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ISRAEL

Israel, Free World, in Increasing Danger Thanks to U.S. ‘Help’ by Guy Millière

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20706/israel-in-increasing-danger

Hamas not only uses its civilians as human shields, but may be the first government in history that wants to see its own people killed in order to blame another country, Israel, for their deaths. Meanwhile, Israel goes out of its way – seriously risking the lives of its soldiers – not to commit any crimes against humanity or indiscriminately bomb, as Russia does in Ukraine.

“Israel implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any nation in history,” wrote John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point.

For decades, many of the countries of the Arab world have wanted to erase Israel from the map. Each time, they have failed. Their project consists of trying to destroy the Jewish state and kill every Jew, as Hamas’ 1988 Charter requires. No one in a Western country could support it without being seen as an anti-Semite.

A radical change occurred, however, in 1964. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded and the myth of “Palestinian cause” invented. Zuheir Mohsen (زهير محسن) a leading PLO member responsible for Damur massacre, admitted:

“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese.

“Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva, and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”

A “national liberation struggle” was, in fact, fabricated by Soviet Union’s KGB, according to Ion Mihai Pacepa, who served from 1972-1978 as deputy chief of Romania’s foreign intelligence service and advisor to Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Pacepa said:

“The PLO and the Palestinian Narrative was dreamt up by the KGB, which had a penchant for ‘liberation’ organizations.”

“First, the KGB destroyed the official records of Arafat’s birth in Cairo, and replaced them with fictitious documents saying that he had been born in Jerusalem and was, therefore, a Palestinian by birth.”

“According to [Soviet leader Yuri] Andropov, the Islamic world was a waiting petri dish in which we could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought. Islamic anti-Semitism ran deep… We had only to keep repeating our themes — that the United States and Israel were “fascist, imperial-Zionist countries” bankrolled by rich Jews.”

Israel was no longer described as a small Jewish state besieged by much larger, powerful Arab countries filled with despicable intentions. Israel was suddenly presented as an “imperialist” power oppressing a small deprived people and supposedly having stolen their land. Anti-Israeli terrorist acts were presented as “resistance”. The aim was to seduce the West; and quickly seduced it was.

How Iranians View the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Whom do the Iranians see as the real source of their problems? by Farhad Rezaei

https://www.frontpagemag.com/how-iranians-view-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/

The Islamic Republic’s proxy war against Israel is well-known. Yet, less understood is the strong support for Israel among the Iranian people in its conflict with Palestinian terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Lebanese Hezbollah. This paradoxical stance, puzzling to many observers, reveals a complex interplay of social and political factors. At its core, this support highlights a significant public sentiment against the Islamic Republic’s regional policies and proxy wars with Israel.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas and PIJ terrorists carried out a brutal attack against Israeli civilians, killing over 1,200, including infants, toddlers, and women, with expert sadism. They also took 150 civilians hostage, ranging from babies to Holocaust survivors in wheelchairs.

In response to this savage massacre, Israel initiated a counterattack against the terrorists to eliminate the terror groups. However, Israel’s retaliation drew global condemnation and incited violent actions by many Muslims against Jews in various countries, including the United States.

Surprisingly, many Iranians, both publicly and on social media, expressed sympathy and support for Israel and urged the Israeli government to eliminate Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad.

This raises the question of how the Iranian regime can sponsor terrorism against Israel while the Iranian people publicly support Israel and advocate for the elimination of groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad, all of which are sponsored by the regime. This paradoxical stance reveals a complex interplay of social and political factors, which this article aims to explore.

First of all, majority of Iranians regard groups like Palestinian Hamas and PIJ, and Lebanese Hezbollah as sources of their country’s political isolation and economic hardship. To understand the origins of this perspective, it is imperative to explore the Iranian regime’s costly and irrational proxy wars against Israel.

Palestinians’ Heroes: Murderers, Rapists and Kidnappers of Babies by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20703/palestinians-heroes

Support for Hamas also coincides with the Biden administration’s and some European nations’ ongoing promotion of creating a Palestinian state right next to Israel. This move would not only open the door for more atrocities against Israelis, but would also put Israel in grave danger because the Palestinian state, even under the supposedly watchful eye of a chaperone, would essentially be ruled by the same murderers and rapists who took part in the October 7 carnage.

These European nations — Ireland, Norway, and Spain — have sent a message to the Palestinians that the only way they can get international recognition for their state is by murdering Jews.

In a similar vein, the Biden administration has communicated to the Palestinians that the October 7 atrocities have heightened their likelihood of creating a terror state ruled by the Iranian regime and its Palestinian proxies, which would be used as a launchpad to murder more Jews and destroy Israel. This is evident in the administration’s continued support for a “two-state solution.”

Most Palestinians know what the Biden administration does not want to know: that the PA leadership cannot be trusted to implement any reforms or combat financial and administrative corruption.

In addition, 54% of Palestinians polled support an “armed struggle” against Israel, an 8-point rise from the previous poll three months ago.

The results of the poll also confirm what a Palestinian state would look like: it will be a terror state funded and armed by Qatar and Iran.

This tenacity is exactly why there is no substitute to destroying Hamas.

[Hamas official Ghazi] Hamad also said that Egypt and Qatar have exerted no pressure on Hamas whatsoever to accept Biden’s proposed ceasefire, and that media reports about threats to expel Hamas leaders from Qatar are false.

Or is it possible that this is why they want Hamas to win? To see the Jews finally get their comeuppance for having had the gall not to accept their role as crushed victims after World War II, but instead to work hard and transform a land of malaria-infested swamps, sand dunes and deserts into a successful modern state?

“Israel should swiftly and decisively eliminate Muslim Brotherhood terrorist forces in Gaza.” — Amjad Taha, political strategist and analyst from the United Arab Emirates, X, June 12, 2024.

The World Does Not Want Israel to Win the War Against Hamas Led by the Biden administration, Israel is increasingly isolated in its war to defeat Hamas terrorists. By Fred Fleitz

https://amgreatness.com/2024/06/14/the-world-does-not-want-israel-to-win-the-war-against-hamas/

The daring Israel Defense Forces (IDF) rescue mission on June 8 that freed four Israelis taken hostage by Hamas during its October 7, 2023 terrorist attack against Israel was a pivotal event that should have shifted global opinion about the war in Israel’s favor by illustrating the shocking malevolence of Hamas and how little it values human life.

Unfortunately, this did not happen.

The IDF freed four hostages who Hamas was holding in apartment buildings, using the residents as human shields to prevent them from being freed. In addition, so-called “innocent” Palestinian civilians were incarcerating hostages in their apartments, with Hamas reportedly paying them to do so.

Abdallah Aljamal, a Gaza-based journalist, held three Israeli hostages captive in his home. Aljamal, who was killed in the IDF raid, wrote many stories slamming Israel for human rights violations in the war and killing Palestinians. He also was a spokesman for Hamas.

Desperate to prevent the hostages from being brought back to Israel by the IDF team, Hamas fighters attacked the team as it left the apartment buildings with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. The IDF team defended itself and Israel was forced to conduct airstrikes to defend the hostage extraction.

Arnon Zmora, an officer of the IDF’s elite Yamam counter-terrorism unit, was shot and critically injured by Hamas terrorists guarding three of the four hostages.

This was a great victory for Israel and demonstrated that it will not abandon its people taken hostage by Hamas terrorists. Hamas holding hostages in crowded civilian areas and its ferocious firefight against the IDF rescuers demonstrated how little Hamas values human life and confirmed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s belief that more Palestinian civilian deaths work to his advantage.

But most of the world saw the IDF raid differently. Israel was criticized for the large number of Palestinian civilian casualties in the raid, even though many were caused by Hamas fighters firing on IDF forces in a civilian area. The mainstream media and Western politicians cited, without question, exaggerated Palestinian casualty figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry. U.S. and European media described the raid as a “deadly hostage rescue.” Some Western media outlets tried to downplay the fact that Hamas was engaged in hostage-taking by claiming the hostages had been “released” rather than “freed.”

A CNN commentator asked an Israeli official whether Israel had informed Palestinian civilians of the raid in advance to limit civilian casualties. The official replied that Israel did not. Israel was also criticized for the raid because it might set back a U.S.-led effort to reach a ceasefire.

The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said the IDF raid might have been a war crime. Middle East media outlets were even worse, describing the raid as an Israeli “atrocity.”

Truly Evil: Hamas Leader Says the Quiet Part Out Loud Guy Benson

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2024/06/13/truly-evil-hamas-leader-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-n2640327

It’s not really the ‘quiet’ part, honestly; with Hamas, advertising your evil is the out-loud part.  Still, it’s very important to highlight this Wall Street Journal scoop, which reports out the appalling and inhumane internal calculus of Hamas’ top military leader — Yahya Sinwar — who planned the October 7th massacre.  Sinwar is a fanatical supporter of Israeli civilian casualties, of course, and would kill every last Jew in the region if he could.  That should go without saying.  But he also explicitly advocates Palestinian civilian casualties as a strategy, referring to the innocent Gazans he deliberately places in harm’s way as worthy “sacrifices” for the cause of turning world opinion against Israel, and thus ensuring the survival of his terrorist organization.  Those aren’t the words of his critics.  They’re his own words.  The Journal’s headline is, “Gaza Chief’s Brutal Calculation: Civilian Bloodshed Will Help Hamas.”  Civilian bloodshed.  Will help Hamas.  Yes, it’s as disgusting as it sounds:

For months, Yahya Sinwar has resisted pressure to cut a ceasefire-and-hostages deal with Israel. Behind his decision, messages the Hamas military leader in Gaza has sent to mediators show, is a calculation that more fighting—and more Palestinian civilian deaths—work to his advantage. “We have the Israelis right where we want them,” Sinwar said in a recent message to Hamas officials seeking to broker an agreement with Qatari and Egyptian officials. In dozens of messages—reviewed by The Wall Street Journal—that Sinwar has transmitted to cease-fire negotiators, Hamas compatriots outside Gaza and others, he’s shown a cold disregard for human life and made clear he believes Israel has more to lose from the war than Hamas. The messages were shared by multiple people with differing views of Sinwar…In one message to Hamas leaders in Doha, Sinwar cited civilian losses in national-liberation conflicts in places such as Algeria, where hundreds of thousands of people died fighting for independence from France, saying, “these are necessary sacrifices.” 

Israel takes great, historically-unprecedented pains to avoid the collateral damage of civilian casualties in Gaza. Hamas’ leader, by contrast, is committed to a strategy of increasing them. Proudly. Hamas lies constantly about the numbers and demographics of alleged “civilain” deaths inflicted by Israelis in this war that Hamas started with a vast slaughter of Jews late last year. But it’s undeniable that a signfiicant number of civilians, including children, have been killed. For Sinwar, that’s by design. When kids die in this war, Sinwar sees them as “necessary sacrifices.” And every single person who goes along with his diabolically heinous plan by blaming Israel for the deaths that Hamas ensures, in a war Hamas started, is rewarding the terrorists.  Imagine knowing this is how Hamas plans to maintain its grip on power, and actively helping them in that pursuit.  It’s unconscionable. Ultimately, Sinwar’s goal “appears to be to win a permanent cease-fire that allows Hamas to declare a historic victory by outlasting Israel and claim leadership of the Palestinian national cause,” according to the story.

Denouncing Israel for Rescuing its Hostages Only one nation in the world is expected to “negotiate” for the lives of its citizens. by Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/denouncing-israel-for-rescuing-its-hostages/

On June 8th, Israeli forces conducted a daring rescue of four hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. The terrorists hid their captives inside two homes smack in the middle of a civilian neighborhood inhabited by Palestinian families.

Firefights ensued as Hamas fighters shot at the rescuers and the rescued hostages. A leader of the rescue mission lost his life trying to save the innocent Israeli civilians. Scores of Gazans caught in the crossfire were killed but it is unknown how many were civilian bystanders as opposed to the terrorists trying to stop the rescue. The Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry’s claim that at least 274 Palestinians died during the rescue operation exaggerates, as usual, the Palestinian death toll to score propaganda points meant to sway the international community and liberal media further against Israel.

From the United Nations to anti-Israel media outlets, Israel is blamed for the loss of Palestinian civilian lives during the rescue operation. Israel’s critics claim that the deaths could have been avoided if the Jewish state had only stuck to negotiating with Hamas and made more concessions to secure the release of the hostages.

However, it was Hamas’ decision to seize the hostages in the first place and then imprison them in residential buildings and in tunnels constructed under civilian neighborhoods. Some of the hostages were reported to have died in captivity. The four hostages who were rescued lived every day in captivity in fear for their lives. Instead of allowing these four hostages (out of the more than one hundred hostages still in captivity) to go free unharmed, Hamas used heavy fire including rocket-propelled grenades to stop their escape. Fortunately, the terrorists failed and the rescued hostages are reunited with their families and friends.

The terrorists acted with callous indifference to the lives of the Palestinian people residing in the civilian neighborhood from which the four hostages had to be rescued. Moreover, many Palestinian civilians themselves are not so innocent. As Robert Spencer noted in his June 11th Frontpage article, “it is clear that a good many of those ‘civilians’ played an active role in the holding of the hostages.” Indeed, one such “civilian” killed during the rescue operation was a so-called “journalist” for the Palestine Chronicle and Al Jazeera who supported Hamas and housed three of the rescued hostages.

Israel’s Two-Front Crisis John Podhoretz 

 https://www.commentary.org/john-podhoretz/israel-two-front-crisis/?vgo_ee=

Joe Biden did something extraordinarily beneficial at the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war: He moved two aircraft carriers  to the Mediterranean and parked them right off the shores of Lebanon. The purpose was unmistakable. America was telling Hezbollah to keep quiet and stay out of it while Israel went to war with Hamas down south. It didn’t quite work, since intermittent rocketry still led Israel to evacuate much of its northernmost population. But it worked well enough.

Something happened quietly a few months ago. The carriers left. The USS Gerald Ford returned to Norfolk. The USS Eisenhower was redeployed to the Red Sea to deal with the shipping crisis. And guess what? Without American deterrence, Hezbollah has been emboldened, the more so as time has gone on.

Another 70,000 Israelis have been newly evacuated from the North as bombardments from Lebanon have become extraordinarily savage. The town of Kiryat Shmoneh is on fire. A Druze village was unmercifully attacked. Israel is wracked with uncertainty. It cannot allow Hezbollah’s depradations to continue. It must respond. It must restore deterrence by raising the cost to Hezbollah of its actions. But it’s still got Rafah to finish. And it’s still trying to navigate the weird situation of the past two weeks, in which an “Israeli proposal” for a ceasefire and hostage release created a new sense of urgency for negotiations with Hamas—a proposal offered and re-offered that Hamas has, by my count, now rejected five different times.

Joe Biden made this all public with his strange speech “accepting” Israel’s proposal to which he then doodled a conclusion on top that said “end of war end of war” like Annette Funicello in a beach party movie writing “Mrs Frankie Avalon” over and over on her chemistry notebook. For nearly two weeks now, America has said the ball is in Hamas’ court because the Israeli proposal is so good (while Biden and others say Bibi wants to keep the war going because he’s mean or something). Hamas has replied, in effect, “well, if it’s in our court, we’re keeping the ball. Drop dead.” And still the Bidenites keep on, insisting if Hamas wants a good future for the Palestinian people it will accept the deal. What does Hamas have to do to convince these supposed experts that it has no interest in a “good future for the Palestinian people”—that what it wants are dead Jews and a crippled Israel on its way to destruction?

Iran’s Attempts to Attack Israel Must Be Confronted by Con Coughlin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20702/iran-attacks-israel

Netanyahu’s resolve in the face of so many challenges, from splits in his own war cabinet over the conduct of the war in Gaza to incessant pressure from Washington to agree to a ceasefire, has prompted comparisons with British wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill, with Andrew Roberts labelling the Israeli PM “The Winston Churchill of the Middle East.”

There is massive evidence that the Biden administration would like to see Netanyahu removed and that someone more “compliant” to the wishes of the US replace him – a new Israeli prime minister who would not object to Hamas continuing to rule the Gaza Strip after the fighting ends, and rebuild its military to be able to attack Israel again as it has vowed to do. The US would also doubtless like an Israeli prime minister would gladly accept a Palestinian state supervised by Qatar, which has a regrettable but endless track record of promoting and sponsoring terrorists. The Biden administration would apparently like an Israeli prime minister who would agree that a nuclear-armed Iran is exactly what the Middle East needs at this time, and, to that end, has been begging European officials not to object to Iran’s nuclear program.

If the Israelis are smart, they will keep Netanyahu. He has shown time and again that he can stand up to immense pressure from whoever is trying to insert a knife in Israel’s back – whether the Obama administration proposing an Iranian nuclear bomb in 2015, or Senator Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden’s unsubtle efforts to try to get him ousted.

Unfortunately, the only way of seeing all the hostages released is by military pressure.

To prevail against determined terrorist organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel and its allies need to rally support for Netanyahu, rather than constantly criticize him.

For only by defeating these deadly Iran-backed terrorist groups can there be any realistic chance of peace.

Why should Israel sign on to Biden’s hideous ceasefire deal? By Monica Showalter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/06/why_should_israel_sign_on_to_biden_s_hideous_ceasefire_dea.html

Joe Biden has a way of giving ceasefires a bad name.So when he first proposed his ceasefire bill for Israel and the Hamas terrorists, Hamas and its crummy little ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, didn’t have much problem signing on.

The ceasefire would be great for them, allowing the to regroup for the next round against Israel. Israel, which by now is winning its war with its hostage rescue, is supposed to forget about that success and just give the terrorists a mulligan.

Now the United Nations Security Council, with the exception of Russia, has signed on, too. (Russia said it didn’t have enough information as to what the heck this thing was about.)

Here’s what little is known about the bill, according to the Associated Press:

Biden’s May 31 announcement of the new proposal said it would begin with an initial six-week cease-fire and the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from populated areas in Gaza and the return of Palestinian civilians to all areas in the territory.

Phase one also requires the safe distribution of humanitarian assistance “at scale throughout the Gaza Strip,” which Biden said would lead to 600 trucks with aid entering Gaza every day.

Why Hamas must be defeated Israel is surrounded by enemies who are determined to destroy it. Andrew Fox

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/06/11/why-hamas-must-be-defeated/

Israel’s operation to free four hostages in Nuseirat, central Gaza may be dominating media coverage of the Israel-Hamas war at the moment. But the Israel Defence Forces’ operations in Rafah will be headlining the news again very soon.

This particular Gazan city is now Hamas’s final stronghold. The IDF has made significant inroads there, surrounding Rafah’s centre and seizing more than 75 per cent of the Philadelphi Corridor border with Egypt, which Hamas uses to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip.

Yet, the hostage crisis aside, Gaza is actually a tactical sideshow for Israel. The genocidal terrorists of Hamas certainly need to be militarily diminished and removed from power. But Israel faces far more serious strategic threats from elsewhere.

There is Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia based in Lebanon. Since October last year, the IDF has struck roughly 4,000 Hezbollah targets within Lebanon, and Hezbollah has fired over 4,500 rockets into Israel in return. Northern Israel has been ablaze with wildfires from downed rockets. As it stands, 60,000 Israelis have been internally displaced thanks to the threat of these rocket attacks.

Yemen’s Houthis, another Iranian proxy, also pose a significant threat. Their ongoing attacks on shipping in the Gulf in support of Hamas threaten to choke off the Suez Canal.

Then there’s Iran itself. As a sign of its intent, it launched a large-scale drone and missile attack on Israel in April. It is also on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons.

Beyond Iran and its ‘axis of resistance’, Israel also faces challenges from Qatar and Turkey. Both continue to support Palestine on the international stage with funds, strategic direction and sympathetic news media.