The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.
From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."
The HBO host gave 'TikTok fans' a history lesson on how Muslim countries have been guilty of 'ethnic cleansing'
"Real Time" host Bill Maher
closed his final show of 2023 with a blistering takedown of the
pro-Palestinian movement parading the "myth" that the slogan "From the
river to the sea" can be achieved.
Maher began
by linking Christmas to the war-torn region, citing how the "little town
of Bethlehem was "86% Christian" in 1950 and how today it's
"overwhelmingly Muslim."
"And that's my point tonight: Things
change," Maher said. "To 2.3 billion Christians, there could be no more
sacred site than where their savior was born, but they don't have it
anymore. And yet no crusader army has geared up to take it back. Things
change- countries, boundaries, empires. Palestine was under the Ottoman
Empire for 400 years but today, an ottoman is something you've put under
your feet."
"Real
Time" host Bill Maher torched the "myth" promoted by pro-Palestinian
activists on college campuses chanting "From the river to the sea."(Screenshot/HBO)
After
listing several global geographic changes throughout history, Maher
told his audience "eventually everybody comes to an accomodation, except
for the Palestinians."
"Was it unjust that even a single Arab family was forced to move upon the founding of the Jewish State?
Yes, but it's also not rare. Happening all through history all over the
world. And mostly what people do is make the best of it," Maher said.
"After World War II, 12 million ethnic Germans got shoved out of Russia
and Poland and Czechoslovakia because Germany had become kind of
unpopular. A million Greeks were shut out of Turkey in 1923, a million
Ghanaians out of Nigeria in 1983, almost a million French out of Algeria
in 1962, nearly a million Syrian refugees moved to Germany eight years
ago. Was that a perfect fit?"
"And no one knows more about being
pushed off land than the Jews, including the almost holy kicked out of
every Arab country they once lived in. Yes, TikTok fans, ethnically
cleansing happened both ways," Maher continued while showing a chart of
the shrinking Jewish population in Arab countries.
The
HBO star stressed that people "coped" throughout history, citing the
Jewish family from "Fiddler on the Roof" repeatedly fleeing from the
pogroms.
"History is brutal, and humans are not good people.
History's sad and full of wrongs but you can't make them unhappen
because a paraglider isn't a time machine. People get moved, and yes,
colonized. Nobody was a bigger colonizer than the Muslim army that swept
out of the Arabian desert and took over much of the world in a single
century. And they didn't do it by asking," Maher said. "There's a reason
Saudi Arabia's flag is a sword. Kosovo was the cradle of Christian
Serbia, then it became Muslim. They fought a war about it in the 90s but
stopped. They didn't keep it going for 75 years."
Pro-Palestinian posters gather at Harvard University at a rally in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 14, 2023.(Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)
After
listing all the years Palestinians turned down a peace agreement with
Israel, he took aim at its leaders and its allies marching at
universities.
"The Palestinian people should know your leaders
and the useful idiots on college campuses who are their allies are not
doing any favors by keeping alive the ‘river to the sea' myth. I mean,
where do you think Israel is going? Spoiler alert: nowhere," Maher said.
"It's one of the most powerful countries in the world with a $500
billion economy, the world's second-largest tech sector after Silicon
Valley and nuclear weapons. They're here, they like their bagel with a
schmear, getting used to it."
He continued, "What's happening to
Palestinians today is horrible. And not just in Gaza, in the West Bank
too. But war ends through negotiation. And what the media glosses over
is it's hard to negotiate when the other side's bargaining position is
‘You will die and disappear.’ I mean, the chant ‘From the river to the
sea?' Yeah, let's look at the map."
Showing a visual, Maher
continued, "Here's the river. Here's the sea. Oh, I see. It means you
get all of it. Not just the West Bank, which was basically the original
UN-partition deal you rejected because you wanted all of it and always
have, even though it's indisputably also the Jews' ancestral homeland,
and so you attacked and lost. And attacked again and lost. And attacked
again and lost."
The Israel-Hamas war has sparked concerns of a wider regional conflict.(Fox News)
Maher
went on to cite Mexico, which previously had a border that reached the
top of California and Nevada but they "chose a different path" and "got
real" to eventually develop "the world's 14th biggest economy now."
"If I give you the benefit of the doubt and say your plan for a completely-Jewless Palestine isn't that all the Jews should die,
what is the only other option? They move. You move all the Jews… Where
are we moving this entire country, Texas? Sure they have room. I guess
we could put the Wailing Wall on the border and kill two birds with one
stone. Or we could just get serious," Maher concluded.
Joseph A. Wulfsohn is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to joseph.wulfsohn@fox.com and on Twitter: @JosephWulfsohn.
Iran has been employing every political and military tactic possible -- including racing toward nuclear weapons capability -- to complete its objectives of annihilating Israel, driving the United States out of the Middle East, and establishing an Islamist caliphate.
The Houthis have been
fortunate to have, as a powerful patron and sponsor, Iran. Their backers
in Tehran will not let them run out of ammunition and the Biden
administration will not let the Iranian regime run out of funds.
Iran has been employing every political and military tactic
possible -- including racing toward nuclear weapons capability -- to
complete its objectives of annihilating Israel, driving the United
States out of the Middle East, and establishing an Islamist caliphate.
Does anyone seriously think that if Iran finally acquires a nuclear bomb, they will not use it -- or at least threaten to?
To deter further escalation, the US needs seriously to target the
real source of this mayhem -- the leadership of the Islamic Republic of
Iran and its IRGC. Perhaps the US might try incapacitating the Iranian
ports that are used for oil exports, or take out a few IRGC facilities
-- or maybe just send every IRGC officer a picture of his home?
Iran's militia and terrorist group in Yemen, the Houthis,
has ratcheted up attacks on ships in the Red Sea, and escalated the
launching of missiles and attack drones at Israel. Pictured: Guided
missiles on display at a Houthi military parade in Sanaa, Yemen, on
September 21, 2023. (Photo by Mohammed Huwais/AFP via Getty Images)
Thanks to the Biden administration's alarmingly misguided officials
and their counterproductive policies of appeasement towards Iran and its
proxies, the Iranian regime's militia and terrorist group in Yemen, the
Houthis, has ratcheted
up attacks on ships in the Red Sea, and escalated the launching of
missiles and attack drones at Israel. Now, the Houthis, also known as
Ansar Allah ("Partisans of Allah"), are threatening to attack any ship
headed to Israel, regardless of its nationality or ownership. Why not
just replace their flags with American ones?
The current problem with the Houthis began almost three years ago,
when the Biden administration, after less than a month in office,
reversed yet another policy of the Trump administration. On February 12,
2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken officially revoked the designation of the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
In doing so, the Biden administration airily delisted a group, which, according to a Yemeni government intelligence report, "works closely" with Al Qaeda and ISIS, and in addition, regularly commits crimes against humanity. It recruits, injures and kills children. According to Human Rights Watch's World Report 2020:
"Since September 2014, all parties to the conflict have
used child soldiers under 18, including some under the age of 15,
according to a 2019 UN Group of Eminent International and Regional
Experts on Yemen report in 2019. According to the secretary general, out
of 3,034 children recruited throughout the war in Yemen, 1,940—64
percent—were recruited by the Houthis."
The Biden administration delisted a group, the Houthis, who routinely resort to various methods of torture. According to Human Rights Watch:
"Former detainees described Houthi officers beating them
with iron rods and rifles and being hung from walls with their arms
shackled behind them.... The association [Mothers of Abductees
Association] reported that there are 3,478 disappearance cases, at least
128 of those kidnapped have been killed."
The Houthis have been fortunate to have, as a powerful patron and
sponsor, Iran. Their backers in Tehran will not let them run out of
ammunition and the Biden administration will not let the Iranian regime
run out of funds. Iran smuggles illicit weapons and military technology into Yemen. According to a report by Reuters, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) -- designated by the US State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization -- is a key supporter and sponsor of the Houthis, and has been stepping up its weapons supply to them in Yemen by way of Oman. The weapons include anti-tank guided missiles, sniper rifles, cruise missiles and attack drones.
Iran's leaders have admitted that they are helping the Houthis. The deputy commander of the IRGC's Quds Force Esmail Ghani stated in 2015, "Those defending Yemen have been trained under the flag of the Islamic Republic." In 2019, the Houthis, fired
a missile at an Abu Dhabi nuclear facility -- an act most likely meant
to create mass civilian casualties. Thankfully, the missile fell short.
More broadly, this drive by Iran gives an insight into the tactics
and long-term strategies of Iranian-trained and -armed proxies across
the Middle East. Their plans are built on several pillars:
destabilization, conflict, assassination, anti-Americanism, the
annihilation of Israel and Jews, and the rejection of any solution that
has Sunni or Western origins. Iran's pursuit of these pillars, for
instance, includes the assassination of Yemen's former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. In 2017, two days after Saleh urged a resolution to the seemingly intractable conflict in Yemen,
and when the international community sighed with relief that the
four-year-old civil war was going to be resolved much sooner than
expected, the Houthi militia murdered him.
Iran has been employing every political and military tactic possible
-- including racing toward nuclear weapons capability -- to complete its
objectives of annihilating Israel, driving the United States out of the
Middle East, and establishing an Islamist caliphate. These acts not
surprisingly include funding and arming Yemen's Houthis.
Iranian proxy militias have targeted US assets in Syria and Iraq at least 90 times since October 17. Since Biden has been in office, Iranian-backed proxy forces have targeted American forces in Iraq and Syria more than 150 times.
The Biden administration immediately needs to re-designate the
Iran-backed Houthi group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, both for
their military aggression against Israel and against ships in
international waters, and for their crimes against humanity.
Does anyone seriously think that if Iran finally acquires a nuclear bomb, they will not use it -- or at least threaten to?
To deter further escalation, the US needs seriously to target the
real source of this mayhem -- the leadership of the Islamic Republic of
Iran and its IRGC. Perhaps the US might try incapacitating the Iranian
ports that are used for oil exports, or take out a few IRGC facilities
-- or maybe just send every IRGC officer a picture of his home?
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and
advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of
Harvard International Review, and president of the International
American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
The treatment of America’s closest ally is shameful and unprincipled
A few weeks ago, I predicted that after giving Israel a few weeks to
end its war with Hamas, President Biden would turn on Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2024 because of growing and outspoken
opposition to the war by Mr. Biden’s anti-Israel progressive base.
I was wrong. President Biden began vilifying Netanyahu and his government this week.
This included President Biden making the very damning public
statement that Israel was losing international support because of its
“indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza.
The President also this week called for Netanyahu to “change his
government” to expel hardline ministers who oppose a two-state solution
peace agreement between Israel and Palestinians and criticized
Netanyahu’s administration as the “most conservative government in
Israel’s history.”
President Biden’s criticism comes at a pivotal time when Israel is
facing growing global opposition to the war and a recent nonbinding UN
General Assembly resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian
cease-fire that passed overwhelmingly.
Although President Biden has described his support for Israel after
the horrific October 7 terrorist attack as “rock solid,” his support has
been accompanied by public criticism and statements on how Israel
should conduct the war. For example, the President conditioned his
October 19 visit to Israel on an explicit commitment from Netanyahu to
open Gaza for humanitarian aid. He has called on Israel to respect
international and humanitarian law, implying that it has not done so.
President Biden and his senior officials also have repeatedly stated
that the Palestinian Authority must govern Gaza after the war concludes
and that Israel cannot occupy Gaza.
Over the last few weeks, Biden Administration officials told the
Israeli government they want the war wrapped up in weeks, not months,
and want a process to place Gaza under the administration of the
Palestinian Authority.
Netanyahu has rejected calls for a cease-fire or an early end to the
war, pledging on December 13, “We are continuing until the end, there is
no question. I say this even given the great pain, and the
international pressure. Nothing will stop us, we will continue until the
end, until victory, nothing less.”
In a video statement on December 12, Netanyahu also rejected U.S.
calls for the Palestinian Authority to run Gaza when he said, “After the
great sacrifice of our civilians and our soldiers, I will not allow the
entry into Gaza of those who educate for terrorism, support terrorism
and finance terrorism.” In addition, Netanyahu appeared to reject the
idea of a two-state solution peace plan when he insisted that he “will
not allow Israel to repeat the mistake of Oslo.” This was a reference to
the failed 1993 Oslo Accords, which granted the Palestine Liberation
Authority limited autonomy over the West Bank and Gaza.
It is unheard of for an American president to publicly criticize or
dictate to a close ally who is at war the way Joe Biden has done to
Israel since the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack. This criticism
initially appeared to reflect the Biden Administration’s dislike of
Netanyahu and his conservative government as well as Netanyahu’s
opposition to many of the Biden Administration’s Middle East policies,
such as attempting to negotiate a new nuclear agreement with Iran and
resuming U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority.
The Biden Administration’s criticism of the Israeli government
intensified over the last few weeks in response to an outpouring of
opposition to the war and anti-Israel sentiment by the American Left.
Massive anti-Israel and anti-Semitic demonstrations, acts of civil
disobedience, and fierce criticism of President Biden—such as young
demonstrators carrying “Genocide Joe” signs—caught Biden Administration
officials off guard and left them scrambling to placate this important
group of supporters.
Although there is still considerable bipartisan support for President
Biden’s backing of Israel after the October 7 terrorist attack, Biden’s
new sharp criticism of Prime Minister Netanyahu shows how worried he is
about strong and growing opposition to the war from progressives,
younger voters, and American Muslims. Biden Administration officials
realize how important these groups are to their future and are eager to
appease them quickly.
It was therefore predictable that President Biden would eventually
try to make Netanyahu a pariah over the war to deflect criticism from
his administration and win back progressive supporters. This will
include more extravagant and unrealistic demands over the next year to
end the war and for a two-state solution that neither Israel nor the
Palestinians are interested in.
This treatment of one of America’s closest allies at such a dire time
in its history is shameful and unprincipled. It will lead to
unnecessary tension between the United States and Israel at a time when
there should be no daylight between the two countries on security
issues. It also reflects the fecklessness of President Biden’s
leadership as Commander-in-Chief and why Biden has severely undermined
international security and America’s global reputation during his
presidency.
Fred Fleitz is vice-chair of the America First Policy Institute
Center for American Security. He previously served as National Security
Council chief of staff, CIA analyst and a House Intelligence Committee
staff member.
“If they had the capability, they would have killed every last one of us. They didn’t, because we fought back, sometimes with incredible odds."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets in
Tel Aviv with International Committee of the Red Cross president Mirjana
Spoljaric, Dec. 14, 2023. Photo by Haim Zach/GPO.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Thursday at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv with International Committee of the Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger.
Netanyahu recounted the atrocities carried
out by Hamas during its Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel,
including the murder of children and infants, and the abuse and brutal
rapes of women.
He also described the inhuman conditions
in which Hamas is holding some 138 hostages and the terror group’s
refusal to provide them with humanitarian assistance. Netanyahu
presented Spoljaric with a full package of vital medicines and demanded
that the ICRC fulfill its role by delivering it to the hostages in the
Gaza Strip.
“They’ve taken children, babies, women,
old people, Holocaust survivors, festival participants. After they shot
hundreds, murdered over 1,200 people, they take these people as
hostages. Where’s that heard of?” said Netanyahu.
“If they had the capability, they would
have killed every last one of us. They didn’t, because we fought back,
sometimes with incredible odds. People, mothers, fought with
fingernails. There’s a difference between the deliberate and systematic
murder, maiming and menacing of civilians, which is what terrorism is,
and the unintended consequences, unintended casualties that accompany
any warfare. This is the entire difference,” continued the premier.
“I want to express my gratitude for your
help in securing the release of the hostages, but at the same time, some
of the statements that have come out from your organization seem to not
make the distinction that I’ve just made,” added Netanyahu. “My goal,
as you know in our conversations, is to see how we can help the
remaining hostages. You have every avenue, every right and every
expectation to place public pressure on Hamas.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog also met on
Thursday with Spoljaric, emphasizing Israel’s “firm demand for the
immediate return of all the hostages held captive in Gaza for 70 days by
cruel Hamas terrorists—without being allowed visitation by the Red
Cross or the provision of life-saving drugs.”
Herzog said that Spoljaric pledged that
the swift return of the hostages is a “top priority,” and she reviewed a
series of actions and humanitarian steps being taken to try to ease
their suffering and have them returned to their families.
The Red Cross has
been accused of denying medicine to an Israeli hostage whom it brought
out of Gaza. “My mother was medically neglected,” Tali Amano said of her
mother Alma Avraham, 84. “She was abandoned twice—once on Oct. 7 and a
second time by all of the organizations that should have saved her.”
The Israel Embassy in Washington wrote on
Nov. 28: “Alma Avraham, 84, was taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7 and was
in need of life-saving medication. Her family begged a Red Cross
representative to pass on the medication to her…. Alma returned to
Israel in critical condition. She was hospitalized and is currently
fighting for her life.”
The Red Cross has also drawn criticism
recently for reportedly telling the family of another hostage: “Think
about the Palestinian side. It’s hard for the Palestinians, they’re
being bombed.”
The iShares Global Clean Energy exchange traded fund is down 36.59% this year as of Wednesday, and the S&P Global Clean Energy Index is down over 30%. That’s compared to the S&P 500 Index, which is up 23.4% on the year. Does going "woke" mean going broke?
In 2018, Bank of the West issued policy statements vowing to limit the business it would do with fossil fuel companies.
The bank’s decision was made entirely on an ideological opposition to
fossil fuels and not out of any concern that the investments weren’t
paying off, saying that they were withdrawing support for companies and
business activities that are "detrimental to our environment and our
health."
In those days, few had ever heard of environment, social and
governance (ESG), a form of corporate responsibility that rates funds
according to certain progressive-friendly markers. Among them is a
commitment to fighting climate change by minimizing or eliminating
support for fossil fuels.
At the time, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, was the state’s treasurer. As
treasurer of an energy state, Gordon wasn’t too happy with San
Francisco-based Bank of the West’s announcement, and he threatened to stop doing business with them.
“It was kind of interesting to see that happen. Wyoming was the first
state to pull money from a bank,” Dr. Brent Bennett, policy director
for Life:Powered, an energy education initiative of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, told Just The News.
Rise and decline
As the influence of ESG continued to grow after 2018, state
legislatures, especially in red states, grew concerned about tax dollars
funding progressive causes. Today, 19 states have at least one anti-ESG
law on the books, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
While more laws regulate the use of ESG in state business decisions,
the poor performance of ESG funds has also chipped away on the
movement’s influence. Higher interest rates and inflation blasted
so-called clean energy stocks.
Citing Morningstar data, The Wall Street Journal reported
that beginning in the second quarter of 2022, investments into
"sustainable" funds went negative. The following quarter was the first
time that more sustainable funds removed ESG criteria from their
investment practices than were added. Morningstar itself defines
sustainable funds as "funds that use environmental, social, and
corporate governance (ESG) criteria to evaluate investments or assess
their societal impact. They may pursue a sustainability-related theme or
explicitly aim to create measurable social impact."
Bloomberg reported that
Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, told
delegates at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai earlier this month that
private capital will only finance a climate agenda so long as it makes
money. “You have to make it profitable,” Dalio said.
It’s a tough year all the way around for energy companies, as high
interest rates and inflation come down hard on everyone, including the
oil and gas industry.
Strive Asset Management was founded by now presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to
shift the priority toward the financial interest of its clients — what
the company calls shareholder capitalism — and away from stakeholder
capitalism that incorporates considerations like ESG concerns. Strive
has 11 exchange traded funds (ETF's) traded on the U.S. markets, with
total assets under management of $1.03 billion. Strive’s passively
managed energy fund DRLL is down 4.57% YTD as of Wednesday.
Shareholder capitalism vs. Stakeholder capitalism
Over the past few decades, Strive explains in a white paper,
American shareholder capitalism has outperformed European-styled
stakeholder capitalism by 3.25%. The company explains the contrast to
stakeholder capitalism, "which holds that corporations should prioritize
not just shareholders, but anyone affected by their actions."
Strive CEO Matt Cole, who took the position after co-founder
Ramaswamy resigned to pursue his presidential campaign, explained on a
podcast in July that when he was a portfolio manager with the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CALPERS) he saw stakeholder capitalism incorporated into the system’s investment practices.
“I became very interested in this subject, and it eventually led me
to Strive. But I saw that as the biggest fiduciary breach has ever
happened in America,” Cole said. Shareholder capitalism has an advantage
of a 3.25% return compared to stakeholder capitalism and that can have
an enormous impact, he said.
If stakeholder capitalism were actually implemented in its entirety
"we think that that would effectively bankrupt every public pension in
America,” Cole added. Cole told Just the News that profits in the energy
sector over the last couple years "support the case for shareholder
primacy.”
“We have seen the profitability of American companies like Exxon and
Chevron outperform its European competitors like Shell and BP, because
the European companies have sacrificed more production to meet net zero
emissions targets. These same European companies are now scaling back on
their climate commitments and refocusing on fossil fuel production,”
Cole said.
Strive's approach, Cole explained, doesn’t mean it would avoid
investments in renewable energy. They consider any opportunity, Cole
explained, but for any active portfolio management, they’re focused on
how well those investments maximize risk-adjusted returns for its
clients.
“The ‘greenium’ in most green investments has existed for years, and
while it's come down substantially, we still see several pools of
capital that we believe aren't looking at investments in green assets
from a purely economic lens,” Cole explained. Cole said it’s part of
stakeholder capitalism to view green investments through that lens,
rather than a strict value-maximization portfolio maximization
perspective. “For that reason, we view potential investments in green
investments with an extremely critical eye but do not rule them out,” he
said.
Myth busted
While green energy stocks plummet this year, Bennett of Life:Powered
said it’s not necessarily time to measure the coffin for stakeholder
capitalism.
People are, he said, realizing that ESG investing isn’t a way to gain
more performance over the broader market. “I think that myth is slowly
being being busted,” Bennett said.
ESG is losing favor, he said, as people come to realize that fossil
fuels are going to be part of the global energy mix for far longer than
climate activists would like. The other factor working against ESG funds
is that they generally charge higher fees, which erodes returns over
time, and that erosion is not insignificant. In the competitive market
environment in which finance companies operate, he said, fees on index
funds are declining over time.
“That’s just a function of innovation, and also the market, which is good for us investors,” Bennett said.
However, for smaller investment firms that lack the scale of a firm like Vanguard,
who has more than $7 trillion under management, the shrinking fees are
squeezing them. “So they have to find other funds to sell other ways to
make money. ESG is a way to do that,” he explained.
With ESG performance slipping compared to the broader market, however, investors are getting wise to the impact of higher fees.
Investor preferences are nothing new, and there’s no reason to think
that another fad will not follow on the heels of ESG as it declines in
popularity. Before ESG, Bennett said, there was "corporate social
responsibility", and before that there was "socially responsible
investing." "Investor preferences are always, always a part of the
market. So, it's never going to go away,” he said.
Earlier this year, Blackrock’s head Larry Fink, said at a conference
in Colorado that its iShares firm would stop using the term “ESG.”
However, Reuters reported, that was only because it had become unpopular, but the company, Fink said, wouldn’t be changing its stance.
Israeli fire and rescue services put out a fire caused by a crashed drone in northern Israel.
Smoke rises during an exchange of fire between the IDF and terrorists from the Hezbollah organization on December 16, 2023(photo credit: AYAL MARGOLIN/FLASH90)
Two drones penetrated Israeli territory on Saturday, local and
military sources reported. One of the drones was downed, the other
crashed and started a fire.
Alarms sounded in Israel's north on Saturday morning indicating the intrusion of hostile aircraft into Israeli airspace.
The Upper Galilee Regional Council later confirmed that a drone was identified in Israel's Hula Valley region.
The
IDF subsequently released a statement on the event, noting that air
defense systems intercepted a drone that had infiltrated into Israeli
territory from Lebanon.
The IDF also confirmed the the Upper Galilee Regional Council report,
stating that a second drone crashed into the Margaliot area.
The IDF responded to the drone infiltrations with artillery fire at targets in Lebanese territory.
An Israeli artillery unit is stationed near the Israeli-Gaza border, in
southern Israel, October 28, 2023 (credit: AYAL MARGOLIN/FLASH90)
Crashed drone starts fire
Later, the Israeli Northern District’s fire and rescue services said that the drone that had crashed in the Margaliot area had caused a fire in a local building.
Two
firefighting teams subsequently worked to extinguish the blaze,
managing to do so as they worked alongside IDF personnel at the scene to
search for injured individuals and prevent the fire from spreading to a
nearby forest.
IDF strikes at Hezbollah
On Saturday afternoon, the IDF announced that air force jets had struck a series of Hezbollah targets inside Lebanese territory.
IDF strikes Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. December 16, 2023. (Credit: IDF)
The targets hit by the IDF include rocket launch sites and military infrastructure.
Two suspicious individuals who were operating in a known Hezbollah launch site were also hit, the IDF added.
Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown
University, has publicly denounced Israel as being responsible for the
attacks carried out by Hamas on October 7: “‘Genocidal Intent’: Brown
University Holocaust Professor Blames Israel for Hamas Terrorism,” by
Alec Schemmel, Washington Free Beacon, December 6, 2023:
Even if Hamas were somehow removed from Gaza—as the
Palestine Liberation Organization was removed from Beirut—there is no
known plan by the Israeli government as to what would happen next,”
Bartov wrote. “The Israelis do not want responsibility for governing an
additional 2 million Palestinians; nor does Egypt.” Israeli prime
minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the nation’s military will control
Gaza following the war.
There is no “known plan” about what happens in Gaza after Hamas is
destroyed, or rather, there is no plan known to Professor Omer Bartov.
There is the stale and unworkable notion — it’s hardly a plan — pushed
by the Bidenites, for a “two-state solution” that will never come to
pass. I suspect Bartov likes that the best, because this so-called
“solution” would force Israel to be squeezed back within the now
indefensible 1949 armistice lines. There are those who have other ideas.
The one I keep proposing here at Jihad Watch is this: after the
fighting ends, the IDF takes a few months to search for, and destroy,
every last tunnel, and every last weapons storehouse, above or below
ground. At the same time, even before Israel’s task of destruction of
tunnels and weapons is complete. the UAE and Saudi Arabia could be
persuaded to take on the task of ruling Gaza, at least as long as the
Strip is undergoing reconstruction with funds largely provided by those
two surpassingly rich countries.
In addition to Bartov, Brown professor of Palestinian
studies Beshara Doumani has endorsed the anti-Semitic Boycott,
Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which aims to wage economic
warfare on Israel. The movement’s founder, Omar Barghouti, has touted
BDS as a way to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state” and “turn
Israel into a pariah state.”…
I see that “Palestinian studies” are well represented at Brown. Not
only is there a professor of Palestinian studies — who wants to wage
economic warfare against Israel — but even the professor of Holocaust
and Genocide Studies seems more interested in supporting the
Palestinians and denouncing Israel than in supporting the Jews in their
attempt to head off a second holocaust.
Professor Doumani has been working behind the scenes, helping the
Brown chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) compose their
response to the October 7 Hamas attack, which attack Doumani — and the
SJP students — have the maddening gall to blame not on the perpetrator
Hamas, but rather on the victim, Israel.
There is fear on the Brown campus, but it is one-sided. None of the
SJP students are fearful. They know that they will suffer no
consequences from the administration for their blaming Israel for
“causing” the attacks on October 7. No hordes of Jewish students will
chant slogans against them, or try to attack them. At Brown, it is the
Jewish students who are now in a permanent state of fear. The campus for
them is unsafe. The professor of Holocaust studies, whom one might have
expected would display solidarity with Jews after experiencing the
largest antisemitic attack since the Nazis, and show sympathy for Jewish
fears on campus, instead has taken the side of Hamas, blaming Israel
for the current conflict. Remember what he claimed in a recent article:
“If you keep over 2 million people under siege for 16 years [sic],
cramped in a narrow strip of land, without enough work, proper
sanitation, food, water, energy and education, with no hope or future
prospects, you cannot but expect outbreaks of ever more desperate and
brutal violence,” wrote Bartov.
There has been no 16-year “siege,” but only a narrowly-tailored
blockade of “dual-use” materials, such as cement and steel rods, that
can be used to build tunnels and bunkers. The fact that there is not
enough work in Gaza is hardly Israel’s fault; it is due entirely to the
corruption and mismanagement by Hamas itself, three of whose leaders
(Khaled Meshaal, Mousa Abu Marzouk, Ismail Haniyeh) have stolen from the
aid meant for Gaza the colossal sum of eleven billion dollars. Israel
has tried to alleviate the problem by providing well-paying jobs for
20,000 Gazans — a number it was about to increase before October 7, but
of course since then, no Gazan workers have been allowed into Israel,
given the belief that some of those guest-workers provided intelligence
to Hamas about the layout of both kibbutzim and the house shelters, and
the placement of security details.Contrary to Bartov, the Israeli
“siege” never included food or medicine; Israel also had been supplying
Gaza, until October 7, with food, water, and 50% of its electricity.
None of this is taken into account by Omer Bartov. It is entirely
possible he knows none of this, but more likely, he is counting on his
audience not knowing.
74% of Muslims between the ages of 18 and 25 in France say they place Islamic sharia law above the laws of the French Republic.
From the murder of Sébastien
Sellam in 2003 to that of Mireille Knoll in 2018, all murders of Jews in
France have been committed by radicalized Muslims.
Shouting "we are coming to kill white people", they attacked,
murdering Thomas Perotto, aged 17, who had his throat slit. Seventeen
other people were wounded, some seriously. Criminologist Xavier Raufer,
asked about the attack, replied that raids like that take place
throughout the country every week.
Although the prosecutor in charge of the case received multiple
testimonies that the attackers said they were "coming to kill white
people," authorities maintain that the motive for the attack is
"unknown".
74% of Muslims between the ages of 18 and 25 in France say they place Islamic sharia law above the laws of the French Republic.
Television journalist Christian Malard, who had access to the
results of confidential inquiries carried out for the French Ministry of
the Interior, said they show that more than half of the imams in France
proclaim the superiority of Islam over Western culture and the need to
Islamize France, even if that means using force.
The anti-Jewish atrocities by Hamas on October 7 reinforced a
distrust of Islam, and for the first time in years, a majority of French
people support Israel's fight in the ongoing war.
An Islamist shouting "Allahu Akbar" on December 2 stabbed a
German tourist to death near the Eiffel Tower. The murderer, again
shouting, "Allahu Akbar!", then attacked two more people, seriously
wounding them. Pictured: Police forensic experts at the scene of the
murder on December 2, 2023. (Photo by Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty
Images)
Paris, December 2, 2023. 9 pm. A man shouting "Allahu Akbar!" ("Allah is the greatest!") stabbed a German tourist
walking along the Seine near the Eiffel Tower, an area considered safe.
On the way to the hospital, the victim died. The murderer, again
shouting, "Allahu Akbar!", attacked two more people, seriously wounding
them, before the police arrested him. A government press release quickly
mentioned that the killer was a French citizen, born in France, with
the exceedingly French first name of Armand.
Then reality struck. Armand was indeed born in France in 1997, but his original first name was Iman (full name: Iman Rajabpour-Miyandoab)
-- until 2003, when his Iranian parents, who had fled the Islamic
Republic, became French citizens and changed his name to Armand. In
2015-2016, he proclaimed his allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) and made contact on social networks with many Islamists who had perpetrated terror attacks in France in that time period, and he planned a terrorist attack in Paris.
Before he could execute his plan, in 2016, he was arrested and
sentenced to five years in prison. He was released after four years, and
placed on the state's list of particularly dangerous individuals. On the afternoon of December 2, 2023, he filmed a video
in which he announced that he wanted to "avenge the Muslims" and kill
infidels – exactly what he did a few hours later. Commenting on the
attack, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin insisted that the murderer had been under "close monitoring" and "psychiatric treatment" and spoke of a "psychiatric failure".
The murder was widely reported. Many journalists noted
that the murder of a tourist in Paris by an Islamist ex-convict could
create panic among foreign visitors, and the fact that an Islamic
extremist considered dangerous by the authorities was walking about free
could cause even more concern, especially with the mention of
"psychiatric treatment". Similarly, Kobili Traoré, who murdered Sarah
Halimi in 2017 and was sent to a mental hospital, was recently declared not responsible for his actions and will soon be free.
What should cause concern in France, however, is the
widespread rise in Islamic violence. Official statistics show that every
day in France, there are on average 120 knife attacks, many of which result in death.
Although acts filled with Islamic hatred against non-Muslims are
becoming more and more numerous, most are passed over in silence. Some,
however, are so disgusting that the mainstream media cannot ignore them.
The murder in Marseille, for instance, of Laura Paumier and Mauranne
Harel, two young students slaughtered and disemboweled with a butcher's knife by an illegal immigrant, Ahmed Hanachi, in front of a horrified crowd in 2017, delivered a particular shock. Similarly, again in Marseille, Mohamed L., a radicalized drug dealer, in 2022 slit the throat
of Alban Gervaise, a military doctor, in front of his two young
children while he was picking them up from school. Butchering a father
in front of his children seemed particularly shocking and barbaric. On
both occasions, the murderers were proudly shouting "Allahu Akbar".
Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and Jessica Schneider, two police officers, were tortured and slaughtered in front of their young son at their home near Paris in 2016, by Larossi Abballa, an Islamist.
The murder of Fabienne Broly Verhaeghe,
a 68-year-old nurse, in Lille on October 18, 2023, also reached a level
of savagery difficult to imagine: Mohamed B., a 17-year-old illegal
immigrant born in the Ivory Coast, broke into her apartment, then raped,
scalped and disemboweled her, and cut off her hands.
On October 16, 2020, the beheading of Samuel Paty near the high school where he taught, by Abdoullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old Chechen refugee, led President Emmanuel Macron to promise actions that would allow teachers to work in complete safety. Nothing was done. Another teacher, Dominique Bernard, had his throat slit where he taught, in Arras, on October 13, 2023. The murderer, Mohammed Mogouchkov was a 20 years old Ingush refugee subject to an expulsion procedure.
Anti-Semitic attacks in France are also becoming ever more frequent,
and have exploded since the atrocious attacks in Israel on October 7 by
the terrorist group Hamas. In 2022, there were 436 anti-Semitic acts officially recorded in France. In the few weeks between October 7 and December 1, 2023, there were 1,518 anti-Semitic acts
recorded, many of them physical assaults. From examining the police
reports, done by the French National Bureau for Vigilance against
Anti-Semitism, BNVCA, it is sadly clear that all of them apparently came from Islamic anti-Semites. From the murder of Sébastien Sellam in 2003 to that of Mireille Knoll in 2018, all murders of Jews in France have been committed by radicalized Muslims.
Jews throughout France can no longer wear skullcaps or a Star of David on the street. They remove their names from their mailboxes. "For the first time since 1945," said French author Elisabeth Badinter, "many French Jews are afraid to the point of hiding."
Ethnic Muslim gangs raid shopping centers and parties in rural
villages. Most of these assaults are also never mentioned in the media.
One, however, recently attracted attention: at a party on November 19 in
the town hall of Crépol, a village of five hundred people, members of a
Muslim gang
armed with long butcher knives came from the neighboring town,
Romans-sur-Isère. Shouting "we are coming to kill white people", they attacked, murdering Thomas Perotto, aged 17, who had his throat slit. Seventeen other people were wounded, some seriously. Criminologist Xavier Raufer, asked about the attack, replied that raids like that take place throughout the country every week.
The government concealed the names of the attackers and clearly did everything it could to hide what had happened. A conservative journalist, Damien Rieu,
obtained and disclosed them. Although the prosecutor in charge of the
case received multiple testimonies that the attackers said they were
"coming to kill white people," authorities maintain that the motive for
the attack is "unknown".
On November 25, a group of young "right-wing" French people who had planned to demonstrate
in Romans-sur-Isère were arrested by the police upon their arrival and
taken before a judge. He accused them of an "intentional racist attack"
and immediately sentenced
them to six-to-ten months in prison. They had not attacked anyone. The
banner they brought said only: "Justice for Thomas". The sole victim of
violence on that day was one of the French demonstrators who managed to
elude the police. He was chased down in the town and later found naked and unconscious, his body lacerated, in the lobby of a building.
On November 29, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne proclaimed that
the young people sent to prison deserved it and that they had embodied a
"serious threat to democracy" in France: the "ultra-right".
The "ultra-right," she added, cryptically, was even more dangerous than
the "extreme right." Not a word, however, about Islamic violence.
The French government is clearly aware that Islamic "no-go zones" are growing and that riots can break out at any moment. In June 2023, a police traffic stop gone wrong led to the death of Nahel Merzouk, a 17 year old Muslim criminal, and resulted in three weeks of riots and destruction that spread to many towns. Although French authorities banned pro-Hamas demonstrations planned for October and November, they took place anyway, complete with anti-Jewish and anti-French chants. The police were ordered not to intervene.
The French mainstream media has spoken extensively about the "extreme danger posed by the ultra-right." Again, not a word about Islamic violence.
Some commentators and political leaders, have spoken out all the same. Columnist Ivan Rioufol wrote:
"The racial outbreak which, in France, accompanied the
satanic carnage of Hamas against Israeli civilians, revealed the state
of tearing of the nation, close to rupture. Two irreconcilable Frances
are already confronting each other in broad daylight: French France and
Islamized France."
Éric Zemmour, president of the Reconquest Party, wrote:
"Two peoples live in France, one of whom must constantly
flee the attacks of an increasingly violent faction of the other, not
only the attacks perpetrated with shouts of Allah Akbar, but this real
daily jihad that the French suffer."
Marine Le Pen, president of the National Rally, said:
"[M]any French people now feel it: no one is safe
anywhere anymore. A new threshold has been crossed. We are witnessing
organized attacks emanating from a certain number of criminogenic
suburbs in which there are armed 'militias' carrying out raids."
While the influence of fundamentalist Islam is less marked among older Muslims, 74% of Muslims between the ages of 18 and 25 in France say they place Islamic sharia law above the laws of the French Republic.
Television journalist Christian Malard, who had access to the results
of confidential inquiries carried out for the French Ministry of the
Interior, said
they show that more than half of the imams in France proclaim the
superiority of Islam over Western culture and the need to Islamize
France, even if that means using force. Malard added that the main
French Muslim organization, "Muslims of France," which is the French
branch of the Muslim Brotherhood -- a movement banned in Saudi Arabia,
the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Egypt -- has a monopoly on training
imams in France and has been infiltrating French universities, sports
clubs and political parties.
"Left-wing" politicians and journalists, who try to demonize
"far-right" parties by accusing them of anti-Semitism, are having
trouble making the label stick. Zemmour is a Jew who strongly supports Israel. Le Pen's party also supports Israel and denounces anti-Semitism
without the slightest ambiguity. Accusing the Reconquest and the
National Rally parties of "Islamophobia" no longer has any impact;
Islamic violence spreading in France has convinced an increasing number
of French people that it is legitimate to be afraid of Islam.
According to recent surveys, 78% of French people think that Islamism constitutes a mortal threat to France. 91% say they are worried
or very worried about the sharp rise in violence in the country. The
anti-Jewish atrocities by Hamas on October 7 reinforced a distrust of
Islam, and for the first time in years, a majority of French people support Israel's fight in the ongoing war.
The main anti-Semitic party
in France now is a leftist one, Rebellious France. Its leader, Jean-Luc
Mélenchon, has accused Israel -- not Hamas -- of genocide, and has claimed that Hamas is a "resistance" movement. He concluded one of his recent meetings with, "Long live Gaza" and "Eternal glory to those who resist".
If a presidential election were to take place in France today,
Zemmour would receive more votes than he did in 2022, and Le Pen would top the first round of voting, receiving between 31% -33% of the votes, far more than in 2022. Whoever her opponent would be in the second round, she would easily win it.
An election victory for Le Pen would confirm that a huge change could still take shape within Europe. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni won
the Italian legislative elections on September 25, 2022 by denouncing
the Islamization of Europe, and became prime minister. On November 22,
in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders' party won the most seats in legislative elections.
Security expert Éric Delbecque, whose recent book, Permanent Insecurity , details the growing violence plaguing France, recently stated: "The French seem to understand that their country could die. They are beginning to react."
Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.
House Judiciary Committee says it believes BlackRock used its position in the market to force other companies to adopt ESG goals.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman
Jim Jordan on Friday subpoenaed two major players in the investment
world for evidence in his investigation into Wall Street efforts to
impose the liberal climate doctrine known as Environmental Social
Governance or ESG and force carbon out of corporate America.
The subpeonas to BlackRock and State Street Global Advisers come
months after Jordan made written requests for documents detailing how
BlackRock pushed ESG policies in the investment world. Jordan said while
his committee got some responsive materials from the two firms, he
believes more is warranted.
"BlackRock’s response without compulsory process has been
inadequate," Jordan wrote the firm, noting the company was claiming it
would take until February to complete its search for documents.
The committee has said it believes BlackRock used its position in the market to force other companies to adopt ESG goals.
"BlackRock appears to have entered into collusive agreements to
'decarbonize' its assets under management and reduce emissions to net
zero in ways that may violate U.S. antitrust law.," Jordan wrote
BlackRock in a letter accompanying the subpoena. "To advance our
oversight and inform potential legislation related to collusive ESG
policies, the Committee must understand how and to what extent BlackRock
may have colluded to promote ESG-related goals."
“Israel has nowhere near the capacity they need to deal with a major war with Hezbollah,” said Brad Bowman, of FDD. “We have to sound the alarm so that the people that can actually do something about it can fix it.”
Iron Dome aerial interceptions of Hamas rockets in southern Israel. Credit: Oren Ravid/Shutterstock.
The future of U.S. President Joe Biden’s
request for $14.3 billion in supplemental aid for Israel became dimmer
on Thursday, as the House of Representatives adjourned until the new
year.
Next week, the Senate will reconvene and
seek a compromise on the supplemental funding, which is part of a $106
billion foreign aid package that also includes money for Ukraine, Taiwan
and humanitarian assistance in Gaza.
Experts told JNS that while the Biden
administration can provide emergency supply shipments to Israel for now,
the $14.3 billion, which includes a major investment in Israel’s
air-defense systems, is essential for supporting Israel’s long-term
defense needs.
“The biggest amount is the $4 billion for
Iron Dome and David’s Sling. That’s purely defensive ballistic missile
defense systems,” Matt Kenney, vice president for government affairs at
the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told JNS. “It
also includes $1.2 billion for research, development, tests and
evaluation of Iron Beam.”
Iron Beam is a laser-defense system that Israel first used
operationally to shoot down a Hamas rocket in November. If it proves
successful, the system would be substantially cheaper than Iron Dome,
which uses costly rocket-propelled interceptors to shoot down missiles
and mortars.
Bradley Bowman, senior director of the
Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies, told JNS that Israel’s air-defense network is woefully
inadequate compared with the threats it faces, despite the Jewish state
being a global leader in air and missile defense.
“Israel has nowhere near the capacity they
need to deal with a major war with Hezbollah,” Bowman said. “Some
people get upset if you say that publicly. But my response to that is:
Israel’s enemies already know that. We have to sound the alarm so that
the people that can actually do something about it can fix it.”
If the Biden supplemental request were
approved, it would “dramatically” improve Israel’s missile-defense
capacity, though it may take several years for that to come online,
Bowman said.
Border dispute
Senate Republicans have made clear that
they will not support the president’s supplemental aid package without
substantive changes to U.S. border security policy.
“We need to be able to secure our own border, but we can also back Ukraine in their fight against Putin,” wrote
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the lead GOP negotiator on the aid bill,
on Wednesday. “But we must make sure our own border is secure first.”
Actually passing an aid bill through both
congressional chambers may require a careful balance between the demands
of the more conservative Republicans in the House—who oppose the $61
billion in aid to Ukraine—and the growing number of left-wing, Senate
Democrats, who want to condition U.S. aid to Israel.
Led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), 13
Senate Democrats have proposed an amendment to the supplemental package,
which would require U.S. aid to comply with international law. That
amendment implicitly threatens Israel that it will be cut off in the
face of mounting Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza.
Jonathan Lord, senior fellow and director
of the Middle East security program at the Center for a New American
Security, told JNS that the Van Hollen amendment, though largely
toothless, sends a damaging message to U.S. partners and allies like
Israel.
“There isn’t any operative language here
that goes beyond what exists in standing law in the Arms Export Control
Act or the Foreign Assistance Act, but the message here is unhelpful and
self-defeating,” Lord said.
“Between the lines, it suggests that
perhaps they are not doing everything that they can to mitigate civilian
harm, while at the same time sending the message to Russia and Hamas
that everything that they are doing to put civilians in harm’s way by
and large gets ignored,” he added.
Scarce resources
Biden tied U.S. aid to Ukraine with aid to
Israel, in an attempt to garner wider bipartisan support, but there is
some concern that Jerusalem and Kyiv are competing for limited U.S.
resources.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has complained
that U.S. deliveries of 155 mm artillery shells, a standardized caliber
that Ukraine and Israel use widely, have declined substantially since
Israel began its counterattack against Hamas after the Oct. 7 massacre.
All three of the experts with whom JNS
spoke said that with the limited exception of those artillery shells,
which have been revealed to be a major bottleneck in U.S. defense
production, Israel and Ukraine are not competing for U.S. resources.
“For precision-guided munitions, there is
little to no overlap there, for a variety of reasons, including the
level of inventories that Israel already has and also the production
capacity the U.S. has and whether those things have or have not been
provided to Ukraine,” Bowman said. “There’s zero overlap, of course, on
Iron Dome interceptors and Iron Dome batteries because those aren’t in
Ukraine.”
Lord said that those who are skeptical
that Washington can support both Israel and Ukraine are underestimating
American strength.
“The country that built up a military and
dropped in on Europe to save the world from fascism in 1944 can do big
things,” he said. “We just need to demonstrate the political will and
the aptitude to realize that those things over there do, can and will
affect us at home, and we need to stand with our partners.”
While the supplemental bill has been in
legislative limbo for weeks, Biden has used emergency authorities to
bypass Congress and ship materiel to both Israel and Ukraine, including a
$106.5 million sale of tank shells to Israel on Saturday.
Kenney, of JINSA, said that those ad hoc
measures are not a replacement for congressional approval for the
supplemental, which also allots $4.4 billion for Israel to reimburse the
U.S. Defense Department for various near-term materiel transfers.
“Congress needs to actually appropriate
the money,” Kenney said. “The president can ship some of those things in
his current authority, but there’s an upper limit to each of those
accounts. So once you hit that, then you can no longer use that account
for that purpose.”
Throughout the Israel-Hamas conflict,
Israel has also traded low-intensity blows with the Lebanese terrorist
group Hezbollah, which has a vastly larger and more sophisticated rocket
arsenal than Hamas.
So far, Israel and Hezbollah have declined
to escalate those exchanges into full-scale war. The Biden
administration has said in recent days that it wants Israel to shift
tactics in Gaza to minimize civilian casualties, which has sent
potentially worrying signals to Hezbollah about the effectiveness of
Hamas’s tactics, making funding for missile defense along Israel’s
northern front all the more urgent.
“With the current war in Gaza, you have to
ask yourself what lessons is Hezbollah learning?” Bowman said. “I think
it’s safe to say that one of the lessons that Hezbollah is learning is
that if you don’t have a whole bunch of human shields, get them fast
because that’s the quickest way to apply pressure on the United States
to stop supporting Israel.”
“It’s an evil, unlawful, cynical approach
that Israel’s enemies are using,” he added. “I fear that one of the
major take-home messages for Hezbollah from this conflict in Gaza is
that human shields work from their evil perspective, by surviving to
fight another day using your own citizens, your own women and children,
to defend yourself.”
Hezbollah might also see an advantage from
that perspective in driving a wedge between the United States and
Israel, trying to isolate Israel and deprive it of U.S. security
assistance, he added.
