by Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Strategic Tribune  January 2024

IDF troops in Gaza, November 2023. Photo credit: EYEPRESS via Reuters Connect.

When the war broke out in Gaza, observers made a number of comparisons to the challenges faced by the US-backed anti-ISIS coalition in the battle of Mosul. I was in northern Iraq when it began in October 2016, and I covered the battles leading up to the liberation of the old city of Mosul in March and April 2017. I also reported on the ISIS war in other areas and was able to see how ISIS used tunnels to hide from US aircraft, much as Hamas uses tunnels in Gaza, although the ISIS tunnels were much less extensive. ISIS brutality was similar to the crimes of Hamas.

Read more…

Peloni:  So much for Haley being the most conservative choice.  Also, it is very important to note that a majority of voters in the Rep primary recognize that 2020 was a stolen election, and that the distinction between the choice of those voters could not be more clearly displayed.

by Nick Robertson, The Hill – 01/23/24 8:20 PM ET

Peloni:  This is well worth a listen.  Kari Lake is priceless.

Sundance, The Conservative Treehouse January 23, 2024

T. Belman.  For starters the US should aupport Israel’s fight with Hamas and ensure that Israel is the victor. Secondly, the US should abandon the Palestinian cause and the TSS because the Palestinians will draw closer to Russia and its partners.

Thirdly, The US should cause the brakeup of Syria so that Russia and Iran remain in control of aonly a small part of it.

Fourthly, the US should force Abdullah II to abdicate the throne in Jordan and enable Mudar Zahran to take over the country as Israel’s ally.

America needs a strategy that can effectively counter the authoritarian collaboration between China, Russia, and Iran.

By CORBAN TEAGUE, & DANIEL TWINING,  NATIONAL REVIEW   JAN 23/24

The United States once again finds itself locked in a great-power competition with hostile revisionist powers. Like the first iteration, Cold War II is at its core an ideological clash over the future of the global order. Does Washington want a world in which the balance of power tilts toward freedom and individual liberty, or a world dominated by brutal autocrats oppressing their own people and terrorizing their neighbors?

Read more…

TOM NASH REPORT

By AMWAJ.MEDIA                                                             22 January 2024

Funeral procession held for Iranian troops killed in Syria whose bodies were recently identified, Tehran, Iran on Dec. 2, 2023. (Photo via Tasnim News Agency)

The story: In another major attack on senior Iranian military officers in Syria, five members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have been killed in suspected Israeli airstrikes. This comes barely a month after the most influential commander of the IRGC’s expeditionary Quds Force in the Levant lost his life in a similar incident. While Israel has long attacked Iranian positions in Syria, the recent string of brazen assassinations and the seniority of the targets have raised questions about Iran’s deterrence strategy.

Read more…

BY NITSANA DARSHAN-LEITNER,  – 01/15/24

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, at the Muqata in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool photo via AP)

More than three months have passed since the Oct. 7 attack against Israel, and officials have warned that eradicating Hamas and its military capabilities will take many months, if not longer. Hamas spent 17 years and untold billions of dollars establishing a terror mini-state inside and underneath the Gaza Strip. Destroying the hundreds of miles of terror tunnels, eliminating battalions of trained killers and searching for hostages, all the while trying to avoid civilian casualties, is a slow-moving deliberate process. But still, as the fighting rages on, the talk in many world capitals — especially inside the beltway of Washington, D.C. — is about what to do the “day after” Hamas is removed from power.
Read more…

The Air Force has a central place in our concept of security, but in the surprise attack it clearly failed. The Air Force must make the necessary repairs as soon as possible. An open letter to the corps commander

Meir Most and Ofer Shalev, Mida  January 22, 2024

Where were they at the moment of truth? Photo: IDF spokesman

On Shabbat morning Simchat Torah, when the war broke out, they took from the military, generals, junior and senior commanders in the armor, the infantry brigades and the Harmash of the Tshal tanks and tigers and without any order they charged, shot the terrorists and when they ran out of ammunition they rushed forward and ran over the terrorists with their chains. The impressive example , of many kinds, are three tanks under the command of commanders and air defense units that raced dozens of kilometers, arrived, shot and ran over fifty terrorists. Heroes and heroines, soldiers and civilians who understood the gravity of the event and despite the vague and partial picture of the battle took a personal risk to save the residents of the surrounding area and fighters who were surprised A complete surprise. There are many examples in which we saw resourcefulness and an impressive personal initiative of soldiers, policemen, and other citizens who, without a battle image, and without any explicit guidance/order, took their personal weapons and flew to the surrounding area to rescue and save settlers and soldiers who were attacked in their beds.

Read more…

MEMRI

October 7 Proved That Liberating Palestine From The River To The Sea Is Realistic And Has Already Begun’

In a three-part interview with Kuwaiti podcaster Amar Taki, posted during the second week of January 2024, Khaled Mashal, the leader of Hamas abroad, rejected the two-state solution. He said that there is a consensus among Palestinians that they will not give up their rights to Palestine from the Mediterranean River to the Mediterranean Sea. Mashal said that October 7 has renewed this dream and hope and shown that it is a realistic idea, not merely a dream. He stated that taking control of the Gaza Strip following the 2006 elections was necessary in order to build up the resistance, its weapons production, and tunnels, without any hindrance from the Palestinian Authority.

Read more…

By Jonathan Schanzer and Natalie Ecanow, NY POST   22 January 2024

Secretary of State Antony Blinken toured the Middle East this month in an effort to prevent a wider regional war.

But while Blinken was there, Jordanian jet fighters struck Iran-backed militias and narco-traffickers in Syria.

Jordan’s narco-battles have received scant attention but are part and parcel of Iran’s multifront offensive against the United States and its allies across the region.

Read more…

The Caroline Glick Show In-Focus

MK Danon to Arutz Sheva: We have to count only on ourselves

 “We should tell our allies in Washington that we appreciate their support, but we have to do whatever is necessary to win this war”.

“I think we should go back to the same way we acted at the beginning of the war,”

Explosion possibly caused by RPG attack as IDF prepared structures for demolition using explosives, with nearby tank hit by a missile; death toll in ground op reaches 219

By EMANUEL FABIAN, TOI

T. Belman. A new block has been formed consisting of Russia, China, Iran and Syria,  It will also include much of Africa. Will America abandon the ME or make moves to counter it,

By Simon Watkins, OIL PRICE – Jan 22, 2024, 8:50 AM CST

• Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei gave his official approval to a new 20-year comprehensive cooperation deal between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia.
• The agreement will replace the 10-year-deal signed in March 2001 and has been expanded not only in duration but also in scope and scale.
• The new deal includes far-going agreements on defense and energy.

Read more…

T. Belman. Russian SU-35 jets will be delivered to Iran in March.

By  admin, DEFENCE/STREET

F-35 vs Su-35: The comparison between the F-35 and the Su-35 is a subject of intense debate and speculation within the defense and aviation communities. Both fighter jets belong to different countries and represent advanced capabilities in their respective ways. The F-35, developed by Lockheed Martin for the United States and its allies, is a fifth-generation multi-role stealth fighter designed to excel in air-to-air combat, ground attack, and reconnaissance missions. On the other hand, the Su-35, manufactured by Russia’s Sukhoi, is a fourth-generation heavy-class fighter renowned for its maneuverability and advanced avionics.

Obsessive hatred of Israel by Hezbollah, the Houthis, Syria, and Iraqi militias threatens their own societies.

by ERIC BORDENKIRCHER, AMERICAN SPECTATOR ,      21 Jan 2024

The Israel-Hamas war has placed a spotlight on the absurdity enveloping the parts of the Arab world subjected to Iranian interference: Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.

Despite being afflicted by deepening financial and humanitarian crises and not having been attacked on October 7, leadership or entities in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq have responded to the Israel-Hamas war with aggression against Israel and its American ally. The response demonstrates the continued devaluation of standards, obscene priorities, the absence of accountability, and the rendering of life in these societies as meaningless. The disregard exhibited by the leadership and militias for the welfare of their country and their peoples, particularly ones already facing abject conditions, signals the presence of environments willing to entertain pyrrhic victories.

Read more…

T. Belman.  Once again, the title is misleading.  Netanyahyu did not use the expression “no full Palestinian state”. What he did say is ““I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over all the territory west of the Jordan [River]”.

Blinken said Israel cannot achieve “genuine security” without a pathway to a Palestinian state ” The opposite is true.

PM pushes back on White House vision of pathway to two-state solution and reports of a grand bargain that would end war, though he doesn’t rule out demilitarized Palestinian state

By LAZAR BERMAN,TOI    21 January 2024, 11:55 pm

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks in a video statement, January 19, 2024. 

As US President Joe Biden’s administration called for the war against Hamas to wind down alongside a pathway toward a two-state solution at the end of the fight, Israel’s leadership presented a vision at odds with that of the White House on Sunday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down in a video message on his determination not to allow a full-fledged, militarized Palestinian state to emerge.

“I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over all the territory west of the Jordan [River],” he said, echoing recent comments.

Read more…

Nothing in this hypocritical world is a surprise, but the insistence on leaving Gazans in tents instead of helping them emigrate is a shock to the most cynical among us. Film

By Ezri Tubi, BOOMERANG                                           22 January 2024

Gazans wait to enter Egypt

Millions of refugees from countries like Iraq, Syria, and Yemen fled wars in their homelands in the past few decades and sought refuge in other countries.

So why, suddenly, when it comes to the voluntary migration of the Gazans, and polls show that they wanted to migrate even before the war to escape the clutches of Hamas, does the matter become so controversial?”

And why is the world turning a blind eye to the fact that any and every one of them who can possibly get the money together, is paying unscrupulous smugglers exorbitant sums to get into Egypt and help them leave for anywhere they can get to?

Read more…

By Con Coughlin, GATESTONE  •  January 22, 2024

US President Joe Biden meets with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel on October 18, 2023. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

• The Israeli premier has also reiterated his long-standing opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state, which he insists would become a launching pad for attacks on Israel.
• Israel’s efforts to achieve its goal of destroying Hamas, though, are at serious risk of being undermined by the Biden administration’s growing hostility towards Netanyahu’s government.
• Read more…