Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, April 18, 2024

More than you ever wanted to know about "Liquid Ass," the "chemical weapon" that snowflake Columbia antisemites were exposed to

In January, anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University claim they were exposed to a "chemical attack." As The Nation breathlessly reported:

[T]he protests by SJP and its affiliates were met with a new threat at a peaceful action on Friday January 19. Columbia SJP reported that protesters were sprayed with a horrible-smelling “stink bomb” at the event, before later posting an update that the foul product was identified as Skunk, an Israeli-developed chemical weapon, used as recently as December in East Jerusalem on Muslim worshippers.

Dozens of students told the Spectator that the spray left a strong odor—one that smelled akin to a dead body, according to one graduate student—that led to nausea, burning skin and eyes, and soiled clothing and hair. Numerous students were hospitalized and received care for chemical inhalation.

The two students accused of spraying the substance were suspended from Columbia.

Al Jazeera spent hours creating an entire documentary about this incident, interviewing students who claim that they suffered medical problems from the spray. A few went to local doctors, complained about alleged symptoms, and CityMD gave a diagnosis of "(suspected) exposure to potentially hazardous chemical" based not on any evidence but on what the student claimed. So now this report is "evidence of chemical attack."

The network even identified one of the alleged attackers holding something white!

Ladies and gentlemen, here is Liquid Ass, "extra strong poop spray:"

One of the suspended students is suing the school:

A Jewish Columbia University student claims he was improperly suspended for discharging two “novelty fart sprays” during a campus anti-Israel rally — arguing the substances were “non-toxic” and his actions were harmless, a lawsuit says.

The student, named “John Doe” in court papers, sprayed gag gifts called “Liquid Ass” and “Wet Farts” that he bought on Amazon for $10.99 into the air and not at any particular person during the Jan. 19 protest, the lawsuit, obtained by The Post, claims.

“[The] plaintiff’s actions were a harmless expression of speech to demonstrate discontent with the pro-Hamas pro-Palestine message through the use of a gag gift, and nothing further,” the lawsuit, filed Tuesday by the student in Manhattan federal court, says.

It sure looks like this evil criminal is holding a bottle of Liquid Ass and didn't import the Israeli "skunk" spray (which is also non-toxic, by the way.)

The company has a data sheet on how safe it is:

Q: Is Liquid ASS safe?

A: Yes. Liquid ASS has been thoroughly tested by an independent lab and found to be safe. The Material Safety Data Sheet for Liquid ASS notes that "No hazardous ingredients known to be present." Follow directions, and you are good to go.

Q: From what ingredients is Liquid ASS made?

A: Well, believe it or not, Liquid ASS is not made from real ass, although your nose screams otherwise. We can't tell you the actual ingredients since they are proprietory. However, Liquid ASS has been tested to be safe and it has been rumored that Liquid ASS clears up clogged sinuses. So ASS 'em hard and frequently.

Q: Will Liquid ASS stain cloth, furniture, or carpet?

A: Liquid ASS is virtually clear and will not stain most fabrics. In fact, Liquid ASS will not even show on fabrics unless it is pure white.

But it does smell really, really bad. That's the point.

In fact, it is used by...medical professionals!

Researchers, hospitals, and programs designed to train medical professionals routinely order Liquid Ass. The stench so realistically mimics the human colon, it’s the perfect training tool to teach medical responders how to maintain focus and professional demeanor in the midst of a truly overwhelming smell. And because the stench is universally offensive, psychologists have found it’s the perfect tool for studying the effects of disgust on all sorts of human behavior, from political decision-making to health care choices.

And by the military:

Liquid Ass even made its way into military training operations, as Mary Roach describes in her book Grunt. It’s a key ingredient in fake bowels filled with dyed oatmeal, used in a device called a Cut Suit, a creation of a training company called Strategic Operations in San Diego, California which trains some members of the US military. The Cut Suit is a wearable prop that realistically mimics wounds; it starts off looking like healthy skin, and when you cut into it, it looks and smells like a real body would if it were cut open. The suits have been used, for example, by Navy medics practicing attending to wounded soldiers during an ongoing battle.

It is pretty clear that Liquid Ass is a perfectly safe, if disgusting, joke product, and not a chemical weapon.

(Wet Farts is also certified non-toxic.)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Palestinian "human rights" group accuses Israel of intending to prevent births in Gaza, because that is one definition of genocide

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights is looking hard for novel ways to accuse Jews of heinous crimes in order to keep its European funding. The NGO, with known ties to the PFLP terror group, issued a report accusing Israel of intentionally attempting to prevent births in the Gaza Strip.

Really.

The paper takes as a given that Israel specifically intends to wipe out Palestinians, in part by actively and deliberately preventing them from giving birth.

The entire reason for this report is to shoehorn Israel into Article 2(d) of the Genocide Convention, which says, "In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:....(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group."

Hence the title of the report.

It doesn't bother trying to prove intention, because it can't. It just asserts it, and then lists several examples of pregnant women caught in a war that their side started, doing some hand waving, and pretending that they somehow proved that Israel specifically and intentionally targeted those women and that they weren't just stuck in the middle of battles.

The anecdotes given are not researched and verified. At least one is almost certainly a lie:

After being exposed to white phosphorus fired by IOF on al-Wehdah Street in Gaza, I suffered from severe suffocation and was 8-month pregnant. I fled to al-Remal Preparatory School and after two weeks, it was my due date so I went to the Patient’s Friends Clinic to check on my baby. The doctor told me that the baby was not moving and died. I was totally shocked and did not want to believe at first because I was 9-month pregnant and could feel the baby’ moving every day. I did another checkup with another doctor on the same day, but he confirmed what the first doctor said, “you lost your baby.” He asked me if I was exposed to white phosphorus and I said yes. He told me it was the reason behind my miscarriage as many women like me lost their babies for the same reason. There was a woman beside me who lost her baby in the same circumstances. I was so sad and worn out mentally as the due date of my baby marked his death.

Israel would not use white phosphorus in the middle of Gaza City. The only report I'd seen was Amnesty and HRW saying that Israel used WP in the first week of the war in the port area of Gaza City based on photographs. I have not seen the accusation since then. There would be lots of photos because WP use has a distinctive look. But suddenly, this woman is an expert on what white phosphorus looks and smells like, as opposed to any other smoke.

Another woman claims that her baby died January 18 because the NICU in Kamal Odwan Hospital had no electricity - but I cannot find any reports of babies dying from lack of electricity in that hospital in January (there were such reports in November.) I cannot find any mention of electricity shortages in that hospital in January at all in the WHO or OCHA sites; Israel arrested dozens of terrorists from that hospital in December.

PCHR does not even make a pretense of checking the facts from these "testimonies." Or even fo having a professional methodology for the interviews to begin with.

One could use the same methodology to find all mothers who miscarried in 2023 and ask how many ate cornflakes for breakfast that week, then writing a report about how the cornflakes cause miscarriages.

What is clear is that the report's conclusions were written before the report itself was, and PCHR than looked for any evidence it could make up to confirm what it already determined.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

04/17 Links Pt2: Media Revive the Classic ‘Jewish Oppressor’ Stereotype; Congresswoman to Columbia U president: ‘Fire the racists, it’s a pretty low bar’

From Ian:

Phyllis Chesler: Behold the 21st-century boycott

Some 73 years after Adolf Hitler fired Jewish professors from German universities—and burned and banned Jewish books—British academics were leading the pack against Israelis.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science condemned the British boycott, as did one of my groups, the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. We launched our own petition. Many who signed were professors of physics, medicine, math and computer science who were not as “politicized” as those in the social sciences and humanities. And many of them described the British boycott as “shameful,” “repugnant,” “indefensible,” “anti-academic” and “dangerous group thinking.”

By 2010, the leading British journal of medicine, The Lancet, published a scurrilous article that blamed indigenous gender apartheid practices (wife-beating, etc.) among Middle Eastern Arabs on the so-called “Israeli occupation.” Their so-called study was funded by the Palestinian National Authority and was collected by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. No control group based in Egypt, Jordan or Saudi Arabia (where similar violence against women was normalized) was used. The Lancet did it again in 2014, by publishing an Open Letter that accused Israel-only of crimes it had not committed. This letter had also been funded by known Palestinian terrorist organizations.

The Lancet has long been viewed as a distinguished journal of science. Increasingly, their work descended into political propaganda which, no doubt, has influenced (or bullied) the coming generations.

Recently, I have been told about some authors in the West who were discouraged from writing—or submitting—anything “Jewish,” be it about Judaism or Israel. Publishers are shying away from this topic.

This is where it all started—in the academy. It influenced two or three generations of professors and students, journalists and international organizations, and is now flourishing in the streets, jihad-style, at loud and aggressive anti-Israel demonstrations all across America and Europe. Cheers for Iran after it attacked Israel with missiles and drones. Remember, there were similar shouts of joy for the Hamas demons on Oct. 7.

I must note that each successive wave of Israel-blaming took place when the Jewish state was under attack and fought back to save itself. That is again the case now.

Seth Mandel: Media Revive the Classic ‘Jewish Oppressor’ Stereotype

So here’s how the Washington Post frames the Rutgers situation: Pro-Hamas people are having their lives ruined by Jews who highlight their public comments, and this Rutgers fellow is an example not only of that but of essentially doxxing. (Doxxing means to reveal personal identifying information that is either nonpublic or requires enough effort to find that it is, in a practical sense, nonpublic.)

Here’s what actually happened. Members of the Student Bar Association sent their group chat anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas messages after the Oct. 7 massacre, and an Orthodox Jewish law student in the chat, Yoel Ackerman, responded. He shared the messages with the Rutgers Jewish Law Students Association. For this, the law school opened disciplinary proceedings against Ackerman, with the law school dean telling her colleagues “we have a Jewish law student seeking to take and publish the names of those he deems to be supporting Hamas.” He was then subject to a Sovietesque impeachment hearing from the Student Bar Association. Ackerman, without receiving sufficient explanation, was berated for three hours in what amounted to administrative harassment. In order to dispense of their troublesome Jew, the SBA then moved to suspend its own constitution in order to expel Ackerman.

That’s when Rutgers University stepped in, and briefly suspended the SBA while it could sort out the mess that Hamas propagandists and their enthusiastic supporters among the deans had made of the school. The SBA was soon reinstated.

This, the Washington Post tells us, is an example of a Jew oppressing the poor gentile.

This is not biased reporting. It is Jew-baiting propaganda with a long and very disturbing history. The rest of the article, meanwhile, is biased reporting: Verma simply launders the exterminationist language of domestic extremists into legitimate criticism of a foreign government.

The whole article is science fiction. But the apology the paper owes Ackerman is very real.

Congress must pass Define to Defeat Act as definitive stand against antisemitism

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has been embraced by President Biden, former Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, 36 U.S. states, and dozens of other countries — not to mention the vast majority of Jews across every spectrum. It underwent a comprehensive, decade-plus-long review conducted by a multitude of experts and is the only definition with an actual track record of demonstrable effectiveness in curbing anti-Jewish hate and bigotry.

As it relates to this act, the IHRA definition of antisemitism also contains the appropriate caveats and carefully balanced safeguards that take into account the importance of nuance and context in situations that involve allegations of discriminatory intent.

For example, the definition makes clear that criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic and that all of the examples are not meant to be dispositive but rather are the types of things that could, taking into account the overall context, be evidence of antisemitism.

The Define to Defeat Act builds on the bipartisan momentum created by Rep. Mike Lawler’s Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would codify Executive Order 13899 and require the Department of Education to make use of the IHRA definition when assessing unlawful discriminatory behavior under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

Mr. Lawler, who has long been a leader on this issue, was working on that bill well before Oct. 7. Since that time, however, it has unfortunately only become clearer that the Jewish community needs the protections clarified in other contexts as well. Hopefully, that bipartisan support will continue; it is hard to imagine someone being supportive of Jewish people being properly protected under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act but not, for example, under Title VII of that same law.

According to the FBI, the majority of religiously motivated hate crimes in the United States are committed against Jewish people. That number is on the rise despite the fact that Jews make up only about 2% of the population. This trend is terrifying, and there is much work to be done to defeat it.

That work starts with defining the problem, and God willing, Congress, led by the members from New York, will now do that.

I am on the phone with Hatzalah, faint, one hand on the tile floor to steady me. I just want to lie down and feel the cool tile on my face. But the Hatzalah guy on the phone won’t stop asking questions. He wants me to describe what I’m feeling. I don’t know how to explain that weird feeling in my face and hands in ENGLISH, let alone in Hebrew. Yet somehow, my blurred mind flashes to this, from Bava Metzia (58b):

A disciple taught before Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak: “Anyone who publicly mortifies his companion is comparable to a shedder of blood.” He replied: “Your statement is correct, for the red color of the face disappears, and it becomes white.”

So in bad Hebrew, I tell the Hatzalah guy, “I feel like you feel when you’re very embarrassed or have a shock.”

He has no earthly idea what I am talking about, and I am filled with a hopeless despair. I need help. And I can’t make anyone understand. I hold out my phone to son down the hall and beg him. “Please. You talk. Just tell him to come.”

He takes the phone, annoyed. “Shalom. My Eema is dehydrated.”

“I’m not, I’m not,” I say weakly, from the other end of the hall. “Give me the phone.”

Son down the hall, truly exasperated, walks over to me and hands me the phone. “Eema, you’re just dehydrated.”

“Open the front door,” I tell him.

“Eema!” he says. Translation: Don’t exaggerate.

“Open the door,” I say, raising my hand to point in that general direction.

He stomps down the hall, goes to the front door. Opens it.

At some point the love triangle of me, the Hatzalah guy on the phone, and son down the hall, becomes a love quartet. “What’s going on?” calls querulous post-surgery Dov from the bedroom.

I would normally reassure him, but I can’t. I can no longer deal with anyone else. I am barely there. Words are difficult to form. I want to save them for the medics, to tell them what’s wrong, though I don’t know how. There aren’t words for what I’m feeling.

“Varda! What’s going on?” Dov calls out, his voice rising. When no one answers him, I hear the sound of his walker, smack creeeak, smack creeeak, and I know he is determined that he will know what is going on under his roof, though he hasn’t been able to get in or out of bed without help since his operation, four days ago.

It’s too much for me. I can’t worry about him now. The air around me feels wavy and brown.

“Eema’s dehydrated. She called Hatzalah,” says son down the hall.

“I knew it!” says Dov. “I knew it would be too much for you,” meaning me dealing with his care and our household in the aftermath of his surgery, which he had resisted for years. “You’re having a nervous breakdown!”

“No,” says son down the hall. She’s just dehydrated. She needs to drink.”

“Stand outside and wait for them, to show them where we are,” Dov says to him, pointing to the door, the exasperation plain in his voice.

I hear the medics come in. I know them. One of them had paid a sick call to Dov only seven hours earlier. When he comes in, Dov says, tongue in cheek, “Can’t get enough of us huh, Shlomo?”

Shlomo and the other medic, Moshe, crouch on the steps next to me. They ask me to tell them what’s wrong. I am fuzzy, but I try. “I’m nauseated, my head is spinning, and my hands and face feel like the blood has drained from them.”

“Do you want us to call an ambulance,” they ask.

“No.” I say, hoping there is a way for the medics to take care of me at home.

Here, I must interject with another story. This time, my husband’s. The pain of Dov’s spinal stenosis had made his blood pressure spiral out of control a few months earlier. I had suspected that it was the pain that did this, and my suspicions are now confirmed. Since the surgery, Dov’s blood pressure has improved and somewhat stabilized, as has his general health.

But one night, I woke up, saw Dov wasn’t in bed, and wondered what was wrong. I got up, went into the living room, and he was sitting there. “What’s the matter? I asked.

“I don’t know. Something’s not right.”

“Well, what do you feel?” I asked. “Do you hurt anywhere? Do you have a headache?

Dov was as unable to describe what he was feeling as I was on that otherworldly dark Friday morning. “I don’t know. Just something’s not right.”

“Should I call an ambulance?” I ask him.

“I don’t know,” he says.

I call an ambulance. When it arrives, one of the medics is my friend, Elisheva. They take Dov’s blood pressure. It’s high. So high that maybe they suspect their equipment has malfunctioned. They take his blood pressure during the whole ride to Shaarei Zedek Hospital, and I hear them wondering if the machine is broken, because the number is crazy.

When we get him into the hospital, his BP is 233. It’s a hypertensive crisis. Dov is treated over a period of some 18 hours, in the ER, until his blood pressure is a more manageable 180 (!). They take tests, and even though Dov is obviously showing signs of confusion, and keeps forgetting words, the hospital releases him. We pay for the ambulance, because I made the call. We pay for the ER visit because he isn't admitted.

Yes, we were able to pay the bill, but I mean, the man was seriously ill! And they didn’t admit him. Maybe they were too full up with wounded soldiers? I don’t know. But I knew that Dov SHOULD have been admitted.

This had been percolating in my brain for months, as I schlepped with my husband from doctor to doctor, and to all kinds of tests, some I’ve never heard of. They should have kept him. He is still now quite ill. I am angry at the hospital.

I was thinking of all this when the nice Hatzalah volunteer lady, my angel, said, “Why call Magen David Adom? Call Hatzalah. It’s free.”

I did not now want to go in an ambulance, because I’d be damned if they were going to make me pay for that again. In fact, Dov had called for an ambulance after he sustained minor injuries in a car accident only a few months before his hypertensive crisis. They made us pay for that ambulance, too. It was the money, but it wasn’t the money that made me say no to calling an ambulance. It was the principle of the thing, the injustice!

This is WHY I had called Hatzalah in the first place. I didn’t WANT to call Magen David Adom (MDA) and pay for ambulance service. “Are you comfortable there on the floor?” asks one of the medics.

“Yes,” I say, grateful to give in to the desire to lay my head on the floor, to feel the coolness of the tile against my face.

“Your pulse is very weak,” said one of the medics. “We’re calling MDA.”

Maybe they won’t charge me, because Hatzalah is calling, not me. I think. But then I think of Dov. I can’t let him down now. He needs me right now, after his surgery.

The MDA medics come in and crouch around me on the three little steps that lead up to the hallway where I am prostrate. One of them says, “Varda, do you want to go in the ambulance?”

“No,” I say weakly.

“Do you think you can walk to the living room if we help you?”

“I’ll try,” I say, so weak.

Somehow, the four of them, the two medics sent by Hatzalah, and the MDA guys, manage to lead me to the living room. They motion to the chair we think of as “Dov’s chair.” It is close and I am relieved. I make for the chair, but Dov is about to lose his balance. At that point, even with the walker, he can only walk a few steps.

So I stumble to the next closest chair, on the other side of the room, directly in front of Dov. The MDA guy hooks me up to an EKG. He really wants to take me to the hospital. But who’s going to take care of Dov? I think. And what if it’s just dehydration, or like Dov says, I’m working too hard, I’m overwrought?

So I say to the MDA guy, trying to sound nonchalant, “Can’t you just hang a bag?” I ask, meaning give me some IV fluids here at home, and I’ll be fine.

I really don’t want to go to the hospital. I really don’t want to go in that ambulance. I say so.

So while I’m still hooked up to the EKG, the MDA guy hands me a clipboard with a form to sign saying that I refused the ambulance. I take the pen, put it to paper, then slide off the chair in a dead faint.

To be continued.

Previously, Part I: Varda wakes up, and begins to feel truly ill.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

04/17 Links Pt1: The World Is Paying A Deadly Price For Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy Legacy; The attempt to whitewash UNRWA must be exposed

From Ian:

The World Is Paying A Deadly Price For Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy Legacy

Just because you shoot at someone and miss doesn’t mean you’re not trying to kill them. Yes, the Iranians were embarrassed. But they almost surely view this as a win. And they also crossed a red line by firing on Israel from their own territory. Yet Israel is apparently the only nation on Earth that is permitted to fully defend itself only if its enemies succeed.

Then again, virtually every conflict against Israel unfurls the same way: Its enemies threaten or attack the country. Israel responds and heads for a victory. Only then does the world demand “restraint.” Finally, the antagonists demand Israel rewind history to a more convenient spot. (Modern Democrats demand that Israel show restraint before it even has a chance to respond. That’s a new twist.)

Those, for instance, who contend that Israel started the conflict when it hit a “diplomatic mission” in Syria last week are engaged in restarting the historical clock when it suits them. There are no Iranian diplomatic missions in Syria. There are buildings where IRGC terror leaders coordinate attacks on civilians — against Arabs as well as Jews. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the “general” Israel killed last week, helped plan the barbarism of Oct 7.

Recall that the United States atomized Qasem Soleimani at a neutral nation’s airport. Though, of course, Obamaites protested that killing as well.

Now, it is something of a cliché to contend that Israel must be right 100 percent of the time while its enemies only need to be right once. It also happens to be true. The lo-fi Hamas attack last year was a devastating failure for the Jewish state and its leadership. Israel, a country the size of New Jersey with a dense population area, relies on deterrence and preemption.

Democrats blamed their strawman, Benjamin Netanyahu, not Hamas or Iran, for trying to “drag” the world into war. The New York Times’ Tom Friedman, perhaps the wrongest person ever to tread on this planet, theorized that the prime minister wanted “a war to shore up his own crumbling political base.”

Meanwhile, Axois reports that Netanyahu was reluctant to strike back while his cabinet wanted to move immediately. Anyone who’s paid five minutes of attention to Israeli politics knows that Netanyahu is frustratingly cautious. The “war hawk” perception of him is a myth, created by the left because of the prime minister’s open opposition to Obama’s mullah bootlicking.

We have no idea what Israel will do. Maybe caution is the best policy. The notion that the Jewish state simply lashes out in revenge and doesn’t rationally consider all its options is preposterous. Whatever happens, it should be Israel’s terms, not Iran’s.

Despite what Obama’s retreads demand.

Richard Goldberg: The path that led to Iran’s attack on Israel was one of US appeasement

Amazingly, America became even less hawkish than the Europeans on Iran in some respects. What Iran learnt from all of this is that it can get away with anything. The regime can keep moving towards that nuclear threshold and still get offers of economic relief.

It was only the murder of Mahsa Amini by Iran’s “morality police” and the protests this sparked across the country that briefly halted the appeasement.

Last year, the US offered to open up spigots of money while allowing the regime to trade oil freely with China. In exchange, they asked Iran to stay below the 90 per cent weapons-grade uranium threshold, to not send short range ballistic missiles to Russia and to stop attacking Americans in the Middle East.

Iran came into a major windfall as oil exports rose above two million barrels per day for the first time since the JCPOA period, and $6 billion was released to them as part of a ransom payment to free five American hostages.

Then October 7 hit. What was the response of the US, the UK, and everyone else? Nothing. We downplayed Iran’s connection to Hamas and insisted the Islamic regime was not behind this attack.

A UN Security Council embargo on missile sales to Iran was due to expire ten days after October 7. All the UK, France and Germany, with US support, had to do was send a letter to the Security Council to trigger a snapback sanctions resolution that would have stopped that embargo from expiring. But they didn’t.

Perhaps they fear escalation. But again, what is Iran learning? A $10 billion sanctions waiver allowing the Iraqi government to buy energy from the regime got renewed in November a month after October 7 and it got renewed again last month.

Meanwhile, three Americans have been killed in Jordan by Iran-backed militias, missiles are now raining down on the Red Sea from the Houthis, and Israel is being attacked from Lebanon.

International pressure is applied to Israel while we see ever greater escalation from Iran. Over the past three years, we have allowed an arc of accommodation that has emboldened the Islamic Republic and increased the chances of regional war. It must end now.

WSJ Editorial: Hamas Rejects Biden’s Hostage Deal—Again

After months of negotiations over the release of 40 hostages among the women, older men and the sick, Hamas now says it can produce only 20, and it wants far more Palestinian terrorists in return. It demands 30 for each civilian hostage and 50 for each captive female Israeli soldier, including 30 terrorists who are serving life sentences.

As usual, the needs of Palestinian civilians mean nothing to Hamas, but how about the needs of the U.S. President? Mr. Biden staked his Gaza strategy on coercing Israel to make the concessions to get a deal and cease-fire. But the holdup wasn’t on the Israeli side.

The more desperate the President appeared for a cease-fire, the more distant it became. When he blamed Israel for all civilian suffering and demanded new Israeli concessions, Hamas raised its demands.

“Thank you to the Americans,” as the Israeli commentator Amit Segal put it on Tuesday, “for your deep understanding of the principles of the Middle Eastern bazaar.” He didn’t mean that as a compliment.

Hamas scorns a deal because the President has given it reason to expect to get the cease-fire it wants without releasing any hostages. Mr. Biden had been slowly delinking the two while creating a public breach with Israel. Doubtless he thought about the signal these steps would send to Dearborn, Mich. Did he think about the signal he is sending Hamas about the five American hostages who may still be alive?

Hamas is unlikely to cut a deal until it feels the knife on its neck, as it did when Israel stormed Gaza City. That yielded the release of 105 hostages. But since Mr. Biden declared himself Protector of Rafah, Hamas’s final stronghold, and Israel withdrew most of its troops, the odds of a deal have declined.

The best hope on the horizon is from Iran’s miscalculation in striking Israel directly. This gives Mr. Biden an opportunity to reset his policy and exert real pressure. When Rafah is on the table, and the terrorists in fancy suits are threatened with expulsion from Qatar, there will again be a reason to talk.

Rai al-Youm published a warning to Iran from Algerian columnist Dr. Jamal Salmi who likes to write in a verse-like form. His point is that Jews cannot be trusted.

O commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, unleash the reins of tenderness...
There is no safety for these criminal Zionist Jews...
Nor assurance for the bloody terrorist demons...
They will feign a measured, light response...
But Mossad secretly plans a very painful strike...
They will exploit your kindness and gentleness towards them...
To turn your goodness into evil...
Just as they did with the Palestinians...
What is the reward for Hamas' very gracious treatment of their captives?
Death, displacement, and annihilation...
They are Jews...
The curse follows them everywhere...
They hardly enter a country without ruining it...
This is their job...
They cannot live without treachery or betrayal...
Even the West, which gifted them the blessed land of Palestine for free, has not been and will never be safe from them...
Neither in the past...
Nor in the present...
Nor even in the future...
They have always sinned against their masters...
European and American intelligence agencies have hidden many of their crimes...
Not only against the Arabs and Palestinians...
But even against some secure capitals in the West...
Tel Aviv gangs have directed poisoned dagger stabs at them...
When they found lax security...
Opportunistic to the core...
They never miss a favorable opportunity to spread terror everywhere...
They have carried out several bombing operations in the heart of Europe...
In response to some Western liberals...
Or to some of their leaders' stances...
Even neutrality is rejected by them...
So how about siding, even hypocritically, with the oppressed Palestinians...
Some European statements did not pass without severe and very painful Zionist punishment...
The response was swift...
A barbaric Jewish terrorism...
They easily attach it to the armed groups...
That they themselves have formed, to tarnish the image of Islam and the mujahideen...
Beware of them, O commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard...
Only the liquidation of your nuclear program will ease their grudge...
Your superiority over them is existential threat for them...
The West has inflated their egos and pride...
To the extent that they truly believed they are a state...
Rather, a great state...
While the initial agreement with Britain was for them to be just an advanced military outpost...
To maintain pressure and blackmail on the Arabs and Muslims...
They will try to exploit the current positive atmosphere to surprise you...
They will strike you with all their hatred...
Then the hypocritical West will feign ignorance...
Or perhaps even dissatisfaction...
Be extremely cautious...
Never trust them...
Nor the hypocritical West...
Wars do not benefit anyone, as you know, except for the cruel-hearted...

These are not fringe opinions. These sentiments are written every day.

But we aren't allowed to talk about Arab antisemitism. It upsets them. Call them "anti-Zionist" instead.

The world wonders why there is no peace. But it doesn't want to know the answer.

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The @UN @OCHAOPT knows Hamas is lying - but repeats their Gaza statistics anyway

This is from the latest daily UN-OCHA report on Gaza casualties:

"GMO" is the Gaza Media Office, meaning Hamas.

OCHA claims the 33,797 figure comes from the ministry of health. The MoH does parrot the Hamas figures every day. But it also releases detailed reports every few days of deaths they consider to be verified, which include breakdowns of women, children and elderly,

It is literally impossible for both sets of numbers reported by OCHA to be correct.

The detailed MoH reports say that they have verified 22,397 deaths, of which 11,847 are women and children (4,642+7,205.) According to Hamas and the UN, there are a total of 24,000 women and children killed.

The difference between the number of women and children counted between the two sources (12,153) is higher than the total difference of all deaths between the two sources (11,400.)

Hamas is provably lying - and the UN happily repeats their lies and gives them credibility. The UN reports then get repeated by other UN agencies, media and NGOs as authoritative, notwithstanding the small text on the bottom of the OCHA reports saying "The UN has so far not been able to produce independent, comprehensive, and verified casualty figures; the current numbers have been provided by the Ministry of Health or the Government Media Office in Gaza and await further verification." That isn't good enough: once we know the Hamas GMO is lying, it is irresponsible and libelous to give them any further credibility.

And this has been going on for a long time. The MoH had divided up its "martyrs" into two categories for months - the ones it could confirm and the ones it repeated from Hamas. Both sets have been inconsistent with each other and with Hamas claims of total women and children casualties, but OCHA still always used to unreliable numbers in their headlines.

But, hey, this is the UN we are talking about, where the most outlandish anti-Israel lies are treated as gospel.

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Now Hezbollah is attacking Israeli Arab civilians, too

From Times of Israel:

At least six people are wounded in the rocket strike that hit a community center in the northern border community of Arab al-Aramshe, first responders say.

One is listed in serious condition, and the other five are in moderate and good condition, according to initial reports cited by medics.

Arab al-Aramshe is a Bedouin village that is right next to the border with Lebanon. It was officially evacuated in November, but apparently some residents didn't leave. Perhaps they felt that Hezbollah wouldn't attack them, even though the terror group did kill a mother and two daughters there with a rocket in 2006.

There is no way this was a mistaken attack. Hezbollah's weapons are accurate at short range. The community center is exactly one kilometer from the Blue Line.

The community center that was targeted is a beautiful building, especially considering that the entire town has less than 2,000 residents. It shows that the popular narrative that Israel doesn't spend any money in its Arab communities is a lie.

It looks like a charming and welcoming community. Israeli Jews and tourists enjoy eating at a local restaurant, "The End of the World to the Left - Bedouin Hospitality" and report that the owner is a wonderful person explaining the village's history.

Here's a photo of the damage.

Hezbollah seems to be claiming it was a "military barracks."

UPDATE: It was a drone attack.

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We've seen for years that the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor and its head Ramy Abdu make up absurd lies against Israel. One example is the insane claim that the IDF took dead bodies from Gaza for organ transplants, something that is medically impossible. Its board members have ties to Hamas.

But since it calls itself a "human rights organization" and is based out of Geneva, they are often believed by credulous Israel haters.

Here's a new accusation from them, a blood libel against Israel.

As part of its ongoing genocide, which started on 7 October 2023, the Israeli army is using new disturbing techniques to intimidate, lure, and target Palestinian civilians in the central Gaza Strip’s Nuseirat refugee camp.

Testimonies from camp residents, which were provided to the Euro-Med Monitor team, confirm that the sound of women screaming and babies crying was heard late at night on both Sunday and Monday. When some of the residents went out to investigate and tried to help, they were shot at by Israeli quadcopter drones. The sounds they had heard were in fact recordings played by the Israeli drones, with the intent of forcing the camp’s residents out into the streets, where they could be easily targeted by snipers and other weaponry.

According to the testimonies, this tactic also involved broadcasting gunshots, armed conflicts, explosions, military vehicle movements, and occasionally songs in Hebrew and Arabic in order to psychologically intimidate civilians who live amid total darkness at night and total disconnection from the external world.

A 20-year-old camp resident, who requested anonymity due to safety concerns, reported to the Euro-MedMonitor team: “We were sitting at night when we heard voices of girls and women screaming: ‘Come, help me, I am injured!’ We went out to find out what was happening. No women were found, but we were directly targeted by a quadcopter drone.”

Continued the camp resident, “I fled inside, and two people right in front of me were seriously injured. Because of the ongoing gunfire, we were unable to treat them, so we called an ambulance, and they arrived to transport them. Many residents heard these sounds and responded to provide help.”

A 60-year-old woman reported hearing loud gunfire, then hearing women’s cries of distress, informing the residents that their children were hurt and pleading for help. She went on, saying: “This sound continued for about 10 to 15 minutes, but none of us went outside because it was really late and I knew these were recordings from planes.”

No names of witnesses. No names of alleged victims. No video or audio of the gunshots.

Just anonymous Gaza residents saying things that Hamas wants them to say.

Middle East Eye has a supposed video of what they claim is a recording from the quadcopter, which sounds exactly like - a recording through a tinny speaker of a baby crying. No one would think that a sound coming from above them is a real baby crying, even if the audio is true. (It would be trivial to add a crying baby track on any video.)

I only found social media posts about the crying baby recordings. Euro-Med added the lie about the recording of the women screaming, gunshots, and Hebrew songs.

If Israel just wants to kill civilians, they could just drop bombs on houses and tents in the camp. Why would they lure civilians to their deaths this way? If you assume the IDF is that bloodthirsty - and clearly the people spreading this lie do - then why go through all this effort just to kill innocents?

It only makes sense if you start from the premise of Jews taking perverse pleasure out of murdering gentiles.

CAIR believes this, of course, and issued a press release parroting this blood libel as they have done for all the previous ones, no matter how blatant the lies are.

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04/16 Links Pt2: How woke leftists became cheerleaders for Iran; The News Media Has Helped Normalize Hamas; Tucker Carlson’s Turn

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: How woke leftists became cheerleaders for Iran

The truth is that Iran has been laying violent siege to Israel for decades. Through its proxies, it has slaughtered thousands of Israelis. The fascistic pogrom of 7 October was the bloody handiwork of an anti-Semitic army backed by Iran. Two other Iran-backed militias – Hezbollah and the Houthis – have fired hundreds of missiles at Israel since 7 October. The idea that Israel’s bombing of Iranian military men in Damascus was unprovoked, out of the blue, a cunning ploy to drag poor little Iran into a war, is a grotesque inversion of reality. Iran had already declared war on Israel. And visited war on Israel. And made clear its desire to destroy Israel. It isn’t even coy. ‘Death to Israel!’, Iranians cry at regime-sponsored gatherings. The same words are emblazoned on the literal flag of the Houthis movement that does Iran’s dirty work in Yemen.

Surely, it makes more sense to see Israel’s Damascus attack as a ‘retaliatory strike’? Retaliation for the unspeakable barbarism of 7 October, for Hezbollah’s missiles, for the Houthis’ virulently anti-Semitic warmongering? Those who rage against Israel and make excuses for Iran are about as far from being anti-imperialists as you can get. Rather, they’ve thrown their lot in with Iranian imperialism, with the theocratic tyranny’s deployment of war, terror and political favour to the end of fortifying its regional influence. Whatever their placards might say, these activists are objectively pro-war, objectively pro-domination.

The Western left’s blaming of Israel for everything, and its implicit absolution of Iran, is grimly revealing. These people seem to view Israel as the only true actor in the Middle East, and everyone else as mere respondents to Israel’s actions. Israel is the author of the Middle East’s fate, while the rest of them – Hamas, the Houthis, even Iran – are mere bit-part players with the misfortune to be caught up in Israel’s vast and terrifying web. This is identitarianism, not anti-imperialism. A new generation of radicals educated into the regressive ideology that says ‘white’ people are powerful and ‘brown’ people are oppressed can only understand the Middle East in these terms, too.

The end result is that they demonise Israel and infantilise Iran. The Jewish State comes to be seen as uniquely malevolent while Iran is treated as a kind of wide-eyed child who cannot help but lash out at its ‘Zionist’ oppressor. Israel is damned as a criminal state, while Iran’s crimes against humanity are downplayed, even memory-holed. This is where wokeness leads, then: to sympathy for one of the most backward and repressive states on Earth on the deranged basis that its criminal strikes against Israel represent a blow against the arrogant West itself. In encouraging our young to hate their own societies, we’ve made them moral fodder for a far worse society.

Seth Mandel: Who, Exactly, Does the Hezbollah-Flag-Waving Dirtbag Represent?

Politicians used to chase the Soccer Mom vote. Now they appear to be chasing the Execute-the-Soccer-Mom vote.

Also among the demonstrators were those wearing Hamas headbands. Hamas is the Gaza-based version of Hezbollah and it started the current war by murdering and kidnapping Americans and Israelis. These protesters are ostentatiously anti-American: They were burning American flags and yelling “death to America.”

Again, non-rhetorical question for the politicians who cower before those who yell “death to America”: How many of your constituents do they represent? What is it you stand to lose by forfeiting their vote? What slice of your political coalition chants “death to America”? And why, pray tell, are the opinions of Lebanese terrorists so important to your assessment of the war in Gaza?

We hear a lot about the way these folks intend to deter President Biden’s reelection prospects, which is why the president sent his aides to try to placate a large group of them in Michigan. Can the president explain why he wants the vote of somebody who burns American flags on behalf of a group holding Americans hostage?

The political behavior of a fair number of Democrats has changed in accordance with the demands of these groups of protesters. That is what you do when you must be inclusive of all parts of your electoral coalition. So don’t just obliquely refer to the demonstrators; claim them. Tell us what they mean to you, and why you need them, and why U.S. policy should be shaped by them.

Or stop running from them and start standing up for yourselves.

The News Media Has Helped Normalize Hamas

As a former foreign correspondent in the Middle East, I've frequently found myself defending the industry with Israelis who charge media bias. But as I observe the cluelessness of Hamas apologists worldwide, I realize we have failed to tell the story of a jihadi outfit considered a terrorist group by the U.S.

Support for Hamas in this war is not support for the Palestinian cause of an independent state on a share of the Holy Land. That is not only not the cause of Hamas - it is precisely what Hamas has for decades been laboring to prevent. Hamas is not in power in Gaza due to elections but because of a coup. It runs a quasi-theocratic mafia state where opposition will get you killed, and it seeks eternal war till total victory. Since the 1990s, whenever there were peace talks, Hamas tried to scuttle them with terrorism.

In the case of the Gaza war, the media has largely stuck to its instincts for impartiality: "Both sides" have their narratives, and both have good and bad. One may be a terrorist group and the other a Western-leaning democracy, but in this era of progressive decolonization narratives, an association with the West will not get you very far with much of the Western media.

Hamas is a violent fundamentalist movement that seeks not just the demise of Israel but also, with its jihadi fellow travelers, of the West. Hamas and its accomplices share none of the values that drive the modern world, from respect for human rights to freedom of speech to the rule of law. Are so many Westerners too feeble-minded to get this?

Some argue that no one appointed journalists to connect the dots for people, and that the wisest approach would be to just "report the facts." But when the result is the normalization of a monstrosity like Hamas, that is malpractice.

Pro-Hamas ‘Journalists’ Blur the Line between Coverage and Propaganda

The latest high-profile Gaza-based journalist to have her terror support on full display is Hind Khoudary, who has even been profiled by the New York Times, among other papers. After briefly examining her social-media pages, I posted a thread last week on X (formerly Twitter) that highlighted some of the publicly available content from Khoudary’s social-media accounts to show that she was unfit to don a press vest, including her affiliation with the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a Switzerland-based organization with deep ties to Hamas, and the fact that she has repeatedly glorified terrorists and violence. Such behavior should be completely unacceptable for any media outlet using Khoudary’s work (as well as for the United Nations World Food Programme, for which she works as a content producer).

Unsurprisingly, upon posting the findings about Khoudary, I faced the wrath of pro-Hamas activists for supposedly putting a “kill target” on her and insisting that I should be held responsible if she were to be killed. All because I simply reposted her own content.

A similar situation occurred when the founder and editor of the Free Press, Bari Weiss, brought attention to disturbing posts by Refaat Alareer, a Gazan professor, poet, writer, activist, and journalist who once tweeted, under the account “Gaza Writes Back,” “Are most Jews evil? Of course they are.” Weiss was subject to the mob’s ire for flagging a post in which Alareer mocked babies who were slaughtered by terrorists on October 7. When Alareer was later killed in an Israeli airstrike, radicals unjustly placed the blame on Weiss.

Journalists in conflict zones bear a significant responsibility. Ideally, they serve as objective sources from which the public can derive reliable information on which to base their own opinions. However, the reality often falls short of this ideal.

Given these alarming examples, perhaps the most troubling revelation is that the objectivity of a journalist, once the cornerstone of trustworthy reporting, is no longer a chief concern for many. This shift, evident in the media’s acceptance and even glorification of biased narratives during the current war, underscores a worrying trend in the dissemination of news and information.

In a world increasingly fragmented by biased narratives, the role of journalism becomes even more critical. And in such a world, contrary to the claims of some vocal online activists, journalists should be subject to the highest level of scrutiny.

On April 1, a UNIFIL patrol was attacked by pro-Hezbollah residents of the town of Baraashit in southern Lebanon.

They punctured the vehicle's tires and put a Hezbollah flag on it.

I could not find a statement by UNIFIL about this.

On Monday, a very similar incident happened in another Hezbollah stronghold, this one near Beirut.

A vehicle belonging to the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was seized by residents Monday in the Beirut southern suburb of Hay el-Sellom, which is a Hezbollah stronghold, media reports said.

The vehicle ended up in the aforementioned area due to a “GPS error,” the reports said.

This is not the first such incident in recent months.

On March 1, a similar occurrence sparked an altercation with locals and a brief detention of the peacekeepers, also in Hay el-Sellom.

The article goes on to say that these kinds of things happen against UN vehicles and personnel in south Lebanon all the time.

The UNIFIL Twitter/X account is again silent.

The UN cows before Hezbollah and even Hezbollah supporters. What a totally useless organization.

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04/16 Links Pt1: Benny Morris: Iran Contra Israel; The “Don’t” Doctrine; IDF has decided on type, not timing, of counter-strike on Iran; All Hamas needs to do is survive

From Ian:

Benny Morris: Iran Contra Israel

While everyone understands that actual American military power remains robust, there is a perception of America’s weakness of resolve and reluctance to use force, rooted in two pre-Biden episodes. The first took place under President Obama in 2013, when Biden was vice-president, when Obama warned Syria’s President Bashar Assad not to use chemical weapons against his opponents in the Syrian Civil War. Despite Obama’s warning that this was a “red line,” Assad went ahead and used chemical weapons anyway and Obama refrained from doing anything in response. The second episode took place in September 2019. In a kind of preview of the recent assault on Israel, Iran launched cruise missiles and drones against Saudi Arabia’s oil installations, causing major damage, yet President Trump did nothing to help America’s ally. (In the 14 April assault, the Iranians launched more than 10 times as many missiles: at least 110 ballistic missiles, 30 or so cruise missiles, and more than 170 drones.)

To this catalogue of incidents highlighting American irresolution and lack of resolve, we should add Washington’s striking reluctance to provide Ukraine with F-16 fighters and various advanced munitions and, of course, America’s unsuccessful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, culminating in the shameful retreat from Kabul. This is not how Great Powers behave.

In the context of the current Middle East war, Biden said “don’t” back in October, in the hope of deterring Iranian and Hezbollah involvement, just after Hamas’s savage assault on southern Israel. Washington even sent a naval task force to the region. Nonetheless, Hezbollah and the Houthis, obviously directed or at least authorised by Tehran, went ahead and launched their wars of attrition against northern Israel and in the Bab al Manad straits—and the two groups have persisted in, respectively, launching daily rockets at Israeli military positions and communities and in launching rockets against both Israeli and non-Israeli shipping in the Red Sea. Indeed, the day before their missile strike against Israel, the Iranians, in defiance of international law, brazenly hijacked a Philippines ship in the Straits of Hormuz at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. Clearly, Tehran does not fear Washington’s wrath.

How exactly the Iranian attack of 14 April and its frustration will affect the war in Gaza is unclear. The Iranians may have wanted to signal their support to Hamas—even though the attack appears to have been mainly motivated by Iranian calculations regarding their own position in the Middle East. Since launching its assault on Israel’s southern border communities on 7 October, Hamas has hoped to widen its war with Israel and ignite a regional war, involving Iran and its other proxies, who might rain down missiles on Israel from the north, east and south. The mini wars of attrition Hezbollah is waging from Lebanon and the Houthis from Yemen have only partly fulfilled Hamas’s hopes. Perhaps the Hamas leaders see the Iranian missile strike on Israel as a further token of regional support for their war.

On Israel’s part, the country has certainly drawn comfort from the fact that Jordan helped to block the Iranian strike (the Jordanians reportedly shot down several Iranian drones), and Washington certainly views Jordan’s cooperation as a sign that its plans to consolidate an Arab Sunni bloc to impede Iran’s ambitions to dominate the Middle East are bearing fruit. We should expect an improvement in Israeli–Jordanian relations over the coming weeks.

But the key question is whether Israel will agree to join the emergent bloc, which Biden has been advocating since 7 October, even if it entails accepting a two-state peace settlement with the Palestinians (which would imply eventual Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank and perhaps East Jerusalem) and allowing the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority to take over the Gaza Strip after Israel completes its withdrawal when the war with Hamas comes to an end.

So far, Netanyahu has agreed to neither of these conditions and is unlikely to agree to them in the future, given his desire to maintain his right-wing coalition government. This is a major reason why Washington—together with Israel’s liberals and left-wingers—is seeking Netanyahu’s ouster as quickly as possible. The problem is that Netanyahu’s ruling coalition controls 64 seats in Israel’s 120-seat Knesset (parliament) and, unless a handful of coalition members defect, there is no way to unseat Netanyahu and his coalition before the general elections scheduled for 2026. Hence, Biden’s geopolitical plans are out of synch with internal Israeli politics.

Meanwhile, Israel has withdrawn most of its forces from the Gaza Strip, has allowed tens of thousands of Gazans to move from the southern end of the Strip back to their homes in the north, seems undecided about conquering the town of Rafah and its environs—the last piece of Gaza still under full Hamas control—and has reached a dead end in the negotiations for the return of the remaining hundred or so hostages whom Hamas abducted from Israel on 7 October. So far, Hamas has refused any deal and insists that Israel must definitively end the war and pull all its forces out of the Strip before Hamas will even contemplate an exchange of hostages for Palestinian terrorists (or “freedom fighters”) in Israeli prisons.

The “Don’t” Doctrine

This capitulation to aggression against a key ally embodies the flaws of Biden’s “don’t” doctrine: words followed by minimal action toward adversaries, and pressure on allies not to respond to attacks. It’s an approach that recalls the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the tepid response to Houthi terrorist-pirates attacking American-owned vessels and destabilizing crucial shipping lanes. Thanks to the “don’t” doctrine, Iran has established a new status quo: it can fire scores of rockets and drones at an American ally and emerge materially unscathed.

The only saving grace of the “don’t” doctrine, and the associated capitulation to Iranian aggression, is that it inadvertently highlights an important truth often overlooked by the U.S. government, media, and punditry: that the Iranian regime is fundamentally responsible for the ongoing chaos in the Middle East and the deaths in Israel and Gaza.

Moreover, the situation underscores the potential of the Abraham Accords, the series of agreements seeking to normalize Israel’s relations with Arab states. Jordan’s and Saudi Arabia’s participation in the joint defense effort against Iran’s attack demonstrates how security cooperation between Israel and Arab states can enhance regional stability—a potential nearly derailed by the Biden administration’s initial reluctance to embrace the accords.

The U.S. urgently needs a shift in strategy. Biden must abandon his ineffective “don’t” doctrine and adopt a more assertive regional posture. This does not mean deploying American ground troops, a move widely opposed in the U.S. and Israel alike. It does, however, mean rallying Democratic support for unconditional defensive weapon sales to Israel, allowing Israel to strike back at Iran, reinstating the embargoes on Iranian drones and missiles that expired in 2020, and initiating a broad international sanctions regime to isolate Iran further.

Unfortunately, the G–7 summit convened by President Biden to address Iran’s attack resulted only in a strongly worded statement condemning the Tehran regime. The administration needs to do much better than this.

Aviva Klompas: Biden said 'don't,' but Iran attacked anyway. How should Israel respond now?

Biden wants diplomatic response to Iran attack
The question is, now what?
President Joe Biden has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States won’t support a counterattack on Iran, according to a White House official. In a statement released Saturday night, Biden said the United States seeks a “diplomatic response to Iran’s brazen attack.”

But what message does that send Iran?

Understandably, nobody wants to spark a regional war or, given the tinderbox that is the Middle East, the next world war. For that reason, Israel has until now withheld from directly confronting Iran.

At the same time, a tepid response to this weekend’s large-scale assault reinforces the message that there are no real consequences for Iranian aggression. The regime already assessed as much when it decided to launch a direct attack.

Iranian leaders have seen Israel’s allies repeatedly backtrack on their “unwavering” commitment to Israel.

The ayatollahs have watched in recent days as the United States allowed the United Nations to pass a cease-fire resolution that didn’t tie the end of hostilities to freeing hostages. They have seen the calls on Capitol Hill to halt military aid to Israel spread beyond the left-wing fringe.

And they’ve taken note that Canada and Sweden resumed funding the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees despite that group’s ties to terror.

On Friday, when Biden was asked about Iran’s plans to attack Israel, his response was: "Don’t.”

But Iran did.

The regime is dangerously emboldened, having already destabilized Iraq and Syria and empowered its terror proxies to exert power in Lebanon, Yemen and Gaza. Iran has learned there are no red lines. Not for financing and directing terror groups. Not for disrupting maritime trade in the Red Sea. Not even for killing three American soldiers in Jordan earlier this year.

How will Iran be reined in after latest aggression?
Where, then, is the red line?
Iran will continue to foment unrest and destabilize the Middle East unless there are consequential repercussions for its aggression.

Now is the time to finally show resolve and deliver a morally unambiguous lesson that the ceaseless war fomented by Iran and its radical Islamist proxies is neither normal nor acceptable.

How Biden helps Iran pay for its terror by refusing to enforce current sanctions

President Biden has spent his three years in office making it clear to Tehran’s terrorist regime that America won’t make it pay a price for attacking our allies, bankrolling Hamas and expanding Iranian nuclear capabilities.

In fact, by refusing to enforce sanctions already on the books, Biden is helping Iran foot the bill for its aggression, including the first direct attack on Israel in the regime’s 45 years in power.

Each year since Biden took office, Iran has steadily increased oil exports — its most lucrative revenue source — following a historic collapse of sales during the Trump administration’s maximum-pressure campaign.

The increase is no accident. “U.S. officials privately acknowledge they’ve gradually relaxed some enforcement of sanctions on Iranian oil sales,” Bloomberg revealed last year.

This month, Iran boosted oil production to an estimated five-year high of 3.4 million barrels per day — primarily for China, which buys the commodity at a discount.

From oil alone, the regime has earned upwards of $100 billion — and a handy cushion from the consequences of its own actions.

Another source of Tehran’s revenue is liquified petroleum gas, which the regime has started to export in record quantities, rendering it the top seller in the region.

In public, the administration denies it is going easy on Iran. Accordingly, the sanctions it should be enforcing are still on the books: specifically, regulations requiring the administration to sanction individuals and foreign financial institutions that trade in Tehran-origin commodities.

The administration has also left in place Executive Order 13846, issued by Donald Trump, which provides a toolkit to penalize anyone involved in the “purchase, acquisition, sale, transport, or marketing” of regime petroleum.

So why isn’t the administration acting?

In a word: appeasement.

Team Biden — populated by many Team Obama veterans — believe dogmatically that they can keep the Middle East quiet and finally pivot to Asia by paying Iran to behave.

The Oct. 7 massacre proved otherwise — Hamas depends on Tehran’s reliable provision of funding, training and weapons.

The administration’s flawed ideology has also led Washington to pull its punches across a spectrum of Iran-backed threats: the regime’s advancing nuclear program; dealing with Hezbollah and other Iran-backed militias; the Houthis’ attacks on global shipping; and the unprecedented arming of Russia with missiles and drones for use against Ukraine.

Tehran is more capable of attacking the United States, Israel and our allies thanks to its windfall from US sanctions nonenforcement.