Urgent call illustrates Washington’s attempts to prevent a widening war in the Middle East

By Vivian Salama,  Dion Nissenbaum  and Benoit Faucon, WSJ     Dec. 23, 2023

Israeli soldiers guard near the border with Lebanon. The war between Israel and Hamas that ignited on Oct. 7 has also inflamed tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. PHOTO: AMIR LEVY/GETTY IMAGES

WASHINGTON—President Biden urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt a pre-emptive strike against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon days after Hamas militants’ Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel, warning that such an attack could spark a wider regional war.

Israel had intelligence—which the U.S. deemed unreliable—that Hezbollah attackers were preparing to cross the border as part of a multipronged attack, pushing some of Israel’s more hawkish officials to the brink, officials said.

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30,000 EXPLOSIVE WEAPONS CAPTURED SINCE START OF WAR

Deaths bring weekend toll to 13, with 152 troops killed since start of ground op; military says chief of supplies for Hamas’s armed wing killed in Rafah strike, as campaign expands

By EMANUEL FABIAN, TOI    24/12/23

IDF soldiers announced killed in the Gaza Strip on December 24, 2023: Top L-R: Master Sgt. (res.) Nadav Issachar Farhi, Master Sgt. (res.) Eliyahu Meir Ohana, Sgt. First Class (res.) Elyassaf Shoshan, Sgt. First Class (res.) Ohad Ashur; bottom: Staff Sgt. David Bogdanovskyi, Staff Sgt. Orel Bashan, Staff Sgt. Itamar Shemen, Staff Sgt. Gal Hershko. (Courtesy)

The Israel Defense Forces announced Sunday the names of eight additional soldiers killed in fighting on Saturday, bringing the number of troops killed over the weekend to 13, as the military deepened its offensive against the Hamas terror group.

Four soldiers of the Combat Engineering Corps and a paramedic were killed by an anti-tank guided missile that hit a Namer armored engineering vehicle they were in, in southern Gaza. Another four were killed by bombs in two separate incidents during battles with gunmen in central Gaza.

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By M.B. Mathews, AM THINKER

I recently wrote a column about why I believed Trump should not run in 2024. I was wrong. I allowed my distaste for Trump’s personality to override his virtues, which are considerable.

Some people want Trump without his vices. I was among them — until I watched and listened to Tom Klingenstein’s speech titled “Trump’s virtues.”

It was masterful and shamed me that I did not make the distinction between Trump’s character and his virtues, the former being deeply flawed, the latter being almost perfect.

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T. Belman. This is absolutely brilliant. Hamas, an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, is out gunned in the military war but Israel is outgunned in the war for public opinion. That’s why Martin Sherman has recommended that Israel spend $1B  yearly on public diplomacy.

The global scope and scale of Hamas’s antisemitic influence dramatically exceeds even the Nazis from whom it takes much of its own inspiration.

By RICHARD KEMP, JPOST    DECEMBER 22, 2023

Hamas is by far the most successful antisemitic entity in the world today.

Beyond all competition, it has mobilized Jew-hatred around the world, using the State of Israel both as its target and its primary weapon. By waging war against Israel over many years, Hamas has inspired and energized international organizations such as the UN and the EU; governments and parliaments; the Western media; university authorities, professors, and students; human rights groups; businesses; and large sectors of the general population.

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The buffer zone has moved south of the border, and the IDF faces daily mortar attacks from Hezbollah.

By Jonathan Spyer, WSJ     Dec. 21, 2023

The Dvoranit outpost on the Israel-Lebanon border PHOTO: JONATHAN SPYER

Will Israel launch a military operation to clear Hezbollah from its northern border? Or is the war there already under way?

“We see a steady escalation in terms of the range and variety of munitions being launched by Hezbollah at Israel,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, international spokesman of the Israel Defense Forces, told a group of foreign journalists at a briefing in northern Israel on Dec. 18. “We can do the same, if we need to, against Hezbollah that we are doing against Hamas in the south. This may be the scenario that we will need to implement.”
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Hopefully, naivety will be a casualty of the Hamas War.  Children in a playground can be naive – but our world is no playground. 

By Howard Rotberg    Dec 22, 2023,

“It is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be.”– Anatole France

The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary defines “naive” as “lacking knowledge, experience of life, or good judgment, and willing to believe that people always tell you the truth”. To this, I, a son of a Holocaust survivor, would add “willing to believe that people are good”. Every morning, after reading the newspaper, I am reminded that this is a world of Good versus Evil, and people who don’t understand that are naive.

And so, after the Shoah, naivety should have died. Or maybe it just faded a bit and has revived itself,

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By Majid Rafizadeh,  GATESTONE   23 December 2023

• If the Biden administration thought that by rescuing Iran’s economy, which had hit bottom, and removing the Houthis from the list of Foreign Terror Organizations would make both Iran into an ally, the generosity appears to have backfired.
• If the Iranian regime is allowed to advance to nuclear weapons capability, it will be on course finally to drive the US out of the region; threaten its oil-rich neighbors; destabilize Europe; deploy military assets in Venezuela and Cuba, and, at last, come for the “Great Satan,” the United States.
• It must be made unmistakably clear to Iran that the United States will not allow Iran’s current regime, a designated state sponsor of terrorism, to arm itself with nuclear weapons and emerge as yet another global nuclear threat in the Middle East, Europe and South America.

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By Tom Nash

“According to the report, the Defense Ministry is launching a crash program with Israel’s military industries and major industrialists to make Israel independent in everything related to ordnance. In the initial phase, Israel will begin producing bombs for its aircraft. Jerusalem also intends to expand its production of tank and artillery shells, as well as assault rifles and bullets. Separately, there is increased discussion regarding the establishment of a missile force as an independent arm of the IDF. The force would reduce reliance on the air force and develop more versatile, more easily defended missile launch platforms and massively expand Israel’s missile and drone arsenals.”

It will take years to correct the damage the generals wrought by reducing the size of the IDF and inducing its total dependence on the United States

Caroline B. Glick  (December 22, 2023 / JNS)

U.S.-made MIM-23 Hawk anti-aircraft missiles on display at a military parade in Tel Aviv in 1965. Credit: Avraham Amir via Wikimedia Commons.

Two underlying assumptions guided Israel’s security establishment for the past generation. The first asserted that with the end of the Cold War, the era of conventional wars had ended. In the present age, brains, rather than brawn, would rule the roost.

The primary author of the “small and smart IDF” doctrine was Ehud Barak, who served as Chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces when the Berlin Wall crumbled. In later years, the slogan was finessed.

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Peloni: More data.  It would appear from this survey that support among American Jews is almost uniformly and unequivocally in favor of Israel’s war on Hamas regardless of age, politics or religiosity.

The Israel on Campus Coalition survey found 81% backing for Israel’s war, but Gen Z Jews are a bit less supportive

By Haley Cohen, Jewish Insider   December 21, 2023

The Maccabeats perform during ‘March For Israel’ at the National Mall on November 14, 2023 in Washington, DC. The large pro-Israel gathering comes as the Israel-Hamas war enters its sixth week following the October 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images)

American Jews are overwhelmingly united in support of Israel continuing its ground operation in Gaza and also approve of President Joe Biden’s response to the war, according to a new survey commissioned by the Israel on Campus Coalition.

The poll, conducted by Schoen Cooperman Research (SCR), found that 81% of American Jews support Israel continuing its military operation to “recover all Israeli hostages and remove Hamas from power.” Only 12% of respondents said they preferred “an immediate ceasefire to save Palestinian lives, even if that means “Israeli hostages aren’t recovered and Hamas remains in power.”

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T. Belman. First of all, the recitals at the beginning of a resolution are not binding. They provide context. The operative clauses are binding but not enforcable by the UN unless they are Chap VII reslutions rather than Chap VI resolutions. I have highlighted what I think is important. A number of demands are directed to both parties. No doubt the UN will try to enforce them on Israel and ignore violations by Hamas. Israel will argue that either both sides need to comply or no one does. But as we know, the UN is biased.  This is the just the first of many resolution to come. Hamas will continuye to comandeer the supplies and the coordinator will not be able to do anything about it.

Of course if Israel refuses to comply with a UNSC resolution demanding a cessation of hostilities, she can be expelled from the UN.

Can the UN impose a solution on Israel? 

Vote is 13-0 with US, Russia abstaining; seeks ‘urgent steps to immediately allow’ more aid, free all hostages, and create conditions for ‘sustainable cessation of hostilities’

T. Belman.  Included was “7. Demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access to address medical needs of all hostages;”

OAN’s Brooke Mallory    Friday, December 22, 2023

A resolution calling for emergency aid for Gazans was approved by the United Nations (UN) Security Council on Friday by a vote of 13-0, however, it did not ask for a halt to the warfare.

Both Russia and the United States chose not to exercise their veto authority and did not participate in the voting. The resolution’s phrasing had reportedly prompted the United States to object.

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T. Belman.  This is crazy. I do not believe the results. . The WSJ refered to the poll and said “However, supporters of Netanyahu’s governing coalition prefer Trump over Biden by a 49-14 margin.” One cannot reconcile these numbers.

Poll finds Jewish public opinion has sharply swung in incumbent’s direction following support for Israel in wake of Oct. 7, after overwhelming 2020 support for Republican rival

By JACOB MAGID     22/12/23

US President Donald Trump (L) and Democratic Presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden on September 29, 2020. (Jim Watson and Saul Loeb / AFP)

Forty percent of Jewish Israelis want US President Joe Biden to be reelected in the 2024 presidential election, compared to just 26.2% who back Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, a poll conducted on Wednesday found.

The results of the poll indicated a massive swing in Israelis’ support for the current president, who has made a series of gestures to the Jewish state since the Hamas onslaught of October 7 while his predecessor has spent time at rallies mocking the intelligence failure that led to the devastating attack and criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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By MEMRI   21 December 2023

T. Belman. David Israel suggests that rejection of the Palestinian state is the defining issue. Also he points our that the earlier poll had a small sample.

By  David Israel, JEWISH PRESS      December 22, 2023

Channel 14 on Thursday night released the first Direct Polls survey since the start of the war, showing Benny Gantz and his National Unity Party with 28 mandates (currently only 12), if elections were held this week. Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party are right behind him, with 27 mandates (currently 32).

Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid lags in third place with only 14 mandates (currently 24); Avigdor Liberman’s Israel Beiteinu with 11 (6); Aryeh Deri’s Shas with 10 (11); Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit with 8 (6); United Torah Judaism with 7 (7); Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am with 6 (5); Ayman Odeh’s Hadash-Ta’al with 5 (5); and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism with 4 (7).
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Eve R. In this interview, Avi Abelow interviews Joshua Philipp of Epoch Times, identifying the historic role of China in the Palestinian jihad movements.

By Avi Abelow, PULSE OF ISRAEL   21 December 2023

T. Belman. Sherman has been banging this drum for over a decade. He argued that Israel should invest at least $1 B/yr in public diplomacy arguing it was as important as investing in the defense budget.

Events today show how right he was. Our failure to do so has resulted in the massive success of Palestinian propaganda. The whole world has turned against us.

The first order of business would be to devise and deploy a political “Iron Dome” to protect Israel from the incoming barrages of delegitimization and demonization.

By MARTIN SHERMAN  OCTOBER 31, 2013

The State of Israel, the country that represents Jews throughout the world as much as its citizens, is slowly but surely abdicating its role by its action or perhaps better said inaction vis-a-vis public diplomacy. What has happened to the leadership of the past, men and women who were not afraid to state their minds and fight for what has always been rightfully ours? We are no longer respected and are at the mercy of a leftist faction and media who will stop at nothing to help in our destruction. – Naomi Romm, in a Facebook response to my previous column, “Dereliction of Duty”