The Ceasefire is a Perverse Farce: Israel Must Win This War Decisively, or Israel and the West are in Grave Danger

In the latest of a series of disgusting Hamas propaganda events presented in conjunction with the International Red Cross, Hamas transferred four caskets to Israel today. The caskets purportedly contained Ariel Bibas (who was four years old when terrorists murdered him in Gaza), his brother Kfir Bibas (who was 10 months old when terrorists murdered him in Gaza), the children's mother Shiri, and Oded Lifshitz (a grandfather who was 84 years old when terrorists murdered him in Gaza). It should be emphasized that forensic examinations proved that the Bibas children were murdered in captivity, and did not die in an airstrike, contrary to the propaganda that Hamas has spewed for over a year and that Hamas boldly put on the banner that they proudly displayed at today's propaganda event. Forensic investigators also determined that the body that was supposed to be Shiri is in fact not Shiri, and does not match the identifying characteristics of any of the hostages. 

Congratulations, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu--you just traded terrorists to Hamas in exchange for a random dead body. President Trump keeps talking about "unleashing hell" on Hamas, but all that has been unleashed so far is humiliation on Israel for agreeing to this dangerous foolishness, and humiliation on the United States for brokering this deal.  

Congratulations, "Free Palestine" and "From the River to the Sea!" advocates--you are the proud supporters of child-killing terrorists who bring their own children to celebrate the deaths of Jewish children, and who pledge to kill more Jewish children in the future.

This flagrant (and ghoulish) violation of the ceasefire's terms should be met by an immediate, appropriate Israeli military response. This ceasefire is doomed to be a disaster for Israel (and the rest of the West), as were previous lopsided exchanges of murderers for hostages/dead bodies. 

In Israel Must Not Repeat the Mistake of Releasing Terrorists, I urged Israel to not agree to a ceasefire and to not release a single terrorist:

In the wake of Hamas's October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack, I explained the Islamic concepts of Dar al-Islam versus Dar al-Harb, and I defined what victory must look like for Israel: 

1) Hamas is eliminated as a functioning terrorist, military, and political entity.

2) Hamas' state sponsors--including but perhaps not limited to Iran and Qatar--must pay reparations for the killed, for the injured, and for the destruction of property.

3) All hostages held by Hamas must be released immediately and unconditionally.

Israel has fought Hamas--and Hezbollah, Iran, and the Houthis--for over a year and has failed to accomplish any of the above goals while losing over 800 soldiers in combat. It is not enough to kill a few top Hamas and Hezbollah leaders and to kill or capture several thousand foot soldiers, because doing so did not eliminate Hamas as a functioning entity, did not punish Hamas' state sponsors, and did not secure the unconditional release of all hostages.

Israel has a pathetic history of turning not quite victory into total defeat. In 2011, Netanyahu signed off on a deal with Hamas, releasing over 1000 terrorists in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas. One of those released terrorists was Yahya Sinwar, the architect of Hamas's October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack during which Hamas killed more than 1200 people and took more than 250 hostages. One lesson that Sinwar learned while he was incarcerated in Israel is that Israel will pay almost any price in exchange for hostages, and that is a major reason that the October 7, 2023 attack included plans to take hostages.

While we mourn the Bibas children, Lifshitz, and all of the other murdered hostages, we should not forget the Simon Tov family and the many other men, women, and children who were massacred on October 7, 2023. Their blood cries out to us; we owe it to them, and to potential future victims of Islamist bloodlust, to win this war as decisively and quickly as possible.

I previously discussed how "postmodern" concepts have wrecked Israel's military, and I offered a battle plan for the future:

Israel should abandon postmodern military doctrines that have repeatedly failed to yield desired results, and embark on a better, bolder path:

1) Scrap all of the "precision-guided munitions" and revert to using good old-fashioned "dumb" bombs. Israel's enemies would then directly pay the heavy price of attacking Israel, and they would know that Jewish blood is no longer cheap.

2) Stop bragging about military successes (real and imagined). Move in silence. Don't let the enemy know what to expect, and don't tell the enemy afterward what you did or did not do.

The harsh reality is that Israel and the West will either defeat the Islamists, or the Islamists will force the world to submit to Islamic law. This war will not be ended by negotiations or concessions, and it certainly will not be ended by delusional postmodern military doctrines focused on "effects" and deterrence.

President Trump should be commended for supporting Israel's right to "unleash hell" in Gaza, but those words are meaningless as long as the United States sponsors ceasefires that enable Hamas to rearm. Further, President Trump must confront Qatar for its primary role supporting Islamist terrorism. Qatar is a major part of the problem, and most assuredly is not an honest broker for peace. 

Israel's survival and the United States' status as the leader of the Free World both depend on the total defeat of the Iran-Qatar-Hamas-Hezbollah alliance. It should be glaringly obvious that this war is not about land, and it certainly is not about helping Palestinian Arabs or creating a state for them. Egypt occupied Gaza from 1948-67 and did not even attempt to create a Palestinian Arab state there, and Jordan similarly controlled Judea and Samaria from 1948-67 without attempting to create a Palestinian Arab state there. Why should Israel be expected to be "more Arab" than the Arabs? The Arabs know that "Palestinian nationalism" is just an inversion of the historical truth that Jews are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel, and that is why they never tried to create a Palestinian Arab state.

Anyone who still supports a "Two State Solution" is delusional at best, and evil at worst. I have already described the history of the Land of Israel and the fact that there has never been a Palestinian Arab state:

Much has been said and written about the "Palestinian" nation and about "Palestinian " rights. I agree with anyone who fights for the basic human rights of every single human being, but I have some questions about Palestine as a nation. When did a sovereign country named "Palestine" exist? What was its capital, and what were its borders? What distinct, unique language was spoken there? Such questions arouse outrage and venom from some people, but I have yet to hear or see any answers--and there is a simple reason for that: it is a demonstrable historical fact that no such sovereign country ever existed. 

Palestine is a geographic term, much like the term Midwest is used to describe the portion of the United States that includes Ohio, Michigan, and a few other states. In the early 20th century, the geographic term Palestine was used to describe a territory including what is now known as Israel, Gaza, the so-called West Bank (the areas properly called by their historic names Judea and Samaria), and Jordan; after World War I, the League of Nations approved a Mandate granting control of Palestine to Great Britain with the express understanding that the territory would be a homeland for the Jewish people. Great Britain sliced off the eastern 80% of the Palestine Mandate to create Transjordan (which later became the independent Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan). After the demise of the League of Nations and after World War II, the United Nations proposed that the remaining 20% of the Palestine Mandate be divided into a Jewish state and a second Arab state (in addition to Jordan). The Jewish leadership in Palestine accepted the UN's proposal--but the Arab leadership in Palestine rejected the UN's proposal and joined forces with armies from the surrounding Arab nations in what they expected to be a war of annihilation against the nascent Jewish State--but Israel won the war, and ended up controlling less than 20% of the original Palestine Mandate, with most of the remaining territory under Jordanian control (Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip, which has never been historically part of Egypt).

Throughout history, the aftermath of a war includes the resettlement of refugees and the redrawing of borders. This situation is no different; the Arabs rejected the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan, and they have lost every war that they launched against Israel since that time. Israel gave the Sinai Peninsula to Israel as part of the Camp David Accords, gave up parts of Judea and Samaria in the Oslo Accords, and unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Israel not only withdrew militarily from Gaza, but she forcibly removed Jewish civilians who lived there and she even dug up Jewish bodies buried there. Israel left behind greenhouses and other infrastructure that the Arabs promptly and gleefully destroyed, because this is not about land and has never been about land; this is about hating Jews, killing Jews, and destroying the Jewish State.

Giving up land and setting free terrorists has not brought peace to the Mideast or security to Israel. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different results. The only way to defeat Islamism is to actually defeat it: kill the terrorists, kill their leaders, and make it clear that starting a war has a permanent territorial cost. Israel should immediately annex Judea and Samaria, and the Arab population there that is not willing to peacefully accept Israeli citizenship should be resettled in any of the more than two dozen Arab/Muslim countries. Israel has every right to annex Gaza as well, but if Israel prefers that Gaza be administered by the United States--as President Trump proposed--that is fine, provided that the current Gazan population is resettled in Arab/Muslim countries, both for the benefit of that population and to ensure the safety of Israel from a populace that has repeatedly demonstrated its overt support for Hamas' genocidal aims: the Gazans can start over elsewhere, and Gaza can finally be built up in a way that the Arabs have been unwilling or unable to do.

As a postscript to today's gruesome spectacle in Gaza, three empty buses exploded in Tel Aviv, and bombs were found on two other buses. Had those bombs exploded as intended during morning rush hour, hundreds of people could have been killed. The source of that terrorist attack is most likely the very population in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza that must be resettled--a population that has proven that it is unwilling to live side by side with Israel in peace. Israel is not going anywhere and should not have to go anywhere; the people who are creating the problem need to go somewhere else. If the Arab/Muslim countries refuse to take in their brethren then (1) that confirms how dangerous these people are, and (2) the United States should take that into consideration when allocating aid and when providing the military support that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Arab/Muslim countries expect to receive. Israel resettled nearly 1,000,000 Jewish refugees from Arab/Muslim countries after 1947, and the time has come to complete that population exchange by resettling Arab/Muslim refugees in Arab/Muslim countries.

Today could be a momentous day: Hamas clearly violated the ceasefire, and terrorists attacked within the heart of Israel. Israel should not sit on her hands just because a mass casualty terrorist attack was averted, because next time Israel may not be so fortunate--and there will always be a next time until Israel wins this war as decisively and quickly as possible. 

We must all hope that Israel understands the gravity of the moment, and does what needs to be done to eliminate the Islamist threat to not just the Mideast but to Western civilization.

How Flawed "Postmodern" Concepts Wrecked Israel's Military

This is one of the most insightful and important articles/interviews that I have read in a long time: Why Hamas is still standing – analysis. Ran Baratz, who teaches military doctrine at the IDF's National Defense College, asserts that Israel's military has been negatively impacted by postmodern military doctrines, and he says that this is also a major problem for other Western democracies. He identifies the development of nuclear weapons and the end of the Cold War as two events that influenced postmodern military doctrines that rely on "precision-guided munitions" and "shock and awe" in contrast to the traditional military doctrine that focuses on obtaining victory by destroying the enemy's capability to fight.

After Israel's failure to win the Second Lebanon War (2006), former IDF Chief of Staff Dan Shomron pointedly noted that Israel's tactics had shifted from results-oriented to "effects"-oriented. Shomron lamented, "We used to hit the enemy on the head with a club—and then he felt the effects."

Baratz explains, "The postmodern IDF's approach was to try to reach the 'effects' stage without the intermediate clubbing phase, which, unsurprisingly, turned out not to work in the real world." He correctly identifies former Prime Minister Shimon Peres--one of the all-time darlings of the Left--as someone who played a major role in Israel's embrace of flawed postmodern military doctrines.

I am puzzled and upset when Israel almost immediately announces after a terrorist attack, in triumphant fashion, that it knew where the terrorist lived and has now destroyed the terrorist's house after first evacuating the inhabitants. If Israel has such in depth knowledge about where her enemies are, then why doesn't Israel destroy her enemies and end the war without allowing so many of her civilians to be slaughtered? Israel's actions makes no sense unless you buy the twin delusional notions that (1) peace is possible with an enemy who has sworn to stop at nothing to destroy you and (2) limited reactions to terrorist murders provide effective deterrence. The tragic reality is that (1) Israel's enemies will kill or be killed because they have pledged their lives to their goals of subjugating Israel followed by subjugating the rest of the non-Islamic world and (2) such "deterrence" not only has no military effect but it also has a negative public relations effect, because media outlets much prefer to show a destroyed house owned by Arabs/Muslims than the victims of Arab/Islamic terrorism.

Israel also brags about using "precision-guided munitions" that can target one person while leaving other people in close proximity unharmed. Israel seems to be blissfully unaware that no one is impressed by her "precision-guided munitions." Her enemies scoff at Israel's softness while simultaneously complaining to credulous media outlets that Israel is committing "genocide."

Israel should abandon postmodern military doctrines that have repeatedly failed to yield desired results, and embark on a better, bolder path:

1) Scrap all of the "precision-guided munitions" and revert to using good old-fashioned "dumb" bombs. Israel's enemies would then directly pay the heavy price of attacking Israel, and they would know that Jewish blood is no longer cheap.

2) Stop bragging about military successes (real and imagined). Move in silence. Don't let the enemy know what to expect, and don't tell the enemy afterward what you did or did not do.

The harsh reality is that Israel and the West will either defeat the Islamists, or the Islamists will force the world to submit to Islamic law. This war will not be ended by negotiations or concessions, and it certainly will not be ended by delusional postmodern military doctrines focused on "effects" and deterrence.

Baratz concludes: "When do you need the military? For the moment that deterrence fails. So the military shouldn't be allowed to think about deterrence. It should live by the assumption that deterrence has failed and now it is required. As long as the enemy understands that your military is capable of winning, they are deterred. It's a byproduct of your actual war abilities. You do not deter your enemy by persuading him and by psychological effects."

In Israel Must not Underestimate Hezbollah the Way that Israel Underestimated Hamas, I warned, "I fervently do not want to be the prophet of Israel's destruction, but Israel's destruction is possible if Israel underestimates or ignores the threats posed by Iran, a weakened but not defeated Hamas, and a weakened but not defeated Hezbollah. I warned for many years about the threat posed by Hamas, and I was proven right. I have also warned repeatedly about the threat posed by Iran in general and Hezbollah in particular, and I hope that Israel has learned from her previous grievous mistakes and will act decisively to defeat her evil enemies."

Israel Must not Underestimate Hezbollah the Way that Israel Underestimated Hamas

Prior to Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel, the Israeli military/political "concept" was that Hamas was either incapable of such an attack or afraid of the consequences of launching such an attack; in either event, Israel need not worry about Hamas doing anything more than "minor" terrorist attacks that "only" killed or wounded a few people. Any sensible person reading those words immediately understands many reasons why such a "concept" is both flawed and dangerous, including (1) a nation should not accept as a matter of course that a terrorist group will regularly launch fatal attacks on her territory, and (2) it is reckless to assume that a terrorist group that speaks of launching a massive attack is not planning to launch a massive attack given the right conditions. Israeli hubris after the Six Day War paved the way for Israeli vulnerability at the start of the Yom Kippur War, and the "concept" about Hamas displayed similar hubris.

Israel is now at great risk of falling prey to such hubris yet again. Hezbollah (which can also be spelled Hizbullah) is, like Hamas, an Iranian-funded terrorist group with global reach and global aspirations; for Iran and the terrorist groups funded by Iran, fighting Israel is just one battle in a much larger war. The Islamist quest to not only destroy Israel but to kill Jews worldwide can only be understood in the context of the concepts of Dar al-Islam versus Dar al-harb:

The barbarism at the core of radical Islam will not be cured by any concession made by Israel short of complete dissolution of the Jewish State--and even if that tragic outcome happened, radical Islam would not be placated but would instead turn its full attention toward the United States and other democratic countries that are part of the Dar al-harb--the portions of the world that radical Muslims have yet to conquer, with the emphasis on "yet": they believe that such conquest is promised to them by Allah, and they will not rest until they achieve such conquest, transforming all of the world into Dar al-Islam (territory governed in strict accordance with Islamic law, which means--among other things--no freedom of speech, no freedom of religion, no freedom of the press, no independent judiciary, and very limited rights for women and any other minority group not favored under Islamic law). 

Israel has had some success in diminishing Hezbollah's capabilities in the past year or so, but Israel should not rest on her laurels or feel safe until the job of destroying Hezbollah is complete. It is no secret that for quite some time Hezbollah has been planning a massive invasion of Israel from the north that, if successful, would dwarf the scale of what Hamas did in southern Israel. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has done a tremendous job of compiling in great detail a massive amount of evidence regarding Hezbollah's goals and capabilities. Unmasking The Religious Dimensions Of Hizbullah's Decades Of Planning For An October 7-Style Invasion And Massacre Of Jews is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand the grave danger facing Israel. The opening sentences of the report are chilling to read:

Since the 2006 Israel-Hizbullah war, Hizbullah has been speaking openly, in Arabic and in explicit detail, of its plan to carry out a future massacre in Israel. Hizbullah's plan, two decades in the making, was to begin by invading the Galilee using missiles, rockets, and drones, along with advanced technology, intelligence, and surveillance, and with a tunnel network far more extensive than Hamas's. Yet Hamas's October 7 attack turned out to have preempted what Hizbullah had been planning – plans that were confirmed by documentation found by Israeli forces in their counteroffensive in southern Lebanon.

Self-proclaimed "progressives" and other "useful idiots" in the West and elsewhere falsely assert that they and their Islamist brothers in arms are anti-Zionists but not antisemites, and they falsely claim that Israel is an evil colonizer of Arab lands. The reality is that Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism, and Jews are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel. Further, there is a deep religious dimension to the war against Israel, as discussed in MEMRI's report:

In its communications, Hizbullah often refers to the seventh-century slaughter of the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula by the army of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, during the seventh-century Battle of Khaybar. In fact, Hizbullah considers all its current strikes against Israel to be part of its "Operation Khaybar" in revenge for the killing of Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. An October 1 post by the Hizbullah Al-Electroni account featured a 25-second video warning, in Hebrew and English: "The Khyber [i.e. Khaybar] Gate will be uprooted twice, and the field will testify that we are the people of decisiveness."

A video released in February 2023, further highlighting Hizbullah's framing of its current battle against Israel in religious terms, showed the elite Radwan Force simulating an invasion of northern Israel. The narrator quoted the Old Testament in Hebrew: "If there is a serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. Exodus, 21:24-25." The video concluded with a verse from the Book of Jeremiah: "From the north, disaster will be poured out on all who live in the land [Israel]. Jeremiah 1:14."

This theme, and this verse from Jeremiah, also appeared in an October 2020 video on Hizbullah's media outlet Al-Manar. In it, a Hizbullah official stressed that the next phase of the "resistance" would include two "blades" – Hizbullah missiles and legions of fighters who will storm the enemy's barracks and settlements – in an operation named "The Gates Of Khaybar Will Be Smashed Again."

It is notable that Hizbullah supporters in the West – in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and elsewhere – have revived the historic Muslim call to kill Jews in chants threatening local Jewish communities: "Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return." This occurred at a September 29 vigil for Nasrallah in Dearborn, Michigan, where it was heard; the crowd chanted "Death to Israel" for good measure.

The slogans "Free Palestine!" and "Land for Peace!" are not calls for righteous action but rather calls for disarming and weakening Israel as a prelude to destroying Israel. Hezbollah makes no secret of its goal to destroy Israel, which means that the people chanting "Free Palestine!" and "Land for Peace!" either want Israel to be destroyed or are brainwashed and have no idea what they are talking about. 

MEMRI's report describes Hezbollah's detailed plans to destroy Israel: 

Days after the September 17-18 detonation of Hizbullah operatives' pagers and other communication devices across Lebanon, came Israel's elimination of the top tier of Hizbullah's leadership, including, on September 27, Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. He was killed deep in his bunker, as he and senior Hizbullah officials were reportedly finalizing their plans that would likely have gone into action for the Jewish New Year on October 2 or for the anniversary of October 7. In its Lebanon ground offensive, which began September 30, Israel has found in the tunnels – that North Korean experts are known to have helped construct – anti-helicopter missiles, anti-tank missiles, mortar shells, ammunition, weapons, and explosives, as well as motorcycles, for Hizbullah's "Conquer the Galilee" operation.

Hizbullah believed that its invasion would bring about Israel's destruction. In interviews, and in Arab media and social media posts, Hizbullah officials, including Nasrallah, his deputies, and senior commanders, detailed the organization's goals and aims.

According to these statements, as noted, Hizbullah's plan would begin with the Galilee. In 2019, Nasrallah explained: "Part of our plan, both theoretically and in practice... It is a plan for which we train, and prepare... We have prepared this plan. It is complete. Yes, part of our plan for the next war is to enter the Galilee."

In August 2023, two months before October 7, Hizbullah operations officer "Hajj Jihad" underlined that the plan for the Galilee operation had been in the works for over 15 years. Calling it "one of the most important plans prepared by the Islamic resistance," he added that when the war starts, "we will see Israeli soldiers deserting their posts, and fleeing." He underlined that "the Islamic resistance that will wage this war" will not conduct it "like we have done it in the past" because "in the 17 years since 2006, we have been diligently preparing for this war."

It should be noted that Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000--under the disastrous leadership of Prime Minister Ehud Barak--emboldened Hezbollah, and paved the way for Hezbollah to develop into a terrorist organization with global reach. Barak did not have the necessary wisdom or courage to properly secure Israel's northern border, so now Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must finish that most important task.

Two important points must be emphasized:

1) If Hezbollah launches a mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel, no one--including Israeli leaders--can dare say that there was no way to predict or know that this could happen. The information is readily available publicly, which means that Israeli military and political leaders no doubt have access to even more information. When Netanyahu set free more than 1000 terrorists in 2011, I criticized Netanyahu and every minister who supported the deal: "These 26 Israeli Cabinet Ministers have signed death warrants for countless innocent Jewish men, women and children--and when the Hamas murderers execute those death warrants Benjamin Netanyahu and these 26 Ministers should be held accountable for setting terrorists free." I did not know when Hamas would attack, but I knew that Netanyahu and the other ministers had set the stage for such an attack to happen.

2) The Israeli government has a legal and moral responsibility to destroy Hezbollah (and Hamas) in order to protect her civilians and her sovereignty; any Israeli politician who is unwilling to fulfill that duty should immediately resign from office. Over a decade ago, I warned about a defeatist mentality in Israel that could lead to Israel's destruction: "The Rabin-Peres-Netanyahu-Barak-Sharon-Olmert plan--surrender land to bloodthirsty enemies, set child killers free so that they can kill more innocent, defenseless children, force children to cower behind concrete desks as deadly rockets pummel schoolyards and become giddy when an anti-missile missile that costs $100,000 shoots down one of a nearly endless supply of cheap rockets--falls just a bit short of Churchill's standards."

I fervently do not want to be the prophet of Israel's destruction, but Israel's destruction is possible if Israel underestimates or ignores the threats posed by Iran, a weakened but not defeated Hamas, and a weakened but not defeated Hezbollah. I warned for many years about the threat posed by Hamas, and I was proven right. I have also warned repeatedly about the threat posed by Iran in general and Hezbollah in particular, and I hope that Israel has learned from her previous grievous mistakes and will act decisively to defeat her evil enemies. 

The U.S. Should Defund UNIFIL and UNRWA

I previously explained that The United Nations is Antisemitic, Worse Than Useless, and Should Be Disbanded. Two of its constituent organizations are particularly despicable: the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). I discussed UNRWA in depth in The Pathetic "Progressive" Response to Hamas' War Against Israel:

During Israel's War of Independence, several hundred thousand Arabs fled from Israel, exhorted by Arab military leaders to temporarily evacuate in order to make way for the planned massacre of Israel's Jewish residents. These Arabs expected to triumphantly return to a land with no Jews but instead Israel defeated the combined armies of her Arab neighbors. In most wars, the losing side is responsible for resettling its refugees or else a de facto population exchange occurs (few people talk about the fact that, at the same time that hundreds of thousands of Arabs voluntarily left Israel, hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from Arab countries, with most of those Jews fleeing to Israel). Not only did the Arab countries refuse to resettle their Arab brethren who they had exhorted to leave Israel but the so-called Palestinian Arabs are the only group in the world that has an entire UN organization devoted exclusively to their particular concerns: the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). All other refugee crises in the world are dealt with by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. At the end of 2012, the UNHCR listed listed 45.2 million displaced people worldwide, the largest such number since 1994. The biggest single displaced person crisis in the world is focused in Pakistan, a result of decades of war, tyranny and instability in that region. The disproportionate attention paid to a fictional Palestinian nation and a real--but eminently solvable--Arab refugee problem not only does injustice to both Israel and the refugees in question (who have been exploited as political pawns by Israel's enemies for decades) but it also hinders efforts to solve other more severe refugee crises.

It is bad enough that there is an entire UN organization focusing on refugees of a fictional nation, people who share a common language, culture and religion with most of the other Arab countries in the Mideast and who should have been accepted by those countries decades ago, much like Israel welcomed Jewish refugees from Arab countries--but what really makes the UNRWA completely disgusting is that the UNRWA is complicit in war crimes committed against Israel. Three times in the past month, Hamas rockets have been found at UNRWA facilities. The first time that rockets were discovered in a UNRWA facility during the current conflict, the UNRWA handed over the rockets to Hamas, a flagrant violation of the UNRWA's purported neutrality.

Note that I wrote the above passage in 2021, two years before Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel. UNRWA actively collaborated before, during, and after October 7, 2023, further demonstrating the extent to which the organization has been completely corrupted by Hamas.

UNIFIL is just as bad as UNRWA, and Eugene Kontorovich persuasively argues that Donald Trump should make a campaign pledge to defund UNIFIL:

Created in 1978 to monitor an Israeli withdrawal in a long-forgotten skirmish with the Palestine Liberation Organization, the UN "interim" force has remained and grown, with a mission creep inversely related to its record of success. UNIFIL failed to prevent or ameliorate the Second Lebanon War in 2006, which Hezbollah began with a cross-border raid to take Israeli hostages and continued with a heavy rain of rockets on Israel...

Hezbollah has placed its armed positions within sight of UNIFIL observation posts. Yet the UN peacekeepers have done nothing to stop Hezbollah as it has turned southern Lebanon into an armed camp from which to attack Israel...

On Oct. 8, 2023, the magnitude of UNIFIL's failure became clear when Hezbollah joined Hamas' attack on Israel. Hezbollah's missile fire has continued all year, killed dozens of Israeli citizens, and made much of the tiny country's north uninhabitable. 

Now that Israel has finally moved into Lebanon to clear out Hezbollah, UNIFIL is getting in the way--knowingly providing the terrorist group cover...

U.S. taxpayers pay nearly 30% of UNIFIL's $550 million budget--essentially subsidizing indirect assistance to Hezbollah. But unlike other dysfunctional UN organizations, which are structured to be unaccountable and weather reform, UNIFIL is easy to fix. Its mandate must be reauthorized every year, or it simply ends...

UNIFIL's current mandate expires in August 2025, and there is no rational basis for reauthorizing it.

Yonah Jeremy Bob notes that Hezbollah--emboldened and financed by Iran--has spent 17 years making a mockery of UN Resolution 1701 that prohibited Hezbollah from operating in southern Lebanon:

Imagine a generation of children growing up believing that it is normal living among weapons of war. This is the monster that Hezbollah built across dozens of villages in southern Lebanon. I saw it first-hand on Oct. 10, riding in a convoy of Israel Defense Forces humvees. The IDF asked me not to identify the village lest it endanger their operations.

Almost half the village was destroyed by a mix of room-to-room battles and the Israeli military's exploding Hezbollah weapon stockpiles. IDF soldiers in tanks or bulldozers rumbled from house to house to catalogue weapons Hezbollah had buried, then demolished the homes. The terror group had hoped to tap its infrastructure in southern Lebanon to invade northern Israel in a replay of Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack...

As Israel tears apart Hezbollah's presence in southern Lebanon, it is also wiping out the West's view that this is an Israeli problem that can be solved by diplomacy alone. Since the invasion of southern Lebanon began on Sept. 30, the IDF has showered the West with evidence of weapons and materiel hidden in every third or fifth house...

The West should be raining fire and brimstone down on Hezbollah and its sponsor, Iran, for making a farce of United Nations Resolution 1701. That resolution, adopted in 2006, said that Hezbollah couldn't operate in southern Lebanon.

The West can no longer deny that Hezbollah is out of control and must be restrained, preferably by diplomacy but if necessary by force. Yet the West's priority seems to be reaching a cease-fire so it can go on ignoring the dangers of these Middle Eastern actors...if the West presses Israel into a cease-fire that merely reverts to Resolution 1701--which has been ignored for 17 years with no consequences--all of Israel's successes will have been for nothing.

Rendering Israel's unprecedented successes versus Hamas and Hezbollah into nothing is precisely the tragically misguided policy being followed by President Joe Biden and fully endorsed by Vice President/presidential candidate Harris. After Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel, Biden gave lip service to supporting Israel and then consistently took steps to restrict Israel's ability to defeat Hamas (and Hezbollah). Biden declared that if Hamas diverted humanitarian aid to their coffers then "it will end," but instead Biden has publicly insisted that Israel keep providing aid that he knows is sustaining Hamas--and thus prolonging the suffering of Hamas' hostages, including American citizens. Biden keeps bleating "Ceasefire!" with full knowledge that a ceasefire would not end Hamas' war to destroy Israel but would only give Hamas time to rebuild and reload. If Israel had listened to Biden then Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah would still be alive sowing mayhem and destruction. 

Israel is defeating Hamas and Hezbollah despite Biden, not because of him--and if Harris is elected, the Mideast and the rest of the world will be set on fire in a way that will make the last four disastrous years of Biden's rule look like a pleasant walk in the park.

Important Articles Analyzing the Application of International Law to Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon

Far too often, people who lack the requisite knowledge to speak intelligently about both international history and international law nevertheless feel free to offer uninformed and inaccurate commentary about Israel's actions in Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere. UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) is an association of lawyers advancing legal education about Israel and providing legal support to victims of antisemitism. The UKLFI website includes a wealth of detailed information about what international law stipulates regarding Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, and the Mideast in general. 

A good starting point for anyone who wishes to understand the legal status of Israel's borders and the territory commonly referred to as the "West Bank" but properly called Judea and Samaria is Outline of the History and Status of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). It is important to understand how mendacious it is for anyone to make the assertion "Israeli settlements are the primary obstacle to peace"; the settlements are not even illegal, let alone an obstacle to peace! It should be noted that the above article--while excellent in most respects--glosses over the dubious legality (at best) of Great Britain's decision to create Transjordan (which became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) out of the eastern 80% of the Palestine Mandate, a topic that is discussed in an Arizona Law Review article by Abraham Bell and Eugene Kontorovich (see below).

In the wake of Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel, media outlets and even the UN uncritically accepted as factual the unverified Gaza casualty numbers released by the Hamas-controlled Gazan health ministry, but UKLFI did a detailed analysis demonstrating that the widely accepted numbers are likely wildly exaggerated numbers: Palestinian casualty figures fabricated (August 12, 2024). Here is the summary of what UKLFI found:

UKLFI CT estimates that by 29 February 2024, about 19,000 Palestinians had been killed in the Gaza Strip, of which 9,000 were combatants and 10,000 were civilians; and that by 31 July 2024, 27,000 Palestinians had been killed of which 12,000 were combatants and 15,000 were civilians. On these estimates, the civilian: combatant ratio in the current war in the Gaza Strip was 1.1:1 in the period to 29 February 2024 and at 1.3:1 in the period to 31 July 2024.

Although every civilian death is a tragedy, UKLFI CT points out that these ratios are an order of magnitude lower than the average civilian: combatant casualty ratio in urban armed conflict worldwide in 2021 (over 8:1) and half of the ratio in the Mosul battle of 2016-2017 by Iraqi and allied forces against ISIS (2.5:1), despite the exceptional difficulty of operating in the Gaza Strip.

Jonathan Turner, Executive Director of UKLFI CT, commented: "It might have been justified for media organisations to avoid coverage of any of the figures on the ground that they are unreliable. However, since the Gaza Ministries' figures for the total numbers of Palestinians allegedly killed have been repeatedly stated in media coverage, it is unbalanced and misleading not to state with similar regularity the figures provided by the IDF of the Palestinian combatants killed. This unbalanced and misleading media coverage is likely to be a major cause of rising antisemitism in the UK and around the world.

A must-read article from a different source than UKLFI is PALESTINE, UTI POSSIDETIS JURIS, AND THE BORDERS OF ISRAEL by Abraham Bell and Eugene Kontorovich. Bell and Kontorovich explain that the international law concept uti possidetis juris (a Latin phrase meaning "as [you] possess under law") "is widely acknowledged as the doctrine of customary international law that is central to determining territorial sovereignty in the era of decolonization. The doctrine provides that emerging states presumptively inherit their pre-independence administrative boundaries."

They then describe how this is relevant to any discussion of Israel's current borders:

Applied to the case of Israel, uti possidetis juris would dictate that Israel inherit the boundaries of the Mandate of Palestine as they existed in May, 1948. The doctrine would thus support Israeli claims to any or all of the currently hotly disputed areas of Jerusalem (including East Jerusalem), the West Bank, and even potentially the Gaza Strip (though not the Golan Heights).

Uti possidetis juris is the international law concept that was applied to determine the borders of the states created in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.

As mentioned above, Bell and Kontorovich point out that a strong argument can be made that the creation of Transjordan (which later became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) from the eastern portion of the Palestine Mandate was illegal (footnotes omitted):

While the British were clearly intent on establishing Transjordan as a separate, Hashemite-ruled state, the Mandate did not authorize the removal of any territory from the Mandate of Palestine; it only allowed for the nonapplication of certain provisions. Thus, while it allowed for the separate administration of eastern Palestine, it did not allow for partition; rather, Article 5 stated that "no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of, the government of any Foreign Power." The French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon contained an identical Article 5, but also had clear language providing for the establishment of two distinct states in the Mandated area, making clear that Syria and the Lebanon were viewed as two Mandates. Moreover, Article 5 was not included among the provisions of the Palestine Mandate suspended by Britain pursuant to Article 25. Zionist groups pushed this argument quite strongly in the 1930s and 1940s, and insisted on independence for the complete Palestine, including Transjordan. And the British seemed to be aware of the force of this argument, formally insisting throughout the period that the territories were under a single Mandate. 

Having withheld the applicability of certain provisions of the Mandate in 1922 and granting Jordan autonomy in 1928, Britain went the rest of the way in 1946, recognizing the independence of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and the termination of the Palestine Mandate there, in 1946. At this point, arguments about the violation of the Mandate could no longer be glossed over. For the last two years of the Palestine Mandate (until May 1948), it did not include Transjordan. Upon the independence of Transjordan, the administrative boundary between it and Palestine became the new international boundary, consistent with the doctrine of uti possidetis juris. This is despite very strong legal arguments against the severance of the territory from Palestine. Thus, while Jewish nationalist parties continued to claim Transjordan throughout the 1940s and 1950s, and Transjordan (and later Jordan) claimed legal rights to territory in Palestine that it captured during its 1948 invasion, neither set of claims received any serious recognition. Indeed, the Jewish authorities of Palestine recognized Transjordan's borders despite any scruple they may have had about its formation.

The entire 60 page Arizona Law Review article is worth reading/studying carefully by anyone who wishes to avoid sounding foolish when talking about Israel, Jordan, the Palestine Mandate, and how international borders are properly determined.

Further Reading:

Nasrallah's Victims Rejoice at His Demise, While Western Media Outlets Display Their Distorted Moral Compasses (October 1, 2024)

Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism (September 18, 2024)

Anti-Zionism is Indistinguishable From Antisemitism Because Israel is the Jewish Homeland (January 5, 2024)

Israel, Hamas, and the Islamic Concepts Dar al-Islam Versus Dar al-harb (October 11, 2023)

Israel's Ongoing Oslo Accords Folly (September 28, 2023)

Who Are the Invaders, and Who are the Invaded? An Analysis of Inversions of Truth (January 12, 2022)

The Fear and Shame at the Heart of Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism (February 17, 2021)

Nasrallah's Victims Rejoice at His Demise, While Western Media Outlets Display Their Distorted Moral Compasses

Israel used their elite military intelligence to locate Hezbollah chieftain Hassan Nasrallah, and then killed Nasrallah along with other high-ranking Hezbollah officials who were meeting in a residential area--a standard Hezbollah human shield tactic with the twin goals of (1) dissuading military action by Israel because Israel takes great pains to minimize civilian casualties, and (2) complaining about civilian casualties if Israel attacks. All civilian casualties in this war--on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border--are the responsibility of Hezbollah for committing the dual war crimes of intentionally targeting Israeli civilians and using their own civilians as human shields. To be even more specific, all civilian casualties in this war are the responsibility of Iran, which directs and funds the wars of annihilation that Hamas and Hezbollah are waging against Israel (and will continue to wage until either they destroy Israel or Israel eliminates their capacity to destroy Israel).

Nasrallah is responsible for murdering thousands of people, including U.S. citizens, so a naive but good-hearted person might assume that the world would congratulate Israel for finally bringing Nasrallah to justice. Iranian dissidents, Lebanese Christians, and Sunni Muslims in Lebanon--people directly impacted by Nasrallah's horrific deeds--cheered his demise. In contrast, the usual suspects--mainstream media outlets, delusional "peace" groups, and "useful idiots" on American college campuses--expressed dismay that one of the most evil people on Earth can no longer terrorize anyone. In the ultimate example of the perversion of language that George Orwell termed "Newspeak," The Washington Post praised Nasrallah's "folksy yet articulate manner," while The New York Times emphasized Nasrallah's "roly-poly figure," his "slight lisp," and his "propensity to crack jokes," and the AP noted that Nasrallah "often paused in his speeches to make jokes or break into local dialect." Would you expect a profile of Adolf Hitler to focus on such details while glossing over his war crimes? Many mainstream media outlets are worse than useless, because it is not simply that the information they provide has no value; they are engaged in a pattern of deliberating crafting inaccurate narratives to serve their notion of a "higher truth" that matters more to them than producing objective reporting free of bias.

Meanwhile, President Biden continues to speak with a forked tongue, first praising Israel for taking out a person who has much American blood on his hands but then immediately repeating his demand for a ceasefire. In case you--like Biden--are unaware, it must be emphasized that Hezbollah has clearly articulated their position on ceasefires with Israel: "We recognize no treaty with it, no ceasefire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated. We vigorously condemn all plans for negotiation with Israel, and regard all negotiators as enemies, for the reason that such negotiation is nothing but the recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation of Palestine." It should also be noted that there is already a ceasefire in place in Lebanon, and Hezbollah has been violating that ceasefire for almost a year.

When then-Senator Biden tried to bully then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin more than 40 years ago, Begin declared to Biden, "Don't threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid."

Much of America's "aid" to Israel is spent buying American arms, so the "aid" is as much a government subsidy to American companies as anything else--and Israel's military is doing great work that America is either unwilling or unable to do in terms of eliminating wanted terrorists who have eluded justice for decades. 

Israel must remain steadfast and strong, and fight this war to its natural conclusion regardless of the pressure exerted by Biden and biased media outlets.

A Masterful Review of Robert Spencer's Book "The Palestinian Delusion"

Dr. Anjuli Pandavar's detailed review of Robert Spencer's 2019 book The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process should be required reading for politicians, media members, college students, and anyone who publicly opines about the Middle East. Contrary to the Orwellian-style cancel culture that has become prevalent in the media and on U.S. college campuses, it is not "Islamophobic" to state the truth about the religious theology underpinning the actions of Iran and her terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. Hamas' Charter is easy to find online, and it describes in great detail Hamas' inspirations and goals. It is just as easy to find Hezbollah's foundational documents and underlying ideological imperatives, here quoted in pertinent part and expressing the same goals that Hamas has (emphasis added):

Our primary assumption in our fight against Israel states that the Zionist entity is aggressive from its inception, and built on lands wrested from their owners, at the expense of the rights of the Muslim people. Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no ceasefire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated. We vigorously condemn all plans for negotiation with Israel, and regard all negotiators as enemies, for the reason that such negotiation is nothing but the recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.

After reading the primary source material, it is clear that one has to be either woefully uninformed or antisemitic to pressure Israel to negotiate a ceasefire with an enemy whose sworn purpose is to destroy Israel and who explicitly refuses to recognize any treaty or cease fire with Israel. The reader may accordingly draw appropriate conclusions about President Biden, Vice President Harris, various international leaders, the college professors/college students who chant "Free Palestine," and many media outlets that distort historical truth to promote a preferred narrative.

Here is an excerpt from Dr. Pandavar's review: 

The "delusion" in the title refers to multiple delusions: that of a Palestinian nation; that the "Arab-Israeli conflict" is a simple struggle over land; that the so-called "peace process" is a series of negotiations; that Judea and Samaria — what the Jordanians dubbed "The West Bank" during their occupation — and Gaza (and the Golan Heights) are "occupied territories"; and that the Muslim Arabs are the wronged party. Along the way, many lesser and shorter-lived delusions are referred to, both directly and indirectly...

The United Nations and its agencies come in for a well-deserved pummelling in The Palestinian Delusion, for they are shown to be little more than instruments of jihad, right down to the inculcation of Jew-hatred in the Muslim children in UN schools, and those children's early indoctrination into aspiring to be jihad mass murderers. A child in a UN school shares his endearing aspirations: "Stabbing and running over Jews brings dignity to the Palestinians. I'm going to run them over and stab them with knives." If The Palestinian Delusion has one loud and clear message, it is Get real!

The blatant, relentless and ritualistic discrimination against and legal abuse of Israel at the United Nations are also thoroughly treated, not least the outrageous "inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war," contrived especially for Israel after it drove Jordanian troops back out of Judea and Samaria, Egyptian troops back out of Gaza (and all the way across the Suez Canal) and Syrian troops off the Golan Heights, after these countries' aggressive war of 1967, intent on wiping out Israel.

It has been a basic principle ever since men made war, that if an aggressor loses a war, that aggressor loses such territory as the victim had managed to conquer from it. The book makes clear that it is the first time ever that it is demanded of a country attacked that it returns territory conquered from aggressors in self-defence. Of course, should Israel accept this ridiculous and suicidal principle, any of its many hostile neighbours will have every incentive to try again next year in the full knowledge that they will never lose territory, and the old Islamic pattern of annual jihad war will be restored. The Palestinian Delusion strengthens the view that the United Nations has outlived its original purpose. That is putting it mildly.

Pressuring Israel to agree to a cease fire that her enemies have no intention of honoring is a recipe for disaster and suffering, not a blueprint for peace. What is the solution? The solution is not a reality that Leftists want to face, but one that Israel's enemies fear: Israel fighting until complete victory is obtained, thus denying her enemies the opportunity to keep contesting limited liability wars in which Arab/Muslim conquests are permanent but Israeli victories are temporary advances immediately wiped out by international pressure or voluntary Israeli concessions. Israel has tried "Land for Peace" since the 1978 Camp David Accords, and the result has been that Israel gave up a lot of land but obtained very little peace.

Dr. Pandavar concludes:

The key to success of Israeli military force is permanent insecurity for Arab Muslims, the only condition that Islam recognises as a valid excuse for suspending jihad. The surest way of accomplishing such permanent insecurity is by Arab Muslims permanently losing territory every time they attack Israel. The entire point of jihad is the violent subjugation of the entire world "until all religion is for Allah." Every part of the earth that is now subjugated, or was once subjugated, is "Muslim land" and the greatest humiliation for those on jihad is to lose Muslim land. Humiliation equals defeat. This is why those advocating for Israel annexing and Jews closely settling Gaza and Judea and Samaria are correct.

Leftists will scream that this smacks of racism, nationalism, or some other "ism" that they have determined to be inimical to human progress--and Islamists will applaud the bleatings of their useful idiots--but decades of Mideast history have illustrated the key to success, if Israel is brave enough to take it. It is important to understand and acknowledge the extent to which the concepts of Dar al-Islam and Dar al-harb (see the fourth article in Further Reading for more details) drive the actions of Israel's enemies. "Land for Peace," "Two State Solution," and "Free Palestine" are propaganda slogans that have no relevance regarding the Mideast, because the root cause of the conflict is the fundamental Islamic precept that non-Muslims must be subjugated, driven out, or killed. That is a brutal reality that many people refuse to face, but refusing to face reality does not change reality.

Further Reading: 

Professor Louis Rene Beres Lucidly Explains Why Israel's Justified Military Responses Are Not Terrorism Even if Civilians Are Killed (September 21, 2024)

Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism (September 18, 2024)

Anti-Zionism is Indistinguishable From Antisemitism Because Israel is the Jewish Homeland (January 5, 2024)

Israel, Hamas, and the Islamic Concepts Dar al-Islam Versus Dar al-harb (October 11, 2023)

The Implications of Hamas' Surprise Attack Against Israel (October 7, 2023) 

Israel's Ongoing Oslo Accords Folly (September 28, 2023)

The Fear and Shame at the Heart of Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism (February 17, 2021)

Professor Louis Rene Beres Lucidly Explains Why Israel's Justified Military Responses Are Not Terrorism Even if Civilians Are Killed

For several decades, Professor Louis Rene Beres has brilliantly explained international law to the general public in a manner devoid of excess legal jargon. I have previously cited his commentary regarding Israel's war versus Hamas and his application of the law of war to Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

In "True foundations of anti-Israel terrorism," Beres provides a detailed analysis that distinguishes between the war crimes committed by Iranian-sponsored terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah versus the legitimate military tactics used by Israel:

Listening to the protest slogans shrieked by jihadist supporters in United States universities, a core conclusion should emerge: Witless banalities can never represent the meaningful expectations of international law. Under this universal law, whether codified or customary, one person's terrorist can never be another one’s "freedom-fighter." Though it is correct that insurgencies can sometimes be judged lawful or even law-enforcing, they must still conform to discoverable rules of humanitarian international law.

Whenever an insurgent group resorts to unjust means, its actions constitute terrorism. Even if adversarial claims of a hostile controlling power could be taken as plausible or acceptable (e.g., false Palestinian Arab claims concerning an alleged Israeli "occupation"), corollary claims of entitlement to "any means necessary" would remain false. Hague Convention No. IV states: "The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited."

What about Israel and Gaza at this grievous moment in time? To clarify any seeming contradictions, though Israel's bombardments of Gaza are still producing multiple Palestinian casualties, the legal responsibility for these harms still lies entirely with Hamas/Iranian "perfidy" ("human shields"). In law, there is an ineradicably consequential difference between raping and murdering innocent celebrants at a public music festival and the lethal consequences of a state's indispensable self-defense operations.

International law is never just a narrowly intuitive set of standards. Such law always has determinable form and decipherable content. It can never be casually invented or reinvented by enemy states or terror groups to justify variously selective interests. This is most notable when inhumane jihadist terror-violence targets a designated victim state's fragile civilian populations...

Under authoritative international law, terrorist crimes mandate universal cooperation in apprehension and punishment. As punishers of "grave breaches" under international law, all states are required to search out and "extradite or prosecute" individual terrorists. Under no circumstances are states permitted to regard terrorist "martyrs" as lawful "freedom fighters."

International law is emphatically binding for the United States, which incorporates this set of norms as the "supreme law of the land" at Article 6 of the Constitution, and also for Israel, which remains guided by immutably Jewish principles of a Higher Law. As a further matter of history, legal authority for the early American republic was derived in large part from William Blackstone's Commentaries, a magisterial work that owes much of its clarifying content to the peremptory or "jus cogens" principles of Torah.

The Biden-Harris administration has disregarded the legal obligations Beres describes in the last paragraph quoted above, notwithstanding the recent belated announcement that the United States has pressed charges against Hamas leaders for planning, supporting, and perpetrating the October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel. That announcement could be termed "too little, too late," because Hamas leaders have already killed many hostages who could have been saved had Biden-Harris unequivocally called upon Hamas to surrender, and because Hamas interpreted the Biden-Harris moral equivalency policy to mean that Hamas can win the war against Israel with American help.

International law is often invoked by people who are ill-informed--or deliberately deceptive--and who seek to demonize Israel while exonerating Iran and Iranian-sponsored terrorist groups. If such anti-Zionist and antisemitic slanders were not so dangerous, it would be amusing to observe people who first whine (falsely) that Israel is carpet bombing civilian populations, and then whine that Israel is targeting Hezbollah-issued pagers.

What do these people want, for Jews to just meekly go to the slaughterhouse without fighting back? Sadly, that is exactly what they want, with self-proclaimed "progressives" forming a bizarre "useful idiot" alliance with Islamists.

Beres provides an essential antidote to the nonsense spewed by Israel's enemies. Additionally, Elizabeth Samson analyzed the legality of the synchronized explosions of Hezbollah's pagers and walkie-talkies:

The United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), to which Israel is party, addresses the question of intent in military operations and defines relevant terms. Protocol III of the CCW prohibits the use of weapons primarily designed to set fire to objects or cause burn injuries against civilians, outside an incident that has a clear military objective, and Amended Protocol II covers booby-traps and improvised explosive devices and distinguishes between military and civilian targets.

CCW Amended Protocol II, Article 2, defines "booby-trap" as a device which can kill or injure, and which functions unexpectedly when a person disturbs or approaches an apparently harmless object or performs an apparently safe act, and "other devices" to include manually-emplaced munitions and devices such as improvised explosive devices designed to kill, injure or damage and which are actuated manually, by remote control, or automatically after a lapse of time. Here, an example of an illicit booby-trap device would be the explosives disguised by the Soviet Union to look like toys that they then dropped on Afghan villages in the 1980s to kill and maim Afghan children...

Israel's targeting of Hezbollah through pagers—purchased by Hezbollah for terror operatives to use in waging an asymmetric war—were solely "military objectives" and not "civilian objects" in accordance with the definitions outlined in the CCW.

Incidental loss of civilian life, while unfortunate, is the byproduct of a terror group choosing to operate among innocents. Waging war from civilian territory leaves those who seek to fight terrorism little choice but to fight on the terrain the terrorists lay out. Hezbollah has made all Lebanon its battlefield, without regard for civilian life. Israel has no choice but to bring the war home to them, and it did so legally. Diplomats and UN officials demean themselves and the organizations they represent when they purposely ignore law and dishonestly and for political purposes only betray its letter and spirit.

Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism

It is important to emphasize that Anti-Zionism is Indistinguishable From Antisemitism Because Israel is the Jewish Homeland. It is absurd to assert that a person can hate Israel and deny Israel's right to exist but not hate Jews. Further, the denial of a nation's right to exist is a unique form of hatred directed only at the Jewish State and not at any other nation no matter how heinous that nation's actions.

In To Break the 'Moral Spine' of the Jews, Eliot Kaufman discusses the recent ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Mark C. Scarsi preventing UCLA from allowing protesters to deny access to the school's facilities to Jews who refuse to denounce Zionism. Kaufman notes that Judge Scarsi "focused on free exercise of religion," but Kaufman argues that "the marginalization of Jewish students demands our attention for other reasons." Kaufman describes what the UCLA protesters did:

They set up barriers and checkpoints, forcibly blocking students from parts of campus unless they deemed Israel guilty of the vilest crimes; rejected Zionism, or Israel's right to exist; and endorsed the protesters' political program. These are Red Guard tactics, anathema to the academic spirit. They call academia's bluff. What university that still believed in its mission would tolerate them?

Self-proclaimed "progressives" spew a lot of rhetoric about threats to democracy and threats to our freedoms, but the widespread, violent protests targeting Israel as well as individual Jews are a significant threat to democracy and our freedoms--and this hatred originates predominantly from a paradoxical yet toxic mixture of Leftist poshlost propaganda and Islamist ideology. It is disappointing that media outlets that purport to be bastions of democracy ignore or minimize the violence directed toward Jews on college campuses and elsewhere.

Fair criticism of specific Israeli policies is not anti-Zionist or antisemitic, but "fair" is an essential word in that phrase. It is demonstrably false to assert that Israel's conduct versus Hamas and Hezbollah violates international law, yet President Biden and Vice President Harris repeatedly imply--and sometimes overtly state--their disapproval of Israel's tactics, and both publicly clamor for a ceasefire that would represent a huge victory for Hamas while helping Hamas to fulfill its stated aim of repeating "again and again and again" the October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack. Denying Israel's right to self-defense against Hamas and Hezbollah--terrorist groups financed by Iran, a sworn enemy of both the United States and Israel--is anti-Zionist and antisemitic. It is apparently difficult for many lifelong Democrats to accept and understand the depths of the anti-Zionism that animate Biden's Mideast policies; don't be fooled by the agitators in Dearborn who assert that Biden is not sufficiently pro-Hamas: Biden loosened the financial shackles on Iran while also funding Palestinian Authority's "Pay for Slay" program that rewards Arabs for killing Jews. Those policies are not only anti-Zionist to the core, but they run counter to the United States' best interests.

It should also be noted that at a broader level beyond the anti-Israel policies enacted by the Biden Administration, Biden and Harris lack understanding of both military tactics and effective diplomacy, as demonstrated by--among other things--Biden's chaotic and disastrous retreat from Afghanistan, a historically significant blunder that Harris recently endorsed as "courageous and right." It would be right to say that Biden's feckless foreign policy decisions gave Vladimir Putin the courage to believe that he could invade Ukraine without a serious U.S. response, and it would also be right to say that Biden's bumbling similarly emboldened Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah to attack Israel.

As is generally the case, a foreign policy grounded in anti-Israel thinking is not effective in any sphere, nor is such a policy beneficial for the United States' long term interests here and abroad. Democracies should be working together to curb the power and influence of totalitarian regimes such as China, Iran, and Russia. Biden's policies have strengthened those regimes--and Hamas and Hezbollah--resulting in a corresponding weakening of the United States and a heightened vulnerability for Americans around the world.

America Owes Israel a Debt of Gratitude--if not $5 Million--for Delivering Justice to Hezbollah Terrorist Fuad Shukr

In The U.S. Owes Israel $5 Million, Gil Troy notes that the U.S. State Department offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Fuad Shukr, who they listed as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" because of--among other heinous acts--his pivotal role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. servicemen. Shukr was the leader of Hezbollah's precision missile project, whose crowning "achievement" was killing 12 children and young adults and wounding over 40 people on a soccer field in the Golan Heights on July 27, 2024. On July 30, Israel provided the best possible information about Shukr: He is dead, courtesy of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut. Troy makes the case that the U.S. owes Israel $5 million.

Unfortunately, we live in a world in which an Israeli hostage rescue operation is derided as "deadly" but Hamas' crimes against humanity before, during, and after their October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack in Israel are minimized, ignored, or--grotesquely--praised.

Troy writes that in the wake of the 1983 Beirut bombing, President Ronald Reagan initially made the mistake of not retaliating, and even redeploying U.S. forces from Beirut to U.S. Navy ships off the shores of Lebanon. This emboldened America's enemies, and led to 1985 being a "banner year" for terrorist attacks according to a now declassified CIA report. Fortunately, Reagan corrected course, and after the infamous 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking--during which PLO terrorists executed wheelchair bound American Jew Leon Klinghoffer and then threw his body overboard--he sent four Navy F-14s to intercept the hijackers, who had escaped to Egypt and were flying to Tunisia. Reagan declared, "You can run, but you can't hide." In 1986, Reagan ordered airstrikes in Libya in response to a terrorist attack linked to Libya at a West Berlin disco frequented by American soldiers. A subsequent CIA assessment concluded that terrorism decreased in 1986 as a result of the West's "unprecedented military, diplomatic, and economic retaliatory measures."

If President Biden and the U.S. government are not going to pay the $5 million reward to Israel, the least that they can do is stop making counterproductive and false statements that hinder Israel's efforts to not just protect herself but also protect American interests. After Biden's shameful abandonment of Afghanistan, the world knows all too well that his administration is weak, and that under his rule America is an unreliable and untrustworthy ally. 

History demonstrates that terrorists are deterred only by the exercise of power against them, not by restraint, and certainly not by capitulation. The notion that killing terrorist leaders is an obstacle to peace is a dangerous perversion of reality. Every time a terrorist leader is killed we are one step closer to the dismantling or surrender of that terrorist leader's terrorist group.

Applying the Law of War to Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah

Many of the rioters on college campuses and in public spaces appear to be mindless and faceless cowards who have been emboldened by the weak response to their illegal tactics; when they appear on camera they are incapable of coherently explaining exactly what they are protesting and what they are trying to achieve. They are mindless because they chant "From the River to the Sea" even though many of them could not find Gaza on a map; they are faceless because they choose to wear masks to hide their identities, in contrast to legitimate protesters who proudly show their faces. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a famous and glorious dream: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." In contrast, these rioters are working to create a living nightmare world in which Hamas is glorified and Jews are demonized. They hide their faces to avoid being held accountable for their actions until they can eliminate anyone who opposes their fanatical goals.

However, it should be noted that some of Israel's slightly more sophisticated enemies have specific talking points, including the false allegation that Israel is committing war crimes. Upon close examination of that false allegation, it becomes evident that anyone who believes that has no formal legal training, and no foundational understanding of the relevant principles of international law regarding what is permissible during a war.

Professor Louis Rene Beres is a scholar of international law, and he often uses the phrase "International law is not a suicide pact," an apt description of Israel's legally protected self-defense rights.

In a May 30, 2024 article in The Wall Street Journal titled "Israel, Hamas, and the Law of War," attorneys David B. Rivkin, Jr. and Lee A. Casey--both of whom worked at the Justice Department and the White House Counsel's Office--discuss at length the proper application of international law to Israel's wartime conduct in Gaza. In particular, they focus on the principles of distinction and proportionality, noting that international law forbids a country from intentionally targeting civilians and from making attacks resulting in civilian deaths and damage to civilian property that are disproportionate to "the concrete and direct military advantage expected to be gained." 

The required distinction between military targets and civilian targets does not stipulate that any civilian casualties are proof that a war crime has been committed. It is illegal to deliberately target civilians, which has long been the modus operandi for Hamas, culminating in Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel; in contrast, Israel has gone to great lengths to avoid hitting civilian targets, to the extent of putting the lives of Israeli soldiers at risk. It is also illegal to deliberately put civilians in harm's way, which is another war crime committed regularly by Hamas, which utilizes "human shields" both to discourage Israeli attacks and as fodder for propaganda. 

The law regarding proportionality is often misunderstood; media outlets regularly compare the inflated and unverified casualty totals from Gaza with Israel's casualties to imply--or even directly state--that the larger number of casualties in Gaza proves that Israel has committed war crimes. However, international law does not mandate proportional casualty totals; proportionality refers to the lethality of the attack in proportion to the legitimate military goal of the attack. Here, Hamas has vowed to repeat October 7 "again and again and again," which means that Israel legally can take the necessary measures to render Hamas incapable of ever committing such an attack again; to the extent that Israeli operations against Hamas result in civilian casualties, as long as Israel is not intentionally attacking civilian targets those casualties are the responsibility of Hamas as both the initial aggressor and as a party that deliberately deploys human shields.

The article does not specifically mention Hezbollah, another Iranian-sponsored terrorist organization that commits the same kinds of war crimes that Hamas commits--and Hezbollah's forces are more numerous, better trained, and better armed than Hamas' forces. If Israel does not eliminate Hezbollah as soon as possible, Israel will pay a terrible price later--a price that will make October 7, 2023 seem minor in comparison. Permitting Hezbollah to become so powerful is one of the greatest strategic errors in Israeli history; hopefully, it will not prove to be a fatal strategic error. Israel's neglect of the threat posed by Hamas should serve as a lesson and a warning. Just a few days before Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel, I decried Israel's Ongoing Oslo Accords Folly, and I declared, "The core unresolved issue is not 'land for peace' nor is it autonomy; it is the unrelenting quest to destroy Israel that is fomented by various Arab/Islamic states and the terrorist groups (including the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, and others) that they sponsor. There is zero chance that Israel giving up land will resolve that issue, and the Oslo Accords are just one example of the folly of assuming otherwise."

The sad reality is that the people who are protesting the loudest about Israel's alleged war crimes do not care at all about the alleged war crimes victims; the protesters hate the Jewish people, and seek to cloak their antisemitism as "merely" anti-Zionism--but anti-Zionism is indistinguishable from antisemitism because Israel is the Jewish homeland. It should be noted that being Jewish does not mean that you cannot be antisemitic, and there are some Jews who hate their own heritage and their own people--in short, they are traitors: instead of expressing concern for the October 7 victims and their families, these traitors give aid and comfort to Hamas' rapists, kidnappers, and murderers.