"We know that the enemy has superiority on the technological level because it has American and NATO support," he said.
People watch a televised speech by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in a
southern suburb of Beirut, Sept. 19, 2024. Photo by Joseph Eid/AFP via
Getty Images.
Hezbollah suffered an unparalleled defeat,
the Lebanese terrorist group’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah
acknowledged on Thursday, saying that the alleged Israeli attacks using
its communication devices amounted to a declaration of war.
“There is no doubt that we have been
subjected to a major security and humanitarian blow, unprecedented in
the history of our resistance and perhaps in the history of the conflict
with the enemy,” the Iranian-backed Islamist said in a televised
address, adding that there is “no doubt” that Hezbollah has been
breached by Israeli intelligence.
“We know that the enemy has superiority on the technological level because it has American and NATO support,” he said.
As Nasrallah spoke from his bunker, Israeli jets broke the sound barrier over Beirut, with the BBC reporting “huge sonic booms” in the capital.
According to the Hezbollah chief, Israel
“crossed all red lines” by targeting terrorist operatives in the attacks
that saw thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies explode in Lebanon on
Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.
“This blow, no matter how big or strong,
cannot break us. I can assure you faithfully and with confidence: This
hard, unprecedented blow did not bring us to our knees—and it will not,”
Nasrallah vowed.
“Can you return the displaced [Israeli
civilians] to the north [the Upper Galilee]? We accept this challenge,
but you will not be able to return them,” the terrorist leader said,
addressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly. “What you are
doing will increase the displacement of your displaced settlers from the
north and will cancel the opportunity for their return.”
‘The price must be high’
Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant,
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar
Ben-Gvir are “leading their entity into a destructive abyss and a third
historic humiliation,” said Nasrallah, referencing the destruction of
the Jewish Temples in Jerusalem in 586 BCE and 70 C.E.
Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks on the
Jewish state will continue, “no matter the consequences,” until Israel
Defense Forces troops leave the Gaza Strip and end the campaign against
Hamas terrorists, he said.
Regarding a possible Israeli ground
operation in Southern Lebanon, the Hezbollah chief declared that “if
they come to us, they are welcome, and we will consider this threat a
historic opportunity that we hope for.
“The [IDF] commander of the northern region [OC Northern Command Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin], a fool, proposed creating a buffer zone [in
Lebanon],” Nasrallah said. “If you think you’re building a security
belt around the resistance and you think you’re limiting the fighting to
this zone, your military centers will be targeted in the north of
occupied Palestine [northern Israel] and even further!”
On Tuesday, 3,000-plus Hezbollah
operatives were wounded and at least 34 were killed when their pagers
exploded, with the Lebanese terrorist group immediately blaming the
Jewish state.
The Israeli military declined to comment
on the two waves of explosions—the first of which came hours after
the Israeli Cabinet added the return of citizens displaced from their
homes in the north to the country’s war goals, bringing a major clash with Hezbollah closer.
Hezbollah has attacked Israel nearly daily
since Oct. 8, firing thousands of rockets, missiles and drones. The
attacks have killed more than 40 people and caused widespread damage.
Tens of thousands of civilians remain internally displaced due to the
violence.
A U.S. official told ABC News on
Tuesday that Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons will likely retaliate
against Israel for the pager attacks, but “it could take them time to do
so while they assess what happened.”
Israeli security officials also believe
that Hezbollah is preparing for a large-scale assault in response to the
attack attributed to Jerusalem, the Israeli Kan News public broadcaster reported on Tuesday night.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi on Wednesday night approved “attack and defense plans for the north,” the army said.
“We still have many capabilities that we
have not yet activated—I repeat, we have not yet activated. We saw some
of these things here,” Halevi said in remarks made at IDF Northern
Command headquarters in Safed.
“The rule is that every time we work on a
certain stage, the next two stages are already ready to advance. At each
stage, the price for Hezbollah must be high,” the Israeli army chief
said.
According to the Shin Bet, the suspect, Moti Maman, 73, demanded $1m to become an Iranian asset.
Moti Maman, 73, accused of visiting Iran twice and being in contact with
Iranian intelligence agents, arrives at a Beersheva court for a
hearing, Sept. 19, 2024. Photo by Dudu Greenspan/Flash90.
Israeli authorities last month arrested a
Jewish Israeli businessman on suspicion of having met with Iranian
intelligence operatives and assisting them in planning high-profile
assassinations, including of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Shin
Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed on Thursday.
He was named as Moti Maman, 73, from the southern coastal city of Ashkelon.
He visited Iran twice in recent months,
where he demanded $1 million as a down payment for a series of missions,
according to the Shin Bet.
These included recruiting and paying other
agents and gathering intelligence for the assassination of Israeli
senior politicians, including Netanyahu, former prime minister Naftali
Bennett, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, the
report said.
It did not indicate whether the suspect had confessed to any of the allegations.
The man had lived in Turkey for an
extended period and traveled there for some of his meetings with Iranian
intelligence operatives, according to the report. It named two Turkish
men, Andrey Faruk Aslan and Junayed Aslan, as Iranian intelligence
assets who arranged the meetings.
Originally, the suspect had traveled to
Iran to meet with a man named Eddie for a business proposition that
turned into a recruitment attempt, according to the Shin Bet. The
suspect was paid at least €5,000 ($5,568) for agreeing to travel to
Iran, which is illegal for Israeli citizens.
On Tuesday, the agency revealed it had
thwarted a second attempt by Hezbollah to assassinate a former senior
security official. According to the agency, the attack involved an
explosive device and was intended to be carried out in the coming days.
Arab media reported on Wednesday that the
intended target of the bombing was Lt. Gen. (res.) Aviv Kochavi, who was
the IDF chief of staff between 2019 and 2023. Hezbollah operatives
surveilled the retired military leader at a “sports facility” he used to
frequent in Tel Aviv, according to the reports.
Also on Wednesday, the Israel Police revealed that
in September 2023, Hezbollah had tried to assassinate former Israeli
defense minister and IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon via a
remotely-detonated bomb in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park.
The report about the suspected Iranian spy did not tie him to that incident.
The single-stage deal presented to the United States would free all of the hostages held by Hamas and allow the terror group's leadership to exit the Strip.
Families of hostages take part in a meeting at Tel Aviv's "Hostages Square." Photo by Paulina Patimer.
Israel has submitted a new proposal to the
United States to end the war in Gaza by freeing all of the remaining
hostages held by Hamas and allowing the terror group’s leader Yahya
Sinwar to exit the enclave, Kan News reported on Thursday.
The framework for the deal, which would be
achieved all in one phase, also includes safe passage out of Gaza for
other senior Hamas terrorists, the release of Palestinian security
prisoners, demilitarization of the Strip and a new system of governance
in Gaza.
"עסקת המעבר הבטוח": גירוש סינוואר מעזה, וסיום המלחמה - בישראל הגישו מתווה חדש לארצות הברית | לכל הפרטים >>> https://t.co/z44KbwUvK4@SuleimanMas1
Israel’s Coordinator for Hostages and Missing Persons, Gal Hirsch, met with families of the hostages and updated them on the proposal, according to the report. Some of the relatives told Kan that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should present the proposal to the United Nations.
Netanyahu is scheduled to deliver a speech to the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Sept. 27.
In the meeting with the families, Hirsch
reportedly said that the proposal was presented during his meetings last
week with American officials at the White House and State Department.
The proposal has been dubbed the “Safe Passage Deal,” according to sources who met with Hirsch.
The current Israeli proposal on the table to end the conflict in Gaza calls for the safe passage of Yahya Sinwar and other terrorists--likely to Qatar or Turkey--in exchange for the return of all remaining hostages, and a declared end to the intensive phase of fighting.
“In light of the difficulties in the
negotiations and the ticking clock of the hostages’ lives, we seek to
propose a ‘secondary plan’ that will shorten the stages and allow for a
quicker deal. This will happen if Sinwar leaves and brings an end to the
war. It will also allow us to meet the objectives of the war while
enabling Hamas leadership in Gaza to exit safely to a secure location,”
an Israeli official told Kan.
More than 30 families of hostages are
expected to attend next week’s U.N. General Assembly to meet with
international officials and promote the release of their loved ones.
“We welcome the new Netanyahu proposal,
which strengthens security in Israel and allows for a comprehensive
regional arrangement. The prime minister must lead this proposal with
courage, determination and speed,” said Israel’s Hostages and
Missing Families Forum.
'The botnet malware infected numerous types of consumer devices, including small-office/home-office (SOHO) routers, internet protocol (IP) cameras, digital video recorders (DVRs), and network-attached storage (NAS) devices,' according to DOJ
The Federal Bureau of
Investigation disrupted a botnet run by Chinese state-sponsored hackers
that hijacked more than 200,000 "consumer devices" in the United States,
according to the Department of Justice.
"The botnet malware infected numerous types of consumer devices,
including small-office/home-office (SOHO) routers, internet protocol
(IP) cameras, digital video recorders (DVRs), and network-attached
storage (NAS) devices," the DOJ said.
The botnet was shutdown by a "court-authorized law enforcement operation."
The hacked worked under the Integrity Technology Group, based in
Beijing, and known as “Flax Typhoon" in the private sector, according to
DOJ.
“The targeted hacking of hundreds of thousands of innocent victims in
the United States and around the world shows the breadth and
aggressiveness of PRC state-sponsored hackers,” said U.S. Attorney Eric
G. Olshan for the Western District of Pennsylvania in a statement.
“This court-authorized operation disrupted a sophisticated botnet
designed to steal sensitive information and launch disruptive cyber
attacks,” he added.
President Joe Biden's initial response to the Oct. 7 massacre was to join Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in saying that the only proper response to this atrocious crime was for Hamas to be "eliminated." But almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Biden began to slowly back away from that position.
[O]ne of the key fronts in this war is not in the Middle East. It's in the United States.
[T]he political battle over the war in Gaza has been going pretty
much the way the terrorists wanted it to. That's reflected in Mashaal's
confidence, as well as Hamas's negotiating tactics and its strategy in
Gaza. After Oct. 7, the terrorists have been doing nothing but playing
for time. And they expected that the time they needed to outlast the
Israeli offensive would be provided to them by Israel's closest ally.
President Joe Biden's initial response to the Oct. 7 massacre was
to join Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in saying that the
only proper response to this atrocious crime was for Hamas to be
"eliminated." But almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth,
Biden began to slowly back away from that position.
Over the next several months, as Israel's counter-offensive into
Gaza began, the United States played a double game. On the one hand,
Washington continued to supply Jerusalem with munitions badly needed by
the IDF. Eventually, however, it was reported that the Pentagon
slow-walked its delivery to maintain leverage over the Israelis.
While the public pressure on Israel was bad, even worse was the
duress the administration was employing against Netanyahu behind the
scenes as it sought to delay every Israeli effort at finishing off the
terrorists.
Administration officials were soon parroting the defeatist line
about Hamas being an "idea" that could not be defeated, rather than a
terrorist force that could be eliminated. Plenty of "ideas" have been
militarily defeated, such as Nazism, which didn't survive the defeat of
Adolf Hitler's genocidal regime. But to Americans and Israeli liberals,
Hamas is regarded as an eternal force. By adopting this position, the
opportunity to convince Palestinians to give up their fantasies about
Israel's elimination was thrown away and their century-long war on
Zionism prolonged.
As Mashaal told the Times, Hamas viewed all of this as
encouragement for its plan to simply... hold out until U.S. and
international pressure — heightened by the anti-Israel bias of the
mainstream media — forced Israel to stand down and allow the Islamists
to emerge as the victor in the war.
The families of the remaining hostages and Netanyahu's political
opposition now seek to pressure him to give up the war and sign a
ceasefire agreement, even if it means essentially handing Gaza back to
Hamas and ensuring a repeat of the horrors of Oct. 7.... Hamas is
counting on that sentiment.
But above all, Hamas views American pressure on Israel as its ace
in the hole. As Mashaal pointed out, the way that the hostage
negotiations have been handled by Washington has amounted to American
"recognition" of Hamas as a diplomatic partner as opposed to a despised
and outlawed terrorist organization. He is right about that.
They [Hamas] obviously prefer Harris's stand in favor of an
"immediate ceasefire" to former President Donald Trump's comments, which
amount to a green light to Israel to "finish the job" of eliminating
the terrorists.
As the Times article makes clear, Hamas will never budge
from its demands that Israel hand back Gaza to them... [T]hey will hold
onto many of the hostages, despite the belief among some Israelis that
it is Netanyahu's stubbornness or political ambition that is the
obstacle to their freedom.
[I]t's easy to understand why the terrorist leader is confident that he can outlast the Israelis ... with American help.
The political battle over the war in Gaza has been going
pretty much the way the terrorists wanted it to. That's reflected in the
confidence of Khaled Mashaal, head of Hamas's "political wing," as well
as Hamas's negotiating tactics and its strategy in Gaza. After Oct. 7,
the terrorists have been doing nothing but playing for time. And they
expected that the time they needed to outlast the Israeli offensive
would be provided to them by the United States, Israel's closest ally.
Pictured: Mashaal in Amman, Jordan, on September 4, 2016. (Photo by
Jordan Pix/ Getty Images)
After nearly a year of suffering and grievous losses, most Israelis
and Palestinian Arabs will likely observe the anniversary of the war
started by Hamas on Oct. 7 with sorrow. But not everyone. An interviewThe New York Times
conducted with Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas's "political wing," in
his luxurious living quarters in Doha, Qatar, revealed he thinks the
war has gone just fine.
As the Times put it, Mashaal thinks that Hamas is "winning the
war" and is confident that the genocidal Islamist organization will,
despite the battering it has received from the Israel Defense Forces,
play a "decisive" role in Gaza in the future.
It takes an extraordinary amount of chutzpah to sit in a comfortable
place of exile where you are protected by Qatar — an ally of Iran and
Hamas — while the Gulf State also pretends to be friendly with the
United States. It's odd for a "political" leader to be so blithe about a
conflict that has, despite the inflated statistics of civilian
casualties in the Gaza Strip produced by Hamas, certainly inflicted
tremendous harm on his own people. By hiding from the IDF in a warren of
tunnels the size of the New York City subway system underneath civilian
homes, they set in motion a confrontation that guaranteed that much of
the Gaza Strip would be destroyed. And Hamas itself has been severely
hurt. Reportedly, 17,000 of its operatives have been killed, and all of
its organized military formations are no longer combat-effective. The
same is true of its ability to send long-range missiles into Israel.
Survival equals a Hamas victory
By any normal definition of victory or defeat, it's hard to argue
that in the aftermath of its orgy of mass murder, rape, torture,
kidnappings and wanton destruction in Israel on Oct. 7, Hamas hasn't
been beaten.
But Mashaal disagrees, and it's hard to find fault in his reasoning.
While most of us have understandably focused on the fighting in Gaza
as well as the way Hezbollah terrorists have been able to essentially
de-populate a portion of northern Israel with its indiscriminate fire on
civilians, one of the key fronts in this war is not in the Middle East.
It's in the United States.
Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans support
Israel and oppose Hamas, the political battle over the war in Gaza has
been going pretty much the way the terrorists wanted it to. That's
reflected in Mashaal's confidence, as well as Hamas's negotiating
tactics and its strategy in Gaza. After Oct. 7, the terrorists have been
doing nothing but playing for time. And they expected that the time
they needed to outlast the Israeli offensive would be provided to them
by Israel's closest ally.
Biden's flip-flops helped Hamas
At first, it seemed as if their bet would not pay off. President Joe
Biden's initial response to the Oct. 7 massacre was to join Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in saying that the only proper
response to this atrocious crime was for Hamas to be "eliminated." But
almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Biden began to slowly
back away from that position.
Over the next several months, as Israel's counter-offensive into Gaza
began, the United States played a double game. On the one hand,
Washington continued to supply Jerusalem with munitions badly needed by
the IDF. Eventually, however, it was reported that the Pentagon
slow-walked its delivery to maintain leverage over the Israelis. While
America was playing the faithful ally in one respect, Biden and his
administration were soon singing a different tune about the war.
Biden was heavily influenced by the open revolt against a pro-Israel
policy from lower-level administrators and congressional staffers. With
the Democrats' left-wing base similarly outraged by his initial position
of stalwart backing for Israel and the war on Hamas, he realized that
it might imperil his chances of re-election. As a result, statements
about the war soon were more about its impact on the Palestinians rather
than the need to eliminate the terrorists who committed the largest
mass slaughter of Jews since World War II and the Holocaust.
This tilt to the left would escalate as the presidential campaign
began in early 2024, with gestures from Biden intended to appease the
pro-Hamas antisemitic voters in Arab-American strongholds like Dearborn,
Michigan, as well as woke left-wing activists who falsely label Israel a
"settler-colonialist" and "apartheid" state. Rather than push back
against the left's demand for an immediate ceasefire that would
essentially save Hamas, the administration began echoing it and pushing
for a deal that would end the war at virtually any price, even if it
didn't result in freedom for all of the Israeli hostages still held by
Hamas.
And when Israel forced Hamas's fighters back into their last enclave
in southern Gaza, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were just as
vocal about demanding that Israel not enter Rafah as the antisemitic
demonstrators on America's streets and college campuses.
While the public pressure on Israel was bad, even worse was the
duress the administration was employing against Netanyahu behind the
scenes as it sought to delay every Israeli effort at finishing off the
terrorists.
Administration officials were soon parroting the defeatist line about
Hamas being an "idea" that could not be defeated, rather than a
terrorist force that could be eliminated. Plenty of "ideas" have been
militarily defeated, such as Nazism, which didn't survive the defeat of
Adolf Hitler's genocidal regime. But to Americans and Israeli liberals,
Hamas is regarded as an eternal force. By adopting this position, the
opportunity to convince Palestinians to give up their fantasies about
Israel's elimination was thrown away and their century-long war on
Zionism prolonged.
Combined with the post-Oct. 7 surge in antisemitism made obvious by
the pro-Hamas encampments at elite universities, it gave Hamas every
reason not to negotiate seriously for a hostage release deal. As Mashaal
told the Times, Hamas viewed all of this as encouragement for
its plan to simply hunker down in its remaining tunnel strongholds, and
hold out until U.S. and international pressure — heightened by the
anti-Israel bias of the mainstream media — forced Israel to stand down
and allow the Islamists to emerge as the victor in the war.
Demoralizing the Israelis
It must be recognized that a key element in the Biden administration's efforts was the fact that, as the Times
story also noted, many in the leadership of the IDF and Israeli
security establishment had adopted similarly defeatist stands about
dealing with Hamas.
The conduct of the military leadership — both before and after Oct. 7
— will be a subject for formal investigations and then historical
inquiry for many decades. Suffice it to say that this attitude about
Hamas seems very much a product of the same thinking that left the
country unprepared for the attacks that Shabbat morning and then needing
weeks before it could initiate an attack on the perpetrators.
It should be noted that Netanyahu bears responsibility for these
failures as the head of the government. But the military leadership
should not be shielded from the same opprobrium because of the respect
their uniforms and records inspire. As I've heard from so many Israelis
in the last year, if the war has not always gone as well as it should
have, it was always the fault of the generals, not the rank-and-file
soldiers and lower-level officers who have fought bravely and often
sacrificed their lives in order to limit Palestinian casualties.
While Israelis have every right to protest against their government
even in wartime, Hamas also views the unrest inside the Jewish state as
an asset. The families of the remaining hostages and Netanyahu's
political opposition now seek to pressure him to give up the war and
sign a ceasefire agreement, even if it means essentially handing Gaza
back to Hamas and ensuring a repeat of the horrors of Oct. 7. I
understand why some feel that way for a number of different reasons, but
the fact remains that Hamas is counting on that sentiment.
Claiming U.S. 'recognition'
But above all, Hamas views American pressure on Israel as its ace in
the hole. As Mashaal pointed out, the way that the hostage negotiations
have been handled by Washington has amounted to American "recognition"
of Hamas as a diplomatic partner as opposed to a despised and outlawed
terrorist organization. He is right about that.
While it's not clear just how closely they are observing the
presidential election or counting on one outcome over another, they
obviously prefer Harris's stand in favor of an "immediate ceasefire" to
former President Donald Trump's comments, which amount to a green light
to Israel to "finish the job" of eliminating the terrorists.
Hamas's military position inside Gaza is not completely eliminated,
but it is a shadow of its pre-October self. And there are even reports
now starting to circulate about Gazans drawing some obvious conclusions
about the high cost of letting Hamas lead them into disaster after
disaster. Even as Israel's focus is increasingly turning towards its
northern border and the imperative to stop the Hezbollah fire that has
depopulated a large area in the direct line of terrorist fire, the need
to continue the work of demolishing tunnels and rooting out remaining
Hamas elements is not over. It may take years — something that
discourages Israelis, and that infuriates Biden and Harris. But the
notion that there is any realistic alternative to continue fighting that
would ensure Israeli security — whether in the form of a
ceasefire/surrender or bringing international forces into Gaza to stop
Hamas — is a pipe dream.
The reality of Palestinian politics
As the Times article makes clear, Hamas will never budge from
its demands that Israel hand back Gaza to them. And as long as the
hostages are useful to their cause, Hamas will hold onto many of them,
despite the belief among some Israelis that it is Netanyahu's
stubbornness or political ambition that is the obstacle to their
freedom. Moreover, Hamas leaders are right to believe, despite the
understandable anger in Gaza, that the basic equation of Palestinian
politics remains unchanged. Over the last century, Palestinian groups
and leaders have always gained credibility primarily by shedding Jewish
blood. Hamas thinks that it will eventually reap a great benefit from
the atrocities of Oct. 7 in the form of broad support that will enable
it to topple and replace Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas's
Fatah Party in Judea and Samaria as well as Gaza. All they have to do to
cash in on that is to survive the war, and they think they've found the
formula to enable them to do just that.
If left to carry out its tasks without foreign interference, the IDF
will eventually eliminate Hamas, though that task will not be
accomplished easily or quickly. It can certainly prevent it from
returning to power in Gaza, thus ensuring that its reign of terror over
Israel as well as Palestinians is over. Still, Mashaal and the rest of
the terrorist group are counting on feckless American politicians,
ideologically motivated leftist demonstrators and political activists, a
media that is always prepared to demonize Israeli efforts at
self-defense, as well as war-weariness and anguish about the hostages
inside Israel to guarantee their survival. We may hope that they are
wrong about that, but it's easy to understand why the terrorist leader
is confident that he can outlast the Israelis ... with American help.
Reprinted by kind permission of JNS.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him @jonathans_tobin.
“This investigation focused on potential unlawful exploitation of unwitting ‘straw donors,’ whose identities may have been used to channel illicit funds into campaigns in your state,” Rep. Bryan Steil wrote the top law enforcement officials in five states.
The powerful chairman of the House
committee that oversees election integrity is asking five states to
open investigations into “potential criminal activity” in the routing of
hundreds of millions of dollars in political donations to Kamala Harris
and other Democrats through the fundraising platform known as ActBlue.
House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., made
five referrals on Wednesday evening to Arkansas Attorney General Tim
Griffin, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Missouri Attorney General
Andrew Bailey, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and Florida
Attorney General Ashley Moody, saying a massive computer analysis
conducted by his committee uncovered a suspicious pattern of donations
from individuals with net worth too small to donate what has been
credited to them via ActBlue reports to the Federal Election Commission.
“This investigation focused on potential unlawful exploitation of
unwitting ‘straw donors,’ whose identities may have been used to
channel illicit funds into campaigns in your state,” Steil wrote the
top law enforcement officials in the five states.
“The final analysis produced a set of anomalous donor profiles,
ranked by the severity of the inconsistencies. In reviewing this
analysis, it became clear there is suspicious activity occurring that
warrants further review,” he added.
"Straw donors" are donors who are either given money by others to
donate to federal candidates or whose identity is misused by others to
make donations to evade federal campaign contribution limits.
The Democrat Party was rocked by a straw donation scandal under Bill Clinton
three decades ago when Congress and federal prosecutors confirmed
wealthy businessmen tied to China routed millions to straw donors during
the 1996 election. That scandal, dubbed China Gate, led to a major
congressional probe and a few dozen convictions.
Steil's letters stop short of accusing any group or individual of
breaking the law but rather refer evidence to the attorneys generals of
patterns they say resembles illegal conduct. The letters included
records of thousands of donations that the committee believed looked
suspicious in each state.
“This investigation has exposed potential criminal activity that
should be investigated by an appropriate law enforcement agency, such as
your office,” he wrote in the letters. “The enclosed data provides
detailed donor records to facilitate this process.”
In a separate statement to Just the News, Steil said he expected the data he sent to the attorneys general could prompt meaningful investigations.
"When I became the Chairman of the Committee on House Administration,
I made a commitment that election integrity and security would be a top
priority,” the chairman said. "Through our investigation into ActBlue
and the reported campaign finance law violations, we upheld our
commitment to the American people to increase transparency in our
elections.
"I have faith that the five Attorneys General will build their
investigations off the great work our Committee has done, and I look
forward to seeing their findings."
ActBlue did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Just the News.
But the massive fund-raising platform has steadfastly denied wrongdoing
and promised to cooperate with ongoing investigations of its business,
including by some of the attorneys general.
In December 2023, for instance, Texas' Paxton opened an investigation
into ActBlue after alleging that the organization was conducting
fraudulent activity regarding donations. In August of this year,
Virginia's Miyares also demanded answers from ActBlue after allegations of fraud were impacting Virginia.
Paxton recently announced he reached an agreement in which ActBlue
would begin using CVV codes when accepting all donations. CVVs are the
three-digit security number on the back of credit and debit cards, and
are key security provisions for preventing fraud.
Steil has been pushing legislation, titled H.R. 9488, which would require the disclosure of the card verification value and increase safeguards for online campaign donations.
The legislation also prohibits "aiding or abetting" making campaign contributions in the name of someone else.
Steil said his probe was aided by information from campaign finance
"whistleblowers" and received help from multiple federal agencies as
well as "experts in money laundering, credit card fraud, and terrorism
finance."
His letter described how his staff's computer analysis reviewed "over
200 million FEC records spanning the last 14 years" and "compared
donation patterns to open-source consumer data, voter rolls and
political profiling databases, with an emphasis on identifying
suspicious trends."
The chairman cited three specific concerning trends:
Donations significantly disproportionate to an individual’s net worth or previous giving history.
Uncharacteristic donations from party-affiliated registered voters suddenly contributing to candidates of the opposing party.
Unusually frequent donations from elderly individuals or first-time donors.
“We need the judge to reject this outrageous, unconstitutional, misstatement of law,” Dan Backer said.
A Republican lawyer has filed an amicus brief
in a lawsuit over robocalls containing artificial intelligence
"deepfakes" sent by a political consultant before the New Hampshire
primary election, arguing that the left could claim any contrary
political views are “misinformation.”
Republican lawyer Dan Backer filed the "friend of the
court" brief earlier this month on behalf of telecommunications
companies and a political consultant in an AI robocall case because of
free speech concerns. If the plaintiffs in the case win, then private
actors could sue over political views that the government opposes, he
warns.
The lawsuit began with a deepfake AI robocall earlier this year.
A "deepfake" is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary
as media "that has been digitally manipulated to replace one person's
likeness convincingly with that of another, often used maliciously to
show someone doing something that he or she did not do."
Steve Kramer, a get-out-the-vote political consultant who
has mainly worked for Democrats, previously admitted to media outlets
that he had sent robocalls to thousands of state residents with an AI
deepfake of President Joe Biden’s voice ahead of the New Hampshire
primary election, NBC News reported.
The call, which “spoofed” the caller ID to hide its origin, told them
to stay home and “save” their votes for the general election.
Kramer had a contract with the campaign of Rep. Dean
Phillips, D-Minn., at the time, who was challenging Biden. Both Kramer
and Phillips’ campaign denied that the latter had any knowledge of the
robocall.
Kramer has claimed that he commissioned the robocall to lead to regulations on AI deepfakes.
“This is a way for me to make a difference, and I have,” Kramer told NBC News in February. “For $500, I got about $5 million worth of action, whether that be media attention or regulatory action.”
Kramer has been sued by the state and the League of Women
Voters (LWV) over the robocall, while also facing fines from the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC).
In May, the Republican New Hampshire attorney general
charged Kramer with 13 felony counts of voter suppression and 13
misdemeanor counts of impersonation of a candidate, based on calls
received by 13 New Hampshire voters. After his June bail hearing, Kramer declined to comment
as he left the courthouse. His attorney said, “Obviously right now
we're enjoying the presumption of innocence, we're going to review all
the different charges and engage in discussions with the attorney
general's office.”
A civil lawsuit was filed by LWV against Kramer in New Hampshire's federal district court in March, along with telecom and broadcasting companies. LWV argues
that “the right to vote free from intimidation, threats, or coercion …
was unlawfully infringed upon as a result of the actions and threatened
actions” of the defendants.
LWV claims
that Kramer violated a section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA)
by sending the robocall with “in an effort to intimidate, threaten, or
coerce Democratic voters into not voting in the New Hampshire Primary
and thereby suppress their votes.”
In July, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement of interest in the case, arguing that LWV has “a private right of action” to sue over the VRA. The DOJ wrote that the section of the VRA cited by LWV in its lawsuit “is enforceable by private plaintiffs.”
In February, the FCC banned the use of AI-generated voices in robocalls, following those that Kramer sent.
Last month, Lingo Telecom, the voice service provider that transmitted the robocalls, reached a settlement
with the FCC to pay a $1 million fine. Lingo Telecom also agreed to
more thoroughly vet the accuracy of the information provided by its
customers and upstream providers and adhere to strict caller ID
authentication rules and requirements.
Kramer is separately facing a proposed FCC fine of $6 million
for allegedly violating federal Caller ID law by setting up "scam
calls” in order “to defraud voters," according to the federal agency.
Late last month, a motion for a default judgment filed by
LWV against Kramer was granted. He does not have a lawyer listed for the
case.
Meanwhile, Backer filed an amicus brief on behalf of Kramer and the telecommunications companies.
Backer’s amicus brief argues that LWV doesn’t have “a
private right of action” to sue over the VRA nor standing to bring the
case, that “ambiguous political speech” doesn’t “constitute
‘intimidat[ion], threat[s], or coerc[ion],’” and the VRA “did not apply
to the 2024 New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Preference Primary.”
He also notes that the LWV lawsuit “does not allege even a
single recipient of this pre-recorded message felt threatened,
intimidated, or coerced in any way.”
Rather, the three voters who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit
“each claimed within a few seconds they realized the call was
‘fraudulent’; ‘not legitimate’; or ‘faked.’ Plaintiffs nevertheless sue
under § 11(b) based solely on one alleged potential interpretation of
the calls: the supposed ‘insinuat[ion]’ that ‘people could lose their
ability to vote if they participated in the New Hampshire primary.’”
The brief asks the court to dismiss LWV’s count over the VRA section “and decline to enter a default judgment based on it.”
Backer told Just the News on Tuesday that it’s
“scary” that threats don’t have to be committed but that “anything” the
left thinks “is misinformation can be brought” to court “under this
law.”
He also expressed concern over the $1 million FCC fine that
Lingo Telecom paid, noting that it sets a “precedent to censor
content,” and that the telecommunications company is “no longer a
carrier” since they “may now have a duty to monitor” content.
Backer explained that telecommunications companies are “not in the middle” of customers’ phone conversations.
Regarding AI robocalls, Backer said, “As a practical
matter, how can a telecom carrier know if it's a real person?” They
“can't know the content of a call, unless they’re listening to every
call.”
Backer added that the section of the VRA cited by LWV in
its lawsuit is about not “stand[ing] out in front of polling places,
threatening to beat people up if they vote.” The VRA section is to be
prosecuted by the government, he said.
“We need the judge to reject this outrageous,
unconstitutional, misstatement of law,” Backer said, adding that LWV
experienced “no harm,” has no “legal standing, organizational injury,
and no claim” for this lawsuit."
We “cannot have a society where the government decides
what’s true and what’s false,” and then have “private actors sue” over
political views, Backer said, calling it an “appalling abuse of our
legal system.”
Before the war, some 200,000 Palestinian workers were employed throughout the Jewish state, including 30,000 in Judea and Samaria.
Palestinian construction workers during their coffee break. (Flash90/Hadas Parush)
Elected local officials in Israeli
communities throughout Judea and Samaria do not have the legal right to
block Palestinian laborers from entering their communities if the
military allows their employment, Israeli courts have confirmed in a
series of recent cases, Israel Hayom reported on Sunday.
In
a case brought by a group of Arab workers against the city of Efrat in
Judea’s Gush Etzion region, a judge ruled that the municipality’s
blanket ban on the entry of Palestinian Authority residents was illegal.
“Starting
next Tuesday, in accordance with the army’s decision and the court
ruling, construction workers will resume their activities within Efrat,”
Mayor Dovi Shefler said in a message to residents last week.
In a conversation with Israel Hayom
on Monday, Shefler noted that the court ruled that local officials in
Judea and Samaria “do not have the authority to make the military’s
instructions stricter.”
Srugim,
an Israeli news site catering to the religious Zionist community,
reported that at least three other towns received similar rulings in
recent months.
A
settlement reached in a Jerusalem court some five months ago following
litigation between the town of Ma’ale Efrayim in the Jordan Valley and
four construction companies likewise stated that the IDF would have the
final say regarding the admission of P.A. laborers.
While
the military banned Palestinians from working in Jewish towns
throughout Judea and Samaria in the initial months following Hamas’s
Oct. 7 massacre, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, the then-head of the IDF Central
Command, in late 2023 lifted the access restrictions for industrial
zones.
During
the court proceedings, attorneys representing four development
companies argued that Ma’ale Efrayim should allow P.A. workers to enter
again, claiming that the IDF decision regarding industrial zones should
also apply to construction sites in the town’s new neighborhood.
Last
week, Knesset member Zvi Sukkot (Religious Zionism Party), in a letter
to the IDF demanded that the military cancel its policy, noting it
forces communities to let in workers despite security concerns.
“The
communities must admit Palestinian laborers, even if they express
explicit opposition to their entry,” Sukkot noted in a letter to IDF
Central Command head Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth.
“Palestinians
are banned from entering inside the Green Line due to the security
threat; in Judea and Samaria, they have to let them in, even if the
communities oppose it.”
Before
the war, some 200,000 Palestinian workers were employed throughout the
Jewish state, including 30,000 in Judea and Samaria.
Two
surveys last year found that some two-thirds of Palestinians in Judea
and Samaria support the Oct. 7 attacks, in which around 6,000 Hamas-led
terrorists broke through the Gaza border, murdered some 1,200 people,
wounded thousands more and took more than 250 captive.
Plans
to readmit Palestinians to Jewish communities have been met with dismay
by many Israelis. A poll taken in Eli, a town of some 4,500 inhabitants
in the Binyamin region of Samaria, showed that 82% of residents oppose
their entry, regardless of added security measures.
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Ganging up with the debate moderators, Kamala Harris still hasn’t
immobilized Donald Trump. The Dems thought their fellow Lilliputian
press agents masquerading as “journalists” and “moderators,” along with
some mean-girl snark from Harris, could bait Trump enough to make him
hang himself, and so distract millions of voters from noticing that
Harris is still dodging questions about her complicity with Biden’s
disastrous term, his cognitive decline, and the far-left policy
proposals that have marked her entire political career.
Despite the post-debate crowing about Harris’s victory, their ropes
still aren’t tight enough to keep Trump down. For eight years, the
progressive Democrats have labored to restrain Trump, but he keeps
loosening his bonds. Let’s hope that the Dems don’t catch on that you
can’t beat something with nothing.
Trump’s term was still young when federal agencies began trying to
tie Trump down. The Russia, Russia, Russia hoax; turning an
unexceptional phone call with Ukraine’s president Zelensky into a flimsy
impeachable offense; Trump’s private conversation in 2005 Access
Hollywood leaked that turned some sexual braggadocio into evidence for a
sexual assaults; numerous statements by Trump distorted with selective
editing, like the “very fine people” comment edited to hide’s Trump’s
exclusion of neo-Nazis and white supremacists; and the Big Lie that on
January 6 Trump instigated an “insurrection” when he told attendees at a
rally to march “patriotically and peacefully” to protest at the
capital. And don’t forget the multiple indictments by four Dem
prosecutors, all based on creative if not duplicitous reading of the
laws.
All those efforts and hundreds more failed to end Trump’s political
career and clear the decks for a Democrat president. In fact, they’ve
increased the size of his support. So now the lies are proliferating
beyond those fed to a compliant media–– just like Harris, the
moderators, and the media flacks during the debate every time they
opened their mouths. But what else do they have to convince voters? They
can’t run on the Biden and Harris record in the White House, which is
as useless as Jimmy Carter’s record was in 1980.
The Biden-Harris administration has been a similar failure.
Inflation, stagnant wages, and stratospheric levels of debt at home;
Chamberlain class appeasement of Iran replete with billions in cash; 13
U.S. soldiers killed during the Afghanistan skedaddle; and support of
sadistic terrorist murderers abroad, are difficult to spin even for
Democrats. All the Dems have, then, are Hitlerian Big Lies, “colossal”
and “impudent untruths” debunked repeatedly.
During the debate, Harris told one of the left’s favorite Big Lies: the dull cliché that Trump “is all about tax breaks for the richest people.” Here are the facts about Trump’s tax cuts from the Wall Street Journal:
“Seven years into the weakest recovery in postwar history, as the
economy slumped toward a recession, the 2017 tax cuts and the Trump
administration’s regulatory relief sent real median household income
soaring by $5,220 in 2019. That’s 49% higher than the previous highest
annual gain in 2015 and 11 times the average percentage gain over the
previous 50 years. Real median income rose more in inflation-adjusted
dollars in 2019 alone than during the entire Obama recovery from
2009-16. The poverty level plunged at the fastest rate since 1966, to
the lowest level since the Census Bureau started collecting the data in
1959.”
Or how about “climate change,” “renewable energy,” and the war on
fossil fuels known as “net-zero-carbon emissions”? As Biden’s V.P.,
Harris supported the U.S.’s return to the 2015 Paris Agreement, which
like previous such deals is failing for one simple reason: two of the
three largest emitters in the world, China and India, have no intention
of harming their economy by reducing fossil fuel energy.
These are just two examples of her leftist prejudices. Such policies
also have a problem with the truth. Take EV mandate and subsidies, based
on the claim that they will reduce carbon emissions and save the planet
from Armageddon. The facts say otherwise:
“When Washington spends hundreds of billions to lure some drivers to
use EVs, guess what? It ends up making gasoline cheaper and more
available for other consumers around the world to use. The 2023 data have
arrived. Fossil-fuel use, emissions and green energy all have grown
right alongside each other, as economics predicted. Global emissions
finally broke the 40 gigaton threshold, having doubled since 1984.”
Or think about this datum
from Gatestone Institute: “The European Commission estimates that to
achieve the target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040
then 100% in 2050 — the main objective of the “European Green Deal” — Europe will need to invest €1.5 trillion a year from 2031 to 2050.
1.5 trillion euros a year. That is equivalent to 10% of the Europe Union’s entire GDP for 2022 —
every year! Apart from a war effort, there is no objective of any kind
that has ever required the diversion of 10% of a continent’s GDP by
political decree.”
These suicidal policies in the West are the fruits of bad science and
lupine grifters who have damaged energy supplies, raised the price of
fuel, and increased industrial costs.
But what about 2020? Wasn’t that proof that the MAGA Gulliver could
be bound? That election year, however, was a black swan event brought on
by the Covid crisis, which itself was manipulated by government
agencies so that mitigation protocols could control people’s behavior,
and most important for the election, frighten them from voting in
person. This meant that absentee ballots would proliferate, and in fact
double the number used in 2016.
What difference does that make? Absentee or mail-in ballots are
notoriously susceptible to fraud, since the chain of custody from voter
to vote-counter is easily interfered with. That’s why large numbers of
countries don’t allow them. Consider this tweet on X:
Even after Covid, internationally paper ballots are the overwhelming choice for voting.
Given the higher risk of fraud, questioning the 2020 election was not
as egregious as Hillary Clinton’s ongoing claim that Vladimir Putin
rigged the 2016 election on behalf of Trump. Yet Trump’s admittedly
impolitic challenge was, and still is, hysterically dismissed as an
“assault on our democracy” –– as if it were an obvious fact that an
election with the winner determined by a mere 44,000 votes in three
swing states, and twice 2016’s tally of easy to defraud mail-in
ballots–– was free of fraud. The fact is that without a serious
investigation, we don’t know if it was on the up and up or not. But the
aggressive claims that it wasn’t fraudulent sound like the excessive
protestations of Hamlet’s mother.
Of course, Kamala Harris could win the election, given the free
support the corporate media are giving in in-kind contributions. But
even if she wins, don’t think that Trump will stay on his back,
crisscrossed with ropes, any more than Gulliver did. Trump’s political
career has been defined by his relentless willingness to “fight!”, as
after he was shot, he chanted while defiantly pumping an upraised fist,
with blood pouring down his face.
Last week, a second assassination attempt was foiled while Donald
Trump was playing golf at his West Palm Beach course. But that changes
nothing. Trump will continue to fight the odds, take on the bipartisan
guild and their consultants, ignore and mock the self-proclaimed keepers
of the sacred “norms” of our republic––and never say die.
Bruce S. Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center,
an emeritus professor of classics and humanities at California State
University, Fresno, and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
His latest book is Democracy’s Dangers and Discontents: The Tyranny of
the Majority from the Greeks to Obama.
About the assassination attempts on Donald Trump, and when did he know it?
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In the wake of the second attempt on his life, Donald Trump flagged the “highly inflammatory language”
Democrats have deployed against him, such as the charges of Joe Biden
and Kamala Harris that the former president is a threat to democracy and
so forth. When it comes to inflammatory language and outright hatred,
it’s hard to top former CIA director John Brennan, author of Undaunted: My Fight Against America’s Enemies at Home and Abroad. Note the order in the subtitle.
The CIA is tasked to counter foreign threats to the nation, but with
Brennan, CIA boss from 2013-17, the enemies are at home and there is no
greater threat than Donald Trump. Brennan “carried a mental catalog of
the many unfavorable impressions of Mr. Trump I had accumulated over the
previous decades” a man relying on “intimidation, untruths, ruthless
litigation and bankruptcy laws.” For Brennan, “no individual came close
to Trump’s dishonesty, unabashed self-aggrandizement, and demagogic
rhetoric.”
After Trump trounced Republican opponents in the primaries “it was
undeniable that he possessed a charisma that allowed him to repackage
his political snake oil as a magical national exlixir.” Brennan was
“shocked at his electoral college victory” but could not understand how
so many voters could back him for president. Nothing here about the
damage done to the nation by the composite character president David
Garrow described in Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama. As his CIA boss sees it, the voters must have been tricked.
Brennan decides that “Vladimir Putin personally ordered the influence
campaign to boost Donald Trump’s election prospects while discrediting
Hillary Clinton so that her anticipated presidency would be crippled
from the start.” Undaunted recycles the Russia hoax, but there’s more to Brennan’s hatred of Trump.
The former CIA boss, who describes Crossfire Hurricane as “an ongoing
and very sensitive operation,” professes to know nothing about Andrew
McCabe’s actions, but exploded with anger when Trump fired McCabe just
short of retirement. Brennan told his wife that Trump is “evil,
despicable, and vile” and posted a tweet proclaiming:
“When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and
political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as
a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may destroy Andy
McCabe but you will not destroy America. America will triumph over you.”
With Brennan it’s personal, but as Undaunted makes clear,
it’s also about business. Like Obama, Brennan is an Islamist, regarding
jihad as “a holy struggle in pursuit of a moral goal” and having nothing
to do with violence and terrorist attacks.
Brennan says he will “always regard the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA), which reversed Iran’s determination to obtain nuclear
weapons capabilities, to be one of the Obama Administration’s crowning
achievements.” Like Obama, Brennan touts the deal as a “tremendous boon
to Israel’s security.”
President Trump took the United States out of the Iran deal which, he contended, “failed to protect America’s national security interests”
and “enriched the Iranian regime and enabled its malign behavior, while
at best delaying its ability to pursue nuclear weapons and allowing it
to preserve nuclear research and development.” That doubtless got to
Brennan, enraged when Trump lifted his security clearance.
In 2020, when Undaunted was published, Brennan says “my
top-secret code-word clearances remain intact. I still have a CIA badge
that allows me to access CIA facilities.” That same year, Brennan was
signatory to the letter proclaiming Hunter Biden’s laptop “Russian
disinformation.” Undaunted doesn’t cover that operation but in other ways the author tips his hand.
In 1976, presidential candidates included Democrat Jimmy Carter,
former Democrat and independent Eugene McCarthy, Libertarian Roger
MacBride Ben Bubar of the Prohibition Party, Socialist Party USA
candidate Frank Zeidler, and Lester Maddox of the American Independent
Party. Brennan voted for Gus Hall of the Communist Party USA, a wholly
owned subsidiary of the USSR.
The CIA never should have hired Brennan in the first place, but in
2013 the composite character president put him in charge. As it happens,
Obama’s beloved “Frank” from Dreams from My Father was Frank Marshall Davis, the black Communist
who dedicated his life to the USSR’s all-white Stalinist dictatorship.
According to coincidence theory, these connections are pure happenstance
and mean nothing.
Brennan denies he converted to Islam while posted in the Middle East,
but he was angry with Sen. Arlen Specter for drinking a Pepsi during
Ramadan in full sight of the Saudis. “I felt like throttling him right
there,” Brennan says, “and might have if Prince Turki had not suddenly
appeared at the entrance to personally greet the senator,” but it’s not
just about Spector.
“I have found in recent years,” Brennan explains, “that increasing
nationalism, nativism, isolationism, and xenophobia within too many
segments of American society have made insensitivity such as Senator
Spector’s all too prevalent, including at the highest levels of our
government.” So the CIA man has a nasty temper and loathes the American
people, not good traits for a director of the CIA, now deployed on the
home front.
According to former CIA analyst John Gentry, author of Neutering the CIA: Why U.S. Intelligence Versus Trump Has Long-Term Consequences,
“some IC agencies that triggered the attacks on Trump remain intact,
available for reactivation in the event of another serious candidacy by
Trump or the election of another Republican president.” As Trump mounts a
serious candidacy, Obama seeks a fourth term through Kamala Harris,
Iran works three shifts to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, and after
10/7 Israel is under relentless attack.
As the election approaches, mysterious gunmen have made two attempts
to kill Donald Trump, the first nearly succeeding. John Brennan still
retains his top-secret clearance, CIA badge, and CIA access. At first
opportunity, Congress should put Brennan under oath and find out what he
knew and when he knew it.
Lloyd Billingsley is the author of Yes I Con: United Fakes of America, Barack ‘Em Up: A
Literary Investigation, Hollywood Party, and numerous other works.
The Palestinian-fronted resolution passed by wide margin, demanding that the Israeli army and Jewish residents evacuate to pre-1949 line within a year.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres briefs
reporters ahead of the opening of the 79th high-level session of the
U.N. General Assembly and the Summit of the Future on Sept. 18, 2024.
Credit: Mark Garten/U.N. Photo.
Jerusalem’s Old City, in addition to Judea and Samaria, must be Judenrein within a year, according to a Palestinian-drafted resolution, which the U.N. General Assembly passed on Wednesday.
The resolution, which passed by a 124-14
margin with 43 abstentions, is meant to give force to a July advisory
opinion by the International Court of Justice, which declared Israeli
presence to be illegal in any area over the 1949 armistice line.
More than 40 countries sponsored the
resolution, which was the first that Palestinians filed after being
granted unprecedented privileges, for a non-U.N. member, earlier this
year.
The resolution calls on the Israel Defense
Forces to withdraw completely from Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem
and the Gaza Strip within 12 months, which means evacuating all Jewish
communities beyond the armistice line, including Jerusalem’s Old City.
It also bans arms sales to the IDF of any
equipment that would be expected reasonably to be used in the territory
over the 1949 lines and calls for a boycott of all products produced by
Jews in those areas.
The resolution text lacks any mention of Israeli security concerns, historic ties to the lands or Hamas’s terror attacks in Israel on Oct. 7.
The vote came after a day of debate on Tuesday.
Argentina, Czechia, Fiji, Hungary, Malawi,
Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Tonga, Tuvalu and
the United States joined Israel in opposing the resolution.
Notably, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Ukraine and Australia were among those who abstained.
General Assembly resolutions have no legal
force, but the resolution’s passage on Wednesday is expected to be used
in international courts and other fora to seek additional action
against the Jewish state.
It is widely expected that the
Palestinians will request that the U.N. Security Council take up the
issue. Security Council resolutions are binding, but the United States
would be expected to thwart such an effort, including with its veto
power.
Danny
Danon, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, addresses the resumed
10th Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly on “Illegal
Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied
Palestinian Territory” on Sept. 17, 2024. Credit: Eskinder Debebe/U.N.
Photo.
‘Further fuel on worldwide antisemitism’
Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the
United Nations, called it “a shameful decision that backs the
Palestinian Authority’s diplomatic terrorism.”
He added that the General Assembly
“continues to dance to the music of the Palestinian Authority, which
backs the Hamas murderers.”
Before the vote, U.N. Secretary-General
António Guterres told reporters he would back the implementation of the
resolution should it pass.
Seth Riklin and Daniel Mariaschin,
president and CEO, respectively, of B’nai B’rith International, said the
international nonprofit is “appalled” by the “atrocious” resolution.
“B’nai B’rith International strongly
condemns the U.N. General Assembly’s passage of the first resolution
officially sponsored by Palestinians days after they became the first
non-member state group further upgraded to many member state privileges
at the U.N. General Assembly, despite the world body’s own rules and
practices,” they said.
“Coming from an assembly in which Arab and
other pro-Palestinian governments wield an automatic majority to
annually condemn Israel more than all other countries combined, the
motion is unprecedented in its shamelessly one-sided endorsement of
Palestinian claims and political demands, and further erodes the U.N.’s
credibility as a serious contributor to promoting conflict-resolution
and universal human rights,” they added.
“Shame on all countries that enabled this
atrocious affront to justice and peace as part of the latest UNGA
’emergency session’ on the Middle East that does nothing to help
seriously address and settle the emergency,” Riklin and Mariaschin said.
The Conference of Presidents of Major
American Jewish Organizations condemned the “biased and dangerous”
resolution strongly, Harriet Schleifer and William Daroff, chair and CEO
respectively said. They called it “the latest salvo in an obsessive,
decades-long campaign against Israel.”
“Attempting to isolate Israel in this
manner is undoubtedly a threat to her national security as she faces
terror threats on all sides and offensive to her status as the only
democracy in the Middle East and therefore cannot be accepted by the
international community,” they added.
Arsen Ostrovsky and Nadav Steinman, CEO
and board chair, respectively, of the International Legal Forum, stated
that “today, simply put, the United Nations has become the diplomatic
arm of Hamas” and that the resolution “is just the latest in a litany of
obscenely one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the U.N. since Oct. 7.”
“All it does is reward the murderers,
rapists and abductors of Hamas while pouring further fuel on worldwide
antisemitism and eroding whatever remaining credibility of the already
problematic and politicized International Court of Justice, upon which
this resolution is meant to be based,” they added. “Ultimately, peace
will only prevail when Hamas is defeated and the hostages are released,
not through tiresome antics and pyrrhic Palestinian ‘victories’ at the
U.N.”
