| DAILY ALERT |
Sunday, October 13, 2024 |
|
News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
At the heart of U.S. diplomatic efforts to halt Israel's invasion of southern Lebanon is a UN resolution adopted in 2006 that was intended to demilitarize the area and protect Israel from cross-border attacks by Hizbullah. "The outcome that we want to see is the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday. Miller said that would mean the withdrawal of Hizbullah forces from the Israel-Lebanon border, and the deployment of UN and Lebanese army forces into the buffer zone in southern Lebanon that the resolution had sought to create. On Thursday, Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said, "Key to that resolution was the UN deploying a force on our northern border inside southern Lebanon. It's called UNIFIL, and its purpose was to ensure that Hizbullah did not exist between the gap between the Litani River and our northern border. They've never fulfilled that task. UNIFIL has been an abject failure, as evidenced by the more than 10,000 rockets which this country has received from Hizbullah." Israeli officials have also noted that Lebanon's army had no appetite for clashing with Hizbullah. On Wednesday, Miller said the U.S. sees Israel as "having the right to conduct these limited incursions" to weaken Hizbullah and force it to withdraw behind the Litani River. Mencer said, "We have no territorial aims or ambitions in Lebanon. In the absence of any diplomatic resolution to stop that rocket fire, we will do the job of pushing Hizbullah back behind the Litani River for the simple objective of getting our people back home." (New York Times) Minutes from 10 secret meetings over two years, seized by the Israeli military, provide a detailed record of the planning for Hamas's Oct. 7 terrorist attack. Hamas initially planned to carry out the attack in the fall of 2022, but delayed executing the plan as it tried to persuade Iran and Hizbullah to participate. In July 2023, Hamas dispatched a top official to Lebanon to meet with a senior Iranian commander. He requested Iran's help with striking sensitive sites at the start of the assault. The senior Iranian commander told Hamas that Iran and Hizbullah were supportive in principle, but needed more time to prepare. Hamas deliberately avoided major confrontations with Israel for two years from 2021, in order to maximize the surprise of the Oct. 7 attack. Hamas leaders said they "must keep the enemy convinced that Hamas in Gaza wants calm." The minutes were discovered on a computer found in January by Israeli soldiers as they searched an underground Hamas command center in Khan Yunis from which the group's leaders had recently escaped. (New York Times) Years before the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Hamas's leaders plotted a deadlier wave of terrorist assaults against Israel, potentially including a Sept. 11-style toppling of a Tel Aviv skyscraper, while they pressed Iran to assist in helping achieve their vision of annihilating the Jewish state, according to documents seized by Israeli forces in Gaza. In letters written in 2021, Hamas's Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar appealed to several senior Iranian officials including supreme leader Ali Khamenei for additional financial and military support, pledging that, with Iran's backing, he could destroy Israel completely in two years. A 36-page computer slide presentation created in 2022, titled "Strategy to Build an Appropriate Plan to Liberate Palestine," contains dozens of maps, photographs and schematics depicting the movement of Hamas fighters against Israeli targets ranging from military command centers to shopping malls. (Washington Post) The U.S. on Friday announced new sanctions on Iran's energy sector in response to its Oct. 1 missile attack on Israel. The sanctions include blocks on Iran's "ghost fleet" of ships and associated firms that span the UAE, Liberia, Hong Kong and other jurisdictions that transport Iranian oil for sale to buyers in Asia. Additionally, the U.S. State Department designated a network of companies based in Suriname, India, Malaysia and Hong Kong for arranging the sale and transport of petroleum from Iran. Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, said the new sanctions "will help further deny Iran financial resources used to support its missile programs and provide support for terrorist groups that threaten the United States, its allies, and partners." The penalties aim to block them from using the U.S. financial system and bar American citizens from dealing with them. (AP-Washington Post) David Vaknin, a building supervisor from northern Haifa, had been working in a second-storey apartment on Tuesday when the air raid sirens went off. He barely had time to get to a safe room before a Hizbullah rocket smashed through the roof, hitting the very spot where he had been moments before. He told CBC News on Wednesday, "Every week there are injuries, there are deaths. We can't keep living like this. We need to defeat this hatred and those terrorist organizations. We need to deal with them once and for all." There appears to be no hesitancy for most Israelis when it comes to Hizbullah. Practically all parties in the Knesset have endorsed sending ground troops into southern Lebanon. (CBC News-Canada) Lord Walney, the government's adviser on political violence and disruption, said Wednesday: "I have been really concerned with the level of criminality that has been on display on protests and the evident difficulty that police officers have in being able to charge all of that criminality event when it is readily in evidence at times on social media." While "the police cannot be everywhere," on Oct. 5 in London "there were banners on display in clear support of a proscribed terrorist organization, Hizbullah, committed to the violent eradication of Israel, which is in clear contravention of the law....Some of these clear offenses are not being immediately brought to justice in a way we'd like to see." (Jewish Chronicle-UK) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
On Thursday I saw the IDF in a Lebanese town taking apart the military infrastructure, including advanced Kornet missiles, rockets, and anti-aircraft guns, which Hizbullah embedded into nearly every civilian house. While Hizbullah has started to fire rockets at larger Israeli cities farther from the border, these attacks have paled in comparison to what was expected and the casualty count has been relatively low. Once it began a ground invasion of Lebanon, Israel expected to have thousands of dead civilians and a ravaged home front, including in Tel Aviv. During the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Israeli forces suffered from Hizbullah ambushes and there were concerns about the IDF's ability to take the fight to enemy territory on the ground. Yet, what I saw in southern Lebanon was complete IDF supremacy on the ground - and in record time. Reported IDF deaths in battle are in the low dozens - an astoundingly low number compared to the several hundred Hizbullah operatives killed and the myriad of weapons captured. The IDF has exorcised the Hizbullah demons that had plagued it. (Jerusalem Post) See also IDF Slices through Hizbullah's Front Lines - Lazar Berman Before Oct. 7, it was assumed that any IDF move against Hizbullah would lead to thousands of Hizbullah rockets raining down on Israel every day. One year later, the balance of power has changed dramatically. Ten days into the IDF ground operation in Lebanon, it's hard to fathom that Israel recently treated Hizbullah as an adversary that it needs to tiptoe around. Israeli forces have taken casualties, but what the IDF faces in Lebanon is far from the organized, highly professional defense that many expected. Soldiers said they faced uncoordinated attacks by small cells, which are inevitably eliminated. (Times of Israel) Former CIA director Gen. (ret.) David H. Petraeus has emphasized that Israel should maintain control of the Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egypt until a reliable security force is established to prevent the resurgence of Hamas and other extremist groups. Speaking on a podcast sponsored by the Jewish People Policy Institute, Petraeus stressed that without Israel's continued presence, any efforts at rebuilding Gaza could be undermined by terrorists. "Only if you establish security can you introduce humanitarian assistance in an organized way, without it being hijacked by criminal elements or Hamas remnants," Petraeus added. (Jerusalem Post) IDF troops operating inside a Shi'ite village near the Lebanon border with Israel found military equipment for Hizbullah's preparation for an invasion into Israel, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Thursday. Hizbullah's Radwan forces were embedded in the village, appearing as regular villagers, while their rifles, grenades and more were stored in the houses, waiting for the order to launch the assault. "It would have been bigger than the one on Oct. 7," Hagari said. Hizbullah's Radwan forces, numbering 4,000 to 6,000 men, were to breach the border at the same time through six points, and overrun military bases and communities on the Israeli side. (Ynet News) See also Video: IDF Reveals Hizbullah's Plan to Conquer the Galilee (Israel Defense Forces) Five residents of the Arab-Israeli city of Taibeh were arrested for forming a terror cell affiliated with ISIS that planned to bomb the Azrieli Mall in Tel Aviv, the Israel Police and Israel Security Agency revealed Thursday. (Ynet News) The UNRWA complex located in the Ma'alot Dafna neighborhood of Jerusalem is slated to become a housing project with 1,440 units, the Israel Land Authority (ILA) announced Thursday. The ILA informed UNRWA in May that it must vacate the premises and pay Israel tens of millions of shekels in overdue rent for the years they had been using the property. (Jerusalem Post) A Palestinian gang from Surif, near Hebron, was caught last week while plundering and damaging an underground archaeological site at Khirbet Umm er Rus near Beit Shemesh, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced Thursday. IAA said the looters caused irreversible damage to the ancient remnants at the Second Temple period site, which features ancient buildings, water cisterns, and numerous underground chambers. Dr. Eitan Klein, deputy director of the IAA's anti-looting unit, said, "I'm glad we managed to catch this gang and prevent further harm to Israel's historical heritage. We will not let them steal our history from under our feet." (Ynet News) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Iran After Iran's second missile salvo, Israel's goal is to strike the Islamic Republic so decisively that it will think twice before engaging in a protracted conflict with Israel. Iran does not possess the capability to deploy ground forces against Israel, given the vast geographical distance. Moreover, Iran's air capabilities are limited. Iran had counted on its network of proxies to provide a protective umbrella against Western strikes. However, this strategy lies in tatters: Hamas is reeling, Hizbullah is on the back foot, and the various militias in Iraq and Yemen are little more than an irritant for Israel. Thus, Iran finds itself unexpectedly exposed. Oded Ailam, a former senior Mossad official, said Iran's "arsenal likely numbers around 2,000 missiles." In the aftermath of their first attack, Iranian leaders initially doubted Israel's claims of successful interceptions. Iran deployed more advanced Fateh-2 missiles in their second strike. However, Ailam estimates their stockpile of these advanced weapons is limited to between 400 and 800. With 200 already expended in a single attack, Iran's reserves of truly effective missiles may be running low, suggesting that their capacity for attrition warfare may be limited. Ailam said, "Iran faces a significant disadvantage against Israel. They lack a single Arrow missile and there isn't a single shelter in Tehran.... They're exposed in ways they never anticipated." (Israel Hayom) Hizbullah In laboratories across southern Lebanon, Hizbullah recruits stir amphetamines together with cheap chemicals. The result is Captagon, the "cocaine of the poor." The drug will be sold to Gulf nations and the profits, in the tens of millions of dollars, used to fund terrorism. Drug trafficking is forbidden by Islam. But Hizbullah has developed a pragmatic approach, manufacturing the drug for the "enemies of Islam" in the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia. In order to prevent Hizbullah from gaining strength after a ceasefire, Israel and the international community must "follow the money." Some 40% of Hizbullah's revenues come from trading Captagon. A targeted attack on its Captagon laboratories in the Bekaa Valley could harm Hizbullah's production and distribution capability. International cooperation is also needed to check the Lebanese banking system, which allows Hizbullah to launder the profits from drug trafficking. While a Hizbullah fighter earns $1,500 a month, a soldier in the Lebanese army earns just $300. These salaries come to a large extent from the drug trade, and cutting the ability to fund them will harm the motivation of Hizbullah's fighters and limit its ability to recruit fighters. The writer is former head of Mossad's Terrorism Division. (Sunday Telegraph-UK) The Ziv Medical Center in Safed, seven miles from the border with Lebanon, serves the Upper Galilee region. Hospital deputy director-general Dr. Iris Leitersdorf, 58, says the hospital became a target after Hizbullah began launching rockets at Israel "in solidarity" with Gaza on Oct. 8. "They are targeting us and we know that we are a target," Leitersdorf says. In February, a Hizbullah missile burrowed into the ground just outside the entrance to the hospital. Fortunately, it did not explode. In December 2023, Israel's national cyber directorate said Iran and Hizbullah were behind an attempt to hack Ziv and cripple its operations. As Israel prepared to enter southern Lebanon, Ziv's senior managers made the call on Sep. 23 to evacuate ordinary patients from the hospital to prepare for Israeli military casualties. Within three days of Israel's Oct. 1 invasion, there were more than 100 military casualties in Ziv. "Right now, we have about 200 military casualties," said Leitersdorf. Three rockets landed near the hospital's helipad last week. (Sunday Times-UK) Israeli Security The attacks of Oct. 7 have thrown into stark relief the "normal" historical condition of the Jews throughout history. In this generation, too, like in every generation before, the Jewish people confront enemies intent on their annihilation. Since Oct. 7, antisemitism has resurged with terrifying intensity worldwide, shattering the illusion of "normalcy" between Jews and other nations. The Israeli public has come to realize that hostility toward Jews and toward the Jewish state is a deeply rooted force that openly shapes the political positions of many countries. These developments have led to a deep sense among Jews of betrayal by Western societies, the painful realization that what we're facing is antisemitism in contemporary guise, masquerading as opposition to Zionism and the State of Israel. It has become clear that no matter how we attempt to downplay our Jewish identity, "enlightened" nations continue to perceive us as "the other." The elite institutions of the West - academia, media, and international justice organizations - persist in applying double standards to the Jewish state. The events of Oct. 7 and the ensuing war have vividly illustrated and revalidated the relevance of the Zionist idea, that the Jewish condition cannot rely on the world's goodwill in times of crisis. We cannot expect democratic nations to stand with the only democratic state in the Middle East. Despite the Oct. 7 attack and the unleashing of antisemitism, Israel has given the Jewish people the ability to fight back. We are fighting, and we are winning. This is the essence of political Zionism. For 12 months, Israel has resolutely repelled those who seek its destruction. The hope that integrating into global culture or adopting a cosmopolitan worldview would lead to acceptance and support from the "enlightened world" has proved illusory. If our enemies declare that in their heart, mind, and plans they aspire to annihilate us, we must take their aspirations seriously, treat their words with the utmost gravity, believe them, and act accordingly. What the rest of the world does and wants can never be our yardstick. Otherwise, we'd all be dead. The writer is Policy Assistant to Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer. (Tablet) Five times over the past two weeks, rocket attacks from distant lands have sent me running for the bomb shelter in my home in central Israel. When Israel came under attack from about 200 Iranian missiles last week, I huddled together with my wife and children and we sang songs while air raid sirens blared outside our shelter and the room shook from the booms of Israel's missile interceptor defense system. Just days before that, we had rocket attacks on two successive days by Houthi militants in Yemen - the second while my three older children were with friends at a local park on a Saturday afternoon. With nowhere to shelter, they ran to a nearby wall and covered their heads with their hands. Meanwhile, residents of northern Israel have been under incessant attack from Hizbullah since Oct. 8, 2023, displacing more than 60,000 Israelis. Many of their hometowns lie in ruins as a result of attacks by Hizbullah rockets, drones and anti-tank weapons. Nearly 50 Israelis have been killed there. The root of the conflict in the Middle East is painfully simple: Israel's foes refuse to accept it. It has been that way since Israel's establishment in 1948. Israel's enduring enemies want to reverse the outcome of Israel's 1948 War of Independence and wipe Israel off the map. What choice does Israel have other than to fight? Israel does not covet territory in Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Iraq or Syria. Israel wants to live in peace with these countries. But they refuse to give up on their dreams of annihilating the Jewish state. So Israel must respond to their attacks, ensuring they never become capable of destroying it. That's what Israel's response to Oct. 7 is all about. The rest of the world should applaud Israel and offer it greater operational and intelligence support because these rogues threaten us all. In Israel, we understand that peace will come only when the country's enemies accept that Israel is here to stay. Until then, Israel must be strong - and continue to degrade those sworn to its destruction. (USA Today) Let us not forget that Israel was the one attacked on Oct. 7. Israel has been fighting back for a year. That war has now escalated to include Hizbullah, the Houthis, and Iran. The fighting has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of terrorists who started this war. It has also led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians who would be alive today if not for the hatred of those who hate Israel and Jews. They hate us so much that they were willing to sacrifice innocent Arab lives for the destruction of the one Jewish state in the world. In the Arab world, at the end of the 19th century, Egyptian scholar Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) became the founding father of Islamic Modernism, a school of thought that called for a profound reform of the dominant attitudes of Muslims to significantly narrow the gap between Islamic values and Western thought. Abduh was prepared to borrow ideas and practices from the West such as democracy, the rule of law, educational reform, free thought and research, an improved status for women, and relations with believers from other faiths. Even though Abduh at times espoused anti-Jewish sentiments, he also focused on the positive and neutral perspectives on Jews in the Quran and was a moderate on Zionism. Perhaps it was based in part on Muhammad Abduh's ideas that the leadership of the UAE and the Israelis were able to begin to craft the principles that would eventually become the basis of the Abraham Accords. The writer is former co-director of the State of California Center of Excellence for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance, and former executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. (Times of Israel) Israel and the West Even among mainstream voices in Germany, the once-clear commitment to Israel's security, grounded in our historic responsibility for the Holocaust, has weakened. I stand with Israel because the German debate currently lacks a noticeable pro-Israel voice and is quite one-sided. The original cause of this war is barely discussed anymore: the massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, which claimed over 1,200 lives, the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. Hardly anyone speaks anymore about the fate of the 101 Israeli hostages still in Hamas captivity. I've been shaken by the fact that people I once respected have expressed solidarity with terror and reinterpreted it as legitimate Palestinian self-determination. What I miss in Germany is empathy for the citizens of a country surrounded by enemies who want to wipe it off the map. Israel is attacked almost daily by its neighbors. Only Israel's highly effective air defense has prevented thousands more civilian casualties. Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has also seen over 100,000 internally displaced people. No country can indefinitely tolerate a situation where part of its territory becomes uninhabitable because it is under constant attack. I stand not for a "Yes, but" but for a "Yes, because." I stand in solidarity with Israel because, after the horrors of the Holocaust, we Germans have a historic responsibility for Israel's security. As a leftist, I feel obligated to speak out against rampant antisemitism and hatred of Israel. The writer is chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag. (Ynet News) In 1923, as elite American universities began adopting quotas restricting the number of Jews they admitted, the Hillel organization was formed to provide a home for Jewish students on campus where they could congregate to pray, socialize, and feel welcome. Hillel has been the central address for Jewish life at colleges and universities ever since. When I was a student at UCLA, overwhelmed by the size of the university, I found at Hillel a smaller group of individuals with whom I shared values, history, and a sense of cultural belonging, and formed relationships that have lasted my entire adult life. That is why I have been heartbroken and horrified in recent months as the broader Hillel organization has become the target of regular threats and attacks, a dynamic that emerged after Oct. 7 and that appears to have grown more frequent and intense. It is, to put it plainly, undemocratic to support the tactics of drowning out and protesting Israeli or Jewish speakers simply because they are Jewish. It needs to be called out for what it is: anti-Semitism. It is anti-Semitic to seek to deny Jewish students the ability to access the most important organization for Jewish life on campus. We cannot allow this to be normalized. I have been uninvited from venues since Oct. 7 simply because I am Jewish. I have been shouted down, asked to leave, accused of a hatred I know not how to summon. And my response is one that I and generations of students have learned at Hillel. Hillel teaches that we should not be afraid to be Jewish. We can be proud to be American. And we deserve the rights and privileges awarded to every minority on campus: a safe place to gather, to pray, to learn, and to fight for what is right. The writer is an actress and neuroscientist. (Atlantic) One year after the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas in Israel, protesters chanting anti-Israel slogans stormed and smashed buildings at McGill University. In Vancouver, pro-Hamas demonstrators burned Canadian flags on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery. A day later, an anti-Israel group at the University of Toronto started a "week of rage." Equivalent anti-Israel demonstrations occurred at universities across North America, in support of the butchers who had savagely murdered innocent Jews. These pathetic losers have chosen the side of terrorists and murderers instead of Jews worldwide and Israel fighting for democracy and Western values against a constant onslaught of barbarism. One cannot help but wonder if they truly understand what they are marching in favor of. There is no doubt that a Gazan mother grieves with equal pain to the Israeli mother for her lost child. But symmetry of grief is not symmetry of responsibility. It all comes back to who started it and what was their intent. Israel is fighting an existential war for survival and reprisal for an unprovoked attack and murder of its citizens on its soil. The writer is a lecturer at the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business. (National Post-Canada) Palestinians On Oct. 6, 2023, I was a Palestinian-British student who had gained a few Jewish friends by participating in peace groups. I wanted to learn about the other side's narratives and history because I believe we have to live in peace together. I dreamed of a Palestine that would be not only at peace, but a glimmering jewel of prosperity and economic development. Being located next door to the Israeli high-tech hub should be an economic blessing. The next day, Hamas carried out an anti-Jewish pogrom in which over 1,200 Israelis were killed, some were raped, and over 200 were kidnapped and taken to Gaza. My peaceful dream was shattered. Peace might now be delayed for decades or even generations. Palestinians were put in extreme danger of being injured or killed. While Ukrainian and Syrian civilians were able to leave Ukraine and Syria, Gazans were unable to leave, as neither Egypt nor Jordan would countenance the idea. The majority of Gazans today now live in tents in the humanitarian zone. Hamas did not start this war against Israel to resolve grievances. Instead, they started a war with the goals of conquest, domination, and terror. Their strategy, as their officials have said explicitly, is to repeat the Oct. 7 massacre again and again and again until a majority of Jewish Israelis pack up and leave in sheer terror. In addition, Hamas intentionally wants innocent Palestinian civilians to suffer and die in order to strengthen their fighters' resolve, and hurt Israel's global image and relationship with the U.S. and Europe. Hamas intends to impose a theocracy, subjugating any remaining Jews, Christians, and Bedouins, along with the non-religious, their political opponents, and anyone else whom they don't like. Theirs is simply a vision of ethnic cleansing, a neo-medieval fantasy in the vein of the early Islamic conquests. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Oct. 7 - far from being a victory - was the beginning of the end for Hamas and for many of its ideological allies. I oppose their continued rule in Gaza and anywhere else. The events of Oct. 7 did not benefit Palestinians in any way. Hamas's end would pave the way for a brighter future for Palestinians, Israelis, and the entire world. (Quillette) Houthis Over the past year of attacks on Israeli and international shipping, the Iran-backed Houthis have delivered a strong military performance. Having solidified their line of supply from Iran, the Houthis are stronger, more technically proficient, and more prominent members of the "Axis of Resistance" than they were at the war's outset. On Oct. 31, 2023, they launched the first-ever medium-range ballistic missile against Israel by a member of the Axis of Resistance. The Houthis have struck and sunk commercial ships in support of Hamas, and they have weathered the year of war without suffering major setbacks. Escalating U.S. and UK military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen did not end the Houthi anti-shipping campaign or even significantly reduce its operational tempo. The Houthis have arguably improved their effectiveness and efficiency as the war has progressed, by taking advantage of fluctuating U.S. aircraft carrier presence in the Red Sea. The Houthis also weathered a heavy Israeli retaliatory strike on one of their two main port complexes. The writer is a Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, specializing in military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran, and the Gulf states. (Combating Terrorism Center at West Point) In October 2023, the Houthi terrorist militia, backed by Iran, began attacking Israeli and international shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Prior to the Houthi attacks, merchant ship traffic in the Red Sea accounted for 15% of global traffic and 30% of container traffic. This has shut down Israel's Port of Eilat, which used to handle 2% of the total merchant ship traffic docking in Israel. Egypt also views the Houthi attacks as a direct and serious threat to its national security. The Houthi aggression presents an opportunity to enhance inter-state cooperation against the shared threat in the Red Sea, giving Israel a chance to strengthen its ties with pragmatic Arab states and position itself as a stabilizing force in the region. The international community must address this threat, which endangers global trade, causes immense environmental damage, and harms the strategic interests of countries bordering the Red Sea. (Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University) Observations: The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Changed Its Name and Mission - Alan Rosenbaum (Jerusalem Post)
|
|