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In-Depth Issues:
Trump: If Hamas Doesn't Disarm, "It'll Be the End of Them" - Lazar Berman ( Times of Israel)
At the Board of Peace unveiling ceremony in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, President Donald Trump said Hamas will "have to give up their weapons, and if they don't, it's going to be the end of them."
Israeli Officials: Phase Two of Gaza Ceasefire Plan Serves Israel's Interests, Requires Hamas to Disarm - Itamar Eichner ( Ynet News)
As efforts advance toward the second phase of President Trump's Gaza ceasefire plan, senior Israeli officials say the transition ultimately serves Israel's interests.
Phase Two requires Hamas to disarm and dismantle its military capabilities - a demand Hamas is unlikely to accept.
They said Hamas would be given a deadline to comply, after which Israel would resume military operations.
The officials stressed that moving to Phase Two is an Israeli interest regardless of the delay in returning slain hostage Ran Gvili from Gaza.
Israeli officials outlined conditions for reopening the Rafah crossing with Egypt after Gvili's return, including ensuring that more people exit Gaza than enter and establishing an Israeli-managed passage through which all movement would be monitored.
Trump Seeks "Decisive" Options for Iran as Assets Move into Middle East - Alexander Ward ( Wall Street Journal)
After pulling back from strikes on Iran last week, President Trump is still pressing aides for what he terms "decisive" military options, U.S. officials said.
The continued discussions show Trump hasn't ruled out punishing Tehran for killing thousands of protesters.
Iran Interior Ministry Official Defects, Calls for U.S. Action Against Regime ( Iran International)
An official at Iran's Interior Ministry has defected and joined the protests, urging President Trump to intervene against the Islamic Republic, he told Iran International on Sunday.
He said he witnessed the use of live fire against protesters, adding that the scale of protests on Jan. 8-9 was unprecedented.
Follow the Jerusalem Center on:
Former Palestinian Official Accuses Palestinian Authority of Institutional Corruption ( Times of Israel)
Former Palestinian Authority intelligence chief Tawfik Tirawi, 77, on Tuesday publicly accused the Palestinian leadership of allowing systemic corruption to flourish within its institutions, in an open letter addressed to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
"The corruption system now operates with confidence and immunity," wrote Tirawi, a senior member of the Fatah central committee.
"Did our people make all these sacrifices... only for us to reach a stage where thieves and land brokers are left to spread corruption without deterrence or accountability?" he wrote.
Critics say the PA lined the pockets of elites with tax proceeds and international aid, while funneling much of what was left to a massive security apparatus trained to crack down on dissent at the behest of its patrons.
An October poll by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 80% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza want Abbas to resign.
Children of the Iranian Elite Flaunt Their Lives of Luxury - Gabrielle Weiniger ( The Times-UK)
Aghazadeh is a Persian term that used to be a title for the children of clerics and has evolved to refer to the new generation benefiting from the political riches of their fathers.
"They're the equivalent of the Iranian 'Gossip Girl' [a reference to the U.S. drama series following the lives of Manhattan's teenaged elite]: luxury cars, living in opulent high-rises in north Tehran," said Ella Rosenberg, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs focusing on Iran and counterterrorism financing.
"Their lifestyle has enraged, not only made angry, but enraged the citizens of Iran, specifically Gen Z in their age group, mainly because they see how these rich kids live - with no accountability for anything that they do."
"Their families and parents and grandparents are making sure that their lives in Iran are easy, living the life of luxury."
Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei has several relatives in Britain and France, including his nephew Mahmoud Moradkhani, while the grandchildren of the founder of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, have settled in Canada.
The brother of Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, lectures in Scotland on cybersecurity, while the children of former president Hassan Rouhani live in Austria and studied at Oxford.
According to one former Iranian minister, 5,000 aghazadeh live in America.
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- U.S. Shifts Away from Kurdish-Led Forces in Fight Against ISIS - Euan Ward
U.S. special envoy to Syria Thomas J. Barrack Jr. said Tuesday that Washington no longer needed to rely on Kurdish-led forces as its primary partner to fight the Islamic State, arguing that the Syrian government was now prepared to take over security duties. This signaled a major shift in American policy toward it longtime ally, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). It also underscored Washington's increasing confidence in Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
"The original purpose of the SDF as the primary anti-ISIS force on the ground has largely expired, as Damascus is now both willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities, including control of ISIS detention facilities and camps," Barrack said on X. After suffering stinging battlefield defeats over the past week, the SDF on Sunday signed a ceasefire and integration deal that many analysts say looked like a surrender.
The SDF agreed to merge its forces into the Syrian military, relinquish control of oil fields and assets, and hand over control of security infrastructure, including prisons holding Islamic State detainees.
The U.S. had traded partnership with the Kurds for one with the central government, which agreed to join the U.S.-led global coalition to defeat the Islamic State. Nevertheless, Kurdish forces would continue to protect Kurdish Syrians in their territory, said Ilham Ahmed, head of the foreign relations department of the Kurdish administration in northeastern Syria. "Our people don't trust that the army will protect them, so this will be our mission," she added. (New York Times)
- U.S. Moving Some Islamic State Prisoners from Syria to Iraq - Nadeen Ebrahim
Syrian government forces have seized swaths of territory long controlled by Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria
where tens of thousands of Islamic State detainees and their families are being held in prisons and camps.
On Wednesday, U.S. forces transferred 150 ISIS fighters from a detention facility in Hasakah to a "secure location" in Iraq. Under the new mission, up to 7,000 ISIS detainees could ultimately be moved from Syria to Iraqi-controlled facilities, the U.S. military said. (CNN)
- U.S. Exposes and Disrupts Hamas's Covert Support Network
On Wednesday, the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned six Gaza-based organizations that claim to provide medical care to Palestinian civilians but in fact support the military wing of Hamas, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. OFAC is also targeting the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad, an organization that is clandestinely controlled by Hamas and has been a key backer of several so-called flotillas attempting to access Gaza.
These groups hide their affiliation to Hamas in order to raise funds from overseas donors, many of whom are unwitting, and thereby divert donations intended for the Palestinian people to enable Hamas's terrorism. Information exposing the six Gaza-based organizations that support Hamas's military wing was revealed by documentary evidence taken from Hamas offices after Oct. 7, 2023.
(U.S. Treasury Department)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- Board of Peace to Set 3-5 Month Timeline for Gaza Disarmament - Ariel Kahana
The Board of Peace led by President Donald Trump is expected to present Hamas with an ultimatum demanding that it agrees to disarm in the coming days. The ultimatum will include an explicit requirement for Hamas to hand over all types of weapons in its possession. Hamas will be given a short period of time to respond on whether it accepts the demand.
If the response is positive, the policing forces operating on behalf of the "technocratic committee" that is to run Gaza would be responsible for collecting all weapons held by Hamas, including rifles, rockets, explosive devices and other arms.
Neither the IDF nor the International Stabilization Force (ISF) would carry out the collection. Instead, it would be handled by a Palestinian police force that has been trained in recent months in Egypt. The assessment is that this process would take 3-5 months.
Senior officials told Israel Hayom that all parties understand that full disarmament of Gaza and stripping Hamas of its weapons are an essential and critical condition for implementing the peace plan. Without this, there will be no progress in Gaza's reconstruction and the international community will not transfer funds for that purpose. This is a fundamental principle agreed upon by all parties, including Arab states.
If this scenario does not materialize, the officials said there is also agreement among the international bodies that Israel would receive authorization to disarm Hamas by force.
(Israel Hayom)
See also Hamas Lays Out Steep Terms for Surrendering Arms - Danny Zaken (Israel Hayom)
- Why UNRWA Offices in Jerusalem Should Be Dismantled - Editorial
Israel began to demolish the former UNRWA offices in Jerusalem on Tuesday after deciding that UNRWA's era in Jerusalem is over. The act was framed as a moment of restoration of sovereignty and a form of historic justice. The Israel Lands Authority described the compound as state land held without proper authorization and "The land returns to state management." The area will now be planned for public benefit.
The Jerusalem Post supports the dismantling. Israel is entitled to enforce its laws in its capital and to remove an agency it argues has lost legitimacy, especially after Oct. 7. Israel says it owns the compound, which does not enjoy immunity, and the action was carried out in accordance with the law. Moreover, several outlets described the compound as no longer functioning.
(Jerusalem Post)
- Israel to Shut Down UNRWA's Water, Electricity - Keshet Neev
Israel was to begin shutting down water and electricity at all UNRWA institutions in the country starting on Wednesday, following legislation passed by the Knesset at the end of December mandating the cutoff, Energy and Infrastructure Minister Eli Cohen told the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. "Warning letters have already been sent to properties that we identified as belonging to UNRWA," Cohen said. Both opposition and coalition lawmakers supported the legislation.
Referring to international condemnation of the move, Cohen noted, "Anyone who says UNRWA should remain is doing so out of antisemitism, because it is clear that UNRWA is part of the terror infrastructure. UNRWA was involved in employing Hamas terrorists who took an active part on October 7, including the kidnapping of Israelis, their murder, and other acts. We have many additional testimonies." Cohen added that the UN agency "operates in a systematic way to incite against Israel....We will not allow UNRWA, which operates as a front for Hamas activity, to continue operating within the State of Israel." (Jerusalem Post)
- IDF Operating Daily Against Hamas Ceasefire Violations - Yoav Zitun
Reserve officers from the Jerusalem Brigade, summing up their sixth combat deployment since Oct. 7, said they operated along the Yellow Line in northern Gaza, firing small arms, artillery or other fire at suspected targets and terrorists who approached the Yellow Line almost every day. They also continued to locate and destroy Hamas tunnels and weapons caches.
(Ynet News)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
The "Board of Peace"
- Is Trump's Board of Peace an Alternative UN? - Herb Keinon
President Donald Trump unveiled his 20-point peace plan for Gaza in September. The Board of Peace
was the ninth point. In four months, the Board has gone from a mechanism designed to oversee governance in Gaza to, according to its charter, "an international organization that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict." In other words, an alternative United Nations.
Trump said Tuesday that "I wish the United Nations could do more. I wish we didn't need a Board of Peace." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel would accept Trump's invitation to join the new world body.
It is clearly in Israel's interest to be at the table where decisions about Gaza's future are being made. The Board could provide Israel with a channel to shape demilitarization arrangements, border controls, and monitoring mechanisms, rather than leaving those sensitive issues to be worked out among Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt.
Joining the Board signals Israel's alignment with the Trump administration's foreign policy priorities and objectives. Israel has a clear interest in staying on the president's good side, and this is a relatively low-cost way of doing so.
Moreover, if the rise of the Board ultimately weakens the standing of the UN, that would be a boon for Israel, given the UN's long record of entrenched bias toward Israel. (Jerusalem Post)
- Will Qatar and Turkey Back Hamas on Trump's Board of Peace? - Jonathan Schanzer
President Trump's newly minted Board of Peace is designed to implement his peace plan for war-torn Gaza, as endorsed by the UN Security Council in November. According to Trump administration officials, the Board of Peace has not been conceived as a direct challenge to the UN. Rather, it should be seen as one of several multilateral entities that could help nudge a flailing UN in the right direction.
The inclusion of Qatar and Turkey, both long-standing and continued patrons of Hamas, raises an uncomfortable question: Will they continue to back their terrorist client in Gaza, or will they work with the Trump administration to end Hamas rule in Gaza? Trump should demand that Qatar and Turkey banish Hamas from their territories and end all support, as a condition for their continued inclusion on the Board.
The writer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Treasury Department, is executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. (New York Post)
Iran
- Will We See a Transition in Iran from the Rule of Clerics to Rule by the Revolutionary Guards? - Raz Zimmt
In an interview with Euronews Persian in early January, political commentator Saeed Laylaz assessed that Iran may soon undergo a political transformation driven by the emergence of a new leader from within the system.
Laylaz - who had served as an adviser to former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami - asserted that the Islamic Republic has reached a dead end but still lacks a viable alternative, as no opposition is capable of seizing power.
There has been a significant erosion over the years in the standing of the clerical establishment. Secularization in Iranian society - especially among the younger generation - together with the growing alienation many citizens feel toward clerics due to the politicization of the religious establishment since the revolution; the identification of clerics with a governing system perceived as failing and corrupt; the uncompromising positions of hardline clerics; and the relatively comfortable economic status of senior clerics - all have contributed to a marked decline in their standing and even to displays of public hostility toward clerics in the public sphere.
The burning of hundreds of mosques during the most recent wave of protests in Iran provided another expression of the intensity of public hostility toward religious institutions.
The repeated protests over the past decade are no longer isolated expressions of economic distress; rather, they reflect a deep and enduring crisis of legitimacy. Slogans heard in the streets against the leader, religious institutions, and the Islamic Republic itself testify to a fundamental rupture between the public and its founding values.
The writer is Director of the Iran and the Shiite Axis research program at INSS.
(Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University)
- Brutal Protest Crackdown Marks Tehran Regime's Death Throes, Ex-CIA Chief Says
Ex-CIA director Gen. (ret.) David Petraeus told Iran International on Jan. 16, "This regime is dying." The deadly crackdown "signals enormous questions about the regime's ability to sustain the situation."
"Iran is essentially defenseless at this point," Petraeus said, referring to the destruction of its air defense systems in a June conflict with Israel and the U.S., and that the scale of violence used against demonstrators reflects fear rather than control. While the Islamic Republic may be able to suppress unrest in the short term, "This regime has lost legitimacy."
Petraeus said Iran no longer has the financial tools it once used to calm the streets. "At this time, there's not much Iran can do about it. They have very little capacity....I think we could take action against the regime and it would be applauded." (Iran International)
Israel in Western Media
- A Film Funded by Qatar, Turkey, and the BBC Rewrites the Past - Oren Kessler
The film "Palestine 36" - funded by the British Film Institute (BFI), BBC Film, Qatar's Doha Film Institute, and the Turkish state-run media outlet TRT - is short-listed for this year's Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.
However, it defies - and at times invents - the historical record to rewrite the past in service of a contemporary political agenda.
It presents the Great Arab Revolt as a morality play of colonial cruelty and Arab resistance, while rendering its primary targets, the Jews of Mandatory Palestine, voiceless - alluded to but scarcely seen. It erases a
Jewish community nearly half a million strong by the revolt's end in 1939 in an act of historical revisionism verging on fantasy.
The film claims that the British are repeatedly "transferring" land to the Jews. The reality was that virtually all of the land the Jews possessed had been purchased, legally, from Arab landowners who were keen to sell to Jews.
The leader of Palestine's Arabs in 1936 was Hajj Amin al-Husseini, president of the Supreme Muslim Council and later chair of the Arab Higher Committee. Wanted by the British for fomenting and perpetuating the revolt, he eventually made his way to Berlin, where he met with Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, took up residence as a guest of the Reich, and became Nazi Germany's chief propagandist to the Muslim world.
Only in the final credits, and only in minuscule type, does "Palestine 36" concede that the movie is a work of fiction, merely "inspired by actual events and characters."
The writer is author of the book Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict (2023).
(Free Press)
Observations:
- In his forthcoming book, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro writes that in 2024, Kamala Harris's vetting team
asked him: "Have you ever been an agent of the Israeli government?" That was apparently followed-up with a question about whether Shapiro had ever met with an undercover agent of the Israeli government. The vetting team also suggested that Harris wanted him to apologize for his harsh criticism of Hamas fans who harassed Jews.
- Jewish leaders wasted no time in criticizing the Harris team's embrace of the dual-loyalty canard.
After all, if Shapiro can be disqualified for having as a teenager visited Israel and volunteering on a kibbutz, it could potentially have a chilling effect on young American Jews, who are already being pressured into hiding their involvement in Jewish communal activities. The attack on Shapiro is an attack on American Jewry.
- "I wondered," he writes, "whether these questions were being posed to just me - the only Jewish guy in the running - or if everyone who had not held a federal office was being grilled about Israel in the same way."
Shapiro concluded that the whole affair "said a lot about some of the people around the VP."
- As to whether Shapiro would, as Harris requested, grovel and beg the forgiveness of people chasing Jews while cheering Hamas's Nazi atrocities, he "flatly" said no. Shapiro isn't letting them take free shots at the Jews.
- An antisemitic and anti-Israel lunatic set fire to Shapiro's house while his family was inside on Passover. Should he apologize to the man who tried to murder his family, too?
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