RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israeli-victory-is-critical-to-american-interests-7da1a3f6?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

The outbreak of war in the Middle East means the Biden administration has to manage a complex strategic crisis. American objectives must be to ensure Israeli freedom of action for the next six months while deterring any Russian responses in the Middle East and beyond. A burst of U.S. support followed by insistence on “restraint” won’t do. The Eurasian rimland has been set alight. The war begun in Ukraine will spread absent prudent, decisive action.

Hamas is the most virulent and politically savvy of Israel’s terrorist enemies. The complexity of the operation it staged on Saturday and Sunday raises questions about Israeli competence. This isn’t simply an intelligence failure—although intelligence is part of the problem, since warning signs of this confrontation have been apparent for months. The Iran-Saudi deal cleared the way for a direct attack. Hamas and Iran have solidified ties with Russia to ensure some sort of great-power support. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps stepped up activities in the West Bank, and undoubtedly in Gaza, in preparation. Yet the issue here is strategic, rather than operational. Israel, and presumably the U.S., was caught completely by surprise, suggesting that those responsible for strategic forecasting made an error on par with Pearl Harbor, 9/11 or the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Hamas is a full-fledged member of the axis of resistance, the alliance of proxies and terrorist groups constructed by Iran’s foremost strategist, the now-deceased IRGC Gen. Qasem Soleimani, during the late 2000s and 2010s. The axis’ objective is the destruction of Israel. It sees that Israel’s greatest assets are its high-tech military and its alliance with the U.S. By drawing the U.S. into the ill-conceived Iran deal—and, as per recent revelations, cultivating an intelligence and subversion network inside the U.S. government—Tehran has weakened the U.S.-Israel relationship.

The Hamas offensive constitutes the first step of a broader campaign against an increasingly isolated Israel. The Jewish state maintains an effective conscript military with significant offensive potential. But Israel is a nation of only nine million. Total mobilization can’t be sustained for more than a few months. Israel is also highly sensitive to casualties as a small liberal democracy, making it harder to fight a long war.

The current campaign is therefore designed to draw Israel into a three-front struggle. Hamas’s barbarity demands an operation into Gaza that will require 30,000 combat troops at least, and will take weeks, perhaps months. The Israeli government can resist pressure to move into Gaza immediately, and instead cordon off the Palestinian pseudo-statelet, but this will trigger hand-wringing in Europe and at the United Nations.

Meanwhile, another intifada seems all but guaranteed, with potential for spillover into Israeli Arab communities akin to the unrest of 2021. This will demand more military deployments and put more societal stress on Israel. Finally, Iran’s most powerful partners, Lebanese Hezbollah and the Syrian Fourth and Fifth divisions, menace Israel from the north. Hezbollah has already threatened to rain rockets on Israel if it moves into Gaza, raising the possibility of a Third Lebanon War.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/western-lecturing-and-israeli-restraint-failed-gaza-hamas-5cd59eb2?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

“Too long have I lived among men who hate peace,” says Psalm 120, recited by Jews around the world for safety in Israel. “I am for peace; but whenever I speak of it, they are for war.” Israelis know the feeling. They awoke Saturday to a jihadist invasion that may shatter as many illusions as it has lives.

How can it be, Israelis have begun to ask, that they allowed a genocidal terrorist group to reign for so long in Gaza, the fiefdom next door? There was no mystery about Hamas’s intentions. It seeks to kill Israel’s Jews any way it can.

Crazy as it now seems, Israelis learned to live with that. They took a series of defensive measures: a blockade to keep weapons out, a missile-defense system to shoot down cheap rockets, and, when those rockets got out of hand, brief campaigns of targeted strikes to quiet Hamas down. But Hamas never had to worry about Israel sweeping it from power.

To force out Hamas, Israel might have had to govern Gaza itself, and the usual suspects in the safe Western democracies—diplomats, reporters, human-rights groups and prize-seeking politicians—would have screamed bloody murder. Our cautious eminences would have deemed it “bad for peace.” But as the Jewish tradition teaches, whoever is kind to the cruel will end up being cruel to the kind.

A perverse alternative reality was constructed in which every Israeli response to the threat from Hamas was illegal, immoral and disproportionate, a war crime if not sadistic outright. Gaza, which Israel gave up in 2005, is still called “Israeli-occupied” by the U.N., a claim Western media parroted. Never mind the territory’s dictatorial rulers sworn to Israel’s violent destruction. The terrorists themselves—the ones live-streaming their slaughter and mutilation of defenseless Jewish civilians to shouts of “Allahu akbar”—were politely termed “militants,” their savagery usually excused as a Newtonian reaction to Israeli security measures.

Israel was even condemned for using force to stop Hamas’s previous attempts to rush the border. Gullible Western media described those would-be infiltrators as “protesters.” Did Israel really need to shoot?

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20039/gaza-iran

There should be little doubt that the war that began when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, actually originated in Iran. The multi-pronged, highly coordinated and murderous attacks could not have happened without Iranian government assistance and approval.

Leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, according to the Wall Street Journal, have acknowledged that the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been working with Hamas since August in planning these attacks.

The pattern of actions is clear: the Iranian regime, now funded by the Biden administration — who carefully looked the other way while Iran acquired $60 billion by evading US sanctions, then threw in an additional fungible $6 billion on top of that — has been, and continues to be, a state actor sponsoring terrorists, terrorist organizations and terrorist attacks.

The Hamas attacks on Israel were sanctioned by Tehran to help fuel tension in the region, probably to disrupt the possibility of an Abraham Accords-style normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Such an agreement would have had a seismic positive impact on the geopolitics of the Middle East. It appears, at least for the moment, any agreement between Israel and the Saudis is tabled. Ironically, after seeing the Israeli Defense Force in action, the Saudis might wish to have Israel as an ally more than ever.

Canceling this transfer makes even more sense in light of the Iranian president bragging that Iran would spend the funds as it saw fit, and not just for humanitarian purposes as the Biden administration disingenuously insists it will. Having a line of credit simply means taking funding already allocated for humanitarian purposes and re-purposing it for terrorism and the nuclear weapons program.

Iran, while still advocating “Death to America,” is not only exporting its military hardware but also its battle-tested military tactics, techniques and procedures, including to Latin America.

Will the Biden administration really continue to do everything possible — as it has with inflation, the fentanyl crisis and migrants pouring over America’s southern border — to avoid saying that what everyone can see in plain sight is not so?

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/israel-zionism/2023/10/the-moral-challenge-of-the-current-war/?utm_source=

Israel has no choice but to wage a war for its survival. . . . Today, the world seems to understand this. World leaders have denounced Hamas’s barbarism and affirmed the legitimacy of Israel’s right to self-defense. But what about tomorrow? What will happen as the Palestinian death toll rises? At that point, I fear, the same leaders will forget that Israel and Hamas are fighting on radically different terms and focus their efforts on restraining Israel instead of condemning Hamas.

The reason this will happen—as it always does—is that Hamas has a powerful unconventional weapon, one far more sophisticated and effective than missiles and drones: Palestinian civilians, used as human shields. The more Palestinians who die because Hamas terrorists cynically hide behind them, the more the free world will turn against Israel.

It is only a matter of weeks, or days, or even hours, until articles will appear in major publications depicting the Israeli government as indiscriminately targeting innocent Palestinians. Human Rights Watch will yet again vilify Israel as an international outlaw, and the United Nations will pass resolutions demanding that we cease our war of self-defense.

The only way to help neutralize this despicable unconventional weapon in the coming days would be for leaders of Western democracies and responsible Arab rulers to make this message absolutely clear: every innocent Palestinian killed in this conflagration is the victim of Hamas.

https://mosaicmagazine.com/response/israel-zionism/2023/10/hamass-messianic-violence/?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&_kx=IxNycqF4MaUb7Z76cxkSoZoWZXWuvsEbectSn87ehKs%3D.L87CGh

The videos released by Hamas’s media wing showcasing their murderous acts from this past weekend bear a visible slogan watermarked on their top right corners reading “Revolution of those who resist.” Last month, in my essay for Mosaic, I attempted to place the evolution of the concept of the Nakba and the Palestinian cause within the history of Arab and Muslim revolutionary thought. While that essay was focused on the realm of ideas and mostly on the previous decades, the events now unfolding force us to see the horrifying application of the ideas of the Palestinian revolution on our phone, computer, and television screens.

Two things were immediately noticeable: the attempts of Hamas to portray its massacres as the beginning of the Islamic redemptive battle for Palestine and the quick, enthusiastic response by many pro-Palestinian activists, both in the Middle East and the West, religious and secular. From the comfort of his office in Qatar, Hamas’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, gave a fifteen-minute speech—aired on Al Jazeera—in which he praised the actions of the terrorists and asserted, “This battle is not only for the Palestinian people or only for Gaza. Gaza is merely the lever of resistance, . . . but since this is about al-Aqsa mosque, it is the battle of the [Islamic] nation. I call upon all the nation’s children, no matter where they are, to join the fight . . . of the men who are writing history with their blood and their rifles.”

Haniyeh managed to pack into this short speech every moral and political slogan and symbol the Arab and Muslim masses generally associate with the Palestinian cause, drawing on the well-established tradition of legitimizing all forms of violence against Israel.

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/biden-tapped-this-muslim-group-to-fight-against-anti-semitism-its-defending-hamass-attack-on-israel/

The Biden administration earlier this year tapped the Council on American-Islamic Relations for an initiative to curb anti-Semitism. This week, the anti-Semitic group and its leaders defended Hamas attacks that have killed more than 1,000 Jews.

The White House announced in May that the Council on American-Islamic Relations would take part in its “National Strategy to Combat Anti-Semitism.” As part of the initiative, CAIR launched a nationwide tour “to educate religious minority communities” on how to “protect their houses of worship from hate incidents.” At the time, critics slammed the White House for partnering with CAIR, which has a history of anti-Semitism and was linked to Hamas in a federal terrorism case in 2007.

Now, CAIR is condoning the largest attack in Israel’s history, raising further questions about the administration’s affiliation with the controversial group. Hamas fighters invaded the Jewish state in a surprise attack over the weekend, killing hundreds of civilians and taking dozens of women and children hostage. The terrorist group said it will televise executions of hostages if certain demands are not met.

CAIR cast blame for the attack squarely on Israel. On Monday, the group urged lawmakers to “address the root causes of Mideast violence,” which it attributed to the “Israeli government’s apartheid policies.”

Nihad Awad, the executive director of CAIR, referred to Israel as a “settler colonial Apartheid state” in the wake of the attacks, and decried the placement of the Israeli flag on the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Awad wrote on social media that “Israel=Russia,” and called on President Joe Biden to condemn Israel, but not the Hamas attackers. “You must condemn the occupier not the occupied,” Awad wrote.

It’s the latest example of the Biden administration courting anti-Israel groups. President Biden recently designated Qatar a non-NATO ally, boosting diplomatic ties with the oil-rich Gulf nation. But Qatari leaders condemned Israel after the Hamas attack, and claimed Israel was “solely responsible” for the violence.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/10/10/national-pro-palestine-student-group-calls-for-day-of-resistance-backing-attacks-on-israel/

A national pro-Palestine student organization is calling for a “day of resistance” on college campuses Thursday in support of brutal terrorist attacks on Israel, emphasizing that they are not only in solidarity with Palestine, they are “PART of this movement.”

A toolkit released by the national Students for Justice in Palestine calls for the student movement for “Palestine liberation” to organize a national day of resistance on college campuses across the U.S. and Canada. The organization did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“We as Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement,” the toolkit messaging says in bold. “This is a moment of mobilization for all Palestinians. We must act as part of this movement. All of our efforts continue the work and resistance of Palestinians on the ground.”

At least six chapters have already announced such events for Oct. 12, according to the Anti-Defamation League: Arizona State University, University of Arizona, Butler University in Indiana, University of Louisville in Kentucky, University of Binghamton in New York and the University of Virginia.

“We must continue to resist directly, through dismantling Zionism and wielding the political power that our organizations hold on our campuses and in our communities,” the Students for Justice in Palestine toolkit says. “We are asking chapters to host demonstrations on campus/in their community in support of our resistance in Palestine and the national liberation struggle—one which they play a critical role in actualizing.”

https://en.kohelet.org.il/publication/does-israel-have-to-give-free-power-to-gaza

A good reminder of the always simmering Gaza problems since the Israeli withdrawal from a friend in Israel Alex G……rsk

A recent debate has arisen over whether Israel, from which Gaza procures much of its power, is obligated under international law to continue providing Gaza with power during the hostilities between them.

The article was first published in the Washington Post
Prof. Avi Bell of San Diego and Bar Ilan Universities, and my colleague at the Kohelet Policy Forum, wrote a detailed analysis of the question, and concluded there is no requirement to provide electricity.

His memo drew an unusual response from Prof. David Enoch of Hebrew University, who not only disagreed with Bell, but through the good offices of Brian Leiter, called for the legal academy to impose some kind of reputational sanctions against Bell. I may deal with the “academic bullying” aspect in a latter post. Here I will address the substance. I hope my views of the merits are not colored by the prospect of facing the kind of academic ostracism threatened by Prof. Enoch.

Civilian power stations are legitimate military targets in an armed conflict, and have been heavily targeted by Western countries in most recent conflicts. Thus even if Israel deliberately targeted the Gaza power plant, this would be well within international practice. Yet the dispute is not about bombing civilian power facilities – a subject much discussed in law of war manuals and treatises – but rather the more particular claim that Israel cannot switch off the power it provides to Gaza from its own power stations (which happen to be under fire from Gaza). I do not believe such an affirmative duty to provide energy to one’s enemy has ever been suggested in any other context. Still, the answer can easily be deduced from the targetability of enemy power facilities.

Electrical power plants are legitimate military targets in war, and have been attacked by U.S. and NATO forces in both Gulf Wars, and the air campaign over Serbia in 1999. In recent weeks Ukraine has shelled power facilities in separatist held territory. While some human rights groups quibbled about the particulars of these attacks, they did not meet with condemnation by other states, and the attacks on Belgrade were not cited as problematic by a ICTY inquiry.

https://www.thefp.com/p/gaza-hostage-crisis-is-an-american-crisis

This piece was first published on Tablet. 

The hundreds of Hamas fighters who carried out a murderous rampage inside Israel over the weekend returned to the Gaza Strip with an invaluable new strategic asset. On Sunday, Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, told journalists that the Islamist group had captured “dozens” of hostages with American citizenship. If this number is even remotely accurate, the assault would be the largest mass abduction of Americans since the Tehran embassy crisis of 1979.

Hamas has likely divided those hostages across unmapped underground sites throughout Gaza, foreclosing the possibility of a single, swift rescue operation. The hostage issue threatens to inject a future source of divergence into Israeli and American objectives during the crisis.

In a speech at the White House Tuesday, Joe Biden said that he had “no higher priority than the safety of Americans being held hostage around the world.” Outgoing House speaker Kevin McCarthy listed “rescue all American hostages” as the U.S.’s top priority in the unfolding war. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters that, as of Tuesday, the exact number of American hostages remains unknown.

Israel must now weigh the survival of American hostages against neutralizing active threats against other groups of civilians, and also against the country’s stated war aim of disarming Hamas, which would likely require a massive ground operation in which most, if not all, of the hostages would be killed. Hamas, meanwhile, can parade American corpses through downtown Gaza and claim that they are victims of the Israeli assault.

“Hamas will use the hostages in two ways: as human shields and as a source of leverage over Washington,” explained Michael Doran, director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute and a former senior director on the National Security Council. “As human shields, they will prevent Israel from destroying critical infrastructure. As a source of leverage, Hamas will convince Washington to compel Israel to make concessions—on the terms of a cease-fire, the release of prisoners, relaxing economic restrictions on Gaza, delivering payments from abroad, etc. Hamas will parade American hostages before the cameras to beg Washington to bring a halt to Israeli military operations so that the hostages can gain their freedom.”

The ways in which American hostages complicate the conflict hardly ends there. The tiny Gulf emirate of Qatar served as the laundering mechanism for $6 billion in unfrozen Iranian oil money that the U.S. used to purchase the freedom of five American citizens or green-card holders that the Islamic Republic had imprisoned, a transaction announced only last month. Doha also happens to be where much of Hamas’s exiled high command lives. Qatar, Washington’s chosen middleman for hostage diplomacy with Iran—which is Hamas’s leading state sponsor—can claim it runs an existing and effective channel for negotiating the hostages’ freedom. Any apparent progress on this diplomatic track could provide the Americans with an incentive to restrain any Israeli operation in Gaza.

https://lawliberty.org/israels-darkest-day/

Israel’s Darkest Day

More than 1,000 Israelis died at the hands of Hamas terrorists on October 7, by far the worst day in Israeli history, roughly triple the death count on the bloodiest day of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The Israeli military and civil society were taken unawares, and responded slowly and ineffectively. The Hamas attack uncovered deep flaws in Israel’s tactical capabilities as well as its strategic outlook. Israel’s existence depends on speedy correction of these flaws.

The term “intelligence failure” became an overnight cliché. Hamas employed drone attacks in emulation of tactics employed successfully by both sides in the Ukraine war for nearly two years, destroying Israeli observation posts and at least one Israeli Merkava IV main battle tank by dropping grenades from cheap drones. Israel introduced drones into warfare in the Syrian theater in 1983 during the so-called Beqaa Valley turkey shoot, and its failure to adopt electronic countermeasures widely deployed in Ukraine implies a failing technical edge. Despite warnings about the vulnerability of the Gaza barrier from some Israeli military intelligence analysts, Hamas fighters drove a bulldozer through the Gaza fence and hundreds of Hamas killers—the number still is unknown—entered Israel on motorized vehicles. We know this from videos released by Hamas itself; we do not know whether the terrorist organization used more sophisticated communications security measures to evade Israeli detection.

The details of the tactical intelligence failure, though, matter less than Israeli self-deception. The Netanyahu government thought that it had all strategic bases covered, and that it could bribe Hamas to remain on the sidelines as it negotiated diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. It lulled itself into a complacent haze that obscured the recalcitrant elements of the ancient world that opposed the modernizing impulse of the Abraham Accords.