Tag: israel

The House of Representatives Rules That Anti-Zionism Is Antisemitism

The House of Representatives seemed to achieve its summit of cynical grandstanding today, with debate over a resolution proclaiming that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. That measure is not only a kind of photographic negative of the 1975 UN resolution condemning Zionism as racism (revoked in 2019); it also is founded on the antisemitic equation of Zionist sentiment with Jewish identity, even though many Orthodox Jews, and secular dissenters, remain opposed to Zionism. New York Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler raised that crucial objection, among others, in an impassioned dissent to the resolution, but the measure will likely be endorsed in a majority vote this week—not least because its language leaves ample room for anyone voting “no” to be branded an antisemite. Sure enough, the resolution passed by a resounding 311-14 margin, with 92 representatives voting “present.” 

As a kind of calisthenic warm-up for that pending floor vote, the House Education and Workforce committee conducted a marathon hearing on the spread of antisemitism on American college campuses—in part, no doubt, because the long-running right-wing culture war on the American university is such an inviting rhetorical proving ground. This is not to deny that antisemitic rhetoric and harassment aren’t distressingly apparent on many college campuses, and that universities should do more to ensure the safety and well-being of Jewish students. But it is to note that reckoning with these issues entails a good deal more than enlisting a trio of elite university presidents as ideological foils for future electioneering, which was the clear objective of the panel’s inquiry. The game was given away in the committee’s own advance news release; the title of the hearing was “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism” but the document bore the red-meat sobriquet “College Presidents to Answer for Mishandling of Antisemitic, Violent Protests.” 

The same rhetoric opened the committee’s proceedings, as committee Chair Virginia Foxx of North Carolina—whose last tour of media renown occurred when she graciously yelled “Shut up!” to a reporter questioning newly appointed House Speaker Mike Johnson on his election-denying record—sternly lectured the committee’s witnesses on the “moral rot” and “poisonous fruits” of their agenda of curricular subversion. Diversity, equity, and inclusion divisions were rapidly namechecked, as were course offerings that mentioned settler colonialism in the context of the Middle East. And true to reactionary form, she threw an obligatory “social justice” into the bargain. “This moment is an inflection point,” she concluded. “It demands leaders of moral clarity with the courage to delineate good from evil, and right from wrong.”

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MEMBERS OF ISRAEL’S RULING LIKUD PARTY ONCE PLANNED TO ASSASSINATE HENRY KISSINGER

FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE Henry Kissinger died on Wednesday at the age of 100 — though if the predecessors of Israel’s ruling Likud party had their way, he may not have made it even halfway to the century mark.

Despite his reputation as a geopolitical kingmaker, Kissinger was never able to fully impose total U.S. authority upon Israel, but he did seek to leverage U.S. influence — sometimes against what the right-wing Likud party viewed as its interests.

In the 1970s, Kissinger was so hated by the Likud party, which now controls Israel’s far-right coalition government, that some of its members tried to have him assassinated, according to a news report from the time.

“A die-hard clique of Israeli right-wingers has put out a $150,000 ‘contract’ for the assassination of Secretary of State Kissinger,” the New York Daily News reported in 1977, citing senior State Department officials. When reports of a possible hit on Kissinger first came out, it was believed to be the work of Palestinian militants, but senior officials told the paper that they were certain that the threat was emanating from the Likud party.

The Likud hard-liners who put up the money — described as “a small, radical splinter faction within Israel’s Likud opposition bloc” — were reportedly upset at Kissinger’s diplomacy around the end of the 1973 Arab–Israeli War. Kissinger had been instrumental in disengagement agreements with Egypt and Syria that saw Israel withdrawing from territories it had conquered. On the Israeli side, Likud’s rival Labor Party had worked with Kissinger to agree to the compromises.

The 1973 war had also led to a damaging oil embargo by Arab states against the U.S., and Kissinger was said to be willing to cut any deal necessary to turn the spigot back on — which the 1974 disengagement deals accomplished.

Of the hit, the Daily News reported, “The motive was said to be revenge against Kissinger for allegedly selling out Israel during his Mideast shuttle diplomacy.”

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The Grim Reality of Israel’s Corpse Politics

After Israeli forces shot and killed thirty-nine-year-old Fadi Samara in May of 2020, his mourning family dug him a grave in his village of Abu Qash, located in the occupied West Bank district of Ramallah.

But nearly four years later, his grave remains empty.

“I take the children to their father’s grave a few times a month even though we still have not received his body,” says Saja Muhammad, Samara’s thirty-one-year-old widow and mother to his five children, ages nine to three.

“It gives the children some comfort,” she continues, sitting on the couch at her family’s home in the city of Biddya in the northern Salfit district, where she returned following Samara’s killing. “We live with the hope that one day his body will be returned to us. And when that day comes his grave is ready to receive him.”

Samara’s body is one of hundreds currently held by Israel, part of a decades-long policy that researchers and rights groups describe as an attempt to control and punish Palestinian families by withholding the corpses of their slain loved ones. Some are buried in nameless graves and others are frozen in refrigerators.

Israeli officials claim this controversial practice is necessary to avoid incitement during funerals of Palestinians killed by Israelis. Israel also withholds the remains of slain Palestinians who are suspected of having carried out attacks against Israelis, using their corpses as bargaining chips for future negotiations with Palestinian leaders.

However, Palestinians, some of whom have waited for months, years, and in some cases decades for the return of their slain loved ones’ bodies, argue that this policy aims to punish them, condemning their lives to perpetual mourning.

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Israel knew Hamas’ attack plan more than a year ago

Israeli officials obtained Hamas’ battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.

The approximately 40-page document, which Israeli authorities code-named “Jericho Wall,” outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.

The translated document, which was reviewed by The New York Times, did not set a date for the attack, but described a methodical assault designed to overwhelm the fortifications around the Gaza Strip, take over Israeli cities and storm key military bases, including a division headquarters.

Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision. The document called for a barrage of rockets at the outset of the attack, drones to knock out the security cameras and automated machine guns along the border, and gunmen to pour into Israel en masse in paragliders, on motorcycles and on foot — all of which happened Oct. 7.

The plan also included details about the location and size of Israeli military forces, communication hubs and other sensitive information, raising questions about how Hamas gathered its intelligence and whether there were leaks inside the Israeli security establishment.

The document circulated widely among Israeli military and intelligence leaders, but experts determined that an attack of that scale and ambition was beyond Hamas’ capabilities, according to documents and officials. It is unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top political leaders saw the document, as well.

Last year, shortly after the document was obtained, officials in the Israeli military’s Gaza division, which is responsible for defending the border with Gaza, said Hamas’ intentions were unclear.

“It is not yet possible to determine whether the plan has been fully accepted and how it will be manifested,” read a military assessment reviewed by the Times.

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Israeli AI “Assassination Factory” Plays Central Role in the Gaza War

Tel Aviv has been relying on an AI Program dubbed the Gospel to select targets in Gaza at a rapid pace. In past operations in Gaza, the IDF ran out of targets to strike in the besieged enclave.

A statement on the IDF website says the Israeli military is using the Gospel to “produce targets at a fast pace.” It continues, “Through the rapid and automatic extraction of intelligence,” the Gospel produced targeting recommendations for its researchers “with the goal of a complete match between the recommendation of the machine and the identification carried out by a person.”

Aviv Kochavi, former head of the IDF, said the system was first used in the May 2021 bombing campaign in Gaza.  “To put that into perspective, in the past we would produce 50 targets in Gaza per year,” he said. “Now, this machine produces 100 targets a single day, with 50% of them being attacked.”

The IDF does not disclose what it inputs into the Gospel for the program to produce a list of targets.

Thursday, the Israeli outlet +972 Magazine reported Tel Aviv was using AI to pick targets in Gaza. A former Israeli official told the +972 that the Gospel was being used as a “mass assassination factory.” The program is selecting the home of suspected low-level Hamas members for destruction. Sources told the outlet that strikes on homes can kill numerous civilians.

One source was critical of the Gospel. “I remember thinking that it was like if [Palestinian militants] would bomb all the private residences of our families when [Israeli soldiers] go back to sleep at home on the weekend,” they said.

On Friday, the Guardian expanded on the +972 article by reporting that the Gospel plays a central role in the Gaza military operations.

A former senior Israeli military source told the Guardian that operatives use a “very accurate” calculation of the number or rate of civilians fleeing a building before an impending strike. However, other experts disputed that assertion. A lawyer who advises governments on AI and compliance with humanitarian law told the outlet there was “little empirical evidence” to support the claim.

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Hero gunman was shot and killed when IDF reservists mistook him for a terrorist as he tried to tackle Hamas fanatics who slaughtered three people at Jerusalem bus stop

A hero civilian who tackled two Hamas terrorists at a bus stop in Jerusalem has died from his injuries after being mistakenly shot by IDF reservists on November 30.

Yuval Doron Kestelman, should have been celebrating his 38th birthday on Friday but died overnight in hospital from his injuries.

Traffic cameras caught the dramatic moment he leapt over a central reservation and fired on two Hamas attackers as they opened fire in a spree that left four dead, including a pregnant teacher.

Eight people were also wounded in the shooting carried out by two terrorist brothers in Jerusalem.

The clip shows how Yuval, who as a former soldier was allowed to carry a gun, ran towards the pair firing at them as they attacked commuters in East Jerusalem on Thursday.

He is then seen frantically pulling open his shirt and falling to his knees as bullets ping around him before the footage suddenly stops.

Further pictures from the scene later show him lying on the floor motionless as paramedics raced to the scene.

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Press Relayed Israeli Claims of Secret Hospital Base With Insufficient Skepticism

A cover image of the New York Post (11/16/23) depicted a supposedly shocking find. The headline “Guns Behind the MRI Machine” accompanied a photo of what Israeli troops had allegedly uncovered: Hamas guns at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

On the Post cover were fewer than a dozen AK-47s and matching magazines, as well as a few tactical vests. In its subhead, the Post called this “proof Hamas used hospital as  military base in stunning war crime.”

Many other media outlets reported Israel’s claims—and accompanying photos and videos the IDF offered as evidence—with little pushback other than Hamas’s denials and an acknowledgment that the outlet could not independently verify the claims. “IDF ‘Found Clear Evidence’ of Hamas Operation out of Al-Shifa Hospital, Says Spokesperson,” was an NBC News headline (11/15/23); Fox News (11/15/23) had “Watch: Israel Finds Weapons, Military Equipment Used by Hamas in Key Gaza Hospital After Raid, IDF Says.”

Israel’s assault on Al Shifa hospital provoked widespread international outrage, so a great deal hinged on its claim that the hospital was being used as a military base. But there are many reasons to question this display of weaponry, questions that imply that not only did the Israeli military make a weak case, but that some media outlets and pundits were too quick to take this presentation at face value.

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IDF Is Ignoring Warnings About Impending Massacre in Judea, Samaria, Say Sources

‘Planning same thing here, hoarding weapons, training’

Fatah Central Committee Secretary-General and PLO Supreme Council for Youth and Sports head Jibril Rajoub Tuesday said the October 7 attack “didn’t come from nowhere” and was “part of the Palestinians’ defensive war” against “the continued crimes of the occupation in Gaza.”

In an interview with Egyptian MBC TV, Rajoub said “the next, more severe violence will come from the West Bank. What is happening in the West Bank, which includes 700,000 Israeli settlers, is a similar situation and is connected to all aspects of life, holy sites and even olive trees, our schools, mosques and churches. Therefore, the next conflagration will be more violent in the West Bank.”

Meanwhile, Israeli security in Judea and Samaria has been specifically designed in a way that will be vulnerable to a certain type of key that is not immediately perceptible to residents encountering them. Thus, the gates and armaments of Judea and Samaria (and in general the entire security apparatus) have been designed, selected, and controlled universally to be uniquely vulnerable to a specific tool that has been then semi-secretly given to the PA – armored vehicles.

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Israeli Minister in Charge of West Bank Says Territory Is Home to ‘2 Million Nazis’

Bezalel Smotrich, the extremist Israeli finance minister who’s been given sweeping powers over the West Bank, has said the occupied territory is home to “2 million Nazis,” referring to part of the Palestinian population.

It’s estimated that around 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank. The Times of Israel reported that Smotrich made the comments in an apparent reference to two polls that found two-thirds of West Bank Palestinians supported the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel. However, the polls that were referenced surveyed Palestinians living in both Gaza and the West Bank.

The polls also came after weeks of Israel’s brutal bombing campaign and ground incursion into Gaza, as well as a significant uptick in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Based on polling, Hamas did not have much support before October 7 and the Israeli bombardment that ensued. A poll conducted on October 6 found that 67% of Palestinians in Gaza either had “no trust at all” (44 percent) or “not a lot of trust” (23 percent) in Hamas. The same poll found that 73% of Gazans favored a peaceful solution to the conflict with Israel.

Smotrich, the leader of the Religious Zionism Party, also referenced “Nazis” in the West Bank in comments on X in response to a Fatah official saying the October 7 Hamas attack didn’t happen in a vacuum. “A reminder to those who have not yet sobered up and think that the Nazis in Judea and Samaria are different from the Nazis in Gaza,” Smotrich said, according to Middle East Eye.

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Pro-Israel Trolls Mob Social Media

Almost as important as its military campaign for Israel is its battle to control its public image.

Even as it kills thousands of people in Gaza, the small Middle Eastern nation is spending millions of dollars on a propaganda war, purchasing ads on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and other online apps.

At the same time, an army of pro-Israel trolls has invaded the Community Notes function on X/Twitter, attempting to influence the online debate around the ongoing crisis.

Since Oct. 7, Israel has inundated YouTube with advertisements, with its Ministry of Foreign Affairs spending nearly $7.1 million on ads in the two weeks following Hamas’ incursion. According to journalist Sophia Smith Galer, this equates to almost one billion impressions.

With its campaign, the Israeli government overwhelmingly focused on rich Western nations, its top targets being France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium and the United States. In France alone, the ministry spent $3.8 million.

Other branches of the Israeli government undoubtedly also spent money on ads. The overwhelming message of the campaign was that Hamas are terrorists linked with ISIS and that Israel — a modern, secular democracy — is defending itself from foreign aggression.

Much of the content blatantly violated YouTube’s terms of service, including a number of ads featuring gory shots of dead bodies. Another ad that piqued public attention was played before videos aimed at babies. Amid a scene of pink rainbows and soothing music, text appears reading:

“We know that your child cannot read this. We have an important message to tell you as parents. 40 infants were murdered in Israel by the terrorists Hamas (ISIS). Just as you would do everything for your child, we will do everything to protect ours. Now hug your baby and stand with us.”

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