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The Biden Administration’s diplomacy with Israel over its war against Hamas has reached the Animal House “double-secret probation” stage, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken warning Israel that it may find itself diplomatically “isolated” in the world if it attacks Rafah. Is it possible for Israel to be any more “isolated” than it already is in the joke that is called “the diplomatic community”? Dean Wormer could hardly have done it better, though, to be fair to Faber College, Dean Wormer would make a better secretary of state than Blinken.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Hoodie) is having none of it:
I’m starting to think that instead of banning hoodies on the Senate floor, maybe we should require them. At least for Democrats.
Chaser—I’m finding it harder to dislike this guy for his otherwise liberal views:
dibs on your parking space https://t.co/o9QUhIbKyF
— Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) March 21, 2024
Chaser—Fetterman does have some competition this week, from the Ragin’ Cajun himself, James Carville: “A suspicion of mine is that there are too many preachy females [dominating the culture of the Democratic Party].”
The Times of Israel provides updates on Palestinian casualties according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, but suggests that skepticism is warranted. Indeed, the Ministry of Health is best understood as the functional equivalent of the Ministry of Truth (“Minitrue”) conceived by George Orwell in 1984, i.e., the ministry of propaganda.
In its update on Palestinian casualties in Gaza today, the Times of Israel states the numbers of dead and wounded according to “the Hamas-run health ministry,” but adds: “The terror group’s figures are unverified, don’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, and list all the fatalities as caused by Israel — even those believed to have been caused by hundreds of misfired rockets or otherwise by Palestinian fire.”
These are obvious points, yet the numbers are taken (or repeated) at face value by President Biden and others. Here is Biden performing his Big Brother shtick earlier this month: “You can’t have another 30,000 Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after [Hamas]. There are other ways to deal with Hamas.”
In his invaluable March 6 Tablet column, Professor Abraham Wyner explains “How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers” and even Biden must “know” this. It’s yet another sign of Biden’s turn against Israel and/or support for Hamas.
Let me add today’s sign, per Vice President Kamala Harris: “We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake. Let me tell you, I have studied the maps — there is nowhere for those folks to go. So we’ve been very clear that it would be a mistake to move into Rafah with any kind of military operation.”
VP Kamala Harris takes a tougher line against Israel (re: going after remaining Hamas battalions in Rafah) on ABC’s “This Week”:
“We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake. Let me tell you, I…
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) March 24, 2024
It is widely believed that Joe Biden’s anti-Israel, pro-Hamas policy is driven by his desperate need to carry Michigan if he is to have any hope of re-election. That seems like a reasonable assumption, although, to be fair, it is also possible that he shares his old boss’s anti-Israel animus. But here is another one:
Scoop: The US has urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warning senior SBU and GUR officials that drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices and provoking retaliation.
w/ @hallbenjamin @felschwartz @mylesmccormick_ https://t.co/DRussu4cAs via @FT— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 22, 2024
Biden’s team knows that Americans have had about all the Bidenflation they can stand, and a spike in energy prices between now and November could well doom Joe’s chances. Would Biden be willing to throw the Ukrainians under the bus, along with the Israelis, to improve his odds? I think we all know the answer to that one.
Employees of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, participated in the October 7 attack on Israel, raping, torturing and murdering Jews in tandem with Hamas jihadists and taking Israelis and Americans hostage. Such deadly collaboration should come as no surprise. As Paul Johnson showed in his masterful Modern Times, the United Nations has always been hostile to the West in general and the USA and Israel in particular.
“The notion that Israel was created by imperialism is not only wrong but the reverse of the truth,” writes Johnson. “Everywhere in the West, the foreign offices, defense ministries and big business were against the Zionists.” United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, the worst possible choice for the post according to Johnson, “treated Israel not as a small and vulnerable nation but as an outpost of imperialism.”
The UN boss demonstrated “the way in which the UN could be used to marshal and express hatred of the West.” That emerged in the Algerian conflict of the late 1950s, with a dynamic that went back to Muhammed Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem. He “outrivaled Hitler in his hatred for Jews” and “organized the systematic destruction of Arab moderates.”
In March of 1962, Johnson recalls, “a Muslim mob sacked the Great Synagogue in the heart of the Casbah, gutting it, ripping the Torah scrolls, killing the Jewish officials and chalking on the wall ‘Death to the Jews’ and other Nazi slogans.” Muslims who had sided with French were “made to dig their own tombs and swallow their military decorations before being killed; some were burned alive, castrated, dragged behind trucks, fed to the dogs; there were cases where entire families, including tiny children, were murdered together.” Decolonization of Africa brought similar horrors.
Johnson charts the atrocities of Bokassa, Mobutu, Sekou Toure et al, but “the most instructive case” was Uganda’s Idi Amin, who became a Muslim at age 16. In 1970, Libya’s Col. Gaddafi and the PLO’s Yasser Arafat pressured Amin to mount a coup against Milton Obote. Amin toppled Obote in early 1971 and quickly showed his true colors.
“Amin’s was a racist regime, operated in the Muslim-Arab League from the start,” Johnson notes, “since he began the massacres of the Langi and Achili tribes within weeks of taking over.” The dead soon included “any public figure who in any way criticized or obstructed Amin.” The victims included two cabinet ministers beaten to death by Amin himself. The Ugandan Muslim was a “ritual cannibal” who kept selected organs in his refrigerator.
Amin deployed the deadly State Research Center (SRC), operated “on the advice of Palestinians and Libyans.” Amin’s terror, “was a Muslim-Arab phenomenon” and his regime “was in many ways a foreign one, run by Nubians, Palestinians and Libyans.” The UN did nothing to stop it and “the only government to emerge with credit was Israel’s which acted vigorously to save lives when Amin and the Palestinians hijacked an airliner at Entebbe in 1976.”
As Johnson sees it, “Hammarskjold and his school were responsible for prolonging the Amin regime by six terrible years.” This was “the consequence of the morally relativistic principle introduced by Hammarskjold that killing among Africans was not the UN’s business; and Amin could be forgiven for thinking the UN had given him a license for mass-murder, even genocide.”
The Organization of African Unity (OAU) elected Amin as its chairman but the worst was yet to come. On October 1, 1975, Amin addressed UN General Assembly and called for “the expulsion of Israel from the United Nations and the extinction of Israel as a state, so that the territorial integrity of Palestine may be ensured and upheld.”
As Johnson notes, such extinction amounts to “genocide,” but the Assembly gave the Muslim cannibal a standing ovation. The UN Secretary General at the time was Nazi war criminal Kurt Waldheim, who remained in the office until 1981. Waldheimer’s Disease makes people forget the UN boss was a Nazi.
Amin found sanctuary in Saudi Arabia, where he died in 2003 many decades too late. The UN continued to ignore Communist dictatorships and jihadist states such as Iran. That made the events of October 2023 entirely predictable.
The small, vulnerable nation of Israel is again targeted as an imperialist “settler state,” as Johnson noted, a reversal of the truth. Like Idi Amin’s Uganda, Gaza is basically run by Iran through Hamas. Calls to free Palestine “from the river to the sea” echo Amin’s demands for Israel’s extinction, which amounts to genocide. The UN does nothing to prevent the 10/7 attack, and UNRWA employees take part in the slaughter, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, with Israelis and Americans alike taken hostage.
The revelations prompted some countries to withhold aid for UNRWA. That move, though fully justified, falls short. The United Nations is an enemy of peace and freedom around the world. The time has come for mass withdrawal, with the United States of America leading the way.
Joe Biden turning against Israel puts Scott “in mind of the time when England stood alone against a genocidal maniac.” That was the time when Hitler’s National Socialist regime was allied with Stalin’s Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. They signed their Pact on August 23, 1939, and Stalin began handing Jews directly to the Gestapo. In September, 1939, both powers invaded Poland, effectively starting World War II.
In November, 1939, Stalin invaded Finland and in April of 1940 Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway. On May 10, 1940, Hitler invaded France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The genocidal maniac then turned his sights on England, standing alone during the Stalin-Hitler Pact. The American Communists, then collaborating with the pro-Nazi German-American Bund, picketed the White House to keep America out of the conflict, and fomented strikes in defense industries.
In the Battle of Britain (July 10, 1940 – October 31, 1940), England got some help from unofficial sources. Fliers from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Rhodesia, Belgium, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and even the USA, threw in with the Royal Air Force. As the Imperial War Museum explains:
Germany’s failure to defeat the RAF and secure control of the skies over southern England made invasion all but impossible. British victory in the Battle of Britain was decisive, but ultimately defensive in nature – in avoiding defeat, Britain secured one of its most significant victories of the Second World War. It was able to stay in the war and lived to fight another day.
In the style of John Lennon, “imagine” if the American president had been sending millions of dollars in cash to the Nazi regime. Imagine if the American president told Churchill to back off his military campaigns. Imagine if the American president and prominent senators had called for an election to remove Winston Churchill, and so on. Had such moves taken place, England might not have lived on to fight another day. The parallels are lost on Joe Biden, who in a 2020 debate said “Hitler invaded Europe,” like something from the drunk at the end of the bar.
As Scott notes, Biden and his brain trust “support the survival of Hamas,” genocidal maniacs pushing for a second Holocaust. The History of Jihad author Robert Spencer has thoughts on what this might mean for America:
What do Biden regime apparatchiks think will happen if Hamas defeats Israel and survives this war? Do they think that the jihadis will be so overflowing with gratitude to the U.S. that they won’t ever strike Americans or U.S. interests? They’re in for a rude surprise.
Robert Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute. He took issue with the December 2 Washington Post story “Israel’s assault forced a nurse to leave babies behind. They were found decomposing.” Satloff deconstructed the Post story in the 5,000-word critique “Once Again, a ‘Palestinian Babies Story Merits a Washington Post Apology.”
Satloff’s critique elicited a response from Post executive editor Sally Buzbee. She stands by the Post’s story and demands that Satloff clean up his critique. Satloff publishes Buzbee’s response in his disappointed postscript “Sadly, WaPost Admits No Error in Story Filled with Them.”
This episode had me thinking back to my own examination of the Post’s reporting in this vein on Israel’s 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense. Mr. Satloff, I see your 5,000 words and raise you 5,000 words. I wrote several posts and well over 5,000 words on the story featuring the aptly named Jihad Masharawi. Forgive me for saying that those posts have stood the test of time! As the song goes, “same as it ever was.” I have retrieved this March 11, 2013 post from our archives.
* * * * *
I wrote about the photograph of BBC Arabic editor Jihad Masharawi holding the shrouded body of his 11-month-old son, Omar, in posts here, here, here and here. The photograph depicted Masharawi outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City early in Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense. The young Masharawi’s death was attributed to an Israeli airstrike.
The photograph went viral on the second day of the conflict between Hamas and Israel, being featured on the Web and in newspapers around the world. One such among many was the Washington Post, which ran it at the top of page one. The photo is below.
Washington Post ombdudsman Patrick Pexton devoted a column to complaints about the photograph. Paul Mirengoff explicated the manifest animus in Pexton’s column.
Everything Pexton asserted directly or indirectly as a matter of fact was wrong. When a major newspaper ombudsman is this utterly clueless, who ya gonna call? Not Ghostbusters. Power Line, I guess.
Paul Danahar is the BBC Middle East Bureau Chief and Masharawi’s colleague. He spent much of the day at Masharawi’s house on the day on the day Masharawi’s son was killed, tweeting a photo of the hole in the roof of Masharawi’s house. The house wasn’t bombed, Pexton to the contrary notwithstanding. Danahar described the munition that did the damage as a “shell.”
I tweeted Danahar to ask him on what basis he identified the munition as Israeli. I wrote at the time on Power Line that I doubted it was. I thought it was more likely to have been a Hamas rocket that failed to hit its intended target in Israel. (As I recall, something like 10 percent of the Hamas rockets landed in Gaza.) Danahar failed to respond to my tweet, although he relentlessly propagated the line that Israeli forces had killed Masharawi’s son.
Everything about the photograph looked phony to me. Was Masharawi sobbing? His face doesn’t even look like he has shed tears. Masharawi looks like he’s enacting grief. I understand that Masharawi in fact lost his son as a result of the munition that hit his house, but I found the photo odd (as I did the other photos in the series of Masharawi parading around for the cameras).
I thought that Masharawi was engaging in an opportunistic bit of Terrorist Theater, the kind I wrote about in the Weekly Standard article “He didn’t give at the office.” The article demonstrates how news service stringers in Gaza work as an arm of the terrorist authorities on whom they purport to report. By the way, the staged photos of Arafat that I wrote about in the Standard article were the work of an AP stringer. The photo of Masharawi that the Post ran was credited to the AP.
Terrorist Theater is a function of the sinister authority wielded by terrorist forces in the areas where they hold sway. Gaza is of course under the thumb of Hamas, one such terrorist power.
We held that the death of Masharawi’s son was a tragedy and offered our condolences to Masharawi on the loss of his son. We acknowledged that we didn’t know to a certainty what had happened or who is responsible for the death, and therefore asked readers to keep an open mind.
I hope you will forgive me for rehearsing what must seem like ancient history, but it really is necessary to put this report in context, as they say: “UN clears Israel of charge it killed baby in Gaza.” The Times of Israel has the story, based on this UN report:
United Nations report cleared Israel in the death of the infant son of a BBC employee during Operation Pillar of Defense in November, instead fingering a misfired Palestinian rocket for the tragedy.
The November 14 strike left 11-month-old Omar Jihad al-Mishrawi and Hiba Aadel Fadel al-Mishrawi, 19, dead. The death of Omar, the son of BBC Arabic journalist Jihad al-Mishrawi, garnered more than usual media attention and focused anger for the death on Israel, which was initially blamed for the death.
Rather, the report suggests, a 19-year-old woman and a baby were hit by shrapnel from a rocket fired by Palestinians that was aimed at Israel, but missed its mark.
Omar is dead, and Hamas killed him, but both Jihad and jihad live, and the BBC and the Washington Post among others are their willing tools.
On March 20, the Sacramento City Council passed Resolution 2024, which:
Calls for an immediate and permanent bilateral ceasefire to urgently end the current violence; a true and effective bilateral ceasefire must include four key simultaneous elements. (1) Hamas must cease all military operations directed against Israel, (2) the immediate unconditional release of all Israeli hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, (3) Israel must stop the bombing and military action inside the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and (4) the elimination of all offensive weapons by Israel and Hamas directed at one another.
The Muslim and Arab-American communities are experiencing the terrible rise in Islamophobia and anti-Arab rhetoric, the acceptance of hate speech on college campuses and elsewhere against Muslims and Arabs, and the refusal of some to condemn Islamophobia and anti-Arab prejudice without qualifications as a shocking reminder of historic reality. Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate are centuries old prejudices that never go away. An independent Palestinian state remains the hope that Palestinians can live safely and freely and never again face threats to their very existence;
And so on, all backed the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). True to form, “Islamophobia” appears four times and anti-Semitism three times. Resolution 2024 was the project of Sacramento mayor Darrell Steinberg. As Sir Bedevire (Terry Jones) might say, who is this who is so wise in the ways of diplomacy?
Steinberg served as an attorney for the California State Employees Association, which gained a faithful friend in the state Senate. In 2004, the Sacramento Democrat sponsored Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act, which backers claimed would get the homeless off the street and keep people out of prison.
Promises Still to Keep: A Decade of the Mental Health Services Act, from California’s Little Hoover Commission, was unable to determine whether the money fulfilled any of the Act’s proclaimed intentions. The Sacramento Bee wondered if the money had been “shoved down a rat hole” with questionable uses “such as yoga, horseback riding, gardening, the purchase of iPads,” and so forth. On the other hand, the measure did give $7.5 million to the UC Davis Behavioral Health Center of Excellence, where Steinberg became director of policy and advocacy.
In 2012, voters faced four measures on taxes and spending. The Senate Governance and Finance Committee held hearings but Steinberg blocked citizens’ access by killing the live broadcast on the California Channel. When this came to light, Steinberg proclaimed, “I pride myself on being open and transparent.” Steinberg now backs Resolution 2024 which claims, “Sacramento is such a special place to live for many reasons.” That is true, but not the way Steinberg spins it.
Twenty years after Proposition 63, the homeless problem is worse than ever. As in San Francisco, dogs run the risk of stepping in human waste. Sacramento has been dubbed “Excremento,” and Steinberg’s Resolution 2024 piles it higher and deeper. As Katy Grimes of the California Globe explains, “it was likely a move to cover and distract from his $66 million budget deficit – and would serve to elevate his political image as Steinberg has his hopes set on a move up to the California Attorney General’s office.”
President Biden has turned on Israel. He and his brain trust support the survival of Hamas. It’s a big-time sell-out. The cover of the current issue of England’s Economist depicts Israel Alone (cover story here behind the Economist paywall). It reminded me of the time when England stood alone against a genocidal maniac — alone against “the insane tyrant,” as Leo Strauss referred to Hitler in his tribute to Churchill — though the thought appears not to have crossed the mind of the Economist.
The IDF has yet to complete its mission in Gaza. Yesterday IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari conducted a briefing on the IDF’s return to Shifa Hospital to root out a large band of terrorists that had come to think of the place as home. Hagari conducted the briefing in Hebrew, but the video below superimposes the English translation, which the IDF has also posted here. This is the text per the IDF:
Good evening.
The operation at the Shifa Hospital continues. This is the operation with the largest aggregation of terrorists we have apprehended since the beginning of the war. So far, we have apprehended over 500 suspects, 358 of which are Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.
They are surrendering, we are interrogating them, and they are providing us with very valuable and important intelligence.We apprehended the chain of command of the Islamic Jihad, including:
1. Muhammad Jundia – Commander of the Shejaiya Battalion of the Islamic Jihad and the Deputy Commander of the terrorist organization’s Northern Brigade
2. Samir Ziad Abd Abu Odeh – Commander of the Al-Shati sector in the rocket unit of the Islamic Jihad.
3. Ahmad Samara – responsible for tunnels and underground terror infrastructure of the Islamic Jihad in the Northern Gaza Strip.We apprehended senior Hamas figures, including:
1. Hamdallah Ali and Omar Azida– Azida, a senior official in the West Bank Headquarters, responsible for directing Hamas terrorist activity in the area of Nablus. Ali, who advanced Hamas activity in the Qalqilya area. The two are senior officials in the West Bank Headquarters of Hamas, they acted within their roles to advance terrorist attacks from Judea and Samaria, directed the transfer of weapons and funds to terrorists. This group operated under Saleh al-Arouri.
2. Mahmoud Kwasma – an operative in the Hamas West Bank Headquarters, planned and financed the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in 2014, Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach, may their memory be a blessing.In addition, we apprehended additional senior officials in Hamas’ Internal Security forces. Many terrorists in Shifa, especially from the Islamic Jihad, surrendered to our forces. This is a very hard blow to the Islamic Jihad – many of its operatives in the north, who are the majority of its significant operatives, either surrendered or were eliminated in the operation so far. With a number of them, we exchanged fire until they surrender or are eliminated.
During the last 24 hours, we entered the Qatari Building [in the Shifa compound]. This is a building that we also operated in during the previous operation in Shifa. This time, terrorists were hiding there. Shayetet 13 searched the building. During the scans on the basement floor, they encountered a terrorist cell. Our soldiers eliminated the terrorists without our forces being harmed. In another battle, another terrorist surrendered; after these battles, several terrorists surrendered. Among them are very senior officials – I still cannot publish their identities because they hold significant intelligence – after we finish interrogating them and find the intelligence with them, we will publish the identities of these terrorists. Senior Hamas officials understand well the significance of the operation and as the picture of the apprehended and of the eliminated terrorists becomes clearer – the pressure on them will increase.
At the beginning of the war, we destroyed the underground infrastructure dug under the hospital, and we confiscated military equipment and weapons hidden in it. The terrorists’ command center at the Shifa Hospital was dealt with then. The terrorists fled in the previous operation when we called to evacuate the compound.
This time we operated differently. This time we operated by surprise. We raided the compound by surprise. The operation, led by the 162nd Division and carried out by special forces units led by Shayetet 13, in full cooperation on the ground, shoulder to shoulder with the ISA and Unit 504 for intelligence extraction in the field. We used deception tactics in this operation, and it was this that led to the success and apprehension of all 358 terrorists and there are more still inside this compound who haven’t managed to escape. This led to Hamas and the Islamic Jihad being severely damaged as a result of the operation. Those who did not surrender to our forces fought against our forces and were eliminated. Among them also the head of the Special Operations Directorate of Hamas’ General Security – who chose to fight against our forces openly and our forces eliminated him.
The fighting continues inside the hospital buildings – inside the buildings at the hospital. There are Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who decided to barricade themselves – they are currently barricading themselves in the area of the emergency room. At this stage, we are evacuating the patients – there are about 220 patients there – to another building. We are creating infrastructure for them, with appropriate medical equipment so that all the patients and doctors can be safe. For the past 24 hours, we continue to call upon the terrorists in the building to surrender, those who surrender will stay alive, those who do not we will fight against until we eliminate them.
Even at these hours, our soldiers are scanning the buildings, evacuating the wounded, and continuing to operate in the compound. There will be more ongoing combat here – there will be several more days to this operation.
Last night, when we visited the soldiers in the field during the operation, from all the special units – as I said, the Commander of Shayetet 13 briefed us, but there was also the ISA, also Unit 504 and also the senior command that came with us to the field. They told us something very very important – they emphasized to us, the soldiers and the commanders, that they will do everything necessary in this operation or another in order to bring about the release of the hostages. They emphasized – this is the most important thing to us.
We do not forget that in Gaza there are 134 hostages. It is our duty to continue and make every operational and intelligence effort, and also in negotiations, in order to bring them back home. This is what we are doing, and this is what we will continue to do. This is our responsibility.
I want to also send encouragement this evening to the families of the hostages. You and your loved ones are with us all the time.
Hagari’s remarks convey a seriousness and dignity in the face of a barbarous enemy. It is a seriousness and dignity that is conspicuous by its absence in the Biden administration.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari delivered a speech in which he confirmed 600 arrested and over 140 terrorists killed in the Al-Shifa operation pic.twitter.com/g2RDbl8qcH
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) March 21, 2024
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 Tobin places Schumer in the context of his career to date: “He’s been in public office continuously since the age of 25, and the 73-year-old Senate Majority Leader has spent his adult life grandstanding for the cameras and the press while always seeking some momentary political advantage as he schemed, back-stabbed and bloviated his way to the top of his profession.”
We can infer that Schumer now approves of foreign interference in another country’s elections. Only yesterday that was a big no-no for purported thought leaders toeing the Democrat Party line.
In this case the government Schumer seeks the replacement of a government that was democratically elected and formed by a close American ally fighting for its life under extremely difficult circumstances. That’s no way to treat a friend.
Schumer pretends that the relevant policies of the Netanyahu government are peculiar to Netanyahu and his coalition. That does not seem to be the case.
Schumer gives aid and comfort to Hamas and its friends in the Democratic Party. We can infer that the obstacle posed by Netanyahu is to the political objectives of the Democratic Party as conceived by President Biden.
Biden has just renewed his sanctions waiver on $10 billion held for the genocidaires of Iran. See Richard Goldberg’s New York Post column “Biden continues Iran’s access to $10 billion just weeks after its proxy killed three American soldiers.” Biden — he doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola.
One has to wonder about the impact of Schumer’s speech in Israel. It can’t help but demoralize Israelis fighting for their lives. However, they are unlikely to think they need Schumer’s help to assess their own best interests. In articulating and pursuing Israel’s war aims, Netanyahu speaks for the people of Israel. They do not support surrender to Hamas or adoption of the two-state final solution.
Senator Tom Cotton has posted a statement responding to Schumer. Senator Cotton sees the unstated obstacle Schumer is addressing: “[T]he main elections that worry Chuck Schumer aren’t Israel’s but our elections because the rampant antisemitism that the Democratic Party has allowed to fester in its ranks is massively unpopular with the pro-Israel American public.” Senator Cotton adds this “come to Jesus” element to his statement for Schumer’s benefit: “Chuck Schumer should remove the log in his own party’s eye before he whines about the speck in Israel’s eye.”
For years, the Democrats have been yammering about “election interference” by Russia that turned out to be either de minimis or entirely fabricated. Now, in a stunning display of hypocrisy, they are aggressively interfering in Israel’s internal politics.
Scott wrote here about the fact that the Biden Administration “obviously seeks to depose the government of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.” The administration has gone so far as to make public an alleged intelligence community assessment to the effect that Netanyahu is unpopular and his government is likely to fall.
Today, Chuck Schumer got into the act:
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday called for new elections in Israel to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This is absolutely stunning. Since when is it the role of the Senate Majority Leader to tell another country–an ally–that they need to replace their government?
Netanyahu has “lost his way,” Schumer continued, “by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel” and by indicating he isn’t interested in the formation of an independent Palestinian state, which has been a U.S. goal for decades.
But it is not a goal of Israel, not if it can’t be done without threatening Israeli security, which is certainly the case today. One might think that the Israeli people are the best judges of their security needs, not an American senator.
Schumer said that Netanyahu has aligned himself with “far-right extremists” like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who he said are “pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.”
There is some truth in that last comment, as anti-Semitism, in the transparent guise of anti-Zionism, has erupted across the Western world. One might therefore think that this is a good time for American leaders to express support for Israel, not try to bring about the overthrow of its government.
But we are not living in normal times.
The Israeli response has been restrained, no doubt in the interest of trying to hold the alliance together:
Israel is a sovereign democracy. It is unhelpful, all the more so as Israel is at war against the genocidal terror organization Hamas, to comment on the domestic political scene of a democratic ally. It is counterproductive to our common goals.
— Ambassador Michael Herzog (@AmbHerzog) March 14, 2024
Let’s hope we have a more sensible administration in place as of January 2025.
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. He currently serves as a distinguished fellow on the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His impressive Washington Institute profile is posted here.
On a personal note, I would like to add this. When I was working on the 2007 Weekly Standard article “How Arafat got away with murder,” I caught Ambassador Ross by telephone in his office late on a Friday afternoon. He was on his way out the door and didn’t know me from Adam, yet he took my question and responded as quoted in the article. He seemed to me a straightforward and decent gentleman.
Ross was invited by the MIT Jewish Alumni Alliance to speak at MIT’s “Standing Together Against Hate” program launched in the aftermath of the the October 7 massacre. MIT president Sally Kornbluth trumpeted the program as an effort aimed at “community building.” She put MIT chancellor Melissa Nobles in charge.
A Hamas apologist is scheduled to speak at MIT as part of the program on March 18. Jewish alumni reached out to Ross and confirmed his willingness to participate in the program’s speaker series. When attempts were made to move forward, however, program planners informed the alumni that Ross is not an appropriate speaker because they deem him “a politician.” The alumni group has posted its March 12 open letter to Kornbluth here.
The Washington Free Beacon’s Jessica Costescu now takes a deep dive into the story under the headline “MIT Refused To Host Dennis Ross. It Invited a Hamas Apologist Instead.” Subhead: “Dalia Mogahed, who described Hamas terrorism as legal ‘resistance,’ slated to speak as a part of MIT’s ‘Standing Against Hate’ Initiative.”
What’s the trouble with Dennis Ross? It’s not that he is a politician. He has never run for office:
Like Ross, Mogahed has served as a presidential adviser, albeit to fewer presidents and in more junior roles. She served as an adviser to former president Barack Obama in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
For Matthew Handel and Lori Ullman, two Jewish Alumni Alliance members, MIT’s refusal to host Ross—and its excuse for excluding him—are insulting.
“It’s already patronizing for anyone to say we’re at MIT, so we think we’re smarter than you,” Handel, who co-founded the group, told the Free Beacon. “It’s beyond arrogant that they would say, ‘We work at MIT, so as MIT alums, we’re smarter than you; MIT students, we’re smarter than you; Congress, we’re smarter than you.'”
Costescu gives the reader everything he might need to understand the story and the actual trouble with Ross, including this valuable note: “MIT did not return a request for comment.”
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 rule has deepened and broadened across the public from its already high levels before the war, and we expect large protests demanding his resignation and new elections,” according to the report. “A different, more moderate government is a possibility.” I assess that the wish is father to the thought and that the assessment bears the trademark of “Our Democracy
.”
Netanyahyu’s voice can be heard in the response attributed to a “very senior” Israeli official in a statement issued to the media: “Those who elect the prime minister of Israel are the citizens of Israel and no one else. Israel is not a protectorate of the US but an independent and democratic country whose citizens are the ones who elect the government. We expect our friends to act to overthrow the terror regime of Hamas and not the elected government in Israel.”
The intelligence community could not be reached for comment.
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 here along with these further remarks in a Churchillian vein:
Some people would make you believe that the people of Israel are disunited. In fact, some people would have you believe there is the prime minister and then there is the people of Israel.
The truth of the matter is that the people of Israel overwhelmingly support the policies set forth by myself and my government. They overwhelmingly support the need for total victory. Overwhelmingly. They overwhelmingly oppose the idea of having a Palestinian state rammed down our throat.
We just had a vote in the Knesset, to illustrate the point I just made, 99 to 9 supporting this position. And you know what? It’s not irrational. It’s because they think that giving now a Palestinian state after the October 7th massacre will be the greatest reward for terrorism in modern times.
They overwhelmingly reject the idea that we should implant, after we’ve destroyed Hamas in Gaza, the PA that still inculcates its children towards terrorism and the annihilation of Israel. They want a future of peace, a future of security that is purchased by a resounding victory.
And as I say, the possibilities for this victory, the possibilities that are opened up are immense but they require that one word: victory. And I will repeat it again, victory, victory, victory. No substitute for that and we will achieve it together.
Netanyahu knows he represents the consensus of Israeli popular opinion on this point and he gives no sign of backing down.
We will finish the job. Watch my speech at the AIPAC policy conference >> pic.twitter.com/QvPEyzfQvc
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) March 12, 2024
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