escape the accusation of “anti-Jewishness” directed at non-Jewish researchers. But he did not escape the charge of “anti-Semitism” because he fearlessly wrote about the horrific details that the Zionist colonial establishment invokes from the religious texts that Jews must hide from the “gentiles.” For example, Talmud 37 states, “To communicate anything to the goyim (non-Jews) about our religious relations is equivalent to killing all the Jews, for if the goyim knew what we teach about them, they would kill us openly."
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Saturday, March 30, 2024
JCPA: The Psychology of Palestinian Distortions and Deceptions
Global opinion has moved from outrage at Hamas on October 7, 2023, to criticism of Israel just months later. How? A Palestinian strategy manipulates perception to distort and present an alternate reality.Jonathan Tobin: Israel’s global isolation is caused by antisemitism, not bad policies
While the Hamas of October 7 was a vicious terror organization, the passage of time has shifted perception to “innocent Palestinians” who are “victims,” consistent with the ongoing Palestinian chronicle of victimization used as a central motif in their national narrative.
Facts and accurate information will not always effectively counter misinformation based on previous perceptions created by Palestinian sources. The “primacy effect,” where first impressions persist, plays a psychological role.
Palestinians distort reality by providing material for perceptions that feed a cognitive set that promotes favoring perceived victims who are presented as suffering, with images of casualties, poor housing conditions, lack of food, and emotional distress.
Western thinking that elicits sympathy for victims and absolves them of responsibility feeds into the deception strategy of Palestinian terror.
While contextual reality is the basis for accurate information, Palestinians distort this by using civilians as psychological human shields in a cognitive war.
Countering with the “truth” is likely ineffective unless the “truth” is framed in a context that appeals to the same cognitive framework of “fairness” and victim appeal that Palestinians have been using.
While sterile “counter-narratives” are ineffective, research suggests that adding emotive imagery and personalization can help change perceptions and reality.
Sadly, nothing will make Israel be loved by the world. The Jewish state cannot be “rebranded” to associate itself solely with its stellar economy, scientific accomplishments, or the beauty of its scenery or the genius of its people. The only formula for Jewish survival is the one that Zionist statesman and thinker Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote about in his 1923 essay “The Iron Wall,” in which he preached that only when the Arab world realizes that it can’t defeat the Jews can peace be possible.Lawmakers urge sanctions on International Court of Justice president
It should be remembered that the alliance with the United States, which is Israel’s greatest diplomatic asset, was not a gift given to the Jews by a benevolent American government in 1948. There was no alliance with Washington until after Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, when it demonstrated its military strength and acquired the strategic depth that made its survival not quite so precarious.
That belief in Israel’s dominance was also what impelled some Arab states to give up the fight leading to peace deals like the 2020 Abraham Accords. However, if Hamas is allowed to emerge from the war it started by breaching Israel’s defenses not only alive but crowned as the victor, antisemites will not merely be encouraged. They will think that for all of its strength and accomplishments, the Jewish state that Jabotinsky envisioned lacks that iron wall that it still needs.
Those who care about Israel must take these lessons to heart and realize that the only solution to its current situation is for Jerusalem to ignore its critics and push through to victory, no matter how difficult that might be in terms of its military and diplomatic challenges. Only by clearly beating the Hamas criminals, as well as their many supporters and enablers, can circumstances ease a little. Anything less and a nightmare scenario envisioned by antisemitic foes—in which Israel truly becomes a pariah state—will be the inevitable result.
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers urged the State Department on Thursday to consider placing sanctions on the recently elected president of the International Court of Justice over his alleged anti-Israel bias if he does not recuse himself from the two Israel-related cases before the court.
“Judge [Nawaf] Salam’s clear and well-documented record of bias against the Jewish state and persistent violations of the ICJ charter make it abundantly clear that he will not be a fair and neutral arbiter in these cases,” nine lawmakers said in a letter to Secretary of State Tony Blinken on Thursday, calling the Lebanese jurist “wholly unfit” to hear the cases.
Salam, the letter notes, was Lebanon’s ambassador to the United Nations for a decade, during which time he voted against Israel on numerous issues and posted statements criticizing Israel. It also notes that he finished second in Lebanon’s prime ministership elections in 2019 and 2022, while he was on the court, which the letter describes as another breach of ICJ rules, although it acknowledges he was never a formally declared candidate.
The lawmakers said Salam is violating the charter by refusing to recuse himself from the Israel-related cases. They said his continued participation in ICJ rulings on Israel “underscor[es] the need for further action to secure Judge Salam’s recusal in compliance with the ICJ charter.” They called on the administration to restrict his travel to the U.S. and explore other sanctions if he does not recuse himself.
The letter also criticizes the ICJ cases against Israel more broadly, warning “one or more politically-motivated rulings against Israel will set a precedent that poses an international challenge to all states’ legitimate defense against terrorism” and threaten potential prospects for peace.
The letter was signed by Reps. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Keith Self (R-TX), Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), Bill Posey (R-FL), Neal Dunn (R-FL) and Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY).
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Friday, March 29, 2024
If the West abandons Israel, we all lose
In one sense, of course, the posturing by European and American politicians makes no difference to the war, since the Israeli government and people have so far shown little inclination to buckle, despite the international opprobrium. When Starmer declared that the fighting must ‘stop now’ in February, he might as well have said ‘stop the world, I want to get off’. But such political posturing does increase Israel’s isolation in a hostile world.Jeff Jacoby: 'Israel Alone' What The Economist unwittingly gets right about the Jewish state
More immediately, the impending abandonment of Israel really does matter here in the UK, Europe and the West. It signals that our leaders are giving up on the fight to defend democracy and freedom at home, and to resist the rising tide of anti-Semitism.
In the immediate aftermath of 7 October, the British Jewish playwright Tom Stoppard issued a cautionary warning that: ‘Before we take up a position on what’s happening now, we should consider whether this is a fight over territory or a struggle between civilisation and barbarism.’
Six months later, that is even more true. This remains a fundamental struggle between civilisation and barbarism. Not a ‘fight over territory’ or any two-state solutions. It is an existential battle about the survival of the only Western-style democracy in the Middle East – and the ability of Western society to defend its values against Islamist and allied barbarians who are not only within the gates of the citadel, but also projecting their pro-genocide message on to the Palace of Westminster. The unholy alliance of Islamist and left-wing anti-Semitism, united by their hatred for Western society, is the threat we face at home.
Anybody who wants to defend our democratic civilisation, warts and all, needs to stand foursquare with the Israeli people, and to remind the world of who they are fighting against and what they are fighting for. As spineless Western leaders risk losing the life-and-death war over there, and the struggle for democratic values at home, our message needs to be: No Surrender.
Last week’s cover story of the Economist, titled “Israel Alone,” is filled with dire predictions about the country being “locked in the bleakest trajectory of its 75-year existence,” about it facing growing “isolation,” and about Israelis being “in denial” about their situation. These predictions were, of course, accompanied by little understanding of Israeli society, the Middle East, or the situation in Gaza. Jeff Jacoby observes that the Jewish state is far from being without allies. Yet for all the article’s flaws, Jacoby suggests there is some truth to its central thesis:Jonathan Chait: Does the Left Think Young Left-Wing Protesters Matter or Not? Demanding Biden heed the campus left means accepting scrutiny of its ideas.
The pioneers of modern Zionism were convinced that only in a country of their own could Jews finally achieve the normality denied them for so long—the normality other peoples take for granted.
But they were wrong. Israel has never been regarded as a “normal” country.
What the Economist proclaims on its cover, the Biblical prophet Balaam, a non-Jew, proclaimed in the book of Numbers. Attempting to execrate the Israelites, he intoned: “Lo, it is a people that dwells alone/ And shall not be reckoned among the nations.” In that singular description—a people that dwells alone—is encapsulated an essential reality of the long, long history of the Jews. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, the Jewish people—and the reborn Jewish state—are fundamentally alone, unlike the “normal” peoples and nations with whom they share the planet. Israel can never be just another country, like Belgium or Thailand. The Jewish state is alone; and that is both its blessing and its curse.
This week, Salma Hamamy, president of the main pro-Palestinian student group at the University of Michigan, shared (and then deleted) a social-media message stating, “Until my last breath, I will utter death to every single individual who supports the Zionist state. Death and more. Death and worse.” (The University sent an email denouncing the message.)
While she may be an undergrad, Hamamy is hardly anonymous. She was one of four undergraduates to receive the University of Michigan’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Spirit Award honoring students “who best exemplify the leadership and extraordinary vision of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.” The Michigan Daily endorsed her campaign for student-council president. State, national, and international newspapers have quoted her warning Biden to change course and citing her as an example of the kind of progressive Democrats have to placate.
Last month, the New York Times jointly profiled her and a pro-Israel activist in a story presenting both as searching for common humanity. “As dusk neared, they walked alone to a nearby campus building and sat together on a bench. Maybe this would be a chance to recognize one another’s humanity,” the Times reported. “He needed to know why anti-Israel protesters had not forcefully condemned the deaths of Israeli civilians.”
I think that mystery has been cleared up.
No serious person is proposing that Biden go all the way to denouncing Israel as an illegitimate settler-colonist entity. There is room to debate degrees of movement within his stance. The point is that the amount of attention that’s been devoted to presenting left-wing pro-Palestinian activists as a powerful and even potentially decisive faction in national politics implies the need for a proportionate level of scrutiny of their ideas. To insist these activists only matter when you are touting their influence, and then to deny their power when they receive scrutiny, is a tactic posing as an ideal.
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Friday, March 29, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
During the rescue raid, the Israeli military said it carried out large-scale airstrikes as a diversion to provide cover to the special forces. Palestinian men, women and children were killed - more than 70, according to Gaza health officials. I asked Luis Har about it.
Har: I don't know. It's not my business. The military can answer you. I see that most of the people there are Hamas. They don't intend to pet us and to love us, and I have no mercy toward them at the moment.
The following are among the deadliest incidents reported on 12 February:At about 6:00, 15 Palestinians, including children, were reportedly killed, and several others injured, when a residential building in southern Deir al Balah was struck.At about 1:50, 11 Palestinians were reportedly killed, and tens of others injured, when a residential building in the Yibna area of southern Rafah, was struck.At about 1:55, five Palestinians were reportedly killed, and tens other injured, when a residential building in Tal Asl Sultan area, in western Rafah, was struck.At about 2:00, seven Palestinians were reportedly killed, and tens of others injured, when a residential building near Al Falah Mosque, in northern Rafah, was struck.At about 2:00, five Palestinians were reportedly killed, and tens of others were injured, when a residential building in Al Adis area, in northeastern Rafah, was struck.At about 2:00, five Palestinians were reportedly killed, and tens of others injured, when a residential building in Ash Shouka area, in southern Rafah, was struck.At about 2:10, seven Palestinians were reportedly killed, and tens of others injured, when a residential building in An Nasser area, in southern Rafah, was struck.At about 2:40, five Palestinians were reportedly killed, and tens of others injured, when a residential building in Al Junina area, in southern Rafah, was struck.Aat about 2:45, ten Palestinians were reportedly killed, and tens of others injured, when a residential building in Bader area, in southern Rafah, was struck.
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Biden Has No Israel Policy
To believe that a ceasefire would lead to a nonviolent Palestinian state and Israeli-Saudi normalization is to succumb to delusion. A ceasefire would leave Hamas's remaining brigades intact, emboldening its leadership and its followers in the West Bank, Lebanon, and elsewhere. A ceasefire would tempt Hezbollah to escalate its simmering conflict with Israel. A ceasefire would strengthen Iran and its proxies, including the Houthis. There is one way to restore security, reduce tensions, and promote regional integration: Allow Israel to prove its strength by ending Hamas as a coherent military force.Pompeo rips US decision at UN, says it ‘thrilled’ Hamas
That answer might not satisfy the columnists who visit Biden in the Oval Office, flattering him with tall tales of historic achievements if only he bullies Israel into letting Hamas escape. It is no doubt easier to believe, as Biden and his national security adviser Jake Sullivan do, that there are no tradeoffs and that the dangers of radical Islamist movements can be wished away by reciting the mantra of a "foreign policy for the middle class."
And yet, by privileging domestic politics over serious policy, Biden has found himself, Commander-like, chasing his own tail. Biden says he supports Israel, while desperately trying to appease the anti-Israel vote in Michigan. He promises severe consequences for Iran, its militias, and the Houthis, while granting Iran a $10 billion sanctions waiver and looking elsewhere as soon as proxy violence tapers off. He voices his frustration with Netanyahu, while saying nothing as Hamas leaders visit with the Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran.
"In balancing U.S. interests and priorities," writes my AEI colleague Danielle Pletka, "the White House and its allies in Europe will face two options: engage in a region ever more dominated by Iran and its proxies, or cede Iranian dominance, replete with a lethal nuclear weapons program. The choice should be obvious." If only it were obvious to Biden and the anti-Bibi Democrats, whose dislike of Israel's elected leader is blinding them to geopolitical reality. Absent a directed, sustained, and articulated policy of no daylight between the United States and Israel, the rift between America and her ally will widen and the world will grow more dangerous. Such is life with President Biden, amid a darkening international scene that, alas, has not changed one bit.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday criticized the Biden administration’s decision to abstain from a vote on a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, saying it “thrilled” Hamas.Is Biden normalizing Hamas?
“Hamas, when they saw the abstention, were thrilled,” Pompeo said on Fox News’s “The Story” with anchor Martha MacCallum.
“The Chinese Communist Party? Happier than heck. The Russians? Happier than heck. The Iranians? Absolutely beyond themselves, thrilled that the United States of America refused to stand up for its ally.”
“I think that’s so telling,” Pompeo continued. “That’s very risky, for every American, when you see the United States walk away from its long-term strategic ally and friend in the Middle East.”
The U.N. Security Council on Monday passed its first resolution calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, but the U.S. abstained. It called for an immediate cease-fire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and for the immediate release of all hostages being held by Hamas.
The U.S. abstention appeared to have angered Israel, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceling a government delegation’s visit to Washington shortly after the vote. In a statement, the prime minister’s office said the abstention was “a clear departure from the consistent position of the United States at the Security Council since the beginning of the war.”
“The United States has abandoned its policy in the UN today,” the statement reads. “In light of the change in the US position, Prime Minister Netanyahu decided that the delegation will remain in Israel.”
The crisis between the White House and Israel continues to escalate. The State Department reacted angrily to Israeli statements that the U.N. Security Council resolution demanding a ceasefire had undermined negotiations to release Israeli hostages held by Hamas, calling the Israeli statement “inaccurate in almost every respect.” President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken took umbrage at Israel’s response after the U.S. abstention allowed the resolution’s passage without explicitly linking a ceasefire to the release of hostages.
Israel is right, however, but should not be surprised. Biden approached the 2020 elections by arguing the adults would be back in charge, but his team’s true legacy is normalizing Hamas in a way once unthinkable.
Consider former Secretary of State John Kerry, who technically joined the White House as an unconfirmed environment czar but really acted as a foreign policy adviser on par with Blinken. Kerry has a soft spot for Hamas. Just weeks into President Barack Obama’s administration, for example, Kerry became the first U.S. lawmaker to visit Gaza since Hamas took control in a bloody coup against its Palestinian coalition partners. Kerry not only met with officials but also brought back messages and proposals, essentially becoming Hamas’s mailman. He legitimized a pariah group.
The Biden team also hired Rob Malley, Blinken’s chum and confidant, despite Malley’s long-standing ties to Hamas. Such ties were extensive enough that they were too much, at least initially, when Obama was assembling his team. Malley, whose father worked for the PLO and whose mother worked for Algerian militants, is now under investigation for alleged leaks of classified material to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Top White House officials also appear tolerant of, if not sympathetic to, Hamas. Yale Law School has been a feeder for both the Obama and Biden administrations. It is a chummy place, dedicated more to building networks among future leaders than the practical study of law.
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Friday, March 29, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
Within minutes of walking through an Israeli military checkpoint along Gaza’s central highway on Nov. 19, the Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha was asked to step out of the crowd. He put down his 3-year-old son, whom he was carrying, and sat in front of a military jeep.Half an hour later, Mr. Abu Toha heard his name called. Then he was blindfolded and led away for interrogation.“I had no idea what was happening or how they could suddenly know my full legal name,” said the 31-year-old, who added that he had no ties to the militant group Hamas and had been trying to leave Gaza for Egypt.It turned out Mr. Abu Toha had walked into the range of cameras embedded with facial recognition technology, according to three Israeli intelligence officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. After his face was scanned and he was identified, an artificial intelligence program found that the poet was on an Israeli list of wanted persons, they said.Mr. Abu Toha is one of hundreds of Palestinians who have been picked out by a previously undisclosed Israeli facial recognition program that was started in Gaza late last year. The expansive and experimental effort is being used to conduct mass surveillance there, collecting and cataloging the faces of Palestinians without their knowledge or consent, according to Israeli intelligence officers, military officials and soldiers.The technology was initially used in Gaza to search for Israelis who were taken hostage by Hamas during the Oct. 7 cross-border raids, the intelligence officials said. After Israel embarked on a ground offensive in Gaza, it increasingly turned to the program to root out anyone with ties to Hamas or other militant groups. At times, the technology wrongly flagged civilians as wanted Hamas militants, one officer said.
The thrust of the article is that these high-tech methods are being abused used to detain people. But when you read the details of the case, the mistake was not with the software:
Mr. Abu Toha, the Palestinian poet, was named as a Hamas operative by someone in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia, where he lived with his family, the Israeli intelligence officers said. The officers said there was no specific intelligence attached to his file explaining a connection to Hamas.
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Friday, March 29, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
Several areas of prejudice reduction are in need of research and theory. Although antibias, multicultural, and moral education are popular approaches, they have not been examined with a great deal of rigor, and many applications are theoretically ungrounded. Spending on corporate diversity training in the United States alone costs an estimated $8 billion annually (cited in Hansen 2003), and yet the impact of diversity training remains largely unknown (Paluck 2006a).
....In terms of size, breadth, and vitality, the prejudice literature has few rivals. Thousands of researchers from an array of disciplines have addressed the meaning, measurement, and expression of prejudice. The result is a literature teeming with ideas about the causes of prejudice. In quantitative terms, the literature on prejudice reduction is vast, but a survey of this literature reveals a paucity of research that supports internally valid inferences and externally valid generalization.
PUBLICATION BIAS IN THE PREJUDICE REDUCTION LITERATUREPublication bias occurs when the direction or strength of a study's outcome influences whether it is published or not. When academic journals are reluctant to publish research papers that report statistically insignificant treatment effects, studies that produce weak or null effects may remain invisible to the academic community.A telltale sign of publication bias is a strong positive relationship between reported effects and their standard errors, because smaller studies, which tend to generate larger standard errors, must produce larger effect estimates in order to achieve significance at the 0.05 level. Our collection of studies displays a powerful relationship of this kind, even when we focus solely on lab experiments (N = 301): Lab studies that generate precise results tend to show less prejudice reduction than smaller studies that typically generate results with large standard errors. A linear regression of all effect sizes on standard error shows a distressing positive relationship (see the Supplemental Appendix for a graphical depiction) in which the intercept is close to zero, suggesting that a study large enough to generate a standard error of approximately zero would, on average, produce no change in prejudice at all. In other words, if the current collection of studies had been conducted on a much larger scale, our analysis would have shown no reduction in prejudice.
As Harvard Professor and Yiddish scholar, Ruth Wisse (2017), has argued, anti-Semitism has not thrived because of ignorance, but because it “forms part of a political movement and serves a political purpose.” Those political causes making use of anti-Semitism are increasingly favored by the well-educated in this country. Countering the anti-Semitism of the well-educated will be a political and moral struggle, not one that addressed by conventional approaches and conceptions of education.
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Friday, March 29, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
But the Palestinians in Gaza tell a different story, one that news media has only rarely covered.
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