Gatestone Institute

A Hundred Days after Gaza's October 7 (Part 4 of 4)
How Does This End? Regionally and Globally.
by Gwythian Prins • February 16, 2024 at 5:00 am

Israel's cause is the cause of the Free World as is Ukraine's and Taiwan's.

Domestic supporters of Hamas, trying to constrain Israel by "lawfare" and by noisy street and media politics, are therefore a fifth column for our enemies and should be treated as such.

Unsuccessful "lawfare" at the International Court of Justice served to narrow and make harder the road out of Gaza for all local parties. The biggest losers are those Arabs who are neither Islamists nor anti-Semites: for their territorial hopes have been written out of history at present by Hamas and Iran. Prosperity and tranquillity for them will only return with resumption of the Abraham Accords.... Netanyahu is surely correct in stating that any attempt to push for a two-state solution at this moment would endanger Israel.

Globally, in the context of a developing worldwide multi-theatre and multi modal contest between the Free World and the dictatorships, the most humane and swiftest route to peace is controlled escalation on our terms which reaches out and helps Iranians to end the shaky and bloodstained regime of the Iranian ayatollahs.

The right sort of war – meaning war on Western terms, in which we and not our enemies have escalation dominance -- is sometimes the most peace-friendly option....


Unsuccessful "lawfare" at the International Court of Justice served to narrow and make harder the road out of Gaza for all local parties. The biggest losers are those Arabs who are neither Islamists nor anti-Semites: for their territorial hopes have been written out of history at present by Hamas and Iran. Pictured: ICJ President Joan Donoghue (second from right) confers with colleagues at the court in The Hague on January 12, 2024. (Photo by Remko de Waal/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)
There are always dire consequences when the two strands of the double helix of "history as facts" and "history as beliefs" are torn too far apart. Chaos ensues. Dark forces are liberated.

Just this has happened for Israel and its neighbourhood since Hamas perpetrated the pogrom of 7/10. In the hundred days until the world turned upside down with the South African led attempt to weaponise the UN's International Court of Justice (ICJ) to tar the victim of a transparently genocidal attack with charges of genocide -- an attempt which failed, but only just -- all routes out of the dark chaos have steadily narrowed. After the ICJ's vexatious ruling which tried but was unable to declare Israel to have committed genocide, even moreso.

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The Red Cross Still Hates the Jews
by Robert Williams • February 11, 2024 at 5:00 am

Even now, after an agreement was brokered between Israel and Hamas by Qatar to deliver medication to the hostages in Gaza, via France to Qatar and then through Egypt, the ICRC refuses to touch the medicines and has said that it wants nothing to do with them.

"We know that the medications effectively entered into Gaza. The modalities of their transfer to the hostages were dealt with under Qatar's mediation. We now expect to receive verifiable proof that the medications have reached their beneficiaries." — Unnamed French official, Times of Israel, February 6, 2024.

On social media, the ICRC has made no secret of its anti-Israel bias and its complete lack of care for the Israeli hostages held by Hamas. "77% [of the tweets] were focused on criticizing Israel, expressly or by implication. Only 7% of the tweets criticized Hamas... No statement was made speaking directly about the massacre of October 7th... it is evident that the ICRC has dedicated large amounts of resources to interviewing doctors and victims in Gaza.... Comparatively little to no attention was paid to Israeli victims." — UN Watch, December 11, 2023.

As if to confirm the ICRC's coverup for Hamas, the newly appointed head of the ICRC is Pierre Krähenbühl, who was the head of UNRWA, the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees from 2014 until 2019, when he was forced to resign after a damning internal ethics probe. UNRWA is effectively embedded with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

This is not the first time the ICRC ignored the plight of Jewish victims. During the Holocaust, the ICRC did nothing to help any of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and instead wrote a "favorable report of the good treatment of Jews in German camps."


Pictured: Israeli hostages are transported from Gaza to Egypt in International Committee of the Red Cross vehicles, through the Rafah crossing on November 30, 2023. (Photo by Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has a mandate to "alleviate human suffering, protect life and health, and uphold human dignity," especially during armed conflicts. It has an annual budget of roughly $2.7 billion to fulfill that mandate. Yet, when it comes to the Israelis kidnapped by Hamas during the terrorist organization's horrific invasion on October 7, the ICRC has literally done absolutely nothing.

Approximately 136 hostages remain in Gaza, but Israel has confirmed that at least 32 of those hostages are no longer alive.

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The Middle East: Un-ask Your Question
by Amir Taheri • February 11, 2024 at 4:00 am

The question is defective for several reasons.

[I]t turns the estimated 600 million people who live in more than 20 countries into mere objects in their own story; it is up to outsiders to decide what to do about them.

The "what-shall-we-do about them?" approach is a relic of the colonial era, when the European empires could regard subject nations as mere pawns in a global game of chess.

Dealing with the Middle East today isn't as easy as it was even a decade ago, let alone a century ago, when sending a gunboat and greasing a few moustaches could do the trick. Today, soft power is more effective than hard power, especially when those who have it in bucketfuls lack the courage to use more than a teaspoonful of it at any given time, while those who have a little of it are suicidal enough to use all of it.


(Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
As the Gaza war seethes through its fifth month, policymakers and think-tankers in the West form a chorus demanding: what shall we do about the Middle East?

The best short answer may be "mu," the Japanese word that means "unask your question".

The word is used when the question is defective and whatever answer that is given could plunge the whole discussion into a deeper misunderstanding.

The question is defective for several reasons.

First it reduces a broader geopolitical, economic, cultural and human reality to an ill-defined geographic term, the Middle East, which has several other variants: the Near East, Levant, the Greater Middle East Area, the Crescent of Crisis etc.

Next, it turns the estimated 600 million people who live in more than 20 countries into mere objects in their own story; it is up to outsiders to decide what to do about them.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20387/middle-east-question


The Middle East: Un-ask Your Question
by Amir Taheri • February 11, 2024 at 4:00 am

The question is defective for several reasons.

[I]t turns the estimated 600 million people who live in more than 20 countries into mere objects in their own story; it is up to outsiders to decide what to do about them.

The "what-shall-we-do about them?" approach is a relic of the colonial era, when the European empires could regard subject nations as mere pawns in a global game of chess.

Dealing with the Middle East today isn't as easy as it was even a decade ago, let alone a century ago, when sending a gunboat and greasing a few moustaches could do the trick. Today, soft power is more effective than hard power, especially when those who have it in bucketfuls lack the courage to use more than a teaspoonful of it at any given time, while those who have a little of it are suicidal enough to use all of it.


(Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
As the Gaza war seethes through its fifth month, policymakers and think-tankers in the West form a chorus demanding: what shall we do about the Middle East?

The best short answer may be "mu," the Japanese word that means "unask your question".

The word is used when the question is defective and whatever answer that is given could plunge the whole discussion into a deeper misunderstanding.

The question is defective for several reasons.

First it reduces a broader geopolitical, economic, cultural and human reality to an ill-defined geographic term, the Middle East, which has several other variants: the Near East, Levant, the Greater Middle East Area, the Crescent of Crisis etc.

Next, it turns the estimated 600 million people who live in more than 20 countries into mere objects in their own story; it is up to outsiders to decide what to do about them.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20387/middle-east-question

The Dangerous Global Order with a Nuclear Armed Iran
by Majid Rafizadeh • February 10, 2024 at 5:00 am

America's actions now – or else its inaction – will determine the ability of global powers to mold an international order that either upholds democratic values or succumbs to the dominance of terror groups and dictatorships.

Inaction or a failure to adopt a resolute stance against the ascent of Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism armed with nuclear capabilities, can only pave the way for a world where autocratic regimes and extremist factions dictate the course of international affairs.


Inaction or a failure to adopt a resolute stance against the ascent of Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism armed with nuclear capabilities, can only pave the way for a world where autocratic regimes and extremist factions dictate the course of international affairs. (Image source: iStock)
As Iran is on the verge of achieving a significant milestone in obtaining nuclear weapons, concerns are mounting over the Biden administration's lack of a coherent strategy to prevent Iran from going nuclear. Since the Biden administration took office, Iran has been rapidly advancing its uranium enrichment, approaching levels of 83.7% close to the 90% needed for nuclear weapons capability.

The consequences of Iran possessing nuclear weapons should not be downplayed or overlooked. The Iranian regime has repeatedly threatened to annihilate Israel, and views that goal a central pillar of its ideology. This commitment is rooted in religious prophecies from the regime's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, foreseeing the eventual eradication of Israel.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20384/global-order-nuclear-iran

Why Don't We Want a War with Iran?
by Alan M. Dershowitz • February 8, 2024 at 5:00 am

There are, of course, alternatives less than all-out war, and more than attacks on proxies. They involve the bombing of military targets inside Iran. These include sites used for Iran's nuclear program, its naval bases and ships, its military drone production, its oil and gas facilities and its command centers. All of these could be accomplished from the air and sea without a ground invasion, and without the loss of American lives an invasion would risk.

One conclusion is clear: in the short term, a US attack on Iran itself would contribute to destabilization in the region. But in the longer term, it might well contribute to stability by reducing the power and influence of the most destabilizing entity in the Middle East, namely Iran.

Israel, too, is at war with Iran. Iranian operatives have targeted Israeli civilians and Jews around the world. Iran has effectively called Israel a "one bomb state" and has threatened to destroy it with nuclear weapons. Israel, too, has a perfect right to respond to these acts of war. Indeed, it may have no choice but to do so, to prevent Iran from carrying out its threats of nuclear annihilation.

The Middle East and the world would be a safer place without the current Iranian regime. It would be a far more dangerous place with a nuclear-weaponized Iran that could protect its surrogates under a nuclear umbrella.

So, Biden's strategy should be given a chance to work. But if it fails — as history suggests it may— all options must be kept on the table. These include attacks within Iran, even if that means war. That may be the least worst among the many available options.


(Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
Every discussion about the current Middle East conflict begins with the mandatory mantra, "We don't want war with Iran." Why not? That question is rarely asked.

Iran has declared war on the United States — militarily, legally, diplomatically, morally and politically. They have engaged in repeated casus belli (legal causes for war) since the mullahs took Americans hostage in 1979. Since that time, they have used their surrogates to attack American targets. We are entitled to respond militarily, as we are doing. But we are also entitled to go much further and treat them as aggressors who have effectively declared war on us. We are entitled to destroy their capacity to continue to wage war against us and our allies. The policy question in not whether we have a right to wage war against Iran. It is whether it is in our interest to do so.

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The Genocide of 'The Sunday People': 365,000,000 Christians Persecuted Worldwide
by Raymond Ibrahim • February 7, 2024 at 5:00 am

Overall, the global persecution of Christians remains higher than ever, with 365 million believers suffering "high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith."

Christians suffer "extreme levels of persecution" in the top 13 of the 50 nations. They are: 1) North Korea, 2) Somalia, 3) Libya, 4) Eritrea, 5) Yemen, 6) Nigeria, 7) Pakistan, 8) Sudan, 9) Iran, 10) Afghanistan, 11) India, 12) Syria, 13) and Saudi Arabia.

In the worst of the Muslim nations, Christianity has been so stamped out over the years that there are no indigenous Christians to persecute, only converts—apostates, who, according to most interpretations of Islamic law, deserve death.

The wildly popular late Sunni cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi noted on television that if not for the apostasy law [proposing death], Islam would have died out long ago.

Afghanistan: "When the Taliban came to power, they did so with pledges to recognize more freedoms than in the past. But that hasn't happened—if an Afghan's Christian faith is discovered, it can be a death sentence, or they can be detained and tortured into giving information about fellow believers." — World Watch List 2024, opendoors.org


In 2023, around the world, 4,998 Christians — on average, 13 a day — were "killed for faith related reasons." The global persecution of Christians remains higher than ever, with 365 million believers suffering "high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith." (Image source: iStock)
In 2023, around the world, 4,998 Christians — on average, 13 a day — were "killed for faith related reasons." Another 4,125 Christians were illegally detained or arrested, and 14,766 churches and other Christian institutions were attacked.

Overall, the global persecution of Christians remains higher than ever, with 365 million believers suffering "high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith."

These are among the findings of the World Watch List 2024 (WWL), recently published by the international humanitarian organization, Open Doors. Each year, the WWL ranks the top 50 nations where Christians are most persecuted for their faith, using data compiled from approximately 4,000 grassroots workers and external experts analyzing the persecution worldwide. The WWL 2024 report covers the time period between October 1, 2022 and September 30, 2023.
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3 U.S. Soldiers Died Because Biden Won't Stand Up to Iran
by Daniel Greenfield • February 6, 2024 at 4:00 am

We were not ready for the seizure of our embassy in Tehran. We were not ready for the Marine Barracks bombings in Beirut. We were not ready for 9/11. We were not ready for the fall of Kabul. We were not ready for the takeover of shipping in the Red Sea near Yemen.

What aren't we ready for next?

Wars are fought on by taking the offensive or holding defensive positions. When you are always defending, then you allow the enemy to take the initiative, and then you have to find out what comes next.


We were not ready for the seizure of our embassy in Tehran. We were not ready for the Marine Barracks bombings in Beirut. We were not ready for 9/11. We were not ready for the fall of Kabul. We were not ready for the takeover of shipping in the Red Sea near Yemen. What aren't we ready for next? Pictured: Iranians storm the US embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)
Iran's terror militias launched a wave of rocket attacks against American soldiers in Iraq and Syria under Biden. There were dozens of these attacks last year alone.

In the spring of 2023, Scott Patrick Dubis, a 52-year-old military contractor who had worked on U.S. military bases in Afghanistan, Kuwait and Qatar, was killed by an Iranian-backed attack.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin responded by promising that, "as President Biden has made clear, we will take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing. No group will strike our troops with impunity."

But Iran and its Jihadi proxy militias could and did go on attacking our troops with impunity.

We launched a few light airstrikes for show and the attacks went on. American personnel kept being wounded in Iranian attacks and sometimes we responded and sometimes we didn't.

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Biden Opened the Floodgates of Hell
by Gordon G. Chang • February 6, 2024 at 5:00 am

China and Russia [do]... not respect the sovereignty of other states.

Biden... should realize that there can be no accommodation with regimes that either seek the destruction of the United States—China and Iran, for instance—or regimes helping such enemies—most notably Russia. Biden should be supporting America's friends to the hilt and seeking total victory for Ukraine and Israel.

Continuing with existing policies is perhaps the most dangerous option of all. Those policies may sound reasonable, constructive, and pleasing to the ear, but they have in fact created the disastrous situation that now exists.

Biden has opened the floodgates of Hell. Although nothing is inevitable, we are fast approaching the point where, as a practical matter, he will not be able to stop China and Russia, directly and through proxies, from merging existing conflicts and turning them into the next global war.


President Joe Biden should realize that there can be no accommodation with regimes that either seek the destruction of the United States—China and Iran, for instance—or regimes helping such enemies—most notably Russia. Biden should be supporting America's friends to the hilt and seeking total victory for Ukraine and Israel. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in Beijing on February 4, 2022. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
President Joe Biden's foreign policy has collapsed. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan effectively admitted that to CNN's Dana Bash on February 4.

"You have said now a couple times on this show and you have said this many times before that the administration is trying to prevent this from spreading into a regional conflict," Bash told Sullivan on "State of the Union," referring to the war in Gaza.

The CNN anchor proceeded to list some of the places to which the Gaza conflict has now spread. Then she asked this:

"My colleague Peter Bergen smartly pointed out that this conflict involves 10 countries, at least four major terrorist groups, so isn't this already a regional conflict?"

"Well, Dana, what I would say is that these are distinct but related challenges," the national security adviser replied. Then he struggled to put the best face on the ongoing disaster:

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Biden's 'Two-State Solution' To Reward Palestinian Terrorism, Destroy Israel
by Bassam Tawil • February 5, 2024 at 5:00 am

The declared policy... of the US and Britain since the 1993-95 Oslo Accords has been that a two-state solution should come as part of a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

If the Oslo Accords are so cavalierly abrogated, what do any international agreements mean, and why would any country sign one in the future?

The assumption that normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia in return for the establishment of another failed and corrupt Arab state would bring peace, security and stability to the Middle East is a deadly fantasy.

The Americans and British are evidently no longer demanding that the Palestinians halt their homicidal incitement against Israel and Jews or stop paying financial rewards to Palestinian terrorists who murder Jews.

The Americans and the British are also ignoring the fact that most Palestinians are opposed to the idea of a two-state solution because they want a Palestinian state to replace Israel, not have a state next to it.

Those who are promoting the idea of creating a Palestinian terror state next to Israel -- again capitulating to terrorists and rewarding terrorism -- are paving the way for more October 7-like massacres. They are essentially asking Israel to commit suicide at a time when its soldiers are fighting to eradicate Hamas and ensure that the Gaza Strip will no longer serve Hamas, or its terror master Iran, as a base for murdering Jews, Americans or anyone else in the West.


The US administration and the British government have come out with statements that they are considering recognizing a Palestinian state. They are evidently no longer demanding that the Palestinians halt their homicidal incitement against Israel and Jews or stop paying financial rewards to Palestinian terrorists who murder Jews. Pictured: Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal (R) and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (L) are hosted by Qatar's then Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani at a ceremony in Doha, Qatar on February 6, 2012. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
In the span of two days, both the US administration and the British government came out with similar statements that they are considering recognizing a Palestinian state. The statements send a message to the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group and other Palestinians that the Americans and British want to give them a prize for the October 7 attack on Israel in which 1,200 Israelis were murdered, decapitated, raped, tortured and burned alive.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has asked the State Department to conduct a review and present policy options on possible US and international recognition of a Palestinian state after the current Israel-Hamas war, the American Axios media outlet reported on January 31. According to the report:

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Israel's Long War for the West
by Pete Hoekstra • February 4, 2024 at 5:00 am

The common thread weaving Hamas, Hezbollah and the Shia militias together is the significant funding and support each receives from Iran, which has in turn received it from the Obama and Biden administrations. When the Biden administration came in, Iran had $6 billion of reserves; it now has, according to former US Army Gen. Jack Keane, more than $100 billion-- which is presumably what it used to finance its proxies and its nuclear program.

The Biden administration now appears about to compound the problem with another catastrophic retreat: there are reported to be discussions about the US pulling its troops out of oil-rich Iraq – just as the Iranian regime has been trying to force the US to do since Iran's Islamic Revolution of 1979.

"Israel didn't start this war. Israel didn't want this war.... In fighting Hamas and the Iranian axis of terror, Israel is fighting the enemies of civilization itself.... While Israel is doing everything to get Palestinian civilians out of harm's way, Hamas is doing everything to keep Palestinian civilians in harm's way. Israel urges Palestinian civilians to leave the areas of armed conflict, while Hamas prevents those civilians from leaving those areas at gunpoint." — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Wall Street Journal.

Iran's former Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi recently confirmed that the "the confrontation between Iran and Israel will continue as long as [Israel] exists... even if a Palestinian state is established."

Israel is actually well on its way to winning. The least we can do is to enable it to have whatever it needs to complete its mission, and the time in which to do it.

[P]rotecting our borders and protecting our allies is not an either-or choice.... America's outstanding troops are fighting abroad not because the US is irresponsibly gallant, and not recklessly to fund the military-industrial complex, but to defend us here at home better.

If you have a strong military, you will not have to use it: no one will test you.

In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain thought that a "deal" with Hitler would bring peace and stability. It brought the opposite. Hitler, not surprisingly, used the opportunity of the illusion of peace to enlarge his invasions. By the time they became intolerable, it was clear to everyone that it would have been far less costly in life and treasure to have stopped Hitler before his army crossed the Rhine.

[A]s the journalist Daniel Greenfield pointed out, did anyone ever ask during World War II if there were too many German casualties, and if there were, that the fighting should stop?

The Biden administration would probably prefer to work with an Israeli prime minister, who was more compliant, one who would be happy to see a Palestinian state next to Israel, and not worry so much if it was genocidal; a prime minister who would be happy to see an Iran armed with nuclear weapons, and not get all squeamish every time the mullahs called for "Death to Israel" and said Israel is a "one-bomb" nation. The Biden administration might even be wondering, "Why can't there be a reasonable Israeli prime minister who would just sign off on these plans without giving everyone such a hard time?"

"Iran wants to erase the Jewish state from the map, but the main obstacle Mr. Blinken sees to his plan is Israel." — Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2024.

Others have mentioned that if this is what Iran is doing without a nuclear weapon, just think of what it will do with one.

Not all wars are "forever" or "pointless," or the United States would not be here. Regrettably, there seems to be... a commitment to losing.

The Biden administration has so far been immensely supportive of Israel in many ways, which is most welcome. It is sincerely hoped that its wholehearted support will stay the distance.

Iran itself has been exempt from paying any price for all the devastation it is causing, not to mention the devastation it could cause if it is allowed to have nuclear weapons. Diplomacy will not stop it, and a "deal" will not stop it.

It is time to confront the Iran challenge seriously, eliminate Iran's ability to fund and provide weapons to its proxies that pose multiple threats in this fight, and bring an end to its nuclear program before it is too late.


(Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
On January 17, 2024, the Council for a Secure America (CSA) released the latest update to its "Israel-Hamas War" report, marking 100 days since the start of the war. The update is the third in a series following CSA's 50- and 70-day war reports. From the outset of these reports, the real question was how long they would need to be issued.

Historically, wars involving Israel have been relatively short. The "Six Day War" in 1967 derived its name from the length of the war that saw Israel defeat the combined forces of Egypt, Jordan and Syria in that time. The Yom Kippur War of 1973, which started with a surprise attack on Israel led by Syria and Egypt, lasted just short of three weeks before an Israeli victory. In between, there have been continual attacks, to which Israel has responded by "cleaning up" the immediate sources of the attacks, which the Israelis dryly called "mowing the lawn."

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Biden Must Abandon Plans to Withdraw US forces from Syria and Iraq
by Con Coughlin • February 2, 2024 at 5:00 am

[T]he priority now for the White House must be to strengthen its military presence in the region, not reduce it. Worse, the vacuum created by any withdrawal by US troops is sure to be filled by adversaries of America and the free world.

Any US withdrawal is sure to be seen, especially after the US surrender in Afghanistan, as America running away -- again.

[I]t would be folly of the highest order for the Biden administration even to contemplate a reduction of US forces in the region. With Iran clearly intent on pursuing its proxy war against the US and its allies, the US needs to demonstrate its determination to prevent Tehran from expanding its malign influence in the Middle East, rather than capitulating in the face of Iranian violence.


With Iran seemingly intent on intensifying its confrontation with the US, it is hard to imagine a worse time for the Biden administration even to consider withdrawing any of the US forces currently based in the Middle East. Pictured: US Army soldiers, part of the Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, at the K1 Air Base northwest of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, on March 29, 2020. (Photo by Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images)
With Iran seemingly intent on intensifying its confrontation with the US, it is hard to imagine a worse time for the Biden administration even to consider withdrawing any of the US forces currently based in the Middle East.

Prior to the latest Iranian-sponsored attack on US forces based in Jordan, in which three serving American service personnel were killed and another 34 were injured, the White House had already opened negotiations with the Iraqi government on the future of US and other allied troops based in the country.

A statement issued by the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, after the first round of talks opened in Baghdad at the weekend, declared that the talks were aimed at ending the US-led coalition in Iraq.

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Iranian Regime's Proxies: Target the Head of the Snake
by Majid Rafizadeh • February 3, 2024 at 5:00 am

By not directly targeting the source of support and funding, the Iranian regime, the administration may inadvertently be treating the symptoms rather than the root cause of the problem, and, instead of decreasing Iranian aggression, escalating it.

One viable approach involves focusing on the economic lifelines that sustain the ruling ayatollahs. These lifelines include immediately restoring the "maximum pressure" sanctions the US had imposed earlier, targeting key components of Iran's infrastructure -- such as oil facilities, which serve as vital resources and revenue streams – and banning anyone who trades with them from trading with the US. Disrupting these critical elements not only weakens the economic foundation of this terrorist regime but also undermines its ability to finance proxy activities.

It is equally important to target the leaders and bases of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, where proxies are trained and the attacks originate. By hitting Iran's economic and military infrastructure, the US can exert significant pressure, sending a clear message that the support for proxy warfare -- and Iranian attempts to finalize their nuclear bombs -- would come at an intolerably high cost.


The last few months unfolded with a marked escalation in the activities of Iran's proxies, militias and terror groups. Iran-sponsored Houthi rebels in Yemen have caused turmoil in the Red Sea, which is vital to maritime traffic. Their actions not only threaten regional stability but also sent shockwaves through global trade routes and raised concerns about the broader implications of their destabilizing activities. Pictured: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (R) meets a delegation of spokesman of Yemen's Houthi militia on August 13, 2019. (Image source: khamenei.ir)
The last few months unfolded with a marked escalation in the activities of Iran's proxies, militias and terror groups. Iran's proxy Hamas launched its attacks on Israel, unleashing a barrage of violence across the region. Simultaneously, Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq escalated their assaults on US bases and personnel. Another proxy of Iran, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, also caused turmoil in the Red Sea, which is vital to maritime traffic. Their actions not only threaten regional stability but also sent shockwaves through global trade routes and raised concerns about the broader implications of their destabilizing activities.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20363/iran-proxies-head-of-snake

Palestinian Terrorists, Hospitals, and Plans for Palestinian State
by Bassam Tawil • February 1, 2024 at 6:00 am

In light of the aversion of the Palestinian Authority (PA), its ministry of health, and its security forces to expelling the three terrorists from the Jenin hospital, the US administration's plan for bringing the PA back to the Gaza Strip to replace Hamas and create a Palestinian state seems more than foolhardy.

The PA indisputably has no intention of changing its policy of glorifying and financially rewarding terrorists. PA leaders continue to praise terrorists as "heroes" and refuse to halt their policy of paying monthly stipends to Palestinians who murder Jews.

The incident in Jenin is further proof – more is hardly needed – that the PA cannot be trusted to enforce law and order or rein in terrorists in the Gaza Strip, were there to be a state. The PA, in its current location in the West Bank, does nothing to stop Hamas and other terrorists from pursuing their activities to murder Jews and obliterate Israel. There is no evidence to assume that it would behave any differently in Gaza. There is much evidence to assume that it would.


On January 30, Israeli security forces found and killed three Palestinian terrorists who were hiding inside Ibn Sina Specialized Hospital in Jenin. The terrorists were planning an attack against Israelis inspired by Hamas's massacre on October 7, 2023. Pictured: Armed terrorists march in Jenin at the funeral of their three dead comrades, on January 30, 2024. (Photo by Zain Jaafar/AFP via Getty Images
The Ibn Sina Specialized Hospital is one of several medical facilities in the West Bank city of Jenin, which is under the exclusive control of the Palestinian Authority (PA). As such, the hospital operates in accordance with a license from the PA's Ministry of Health.

On January 30, Israeli security forces found and killed three Palestinian terrorists who were hiding inside the hospital. A statement issued by the Iran-backed Hamas group identified the three terrorists as Mohammed Walid Jalamneh and brothers Mohammed and Basel al-Ghazawi. Al-Jalamneh was described as a commander of Hamas's armed wing, the Izaddin al-Qassam Brigades, while the two brothers were labeled by Palestinians as mujahideen (holy warriors) belonging to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist proxy group.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20360/palestinian-hospitals

A Hundred Days after Gaza's October 7 (Part 3 of 4)
Culpable Ignorance and the Devil's Spreadsheet
by Gwythian Prins • January 30, 2024 at 5:00 am

Sir William Shawcross's much delayed and now recent report on "Prevent" - the British Government anti-radicalisation programme - which has documented the failure of efforts at integration and the degree of risk residing within Muslim extremism has secured this disturbing knowledge its place on the public record.

In a climate of Israelophobia, where moral compasses go haywire, Hamas is not being held to account. Predictably, the BBC has presented international law as superior to national law and the International Court of Justice as a higher court than any national court. Neither is true. Under the guise of "human interest", the BBC repeatedly broadcasts prurient details of injuries to individual children in Gaza. Why? It is designed to shock and anger the listener and to demonize Israel; and it leaves those implications unspoken, hence deniable.

Predictably, the BBC has presented international law as superior to national law and the International Court of Justice as a higher court than any national court. Neither is true. The former Director of BBC Television asks, "When do individual errors add up to something more? When do 'mistakes' become a clear pattern of institutional bias? These are questions the BBC must answer when it comes to its reporting of Israel's conflict with the terrorist group Hamas." He then lists nine other cases of gross error since 7/10 where the bias has been always the same, namely anti-Israel. "...Is the BBC just unlucky that this keeps happening? The answer is no."

Hamas has nowhere to hide under Geneva 4. Its crimes are war crimes of the highest order. The ICJ's interim ruling is vexatious and, while unable to make an objective finding, tarnishes that Court by implying that Israel might in the future commit "genocide" when there is neither evidence of intention nor a community which meets the criteria to be victims of genocide. The same day as its ruling, evidence arrived that UNRWA on which in part it had relied had itself now been discredited by evidence of its operatives' involvement in 7/10. This is the latest form of Holocaust denial.

It is a matter of moral and legal judgment about how a country with high moral standards wages war against a terrorist enemy that has none. The framework for such an assessment has not been satisfactorily spelled out.

Israel's entire ground force is part of an interactive all-arms cyber/air/sea/land concept of operations optimised for precision targeting to minimise collateral casualties, maximise the extinction of Hamas terrorists and ensure the effectiveness of its own force protection.

Hamas, conversely, has only a homicidal interest in its own Gaza civilian residents. Bluntly, for its purposes, the more that are killed the better because their deaths can then be blamed on the IDF and added to the undifferentiated butcher's bill in which Western media take figures issued by Hamas uncritically as being all civilian. Hamas repeatedly obstructed Gazans trying to evacuate south of Wadi Gaza, blocking the route -- even shooting them -- when, before the first phase of ground operations began, the IDF gave civilians notice to move.

The devil's spreadsheet therefore brings the ethical terms of engagement squarely front and centre. Israel did not bring war on 7th October. It has Just Cause, is fighting by just means, and has clear precedent.

So the relevant ethical compass is all too clear. It is Hamas and by extension its supporters wherever they are – on the world's streets, even in the BBC it seems – who carry all moral blame for the fate of Gaza and its people.

In the modern trope of woke "intersectionality", as victims of purported "white, Jewish colonialism", Arabs are licensed to do freely any depraved act; and by definition Jews can never be victims.

[F]ar from being an agent of indiscriminate warfare, the IDF is probably the most successfully discriminate modern army. Has the comparison with other modern armies been heard or discussed in BBC analyses? The genocide case was just an attempt to smear with loose language... and has no relevance to Israeli conduct, which will not stop attempts to claim that it has.


Since 7th October, the jihadist plus radical left alliance of Jew-haters in Great Britain directs phalanxes of ignorant British members of the "woke" movement, expressing support as the latest radical-chic virtue signal. Pictured: Anti-Israel protesters in London on January 13, 2024. (Photo by Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images)
For ten days after 7th October 2023, the jihadist plus radical left alliance of Jew-haters in Great Britain was quiet. On the one hand, there are the truculently non-integrated Salafist Muslim immigrants centred on many mosques, including Hamas leaders who, incredibly, have been allowed to settle in Britain since 1997. The scale of this group has been long known to the intelligence services; but it is Sir William Shawcross's much delayed and now recent report on "Prevent" -- the British Government anti-radicalisation programme -- which has documented the failure of efforts at integration and the degree of risk residing within Muslim extremism. It has secured this disturbing knowledge its place on the public record.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20357/israel-gaza-culpable-ignorance

China Trapping Biden on Artificial Intelligence
by Gordon G. Chang • January 31, 2024 at 5:00 am
[N]o, America should not want to enter into any AI agreement with the People's Republic of China on "nuclear C2" — command and control — or any other matter.
An agreement requiring a human to make launch decisions would, as a practical matter, be unenforceable.
None of China, Russia, or the United States would allow others to pore over millions of lines of their computer code.....
America does not need another feel-good agreement with China. It already has them, especially the Biological Weapons Convention, which has no enforcement mechanisms.The Chinese regime wants to talk about artificial intelligence largely because it is trailing the U.S. and thinks an agreement would help it catch up.... [and] pave the way for China to access the U.S. technology it does not already have. more
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20358/china-ai-trap

Time to End UNRWA's Jihad against Israel
by Bassam Tawil • January 29, 2024 at 5:00 am

"Hamas is involved in everything. Hamas has their hands on UNRWA administration workers. Hamas manages UNRWA. They are those in charge in the agency. From the day Hamas came to power, they took control of everything. The UNRWA employees are from Hamas. The heads of the departments and the senior staff are Hamas members." —Palestinian from the Gaza Strip to an Israeli officer in a recorded call, X (Twitter) December 27, 2023.

It is now clear that the UN heads were lying when they said they were unaware of the involvement of their employees with terror groups. In fact, they knew but did their utmost to appease Hamas.

In a moment of rare honesty, in 2021 the UN acknowledged that UNRWA's school curriculum referred to Israel as "the enemy," taught children mathematics by counting "martyred terrorists," and included the phrase "Jihad is one of the doors to paradise" in Arabic grammar lessons.

"Before UNRWA, this terrorist accomplice [Abdallah Mehjez] worked for the BBC..." — Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

"Now is the time for reform. Reform for rehabilitation - so that the minds of Palestinian children can no longer be poisoned. So that there can be a shared vision of peace in this land." — Lt. Col. (res.) Peter Lerner, X (Twitter), January 27, 2024.

Western taxpayers should not be funding terror groups disguised as humanitarian organizations.

UNRWA was established to support the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees, not to support the development of terrorism.

It is time to dismantle UNRWA and end the farce of Palestinian "refugees." There are no real refugees. There are millions of Palestinians living -- often in unspeakable conditions (so that Israel can be blamed) -- under the control of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

It is the UN that enables and perpetuates this human rights abuse. These Palestinians live under Palestinian and Arab regimes that should long ago have absorbed them instead of keeping them in "refugee camps" with the cheery "humanitarian" promise that they will one day flood Israel, turn the Jews into a persecuted minority in their own country, then bring about its demise.


It is now clear that the UN heads were lying when they said they were unaware of the involvement of their employees with terror groups. In fact, they knew but did their utmost to appease Hamas. Pictured: UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini speaks at the Global Refugee Forum, in Geneva, Switzerland on December 13, 2023. (Photo by Jean-Guy Python/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), has announced that he decided to fire several employees of his agency after Israeli authorities provided information about their "alleged" involvement in Hamas's massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023.

"To protect the Agency's ability to deliver humanitarian assistance, I have taken the decision to immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members and launch an investigation in order to establish the truth without delay," Lazzarini said. "Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "horrified" by the Israeli accusations.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20356/unrwa-jihad-against-israel

Civilian Deaths in Gaza: Relatively Low.
by Alan M. Dershowitz • January 28, 2024 at 5:00 am

Critics of Israel almost never cite comparable data from other military encounters. This omission creates the false impression that the civilian death tolls in Gaza are among the highest in history, when they are in fact among the lowest.

The New York Times' conclusion that the new data suggests that it is "wrong to accuse [Israel] of wanting to maximize civilian deaths" is highly relevant to the false charges of genocide that are being considered by the International Court of Justice.

The decreasing civilian death rate among Gazans should also end the campaign to impose a ceasefire on Israel before the IDF completes its legitimate mission to destroy Hamas' military capacity. Successfully completing that mission will save civilian lives in the long run, by reducing Hamas' capacity to keep its promise of repeating the barbarism of October 7 and also by reducing its use of civilian shields.

The time has come, indeed it is long overdue, for the world to stop imposing a double standard on the nation-state of the Jewish people. Double standards are a form of bigotry, and when bigotry is addressed to the only nation-state of the Jewish people, it becomes a form of international anti-Semitism against the Jew among nations. It must stop.


Israel's military actions have produced far fewer deaths and a far lower ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths than in any comparable urban warfare. This is especially significant considering the reality that Hamas deliberately increases civilian deaths by using women and children as human shields and by hiding its military personnel and equipment among civilians. Pictured: Gazans, protected by the Israeli military, walk along a safe corridor in the northern Gaza Strip, leaving the battle zone towards the southern Gaza Strip, on November 10, 2023. Hamas terrorists had ordered Gazans not to move to safety, and shot at them as they tried to flee. (Photo by Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)
You wouldn't know it from the hectoring decision just rendered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel, but the death toll among civilians in Gaza — even including children and women — is among the lowest in the history of comparable warfare. Over the past several months, it has become even lower.

According to The New York Times, "The daily death toll in Gaza has more than halved in the past month," and has fallen almost two-thirds since late October. Moreover, the percentage of civilian to combatant causalities has gone down considerably as well.

In a massive understatement, The New York Times also reported that these considerable reductions in civilian deaths have been "somewhat overlooked" by the media and critics. "Somewhat"! They have been totally buried and ignored. The New York Times also opined that Israel's "harshest critics are wrong to accuse it of wanting to maximize civilian deaths."

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20343/gaza-civilian-deaths



Iran-Pakistan: The Beautiful Vase Has Been Chipped
by Amir Taheri • January 28, 2024 at 4:00 am

Despite attempts by both sides to pretend that the recent clashes were a passing storm, it is clear that something deeper and more lasting may be involved.

Tehran is sore that China decided to locate the trade-cum-security hub it wants to build in the Indian Ocean in the Pakistani port of Gawadar on the Arabian Sea rather than in the Iranian port of Gavatar a few kilometers to its west.

Tehran fears that China's choice indicates Beijing's lack of confidence in Iran's stability once the "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei bows off stage, while Pakistan would retain a measure of stability because its system does not depend on a single leader.

Both Tehran and Islamabad are anxious to patch things up as quickly as possible. But one thing is clear: the beautiful vase filled with flowers has been chipped.


Despite attempts by Iran and Pakistan to pretend that the recent clashes were a passing storm, it is clear that something deeper and more lasting may be involved. Pictured: An anti-Iran protest in Lahore, Pakistan on January 19, 2024, after Iran launched an airstrike in Baluchistan province. (Photo by Arif Ali/AFP via Getty Images)
If you had asked me just a couple of weeks ago, I might have assured you that Pakistan is the last county with which the Islamic Republic of Iran would pick a fight.

I might have cited many reasons for that opinion.

First, A recent demise of the classical reasons for antagonism between nation-states. Their border, almost 1,000 kilometers long, was fully demarcated in 1964, ending ambiguities left behind by the British when they withdrew from the subcontinent in 1947. Relations were never marred by irredentist pressures on either side.

Nor did Iran and Pakistan compete over access to natural resources, including water, or competition over markets.

History, too, designated Iran and Pakistan as natural friends. Iran had been a source of inspiration for two generations of Muslims in the subcontinent who dreamt of a separate homeland. Many of them even adopted surnames that indicated an Iranian rather than Indian origin: Gailani, Isfahani, Shirazi etc.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20344/iran-pakistan

The Biden Administration and the Iranian Regime's Nuclear Weapons
by Majid Rafizadeh • January 27, 2024 at 5:00 am

In a noteworthy development, for the first time, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued a warning, signaling that Iran now holds a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium capable of producing multiple nuclear warheads.

The regime has been actively supporting Hamas against Israel, providing assistance to Yemen's Houthi terror group to attack ships in the Red Sea, escalating tensions with Pakistan, and providing weaponry to Russia for use against Ukraine. These multifaceted engagements in regional and global conflicts indicate the regime's likely view of nuclear weapons as a means to further its strategic objectives.

In the midst of these ongoing conflicts, the last thing we need is an aggressive regime, with terrorist inclinations -- and clearly no intention, despite every opportunity the West has given it, of "coming in from the cold" -- possessing nuclear weapons.


For the first time, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued a warning, signaling that Iran now holds a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium capable of producing multiple nuclear warheads. This development prompted IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to denounce Iran's actions. Pictured: Grossi speaks during the IAEA's Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Austria on November 22, 2023. (Photo by Joe Klamar/AFP via Getty Images)
The Biden administration's nuclear policy concerning Iran's nuclear program and its ability to acquire nuclear weapons is a complete disaster. Under the Biden administration's leadership, Iran has made significant advances in its nuclear program that surpass the progress achieved under any previous administrations.

In a noteworthy development, for the first time, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued a warning, signaling that Iran now holds a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium capable of producing multiple nuclear warheads. This development, reported by Bloomberg on January 18, prompted IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to denounce Iran's actions. Grossi also told The National newspaper, "Iran is the only non-nuclear weapon state which is enriching uranium at this very, very high level".

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20341/iran-nuclear-weapons

A Hundred Days after Gaza's October 7 (Part 2 of 4)
Inconvenient History from the SS Einsatzgruppen to Hamas
by Gwythian Prins • January 26, 2024 at 5:00 am

The BBC has used UNRWA voices -- preferably, it seems, antipodean ones -- as purportedly objective third-party commentators. That is deeply irresponsible journalism, and the BBC most likely knows why that is so.

Thus, according to the Covenant and echoing the Mufti in 1943... there is not, and cannot anywhere be a Jewish state in this world. It is what is written: here we are told that Jews in Palestine are incompatible with "true statehood" and the Mufti will tell us that it is Allah's will that Jews shall forever stateless.

It is important to remember that these are thrice legitimate Jewish lands: once from original patrimony; once by international mandate and the third time by force of arms after successfully countering assaults in 1948, 1967 and 1973. Anti-Semitic exceptionalism, however, means that only the Jewish state is not allowed to enjoy the peace of victory that winning wars brings to other nations.

Ever since the Abraham Accords, were adopted on 15 September 2020, many regional states have shown that they would prefer to skirt around the ever-rejectionist "Palestinians" and to normalise relations with the amazing mighty midget Israel, which is the region's creative powerhouse in every cultural and technological domain, as well as, by necessity, its dominant military power. Most significantly that includes the Saudis, whom Iran's Ayatollahs have declared their sworn enemies.

In his platform speech, [the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin] al-Husseini responded by stating that Germany "understood the Jews perfectly and decided to find a final solution to the Jewish menace," and... "Allah has determined that there never will be a stable arrangement for the Jews, and that no state should be established for them."

Thus, in anti-Semitic ideology... the inconvenient history which can be traced in evidence from the SS liquidation task forces -- the Einsatzgruppen -- to Hamas, is detailed, documented and direct.

Adolf Hitler meets with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, on November 28, 1941. (Image source: German Federal Archive)
Death, torture, abduction, ending an era in Israel that began in 1948, came literally on the wings of that morning, 7 October, 2023. The hopes and ambitions for peace springing from Camp David and the Oslo Accords, all the rational faith in diplomacy through the quadrilles of the chanceries, were set back to nothing. That realisation is seeping across the traumatised populace of Israel. Nothing can ever be the same again.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20338/ss-einsatzgruppen-to-hamas

A Hundred Days after Gaza's October 7
Part I: Double Helix over Gaza
by Gwythian Prins • January 24, 2024 at 5:00 am

History has the form of a double helix: history is indeed the DNA of living memory. There is what actually happened and there is what people believe happened. They are not the same but they are inseparable....

Hamas had told Israel that it intended to focus on helping its people in Gaza and that it did not want war. Israel, to show good faith, had even provided work permits for thousands of Palestinians to enter Israel every day for better wages than in Gaza. What Israel did not know was that many of them were spies who would tell Hamas exactly where in the villages to attack.

An elated youth called Mahmoud called home to his father and mother in Gaza using a murdered Israeli woman's phone to boast about how he had just killed ten Jews with his own hands ("oh my son God bless you"... "Mom, your son is a hero"). Part of the recording was played to the judges of the ICJ as part of the State of Israel's must-see rebuttal of South Africa's accusations.

Jeffrey Gettleman, in The New York Times on 28th December, published details of the unimaginable mass depravity committed by Gazan men on Israeli women....

Many of the first responses to these events, as with the Holocaust, were denials that such savageries had ever taken place.


Pictured: A Hamas terrorist holds two of the many Israeli children that Hamas murdered or abducted and brought as hostages to the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. (Image source: Hamas/X [Twitter])
Almost four months to the day, and not in a good way, the world has turned upside down.

In a risibly threadbare case, the victim of a depraved genocidal attack was accused at the UN's International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague of committing genocide. Lacking evidence of mens rea (criminal intention) that is prerequisite, or indeed any vestige of substantive evidence, South Africa sought to invert the object and purpose of the Genocide Convention of December 1948, which is specific to the "crime of crimes". The accused is not just any victim, but the Jewish state, whose re-establishment in the May of the same year that the Convention was brought into effect was no coincidence.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20337/october-7-hundred-days

Wanted: Palestinian Leaders Who Will Condemn Terrorism
by Bassam Tawil • January 23, 2024 at 5:00 am

If the Biden administration thinks that the Palestinian Authority leaders will cease inciting Palestinians against Israel, they need to think again.

How can Palestinian leaders, who are terrified of Hamas and even more terrified of their own people, be expected to prevent the terrorists from attacking Israel in the event that these leaders were handed a state?

In addition, why would Israel – or anyone else – trust any Palestinian leader who considers Islamist murderers, rapists and baby-killers as "part of the Palestinian national, social and political fabric"?

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has refrained from publicly denouncing the Iran-backed Hamas terror group for its barbaric attacks on Israelis. In fact, Abbas and the Palestinian Authority have stepped up their anti-Israel rhetoric since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. Pictured: Abbas (L) meets with Hamas leader Khaled Maashal (R) and Qatar's Emir, Sheikh Tamim ibn Hamad Al Thani (C) on August 21, 2014 in Doha, Qatar. (Photo by Thaer Ghanaim/PPO via Getty Images)
More than three months have passed since Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, during which hundreds of Israelis were murdered, beheaded, raped, mutilated, and kidnapped -- and it is still hard to find any senior Palestinian Authority official who is prepared to condemn the atrocities.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has held a number of meetings over the past few weeks with senior US administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, has refrained from publicly denouncing the Iran-backed Hamas terror group for its barbaric attacks on Israelis.

Abbas, it appears, fears a backlash from his people and other Arabs if he speaks out against the murder of Israeli women, children, and the elderly. One word against Hamas and its terrorism, and Abbas' people might well label him a "traitor" and "collaborator" with Israel.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20325/palestinian-leaders-terrorism

Biden Administration's 'Pathway' to a Palestinian Terror State
by Bassam Tawil • January 18, 2024 at 5:00 am

By continuing to obsessively stick to the creation of a Palestinian state, the Biden administration is actually sending a message to Iran and its terror proxies that terrorism pays - that if they inflict more pain and casualties on Israel, the Americans will reward them with a state of their own next to Israel to facilitate their mission of continuing their Jihadist murder spree against Jews and finally obliterate Israel.

The poll further showed that if presidential elections were held today, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would receive 78% of the vote, as opposed to only 16% for Abbas.

The poll found that 64% of the Palestinians oppose the idea of a two-state solution, while 53% support a return to the "armed struggle" against Israel.

All polls conducted by the same center have consistently shown that a majority of the Palestinians believe that Hamas is more deserving of representing them than the PA. This means that if and when a Palestinian state is established, as the Biden administration is hoping, it will be ruled by Hamas and its masters in Iran... overlooking the few miles from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport.

The idea that creating another Arab state alongside Israel would "isolate" or "marginalize" Iran and its proxies is as wrong as it is dangerous. In reality, the establishment of a Palestinian state on any part of the West Bank or Gaza Strip would incentivize Iran and its clients to escalate their Jihad against Israel: it would send them the message that the more Jews you murder, the more land you get.

[T]his conflict is not about a settlement or a checkpoint or Jerusalem, but about Israel's right to exist in any form in the Middle East. What Blinken and the Biden administration seem unable to grasp is that there are still too many people among the Palestinians, and many other Arabs and Muslims, who have yet to come to terms with the right of a nation that is not Islamic to remain in its home in the Middle East.

Blinken is suggesting not a pathway to peace, but a prize to Hamas and the Palestinians for committing genocide.


By continuing to obsessively stick to the creation of a Palestinian state, the Biden administration is actually sending a message to Iran and its terror proxies that terrorism pays - that if they inflict more pain and casualties on Israel, the Americans will reward them with a state of their own next to Israel to facilitate their mission of continuing their Jihadist murder spree against Jews and finally obliterate Israel. Pictured: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Amman, Jordan on October 13, 2023. (Photo by Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
As Iran and its proxies in the Middle East are continuing the jihad (holy war) to murder Jews and eliminate Israel, the Biden administration has not abandoned their dream of creating a Palestinian terror state on Israel's doorstep. The last thing the Middle East needs is another Iran-dominated terror state that would destabilize security and stability and pose an existential threat to Israel.

In the past few years, everyone has seen how Iran has been working non-stop to export its Islamic Revolution. With the help of Iran's proxies in the Gaza Strip (Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad), Lebanon (Hezbollah), Yemen (Houthis) and Iraq and Syria (multiple militias operating under various names), Iran's mullahs have consistently targeted not only Israel and the US, but Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20317/biden-administration-palestinian-terror-state

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20315/palestinian-suffering
How to End the Suffering of the Palestinians
by Bassam Tawil
January 16, 2024 at 5:00 am

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Palestinians in Lebanon are "prevented from employment in 39 professions such as medicine, law and engineering... are socially marginalized, have very limited civil, social, political and economic rights, including restricted access to the Government of Lebanon's public health, educational and social services and face significant restrictions on their right to work..." — United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees, updated September 2020.

Arab citizens of Israel.... can own, buy and sell property, can vote and run in national and local elections, have equal access to free public healthcare, education and other services.... Many Arab Israelis serve in senior positions in hospitals, universities and colleges, courts, the civil service, and even in the Israel Police and the Israel Defense Forces.

Neither Syria nor Lebanon grants citizenship to the Palestinians living there...

[W]hat is happening inside the Syrian detention centers against the Palestinians is "a war crime by all standards." – Action Group for Palestinians of Syria, alquds.co.uk, November 29, 2023.

By ignoring the profound suffering of the Palestinians in Syria and Lebanon, these self-proclaimed "pro-Palestinian" activists and groups are once again proving that their goal is not to help Palestinians, but only to make Israel into a pariah state.

If these activists and groups want to end the suffering of the Palestinians, they should be demanding that the Arab countries end their discriminatory and repressive measures against their Palestinian brethren. The activists and groups should also be raising the plight of the Palestinians at every available international platform instead of blaming Israel.

The real anti-Palestinians are not the Israelis at all, but the same old racist Jew-haters and antisemites who cannot be bothered to learn the truth when it comes to the actual human rights abuse of Palestinians: it is delivered from the hands of Arabs.


By ignoring the profound suffering of the Palestinians in Syria and Lebanon, the self-proclaimed "pro-Palestinian" activists and groups are once again proving that their goal is not to help Palestinians, but only to make Israel into a pariah state. Pictured: Rashidieh Refugee Camp for Palestinians in Lebanon. (Photo by Patrick Baz/AFP via Getty Images)
As the world's attention is focused on the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, including South Africa's false "genocide" charges against Israel at the International Court of Justice, in Syria Palestinians are worried about a new government law that considers them "foreigners."

By labeling the Palestinians as "foreigners," the Syrian government is seeking to deprive them of the ability to purchase real estate. Like the majority of the Syrians, most of the Palestinians are Arab Muslims.

The latest move came after Syria, on December 20, 2023, presented a Law on Foreign Ownership of Real Estate, which imposes severe restrictions on non-Syrian nationals that make it essentially impossible for them to purchase real estate in Syria. The restrictions include the need to obtain prior permission from the Ministry of Interior. An owner would not be able to sell a property without the approval of the ministry. If a "foreigner" wants to purchase an apartment, its size must be no larger than 140 square meters, or roughly 1,500 square feet.

Syria is not the only Arab country that discriminates against Palestinians in almost all walks of life and relates to them as "foreigners."

In Lebanon, Palestinians are also considered to be foreigners who do not carry documentation from their countries of origin.

According to the Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights:

"This foreigner classification has allowed successive Lebanese governments to circumvent their obligations and responsibilities enshrined in a number of international and regional treaties and protocols – and their own legislation...

[T]here is no consideration of the consequences of the protracted status of Palestinian refugees [in Lebanon]. For many years, this unjustifiable policy has been compounding the deterioration in the livelihood conditions of the growing population of refugees...[who] have spent more than seven decades in Lebanon without access to their civil, social, and economic rights."

Palestinians in Lebanon are "prevented from employment in 39 professions such as medicine, law and engineering," according to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

"PRS [Palestinian refugees from Syria], like Syrian Refugees, do not benefit from any labour law facilitation... As a result, 93 per cent of employed PRS work in the informal private sector, leaving them vulnerable to abuse... Palestine refugees consistently report experiencing discrimination in hiring practices and opportunities for employment... PRS are socially marginalized, have very limited civil, social, political and economic rights, including restricted access to the Government of Lebanon's public health, educational and social services and face significant restrictions on their right to work and right to own property.... Since the adoption of Law 296/2001, Palestine refugees are prevented from legally acquiring and transferring immovable property in Lebanon."

Arab citizens of Israel, by contrast, enjoy more rights than Palestinians in Syria and Lebanon. The Arab Israelis have Israeli citizenship, can own, buy and sell property, can vote and run in national and local elections, have equal access to free public healthcare, education and other services. Neither Syria nor Lebanon grants citizenship to the Palestinians living there – and the Palestinians there are deprived of many basic rights, including access to jobs, education and healthcare.

In Israel, thousands of Arab Israelis have purchased houses in predominately Jewish neighborhoods across the country. Many Arab Israelis serve in senior positions in hospitals, universities and colleges, courts, the civil service, and even in the Israel Police and the Israel Defense Forces.

In Syria, Lebanon and many Arab countries, there are zero Palestinians serving in senior government positions.

In December 2022, furthermore, Israel announced that it will fund a $6.1 million program to train and integrate more than 2,000 Arab Israeli women and men into the local high-tech industry over the next two years. During the same year, more than 10,000 workers from the Arab population were employed in the tech industry.

In December 2023, Israel unveiled a new initiative aimed at bolstering the integration of young Arab Israelis into the job market. The $28 million program is designed to address unemployment and reduce disparities within Arab society.

The plan aims to provide youths from Israel's Arab society with a comprehensive package covering personal; development, professional and occupational guidance, as well as preparation for academic pursuits. The plan, operated in 11 cities and towns, will encompass four months of general activities, after which, each participant will choose a specific professional track for focused advancement.

In Syria, the Union of Palestinian Jurists in Syria immediately called on the Syrian prime minister to retract the new law, saying it would have negative repercussions on the economic, legal and humanitarian conditions of the Palestinians.

Karim, a lawyer and human rights activist in Damascus who preferred to use only his first name, said the decision does indeed treat the Palestinians in Syria like foreigners regarding the right to property ownership, and sets the same restrictions on them, such as the requirement to obtain, in advance, the approval of the Ministry of the Interior, and to have a family in Syria.

Orwa, a 26-year-old Palestinian accountant from Damascus, told Al-Jazeera TV:

"With this decision, my dream of buying an apartment has evaporated. I was born and lived all my life in Syria. There should be no distinction between us the Palestinians and the Syrians."

The General Commission for Palestinian Arab Refugees also denounced the Syrian decision, for defining non-Syrians, including Palestinians, as "foreigners" and depriving them of property rights.

The commission said that the decision has raised great concern among Palestinians residing in Syria. It called on the Syrian government to revise the law to exempt Palestinians from it.

It is not as if the conditions of the 450,000 Palestinians living in Syria have been decent until now.

Since the beginning of the civil war in Syria in 2011, 4,214 Palestinians living there have been killed and more than 15,000 wounded, according to the Action Group for Palestinians of Syria (AGPS).

More than 90% of Palestinian refugees in Syria live below the poverty line amid Syria's crushing economic and living crises, a deteriorating security situation, and a decline in all aspects of financial, social, educational, medical, and other aspects of life, according to AGPS.

AGPS revealed in a recent report that 3,076 Palestinians are currently being detained in the prisons of the Syrian security services, while another 333 have gone missing. Among those who disappeared are children, women, the elderly, journalists, political activists, human rights advocates, relief and humanitarian workers, doctors, and nurses.

The report indicated that the Syrian authorities are responsible for about 90% of "enforced disappearances," while the rest are in the hands of armed opposition factions.

AGPS renewed its call on the Syrian authorities to release and disclose the whereabouts of the Palestinian detainees, stressing that what is happening inside the Syrian detention centers against the Palestinians is "a war crime by all standards."

Fayez Abu Eid, a spokesperson for AGPS, told the Al-Quds Al-Arabi news website that members of Syrian security services have killed 643 Palestinian refugees under torture in its detention centers, including women, children and the elderly.

Abu Eid said he believes the number of detainees and victims of torture is even higher due to the absence of official statistics issued by the Syrian security forces, as well as the fear of some families to speak out for fear of retribution.

According to the spokesperson, 129 Palestinian women in Syrian prisons are still in a state of "enforced disappearance." The fate of the female detainees is still unknown. The Syrian security services conceal their names, which makes documenting information about them effectively impossible.

According to testimonies documented by AGPS, Palestinian detainees in Syrian prisons have been subjected to many forms of torture, physical and psychological abuse, as well as sexual assault.

Those who are condemning Israel for defending itself against the savagery and terrorism of Hamas care nothing about the plight of the Palestinians in Syria or any Arab country. So-called pro-Palestinian groups in the US do not speak out against Arab crimes against the Palestinians: they are too busy unjustly demonizing Israel.

By ignoring the profound suffering of the Palestinians in Syria and Lebanon, these self-proclaimed "pro-Palestinian" activists and groups are once again proving that their goal is not to help Palestinians, but only to make Israel into a pariah state.

If these activists and groups want to end the suffering of the Palestinians, they should be demanding that the Arab countries end their discriminatory and repressive measures against their Palestinian brethren. The activists and groups should also be raising the plight of the Palestinians at every available international platform instead of blaming Israel.

The real anti-Palestinians are not the Israelis at all, but the same old racist Jew-haters and antisemites (see here, here, here, here, here and here) who cannot be bothered to learn the truth when it comes to the actual human rights abuse of Palestinians: it is delivered from the hands of Arabs.
Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.

How Equity Grade Inflation Hurts Jews, Asians and Other Disfavored Minorities
by Alan M. Dershowitz • January 15, 2024 at 5:00 am

Diversity equity and inclusion require that groups – rather than individuals – be treated "equitably", and that preferred groups be advantaged in hiring, admissions and other benefits.

This is all part of the DEI attack on meritocracy. DEI demands that individuals be judged by the color of their skin and their identity rather than the content of their character — or their grades.

DEI now demands that schools begin with the goal of achieving equity grading by any means, including non-blind grading, grade inflation or grade abolition. Anything to undercut the equality of meritocratic blind grading that didn't achieve the goals of DEI.

The negative impact of equity grading is incalculable. It stifles learning, hard work and creativity. It fails to prepare students for the competitive world they will inevitably face after they finish being coddled by universities. It will destroy the competitive advantages American universities used to have.


(Image source: iStock/Getty Images Plus)
A recent study showed that grade inflation has become rampant at American universities. What used to be C+ has now become an A-, as more than 3/4 of students in elite universities get grades of A or A-.

This grade inflation is a direct result of the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) bureaucracies and their twin concept of intersectionality. DEI requires that groups – rather than individuals – be treated "equitably", and that preferred groups be advantaged in hiring, admissions and other benefits.

Jews and other disfavored minorities are thus discriminated against in grading. The only way individuals from disfavored groups can compete against favored groups is by achieving better grades. But if everyone gets the same A grades, the favored groups will get the job and admission benefits.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20303/equity-grade-inflation

Iran's Growing Ballistic Missile Threat
by Majid Rafizadeh • January 13, 2024 at 5:00 am

Because of the apparent lack of oversight from world leaders, especially the United States, the rising provision of ballistic missiles by Iran to non-state actors --including terrorist and militia groups, as well as rogue states -- now presents a significant source of concern for global security.

The regime continues to hide behind its proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Those are Iran's human shields. That is why they have proxies in the first place: then it is the proxies doing the dirty work and being attacked, not Iran.

Unfortunately, unless Iran's leaders themselves feel seriously disrupted, why would they ever stop? The Obama and Biden administrations tried giving Iran billions of dollars in "carrots." Clearly that was a flop. The answer, all the same, is not: "Maybe there weren't enough carrots. So next time, we will give more of them!"

To stabilize the Middle East, it is essential to apply ongoing pressure on the Iranian leaders themselves, to disrupt their accelerating programs to produce nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them, and to convince them, the old-fashioned way, that their hegemonic dreams of taking over the Middle East simply will not work.
The period of the Biden administration's leadership has witnessed notable strides in Iran's ballistic missile capabilities. These encompass advances in range, accuracy and payload capacity. Because of the apparent lack of oversight from world leaders, especially the United States, the rising provision of ballistic missiles by Iran to non-state actors --including terrorist and militia groups, as well as rogue states -- now presents a significant source of concern for global security.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20299/iran-ballistic-missiles

The International Court Of "Injustice" Begins Its Blood Libel Trial Against Israel
by Alan M. Dershowitz • January 12, 2024 at 5:00 am

What is the International Court of Justice? It is not international, because it excludes judges from certain countries. It is not a real court, because the judges are selected by their countries and many of them simply follow the instructions of those who appointed them. And it has never done justice, because it has long been biased against Israel. It is the United Nations court, and that tells you all you need to know about it.

The United Nations has become the megaphone of bigotry and anti-Semitism.... Both the United Nations and its court are shams.

It is the Hamas charter that calls for genocide against the Jews of Israel, and it is South Africa that is harboring Hamas terrorists and defending its murders and rapes. It should be Hamas that is on trial for attempted genocide and South Africa that is on trial for complicity with Hamas. Instead, the nation-state of the Jewish people is being accused of a blood libel, despite going to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties in its legitimate efforts to destroy Hamas.

The evidence is indisputable that Hamas has committed numerous war crimes.

Were the International Court of Justice to falsely conclude that Israel was guilty of genocide, it would destroy whatever remaining credibility that court might have. If that were to happen, the United States and some other nations should and probably would leave the court: it would not deserve the legitimacy afforded by membership of any decent country.


What is the International Court of Justice? It is not international, because it excludes judges from certain countries. It is not a real court, because the judges are selected by their countries and many of them simply follow the instructions of those who appointed them. And it has never done justice, because it has long been biased against Israel. The United Nations has become the megaphone of bigotry and anti-Semitism. Both the United Nations and its court are shams. Pictured: Judges in the International Court of Justice take their seats to hear the blood libel accusation against Israel, brought by South Africa, in The Hague on January 11, 2024. (Photo by Remko de Waal/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)
The blood libel accusation against Israel has now begun in The Hague. The failed nation of South Africa has brought genocide charges against Israel in the International Court of Justice.

What is the International Court of Justice? It is not international, because it excludes judges from certain countries. It is not a real court, because the judges are selected by their countries and many of them simply follow the instructions of those who appointed them. And it has never done justice, because it has long been biased against Israel. It is the United Nations court, and that tells you all you need to know about it. The United Nations has become the megaphone of bigotry and anti-Semitism. As an Israeli diplomat once put it, if Algeria introduced a resolution that the earth is flat and that Israel flattened it, it would win 120 to 27 with 32 abstentions. And you can name the countries in each of the groups before any evidence is presented.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20298/international-court-of-injustice-israel