| DAILY ALERT |
Wednesday, October 2, 2024 |
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We wish our readers a Happy Jewish New Year!
Daily Alert will not appear on Thursday, Oct. 3 News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
President Joe Biden said Tuesday he directed the U.S. military to help Israel shoot down Iranian missiles - an attack, Biden said, that appears to have been "defeated and ineffective." "This is testament to Israeli military capability and the U.S. military. It's also a testament to intensive planning between the United States and Israel to anticipate and defend against the brazen attack we expected. Make no mistake, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel." Biden added that "we've been in constant contact with the Israeli government." Iran launched about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, the Pentagon said. Two U.S. Navy destroyers located in the eastern Mediterranean - the USS Bulkeley and USS Cole - fired "approximately a dozen" missile interceptors at the incoming barrage. (ABC News) U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Tuesday: "Today, Iran launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles towards targets in Israel. The United States military coordinated closely with the Israel Defense Forces to help defend Israel against this attack. U.S. naval destroyers joined Israeli air defense units in firing interceptors to shoot down inbound missiles." "We do not know of any deaths in Israel....We do not know of any damage to aircraft or strategic military assets in Israel. In short, based on what we know at this point, this attack appears to have been defeated and ineffective. This was first and foremost the result of the professionalism of the IDF, but in no small part because of the skilled work of the U.S. military and meticulous joint planning in anticipation of the attack." "We will consult with the Israelis on next steps in terms of the response and how to deal with what Iran has just done....Obviously, this is a significant escalation by Iran, a significant event, and it is equally significant that we were able to step up with Israel and create a situation in which no one was killed." "We are proud of the actions that we've taken alongside Israel to protect and defend Israel. We have made clear that there will be consequences - severe consequences - for this attack, and we will work with Israel to make that the case." (White House) Israel has a freer hand to respond forcefully to Iran's missile barrage on Tuesday than it did in April, security analysts and former officials say, when its retaliation for the previous Iranian attack was a largely symbolic strike against an air-defense installation in Iran. Since then, Israel has weakened Hizbullah, stripping Iran of much of its deterrence against a wider Israeli attack, said Danny Citrinowicz, a retired Israeli intelligence officer who specialized in Iran. (New York Times) The Biden administration has decided not to seek a second consecutive term on the UN Human Rights Council, the State Department said Monday. The administration had made U.S. membership on the council a priority when it took office in 2021 after former President Donald Trump had withdrawn from the body, citing anti-Israel bias. (AP) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
Iran fired a massive salvo of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday night, sending millions of people into bomb shelters as projectiles and interceptors exploded in the skies above. The attack was largely unsuccessful. The IDF said it intercepted "a large number" of missiles. IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari said, "The Israeli and U.S. air defense systems operated effectively. There was close cooperation in detection and interception." Jordan's Public Security Directorate said, "The Royal Jordanian Air Force and air defense systems responded to a number of missiles and drones that entered Jordanian airspace." At a Security Cabinet meeting in the aftermath of the attack, Prime Minister Netanyahu said the strike on Israel had "failed," and was "thwarted thanks to Israel's air defense system, which is the most advanced in the world." He thanked the U.S. for its support as well. "The regime in Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and our determination to retaliate against our enemies," said Netanyahu. "Whoever attacks us, we will attack him....Israel is on the move, and the axis of evil is retreating." A senior Iranian official told Reuters the order to launch missiles at Israel had been made by the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Times of Israel) Seven people were killed and 11 others wounded in a shooting attack in Jaffa in central Israel on Tuesday. Six of the wounded are in serious condition. Police identified the assailants as Muhammad Khalef Saher Rajab and Hassan Muhammad Hassan Tamimi from Hebron in the West Bank. One of the assailants was armed with a rifle and the other with a knife. Footage from security cameras shows that the assailants came out of a nearby mosque, attacked passersby on Jerusalem Boulevard, and killed two of them. At least one of them boarded a light rail car, killed four passengers, and got off. The two were finally shot and neutralized. The attack occurred about 40 minutes before rocket sirens were activated in Jaffa due to the missile barrage from Iran. (Ha'aretz) See also Mother Murdered while Shielding 9-Month-Old Son - Meir Turgeman Inbar Segev-Vigder, 33, mother of a 9-month-old baby, was one of the victims of the deadly terror attack on Tuesday while riding on the light rail train. She was killed while shielding her son, Ari, who survived the attack. Her husband Yeari told Ynet that he eventually found his son, unharmed, at Wolfson Medical Center. "He was safe, not a scratch on him, because he was strapped to her in the baby carrier. That's our miracle." A survivor, Arik Marchenkov, 22, who was shot twice in the back, described the powerful image of the mother cradling her baby as she bled. "It's a miracle the baby survived, with all the bullets flying. The mother took the hits, and he was left unharmed." (Ynet News) Some 100 rockets were launched from Lebanon at northern Israel on Wednesday. One barrage of 10 rockets was fired toward the Western Galilee and Haifa Bay area. There are no reports of injuries. (Times of Israel) The IDF offensive in South Lebanon which began on Monday is not aimed at conquering the area and pushing Hizbullah north of the Litani River. It is also not to create a buffer zone under IDF control. The operation aims to clear the terrain where Hizbullah's Radwan special forces operate and its launch pads for strikes into Israeli territory. The move was approved by the U.S. Hassan Nasrallah's plan was for Radwan units numbering 4,000 to 6,000 men, disguised as civilians, to enter the area where a large amount of equipment awaits them, invade border area communities in Israel, and abduct soldiers. (Ynet News) The IDF disclosed that it has already carried out more than 70 small raids with special forces inside Lebanon since the beginning of the war, destroying numerous Hizbullah positions, tunnels, and thousands of weapons. IDF troops reached Hizbullah sites in southern Lebanon, some several km. from the border fence, including tunnels and bunkers where weapons were stored. There were no direct clashes with Hizbullah operatives amid any of the raids. According to IDF assessments, 2,400 Radwan terrorists and another 500 Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists trained by Radwan were waiting in southern Lebanon villages to attack Israel in the days after Oct. 7. In the following weeks, the IDF carried out numerous strikes on Hizbullah operatives and sites along the border, causing the thousands of Radwan terrorists to withdraw several km. back. The raids sometimes lasted three to four days. Dozens of weapons, including assault rifles, machine guns, RPGs, anti-tank missiles, explosive devices, mines, and mortars were recovered by the IDF commandos from within Hizbullah tunnels and bunkers. Yet, to enable the return of the displaced residents of Israel's north to their homes, the IDF has now launched an operation to demolish Hizbullah's infrastructure in the border area. Military officials have said the offensive may be just for a few weeks. (Times of Israel) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
The Iranian Missile Attack On Tuesday night, Israelis took to their bomb shelters as scores of missiles were fired by Iran, reinforcing what everyone already knows: that Tehran is the principal cause of the region's instability. Western leaders like Joe Biden and Sir Keir Starmer urge restraint. They do not want the war to escalate into a wider conflict that draws in the West. But if Iran is now firing ballistic missiles, this changes the dynamics entirely. At some point, the regime in Tehran will have to be dealt with. The malevolent influence of Tehran is everywhere. Among those killed alongside Hizbullah's leader Hassan Nasrallah last week was a senior Iranian general. As long as the mullahs remain in charge, there will be no peace. Israel would not be at war with Hizbullah and Hamas if it had not been attacked. The solution is clear: the disarmament of the terror groups supported by Iran and a buffer zone to protect the Israeli border. President Biden and Sir Keir now need to decide what to do about Iran, not Israel. (Telegraph-UK) Iran unleashed its second direct military assault against Israel on Tuesday with 181 ballistic missiles. All Israeli civilians were ordered into bomb shelters, and most missiles were intercepted. But this is an act of war against a sovereign state and American ally, and it warrants a response targeting Iran's military and nuclear assets. No country can let this become a new normal. The work by the U.S. and Israel to shoot down most of the missiles was spectacular, but it shouldn't have to be. After April's attack, the Biden Administration pressured Israel for a token response and President Biden said Israel should "take the win" since there was no great harm to Israel. Israel's restraint has now yielded this escalation, and it is under no obligation to restrain its retaliation this time. Iran's act of war is an opening to do considerable damage to the regime's missile program, drone plants, and nuclear sites. If there were ever cause to target Iran's nuclear facilities, this is it. Iran has shown that it might well use a bomb if it's acquired, and Tehran would certainly use it as deterrent cover for conventional and terrorist attacks on Israel, Sunni Arab states, and perhaps the U.S. Iran is closer than ever to a nuclear weapon and won't stop itself. The question for American and Israeli leaders is: If not now, when? (Wall Street Journal) Israel appears to have overcome the trauma of Oct. 7 and gained what military strategists call "escalation dominance" over Iran and its proxies: striking its adversaries at will and suffering only minor damage in response. Hamas has been tamed militarily. Hizbullah is reeling from the targeted killing of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of its top military commanders. And Iran's latest retaliatory barrage appears to have been absorbed by Israel without major losses. "The Iranian attack was a massive failure," said one U.S. official. "Iran once again threw all it had - nearly 200 of its vaunted and once-feared ballistic missiles - and what's left over [are] remnants of missile parts all over the Middle East." Israel has taken on Iran's network of proxies in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen - and so far, it has been able to withstand Tehran's efforts to counterattack. For Israelis, the escalating campaign against Iran's network seems to have brought a rebirth of the nation's defiant self-confidence. (Washington Post) Iranian missiles have just rained down on Israel. Israeli air defenses are some of the strongest in the world, and have received assistance from those of the U.S. Navy. But even if Iran fired every missile capable of reaching Israel it possessed, the next day Israel would be there, bloodied but still strong, almost exactly as powerful as it was before. The truth is that this missile strike is little more than a gesture. Humiliated by the decapitation of their proxy, Hizbullah, Iran's mullahs are lashing out. This feeble, petulant response by Iran is not even in the same league. Hizbullah is in effect an Iranian army of occupation in Lebanon, and the sooner the people of Lebanon can be liberated from it, the better. (Telegraph-UK) The Biden administration views its support for Israel in purely defensive terms, and feels a duty to restrain Israel's offense. The American hug comes with handcuffs. Biden arms the Jewish state and professes his support for Israel's right to defend itself, but there is always a "but." Put another way, Israel has a right to fight its enemies to a tie. If the U.S. continues its policy of hoping to deter Iran by restraining Israel, then it is inviting further Iranian escalation. With two of Iran's proxies - Hamas and Hizbullah - reeling, now is not the time to return the Middle East to an inherently unstable status quo. Real stability demands the ending of Iran's nuclear blackmail of the region. In other words, now would be the time to take off the handcuffs. Israel has vast capabilities - as it has shown in Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, and Iran over the last year. But it's even more capable when its chief ally supports its mission. So why not give Israel the green light and help it defang the chief cause of regional instability, the Iranian regime? (Free Press) Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, a former head of Israel's National Security Council, told the Jerusalem Post that Israel must respond much more harshly against Iran's massive ballistic missile strike on Tuesday than it did to a similar strike in April. In April, Israel responded to 120 ballistic missiles, 170 drones, and dozens of cruise missiles by destroying the Russian-made S-300 anti-aircraft missile system for defending its Natanz nuclear facility, but without hitting the facility itself. Amidror said, "They didn't leave us a choice. They are acting now as if they can do whatever they want." Israel's response in April "didn't stop them, so now it must be more serious." (Jerusalem Post) Iran on Tuesday boasted of its great success in launching a huge missile strike against Israel, which sparked celebrations in parts of the Muslim world. Iran's Revolutionary Guards claimed that 90% of the missiles hit their intended targets, which were three military bases in the Tel Aviv area. Iranian state television showed footage of the orange glow of missiles streaking across Israel's night sky. Celebrations took place in Tehran, Mashhad, Arak and Qom, as well as in Iraq, with shouts of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel." Celebratory gunfire also erupted from Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hizbullah bastion. (Times of Israel) The Targeted Killing of Hassan Nasrallah Much of the media coverage and official reaction about Israel's killing of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah has fixated reflexively on fears of "escalation." That is wrongheaded, because the criminal regime in Iran and its marauding proxies across the region have been tolerated for far too long. Sometimes there is no choice but to stare a bully down. In addition to violently brutalizing its own people, the Islamic Republic pursues nuclear weapons and has deployed proxy militias throughout the region, bringing ruin wherever they tread. Hizbullah terrorizes Lebanon, picks fights with Israel, helped the war criminal Bashar Assad retain power in Damascus, and has sown terrorism around the world. The Houthis have caused the deaths of almost a half million Yemenis and cost Egypt $6 billion by impeding maritime trade through the Suez Canal. Hizbullah began bombarding Israel on Oct. 8 - the day after Hamas invaded Israel from Gaza and massacred 1,200 people, sparking the current war. This was not about Israel's counterstrike, which had not even begun. It was about piling on in hopes of badly injuring the Jewish state - en route to its destruction. The world and Western media seem to fear "escalation" - which is another way of saying that the ayatollahs have deterrent power. Imagine how much more of it they'll have once armed with nukes. The West should read the riot act to the criminals in Tehran: No more nukes, no more proxies, and no more normalizing the abnormal and accepting the unacceptable. The writer is the former chief editor of the Associated Press in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. (Newsweek) The Hamas massacres, rapes, and kidnappings of Oct. 7 last year had a chilling political purpose. "We can do this," Hamas was saying, "and no one can stop us." They calculated, and they were not wrong, that the world would be awed. Islamists, including many in the West, would be elated and further radicalized. Moderate Arab regimes would be scared. The Western democracies would quickly switch back to their default position of begging Israel not to do anything much about it and then, when Israel did do something, calling for an immediate ceasefire. Although, in fact, Israel was doing fairly well in destroying Hamas's operational capacity in Gaza, this was obscured by the dark cloud of world and media condemnation. Western, including British, calls for ceasefire were, at best, foolish and, at worst, designed to help Hizbullah (and Hamas and Iran). If Israel had acceded to these demands, Nasrallah and his merry men would still be around, still appearing invincible. Israel's killing of Nasrallah on Sept. 28 is a most powerful reaffirmation of what a free country can achieve because of the skill, courage and - at least when it really matters - unity of its people. Israel has had to defy the world to do this. It should be a lesson to all of us that when we unambiguously resist terror and tyranny, we will win. And when we don't, we won't. (Telegraph-UK) Hassan Nasrallah was a vicious, murderous terrorist with the blood of many thousands on his hands. But you may not have known that had you read the New York Times' hero-worshipping eulogy of the dead Hizbullah leader, in which they labelled him a "beloved" and "powerful orator," who supposedly championed equality among Muslims, Christians and Jews. AP joined in the applause, calling him "charismatic and shrewd," an astute strategist, idolized by his Lebanese Shiite followers, and respected by millions across the Arab and Islamic world. At the very moment when there is a need more than ever to stand up for Western values, decades of indoctrination in moral relativism, where no one is objectively right or wrong, have weakened our resolve to the extent that a notorious terrorist leader can effectively be exalted by the media. Too many political leaders reacted to the killing of Nasrallah by calling on Israel to "de-escalate" its defensive war in a situation where de-escalation can lead only to defeat. The Guardian called Nasrallah a "political leader" rather than an arch-terrorist. He was indeed a politician, who succeeded in bringing Lebanon to its knees. His political agenda was not prosperity for his country. It was the destruction of Israel, the ejection of the U.S. from the Middle East, and the fight for supremacy of Shia over Sunni Islam, at the behest of his masters in Tehran. Hizbullah's violence cannot be ended by de-escalation and negotiation, but only by military defeat. We in the West don't any longer understand that, believing that there is a reasonable political solution to every problem. Fortunately, Israel does understand it and should be fully supported by us in its war to eradicate the enemies that are set on its own annihilation. The writer, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, was chairman of the UK's national crisis management committee, COBRA. (Telegraph-UK) National Public Radio host Ayesha Rascoe described Hassan Nasrallah of Hizbullah as a "towering figure and leader." In 1983 and 1984, Hizbullah's suicide truck bombings killed nearly 300 Americans and Lebanese. TWA Flight 847 was hijacked on June 14, 1985, by Hizbullah terrorists brandishing grenades and pistols. The FBI reported, "Over a horrific 17 days, TWA pilot John Testrake was forced to crisscross the Mediterranean with his 153 passengers and crew members, from Beirut to Algiers and back again....The terrorists had tied passengers up and were beating them, threatening to kill them unless hundreds of Lebanese were released from Israeli prisons." Hizbullah crossed the border and kidnapped three Israeli soldiers on Oct. 7, 2000. More recently, Hizbullah sent its fighters into Syria to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, responsible for the deaths of at least a half million of his own people and the displacement of millions. Hizbullah also helps Iran's militia allies in Yemen and Iraq. And ever since Oct. 7, Hizbullah has been raining rockets on Israel. Since when does a terrorist and murderer of Americans become a "towering figure?" (Forward) Israeli Security Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of the research division of IDF Military Intelligence and a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs, told ANI that Israel's aim is to replace the leadership in both Gaza and Lebanon, and emphasized the need to bring Iran back to its "real size" for attaining any "realistic solution" in the conflict. "A realistic solution is that Hamas is removed from power in Gaza, that there's a new state of affairs in Lebanon, where the Lebanese state goes back into being the owner of the monopoly on the use of force for its territory, which is not the case now. And when Iran goes back to its real size and...focuses on improving the living conditions in Iran, not building its hegemony in the Middle East." Asked about U.S. support for Israel, he said, "I don't think that they're going to stop us from doing what's necessary for our security....People understand that what we do is a necessary precaution in order to prevent a war, prevent a massive terror attack against our population." He added that the ceasefire talks on Gaza are on the "backburner" right now and can only be thought of after Israel is finished dealing with Hizbullah. The U.S. "would like to reach some sort of a ceasefire down the road, but they understand this is now out of the question, and first of all Israel has to defend itself." When asked about the two-state solution, Kuperwasser said, "The problem is that the Palestinians, as we saw on Oct. 7, are totally committed to annihilating the state of Israel. And that's what their purpose in life is, to struggle against Israel until its demise. So, as long as this is the case, speaking about the two-state solution is delusional. It's not going to happen anytime soon." (ANI News-India) Iran When your enemies publicly declare that they want to kill you, it might be a good idea to listen. The Islamic Republic of Iran and its terrorist proxies have unequivocally declared themselves devoted to the destruction of the West. Their intentions have been clearly stated: first to destroy Israel and then to move against their true enemy, America, and the rest of the West. The Islamic Republic is the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, distributing massive sums of money to Hamas, Hizbullah, the Houthis, and more. Americans along with other inhabitants of the free democracies need to understand what Arab and Muslim nations have been trying to tell us for years: the Islamic Republic will stop at nothing to attain their goals of disruption, subversion, and domination. It is clear that the Western pro-Palestinian movement's messaging apparatus - and much of its momentum - has been fomented, supported, and echoed by the Islamic Republic, not least through cyberwarfare, funding, and PSYOPs campaigns. The slogans being shouted by those who barricade and blockade universities, bridges, and streets are those of the Islamic Republic and its terror proxies. Mass rape and hostage torture are alternately denied and celebrated. Acts of self-immolation and "revolutionary suicide" are depathologized and glorified as political tactics. No foreign nation should be granted the opportunity to infiltrate the West through nefarious means to destabilize and destroy us. Nonetheless: the Islamic Republic continues to do precisely that. We have unassailable evidence of the truth right in front of us: the Islamic Regime has declared itself an enemy of the West. It is high time we take them at their word. Jordan B. Peterson is professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. Gregg Andrew Hurwitz is a best-selling American novelist. (Telegraph-UK) U.S.-Israel Relations Rather than be tied into the futile and self-defeating Biden policy that treats diplomacy as an end unto itself, Israel has chosen a strategy that gives it a reasonable chance to achieve victory over its enemies. This has proven to be a great shock to Washington. The expert class thinks Israel has gone rogue and that Biden is unable to "control" what the administration still considers a dependent minor ally. There's no underestimating the shock being felt in the State Department as Israel's offensive against Hizbullah has not immediately resulted in disaster for the Jewish state. The administration spent the last four years working hard to appease both Iran and Hizbullah. The conceit of American policy has been predicated on the assumption that any large-scale attack on Hizbullah would inevitably fail and lead to a far wider conflict that would only lead to catastrophe for Israel and the West. This defeatist mindset was similar to the belief that Hamas could not be overcome but only contained, and that any effort to stop, rather than to tolerate, Iran's nuclear program was similarly doomed. The fact that Israel has exposed these assumptions as dead wrong has turned the administration's worldview upside down. For a year, the administration's special envoy for Lebanon, Amos Hochstein - the author of a 2021 deal forced upon Israel that handed over some of Israel's offshore natural-gas fields to Lebanon/Hizbullah - has worked hard to pressure the Israeli government not to do anything more than reply ineffectively to Hizbullah rocket fire. If Israel were to follow U.S. advice and accept a ceasefire with Hizbullah, it would - like the various similar deals with Hamas that Washington has tried to force on the Israelis - do nothing to help the people of northern Israel and only reinforce Iran's regional power. Israel faced a choice between certain defeat for its security via American diplomacy or the possibility of achieving a genuine victory over Hizbullah and Iran via a decisive military offensive. Israel's decision to try for victory is the kind of rational choice essential to its survival and that of the West. (JNS) Other Issues Former Miss Iraq, Sarah Idan, 34, is an ardent Israel supporter. "It's not for Israel - it's for the Free World. There's God's side, the good side, and there's the evil side. The people who hate Israel - the Islamists, the communists, the fascists, all these crazy people - they are against the Free World and free will. Many people are mistaken when they think that everything I do is just for Israel. It's not. It's because I know that Israel is the only one standing against the terrorists, against the crazy people. So yes, I want to be on the side of the good." "I grew up in the early 90s under Saddam Hussein's rule....On every street, there was an intelligence officer who had lists of all the residents on that street, and from time to time, he would interrogate them. Saddam Hussein would kill entire families if someone from them said something negative about him." Idan was educated like the rest of Iraq's children to hate Israel. "We were taught that there's a country of Jews that hates Iraq, and everywhere it was written 'Death to America, Death to Israel.' On Thursdays, we would stand in the schoolyard to sing songs about liberating Palestine." "We were taught that the Americans want to kill us all. After September 11, everyone went out to the streets to celebrate, and there were fireworks as if something happy had just happened and not a terrible disaster." About the Oct. 7 massacre, "It's hard for me that this is what my people did in the name of my religion. [But] I wasn't surprised at all. I've seen it already in Iraq, I know that's how they behave. I know how much they hate the Jewish people, and I know how barbaric they are. The difference is that if I once thought it was only radical Islamists who hate Jews, after Oct. 7, I realized it's 90% of ordinary people." (Israel Hayom) Observations: Actually, We Absolutely Do Need to Escalate in Iran - Bret Stephens (New York Times)
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