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| DAILY ALERT |
Sunday, May 19, 2024 |
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CNBC on Wednesday that Israel wants to keep the Rafah crossing open for humanitarian aid into Gaza. "We want to see it open. And we certainly want...to make sure that maximum humanitarian aid flows through this crossing and other crossings as well. And I hope we can come to an understanding with Egypt. [We would open] Rafah yesterday if we could....We're not holding up the opening of Rafah. I hope Egypt considers what I'm saying.... Nobody should hold the Palestinian population hostage in any way and I'm not holding them hostage." "You really need three things to finish this thing [with Hamas]. One, you need a victory over the organized fighting formations. Then you have mop ups. Then you have sustained demilitarization to make sure there's no terrorist resurgence, because you know, they're still trying to regroup." "What do you need then to reconstruct Gaza to have a different future so Gaza doesn't pose a threat to Israel anymore? You need to have three things. One, sustained demilitarization, and that can only be done by Israel intervening when it can when it sees another terrorist resurgence. The second thing you need is a civilian administration that is not Hamas and not beholden to the destruction of Israel. And I think that could be done with the assistance of Arab countries and the international community. And the third thing you need is reconstruction." "But you've got to clear Gaza of Hamas. You can't have a future for the Palestinians in Gaza or a future for Israel...if Hamas emerges victorious. And if it's undefeated, it emerges victorious." (CNBC) The U.S. House of Representatives voted 224-187 on Thursday to force the transfer of a shipment of bombs to Israel that was paused by President Biden. 16 Democrats joined with most Republicans to vote in favor. The Democratic-led Senate seems certain to reject the bill, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, "It's not going anywhere." (AP) UNRWA's former general counsel James Lindsay told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Friday: "UNRWA's leadership is incompetent and willfully obstructionist regarding some fundamental reforms. UNRWA has made no serious efforts to avoid hiring terrorists and their supporters from a labor pool that is significantly supportive of terrorists." "It would not be surprising to learn that as many as half of UNRWA's employees were Hamas supporters - of whom some likely would be Hamas members - which is not that different from what the Israeli government alleged....It is simply not true that UNRWA is 'irreplaceable.'...The U.S. ban on funding to UNRWA in favor of funding to other aid organizations should be extended before it expires on 25 March 2025." (UN Watch) See also Video: James Lindsay's Testimony (House Foreign Affairs Committee) Trucks carrying aid for Gaza rolled across a newly built U.S. pier for the first time Friday. At the White House, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said "more than 300 pallets" of aid were in the initial delivery and handed over to the UN, which was preparing it for distribution. The aid for the sea route is collected and inspected in Cyprus, then loaded onto ships and taken 200 miles to the large floating pier off the Gaza coast, which is connected to a floating causeway anchored to the beach. (AP-Washington Post) 1/3 of the Palestinian journalists listed by the Committee to Protect Journalists as being killed in the war in Gaza were employed by terrorist groups. The number of journalists reported killed in Gaza has made headlines in the Washington Post and the New York Times without any mention of their affiliations with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Out of 100 Palestinian journalists on the list on May 17, 33 worked for Hamas-affiliated media, while two worked for Palestinian Islamic Jihad outlets. Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV, designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2010, employed 13 of those listed. (Jewish Insider) Britain will pay the price for helping to defend Israel from Iranian missiles and suicide drones, said Brig.-Gen. Esmail Qaani, commander of the IRGC's Quds force, responsible for covert operations across the Middle East. "France, Germany, and England should not think that they brought their planes that night and the issue was resolved and gone," he said, referring to Iran's April 13 attack on Israel. Four RAF Typhoons stationed in Cyprus were deployed over Iraq and Syria, intercepting and shooting down 10-20 Shahed suicide drones. (Telegraph-UK) Police have killed an Algerian man who set fire to a synagogue in Rouen in northern France, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Friday. The man climbed a bin to reach the first floor and threw in a flammable substance. When law enforcement arrived at the scene, the man came down and tried to attack police with a long knife and police fired back. Natacha Ben Haim, president of the Jewish community of Rouen, said "a lot of furniture" had been affected by the fire. "The walls, everything is black." (Washington Post-Reuters) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
Veteran Israeli expert for Arab affairs Ehud Yaari says Hamas has earned at least $500 million from confiscated humanitarian aid since the beginning of the Gaza war. "We are financing Hamas." (Channel 12 TV-Hebrew) Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday that the IDF operation in Rafah was about making sure "the faucet to Hamas is closed," which would end its major cross-border capability to resupply itself with weapons. He added that "the operation will continue with additional forces...this operation will continue and intensify." (Jerusalem Post) See also UN Says 800,000 Gazans Have Evacuated from Rafah (Times of Israel) Hizbullah drone and rocket attacks on Israel surged on Saturday. Israel responded with airstrikes and artillery fire on sites in southern Lebanon. At the same time, ten rockets were launched from northern Gaza at the Israeli city of Ashkelon on Saturday. Half were intercepted by air defenses and the rest crashed in unpopulated areas. (Ynet News) See also Hizbullah Special Forces Still Lurking on Israel's Northern Border - Lior Ben Ari Hizbullah's Radwan Force, comprised of thousands of highly trained fighters with advanced weaponry, was primarily established for a large-scale invasion of Israel and the capture of communities in the Galilee. Despite various reports, most of these forces remain near the border. As a result, they have suffered considerable losses, with at least nine senior commanders of the commando unit eliminated. According to Tal Be'eri of the Alma Research and Education Center, "We estimate that the Radwan Force, if desired, could still operationally implement a limited invasion plan in the north....Even if the government tries to reach a diplomatic agreement, it will only delay the war, which will break out the moment Hizbullah wants and on its terms." (Ynet News) The Israeli delegation to the International Court of Justice in The Hague concluded its arguments before the panel of judges on Friday. South Africa had applied to the Court requesting provisional orders to deny Israel its legitimate right to protect its citizens. Israel highlighted South Africa's distorted claims, which ignore the Hamas terrorist organization that continues to attack Israel and to hold 132 hostages, and present a false picture regarding the situation on the ground. Israel emphasized its commitment to the transfer of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza and its efforts to enable the entry of humanitarian aid by land, air and sea, including the opening by the U.S. of a temporary floating pier. Israeli Deputy Attorney General Dr. Gilad Noam said: "South Africa is not interested in truth, law or justice. Just this week it hosted a delegation of senior Hamas members. There was no mention there of the return of the hostages or the cessation of Hamas' cynical exploitation of hospitals and UN facilities." Acting Legal Advisor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Adv. Tamar Kaplan-Turgeman, said: "Accepting South Africa's arguments would give Hamas a green light to regain its grip on Gaza and to repeat the Oct. 7 atrocities again and again, as Hamas itself has vowed to do. It would constitute a death sentence for the hostages." (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs) Five Israeli paratroopers were killed and another seven were wounded, including three seriously, by IDF fire in Jabaliya on Wednesday, the military announced Thursday. According to an initial IDF probe, a tank operating alongside the paratroopers fired two shells at a building that the soldiers had entered. The tank forces had identified a gun barrel from one of the windows of the building and believed it was enemy forces. The soldiers were all members of a religious unit in the Paratroopers Brigade. (Times of Israel) At 3 a.m. on Thursday, a Palestinian was stopped near the Shalem police station, just outside Jerusalem's Old City, and asked for identification by Border Police officers after acting suspiciously. The man pulled out a knife and rushed towards the soldiers, attempting to stab them, before they opened fire and killed him. (Jerusalem Post) On Oct. 7, Dvir Fisher, 23, was at a Rainbow Festival in the Himalayas in Nepal. After he heard the news of the Hamas attacks in Israel, he decided to return home immediately to join his IDF reserve unit. During a ride to Kathmandu, he was sitting next to an Argentine woman who asked him why he was going back. "I said my country was at war, that many people were murdered and kidnapped. The woman told me, 'So what? Your life is more important. In the end we are all private human beings. There is no such thing as a people.' I told her, that's not correct. This is my people, this could have been me. I'm fighting for the right of my people to live in my country. For the right of the Jewish people simply to live. She didn't understand." In November, Dvir was shot in the neck in Gaza and barely survived. Today he is involved in highlighting the experiences of soldiers who were wounded in the Gaza war. (Makor Rishon-Hebrew, 17May2024) Former Mossad director Yossi Cohen said on May 12, "Tying Israel's hands in its battle against Hamas in Gaza only serves to tighten the ropes around the hands of the hostages in captivity. Israel must be given a free hand to operate against these vicious terrorists. This requires diplomacy. But it also requires military force. One does not work without the other. Hamas is a cruel enemy with no regard for human life. The whole world must remember this." Cohen noted the loss of 765 soldiers and 834 civilians to acts of terror over the past year. He is president of Friends of the IDF Widows and Orphans Organization. (Jerusalem Post) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Palestinian Arabs The White House is considering the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza in the U.S. Yet Gaza Palestinians have been steeped in Hamas' terrorist ideology since 2007, according to experts. Pinhas Inbari, a veteran Arab affairs analyst and senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told Fox News, "The core issue is whether all Gaza is Hamas or, as Biden tries to convince us, that there is a difference between Hamas and the Gazans, and we have to treat them differently. I cannot say all Gazans are Hamas, but you can say they are brainwashed by Hamas. Muslims are indoctrinated with jihad [in Gaza]. You can't take them as they are now and plant them in the U.S. Biden has to see Europe to understand." Inbari pointed to the April march of over 1,000 radical Islamists in the German city of Hamburg. The Islamists announced that "Caliphate is the solution" - an Islamic state where Sharia law governs all walks of life. It "will take years of education to teach them not to be jihadi Muslims," said Inbari, who is fluent in Arabic. "They are educated to hate America and Christians." (Fox News) Some MPs are agitating for Britain to take in Palestinians fleeing Gaza. Yet we have no idea how many Gazans support their murdering, raping masters. A Palestinian student has already had her UK visa revoked after saying she was "full of joy" after the Oct. 7 attacks. Dana Abuqamar, 19, a law student at the University of Manchester, said that she was "proud that Palestinian resistance has come to this point" after the atrocities. It would be naive to believe that the average Palestinian wishing to come to the UK thinks much differently. (Telegraph-UK) Those who believe the Palestinian Authority should replace Hamas in Gaza are either gullible, badly uninformed, or living in delusions. The PA can pay salaries to civil servants, but it cannot - and will never - take on Hamas directly. Sending PA security personnel to Gaza while Hamas terrorists are still on the streets would be tantamount to suicide. During the 2007 Hamas coup in Gaza, Hamas terrorists killed a large number of PA security officers. Hamas has stated that it will not allow PA security forces to re-enter Gaza. In April, Hamas announced that its men had foiled an attempt by PA intelligence officers to enter Gaza under cover of being aid workers. Hamas arrested 10 PA General Intelligence Service officers, while some were able to flee. Hamas has also rejected the idea of sending international or Arab forces to Gaza. "Any force that attempts to enter Gaza will be handled with resistance and treated as an occupying force," Hamas recently declared. Between 2005 and 2007, PA President Mahmoud Abbas ruled Gaza, yet he took no action to stop terrorist groups from firing rockets at Israel or from amassing a sizable arsenal. Despite having thousands of security officers in the West Bank, Abbas has done little to prevent armed groups from forming in several cities and villages that fall under his jurisdiction. Abbas, fearful of being called a traitor, is reluctant to take action against the terrorists. Gaza needs moderate and pragmatic leaders who will embark on a process of deradicalizing and reeducating Gazans to lead peaceful, prosperous and constructive lives and who will finally prepare their people for peace in the region. At the moment, unfortunately, among the Palestinians, no such leaders exist. (Gatestone Institute) Many Palestinians in Gaza now want an end to the war but fear the brutal rule of Hamas, which will keep fighting to the bitter end, said Atta, 39, a father of three. "Hamas is still determined to keep going, holding Gaza as it began, and does not want anyone to share power - at the expense of the people and the destruction of everything." Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian minister and peace negotiator, said Gazans were asking two questions. "First, why did you not expect this terrible reaction on the public of Gaza. Second, why did you not prepare? Why do you have enough ammunition to keep fighting until now but you don't have enough medicine; why do you have bunkers for the fighters and you don't have bunkers for the civilians?" A poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research asked: Was Hamas' decision to launch its offensive against Israel on Oct. 7 correct? In December 2023, 72% of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank said yes. In March 2024, 71% said yes. The U.S. envisages a revitalized Palestinian Authority taking over Gaza after the war. But this vision is not supported by the majority of Palestinians, who see the Authority as corrupt, with none of its institutions given popular legitimacy. For the majority of Gazans, Hamas is still the best of their limited options, said Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki. (The Times-UK) Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly has joined the chorus of voices calling for an independent Palestinian state, tweeting, "Canada is prepared to recognize the State of Palestine at the time most favorable to a lasting peace, not at the last step along the path." Yet the Palestinians don't have anything even close to a functional government. In fact, they have two failed ones. Fatah, the Mahmoud Abbas-led West Bank governing party, now finds itself polling more than 20 points behind Hamas on its own home turf since Oct. 7. Abbas, who hasn't stood in a competitive election since 2005, held an 8% approval rating among West Bank Palestinians as of March. He has effectively ruled by decree since the Palestinian Legislative Council was suspended in 2007. At this point, it's not even clear who has the authority to represent the Palestinian people in the international arena. Hamas, the most popular party in both Gaza and the West Bank, has been designated a terrorist organization in eight countries, including Canada, plus the EU. "Palestine," as it stands, is less a sovereign state than a half-baked idea drawn on a cocktail napkin. While Joly is joining the faddish call for Palestinian statehood, she must know deep down that the Palestinian territories look nothing like a state and likely won't anytime soon. (National Post-Canada) Other Issues Earlier this month, the UN halved its assessment of the numbers of women and children killed in Gaza. For months, the UN has trusted figures produced by the same savages who butchered Israeli women and children on Oct. 7. Two decades after our invasion of Iraq, death tolls remain intensely disputed, ranging enormously from 100,000 to 600,000. Yet we're expected to believe that Hamas has the professionalism to provide statistics within hours, reliable to the single digit. Statisticians have debunked the data. Yet the narrative remains unchanged, even by President Biden. Clearly, the sheer volume of the footage of suffering civilians - all projected by Hamas, which censors pictures of dead or wounded combatants - has caused us to lose our minds. When we fought in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, nobody debated civilian casualties. Yet when it comes to Israel, it's all anybody talks about. We are being played. This is why Gazan civilians are barred from the safety of the tunnels, even though the whole population would fit inside them. Hamas' leaders have been doing their best to get their people killed on camera, then fabricated the figures. They have been doing so to brainwash the international media, political leaders, celebrities and the protesters on our streets, to believe the lie of Israeli "genocide." Even a single innocent death is appalling. But the tragedy of the individual civilian in a warzone - no matter how heartrending - is not what sways the argument. It is the principle of a just war, which always involves civilian casualties. Israel did not choose this conflict any more than Britain chose to fight Nazi Germany. Democracies are sometimes faced with an ugly enemy and the only way to respond is with force. Churchill knew this. So does Israel. The Jewish state is estimated to be killing proportionately fewer civilians than any other democracy in the history of warfare. To argue otherwise is simply wrong. Now let's talk about destroying jihadism. The writer is editor of the Jewish Chronicle-UK. (Telegraph-UK) It has been clear for many months that the civilian casualty statistics issued by Hamas-controlled organizations in Gaza are highly suspect. Now the UN has adjusted its own figures. But the readiness of politicians, activists and media organizations to accept Hamas' figures uncritically has added fuel to the fire of the terrorists' propaganda war. It may now be too late to correct the damage. The lies have fallen on fertile ground among groups who are often ignorant not just about the cause of the current conflict, but about the history of Israel itself. Israelis are not "settler-colonizers" committing genocide in Gaza. They are a free people defending themselves against terrorists. (Telegraph-UK) The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor is considering the issuance of warrants against Israeli leaders based on Israel's response to the Hamas attack of Oct. 7. But the ICC is precluded by the Rome Statute which created the court, which severely limited its jurisdiction by the rule of complementarity. This rule expressly denies the ICC the authority to be the primary investigator or prosecutor of any individual in a state that is willing and able to conduct a genuine investigation of that person. The signatories of the Rome Statute did not envision a primary investigation of a Western democracy, such as Israel. Thus the ICC simply has no authority to investigate or prosecute any alleged crime that can and will be investigated by Israeli authorities. To do so would be to violate its own charter and place itself above its own law. Israel's judicial system is among the best in the world and its Supreme Court is among the most highly regarded of any Western democracy. Its judicial system has put soldiers and civilians on trial and even prosecuted political leaders, including three prime ministers and one president. Since Israel is willing and able to investigate and prosecute any allegations of war crimes, the ICC is precluded from initiating an investigation against Israel. The writer is Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School. (The Hill) Israelis woke up recently to the headline: "President Biden: If Israel's goes into Rafah, I'm not supplying the weapons." Many Israelis, including me, felt fear about what this might mean for Israel's security. For many of us, President Biden removed our last leverage point over Hamas and damaged our deterrence vis-a-vis our enemies. It's been only seven months since Hamas attacked us, committing unspeakable atrocities and massacring our loved ones. A day after Hamas attacked, Hizbullah began targeting Israeli communities in the north, forcing Israel to evacuate 60,000 civilians. An American president trying to force Israel to accept U.S. terms, especially when we are being attacked, is something many Israelis disapprove of. The concern many Israelis are feeling is that this will damage Israel's deterrence of other regional enemies, namely Hizbullah and Iran, who are watching recent tensions between Israel and the U.S. closely and gleefully. All this is not to say that Israelis don't appreciate what Biden has done for us. He came to Israel a few weeks after Oct. 7 with a single message: "You are not alone." He stood by Israel for months, even when he was getting strong pushback at home and from other countries. But this recent move will strengthen Hamas' stubbornness and invite more attacks against Israel from other fronts. The writer is a lecturer on Middle East affairs at Reichman University and a former research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (The Hill) U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein and French minister for Europe and foreign affairs Stephane Sejourne have visited Beirut repeatedly in recent months to lay the groundwork for a joint de-escalation plan between Hizbullah and Israel. Key elements of the U.S.-French initiative include redeploying Hizbullah's Radwan special forces 7-10 km. north of the border and allowing the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to conduct less restricted patrols in south Lebanon. Hizbullah has flatly rejected the plan. It is likely that Hizbullah will not adhere to any deal Beirut reaches with Washington and Paris. The lesson from previous agreements is that the group will pocket whichever provisions benefit its position at home and the interests of its sponsors in Iran while ultimately disregarding the rest. The writer, former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, is director of the program on Arab politics at the Washington Institute. (Washington Institute for Near East Policy) The UN has again voted to reward terrorism. The General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to back the Palestinian bid for full UN membership. Shamefully, Britain abstained, though that was better than France, which voted in favor. The U.S., Argentina, the Czech Republic and others did the right thing and voted against. The appalling savagery of Oct. 7, which the Hamas leadership has stated it will repeat as soon as an opportunity arises, made clear what the terror group thinks of living peacefully alongside Israelis. A two-state solution is impossible as long as the Palestinian establishment - and not just Hamas - refuses to accept the legitimacy of Israel's existence, continues to claim "a right of return" to Israel, and pushes a rejectionist vision of Palestinian nationalism "from the river to the sea." President Biden seems to believe that he can micro-manage the Gaza conflict, and has delayed the Israelis for months, lengthening the war and reducing the hopes for the hostages. Only one group will benefit if the IDF is unable to achieve its strategic aims: Islamists who, given the chance, will destroy all the West stands for. (Telegraph-UK) Observations: How to Reduce Islamist Terrorism Worldwide and Weaken the Iranian Regime - Jason D. Greenblatt (Fox News)
The writer, a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, served as U.S. Middle East envoy and played a key role in the Abraham Accords of 2020. |
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