The profound strategic implications of the American support for Israel in the war against Hamas – including a significant US military deployment to the region (two Carrier Strike Forces and an Ohio-class nuclear submarine, as well as air assets), albeit for the purpose of deterrence rather than participation in the fighting – will fully manifest themselves only over time. Among the implications of this new American military role is the open possibility that it will also lead to a comprehensive change of paradigm regarding Iran and its proxies in the region, with all that this would entail.
1. JaFaJ has learned that both the United States (USG) and Israeli Governments (IG) are convinced that “Hamas is keeping more than a dozen hostages underneath the Shiffa hospital in Gaza.” JaFaJ has confirmed that, “most of those are dual nationals with passports from Israeli and other Western countries, including the United States.”
Israel is fighting a war on many fronts. There is a ground war in Gaza, as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) seek to pinpoint terrorists hiding among civilians, and to free the hostages brutally abducted by Hamas. There are attacks from Israel’s northern border by Hezbollah terrorists, who threaten to unleash 150,000 rockets on Israel’s civilian population. These battles between Islamist-fundamentalist terror and liberal democracy are painfully evident.
But there is another vicious war being waged against Israel and Western values. It is conducted not from the Hamas tunnels under Gaza’s schools, hospitals and mosques, but from the political, academic and media institutions of the West.
SEAN HANNITY:But first, in just a moment, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will join us. His country is in a fight for its very existence and survival against an enemy that has vowed to destroy them. Now, in its founding charter, Hamas openly promises to “obliterate” Israel and wage jihad against the Jews. And on October 7th, they backed up their genocidal rhetoric with action, murdering over 1200 Israelis and capturing several hundred more in the worst terror attack in Israel’s history.
Biden, Iran’s Ali Khamenei (Win McNamee and Majid/Getty Images)
The Biden administration on Tuesday reapproved a sanctions waiver that will allow Iran to access upward of $10 billion in frozen assets, the State Department confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon.
The sanctions waiver, which was set to expire today after first being authorized for a period of 120 days in July, allows Iraq to pay Iran for multibillion-dollar electricity purchases. This is the first time the Biden administration has renewed the waiver since the Iran-backed terror group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel that was reported to have been planned with Tehran’s support.
Nemo propheta in patria (no man is a prophet in his own land)…But on August 21, 2021, I wrote:
“‘The Taliban have defeated the West,’ says Lord Dannatt, former head of the British military mission in Afghanistan. London today sends its military to evacuate British citizens in Kabul. Tomorrow what will you do with the English cities that have fallen into the hands of the same Islamic fundamentalists?”.
Reports have been bubbling up that the various tentacles of the Democrat hacktivist media actually had pro-Hamas activists ‘journalists’ embedded with Hamas before and on October 7th.
The difference between the US’ and the Arab approach
*President Joe Biden’s and Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s enthusiasm for a Palestinian state reflects the traditional worldview of the State Department, which has been systematically wrong on key Middle East issues.
*Upon learning of the emerging 1993 Oslo Accord, Jordan’s King Hussein told the Head of Israel’s Mossad, Shabtai Shavit: “Establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank would be tantamount to death-sentencing the [pro-US] Hashemite regime.” Jordan’s top military command reiterated King Hussein’s warning to their Israeli colleagues during the October 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty ceremony.
As I write in late October and the first days of November, Israel is yet again in a war for survival, which should not be surprising given that the objective of its enemies is its extermination. This early on, the war is paradoxically in a state of flux. That is, although the battle space in Gaza is subject to intense preparation as Israel degrades Hamas defenses and logistics, a full ground campaign has yet to begin, although as you read it may have begun and ended.
At present, lines have been established to cut Gaza in two, the plan being, apparently, to work slowly and methodically, as if Israel has all the time in the world, which because of international pressure, it does not. Optimally, however, a full campaign should not begin “now,” and this is why.
T. Belman. This story broke a few days ago. I looked up Stephen Miller on Twitter and couldn’t believe the vitriol levelled against him for these policies. It was vicious and beyond belief.
“The latest CBS news poll reveals that President Biden and Democrats generally are out of sync with the American people on immigration, with massive majorities of even Independents and Hispanics disapproving of the administration’s handling of the issue. That issue and Biden’s feckless handling of the border present an opening for GOP candidates in the 2024 election,” Trump is obviously making this a huge issue for next yeart’s election.
This issue will no doubt reverberate in Israel in our fight against the TSS.
A former Trump immigration adviser says that activists ‘won’t know what’s happening.’
Then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, then-National Trade Council adviser Peter Navarro, then- Senior Adviser Jared Kushner, then- policy adviser Stephen Miller, and then-chief strategist Steve Bannon watch as former President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Jan. 23, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci
A former White House immigration adviser proclaimed that a second Trump term would include stricter policies targeting illegal immigration, saying it would be a “spectacular migration crackdown.”
T. Belman. This deal is good for Israel. The release of 70 women and children is not to be sneezed at. I have no problem releasing 120 convicted female and minor terrorists but I do have trouble agreeing to a 5 day ceasefire. Hamas desperately wants the ceasefire. That’s why this deal is on the table. To get it or or even for a few days less, it should be required to release all 100 women and children. I have my doubts that this deal will happen.
Swap would see temporary ceasefire, and the release of some – but not all – hostages held by terrorists in Gaza.
Messages with photos of the hostages, in Tel AvivMiriam Alster/Flash 90
Israel and the Hamas terror group are close to closing a deal to free some of the civilians held by the Hamas terror group, alongside female and minor convicted terrorists, according to a report by David Ignatius on the Washington Post
The Post article follows a Saturday report by Al Arabiya that Israel and Hamas have agreed to a “humanitarian” prisoner swap under which Hamas would release 100 Israeli hostages, in exchange for Israel releasing female and minor terrorists.
T. Belman. Clearly, the US show of force is not a deterrant. Rather than show they mean it, the US prefers to deter Israel from a greater response. Their bluff has been called.
From Israel’s point of view, her first priority is to defeat Hamas. The last thing she wants is a two front war. Israel has limited munitions. She can’t afford to use them on Hezbollah at this time. Look for Hezbollah to keep increasing the pressure.
Secretary Austin is ordered by the president to deliver to the Jewish state a warning against responding to the enemy in a war that is already close to full tilt.
The U.S. defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, right, is greeted by Israel’s minister of defense, Yoav Gallant, October 13, 2023, at Tel Aviv. AP/Lolita Baldor
Shortly after Hamas launched war on October 7, President Biden dispatched naval assets to the Mediterranean, hoping to deter Hezbollah and its Tehran patrons from aiding Hamas and launching an all-out regional war. Now, Washington seems intent on deterring Israel instead.
In a phone conversation over the weekend, the secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, warned his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, against escalating tensions on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Mr. Austin “emphasized the need to contain the conflict to Gaza and avoid regional escalation,” according to a Pentagon readout of the conversation.
1.JaFaJ has learned from a senior Israeli military source that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has been able to identify twenty different hospitals in Gaza which Hamas has been using as shields with tunnel military units underneath and also as holding centers for more and estimated 250 Israeli hostages.
On October 25, 2023, U.N. secretary general António Guterres said at a U.N. Security Council meeting on the Israel-Hamas war that he condemns unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October acts of terror by Hamas in Israel. He continued:
Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians — or the launching of rockets against civilian targets.
He then justified the attacks:
It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.
T. Belman. At first , Biden supported our right of self-defense so long asw we followed the Rules of War. (As though he had to remind us). But then he insisted on “humanitain corridors” and then on “pauses”. But now he is upping the ante again ny saying “The United States does not want to see firefights in hospitals where innocent people, patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire.” Surely the R of W are enough restrictions. But no, he keeps adding to them . No mention is ever made of avoiding IDF causualties.
Why is Biden tying our hands thus? No such restrictions were put on Zelensky.
As IDF advances in Gaza, Jake Sullivan says ‘we don’t want to see firefights in hospitals,’ accuses Hamas of acting ‘in way that’s outside the bounds of any civilized concept’
People stand outside the emergency ward of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on November 10, 2023, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (Khader Al Zanoun/AFP)
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Sunday said the Biden administration has shared concerns with Israel about potential civilian casualties in an operation to capture Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, where Hamas allegedly has a key command center.
