Hamas

Understanding Israel’s war, cont’d

Featured image Rick Richman is the author of And None Shall Make Them Afraid: Eight Stories of the Modern State of Israel (2023) and Racing Against History: The 1940 Campaign for a Jewish Army to Fight Hitler (2018), both published by Encounter Books. He forwards the video of Dave Rubin’s “utterly amazing interview” of former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. and now Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer below with the recommendation »

Understanding Israel’s war

Featured image John Spencer is chairman of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point. His profile is posted here. His X feed can be found here. He has been in Israel and Gaza to see what he could learn from the current war. Yesterday he uploaded the video of his February 27 interview with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu (below). This is an intensely interesting discussion of “everything from »

Doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola

Featured image In a long speech on the floor yesterday Senate Majority Chuck Schumer called for the replacement of the current Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Times of Israel has posted the full text of Schumer’s remarks here. According to Schumer, Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace, the two-state final solution, and the Big Rock Candy Mountain. We must popularize the phrase “He doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola.” Jonathan »

The trouble with Dennis Ross

Featured image Dennis Ross is a scholar and diplomat of unmatched experience in the vagaries of “the peace process.” His 2005 memoir The Missing Peace: Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace runs to 880 closely printed pages. He served in both the Bush (41) and Clinton administrations. He also served as special assistant to President Obama and worked on National Security Council in both the Reagan and Obama administrations. »

Netanyahu’s negation

Featured image The Biden administration obviously seeks to depose the government of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. The administration has released our intelligence community’s assessment that Netanyahu’s “viability as a leader” is “in jeopardy,” according to the annual report on the national security threats facing the United States that was presented to Congress on Monday. I assess that the wish is father to the thought. The assessment provides: “Distrust of Netanyahu’s ability to »

He won’t back down

Featured image President Biden is reportedly “thinking” about imposing conditions on military aid to Israel if the IDF assault on Hamas’s redoubt in Rafah proceeds as planned. Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke by video to AIPAC’s annual policy conference in Washington. Netanyahu’s office has posted the video clip below on X and a six-minute video here on YouTube (with an echo for the first minute). The Prime Minister’s Office has posted Netanyahu’s text »

Hamas’s “Operation Ramadan”–and ours

Featured image President Biden apparently thinks the IDF should observe Ramadan as it seeks to eliminate the genocidaires of Hamas. By contrast, the genocidaires of Hamas find Jewish holidays the right time to do their thing. It’s enough to make a sane man vomit. Wall Street Journal letters editor Elliot Kaufman is not too choked up about Biden’s Ramadan recess. His column on the subject is datelined Tel Aviv and runs with »

Biden’s animus [With Comment by John]

Featured image President Biden’s animus against Israel was patent in his State of the Union Address this past Thursday evening. The White House has posted the text of his remarks as given here. JNS editor Jonathan Tobin sets forth a rounded view of “the moral failure” of Biden’s remarks on Israel. Tobin separately addresses and elaborates on Biden’s demands on Israel, the floating harbor for Hamas, the two-state final solution, the lack »

Biden’s red line

Featured image It turns out that President Biden has a red line. It applies to Israel. In an unlocked story, the Wall Street Journal reports that “Biden Warns Netanyahu an Assault on Rafah Would Cross ‘Red Line.’” Biden apparently seeks to depose the Netanyahu government. He thinks that Netanyahu is the problem. He also seeks to preserve Hamas. He finds them easier to deal with than Netanyahu. Biden’s daycare minders in the »

Biden explains

Featured image In the video clip from his interview with Jonathan Capehart below, President Biden explains why Hamas wants a ceasefire. He forgets that he’s not supposed to explain how it promotes their goals. He seeks to backtrack but can’t figure out how, except by falsely implying that Israel is violating the laws of war. What a disgrace. Watch Biden say the quiet part out loud. This is actually kind of amazing. »

Biden to open Gaza port

Featured image Politico reports that President Biden has a big announcement to make tonight. During his State of the Union address, he will order the military to establish a temporary port in Gaza so more humanitarian aid can get to Palestinians in need. Enough with the airdrops, or to supplement the airdrops. We’re going in big time to keep Hamas in business. It’s not clear to me if this slam comes from »

Getting to know UNRWA

Featured image Israel’s war on Hamas has had several side effects. One such is the exposure of UNRWA a functional arm of Hamas. As Michael Rubin puts it: The rot surrounding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East keeps accumulating. Not only did the UNRWA allow Hamas command posts under local hospitals and the UNRWA’s own headquarters, but UNRWA employees hid weaponry in their homes »

Longing for Auschwitz

Featured image As a guest of the Jewish Community Relations Council I attended a private showing of the atrocity video compiled by the IDF in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre this past December. Several of the clips compiled in the video had previously been posted to social media. The sadistic glee of the Hamas savages is apparent throughout the 45-minute video. They shriek in ecstasy as they perform their barbaric »

Sticking points

Featured image Reading about the ceasefire negotiations with which the Biden administration hopes to engineer a Hamas victory requires a certain kind of insensitivity to savagery. Hamas seeks to trade kidnapped Israelis for terrorists who can help Hamas finish the task it undertook on October 7. The Hamas terrorists are murderers and genocidaires. The Israelis are, well, you know, Jewish. Hamas seeks ten terrorists in exchange for every kidnapped Israeli and Israel »

“Get Me a Deal!”

Featured image That is what Joe Biden demanded of the Israelis, Hamas and representatives of Qatar and Egypt who are trying to broker a cease-fire agreement. As though he were the party in interest. The Telegraph interprets Biden’s motives: Mr Biden is under major pressure from voters over the US alliance with Israel, and the president was punished at the ballot box by protesting young Democrats in the primaries last week. So »

The takeover

Featured image In her February 26 Tablet column “The takeover,” Neetu Arnold traces the relationship among international student recruitment, DEI policies, and left-wing activism on American campuses. It is a long column that is full of information and data. This is how it opens: Something new and peculiar stands out about the wave of anti-Israel student activism that has rocked American university campuses since October: There is a visibly more radical element »

Drop this

Featured image Yesterday President Biden announced the imminent airdrop of humanitarian assistance into Gaza (Biden to the contrary notwithstanding, not Ukraine). The Times of Israel covers the announcement here. White House National Security Advisor John Kirby was asked a good question about it at a press briefing that followed the announcement. He was asked how the administration will prevent Hamas from seizing the supplies that it intends to airdrop into Gaza. Kirby »