Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib at Ithaca College

Last night, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Palestinian-American from Gaza who came to the United States in 2005, spoke at Ithaca College about "Radical Pragmatism" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ahmed is a leader of the new "Realign for Palestine" movement and spoke about his own history and his hopes and plans for how to move away from mutual dehumanization towards coexistence.

He wrote on Facebook:

Immense gratitude to Ithaca College, its students, the politics department, and its leadership for hosting me and a screening of the Realign For Palestine "Waging Peace" short film. Having difficult conversations, breaking the cycles of dehumanization, agreeing to disagree, and pursuing common ground is a desperate necessity to get past the frozen and toxic discourse on college campuses. It is most unfortunate and shameful that the exchange of basic ideas and engaging in respectful dialogue across our differences has become the exception, not the norm.

From the Realign for Palestine Facebook page:

“We can disagree, without being disagreeable.”

This week, Realign For Palestine visited the students at @ithacacollege, per the invitation of students and faculty. During the event, we screened a sneak peek of our new documentary film about the RFP initiative and the voices behind it.

@afalkhatib spoke and engaged with a diverse range of opinions and shared the principles and visions of the two-nation solution, the necessity of recognizing multiple truths, and engaging constructively, even in the challenging campus climate. Ithaca College showed that we can disagree without being disagreeable and that difficult conversations can and must be had while elevating mutual humanity and empathy for both Palestinians and Israelis. This is not Kumbaya; this is radical pragmatism, which Realign For Palestine champions, at work.

Ithaca College students from the Ithacans for Israel group, which brought Alkhatib, attended, as did members of the leadership of IC, including President La Jerne Terry Cornish, and people from the larger Ithaca community. I wish that the attendance had been larger, because the message that Ahmed Alkhatib and Realign for Palestine are bringing is important and should be heard by more people, both at Ithaca College and in the city of Ithaca. There are quite a few pro-Palestinian activists in Ithaca, but I don't hear Ahmed Alkhatib's message from them - no mention of a "two-nation" solution and very little acknowledgement of the humanity of Israelis, or of Jews (especially Zionist Jews) who want to work for peace between Palestinians and Israelis. (On Facebook yesterday a supposed Ithaca progressive used the slur "Zios" to refer to people who don't think that Israel should be destroyed).

Israel Palestine Peace

 

SCOTUS Can Let the President Break the Law, But It Can’t Change the Law - Josh Marshall (Talking Points Memo)

From Josh Marshall's newsletter today, The Backchannel:

SCOTUS Can Let the President Break the Law, But It Can’t Change the Law

Josh Marshall

April 17, 2025

We are now cranking up another edition of the “will he or won’t he?” Trump song and dance, this time about firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Trump manages to add an additional pungency to these dramas by trying to fire the guy who is actually his own Fed Chair. Biden renominated Powell. But Trump actually gave him the job. Axios just pushed a newsletter update that ran through this drama, first reporting the events of the day and then adding this: “What we’re watching: Federal law and Supreme Court precedent say presidents cannot fire the Fed chair over a policy disagreement.” It then goes on from there. But that’s actually the end of the story. The other possibilities are illegal.

....In a moment like this, and very much like that flight analog, you may not be able to control what’s happening but you need to know what’s happening. The whole conversation ends with that quote above. Anything else is illegal. The Supreme Court might allow Trump to break the law. But that will be what it is — allowing him to break the law. We will collectively have to grapple with that reality. But it will still be illegal. The Court can say up is down, but up will still be up. It is simply not the case that Congress made the law, that Congress understood what the law meant, that it was universally understood what the law meant, but that we now have a Supreme Court which can simply start history from scratch. We might as well say that Moby Dick was a donkey rather than a whale.

And this brings me to a key point. Trump is hungry to walk through this door of lawless autocracy. But it is the conservative legal movement, embodied in the Federalist Society, organized by Leonard Leo and others, who opened the door. They manufactured the fraudulent idea that presidents cannot be constrained by the law. They imported it from abroad, from the degenerate ideologues of autocracy. They did this. They created the current moment in which a renegade President can simply start chainsawing through the legal fabric and do anything he wants and we, the citizens of the country, must wait in anxious expectation to learn which if any of the laws turn out to be real. That’s not how the rule of law works. It’s not a game of Magic Eight Ball, built by design on inherent suspense and uncertainty. It’s nature is its clarity and fixity, especially during arduous times of tumult and fear.

....The core aim of the 1787 Constitution was to create a viable national government with a robust executive power. That represented a significant national course correction from the first years after the overthrow of the monarchy. The question was whether that could be done without creating a tyrant-in-the-making. That was the challenge of writing the document and it was the sales challenge that the newspaper essay campaign (which we now call the Federalist Papers) was meant to answer. We can talk endlessly about whether we’re still in a democracy or whether Trump wants to be or is acting like a dictator. We can debate words such as “fascism” that were unknown before a century ago. But what we are seeing right now is the definition of tyranny, a half-archaic concept the founders of the American Republic were very familiar with. Trump’s rule is both lawless and arbitrary. He has taken the bundle of powers the Constitution provides him to govern and defend the Constitution and turned them to an entirely different and corrupt purpose: using them as weapons to attack the people and institutions he deems his enemies.

This kind of creature is precisely what the core architects of the constitutional order said the document could never be used to create. The President is no King; he is subject to the law. And yet here we are. And it is the fraudulent doctrine of unitary executive authority which is walking before him like a statutory bushwhacker, clearing a path for him through every law and restraint. As I wrote above, this doctrine is based on theories and philosophical principles totally unknown to the architects of the Constitution. It’s legitimacy can only rest on an argument about function. It fails the test totally. The Constitution was sold to the American people, designed to prevent such a creature from emerging from its words and structures. But this doctrine turns out to be that creature’s greatest ally.</>

Senator Lisa Murkowski is a brave woman - "We are all afraid"

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/us/politics/lisa-murkowski-trump.html?smid=url-share

Senator Lisa Murkowski, the moderate Alaska Republican who has routinely broken with her party to criticize President Trump, has made a startling admission about the reality of serving in public office at a time when an unbound leader in the Oval Office is bent on retribution against his political foes.

“We are all afraid,” Ms. Murkowski said, speaking at a conference in Anchorage on Monday. After pausing for about five seconds, she acknowledged: “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

Trump's Gestapo is already here - ICE

A short excerpt from a post by Tristan Snell in the Big Picture (Substack).

Last year, I did a series called Decoding Project 2025 — and one of the most jarring Trumpian proposals was, from my point of view, the planned degradation of the existing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into an immigration Gestapo to detain undocumented immigrants and deport them without any legal due process.

I was wrong.

It turns out ICE is not a Gestapo for undocumented immigrants.

It is a general Gestapo — a secret national police force not just for undocumented immigrants but for any immigrants, even legal ones with documents, even permanent residents (green card holders), and if Trump has his way, soon, even U.S. citizens.

ICE is arresting and detaining people without alleging that they have committed any crimes at all—holding them without any legal process, without an immigration removal proceeding, without a trial, without an evidentiary hearing, without anything—and then shackling and chaining them into military cargo planes and deporting them for indefinite imprisonment without trial in El Salvador’s Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT).

Then the administration lies, falsely claiming that it can do nothing to return anyone who has been sent to CECOT.

Then the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, follows along with the lie, claiming that he is powerless to return anyone to the US.

Meanwhile, the ICE officers try to shrug off any responsibility, claiming that they are just doing what the government tells them to do.

Frankenstein’s monster is running amok, terrorizing people and killing them, and yet everyone involved is throwing up their hands, disingenuously, claiming that they have no power to stop the monstrous Gestapo that Trump has created.

Yet every step of the monster’s creation was premeditated—a completely purposeful crime against humanity.

This is not an accident. This is what they meant to do. They had a blueprint and they are following it.

The question now becomes whether anyone is going to do anything to stop Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Stephen Miller, and everyone else involved in these extrajudicial detentions and deportations.

The courts are being defied and flouted, but will they escalate their response to insist that the law be obeyed?

Refusing to be complicit in evil

From Jonathan V. Last of the Bulwark, "Inside the Mind of an ICE agent":

I know what it is like to lose your job because you won’t do what powerful people want. I understand how scary that is when you’re middle-aged and have a family to support. I’m not saying it’s easy.

For most people, refusing to be complicit in evil will be the hardest test they are ever given.

2. ICE

Then again, for some people the test seems easy.

Our immigration enforcement officers at ICE have witnessed a sea-change in operations over the last four months. They now routinely detain American citizens in airports and use axes to pry frightened people out of their cars as they wait for their legal representation. Perhaps you have seen this video. 

I am confused about one thing: With this radical change in job description, why aren’t ICE agents quitting their jobs in droves?

Imagine you work in a widget factory. You have no real passion for widgets, but the work is fine. It’s a job.

Then one day you show up to the office and the company is under new management. The owners have decided to transition from making widgets to slaughtering puppies. Your job now is to stand in front of a conveyor belt and kill puppies. It’s kind of a big change.

Would you stay in that new job? Do you think most of your colleagues would stay?

And if they did stay—all of them—would it make you suspect that all those years you were making widgets together, maybe your buddies secretly wished they could be killing puppies instead?

For four months ICE agents have acted in ways that validate the worst caricatures of the agency.

And yet we have not seen a wave of resignations. We have not seen pushback from career employees. We have not seen even off-the-record quotes of concern from ICE officers in the media

I wonder why that is.¹ (Where does the “Abolish ICE” movement go to get its apology?)

There have been books written about this sort of thing. [Link is to Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen].

Harvard's response to the demands of the Trump administration

 

Does the Declaration of Independence remind you of anyone today?

Who does this remind you of? King George III, or someone else today?

From the Declaration of Independence:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.... 

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers... 

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people... 

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: 

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: 

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: 

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses

 

"History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for"

Peter Baker: “Trump and Vance Berate Zelensky During Testy White House Meeting.”

President Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Friday in an explosive televised Oval Office shouting match that ultimately blew up plans to sign a rare minerals deal and signaled a dramatic break in relations between two wartime allies.

In a public confrontation unlike any seen between an American president and foreign leader in modern times, Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance castigated Mr. Zelensky for not being grateful enough for U.S. support in its war with Russia and sought to strong-arm him into making a peace deal on whatever terms the Americans dictated.

With voices raised and tempers flaring, Mr. Trump threatened to abandon Ukraine altogether if Mr. Zelensky did not go along. After journalists were escorted out of the Oval Office, Mr. Trump canceled the rest of the visit, including a planned joint news conference and signing ceremony for the minerals deal. A grim-faced Mr. Zelensky then strode out of the West Wing, climbed into a waiting black sport utility vehicle and departed the White House grounds.

“I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media. “I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.”

Some other quick reactions (quotes and links from Charlie Sykes' Substack newsletter today).

Liz Cheney:

“Generations of American patriots, from our revolution onward, have fought for the principles Zelenskyy is risking his life to defend. But today, Donald Trump and JD Vance attacked Zelenskyy and pressured him to surrender the freedom of his people to the KGB war criminal who invaded Ukraine. History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for.”

Tom Nichols:

Friday, February 28, 2025, will go into the history books as one of the grimmest days in American diplomacy, the beginning of a long-term disaster every American, every U.S. ally, and anyone who cares about the future of democracy will have to endure. With the White House’s betrayal of Ukraine capping a month of authoritarian chaos in America, Putin, along with other dictators around the world, can finally look at Trump with confidence and think: one of us.

Michael Weiss:

Increasingly obvious they invited him to Washington to humiliate him. This is theatre for the benefit of their base and of course a suddenly very happy man in Moscow.

Susan Glasser:

If there are any illusions about what side Trump is on between Russia and Ukraine, this should dispel them.

Damon Linker:

That event in the Oval Office is going to send shock waves across the world -- far more so than Vance's Munich speech. We're the most powerful country on the planet, and we are Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde from admin to admin. Today Mr. Hyde made his full debut.

Gregg Nunziata:

I’m hard-pressed to think of a more disgraceful and damaging performance by a U.S. President on the world stage than what we just witnessed in the Oval Office.

Mark Hertling:

Some have disappointed, some had bad policy, some made big mistakes. But I’ve never in my life been ashamed of American leaders. Until today.

David French:

This is utterly shameful. This is Vladimir Putin's best outcome. The U.S. is placing pressure on a free nation fighting for its life while giving aid and comfort to an authoritarian thug.

Mona Charen:

We are a completely different country from what we were 2 months ago. Bully. Aggressor. Putin suck-up. Betrayer of allies. Rude. Crude. Dishonest. The most dishonorable display by an American president in our lifetimes.

Shiri Bibas was not returned with the bodies of her two sons today

It seems there is no end to evil. 

This morning (between 9:00-10:00 am Israel time, between 2:00-3:00 am east coast US time, Hamas handed over four coffins to the International Committee of the Red Cross - supposedly containing the bodies of Shiri Bibas, her two sons, Kfir and Ariel, and Oded Lipfschitz. 

But this was not a quiet handover - no, Hamas put on a spectacle, placing the coffins on a stage with a grotesque caricature of Benjamin Netanyahu on a sheet behind them, and a masked Hamas terrorist giving a speech with music in the background. The crowd around the stage and the ICRC included armed terrorists with green headbands and civilians - children and women among the men. Some of them took photos or videos of the scene with their cellphones, as if this was a play or a movie.

I watched some of it on a livestream from several different news organizations, including Reuters and AP (I don't know whose cameras were actually there).

But it turns out that Shiri Bibas was not one of them. The IDF was not able to identify the body.

From the Times of Israel today, after Hamas returned four coffins to Israel this morning.

IDF: Remains of Kfir and Ariel Bibas ID’d, 3rd body sent by Hamas isn’t their mom Shiri

By Lazar Berman

The military informs the Bibas family that the bodies of Ariel and Kfir Bibas have been identified after their remains were given to Israel by Hamas on Thursday.

However, the third body at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute was not that of their mother, Shiri Bibas, says the Israel Defense Forces. Specialists at Abu Kabir were not able to identify the body.

The authorities, using forensic evidence and intelligence, assess that the two young boys were ‘”brutally murdered” by terrorists in November 2023, says the IDF. Ariel was 4-years-old and Kfir was 10-months-old when they were murdered.

“This is a very serious violation by the Hamas terrorist organization, which is required by the agreement to return four dead hostages,” says the IDF. “We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all of our hostages.”

“We share the deep sorrow of the Bibas family at this difficult time and will continue to make every effort to return Shiri and all the hostages home as soon as possible,” says the IDF.

Trans people were at Stonewall!

Among the many evil things the Trump administration has already done only in his first month in office (hard to believe!) is their attempt to erase trans people from American life and memory. One thing they did was to try and erase the role of trans people in the Stonewall rebellion that began the modern gay liberation movement (as it was first called). From a letter of protest written by scholars of the movement:

On February 13, 2025, the National Park Service, following an executive order issued by the Trump administration on January 20, 2025, “to recognize [only] two sexes, male and female [that] are not changeable,” removed references to transgender people from the web pages of the National Stonewall Monument in lower Manhattan. Later, the word “queer” and the letter “Q” were also removed.

This part of the letter explains the rebellion:

As scholars who study the history and politics of sexuality and gender, we write to testify that these changes are not supported by the historical record concerning the events that the monument commemorates.

The National Stonewall Monument commemorates an important event in the history of LGBTQ+ activism. During a six-day conflict that began at a New York City tavern called the Stonewall Inn in the summer of 1969, commonly referred to as the Stonewall riots, LGBTQ+ New Yorkers resisted systematic harassment and mistreatment by police in a series of clashes that continued in Greenwich Village for several days. The Stonewall Inn’s patrons and the participants in the subsequent uprising were predominantly young New Yorkers who defied dominant sexual and gender norms. Some understood themselves as gay or lesbian or queer, and some lived part or all of the time as members of a sex other than the one assigned to them at birth. Some called themselves “drag queens” and “crossdressers,” others “transvestite” or “transsexual,” and still others used ambiguous terms that could describe both sexuality and variation in gender expression. The rioters at Stonewall varied in their class background, their racial and ethnic identity, and in words they used to describe themselves. This range and complexity of variation in gender expression and sexuality were common in the gay liberation, lesbian feminist, and trans movements of the period, which were characterized (like all social movements) by some disagreements and debates about language as well as shared visions of liberation.

Diversity in both sexuality and gender expression, forms of human variation often inextricably related to one another, are empirically verifiable parts of the historical record, even as the terms different societies use and the particular meanings of those terms change over time. Neither “transgender” nor “queer” were commonly used as terms of identity in 1969, but “transvestite,” “transsexual,” and other terms were, including by people at the Stonewall Inn and the protests that followed. Notable examples included Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, influential activists who were assigned male at birth but lived for periods of their adult lives as women.

Participants in the Stonewall riots challenged both mistreatment based on the kinds of sexual partners they sought and mistreatment based on how they performed gender in everyday life. Efforts to address both forms of oppression were part of the riots in 1969 and the civil rights struggle that followed. Any accurate account of the Stonewall Riots and the subsequent fight for LGBTQ+ civil rights must recognize the full range of people who joined the battle and the full scope of the oppression they faced. The actions of the National Park Service reduce these events to a story that is only about sexual orientation, but that interpretation lacks basis in historical fact and distorts the legacy of this important event in American history.

"With burning anxiety"

 

"Solidarity in Struggle: Black and Palestinian Resistance" - a shameful discussion in Ithaca on February 1, 2025

The Southside Community Center in Ithaca is hosting a panel discussion on "Solidarity in Struggle: Black and Palestinian Resistance," on February 1. One of the speakers is Russell Rickford, a professor at Cornell University whose first response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre of 1,200 people and kidnapping of 250 more was that he was "exhilarated"!

This is some of what he said at a rally on the Ithaca Commons on Sunday, October 15, just a week after the massacre (text is from the Cornell Daily Sun article on the rally):

“Hamas has challenged the monopoly of violence. And in those first few hours, even as horrific acts were being carried out, many of which we would not learn about until later, there are many Gazans of good will, many Palestinians of conscience, who abhor violence, as do you, as do I. Who abhor the targeting of civilians, as do you, as do I,” Rickford said during the rally. “Who were able to breathe, they were able to breathe for the first time in years. It was exhilarating. It was energizing. And if they weren’t exhilarated by this challenge to the monopoly of violence, by this shifting of the balance of power, then they would not be human. I was exhilarated.”

He added: “What has Hamas done? Hamas has shifted the balance of power. Hamas has punctured the illusion of invincibility. That’s what they have done. You don’t have to be a Hamas supporter to recognize that,” Rickford said. “Hamas has changed the terms of the debate. Israeli officials are right — nothing will be the same again.”

Russell Rickford was exhilarated by murder, rape, torture, and kidnapping. By the time he made that speech, we already knew about the about the "horrific acts" that he pretends to condemn by saying that he "abhor[s] violence." Those of us paying attention, like I was, knew about them already on October 7, because we were following the reports from Israel. For him, "Hamas has changed the terms of the debate" - and he commends them for it.

Another speaker is Momodou Taal, a graduate student at Cornell. He was one of the leaders of the Cornell Coalition for Mutual Liberation group, which was one of the main organizers of the Cornell protests last year and this year. He has spoken out in support of "armed resistance."

This is a quote from a speech he made on campus in early February, 2024 (text from Cornell Daily Sun).

About 70 demonstrators gathered outside of Day Hall on Friday afternoon to protest the Student Assembly’s 16-4 rejection of Resolution 51, which called on Cornell to end partnerships with and suspected investments in arms companies — such as Boeing and Raytheon — that provide weapons to Israel.

“We don’t take our cue from some bullsh*t Student Assembly at Cornell,” said Momodou Taal, grad, who led chants throughout the event. “We take our cue from the armed resistance in Palestine. We are in solidarity with the armed resistance in Palestine from the river to the sea,” he continued, garnering some cheers from the crowd.

Ceasefire? Return of the hostages?

I feel tremendously embittered. The war between Israel and Hamas has gone on for fifteen months since October 7, 2023. The Israeli hostages are still rotting in the tunnels in the hands of Hamas guards who abuse them physically and sexually. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza have been killed, and Gaza is full of rubble where homes and schools and businesses used to be.

"Light at the end of the tunnel"
Today's "Daily Postcard" from the Israel artist Shoshke (Zeev) Engelmayer,
depicting Israel hostages in the tunnels with a tiny flower of hope blooming. 
Link to his Facebook page with this image. 

Apparently Israel has finally agreed to the ceasefire with Hamas, as of a few hours ago, but the security cabinet will only vote on it on Saturday night, according to the Times of Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu the coward is still trying to keep the criminal Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir in the cabinet (he actually is a convicted criminal - look it up). This means that the hostages who were supposed to be released on Sunday will be released instead on Monday. If Netanyahu and the government ministers truly cared about the lives of the hostages they would have agreed to a ceasefire many months ago. 

Happy Eighth Day of Hanukkah!

This year Hanukkah extended over two secular years - into January 1 and 2, 2025. A few years ago the first day of Hanukkah was on Thanksgiving - so it is a moveable feast, as a friend of mine said today when we talked.

Links to a couple of interesting articles about Hanukkah from the Torah.com website -

Chanukah: The Greek Influence of Martyrdom.

On Chanukah we celebrate the miraculous military victories of the “few over the many,” and of Jewish culture over Greek. Ironically, however, Chanukah has also bequeathed to us a new genre of Jewish literature, one that has been in frequent use ever since: Greek-style stories of bravery in defeat and dying for the cause.

Megillat Antiochus: The Biblical Chanukah Scroll 

The medieval Scroll of Antiochus does more than enrich Chanukah with details. It models the holiday after Purim by telling the story in the biblical language and idiom of Daniel, Ezra, and Esther.

For a minor Jewish festival with no biblical command or account as its origin, Chanukah plays a major role in the Jewish yearly cycle. It includes a highly visible formal ritual —the lighting of the chanukiah/menorah—its own liturgy, folk practices like spinning the dreidel and eating latkes, jelly donuts, and chocolate coins, and the singing of catchy tunes. For many diasporic Jews, Chanukah is the Jewish answer to Christmas while, for many Israelis, it provides an opportunity to reflect upon Jewish military might. 

What does Chanukah celebrate? The books of 1 and 2 Maccabees present the earliest and most comprehensive versions of the story, but as they were not accorded canonical status by Jews, they were soon lost to Jewish tradition—though preserved by Christians in the Apocrypha. In contrast to Purim, whose story is told in the biblical book of Esther, traditional Jews for millennia relied mostly on bits and pieces preserved in the Chanukah liturgy, the Talmud, rabbinic midrash, and collective memory. Thus, most Jews throughout the ages were aware of some form of persecution, Judah Maccabee, a hard-fought war won, and something about a miracle involving oil. 

To fill this gap, an author living in the mid to late first millennium C.E. composed the Megillat Antiochus (The Scroll of Antiochus; also known as “The Greek Scroll” and “The Scroll of the House of the Hasmoneans”), which presents itself as the narrative explaining the events leading up to Chanukah. The author has little direct access to more historical sources like 1 and 2 Maccabees, and he uses biblical and rabbinic ones as well as his own expansions and Jewish collective memory to tell the story.

Megillat Antiochus was written in something akin to Late Jewish Literary Aramaic, yet, at the same time, anyone familiar with Biblical (i.e., imperial) Aramaic would sense that the text wishes to give a feel as if it were composed in that dialect, by deploying words and forms that characterize Biblical Aramaic but were no longer used in later Aramaic dialects. In addition, it copies, draws on, riffs upon, and develops the language and narrative style of Daniel, Ezra, and the book of Esther to enrich and inform its overarching narrative.

Happy Hanukkah 5785!

 

Final Hanukkah message from President Biden

I'm sad that President Biden will be leaving office in a little more than three weeks, and not just because he will be replaced by Donald Trump. He has been so supportive of Jews and Israel since he became President - I very much appreciated his flying to Israel soon after October 7 to show his support. No other president has done that and I can't imagine Donald Trump (or, for that matter, Kamala Harris) expressing his concern in such a personal way. 

And as far as I know, he's the only president to send American troops to defend Israel (if I'm wrong, please let me know). Other presidents have certainly sent military aid, even the antisemitic Richard Nixon during the Yom Kippur War (for which I'm very thankful!). Just today US troops using the THAAD missile defense system shot down the Houthi missile that was launched at Israel (see previous blog post). 

This doesn't mean that he's always done the right thing with regard to Israel. I think he should have put much more pressure on Netanyahu about the Israeli conduct of the war in Gaza. The New York Times and other news sources have written about how Israel has loosened its rules of engagement in Gaza, resulting in a very high civilian death toll, and probably in some cases violating American rules for what we permit weapons we give or sell to other countries to be used for. 

I will certainly miss him for many other reasons. I think he's done a generally good job, and has emphasized the right actions, like industrial policy to rebuild American infrastructure (we finally have Infrastructure Week!) and foster making computer chips and other high tech manufacturing, and the many incentives to shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

One of the things I've appreciated is his administration's outreach to the Jewish community. Obviously, other presidential administrations have done this, but his is the first one I've paid much attention to - especially reaching out with briefings in the wake of the October 7 attack and the Gaza war.

Others certainly disagree with me, and my purpose in writing this is not to persuade anyone, but simply to express my personal feelings.

December 27, 2024

Friends,

On the first night of Hanukkah, President Biden lit the official White House Menorah alongside his family. This menorah was made in 2022 from wood salvaged during the Truman-era renovation. The beam of wood sat in storage for 70 years — through 13 presidencies. Today, it shines as a symbol of resilience, honoring the enduring strength of the Jewish people.

At the White House Hanukkah reception, President Biden reflected on this strength: “I know it’s hard to find hope while carrying so much sorrow. But from my perspective, Jewish people have always embodied the duality of pain and joy.”

He also invoked the words of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z'l, whose teachings continue to inspire me personally, and I know so many around the world. “A people that can walk through a valley of shadow of death and still rejoice is a people that cannot be defeated by any force or fear.”
As we celebrate this season of light and miracles, President Biden offered his final Hanukkah message as President. "Hold onto that hope, shine your light, shine the light of optimism, and above all, keep the faith. Keep the faith.”

From all of us at the White House, Chag Hanukkah Sameach — wishing you a joyous and meaningful Hanukkah.

Shabbat Shalom,

Shelley Greenspan

Liaison to the American Jewish Community

US THAAD system deployed in Israel participated in last night’s Houthi missile interception

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/us-thaad-system-deployed-in-israel-participated-in-last-nights-houthi-missile-interception/

In first, US THAAD system deployed in Israel participated in last night’s Houthi missile interception

The US military deploys a THAAD missile defense system in Israel, March 2019. (US Army Europe/File)

An American missile defense system battery that was deployed by the US in Israel in October participated in the interception of a Houthi ballistic missile launched at Israel from Yemen overnight.

The THAAD, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, was used to try to intercept a projectile from Yemen sometime during the last 24 hours, and an analysis would determine its success, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

It is the first time that the THAAD system deployed in Israel has been used.

Footage posted to social media shows the THAAD system launching an interceptor amid the Houthi attack.

“18 years I’ve been waiting for this,” an American soldier can be heard saying in the clip.

The IDF said the Houthi missile was intercepted by air defenses, without specifying if it was an Israeli or American system.

The THAAD battery was deployed in Israel following Iran’s October 1 ballistic missile attack on Israel.

Link to Twitter/X - https://x.com/ItayBlumental/status/1872649121498296761  

"This is the place of horrors": 150,000 missing Syrians; mass graves show the worst abuses "since the Nazis"

"This is the place of horrors"

NBC reports today: Syrian mass graves show the worst abuses 'since the Nazis,' top prosecutor says

Mass graves uncovered in Syria in the days since President Bashar al-Assad was overthrown are exposing evidence of some of the worst abuses since the Nazis, a top international war crimes prosecutor said.

More than 100,000 people were tortured and killed in the state-run “machinery of death,” Stephen Rapp, former U.S. war crimes ambassador at large, told Reuters on Tuesday after visiting two mass grave sites in the towns of Qutayfah and Najha near Damascus.

“I don’t have much doubt about those kinds of numbers given what we’ve seen in these mass graves," said Rapp, who led prosecutions at both the Rwanda and Sierra Leone war crimes tribunals and is now working to help document evidence of war crimes in Syria.

Rapp, who also spoke to BBC News, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Images have emerged showing Syrian Civil Defense crews, known as the White Helmets, recovering the remains of those buried in some of the country's mass graves, with some photos showing piles of bones and skulls in body bags. Past satellite imagery has also indicated large burial sites.

Hundreds of thousands of political prisoners disappeared into Assad's network of prisons, where many faced torture and death, in the years since the civil war in Syria began in 2011 with his brutal crackdown on protests against him. Both he and his father, Hafez al-Assad, who died in 2000, have been accused of widespread killings and abuses.

And while Syrians across the country celebrated as thousands of people were freed from prison cells by rebel forces within hours of Assad's overthrow, the search is on for those who did not survive to see the end of the Assad family's 50-year rule. 

'System of state terror'

“We really haven’t seen anything quite like this since the Nazis,” Rapp said of the evidence emerging from the mass graves.

“From the secret police who disappeared people from their streets and homes, to the jailers and interrogators who starved and tortured them to death, to the truck drivers and bulldozer drivers who hid their bodies, thousands of people were working in this system of killing,” he said.

“We are talking about a system of state terror, which became a machinery of death," Rapp said.

Assad, now in Russia, has repeatedly denied accusations from human rights groups, whistleblowers and former detainees that his regime carried out human rights violations.

The horrors of Syria's mass graves were previously described in German court hearings and U.S. congressional testimony in 2021 and 2023, with past satellite imagery released by Maxar Technologies, a U.S. defense contractor, showing a location being investigated as a possible mass grave.

The International Commission on Missing Persons in The Hague said it has received reports of at least 66 sites of mass graves in Syria.

Working with Syrian families of the missing and Syrian organizations, it said in a news release Dec. 10 that it had also collected reports of at least 28,200 missing relatives from more than 76,200 people from Syria.

More details from a Reuters story:

The head of U.S.-based Syrian advocacy organisation the Syrian Emergency Task Force, Mouaz Moustafa, who also visited Qutayfah, 25 miles (40 km) north of Damascus, has estimated at least 100,000 bodies were buried there alone. 

The International Commission on Missing Persons in The Hague separately said it had received data indicating there may be as many as 66, as yet unverified, mass grave sites in Syria. More than 150,000 people are considered missing, according to international and Syrian organisations, including the United Nations and the Syrian Network for Human Rights, it said. 

Commission head Kathryne Bomberger told Reuters its portal for reporting the missing was now "exploding" with new contacts from families. 

.... Syrian residents living near Qutayfah, a former military base where one of the sites was located, and a cemetery in Najha used to hide bodies from detention sites described seeing a steady stream of refrigeration trucks delivering bodies which were dumped into long trenches dug with bulldozers. 

"The graves were prepared in an organised manner - the truck would come, unload the cargo it had, and leave. There were security vehicles with them, and no one was allowed to approach, anyone who got close used to go down with them," Abb Khalid, who works as a farmer next to Najha cemetery, said. 

In Qutayfah, residents declined to speak on camera or use their names for fear of the retribution, saying they were not yet sure the area was safe after Assad's fall. 

"This is the place of horrors," one said on Tuesday. 

Inside a site enclosed with cement walls, three children played near a Russian-made military satellite vehicle. The soil was flat and levelled, with straight long marks where the bodies were believed buried. 

.... Details of Syria's mass graves first emerged during German court hearings and U.S. congressional testimony in 2021 and 2023. A man identified only as "the grave digger" testified repeatedly as a witness about his work at the Najha and Qutayfah sites during the German trial of Syrian government officials. 

While working in cemeteries around Damascus at the end of 2011, two intelligence officers showed up at his office and ordered him and his colleagues to transport and bury corpses. He testified that he rode in a van adorned with pictures of Assad and drove to the sites several times a week between 2011 and 2018, followed by large refrigeration trucks filled with bodies. 

The trucks carried several hundred corpses from Tishreen, Mezzeh and Harasta military hospitals to Najha and Qutayfah, he said in the trial. At the sites deep trenches were already dug and the grave digger and his colleagues would unload the corpses into the trenches, which would be covered with dirt by excavators as soon as a section of the trench was full, he said. 

"Every week, twice a week, three trailer trucks arrived, packed with 300 to 600 bodies of victims of torture, starvation, and execution from military hospitals and intelligence branches around Damascus," he told Congress in a written statement. 

The grave digger escaped from Syria to Europe in 2018 and has repeatedly testified about the mass graves, but always with his identity shielded from the public and the media.

Assad would still rule if Hamas had not attacked Israel and Hezbollah had not rocketed Israel

 

Prisoners freed from the Syrian gulag

 

https://x.com/KseniaSvetlova/status/1865636199349829854

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib on the fall of the Syrian regime

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib 2 hr

Let there be no doubt: without a weakened, defeated, tamed & humiliated Hezbollah, the Syrian opposition would not have been able to march on Assad's forces which are nothing without Russian airpower and ground support from the group. Ironically, defeated "resistance" = liberation

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib 3 hr

Assad's fall appears inevitable, weakening the Iranian-led "Axis of Resistance" that has brought so much devastation, death & destruction to the Middle East. The fall and defeat of Hamas, Hezbollah & Assad's Syria are a direct outcome of Sinwar's grave 10/7 miscalculation in Gaza

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen."

From Ben Walzer on Facebook:

Astounding to follow the precipitous collapse of the murderous Assad dynasty that has killed half a million Syrians in the last decade for starters. Opposition says the regime been officially overthrown.

[Unconfirmed reports among Syria airspace-watchers that, while his family has reportedly fled to Moscow, Assad's plane may have been shot down over rebel territory, Homs, possibly with an abandoned BUK missile system, same type Russia used to shoot down Malaysia Flight 17 in 2014 over Ukraine, accelerating its imperial war there.] 

The regime has abandoned its entire air force, Russia seems to be evacuating its base in Tartus, at least of heavy equipment. Hezbollah/Iran apparently not coming to the regime's aid in any serious way. 

Damascus airport also abandoned by security, police and military. Political prisoners, some who have been jailed since 1980, being freed who think Assad's father Hafez, who died in 2000, is still in charge. Head spinning change in just days. 

Says Oz Katerji, "Iran’s land bridge to Lebanon is over; Russia’s military occupation of Syria is over; the Assad regime’s mass murder of Syrians is over." 

And נדב איל Nadav Eyal: "It’s over: Assad has fled Damascus, according to senior officers in the Syrian regime (Reuters). Syrian state television also reports that he is no longer present. Rebel forces are making their way to the communication buildings to announce the establishment of a new interim Syrian government. 54 years of the Assad dynasty and over 60 years of Ba'ath rule have come to an end. The regime has fallen." 

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen." Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The Assad regime has fallen!

It has just been announced that Assad has fled Damascus and that rebels have entered the presidential palace. I remember when Aleppo fell in 2016, and the desolation I felt. This whole week has seemed like an unbelievable dream. 

I hope that what is ahead for Syria and Syrians is better than the past, that the different rebel groups can work with each other in rebuilding the country, and that Syrian refugees who want to return will be able to go back to their old homes.

The more than a year that has passed since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 has been a bloody horror with very little light. It seems like the fall of the Assad regime would not have happened without Israel smashing Hamas and Hezbollah, and engaging in open fighting with Iran, along with Russia throwing most of its forces into the war against Ukraine. 

Anti-Israel course at Cornell: "Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance"

Professor Eric Cheyfitz of Cornell University will be teaching a course in spring 2025 with the title of "Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance." Professor Cheyfitz is an activist in the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) movement - he first came to my attention in the spring of 2014, when he was invited to speak at Ithaca College in favor of the academic boycott of Israel.

This is the course description as published in the Cornell online catalog:

AIIS 3500
Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2024-2025.

The first half of the course will be devoted to situating Indigenous peoples, of which there are 476,000,000 globally, in an international context, where we will examine the proposition that Indigenous people are involved historically in a global resistance against an ongoing colonialism. The second half will present a specific case of this war: settler colonialism in Palestine/Israel with a particular emphasis on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) finding "plausible" the South African assertion of "genocide" in Gaza.

Outcomes 

• Identify and analyze key components of Indigenous perspectives on political, social, and environmental systems(this can be observed/assessed through written reflections and discussions).
• Define and differentiate key terms such as "Indigeneity," "Resistance," "Settler Colonialism," and "Genocide" in both international law and Indigenous contexts(this can be observed/assessed through writing assignments and presentations).
• Conduct a historical analysis of Indigenous peoples' current situations(this can be observed/assessed by researching and presenting findings in a paper).
• Conceptualize your idea of a just society through the comparison of Western and Indigenous epistemologies (this can be observed/assessed through argumentative essays and class debates based on insights gained from the previous outcomes).
• Apply these outcomes to an understanding of the history of Israel/Palestine with a focus on the history of Gaza and the current Gaza war (this can be observed/assessed by researching and presenting findings in a paper).

Adjunct Professor of Law Menachem Rosensaft just published an opinion article in the Cornell Daily Sun (the student newspaper) criticizing this course. 

When I first learned last month that Professor Eric Cheyfitz will be offering a course this coming spring entitled “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance,” I wrote to Interim President Mike Kotlikoff expressing my concern that it would “promote and inflame political divisiveness at Cornell and encourage antisemitic manifestations against Israeli and Jewish students.”

My principal objection to this course is not that it has a decidedly and unabashedly pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel bent. What I find most problematic and unacceptable about it is that it is firmly rooted in shoddy, selectively and inflamingly biased pseudo-scholarship. The course description leaves no doubt that Cheyfitz intends to convey a narrative that casts Palestinians writ large as protagonists while Israelis and, by extension, Jews will be portrayed as villainous antagonists perpetrating “settler colonialism in Palestine/Israel” against a background of “plausible genocide.” Not only is such a narrative historically false — more importantly, it also constitutes antisemitism on steroids, and is likely to incite antisemitic rhetoric and worse against Israeli and Jewish students and faculty at Cornell.

By way of context, I write as a Zionist who has been supportive of and engaged in the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement for over 40 years. I believe that Israel has every right to exist in security free of terrorist attacks and at the same time support a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict that will provide the Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza with independence and self-determination. I am also sharply critical of many of the policies of the present Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and believe that voicing such criticism, as I have done frequently, is entirely appropriate.

By premising his course in the context of a “global war against an ongoing colonialism,” however, Prof. Cheyfitz goes much further than that. His course description implies not too subtly that Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians can be an acceptable, even justifiable, means in such a “global war.” The course description’s references to “ongoing colonialism” and “settler colonialism” also call into question the very legitimacy of the State of Israel which, it bears recalling, was established pursuant to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) of November 29, 1947, that partitioned then British mandatory Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state.

I am quite certain that no faculty curriculum committee at Cornell would ever even consider approving a course predicated on the premise that Jews alone had preeminent rights over the territories between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. I am equally certain that no such faculty committee would countenance a course whose formal description contained a dog whistle to the effect that violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians on the West Bank was somehow justified or justifiable....

In his course description, Prof. Cheyfitz totally ignores the savage pogrom perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli civilians on the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border on October 7, 2023, including the brutal killing of close to 1,200 men, women and children, the rapes and brutal violation of Jewish women and girls, and the taking of hostages into captivity in Gaza. This deliberate omission alone of the horrific events that sparked the present Israel-Hamas war in Gaza casts serious doubts about the course’s academic and intellectual integrity, let alone legitimacy.

To paraphrase the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Prof. Cheyfitz is entitled to his opinions, however controversial or even offensive such opinions may be, but he is not entitled to promulgate his own alternative facts to his students. Those of us who reject Prof. Cheyfitz’s premises as inflammatory and dangerously misguided have an obligation to make our negative assessment of his Gaza course crystal clear. And I am grateful to Interim President Kotlikoff for expressing his disappointment with Prof. Cheyfitz’s course clearly and unambiguously in his reply to my letter to him.

Simply put, academic freedom and First Amendment rights apply and must be deemed to apply every bit as much to those of us who consider Prof. Cheyfitz’s skewed anti-Israel views to be abhorrent as they do to those who believe that he should not be publicly taken to task or in any way criticized for wanting to promulgate these views to students in his classroom.

More articles on the course:

From JTA - https://www.jta.org/2024/11/11/united-states/cornells-handling-of-a-new-course-on-gaza-could-preview-campus-israel-battles-under-trump 

Three weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack in Israel, a Jewish professor at Cornell University named Eric Cheyfitz offered a “teach-in” titled “Gaza, Settler Colonialism, and the Global War Against Indigenous People.”

Just before the teach-in, the school’s Jewish provost called him and asked if he wanted extra security.

Like other scholars of settler colonialism, Cheyfitz has long viewed Israel since its founding as a colonizer of indigenous Palestinian land, an argument that has gained increasing prominence in pro-Palestinian activism and that supporters of Israel reject. Now, Cheyfitz is turning that teach-in into a full-on course titled “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance,” which he’ll teach next term.

And that same provost, who has since become Cornell’s interim president, is opposed to the idea.

From Inside Higher Education (December 5, 2024): https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/academic-freedom/2024/12/05/cornell-president-accused-violating-academic#

Cornell University’s interim president is facing public accusations that he suppressed academic freedom after he criticized a pro-Palestinian professor’s planned course in an email and that email was shared with a reporter.

The fracas started with a Nov. 6 email from a Cornell adjunct law professor, who wrote to interim president Michael I. Kotlikoff that a course set for the spring was antisemitic and could cause violence against Israeli and Jewish students. The course, Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance, is going to be taught by Eric Cheyfitz, who is Jewish.

From the Times of Israel (December 7, 2024): https://www.timesofisrael.com/cornell-presidents-leaked-criticism-of-gaza-class-prompts-new-row-over-academic-freedom  

JTA — Cornell University’s Jewish interim president is facing growing blowback from higher education groups over emails published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last month, in which he raised objections to an upcoming class on Gaza.

Michael Kotlikoff’s remarks, which JTA reported on November 11, were a violation of academic freedom, say representatives of the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association. The episode is the latest instance of campus scrutiny over Israel shifting from protests to the classroom, more than a year removed from the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught that launched the war in Gaza.

Syrian rebels reenter Aleppo, eight years after the city fell to Assad and Russia

I just went and reread what I wrote in this blog about the fall of Aleppo to Assad and the Russians in 2016. The United States shamefully did nothing to help the people of Syria during the Arab Spring and the civil war, and the American left, which supposedly cares about human rights, raised not a peep. (Imagine American college students camping in the middle of the quad protesting on behalf of the people of Syria!).

But the Syrian rebels have now breached the Syrian army’s lines and entered Aleppo again. From the New York Times article:

Syrian rebels breached the major city of Aleppo on Friday, according to the fighters and a war monitor, raising fears that the nation’s long-running civil war is reigniting with an intensity not seen in years.

One rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, took control of “more than half of Aleppo” within hours on Friday without resistance from Syrian government forces, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitoring group based in Britain.

Government forces and their Russian allies earlier launched intense airstrikes on opposition-held territory on Friday, including 23 attacks on the city of Idlib, according to the Observatory. The Russian government confirmed that it was bombing Syrian rebels, but did not specify where.

Antigovernment fighters managed earlier on Friday to enter five neighborhoods in the western part of Aleppo after detonating two car bombs targeting government soldiers, according to the rebels and the Observatory. The official Syrian news agency, SANA, reported that four people were killed when rebels fired on Aleppo University, in the western part of the city.

The United Nations’ humanitarian agency said that Aleppo’s international airport and some of its hospitals were closed, other hospitals were near capacity and security within the city was “rapidly deteriorating.”

The rebel offensive launched on Wednesday is the most serious challenge to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in years. And the timing of it has raised questions about whether the rebels are trying to take advantage of weakness across an alliance with Iran at the center, and groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Syrian regime closely aligned with it.

But rebels said they had been preparing the offensive for months.

Weapons and money have long flowed from Iran across Syria’s borders to Hezbollah in Lebanon, part of a so-called “axis of resistance” that includes the Palestinian armed group Hamas in Gaza. Iran and Hezbollah also provided vital military support to Mr. al-Assad that helped him survive the civil war.

But now, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran have all been weakened by more than a year of conflict with Israel. A cease-fire this week halted more than 13 months of war between Israel and Hezbollah while Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza continues.

Israel has been bombing Syria for months, targeting Iranian commanders and fighters in the country and weapons shipments transiting through Syria to Hezbollah.

At the same time, Mr. al-Assad’s other key military ally, Russia, is bogged down in the war in Ukraine.

The rapid shifts over the past three days “serve as a powerful reminder that the Syrian conflict is far from “frozen,” said Mohammed Alaa Ghanem, a senior policy adviser for Citizens for a Secure and Safe America, a Syrian American advocacy group.

“What remains clear is that these developments expose Assad’s deep vulnerabilities and his regime’s lack of popular legitimacy,” he said.

The Syrian civil war began in 2011, displaced about half of the country’s population and sent millions of refugees seeking safety in neighboring countries like Turkey and Lebanon, and beyond to Europe. It has been largely stagnant for years, but on Wednesday, fighters from an array of armed opposition factions launched the surprise offensive against the government in the northwestern province of Aleppo.

The scenes that have unfolded over the past three days — in videos and images shared by the rebels and Syrian media — are eerily reminiscent of the early stages of the civil war. This time around, as before, rebels claimed to have captured a series of towns, neighborhoods, military bases and weaponry, while issuing calls for government soldiers to defect and join their ranks.

The last major escalation in the civil war was in early 2020, when Russian-backed Syrian forces launched a widespread offensive against rebels in opposition-dominated Idlib province, capturing several towns and cities.

That fighting ended in a cease-fire brokered by Russia and Turkey, which has supported the opposition since the early days of the war.

Three days of fierce clashes have killed more than 250 combatants on both sides, including more than 140 from rebel groups and 87 government soldiers and Iran-backed fighters, according to the Observatory.

The rebels posted a map on the Telegram messaging app along with evacuation warnings to civilians in the city of Aleppo, urging people to move to eastern neighborhoods “for your safety.”

Syrian state media claimed that government forces had repelled the rebel advance and inflicted heavy losses on the other side. The rebels did not immediately respond to the claim, which could not be independently confirmed.

The White Helmets, a first-responder organization based in opposition-held areas of Syria, reported numerous civilians had been killed or injured in the government airstrikes on Friday.

In addition to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was once linked with the terror group Al Qaeda but publicly broke ties with it years ago, the rebels come from an array of armed opposition factions. Turkish-backed rebel groups are also taking part.

The U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that the Aleppo airport was closed, and all flights had been suspended.

Though the Syrian civil war has been mostly been frozen for years, clashes along front lines have continued to break out periodically and opposition-held areas are regularly hit by government airstrikes.

Rebels said the goal of their assault is to try to stop airstrikes on opposition-held areas by government forces and their allies.

In a video statement announcing the offensive, Lt. Col. Hassan Abdulghany, military commander of the opposition’s operations room, said the decision to launch the attack was forced on the opposition forces.

“It is an obligation to defend our people and their land,” he said. “It has become clear to everyone that the regime militias and their allies, including the Iranian mercenaries, have declared an open war on the Syrian people.”

Iran has backed the Syrian government throughout the war, sending advisers and commanders of its powerful Revolutionary Guards force to bases and front lines, along with allied militias with thousands of fighters.