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In-Depth Issues:
Two Israelis Wounded in New Orleans Terror Attack - Sharon Kidon ( Ynet News)
Two Israelis remain hospitalized and on ventilators following a deadly ramming and shooting attack in New Orleans on New Year's Eve, Elad Shoshan, Israel's consul to the U.S. Southwest and deputy consul general, said Thursday.
15 people were killed and 30 others were injured when Shamsud Din Jabbar, 42, drove a pickup truck with an Islamic State flag into a crowd and then opened fire before being fatally shot.
Israel's Population Hits 10 Million ( Jerusalem Post)
Israel's population has reached 10 million people, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics reported Tuesday.
77% are Jewish (7.707 million) and 21% are Arab (2.104 million). 2% identify as other (210,000).
Syrian Rebels Hunt Members of Assad's Regime - Kareem Fahim ( Washington Post)
A sense of euphoria in much of Syria has been tempered by dread in areas of western Syria where most residents are Alawites, the Muslim sect that Bashar al-Assad belongs to.
As the country's new Sunni Islamist rulers embark on a hunt for former government figures, Alawite districts are gripped by terror as reports spread of killings, disappearances, and beatings.
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Under UNIFIL's Nose, Hizbullah Turned Lebanon Village into Terror Base - Yair Kraus ( Ynet News)
IDF forces operating in Naqoura - a Shiite village on the Israel-Lebanon border located adjacent to a large UNIFIL base in southern Lebanon - found a trove of armaments, including explosive devices, RPGs, AK-47 rifles, Iranian missiles, and anti-tank mortar shells ready for use.
The site served as a staging ground for Hizbullah's planned invasion of the Galilee by its Radwan forces, including the occupation of the Israeli city of Nahariya.
"UN forces did not prevent Hizbullah from amassing so many arms and munitions," said Col. (res.) Nir Shimri, whose paratroopers have been operating in the village.
Hizbullah set up one of its largest logistical and strategic hubs on the coastal road leading from the border to Tyre and Sidon, operating alongside the UNIFIL forces.
It is clearly evident that the international forces were complicit in their silence, given the scope of Hizbullah's military might, revealed in Naqoura and dozens of other villages.
"Nearly every home contained stockpiles of military equipment and fortified positions," Shimri said.
In the village orchards, troops discovered rocket launchers aimed at Israel and notebooks detailing planned targets in northern Israel.
The area was riddled with tunnels, command centers, weapon caches and rocket-laden trucks.
"The closer we moved toward the UN base and the border, the more ammunition we uncovered. It felt as though UNIFIL provided cover for Hizbullah," a soldier said.
The Truth of the Palestinian Cause - Melanie Phillips ( Jewish Chronicle-UK)
We're living through a tsunami of Jew-hatred.
Thousands of people in Britain and the West are parroting falsehoods about Israel that aren't only outright lies and willful distortions, but are also demonstrably ridiculous, such as the claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
It's as if Britain and the West have gone through the looking glass into a nightmarish, Orwellian world where the meaning of language has been reversed and lies have become unchallengeable truths.
Deranged fear and hatred of Jews and the aim of exterminating them define the Palestinian cause.
But instead of regarding Palestinian lies as a collective psychopathology, politicians and media stoke the flames of Jew-hatred by themselves parroting the propaganda about Israel behaving unconscionably.
Jew-hatred has not only been normalized. It's been rebranded as social justice because support for Palestinianism, which seeks to write the Jews out of their country, their history, and the world, is what now passes for a moral sense among swathes of the public and the intelligentsia.
The writer is a columnist for The Times-UK.
Israeli Medical Team Restores Sight to Hundreds in Ethiopia ( Jerusalem Post)
An Israeli medical delegation has concluded their latest mission to provide critical eye care services to communities in Ethiopia, the delegation announced Sunday.
The 15-member team, led by Prof. Morris E. Hartstein, treated nearly 1,000 patients across the country in Operation Ethiopia.
The team worked to restore the eyesight of over 500 blind people through its Cataract Campaign, and provided hundreds of pairs of glasses to patients.
Israeli Startups Raised $450 Million in December ( Globes)
Israeli startups raised $450 million in December 2024, bringing the total for 2024 to
$9.58 billion.
Israeli startups raised $6.9 billion in 2023, $15 billion in 2022, and $25.6 billion in 2021.
Search the Recent History of Israel and the Middle East
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- U.S. Strikes Multiple Houthi Targets in Yemen
On Dec. 30 and 31, U.S. Navy ships and aircraft targeted a Houthi command and control facility and advanced conventional weapon production and storage facilities that included missiles and UAVs. These facilities were used in Houthi attacks against U.S. Navy warships and merchant vessels in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. In addition, U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force aircraft destroyed a Houthi coastal radar site and seven cruise missiles and one-way attack UAVs over the Red Sea.
The strikes are a part of CENTCOM's effort to degrade Iran-backed Houthi efforts to threaten regional partners and military and merchant vessels in the region.
(CENTCOM)
See also U.S. Amplifies Strikes on Yemen's Houthis - Missy Ryan
Video provided by CENTCOM showed aircraft taking off from the USS Harry S Truman, an aircraft carrier positioned in the Red Sea, before they struck targets in Yemen.
While a year of U.S., British and Israeli strikes has weakened the Houthis' military capability, it has had little impact on their determination. The regional standing of the Houthis has risen as they portray themselves as leaders of an international resistance movement against Israel, America and the West.
Biden administration officials say the effort to contain the Houthis' rogue military drive must continue. One U.S. official said that additional military and diplomatic action may be needed from countries within and outside the Middle East: "We're all going to need to do more." (Washington Post)
- Israel to Intensify Attacks on Iran's Last Proxy - the Houthis - Gabrielle Weiniger
Israel is weighing its next battle against Iran's last proxy standing: the Houthi rebels of Yemen.
The Houthis have been firing missiles indiscriminately into Israel at an increasing rate.
"Until a few weeks ago, we retaliated once, twice," an Israeli security source told The Times. "Now we're going fully in, and that means there is a plan with escalation steps. It connects to a bigger strategy. There is definitive intent on the Israeli side and by its international partners to fully take them [the Houthis] on, there is a full-fledged set of actions and capabilities that are being built now and will be executed at the right time." (The Times-UK)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- Hamas Refusing to Release Some Hostages - Danielle Greyman-Kennard
A Palestinian source told Israel's Channel 11 on Monday that Hamas is refusing to release 12 of the 34 hostages in the first phase of a ceasefire deal and is instead offering the bodies of 12 killed abductees. At the same time, Hamas has upped the number of security prisoners it demands released. (Jerusalem Post)
- IDF Troops Discover Large Hizbullah Weapons Cache in South Lebanon - Emanuel Fabian
IDF troops located and confiscated a large cache of Hizbullah weapons in the Wadi Saluki area, the military said Tuesday. They included rocket launchers, missiles, explosives, assault rifles, grenades, and mines. (Times of Israel)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
The Gaza War
- Why Is Israel Being Blamed for the Battle of Kamal Adwan Hospital? - Brendan O'Neill
In their coverage of the Battle of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, much of the media is burying, if not outright hiding, the most vital part of this tale - that a neo-fascist militia is using a hospital as a base from which to plot the murder of Israel's soldiers and citizens.
When I watch news coverage of the clashes in and around Kamal Adwan, it is very clearly a fight between Hamas militants cynically holed up in a hospital and IDF troops who want to stop this army from attacking their nation. Yet it is presented to us as a mad, bloodlusting invasion of a medical facility by that most psychopathic of nations, Israel, which lays waste to hospitals for sport.
What's really appalling is what Hamas has done. They have committed the war crime of hiding in civilian infrastructure to pursue their pitiless war on the Jewish nation. But you wouldn't know it from the headlines. The real story here is that there exists a terror outfit so wicked it will happily hide itself in a hospital, and that the army of a democratic nation has decided to clear the hospital of these killers. Yet the terrorists who brought war to a hospital are made invisible, and so rendered blameless. Israel is fighting a war it did not start. (Spectator-UK)
The Houthis
- The Current and Future Houthi Threat to the Middle East - Michael Knights
The Houthis have (with strong Iranian backing and encouragement) exploited the enfeeblement of
the Yemeni government since the Arab Spring of 2011, expanding through military conquests and seizing the capital, Sanaa, from the internationally recognized government in a September 2014 military coup.
Since then, the Houthis have overrun Yemen's Red Sea ports, and tried to seize the port city of Aden and the energy hub of Marib. With sustained military support from Iran, they remain postured to lunge forward at any time to snuff out the last strongholds of the internationally recognized government of Yemen.
The Houthis are a clan-based military junta whose leaders have modeled their movement on Lebanese Hizbullah. Their ideology is supremacist, in favor of their own genealogical caste over all other Yemenis. In their motto, they curse all Jewish people and openly pledge to seek the destruction of Israel and the U.S.
The Houthis draw military, intelligence, and financial support from Iran, Hizbullah, Iran-backed militias in Iraq, the al-Qaeda and al-Shabab terrorist organizations, and reportedly also the Russian Federation. Inside Yemen they have committed gross human rights abuses: indoctrinating child soldiers, unlawfully detaining and torturing opponents, and diverting vital humanitarian assistance.
Between 2015 and 2021, the Houthis fired more than 430 missiles and more than
850 drones against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. There have been 106 confirmed Houthi strikes on shipping in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean since November 2023. These unprovoked attacks robbed Egypt of more than $7 billion in Suez Canal fees.
The writer is a Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute. He testified before the UN Security Council on Dec. 30, 2024. (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
- How Should Israel Respond to the Houthis? - Gil Troy
The Houthis' ongoing missile barrage provides the moral clarity Israelis need in battle - and the motivation to keep fighting this multi-front war we spent years trying to avoid. Anyone anxious for the war to end should pressure Hamas and their Qatari bankers to release every hostage, insist that Hamas terrorists free Gaza from their grip, and demand that the Houthis and Iranians stop firing deadly missiles.
Too many Americans keep asking: "Why is Israel still fighting?" The real question is: "How can Israel stop now, with so many homicidal maniacs still trying to destroy the Jewish state?" Since Oct. 7, Israelis have scrambled for shelter 31,333 times as over 27,000 rockets were launched at the Jewish state. Yet, we're the aggressor. Palestinians launched 6,349 terror attacks. Yet we're the oppressor.
The writer, a Distinguished Scholar of North American History at McGill University, is a Senior Fellow in Zionist Thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute. (Jerusalem Post)
Iran
- Iran Is Reassessing Its Proxy Strategy - Ehud Yaari
The top echelons of the Iranian regime are reassessing whether to invest billions more dollars to reconstruct the armed proxies it established in recent decades, as these funds are desperately needed at home. Many political elites of Tehran have concluded that throwing good funds after bad (funds lost during the current war) is no longer viable. The sums involved would be huge and the resupply of proxies made difficult by the loss of land corridors in Syria.
Iran was content to let Arabs fight and die for its cause but is not willing to sacrifice its own soldiers and interests in order to bolster severely weakened junior allies. The performance of Hizbullah, Hamas and the other factions in Gaza, as well as the Syrian Army, have all bitterly disappointed their Iranian mentors.
Iran has been slow in providing Hizbullah, its single most important proxy, with financial assistance. This is causing widespread resentment among Hizbullah's popular base.
When the Lebanese regular army moved recently to close military bases of Palestinian armed groups in the country, especially the Popular Front, there was not one word of reprimand from Tehran.
The writer is chief Middle East commentator of Israel's Channel 12 and an international fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (Jerusalem Strategic Tribune)
Israel and the West
- Carter Embellished His Role in Camp David Accords - Novi Zhukovsky
Israeli Prof. Gerald Steinberg authored Menachem Begin & the Israel-Egypt Peace Process in 2019, based on Israeli documentation of the Camp David negotiations. Few of Carter's critics suggest that a peace deal could have been reached without American sponsorship, but Steinberg told the Sun in an interview that some of Carter's efforts at Camp David were "counterproductive" and actually delayed the agreements. This can be said of his emphasis on the Palestinian issue, which had already been settled between the two leaders.
Steinberg said that Carter "very strongly embellished his role" in the negotiations.
He added that the narrative that Carter pushed the proceedings through against the reluctance of Begin "is completely unsupported by the historical record" and that many of Carter's summaries of events "are very different than the way they are described in the Israeli notes."
Steinberg also notes that in the years after his presidency, Carter's 2006 book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, "helped legitimize and propel this propaganda campaign and 21st century blood libel." "Carter embraced and propagated the Palestinian Arab victimhood narrative, joining in blaming Israel - rather than 100 years of rejectionism, wars, terror, incitement, etc. - for the conflict and suffering."
Even though President Biden faces criticism for his policies on Israel from pro-Israel advocates, Steinberg says, "Biden still goes out of his way, even now, to say 'I am a Zionist. I support Israel.'" Carter, on the other hand, "never expressed himself in those kind of warm terms." (New York Sun)
Palestinian Arabs
- Close UNRWA. It's Time for Gazans to Start Paying Their Own Bills - Einat Wilf interviewed by Natan Galula
Political scientist and former Israeli parliamentarian Einat Wilf spoke to JNS on Friday about the role in Gaza of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). In no other conflict or place in the world, she said, "can you find a situation where an external body assumes the responsibility to finance all the daily needs of the [local people] in a way that absolves them of any responsibility for themselves."
While UNRWA takes care of the welfare of Palestinians, Hamas can keep arming itself and bolster its military capabilities. "They face no [economic] consequences if in every round of fighting they can go back to square one," she stressed. The U.S., Germany, the EU and France are its top contributors.
"Gaza has no economic problem. It sits on beautiful, white sand beaches...and is situated on attractive trading routes. Its land is also effective for agriculture. The problem is political. Politics have turned Gaza into a war machine. Gaza doesn't really need outside help. Its people need to decide if they prefer investing in themselves, rather than destroying what the Jews have built."
The world needs to stop financing the Palestinians, she says. If UNRWA ceases to exist, nothing significant will change on the ground. UNRWA workers are Palestinian, "not European employees as most people imagine." Gaza will have the same workers with the same set of skills; the only thing that will change is that they will have to start paying their own bills. "If they run their own economy, collect taxes like any other country, pay their own salaries, they will not have the time to build hundreds of kilometers of tunnels and plot Oct. 7s."
After the war concludes, if Palestinians understand that the "destruction in Gaza is what happens when you insist on holding onto your stupid ideology of destroying Israel," then things can change for the better. But if the message is that "the destruction is horrible, Jews are bad, let's hurry up and reconstruct everything," then things will continue as they were.
"The war is the result of [Gaza's outside funding]. The message is: You concentrate on 'from the river to the sea' and we will take care of everything else." (JNS)
Observations:
- Israeli authorities found that more than 2,135 UNRWA employees were also terrorists in either Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). One-fifth of UNRWA school administrators were Hamas terrorists, and 10% of the senior positions (school principals and their deputies, directors, and deputy directors of training centers) were members of Hamas or PIJ.
- UNRWA's facilities in Gaza had been turned into terror bases. Hamas had dug extensive tunnels under UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City in which they placed one of their main computer server farms. The electricity for the computers, as well as water, came directly, and in plain sight, from within UNRWA's headquarters.
- Having concluded that UNRWA had lost all credibility and morphed into a vassal of the terrorists, Israel's Knesset passed laws on Oct. 28, 2024, to end Israel's June 1967 invitation to UNRWA to operate in Israel, Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. The laws will come into full force on January 30, 2025.
- For 76 years, UNRWA has served as the primary vehicle for perpetuating the lie that the "Palestine refugees" will one day demographically and democratically destroy Israel. Under UNRWA, the number of "Palestine refugees" has swelled from 711,000 in 1949 to six million in 2023.
- Despite having been given sufficient notice, terror-infested UNRWA is refusing to wrap up its operations and transfer its functions to other actors. It would seem that UNRWA believes it can force itself upon Israel, irrespective of the new legislation.
- However, by acting in this manner, UNRWA is doing a disservice to the people to whom it provides services. The international community would be wise to find suitable alternatives.
The writer, former director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria, is director of the Palestinian Authority Accountability Initiative at the Jerusalem Center.
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