RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/gazans-chant-the-people-want-to-topple-hamas/

While the IDF continues to provide safe corridors for civilians fleeing from Khan Yunis, Hamas operatives try to hold them back, for they are the human shields Hamas relies on to discourage IDF attacks. Now Gazans are openly expressing their anger with Hamas, which wants to keep them imperiled, and also has been appropriating much of the humanitarian aid that has been trucked into the Strip. More on this public display of anger directed at Hamas can be found here: “Gazans call for overthrow of Hamas as they flee through IDF humanitarian corridor,” by Gadi Zaig, Jerusalem Post, January 27, 2024:

The IDF has established a humanitarian corridor in recent days for Palestinian residents of western Khan Yunis to move from combat areas to the town of Al-Mawasi in southwestern Gaza, IDF Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee announced on Saturday.

Adraee said that Gazan residents would be safe in Al-Mawasi and that the corridor has been opened to evacuate civilians every day so that the IDF can focus on fighting the Hamas terrorist organization and deepening its incursion into Khan Yunis without the risk of civilians being injured in the process.

Tens of thousands of Gazans have already passed through this corridor safely, according to the spokesperson.

Adraee also quoted a number of Gazan civilians passing through the corridor, who informed IDF soldiers that Hamas was preventing them from leaving combat areas, using threats and violence. Additionally, IDF soldiers were also assisting civilians at the scene, including the elderly and sick.

The humanitarian corridor remains open until 4 p.m. for residents to cross over to Al-Mawasi.

https://www.jewishmediaresources.com/2283/the-return-of-another-bad-idea-the-two-state

Students of American Mideast diplomacy will be quickly be struck by the number of doctrines that have persisted long past their “sell by” dates and after having been refuted by events.

For decades, it was a fundamental tenet of the State Department that the Arab-Israeli conflict lay at the heart of the failure to thrive of virtually every Muslim regime, as if Muslim leaders deliberately kept their countries backward and unfree to spite Israel. And then came the Arab Spring of 2010.

As Jackson Diehl, deputy editor of the Washington Post editorial page, wrote in late March 2011, “A reasonable person might conclude from the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, et al., that the Middle East’s deepest problems have nothing to do with Israel and that the Obama administration’s almost obsessive focus on trying to broker an Israeli-Palestinian settlement in its first two years was misplaced. But Obama isn’t one of those persons.”

Another article of faith of American policymakers was that no Arab country would make peace with Israel absent resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But then came Anwar Sadat’s journey to Jerusalem, followed by the 1978 Camp David Accords. Forty years later came the Abraham Accords between Israel and three Arab states.

And Saudi Arabia was widely seen as likely to join the Abraham Accords prior to October 7, despite the absence of a Palestinian state. Indeed, that prospect is thought by many to have lain behind Hamas’s October 7 attack, orchestrated by Iran.

Yet at the recent World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan confidently asserted that Saudi Arabia would never join the Abraham Accords absent a clear pathway to Palestinian statehood. In that they may be right, but only because their public pronouncements made it impossible for the Saudis to move forward with Israel. Diplomatic relations with Israel, however, would not be an act of largesse by the Saudis toward Israel, but rather a calculated strategic decision that Israel is their best possible ally against Iran and an assessment of the economic advantages of partnering with the more advanced Israeli economy.

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2024/01/31/advisers-to-families-of-hostages-held-in-gaza-backed-by-qatari-funding-

Some of the families trying to free their loved ones held hostage by Hamas in Gaza are getting advice from individuals and entities that have received funding from Qatar, Daniel reports — an unusual arrangement given Qatar’s role as one of the chief mediators between Hamas and Israel and that the country is home to Hamas’ political leadership.

— As hostage families work to keep their relatives in the news and urge the Qataris to get Hamas to release them, a consultant working for the Qataris, Jay Footlik, has also met with the families in both Washington and Israel to prep them for their meetings with Qatari officials and also help organize them, according to two people familiar with the matter.

— Footlik’s consulting firm ThirdCircle Inc. has been registered under FARA since 2019 to help arrange trips to Qatar for American elected officials on behalf of the Qatari Embassy, which pays the firm $40,000 per month, according to filings with the Justice Department.

— Footlik, a former special assistant to former President Bill Clinton and liaison to the American Jewish community, told PI his work with the hostage families began because he had a long-standing relationship with Israeli businessperson Eytan Stibbe, who asked for his assistance since Footlik had relationships with Qatar.

— He said that he then contacted Qatari ambassador Meshal Al-Thani and asked if he would meet a relative of several of the Israeli hostages, Avichai Brodutch. Al-Thani immediately agreed and soon asked Footlik to help facilitate direct communication with hostage family members who wanted to meet with Qatari officials, he said.