Category: moslems & jihadis

Egypt Reportedly Has Mortal Fears About This Scenario Regarding Israel’s War With Hamas

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza isn’t going to end until the terror organization is destroyed or hobbled to the point where its impact on Gazan civilian life would be de minimis. No more can the strip be used to launch terror attacks against Israel. The IDF will remain in the strip, taking over its security responsibilities for the foreseeable future. And Israel might invade southern Lebanon to curb Hezbollah’s footprint so close to its northern border. Yet, neighboring Egypt has also been monitoring the situation. They deployed tanks to its border with the Gaza Strip, bolstering its presence near the long-closed Rafah border crossing.

The reason for its closure, which isn’t a new development, isn’t shocking: Egyptians don’t want Palestinian terrorists flooding into their country. That’s not just Cairo’s position. Every Arab nation knows the Palestinians are a problem, bringing nothing but trouble wherever they go. Reportedly, Arab nations have been quietly telling Israel that they hope their forces wipe out Hamas and that the IDF shouldn’t stop their campaign until the terror group is eliminated. For Egypt, being a neighboring state, they also don’t want millions of Palestinians pouring across the border. It’s an issue that Egyptians are warning Jerusalem could lead to a “rupture” in their relations (via Axios):

Egypt warned the U.S. and Israel that if Palestinian refugees flee into the Sinai as a result of the Israeli military operation in southern Gaza, it could create “a rupture” in relations between Egypt and Israel, according to four U.S. and Israeli officials.

Why it matters: The close relations between Egypt and Israel, especially between the military and intelligence services, have been critically important at several points in the war, including around the release of hostages.

Egypt sees the war in Gaza as a threat to its national security and wants to prevent Palestinian refugees from crossing the border into its territory.

As of 3 December, according to UNRWA, almost 1.9 million people in Gaza, or nearly 85 percent of the population, were estimated to be internally displaced.[
]

Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority have been concerned since the early days of the war that Israel would push Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt — and not allow them to return after the war.

Israeli officials denied this both in private and in public and gave assurances to Egypt that any wounded Palestinian permitted to leave Gaza for medical treatment would be allowed to return to the enclave.[
]

Behind the scenes: Israeli officials say that over the last few weeks Egyptian officials, including in the military and in the intelligence service, told their counterparts in the IDF and the Shin Bet that they are highly concerned about the implications of an operation in southern Gaza for Egypt.

The Egyptians expressed anxiety that a crisis on their border with Gaza would result in thousands of Palestinian refugees crossing the border barrier and trying to find shelter in the Sinai, according to three Israeli officials.

One Israeli official said Egyptian officials told their Israeli counterparts they are concerned that militants from Gaza could also then escape into Egypt.

Egypt has already declared that they’re willing to sacrifice millions of its people to keep its border and nation safe against a flood of Palestinian refugees. Israel can’t upset the apple cart with Egypt, whose peace treaty they share is strategically important. It’s not just significant regarding inroads for peace in the region. It was a historic milestone. Egypt became the first Arab country to recognize the Jewish state’s right to exist. They won’t let this deteriorate; we should all hope they don’t.

This is why our foreign and domestic enemies wanted a cease fire. They knew HAMAS was near collapse and the intel the IDF will gather is likely to implicate people and organizations that secretly supported them.

Netanyahu: It’s the ‘Beginning of the End’ for Hamas as Even More Terrorists Surrender, Give Vital Intel

More than 100 Hamas terrorists reportedly surrendered on Saturday in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

Maybe “strip” was also the right word, since the IDF was making them strip to make sure that they didn’t have any weapons or bombs on their person. We reported on this before, but now even more terrorists surrendered Saturday, and what those people who raised the white flag are revealing is helping the IDF.

N12 News shared the clip of the men standing in line across a rubble-strewn street in Jabaliya as IDF soldiers trained automatic weapons on them and ordered them to drop their own weapons across the street. One of the men gingerly crossed the street, his automatic weapon held over his head, before dumping into a pile of seized arms.

“In Shejaiya and Jabaliya, terrorists who surrendered handed over weapons and equipment,” said IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari Saturday, the Times of Israel reported, adding that many of the men told Israeli forces that Hamas leadership underground “does not care about the public in Gaza who are above ground.”

Hagari said that interrogations of the captured operatives already provided valuable intelligence for the Israeli military and “aids us in operational activities.”

Sounds like the Hamas members have had enough, especially of their leaders, particularly if they’re providing intel to the Israelis.

Now, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, has called on the rest of the terrorists to surrender. 

“The war is still ongoing but it is the beginning of the end of Hamas,” Netanyahu said as he urged the terrorist group’s fighters not to sacrifice themselves for their leader Yahya Sinwar.

“I say to the Hamas terrorists: It’s over. Don’t die for Sinwar. Surrender – now!”

“In the past few days, dozens of Hamas terrorists have surrendered to our forces. They are laying down their weapons and turning themselves in to our heroic soldiers.” Netanyahu said.

Meanwhile there are reports that Sinwar has fled south to Khan Younis. Sounds just like the coward he is.

Some continued to flip out that the people were being held in their underwear by the IDF.

Warning for graphic language

But the IDF has to make sure that they don’t have any weapons. Notice they are taking prisoners, unlike Hamas who just rapes and slaughters civilians. This is real, and so is the war that Hamas started. Treating them with safety isn’t a war crime, unlike what Hamas did. Hamas is outgunned and outsmarted, and they’re going to find out it wasn’t a good idea to open up this can of worms by attacking Israel.

People upset about conditions in Gaza should be calling on Hamas to surrender because once they are gone, things will get immeasurably better for everyone. Calling for a ceasefire, as many on the left are doing, only saves the terrorists from being wiped out. What they’re doing is helping Hamas, not the people of Gaza.

But it may be too late for the leftists to save them. It’s the beginning of the end and it’s only going to get worse for Hamas.

Giveaways

 When a man shows you who he is, believe him.– Maya Angelou

Among the great weaknesses of the Right is our powerful desire to believe that our opponents are fundamentally just as decent as we are. There’s actually some rationality behind that assumption. If our opponents are not fundamentally decent – that is, if they don’t share our core convictions about good and evil – we have no chance of reasoning with them. As we’re determined to prevail politically with logic and evidence rather than through bloodshed, the assumption is vital to keeping our guns in the closet.

But the evidence is strong that the Left does not agree with our convictions about good and evil. Now and then we get more of it.

Quite recently, Pramila Jayapal sought to deflect discussion from HAMAS’s rapes and other brutalizations of Israeli girls.
From an open HAMAS supporter, the impulse to dismiss their atrocities might be understandable
but giving in to it indicates a missing moral foundation. Either that, or she’s seriously stupid. And yes, I suppose it could be both, though that leaves her tenure in Congress unexplained.

A few days later, a New York University law professor tried to justify those rapes as less evil than Israel’s military response:

It’s difficult to believe someone that morally empty could hold a law professorship at a prominent law school, but this is 2023.

The most illuminating giveaway of all is a few years old. Regard the little video below: a segment from a “debate” over what European policies should be toward the waves of “refugees” flooding Europe:

Note that the leftists, Simon Schama and Louise Arbour, scoff at the plague of sexual violence – rape, often gang rape, and often of underage girls – that the “refugees” have inflicted on the women and girls of Europe, and imply that the position of the Right is founded on prudery or “newborn feminism.” Mark Steyn’s riposte devastates them, simply by citing a handful of the known incidents the leftists were determined to dismiss with weak sarcasms.

But what does it really signify that Arbour and Schama regard violent sexual predation as something they can dismiss with a flip remark? Are these persons to whom you would entrust the care of a young girl? Would you be confident that they would protect her from the sort of vermin Mark Steyn cited? Or might their attitude be “Well, different cultures” or perhaps “Hey, these things happen” – ?

A man who’s willing to countenance the sacrifice of women’s and young girls’ bodies to debatable “humanitarian” priorities, or for the sake of some political or economic advantage, or perhaps merely to prevail over an ideological opponent, has embraced evil. Arbour and Schama have shed all pretense to the contrary. They have shown us who they are, and we should believe them.

Good men don’t compromise with evil. They don’t try to reason with evil. They fight evil. They do their utmost to destroy it. The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.

American Forces Attacked by Iranian Proxies 84 Times in 52 Days and Biden Does Nothing

US military installations in Iraq and Syria have been attacked by Iranian proxies nine times since Friday. According to senior defense officials, this brings to 84 the number of attacks on US forces since October 17, resulting in injuries to 66 American servicemen. The highest profile of those attacks was an attack on the US embassy in Baghdad. It was hit by a volley of 60mm mortar rounds on Thursday, and there were no casualties

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin used the occasion of his phone call with Iraqi President Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to condemn the attacks as “acts of terrorism” that “endanger Iraq’s internal security.”  He also “made clear that attacks against US forces must stop.”

As Austin made clear, it is no secret that Iranian proxy groups are behind the attacks (New Drone Attacks on US Forces in Syria, Iranian Proxies Claim Responsibility).

The same provocations are taking place in the Red Sea by the Iranian-back Houthis in Yemen. A US Reaper drone was shot down over international waters (Yemeni Houthis Shoot Down US Reaper Over Red Sea, the White House Response Is Crickets). Houthi drones targeted a US destroyer.

I’m sure that the usual isolationist fringe will say, “Why do we have troops in those countries? Why are our ships sailing in international waters? Shouldn’t they be on our southern border?” Those may be fair questions, but it is also immaterial and a shameless dodge. The National Command Authority has ordered our military to those locations to carry out American foreign policy. But in an environment where our troops have been attacked on 84 separate occasions in 52 days, we have launched a grand total of six airstrikes in the same time frame.

We allow Iranian proxies to lob rockets and mortar rounds at our troops. We’ve accepted, on average, one American casualty per day since October 17, and It is only a matter of time until Americans get killed. And the reason they do it is that there is zero risk attached to attacking Americans or American ships or aircraft because Joe Biden is so afraid of offending the Iranians that he’d rather see the coffins arrive at Dover AFB than have panties soiled under the man-dresses in Tehran.

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A Rocket Attack Targets the US Embassy in Baghdad, Causing Minor Damage but No Casualties

BAGHDAD — A rocket attack on the sprawling U.S. Embassy in Baghdad caused minor damage but no casualties Friday morning, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

The attack is the first on the embassy located in the heavily fortified Green Zone of Iraq’s capital to be confirmed since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. The Green Zone houses Iraqi government buildings and embassies on the west bank of the Tigris River.

Iran-backed militias in Iraq have claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks that targeted bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria since Israel declared war on Hamas two months ago. The U.S. military says 78 attacks have been carried out against U.S. facilities over the past weeks, of which 37 were in Iraq and 41 in Syria.

An Iraqi security official said 14 Katyusha rockets were fired Friday, of which some struck near one of the U.S. Embassy’s gates while others fell in the river. The official said the rocket attack caused material damage but no casualties.

A U.S. military official said a multi-rocket attack was launched at American and coalition forces in the vicinity of the embassy complex and the Union III base, which houses offices of the U.S.-led coalition. The official added that no casualties and no damage to infrastructure were reported.

An embassy spokesperson said the U.S. Embassy was attacked by two salvos of rockets at approximately 4:15 a.m. (0215 GMT).

“Assessments are ongoing, but there are no reported casualties on the embassy compound,” the official said, adding that no specific group had claimed responsibility for firing the rockets as of Friday morning but early indications pointed to Iran-aligned militias.

“We again call on the government of Iraq, as we have done on many occasions, to do all in its power to protect diplomatic and Coalition partner personnel and facilities,” the official said. “We reiterate that we reserve the right to self-defense and to protect our personnel anywhere in the world.”

The three officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said in a statement that “targeting diplomatic missions is something that cannot be justified.” He called the attack an “insult to Iraq, its stability and security,” and promised to “pursue the perpetratrors of the attack …and bring them to justice.”

Sudani came to power with the support of a coalition of Iran-backed parties. But he also wants continued good relations with the U.S. and has backed the ongoing presence of American troops in his country.

While no group claimed responsibility for the embassy attack, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias, issued statements claiming separate attacks Friday on the al-Asad airbase in western Iraq, which is used by U.S. forces, and on a base located at the Conoco gas field in eastern Syria.

There are roughly 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq and around 900 others in eastern Syria, on missions against the Islamic State group. In both countries, Iran has militias loyal to Tehran.

In response to attacks against American troops, the U.S. has retaliated with airstrikes three times in Syria since Oct. 17, targeting weapons depots and other facilities linked directly to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and the militias. The U.S. also struck multiple sites in Iraq late last month after a militia group for the first time fired short-range ballistic missiles at U.S. forces at al Asad air base.

This CNN Reporter Just Had a Come to Jesus Moment About Hamas.

A veteran CNN Middle East reporter with two decades of experience now admits that “too many of us treated the group more like an opposition party with occasional violent outbursts than a terrorist organization.”

“Journalists working in conflict zones,” Ilene Prusher wrote in a CNN op-ed this week, “too often pull punches in the interest of appearing neutral, or perhaps to ensure that they stay in the good graces of the gunmen in charge.”

Prusher concludes that “if journalists continue to interview members of Hamas, we should report their words more critically and not take their comments at face value. We should provide context that notes how unverifiable their information is and how poor their track record for accuracy has been.”

There’s a word for that: journalism. Let’s give Prusher two cheers for encouraging her colleagues to actually commit some for a change.

I might fairly ask Prusher, “What took you so long?” It isn’t as though she were ignorant of the Middle East and its major players. But since it’s my policy never to interrupt someone when they’re busy talking their way over to my side of an issue, I’ll leave her be.

“By and large, we reporters ate it up,” she explained without prompting, in no small part because “Our editors wanted us to have access to this shadowy group.”

What is access, anyway?

Last month when I was in Miami for the previous GOP presidential debate, Yours Truly (and the rest of the Townhall crew in town that night) were granted access to the post-debate spin room. That meant we would have the chance to speak one-on-one with the candidates or maybe their managers and surrogates.

Please note: It’s called the spin room because that’s where the candidates, their managers, and their surrogates go to put their spin on what just happened. Spin can be anything from putting a friendlier face on a fierce debate performance to literally (not really) polishing a turd and hoping some know-nothing reporter will pick it up and run with it.

But getting and keeping access can be a whole lot more complicit than anything that happens in a spin room between candidate and reporter.

Infamously, CNN used to downplay Saddam Hussein’s atrocities against the people of Iraq to maintain the network’s access to the Hussein regime. That was a case where the appearance of reporting the news — “Hey, we’re talking to all these Iraqi officials, so it must be real news!” — was more important to CNN than actually reporting the news. They were happy to be lied to and to repeat those lies because it filled airtime and sold commercials.

The mainstream media’s dirty little secret is that so much reporting involves little more than getting and maintaining access to important people by giving them the airtime they desire.

And yet, “How often did that stop us from reporting what they told us?” as Prusher asked in her come-to-Jesus column. “That dynamic was on display last month when many mainstream media outlets immediately repeated Hamas’ claim that an Israeli air strike had devastated a hospital and killed a big round figure of 500 Palestinians.”

Prusher and so many others are — or in her case, was — happy to trade integrity for the allure of access to a “shadowy group” who expertly preyed on their vanities.

Except, of course, for the mainstream media’s reporters and stringers who are all-in with Hamas to begin with and never had any integrity to begin with.

Hamas fighters surrender in droves, and their photos tell an interesting story

Since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas ended, Israel has been pushing forward relentlessly to destroy every Hamas stronghold, whether above or below ground. In Khan Younis, one of Hamas’s last redoubts, the Hamas fighters finally decided against martyrdom and surrendered en masse. There are a few notable things about the surrendering Hamas troops, and they destroy some of the propaganda we’ve heard so much about.

First, here are the stills and video of the surrendered Hamas men:

What you should immediately notice is that they’re not being slaughtered or tortured. In this regard, the Israeli approach is very different from what happens when Arabs get their hands on enemy soldiers that they don’t intend to keep alive as hostages for bartering. In 2000, when West Bankians got hold of two Israeli soldiers, they ripped them apart and showed their blood-stained hands to the cheering crowd. In warfare, the Arabs are indistinguishable from stone-aged tribes.

The Hamas prisoners have been stripped down to their undies, which is the most obvious way to protect against any of them having concealed weapons or explosives. Their semi-nudity allows one to see the other notable thing, which Bonchie pointed out at Red State:

The war against Hamas is now two months old, with the initial attack from the terrorists coming on October 7th. During that time, we’ve been assured that everyone is starving in Gaza due to the evil siege being carried out by Israel. In that picture, though, I see a whole lot of man boobs and beer guts. What does that tell you? It tells you that Hamas has been stealing aid and keeping its fighters well-fed as they cower underground.

Yes, they’re fat. That being the case, you can recognize the lie behind the claim coming from Hamas and its fellow travelers that the men detained are civilians:

If these fat men are civilians, the claimed food shortages have been greatly exaggerated. Alternatively, if they are, indeed, Hamas fighters, then Gaza operates on the North Korean principle, which is that you feed the soldiers and starve the citizens. Either way, it’s not a good look for Hamas.

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CAIR APPLAUDS MASSACRE OF JEWS

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, masquerades as a civil rights organization and is taken seriously as such by the liberal press. In fact, however, it is a front for jihadists. CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism case. It has a long history of anti-Semitic agitation and propaganda. It added to that ignominious history on November 24, at the 16th Annual Convention for Palestine in the U.S..

CAIR’s Executive Director, Nihad Awad, expressed glee at the Gazans’ mass murders and gang rapes of October 7:

“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” said Awad. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk free into their land that they were not free to walk in.”

He continued, “And yes, the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense — have the right to defend themselves. And yes, Israel as an occupying power does not have that right to self-defense.”

This is the idiotic formula that the global Left has been parroting ever since October 7. Awad went on to complain about the Jews’ control over the U.S. Congress:

AIPAC and its affiliates have been controlling the United States government and the United States Congress,” Awad said. “And if someone says, ‘Oh, Nihad Awad said this about the Congress,’ I tell you, ‘Yes, I say it today, and I will say it tomorrow — unless we free Congress, we will not be able to free Palestine.’”

So first Congress, then the Middle East can be judenrein.

Awad identifies closely with the younger generation of Democrats who have generally supported Hamas:

The CAIR director also lauded the efforts of younger Democrats dissatisfied with President Biden’s continued support of Israel over Hamas.

“Brothers and sisters, young people in the Democratic Party have sent a clear message to this administration and to the Democratic Party,” Awad told the audience. “That you have betrayed our votes, you have betrayed our support, and you have betrayed young people who aspire for the United States of America to reposition itself as a moral leader in the world. They have betrayed us.”

Like Yasir Arafat and many other predecessors in the jihadist movement, Awad says one thing when he is among friends, and something else when speaking for mainstream consumption. He apparently didn’t expect his remarks to the Convention for Palestine to be reported, so he claimed to have been “taken out of context.”

Deputy Executive Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell provided a statement attributed to Awad.

“
[A]n anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian hate website selected remarks from my speech out of context and spliced them together to create a completely false meaning.”

Maybe Awad should apply to be President of Harvard. He, like current President Claudine Gay, believes that context is everything.

Nature, Tooth, Claw And All

Yesterday, by accident, at night, I read about the barbaric things done to women in Israel by the Hamass terrorist attack on 10/7. I enjoin you not to follow that link, if you don’t want my nightmares last night.

And I woke up and was thinking
 well, about a lot of things.

The only thing unusual about the way Hamass treated those women (and children) is that they killed most of them. Unusual, I mean from an historical perspective.

I was thinking of the rape of the Sabines, upon which the founding of Rome rested. Bunch of young braves, (given Romulus and Remus’s origin probably expelled from some community for being outlaws) claims land, then kills all men in a neighboring tribe and kidnaps every woman: crone, pregnant mother, young woman, barely pubescent child, rapes them and sometimes — sometimes — marries them. “Marries” them.

There are certain beats to this horror throughout history. And variables. Whether old women are killed is a variable. How young the age of “women” kidnapped is another. We know for a fact Plains Indians kidnapped girls as young as 6 and subjected them to the same treatment as all women. The horrific beats of this treatment included beatings, starving and serial rapes. It might or might not include the killing of the first child born. (Why? well, because it could be the woman’s murdered husband’s.) And everyone was subjected to this, from very young to very old.

The purpose, evolutionary was to break these women, to give them what was later described as Stockholm syndrome, so that they would, by the time they were given to a single man, cling to him as a protector and give him all their loyalty. So that they became willing broodmares for those who had killed their own families in front of them.

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IDF: We Broke Through Hamas Lines; Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar is Underground

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Wednesday evening that it had broken through Hamas lines in both northern and southern Gaza, and that it had surrounded Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, whom it said was hiding in an underground tunnel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said earlier, in a statement, that the IDF had surrounded Sinwar’s house, which had been found vacant: “Last night I said that our forces could go anywhere in the Gaza Strip. They are currently surrounding Sinwar’s house. His home is not his castle, and he can flee, but it is only a matter of time until we find him.”

IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari then clarified that the military had surrounded Hamas positions in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, not Sinwar’s house specifically. He added, however, that Sinwar was underground, and implied that Israel knew where he was.

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State Dept. Reveals Horrific Reason Female Hostages Haven’t Been Released by Hamas

The State Department revealed Monday the reason why Hamas continues to hold hostages  underground is the Gaza Strip. More specifically, why they are refusing to release female hostages.

According to State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, the Iranian backed terrorist organization isn’t releasing additional female hostages, who were violently taken from their homes and a music festival in Israel on October 7, because they know and have experienced too much while in captivity. In other words, they don’t want them speaking out about what has been done to them.

“Right now Hamas is refusing to release civilian women who should have been part of the agreement and it is that refusal by Hamas that has caused the end of the hostage agreement and therefore an end to the pause in hostilities,” White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan added during the daily press briefing, saying the administration is still working to get Americans out. “Israel is insisting on the release of those women.”

The revelation comes 24 hours after Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal downplayed the atrocities during an interview with CNN.

Hamas is still holding a number of Americans hostage. The White House claims they are still working to get them home.

When ‘big tent’ politics gets between a rock and a hard place

Muslim leaders in swing states launch campaign to ditch Biden in 2024.

Muslim leaders from several swing states on Saturday launched a national campaign against the reelection of President Joe Biden over his response to the Israel-Hamas war.

The launch took place in Dearborn, Michigan, and had Muslim leaders from states including Arizona, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Florida, Politico reports.

“We’re looking into finding ways to build a mechanism of coordination between all the swing states so that we’re constantly working together to ensure that Muslim Americans will come out in all of these states, and that Mr. Biden will lose each and every one of them,” said Hassan Abdel Salam, a professor at the University of Minnesota, during the launch.

Their main objection to Biden, according to the outlet, is that he has not sufficiently pressed Israel for a cease-fire in their war against Hamas.

The campaign is titled the #AbandonBiden National Coalition.

“Right behind me, what Mr. Biden should see is 111 electoral votes. And he won last time with 74,” Salam continued.

While the leaders of this movement are not supporting Biden, they made it clear they are not supporting former President Donald Trump either.

“We’re not supporting Trump,” coalition member Jaylani Hussein said. We’re not going to make the same mistake of thinking about President Biden the way we thought. We don’t have two options. We have many options, and we’re going to exercise that.”

What Arab Nations Are Reportedly Saying to Israel in Private Is Quite Interesting.

It feeds into everything that’s been reported about Israel’s Arab neighbors and why they don’t want Palestinian refugees roaming wild in their country: they bring trouble. The late King Hussein had to declare war on them and successfully drove them out. The problem is the Palestinian Liberation Organization set up shop in Lebanon, where they caused problems for the government while also attacking Israel from the southern part of the country. Israel had to invade in 1982 and remained in Southern Lebanon until 2000. Egypt has closed its border with the Gaza Strip in Rafah due to terrorism concerns.

In the days after the brutal October 7 attacks executed by Hamas, Egypt knew what was going to happen. They deployed tanks to the border while their prime minister vowed that his country would sacrifice millions to keep their borders safe. He was not referring to Israel. So, what’s the latest? Well, Haaretz is reporting that Israel’s Arab neighbors are telling Jerusalem privately that they shouldn’t stop military operations until Hamas has been annihilated. They view them as a domestic threat:

This act of making noise publicly but more reasoned discussion behind the scenes among Arab leaders happened in early November, when they gathered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to discuss the ongoing Gaza War. There was a lot of talking condemnation of Israel, but nothing came of it

(via AFP):

The outcome of a joint summit of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in the Saudi capital highlighted regional divisions over how to respond to the war even as fears mount that it could draw in other countries. 

The summit took place against a backdrop of widespread anger in the Middle East and beyond over Israel’s aerial and ground offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 11,000 people, mostly civilians and many of them children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. 

Israel says it has set out to destroy Hamas following the militant group’s bloody October 7 attacks that Israeli officials say killed about 1,200 people, also mostly civilians, and saw about 240 taken hostage. 

The final declaration on Saturday rejected Israeli claims that it is acting in “self-defence” and demanded that the United Nations Security Council adopt “a decisive and binding resolution” to halt Israel’s “aggression”. 

It also called for an end to weapons sales to Israel and dismissed any future political resolution to the conflict that would keep Gaza separate from the Israeli-occupied West Bank. 

Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who before the war was considering establishing formal diplomatic ties with Israel, told the summit he “holds the occupation (Israeli) authorities responsible for the crimes committed against the Palestinian people”. [
] 

Some countries, including Algeria and Lebanon, proposed responding to the devastation in Gaza by threatening to disrupt oil supplies to Israel and its allies as well as severing the economic and diplomatic ties that some Arab League nations have with Israel, the diplomats said. 

However, at least three countries — including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which normalised ties with Israel in 2020 — rejected the proposal, according to the diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity. 

In a televised address Saturday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Arab leaders “have to stand up against Hamas”, which he described as “an integral part of the terror axis led by Iran”. 

LET THE CREDIT GROW

Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israel’s war cabinet this week. I wrote briefly about the meeting yesterday in “Annals of strategery.”

As has been obvious for a while now, the Biden administration is undermining Israel’s war on Hamas and defaming the IDF in the process. In the context of Biden’s expression of unqualified support for Israel in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 massacres, it is something of a spectacle — a spectacle of the “boneless wonder” variety.

It is reported in the Israeli media that Blinken cautioned the war cabinet: “I don’t think you have the credit” to fight Hamas to the finish. Here is the close encounter of the blinkin’ kind reported by the Times of Israel, which notes that Blinken’s remarks are quoted only in Hebrew translation by Israel’s Channel 12 news and have been translated back into English here:

Blinken: You can’t operate in southern Gaza in the way you did in the north. There are two million Palestinians there. You need to evacuate fewer people from their homes, be more accurate in the attacks, not hit UN facilities, and ensure that there are enough protected areas [for civilians]. And if not? Then not to attack where there is a civilian population. What is your system of operation?

IDF Chief Herzi Halevi: We follow a number of principles — proportionality, distinction, and the laws of war. There were instances where we attacked on the basis of those principles, and instances where we decided not to attack, because we waited for a better opportunity.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant: The entire Israeli society is united behind the goal of dismantling Hamas, even if it takes months.

Blinken: I don’t think you have the credit for that.

I wrote that some translation (of “credit”) was required to understand what Blinken was saying. The Wall Street Journal provides the requisite translation in its editorial “The Biden-Blinken Rules of War for Israel.” The Journal’s editors translate: “He means credit with President Biden, as the White House bends to the growing pressure against Israel from the Democratic left.”

No, they’re anti-Semitic and proud of it….

The Unhinged Among Us
Is the pro-Hamas crowd ignorant of Middle East history?

October 7 should have been an open-and-shut case of moral condemnation.

During peace and holiday, invading Hamas gunmen murdered, tortured, mass raped, decapitated, and mutilated some 1,200 Israelis. The vast majority were unarmed women, children, infants, and the elderly.

The cowardly murderers proudly filmed their atrocities and then fled back to Gaza—to cheers from the Gaza street.

Before Israel even retaliated, the mass murdering of Jews earned praise from the Middle East, the international hard left, and especially the faculty and students of elite Western campuses.

When the Israeli Defense Forces struck back, the killers dispersed to the safety of their multibillion-dollar subterranean cities. The cowardly elite architects of the mass murder fled to Arab sanctuaries in Lebanon and Qatar.

From its headquarters burrowed below hospitals, mosques, and schools, Hamas bartered hostages for a reprieve from the IDF and the release of its own convicted terrorists in Israeli jails.

Hamas shot any of its own supporters who refused to shield Hamas gunmen.

It continued launching rockets at Israeli civilian centers. It serially lied about its casualties, expropriating intended relief food and fuel for its underground tunnel city of killers.

Abroad, Hamas supporters also emulated the methods of the pro-Nazi demonstrators in Western cities of the 1930s. Unlike their pro-Israel critics, the pro-Hamas demonstrators in the U.S. and Europe turned violent.

They took over and defaced private and public property. They chanted genocidal anti-Semitic slogans calling for erasure of the nation of Israel.

They interrupted shoppers, blocked highways, attacked businesses, and swarmed bridges. They assaulted police.

The majority wore masks to hide their identities in the fashion of anti-semitic Klansmen.

Why did the doctrinaire left, the youth of the Democratic Party, and the campuses outdo each other in their anti-semitic venom toward Israel?

For the first time in their lives, many of the ignorant protestors suddenly professed concern about refugees, colonialism, disproportionality, innocent civilians, and the rules of war.

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Hamas Shifting the Goalposts for Releasing Hostages

There is already talk of a second ceasefire once fighting in the Israel-Hamas war resumes. But goalpost shifting by Hamas means talks ahead of any upcoming hostage release deal will be more hotly contested than the last.

The terror group is currently releasing just one of the 240 mostly Israeli hostages taken during its October 7th attacks for every three Palestinian prisoners set free by Israel. Over the course of the current ceasefire, which much of the West is demanding be extended again, Hamas has mainly released young children and elderly women—some of whom were taunted by Gazans during their handover—while Israel has released prisoners, many of whom it says are affiliated with Hamas and who, though not convicted, are alleged to have committed a range of offences.

Thoughts are now beginning to extend to the possible release of Israeli men and soldiers—both men and women—held by Hamas, which has signalled that it will demand a higher ‘price’ for these captives.

In 2006, Hamas released an abducted Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who had been held for five years in exchange for more than 1,000—one thousand—Palestinian prisoners. Retired U.S. Ambassador Dennis Jett told NPR that it “wasn’t lost on Hamas” that such a steep price could be demanded of Israel again.

Jerusalem may, however, be wary of such a controversial number, especially after one of the prisoners released in 2006, Yahya Sinwar, went on to lead Hamas in Gaza and to plan the October 7th terror attacks. For the same reason, The Times has suggested that “even Hamas might be discouraged from asking as high a price again, though its spokesmen have mentioned the Shalit deal.”

But before talks for the next ceasefire can begin, Israel is already being pressured by officials in the West to keep the existing one going longer. U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that “to continue down the path of terror, violence, killing, and war is to give Hamas what they seek. We can’t do that.” His comments appeared to contradict the official U.S. stance that a prolonged ceasefire would mainly benefit Hamas, granting it enough time to regroup.

President Biden’s comments also came ahead of today’s ‘International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People,’ held annually, though this year piggybacked by Hamas. The terror group has called for global protests and “solidarity marches,” according to the German paper JĂŒdische Allgemeine. The paper added that this poses particular threats for the West’s Jewish communities which have already seen a massive increase in antisemitic incidents since October 7th.