BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 2,284, June 20, 2024

by Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Shaul Bartal

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The UN decision on May 10, 2024 to upgrade the status of the Palestinian state is not surprising. It is a direct continuation of previous UN decisions, most notably that of November 29, 2012, which granted the Palestinian Authority the status of non-member observer state. Since the 1970s, there has been an almost automatic majority for anti-Israel resolutions in the UN. This majority includes Muslim countries and countries that define themselves as part of the “Global South”, such as African countries and some South American countries, all of which are known for their invariably critical approach towards Israel. The UN’s recognition of the Palestinian Authority grants the Palestinians an independent state without a negotiated peace process or clearly defined and agreed borders between it and Israel. This is precisely the situation the PLO has been striving for since 1974. The establishment of a Palestinian state without peace with Israel is a sure recipe for instability and perpetual war in the Middle East, and those negative consequences are being deliberately fomented by the UN.
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‘We found that the food supply entering Gaza is more than sufficient to feed all 2.2 million Gazans according to what is considered a normal diet in North America”

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN  JUNE 18, 2024 16:38

Trucks deliver humanitarian aid over a temporary pier on the Gaza coast, May 18, 2024(photo credit: US ARMY CENTRAL/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)

Columbia University Professors Awi Federgruen and Ran Kivetz have analyzed available data and conducted research whose “findings demonstrate that sufficient amounts of food are being supplied into Gaza,” they noted in a summary of their findings presented to The Jerusalem Post.

They note that it is “a myth that Israel is responsible for famine in Gaza.” They argue that the International Criminal Court and UN have joined Hamas in blaming Israel for a “famine that never was, hoping to stop the war [in Gaza].”

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TIERNEY REAL NEWS

EPOCH TIMES: Louisiana has become the first state to enact a law mandating that the Ten Commandments be prominently displayed at all public schools and colleges.

Under legislation that became law on June 18, Louisiana schools that receive state funds will have to display the Ten Commandments “in each building it uses and classroom in each school under its jurisdiction.”

The bill specifies that the text must be printed in a “large and easily readable font” and also requires a 200-word “context statement” explaining that the Ten Commandments were “a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries.”

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by Uzay Bulut, GATESTONE •  June 19, 2024

 Naama Levy, an Israeli woman abducted and taken to Gaza by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, when she was 19 years old. She is still being held hostage by Hamas. (Image source: Hamas)

Today, June 19, the United Nations will observe the annual International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. Yet, it took the UN five months to document and condemn Hamas’ sexual crimes on October 7.

• These crimes are reminiscent of the crimes ISIS (Islamic State) committed against Christians and Yazidis during and after their violent takeover of large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014.
• Sexual assault as a military tactic has commonly been used by Islamic terrorists since the seventh century, worldwide.
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October 7, it was widely believed that the real threat in the region was Iran and that Iran’s provision of weapons to Hezbollah was the main front that Israel should concentrate on. However, October 7 showed that Hamas could trigger a regional war by attacking Israel.

This means that it’s worth understanding now how Hamas continues to have its hand on the trigger. If there is a ceasefire in Gaza, for instance, there may be “quiet” in northern Israel. This means that Hamas’s actions may determine Hezbollah’s actions. Together, their actions are likely coordinated with Iran and also its other proxies such as the Houthis.

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Peloni:  The United Nations was a power construct, built by the victorious powers in WWII to maintain their political prowess in perpetuity.  It was sold as being a liberal institution supporting liberal values, even as the great decisions agreed upon by the Great Powers led UNSC have the only binding authority.  Its legitimacy was founded upon principles established during `the prosecution of the Nazi leaders for their war crimes, even as men such as Albert Speer, the largest holder of, and murderer of, slave laborers in history, was awarded a sentence of merely 20yrs for his extensive and significant crimes in those trials.

One of its established credos of the UN made crimes against humanity an international offence, yet, this august institution remained deafly silent as the Jews of Arabia were stripped of their holdings and forced to flee their homes in which they had lived going back a millennium in many cases.

Notably, the UN supported a blockade of the fledgling Jewish state while knowing that their defeat would mean the annihilation for every Jewish soul in Palestine.  Shortly after being disappointed by Israel’s miraculous victory in 1948, the UN next created UNWRA as a subsidiary to weaponize the Pal refugees against Israel in increasing numbers, permanently into the future.

And on November 10, 1975, this corrupted and tyrannical organization betrayed its own previous stipulation to support the Zionist project in what had been Palestine by labeling Zionism as racism.  Of course, at this time, the Jews had far broader support among the liberals and Democrats in that age, and we were quite well defended by the efforts of men such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan and the American people in rejecting out of hand the verdict of the vote of the General Assembly which exposed its own illegitimacy, dishonesty and depravity in passing the Anti-Zionism resolution.

Yet, in doing so, the UN established, for all to see, the grossly antisemitic and corrupt nature of that institution which holds nothing but contempt and derision for the Jewish people and their Jewish state.  And in the years which have passed since then, these facts have only grown more apparent and more flagrant.

Peloni:  Natasha Hausdorff and Douglas Murray were brilliant in a debate held with Mehdi Hasan & Gideon Levy over the question of whether anti-Zionism is antisemitism.  The honest answer is, as overwhelmingly asserted by the audience in this debate, that clearly, yes, it certainly is.  

Peloni:  Bibi has remained an obstacle in the path of the Iranian pivot which has been taking place in Washington going back to at least the reign of Obama.  In fact, Bibi has survived the many attempts by Washington to regime change Israel by swapping the intractable Netanyahu for the more American compliant Gantz.  It would appear, however that the ongoing battle between Washington and Jerusalem just stepped up a notch or two.

The goal is to abandon Israel and convince liberal American Jews to blame Israel.

Daniel Greenfield | June 19, 2024

Act 1. The stage is set. The key players are Barack Obama, who wants to manufacture a break with Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, looking to navigate a hostile administration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Vice President Joe Biden.

During Biden’s visit to Israel, the Obama administration stages a scandal, claiming that it was deliberately insulted because the local Jerusalem municipality routed some housing that the administration belatedly opposed through an approvals process.

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Shoshana Bryen | Jewish Policy Center | June 19, 2024

President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Oct. 18, 2023. (Photo: Avi Ohayon/GPO)

According to Politico, in a piece largely overlooked, “The Biden administration is considering appointing a U.S. official to serve as the top civilian adviser to a mostly Palestinian force when the Israel-Hamas conflict ends, four U.S. officials said—a sign that the U.S. plans to be very involved in securing a post-war Gaza.”

The article added, “The civilian adviser would be based in the region and work closely with the commanding officer of the force, who would be either Palestinian or from an Arab nation, the people said.”

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Peloni:  Caroline discusses the circumstances and revelations related to Netanyahu’s declaration that it is inconceivable for America to withhold weapons from Israel as it is facing the forces arrayed against it.

By Ron Torossian

President Biden has repeatedly actively interfered in Israel’s democracy with public and private criticism, lectures, pressures and demands in an attempt to overthrow the democratically elected Netanyahu government. America does not mask their dislike for the leaders our people have chosen to elect. American pressure helped convince Benny Gantz to leave the government, and even after this by nearly all accounts Israel’s government will remain intact with a 64-seat majority. There is a strong government in place and the Jewish State of Israel and the challenges it faces worldwide on a daily basis which must always be protected even if America doesn’t like who we elect.

President Biden has repeatedly pressured and lectured Israel, from demanding no invasion of Rafah and has lectured and warned Israel repeatedly – more times than he has Iran or Russia. Its noted and celebrated by Hamas and other enemies of the West.

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By Leon Kushner

Prof. Louis René Beres, BESA CENTER

 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

For the most part, Israel’s no-choice Gaza War has been fought against sub-state terrorist adversary Hamas. But on April 13, 2024, Iran launched a first-ever direct missile and drone attack upon Israel. Though Tehran claimed the attack was permissible retaliation for Israel’s prior targeting of Iranian diplomats in Syria, the victims were in fact senior terrorist operators and the shielding consulate was being used perfidiously by Iran. Moreover, the Iranian attack was intentionally indiscriminate (displaying mens rea, or criminal intent) and thus a violation of humanitarian international law. The critical question for Israel is now this: What forms of lawful reaction should be launched against Iran, and when?

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By Hugh Fitzgerald | June 18, 2024

The Bidenites are trying to impose a deal on Israel that, if accepted, will prevent the IDF from finishing off the last four Hamas battalions in Rafah, and still leave thousands of Hamas fighters in northern Gaza who though their larger units have dissolved, have been trying to regroup. Should the Americans prevent Israel from achieving its goal of totally destroying Hamas as a military force, this would allow the terror group to claim that it has been “victorious” in the war because, despite everything that the IDF has thrown at it over eight months, it would still be standing, so that it might eventually repeat the attacks of October 7, as it has promised, “again and again.” Fortunately, Hamas now insists on major changes to the deal enunciated by Joe Biden; it demands both an immediate and permanent ceasefire, and a total withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza, something that neither Israel nor the Bidenites can possibly accept.

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By Alexander G. Markovsky | June 18, 2024

Image: Ukrainian flag by ???? ???????. CC BY-SA 2.0.

In a speech delivered on August 1, 1991, in Kiev, President George H.W. Bush urged Ukraine to consider risks associated with independence. He delivered a clear warning to Ukraine, stating that “…. freedom is not the same as independence. Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.”

The President’s warnings fell on deaf ears. Ukrainian leaders were not pursuing national interests. Instead, they were motivated by unfounded hostility toward Russia. The outcome proved catastrophic.

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Peloni:  It is important to understand that the coup which Tucker discusses here is not just political, but societal.  The intent was that this coup would be held fast in place, leaving the public no manner by which to turn the clock back, and yet there stands what may be a single opportunity to return the world to some estimate of what existed before this societal coup took place.  That opportunity will be the possible return of the governing determinant in America to be the will of the people rather than the will of the elites in November’s election.  While many people suggest that this will be the most important election in history, we should recognize the greater reality about the coming election, which is that it is far less than an election and far more of a counter-revolution, a counter-coup in which the world might be tipped back towards its proper axis.  Of course, should this counter-coup fail to materialize as did the Red Tsunami of 2022, we know well enough what the future holds as we have been living thru the unfolding of much of that nightmare already overthe past 4 years.

By Jeffrey A. Tucker | April 20, 2024

The last few years can be tracked at two levels: the physical reality around us and the realm of the intellectual, mental, and psychological.

The first level has presented a chaotic narrative of the previously unthinkable. A killer virus that turned out to be what many people said it was in February 2020: a bad flu with a known demographic risk best treated with known therapeutics. But that template and the ensuing campaign of fear and emergency rule gave rise to astonishing changes in our lives.

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General Avivi at his best.

By Ronn Torossian June 18/24

Zionist prophet Ze’ev Jabotinsky said many years ago, “The past lays a railroad track for the future.”

Jabotinsky once asked,

“‘Everybody is wrong and you alone are right?’ No doubt this question springs by itself to the reader’s lips and mind. It is customary to answer this with apologetic phrases to the effect that I fully respect public opinion, that I bow to it, that I was glad to make concessions… All this is unnecessary, and all this is untrue. You cannot believe in anything in the world, if you admit even once that perhaps your opponents are right, and not you. This is not the way to do things. There is but one truth in the world, and it is all yours. If you are not sure of it, stay at home; but if you are sure, don’t look back, and it will be your way.”

As Jabotinsky said,

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By Victor Sharpe  June 18, 2024

The Democratic Party is now irretrievably the party of Leftwing radicals, the so-called progressives whose behavior should better be described as fatally regressive.

What once united Republicans and Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals has disappeared. Gone are the days when secure borders, national sovereignty, religious freedom along with national pride were a shared American value, instead all came under a sustained and deliberate attack during the eight long years of the Barack Hussein Obama regime. He proclaimed that he had come to transform America and so many cheered loudly.

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