READ THIS TO THE END: LEARN AND DRAW ON INFORMATION TO PUBLICIZE.
David Cameron, the British Foreign Minister, informed Israel last week that if we did not permit the Red Cross to visit the Nukhba force terrorists we are holding in prison, then Britain would stop supplying arms to Israel and would support an arms embargo across Europe.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/387116
Let us be clear about what the Nukhba force is. These are the sub-humans who committed atrocities on October 7. The ones who raped and beheaded innocent Israelis and set people on fire.
Is he so tenderhearted that he cannot bear to think that they perhaps are not “properly” attended to? (They are receiving minimal care – food, a mattress, etc.) I find his professed concern for them to be perverse. Over the top. Not reasonable. (Or an excuse to hammer us.)
He says denying them visitation is against international law.
But wait! It is also against international law to deny the Israeli hostages visits from the Red Cross, and yet Hamas is doing precisely that. And those who are being denied Red Cross visitations in Gaza are innocents. Why is Cameron – who is not making an issue of the deprivation of the hostages’ rights – unable, or unwilling, to see the connection: Hamas denies the hostages visitations, and thus has no right to expect visitations for their members who have been apprehended.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/387116
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In the course of a National Security Council meeting headed by Tzachi Hanegbi and attended by all security agencies, there was disagreement as to how to respond to this demand. The feeling was unanimous that there should be no visitations permitted. One senior security official declared, “The British mandate ended in 1948; we can manage without Britain’s weapons. There will be no visits to terrorists.”
The disagreement was with regard to providing basic written information, such as the prisoners’ names and their condition, in an attempt to resolve the crisis with Britain.
Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir was adamant that this information should not be provided until there was reciprocity and Hamas provided information on the condition of the hostages. To the best of my knowledge, Hamas has never even honored Netanyahu’s request for information on which hostages are alive.
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hkz00lkq06
It is not clear to me how this will be resolved (or whether Ben Gvir’s word stands). But as to Cameron, who is supposed to be a friend. You know what they say, “With friends like these…”
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Unfortunately, infuriatingly, this is hardly the only instance of perversity we are facing now.
In a phone call with Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday, French President Emanuel Macron said that forced movement of population out of Rafah would constitute a “war crime.” This is, of course, against the background of Biden insisting we must move the civilians out of harm’s way in Gaza before there is an operation in Rafah. We can assume that Macron had the Geneva Accords in mind, but the Accords are not concerned with movement for the sake of the safety of the population. It is very likely the civilians would go very willingly, in any event, and not be forced at all.
This statement is hostile and makes the head spin. But Macron is hostile.
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Last week, the US brought a resolution for a ceasefire and hostage release for a vote in the Security Council; it was vetoed by China and Russia.
Yesterday, a new resolution was brought for a vote at the Security Council. This one called for a ceasefire and release of hostages, but did not link the two – that is, it did not say there should only be a ceasefire if there was a release of hostages.
The US, breaking with tradition on this issue, abstained rather than veto it. The resolution passed. It is non-binding and so we carry on. But it carries weight in the international community and gives further credence to the Hamas demand for a ceasefire (more on this follows).
Was this action by the Biden administration, which admitted it was not altogether pleased with the resolution, not also a perversity? The resolution did not condemn Hamas.
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Prime Minister Netanyahu was greatly displeased with this vote. Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi had been scheduled to arrive in Washington today for meetings, at the request of the Biden administration. The US, clearly, sought to dissuade Israel from a major operation in Rafah. The Israeli delegation hoped to convince the US of the need for this operation.
But Netanyahu decided that “in light of the change in the American position,” the delegation would not depart. I salute him for this strength.
John Kirby, White House national security communications advisor, yesterday expressed deep disappointment with this decision. “We’re very disappointed that they won’t be coming to Washington, D.C., to allow us to have a fulsome conversation with them about viable alternatives to going in on the ground in Rafah,” he told reporters.
Please note, he did not indicate a readiness to hear what the Israeli delegation would have said regarding the need to do a ground operation in Rafah. Originally it was understood that the US was prepared to consider a “credible plan” by Israel for going in if one should be presented to them.
https://www.jns.org/white-house-disappointed-israel-cancels-delegation-to-washington/
Kirby maintained that nothing about the US position had changed, but I do not believe this is the case. “We still want to see a ceasefire, we still want to get the hostages out,” he insisted.
“The reason we abstained is because this resolution text did not condemn Hamas.” Ah! If the resolution did not condemn Hamas the US should have vetoed it. All the more is this the case because there was no linkage between release of hostages and a ceasefire. The US was giving Hamas a leg up.
John Kirby errs if he takes us for gullible.
Keep reading below for Ron Dermer’s comment on the matter.
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Defense Minister Yoav Gallant did go to Washington on Monday – this was planned separately from the delegation with Dermer that was cancelled – at the invitation of Gallant’s counterpart, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
Gallant declared that Israel has “no moral right to stop the war while there are still hostages held in Gaza.”
He also warned that failure to achieve a decisive victory in Gaza could bring Israel closer to a war against Hezbollah – a point of considerable significance: When we speak of the existential concerns regarding this war, we must factor in Hezbollah at our north. They are watching us carefully. If we cave and allow Hamas to stand, they will be more motivated to take us on. Make no mistake about this.
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And here I turn to yet another perverse situation – arguably the most serious of all.
Very early Friday morning there was a terror attack in Gush Talmon in Binyamin – in an area between the communities of Dolev and Talmon. A terrorist with a rifle attacked a bus carrying soldiers. It took hours for the situation to be resolved: he was hiding in the woods near the point of attack and was apparently difficult to take out. Ultimately, he was taken down by a strike from an IDF helicopter. But before he was eliminated, one soldier – Sgt. 1st Class Ilay David Garfinkel, a member of the IDF’s elite Duvdevan commando unit – was killed and six other soldiers were wounded.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/24/palestinian-sniper-kills-israeli-soldier-in-west-bank/
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It turns out that the terrorist, from a PA village outside of Ramallah, had been trained as a sharpshooter in Jordan by US forces seeking to strengthen the PA; he was a member of the presidential guard of Mansour Abbas at the time he received this training.
He was able to elude the IDF for as long as he did because of this training: he “established four fortified positions – as his American sharpshooting instructors had taught him” – before he began shooting, and bounced from one to the other.
He was armed with an M1 Garand semiautomatic rifle with a scope that had been supplied by the US government to the PA.
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US training of PA forces is not a new phenomenon, but – after a hiatus during the Trump administration – it has intensified of late because of US goals to prepare the PA for statehood.
“On March 5, The Washington Post reported the establishment and operation of a new US-funded training center outside Jericho, where the next generation of Palestinian Authority security forces are being trained and groomed in a collection of metal trailers.”
This is one aspect of Biden’s “revitalized” Palestinian Authority, which he envisions taking over in Gaza.
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According to Joe Truzman, Senior Research Analyst at Foundation for the Defense of Democracies:
“An unsettling trend has surfaced amidst the more than two-year-long uptick of violence in the West Bank: the participation of former and current members of the Palestinian Authority security forces in violent attacks on Israelis. Though still relatively small, the number of officers implicated in these incidents is rising…”
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/24/palestinian-sniper-kills-israeli-soldier-in-west-bank/
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And so, here you have perversity on steroids. No word from the Biden administration expressing concern about this situation. They will just sail on with their plans.
My friends in the US: I call upon you to scream bloody murder about this. Put this out wherever you can. Demand accountability from your elected officials.
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Now let me share what Ron Dermer, Minister of Strategic Affairs, had to say about US reluctance to sanction our operation in Rafah (emphasis added):
“We’re gonna go in and finish this job, and anybody who doesn’t understand that doesn’t understand that the nerve of the Jews, that existential nerve, was touched” [by Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7, which sparked the Gaza war].
[The Rafah operation is] “going to happen, and it will happen, even if Israel is forced to fight alone, even if the entire world turns on Israel, including the United States.”
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-793199
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We have just completed the celebration of Purim, which tells the story of an existential threat to the Jewish people that was averted at the last moment.
God is not mentioned even once in the story told in the Purim Megillah. But we are taught that while God’s face may have been hidden, he was operating, nonetheless. The rescue of the Jews in the Purim story did not involve something overt such as the splitting of the sea, but God’s hand was behind the events that culminated in salvation.
As we celebrated and came together these past days, a great many of us discussed this at considerable length – it was a primary topic of conversation.
And for great many of us faith is strong. We believe that all will be well in the end.
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One final news note here (with much saved for my next posting): Hamas has rejected the Israeli offer for a deal on release of hostages. Israel was not giving enough to satisfy them. They held out for an end to the war, and release of more high-level terrorists with blood on their hands than we were prepared to release. Some 700-800 terrorists released in exchange for 40 hostages was not enough for them.
We have called home our negotiating team and I doubt there will be further negotiations, but who knows.
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-793703
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Let your elected leaders in the US know that it is not only the progressive left that votes – that you are demanding support for Israel.
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Keep praying to Heaven for Israel. Pray for the strength and wisdom of our leaders, for the safety of our soldiers, and for the rescue of our hostages. Pray with a heart filled with hope.
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© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by independent journalist Arlene Kushner. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
