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October 2023

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Biden to Visit Israel on Wednesday, Blinken Announces Ari Blaff

By on October 17th, 2023

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biden-to-visit-israel-on-wednesday-blinken-announces/

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Monday evening that President Joe Biden will visit Israel on Wednesday to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“On Wednesday, President Biden will visit Israel. He’s coming here at a critical moment for Israel, for the region, and for the world,” Blinken said during an official address following a meeting with Netanyahu on Monday evening local time.

“He is coming here to do the following: First, the president will reaffirm the United States’ solidarity with Israel and our ironclad commitment to its security,” Blinken said. “President Biden will again make clear, as he’s done unequivocally since Hamas’s slaughter of more than 1,400 people — including at least 30 Americans — that Israel has the right, and indeed the duty, to defend its people from Hamas, and other terrorists, and to prevent other attacks.”

The secretary of state reiterated later in his speech the need to alleviate growing concerns about access to food, water, and energy in the Gaza Strip. “It is critical that aid starts flowing to Gaza as soon as possible,” Blinken said. However, “we share Israel’s concern that Hamas will take control of the aid that enters Gaza,” he added, asserting that the United States will seek to prevent the terrorist group from pilfering any supplies.

According to Blinken, the United States plans to help create “safe zones” within Gaza where civilians will be protected and humanitarian aid will flow unimpeded.

While visiting the region, President Biden is expected to stop in Amman, Jordan, to meet with regional political leaders, including Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian president Fattah el-Sisi, as well as King Abdullah II of Jordan.

News outlets have reported that the development appears to signal the postponement of Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip. Israel Defense Forces troops and reservists have been massing along the southern border since the October 7 surprise attack by Hamas.

Earlier in the day, New York governor Kathy Hochul announced her intention to visit Israel to underscore her commitment to the Jewish state. “Tomorrow, I’ll be traveling to Israel for a solidarity mission where I plan to meet with diplomatic leaders and communities who have been devastated by the horrific Hamas attacks,” the Democratic governor said.

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Ron DeSantis Is a Man of Action, Not Just Words By Jeffrey Blehar

By on October 17th, 2023

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/ron-desantis-is-a-man-of-action-not-just-words/

Most politicians blather and bloviate; that style tends to work electorally. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida is notably — and problematically for his national prospects — not one of them. He doesn’t do stand-up-comedian-style rallies or engage with ease in light banter. He doesn’t get up on a debate stage and start spouting half-considered college-dorm political theories. Instead, Ron DeSantis thinks and acts, and in his actions proves why people longing for executive competence in the White House continue to look to him as a better leader for the Republican Party than Donald Trump.

Aside from all the other madness that ensued after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, tens of thousands of Americans were left stranded in Israel, their flights canceled under wartime conditions. On Thursday, DeSantis signed an executive order authorizing the state of Florida, under its emergency-management laws, to extract as many Floridians as possible. His enemies soon dismissed “DeSantis Air” as little better than a crass publicity stunt. Ex-GOP congressman Adam Kinzinger, always eager for that next cable-news booking, haughtily mocked him, sounding like a Saruman-possessed King Theoden: “You have no power here!”

I hope DeSantis — like Gandalf in the The Two Towers — has released Kinzinger from his nihilistic delusions, because it turns out that a man with a plan and an idea of what can be achieved can get real things done. Last night, “DeSantis Air” landed in Tampa with 270 Americans aboard. All of them are grateful to be here, and they have the governor and his team to thank for the logistical work in getting them back without the State Department charging them thousands of dollars for the privilege. Those are concrete results, as measured in the real lives of American citizens. The guy gets things done.

What has depressingly gotten lost in the miasma of this ridiculous 2024 presidential campaign is that this is basically all Ron DeSantis does, all the time. DeSantis’s gubernatorial record has been covered in great detail here at National Review — his Covid and educational records are two highlights, and his natural-disaster management has been sterling as well — but simply consider what he has done since Hamas’s attack on Israel, balancing both the campaign trail with his duties as governor, to appreciate his abilities as an executive in charge of his brief. With the same executive order he used to authorize the above airlift, DeSantis also immediately ordered Florida state troopers to bolster security for Jewish schools and synagogues. Are you worried about the rising tide of antisemitism in academia across the country, as you very much should be? Not long ago, DeSantis appointed former Nebraska senator Ben Sasse the head of the University of Florida, and Sasse has fully justified his confidence, with a response to the Hamas atrocities that was the single most dignified public statement from a major university in the entire nation.

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McCarthy Predicts Jim Jordan Will Be Elected House Speaker By Matt Margolis

By on October 17th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/10/16/mccarthy-predicts-jim-jordan-will-be-elected-house-speaker-n1735341

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) expressed his confidence that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) will secure the necessary votes to win election as the next House Speaker. McCarthy shared his optimistic view during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

“I feel very good about where Jim Jordan is at. He has been an integral part of our team when we took the majority, helping us get the majority,” McCarthy told host Brian Kilmeade. “The real challenge here is, and I know a lot of people out there are afraid that will Republicans break off and go work with Democrats, the only reason anybody’s even talking about that is because eight Republican members worked with every single Democrat to remove me from speaker and put us into this tailspin and all based upon keeping government open.”

Jordan secured the Republican nomination for speaker on Friday, 124-81, but 55 House Republicans indicated that they wouldn’t support Jordan in a full House vote. Jordan can only lose four votes and still win the speakership.

For our VIPs: What the House GOP Can Learn From the Democrats

A floor vote is expected on Tuesday, and I wish I could be as confident about the outcome as McCarthy is. For starters, it’s not clear what, if anything, has changed since Friday. I can’t even argue that McCarthy might have inside knowledge on which to base his optimistic prediction because, frankly, his recent record on predicting the outcome of a vote hasn’t been very good. When Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) first pushed to oust McCarthy, the then-speaker shrugged off Gaetz’s intentions, predicting he’d ultimately keep his job.

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Ta Nehisi Coates Signs Letter Defending Hamas The police officers and firefighters who died on September 11 “were not human to me” by Daniel Greenfield

By on October 17th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/ta-nehisi-coates-signs-letter-defending-hamas/

You may remember Ta Nehisi Coates as America’s most prominent literary racist until Ibram X. Kendi came around.

He’s the guy who got a ton of awards for writing in “Between the World and Me” that the police officers and firefighters who died on September 11 “were not human to me. Black, white, or whatever, they were menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could — with no justification — shatter my body.”

Now he’s taking that moral triumph and signing on to a letter, alongside Richard Ford, Molly Crabapple, China Miéville and a whole bunch of writers you don’t know, attacking Israel for bombing Hamas.

After 400 or so words attacking Israel, the letter gets around to mentioning what started all this only at the end.

“On Saturday, after sixteen years of siege, Hamas militants broke out of Gaza. More than 1,300 Israelis were subsequently killed with over one hundred more taken hostage—some of them friends and family of signatories to this letter. We deplore the loss of all innocent life and now, as we write this letter, Israel is executing the largest expulsion of Palestinians since 1948 as it bombs Gazans without discrimination.”

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ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Your Tax Dollars At Work: Financing Virulent Antisemitism On Campus

By on October 17th, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/10/17/your-tax-dollars-at-work-financing-virulent-antisemitism-on-campus/

Shortly after Hamas began its bloodthirsty campaign against Israel, student groups started issuing statements praising the terrorists and blaming Israel. If you were appalled, you’re not alone. But you’re also helping to pay for it.

At Harvard, 31 student groups made news when they announced that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” That prompted hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman to call for getting those students’ names so that “none of us inadvertently hire(s) any of their members.” At least a dozen businessmen endorsed Ackman’s call, according to the New York Post.

This was hardly an isolated incident. A few examples of what’s transpired on campuses over the past week.

Yalies for Palestine issued a statement saying “we hold the Israeli Zionist regime responsible for the unfolding violence and denounce the Israeli occupation, apartheid system, and military rule.”
A student group at the University of Virginia said “we stand in solidarity with Palestinian resistance fighters.”
The president of the New York University Student Bar Association expressed her “unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression,” and said that “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.”
Rice University students honored the Hamas “martyrs.”
At the University of Wisconsin, pro-Palestinian students chanted “glory to the murders.” (School officials have been silent about the protest.)
Columbia University students issued a statement attacking “Israel’s apartheid and colonial system.” (An Israeli student was later attacked outside Columbia’s main library.)
At SUNY Binghamton, cars reportedly drove around campus with passengers chanting “death to Zionists.”
Other examples of attacks against Jews on college campuses can be found here.

Sen. Marco Rubio had it right when he said: “Across America, college students on federal taxpayer-subsidized student (loans) celebrated the murder of Jews.”

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HISTORY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Hamas and Israel: A Thought Experiment Thomas Buckley

By on October 17th, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/10/17/hamas-and-israel-a-thought-experiment/
Antisemitism was intentionally baked into “Palestinian” nationalism.

The Hamas attack on Israel was not only reprehensible and unconscionable, but also incredibly very astonishingly stupid.

Typically, when you enter into a conflict of any type – from a war to a game of Go Fish – you tend to think you can win in the end.  Sometimes you know it’s a long shot, sometimes you think you have a better chance, sometimes the brilliant plan you had going in turns out to be perfect or incredibly wrong.

But you tend not start something you know you cannot win and you know will end up killing you.

So what was Hamas thinking?  Other governments have done stupid things to start and during wars – Pearl Harbor was stupid (at least some in the Imperial government knew it at the time) because a war with the United States that lasted more than a couple of years was unwinnable.  Napoleon invading Russia was stupid because even though he achieved his goals — he took Moscow – he lost everything, including his most important ally:  his aura of invincibility.

Did Hamas think the raid would make Israel think “Wow, they really have a credible military now, maybe we should give them what they want”?  Impossible, because what Hamas wants is Israel – and especially Israelis – literally dead and gone forever.

There has been much chatter about blame and fault, with the vile crowds gathered in Harvard Square going on about de-colonization and settler mindsets and it’s not their land so Hamas can do anything it wants because they are noble and righteous fighters for social justice who just happen to decapitate babies.

This prattling does miss out on rather a large chunk of history, of course. There has never actually been a formal Palestinian “Palestine.” 

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Palestinian Lives Matter, Except to Hamas Responsibility for civilian casualties in Gaza lies with the jihadists.

By on October 17th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-hamas-gaza-civilians-united-nations-1222797b?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

As Israel prepares for its likely ground invasion to pursue Hamas in Gaza, the world is warning about civilian casualties. The moral point to keep in mind as the fighting gets intense is that the responsibility for those casualties will lie with Hamas.

Israel has an obligation to do what it can to protect civilians, and it is doing so. It has warned Gazans to move to the south of the territory as it prepares its campaign. It is using precision-guided bombs when it can to target Hamas combatants rather than civilians. No one has a bigger strategic stake in reducing civilian Palestinian casualties than Israel given the propaganda fodder they provide its enemies.

Contrast that with Hamas, which gave no warning to the Israeli and foreign civilians it slaughtered on Oct. 7. Killing civilians was the explicit goal. Hamas has ordered Gazans not to flee, and its leaders hide weapons in hospitals, schools and mosques.

Israel built bomb shelters for its citizens. Hamas built a network of tunnels for its combatants but keeps its civilians above ground, where they can be used as human shields or casualties showcased on TV. It’s not too much to say that Hamas wants Palestinian casualties to stir an uprising on the West Bank and turn world opinion against the Jewish state.

Yet the United Nations and others criticize Israel more than they do Hamas. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has denounced Israel’s evacuation order but he says little about Hamas’s human blockade.

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The Siege of Hamas Is No War Crime Israel’s critics level false war-crimes charges to keep the Jewish state from defending itself. By Eugene Kontorovich

By on October 17th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israels-siege-of-hamas-is-no-war-crime-da6f5659?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Most victims of the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel weren’t yet buried when some prominent international voices—including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the nonprofit Human Rights Watch, and Josep Borell, the European Union’s top diplomat—suggested that Israel’s first efforts to defend itself are war crimes. This raises an important question: Does international law require a nation to choose between committing war crimes and having war crimes committed against it?

The answer is no. One of the great tragedies of war is that civilians often become victims. That is why countries like Israel resort to war only as self-defense, which, according to the United Nations Charter, is every nation’s inherent right. But if even unintentional harm to civilians constitutes illegal “collective punishment,” as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called Israel’s operations in Gaza, even defensive war is effectively precluded.

The law of war prohibits directly targeting civilians. Israel has made clear that its objectives are only military. “The IDF will destroy Hamas,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday, “and we will hunt down every last man with the blood of our children on his hands.”

But military targets can be attacked even when doing so may result in the loss of civilian life. International humanitarian law requires that civilian casualties from a particular action be balanced against “anticipated military advantage,” a rule known as proportionality. In practice, as this rule is understood by Western countries, even significant civilian casualties don’t necessarily make strikes on legitimate targets illegal.

Hamas has violated international law by hiding among civilians. But international law doesn’t reward the use of human shields. Instead, it makes clear that “the presence of civilians within or near military objectives does not render such objectives immune from attack.” Israel’s critics want it to fight in a way that would have made it impossible for democracies to wage war in every conflict from World War II to the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS, which killed about 10,000 civilians by some estimates.

A legal analysis of Israel’s response must take into account the barbarity and scale of Hamas’s attack. Israel now knows that Hamas’s goal is the annihilation of the Jewish people and the Jewish state. Defeating Hamas isn’t simply a tactical military goal but an existential national one—a military objective of the highest order. There is no basis on which to bar Israel ex ante from a generally lawful means of warfare such as siege, or maneuver in urban areas.

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Hamas weaponizes sympathy for civilians they help kill Jonathan Tobin

By on October 17th, 2023

https://www.jns.org/hamas-weaponizes-sympathy-for-civilians-they-help-kill/?_se=YW5uZS1tYXJpZS5m

Suffering in Gaza is real, though the false victimhood narrative gives Hamas benefits and deflects attention from saving the hostages and defeating the terrorists.

It’s a difficult balancing act, but most of the talking heads and pundits are managing to pull it off. Unlike the hard left, most liberals and Democrats have not abandoned sanity and embraced the open antisemitism that has been expressed at rallies for “Palestine,” in which Hamas is not just supported but justified. To the contrary, at least for the moment, the old bipartisan consensus in favor of Israel seems to have re-emerged since the unspeakable terrorist atrocities on Oct. 7. The vast majority of Democrats and almost all Republicans are solidly backing Israel’s right to defend itself and condemning Hamas, even as many of them also speak of their concerns about Palestinian suffering.

But only a week after the slaughter of men, women and children in the Jewish communities along the Gaza border and at a music concert attended by young adults—and with Israel still sifting through the wreckage, finding bodies of the slain and tortured victims of these atrocities, and preparing to bury some 1,400 people—the conversation about the conflict is shifting. To no one’s surprise, the headlines are now all about a “humanitarian crisis” and not a hostage crisis, even though the fate of the estimated 150 people, including 14 Americans, kidnapped by Hamas is still unknown. The suffering of Palestinians—President Joe Biden has been at pains to try and differentiate from the terror group, stating that “the vast majority of them have nothing to do with Hamas”—has become the world’s top concern.

Callousness about deaths in Gaza is wrong. So, too, are overwrought expressions of rage about terrorist crimes that lead to talk about wiping out the Palestinians or turning a place where so many people live into a parking lot.

However, Biden is wildly overstating his case about the level of support Hamas can count on. More important than that, the seemingly irresistible impulse on the part of Western politicians to deny that Hamas represents Palestinian aspirations is linked to a wave of sympathy for the Palestinians that is bound to influence administration policy as the war continues.

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Cotton calls for deportation of foreign nationals who support Hamas By Filip Timotija

By on October 17th, 2023

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4259079-cotton-calls-for-deportation-of-foreign-nationals-who-support-hamas/

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Monday calling for the deportation of foreign nationals who support Hamas. 

In the letter addressed to the agency’s secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, the GOP senator urged the department to deport any foreign nationals who have expressed support for Hamas’s attacks on Israel, including international students studying in the U.S. 

“I write to urge you to immediately deport any foreign national—including and especially any alien on a student visa — that has expressed support for Hamas and its murderous attacks on Israel,” Cotton wrote. “These fifth-columnists have no place in the United States.” 

The letter, obtained by The Hill, comes as activists and college students across the U.S. have faced pushback after organizations at multiple colleges put out statements that have been characterized as defending the killings in Israel.

Cotton suggested that the DHS starts with deporting international students who signed or approved the letter from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee. 

“Swiftly removing and permanently barring from future reentry any foreign student who signed onto or shared approvingly the anti-Semitic letter from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee on October 7 would be a good place to start,” Cotton wrote.

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