ISRAEL-GAZA UPDATE
Thanks again to Mike Claydon’s diligence I present the latest update from the Israel Gaza war. You can receive these updates free of charge when you subscribe to the Israel Report:
Israel Report Editor; Mike Claydonisraelreport@mail.com
Gibber! Gibber!
Chugley
Obama’s moral equivalence – Everyone’s hands are dirty……..
Cookie Schwaeber-IssanIn his usual fashion, former U.S. President Barack Obama felt compelled to weigh in about what’s happening in the Hamas/Israel war, trying to sound even-handed in order not to tick anyone off. What he fails to comprehend, however, is that in his pitiful attempt to bring moral equivalence to the two parties, he not only angers both sides, but he indicts himself as being incapable of understanding the history of the Middle East as well as the players.
During his recent appearance on Pod Saves America, Obama’s representation of “the big picture” was to say,
“What Hamas did was horrific and there’s no justification for it, and what’s also true is that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable. And what is true is there are people right now who are dying who have nothing to do with what Hamas did and the problem with the social media and TikTok activism and trying to debate this or that, is that you can’t speak truth. You can pretend to speak the truth. You can speak one side of the truth, but if you want to solve the problem, then you have to take in the whole truth and you then have to admit that nobody’s hands are clean.”
The only thing that can really be defined as “unbearable” is the former president’s ignorance in using the word “occupation,” because Israel is not occupying any land – certainly not Gaza. In 2005, under then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s leadership, Israel left the area of the Gaza Strip and has not returned since, an act considered to have been a huge mistake by many, citing that the evacuation gave way to the present attacks on the Jewish homeland.
Israel is a country which was permitted to exist, per the November 29, 1947 UN vote of world nations. Contrary to the uninformed claims of today’s protesters, Jews did not conquer Palestinian land, displacing the people who previously lived there. At the time of the partition vote, an estimated 809,000 Arabs lived in what was then known as British-occupied Palestine. Among them, around 650,000 left voluntarily, as opposed to the myth that “one million Palestinians were expelled by Israel from 1947-1949.”
It is also important to note, “In numerous instances, Jewish leaders urged the Arabs to remain in Palestine and become citizens of Israel,” as substantiated in the October. 2, 1947 appeal, issued by the Assembly of Palestine Jewry, stating, “We will do everything in our power to maintain peace and establish a cooperation gainful to both Jews and Arabs.”
Yet, Obama, like so many others, ignores the facts and creates his own mythological version, which is more in keeping with the perpetual victimhood of the [so-called] Palestinian people. But history cannot be rewritten no matter how tempting it is to do so.
The occupation lie is useful in creating a moral equivalence, because it DOES serve to justify the October 7 barbaric slaughter of innocents, in the minds of protesters who are now unashamedly declaring their allegiance to the terror group Hamas.
The statement that “everyone’s hands are dirty,” actually belies his previous words of there being no justification for the horrific acts of Hamas, because, according to Obama’s twisted logic, if there truly is an unbearable occupation, and if “people are now being killed who had nothing to do with Hamas,” then Israel got and is getting everything it deserved.
But the whole truth, which Obama claims should be heard, is that if people are being killed now, who is responsible for their deaths? Would those people not be alive today had Hamas not perpetrated their heinous acts of October 7?
So, who’s kidding who here? Were the 1,400 innocent children, babies, moms, dads and young people in the forest those with dirty hands? And if they weren’t, why use them as a convenient moral equivalence in order to put everything on a level playing field so as to obscure the real facts and truth? It all comes down to this – Israel is being vilified for having made a good and successful life for all of its citizens – both Jew and Arab.
In just 75 short years, the land of promise has become a beacon of freedom, democracy and opportunity, the likes of which few other nations have ever achieved. We are the helping hand in times of need, the innovative creator to better mankind and the bright light in a world which is growing darker each day.
For anyone to blatantly accuse Israel of having dirty hands, without substantiating in what way, is unconscionable. How is it right to classify others, in the same breath, as Hamas terrorists, who are the evilest specimens of inhumanity that the world has seen in recent days. To do so is to be devoid of all moral clarity, humane ethics, rational thought and the ability to distinguish good from evil. Sorry to say, but if the shoe fits… well, we know the rest.
There is absolutely no moral equivalence in the events which occurred on October 7. The only dirty hands, in this picture, are those of the filthy, drugged-up terrorists who parachuted into Israel’s sovereign territory in order to kill as many innocent civilians as possible, with the focus on children.
Those, in fact, were their targets – babies, toddlers and children. Hey, Obama, it takes no guts to go after the segment of society which is most helpless and vulnerable, totally unable to defend themselves as opposed to targeting Israel’s military.
Here’s another picture that’s all too similar to this visual reminder of spinelessness. One of the most iconic photos of Nazi Germany, during WWII, is the picture of a strapping, young Nazi soldier brandishing a whip under the chin of an elderly woman who sat cowering in a chair. If anything, it serves to contrast true bravery vs. rank cowardice. Who couldn’t take on a frail, 80-year-old woman?
It is pathetic that the former leader of the free world would be guilty of the same type of immoral imagery as he purports to tell the rest of us what the real truth looks like.
My advice to former President Obama is to do his homework before lecturing the rest of us on a false moral equivalence. Take a trip to any Holocaust museum, preferably Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, do some serious research by going online to the Jewish Virtual Library.
Learn the facts from the myths. Listen to the families of those who tragically lost their lives on Oct. 7 at the hands of evil terrorists, but, perhaps, most important of all, open a Bible and read Genesis 15 for yourself, because that is the undeniable and incontrovertible truth that Israel was promised to the Jewish people by Almighty God.
After that, you may want to repent of your own hubris which deigns to rescript 4,000 years of actual history, including God’s plan for the Jewish people, through whom He, Himself chose to be the oracles of salvation and redemption for all mankind. And that’s the Whole Truth!!!
Cookie Schwaeber-Issan A former Jerusalem elementary and middle-school principal and the granddaughter of European Jews who arrived in the US before the Holocaust. Making Aliyah in 1993, she is retired and now lives in the center of the country with her husband.
Significant increase in Jews desiring to immigrate to Israel since October 7 Hamas attack ……….
French and North American Jews show the highest levels of interest;
Israel’s Aliyah and Integration Ministry reported on Tuesday that there is a notable increase of people interested in immigrating to Israel since the October 7 Hamas attack, with the largest numbers of requests from France and North America.
Of those considering the possibility of moving to Israel, the ministry reported a 149% increase in interest from Jewish French citizens and an 81% increase from North American Jews.
Ofir Sofer, the minister of Aliyah and Integration, said the Jewish state is ready to face what he called a “state of emergency” due to a 500% rise in global antisemitism, especially against Jewish youths on university campuses.
France has seen an unprecedented uptick in anti-Semitic attacks in the past month since the war began last month. The number of incidents has risen above peak numbers that were recorded in 2002.
Sofer says his ministry staff is prepared for a large wave of immigrants and a unified desire to support the State of Israel in the coming year.
“We are in a state of emergency,” Sofer said in the ministry’s statement. “The reports I have been receiving are very concerning. Our goal now is to strengthen the ties between us and support the communities that stand with Israel.”
“Precisely now, we are seeing a surge in the number of people interested in aliyah. The waves of unity and Jewish solidarity are bolstering the aliyah movement and strengthening the State of Israel.”
He also said new immigrants would receive strong support when they arrive in Israel.
“The State of Israel awaits everyone,” he added, inviting Jews around the world to move to the Jewish state.
Bill Gates ‘Digital IDS’ Will Be Mandatory To Participate in Society………….
“The UN, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and partners of the Rockefeller Foundation are launching a campaign to accelerate digital ID, digital payments, data sharing roll-outs in 50 countries.”
Yesterday November 8th, 2023, a virtual launch event took place for what is termed the “50-in-5” Agenda”.
The United Nations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and partners of the Rockefeller Foundation are launching a campaign to accelerate digital ID, digital payments, and data sharing rollouts in 50 countries under the umbrella of digital public infrastructure (DPI) by 2028.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has announced plans to rollout “digital IDs” worldwide by the year 2030, and they will be mandatory for people who wish to participate in society, say Reclaim the Net, who advocate for free speech and individual liberty online,
Social Credit System
The push for DigitalPublic Infrastructure (DPI) which includes. “Digital IDs,” vaccine passports, and central bank digital currencies (CBDC) – is being championed by the globalist WEF and unsurprisingly is backed by Bill Gates along with the the UN, and the European Union (EU).
The Sociable editor Tim Hinchliffe says that “Advocates are adamant that DPI is essential for participation in markets and society — just like we saw with vaccine passports — only on a much broader scope and “If successful, DPI will give governments and corporations the power to implement systems of social credit that can determine where and how you can travel, what you are allowed to consume, and how you will be able to transact with your programmable money.
“Think individual carbon footprint trackers, Ultra Low Emission Zones (ULEZ), and CBDC programmed to restrict “less desirable” purchases — all of which are being pushed by proponents of the great reset.”
The “50 in 5” bills itself as “a country-led advocacy campaign. By 2028, the 50-in-5 campaign will have helped 50 countries design, launch, and scale components of their digital public infrastructure,” according to the official announcement.
The 50 countries are designated as global testbeds, (guinea pigs) and the DPI’s will first in Africa (sub-Saharan, particularly) and India but the plan is to roll digital IDs globally by 2030 to include all citizens of UN member-states, according toPlanet Today
“50 in 5” campaign is also unsurprisingly a collaboration between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations Development Program, the Digital Public Goods Alliance, and Co-Develop. Co-Develop was founded by The Rockefeller Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Nilekani Philanthropies, and the Omidyar Network.
The Digital Public Goods Alliance lists both the Gates and Rockefeller foundations in its roadmap showcasing “activities that advance digital public goods,” along with other organisations and several governments.
Israel-Gaza Situation Report – Thursday 09 November 2023………
Hamas is being routed in northern Gaza, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said Wednesday.
“We saw 50,000 Gazans move from the northern Gaza Strip to the south. They are moving because they understand that Hamas has lost control in the north,” IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said during an evening broadcast. “Hamas has lost control and is continuing to lose control in the north.”
The IDF’s tactical success so far in its nearly two-week-old ground incursion into Gaza – cutting the north from the south and entering Gaza City with limited troop casualties – has surprised some observers. There have been 32 Israeli troops killed during the incursion, according to The Times of Israel, which is far fewer than anticipated.
The IDF said it is killing fighters and destroying scores of tunnel shafts and other Hamas infrastructure during its advance that has reached the Mediterranean Sea coast. Still, the mounting casualty toll and displacement of civilians remains a grave cause for concern as outrage grows and calls for a ceasefire increase.
“I am surprised by their advancements,” John Spencer, chairman of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point said Wednesday. “They are using good tactics and good teaming of combined arms – engineers, armour, mechanized and dismounted enemy.
The IDF is “destroying tunnels as they go and methodically clearing up to their fighting positions, which isolates objectives effectively,” he said. Hamas “is surprisingly not good at resisting,” said Spencer, who was one of the experts we spoke to in our assessment of the challenges Israel would face in a ground incursion.
Spencer’s analysis Wednesday aligns with statements made by a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and a former Israeli national security official given to The Times of Israel.
“I’m surprised by how well the ground invasion seems to be going,” Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, told the publication. “It seems to be going smoothly, progressing slowly. There has been no major mishap so far.”
“I think it’s going slightly better than I expected in terms of the rate of advance, the ratio of casualties,” concurred Eran Lerman, vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and past deputy director of Israel’s National Security Council. “Given the extremely complex conditions, they’re doing it very wisely, very carefully.”
“The aggressive aspect of the Israeli operations has allowed them to gain control of key locations and concentrate their military effects on the Hamas network,” retired Army General Joseph Votel, former commander of U.S. Central Command, said.
Votel, now a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute, estimated the fighting could go on for a while.
“Hard to know how long this might take,” he said, “but my estimate is weeks to months. We moved very deliberately in Eastern Mosul (the area that is most like Gaza City) and it took about nine months.”
Though it remained difficult to obtain a clear picture of where the Israeli forces were operating, fleeing residents told The Washington Post that “troops had reached Ansar roundabout in central Gaza City, a block away from its main port.”
Footage of the Gaza City skyline posted by Hamdan Dahdouh, a cameraman with Al Jazeera network, was filled with the sound of gunfire and whistling bullets, the Post noted. He said that “violent clashes” were taking place around the Ansar and al-Azhar neighbourhoods in the middle of the city.
The IDF says Hamas’s massive network of underground tunnels is a major target.
“Since the beginning of the fighting, 130 tunnel shafts have been destroyed,” the IDF said Wednesday. “Combat engineers fighting in Gaza are destroying the enemy’s weapons and are locating, exposing and detonating tunnel shafts”.
“With the expansion of the ground operation in the Gaza Strip, the soldiers are thwarting Hamas’ terrorist infrastructure. As part of the ground forces’ activity in the Gaza Strip, IDF soldiers are currently working to expose and destroy Hamas’ tunnels.”
The incursion marks the first time since the 1982 First Lebanon War that an entire IDF reserve division is manoeuvring in enemy territory.
“This is a defining moment for the division and for the entire reserve array in which a reserve division manoeuvres alongside the regular divisions and proves the strength and quality of the IDF, in both regular and reserve service,” said Commanding Officer of the 252nd Division, BG Moran Omer.
“We have been preparing for this for years, it is our duty to now restore peace and security to our civilians. Our reservists and their families are the expression of our unity, of being willing to defend our people as much as necessary, and of getting only one result – determined in every encounter with the enemy – until victory.”
Reuters reported that the IDF says Hamas has lost control of northern Gaza. Still, as Israeli political and military leaders have said, there is a long fight ahead. Hamas on Wednesday claimed via Telegram that it destroyed numerous Israeli tanks and other armoured vehicles in the fight. There is also mounting pressure on Israel to stand down as the number of civilians killed in Gaza by massive Israeli bombardment increases.
The IDF says it has carried out more than 14,000 airstrikes and artillery attacks since October 7. That’s nearly three times the number of munitions than was dropped on Iraq and Syria in a month during the height of the counter-ISIS campaign over an area 100 times the size of Gaza, said Charles Lister, Senior Fellow & Director of @MEI_Syria and @MEI_CTEprograms at @MiddleEastIns.
“Palestinian officials said 10,569 people have now been killed, 40% of them children,” Reuters reported Wednesday. “The level of death and suffering is ‘hard to fathom’, U.N. health agency spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said in Geneva.”
Hamas accused Israel of targeting schools and mosques in Gaza. The IDF on Wednesday said it struck a tunnel shaft near a school. “IDF soldiers from the 551st Brigade in cooperation with soldiers from the Yalam unit operate in the Beit Hanon area, locating and destroying terrorist tunnels,” Hagari said. “The fighters located a terrorist tunnel shaft near a UNRA school and destroyed the tunnel.”
Both sides have committed war crimes, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Wednesday.
“The atrocities perpetrated by Palestinian armed groups on 7 October were heinous, they were war crimes – as is the continued holding of hostages,” Volker Turk said at the Rafah crossing in Egypt on the border with Gaza, according to Reuters. “The collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians is also a war crime, as is unlawful forcible evacuation of civilians,” he added.
Turkey also called for a ceasefire.
In Tokyo for the G7 summit Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeated the Biden administration’s call for a temporary pause in the fighting to assist Arab Palestinian civilians.
“We all agreed that humanitarian pauses would advance key objectives to protect Palestinian civilians, to increase the sustained flow of humanitarian assistance, to allow our citizens and foreign nationals to exit, and to facilitate the release of hostages,” Blinken told reporters. “I briefed my colleagues about my conversations with Israeli leaders on pauses, and on concrete steps to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians in Gaza and to stop extremist violence in the West Bank.”
Blinken also said that despite Netanyahu’s suggestion that Israel might indefinitely occupy Gaza, that is not a U.S. goal.
“The reality is that there may be a need for some transition period at the end of the conflict, but it is imperative that the Palestinian people be central to governance in Gaza and in the West Bank as well, and that, again, we don’t see a reoccupation,” he said. “And what I’ve heard from Israeli leaders is that they have no intent to reoccupy Gaza and retake control of Gaza”.
“So the only question is are – is there some transition period that might be necessary, and what might be the mechanisms that you could put in place for that to make sure that there is security? But we’re very clear on no reoccupation, just as we’re very clear on no displacement of the Palestinian population. And, as we’ve said before, we need to see and get to, in effect, unity of governance when it comes to Gaza and the West Bank, and ultimately to a Palestinian state.”
Blinken also laid out a series of red lines that neither side should cross.
“The United States believes key elements should include no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza – not now, not after the war,” he said. “No use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks. No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza. We must also ensure no terrorist threats can emanate from the West Bank.”
Blinken’s comments followed President Joe Biden’s urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a three-day pause in the fighting to allow progress in releasing some of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, two U.S. and Israeli officials told Axios on Tuesday.
Votel, the former CENTCOM commander, said that the pressure on Israel to reduce casualties will continue.
“I do think International pressure will continue to mount on Israel over civilian casualties,” he said. “As I, and others, have said before – how this is done is as or more important than what they are actually doing. It is in Israel’s long-term interest to maintain international support.”
The latest war in Gaza is taking a huge toll on Netanyahu, a former Israeli prime minister told Politico.
Netanyahu has been “destroyed emotionally” by his massive failure on national security and is now miscalculating by preparing to take overall control of Gaza’s security for an “indefinite period” after Hamas has been crushed, according to former leader the hapless Ehud Olmert.
In an interview with Politico, Olmert argued Netanyahu was in a state of “nervous breakdown,” as he sought to avoid being thrown out of office for failing to safeguard national security in the murderous Hamas attacks of October 7.
This meant Israel was now steering off course strategically, Olmert went on, insisting the priority should be to negotiate an endgame with the international community — involving a return to talks on the formation of a Palestinian state, rather than turning back the clock to full military oversight over Gaza.
“The global outcry about the civilian casualty toll in Gaza is part of the Hamas calculus behind the Oct. 7 surprise invasion”, The New York Times reported through interviews with its leaders.
“…in the bloody arithmetic of Hamas’s leaders, the carnage is not the regrettable outcome of a big miscalculation. Quite the opposite, they say: It is the necessary cost of a great accomplishment — the shattering of the status quo and the opening of a new, more volatile chapter in their fight against Israel,” the publication reported.
It was necessary to “change the entire equation and not just have a clash,” Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’s top leadership body, told The New York Times in Doha, Qatar. “We succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm.” [Especially HAMAS?]
“I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us,” Taher El-Nounou, a Hamas media adviser, told The Times.
Hamas amassed a huge cache of weapons for its invasion, many of which were ultimately captured by the IDF. In addition to destroying tunnels and fighting positions, the IDF on Wednesday said it killed another top Hamas leader, Mohsen Abu Zina, a leading weapons developer.
The exodus of civilians from Gaza City continues.
The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs has said that about 15,000 people fled on Tuesday, the Guardian reported. By comparison, 5,000 fled on Monday and 2,000 on Sunday, suggesting the number of people attempting to evacuate has been increasing as northern Gaza continues to be bombarded and Israeli troops carry out ground operations there.
Meanwhile, fighting on the northern front continues.
“A short while ago, IDF soldiers struck a number of anti-tank missile launching posts belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization,” the IDF said Wednesday. “Furthermore, terrorists launched an anti-tank missile toward IDF soldiers in the area of Dovev.
The IDF responded with artillery fire toward the origin of the launch. Two IDF soldiers were injured – one lightly and the other moderately – and have been evacuated to a hospital for medical treatment. Their families have been notified.
Hezbollah confirmed that it fired on Israeli troops there, according to Al Arabiya. The IDF also said there were attacks on Shtula and Yiftah in northern Israel as well. “The IDF responded with tank and artillery fire toward the origin of the launches. No injuries were reported.”.”
An official with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp said Hamas is not the only group in the region with hostages and threatened to kill the ones it is holding should Iran be attacked. A loose-knit organization of Iranian-backed militias said they carried out more missile and drone attacks on a U.S. base in Al-Shaddadi, Syria, south of Al-Hasakah.
“The Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq targeted, for the second time today, the American occupation base in Al-Shaddadi, south of the Syrian city of Al-Hasakah, with missiles, and it was directly hit,” the group claimed on Telegram.
U.S. Central Command said it is aware of the reports but cannot yet confirm the attacks took place. Yesterday, Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said not including these claims, there have been 40 attacks on U.S. forces, 22 separate times in Iraq and 18 separate times in Syria.
The flow of people out of Gaza at the Rafah crossing continues. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the first group of 43 Ukrainian nationals have left through that key border checkpoint between Gaza and Egypt.
The U.K. says more than 150 of its citizens have left as well. Netanyahu’s office said the Mossad, along with Brazilian security services, foiled a plot by Hezbollah to carry out a terror attack in Brazil, financed by Iran.
Israel is upping its information operations, taking aim at Hamas leaders who it says have amassed great wealth while living a life of luxury abroad as Gazans suffer.
Developing…………
“None of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand”. [Daniel 12;10]