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.

Israeli Knesset outlawing UNRWA

I'm very troubled by the two laws that the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has just passed, to prevent UNRWA, the UN refugee agency for Palestinian refugees, from operating in Israel and putting it under severe restrictions in Gaza and the West Bank.

While it does seem that some employees of UNRWA are or were members of Hamas, and some took part in the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, does that mean that the entire organization is irrevocably tainted?

The professional leadership of UNRWA employed by the UN certainly does not belong to Hamas, and they are pointing out how disastrous the outlawing of the organization in Gaza will be, if it is indeed outlawed.

Who will take care of the people of Gaza if UNRWA is kicked out? Gaza is a heap of rubble now, and thousands of people have been killed. Where will food, medicine, and shelter come from, for the people of Gaza, if UNRWA is not there? There are some other relief agencies in Gaza, such as the World Central Kitchen, but UNRWA has been established in Gaza since the late 1940s and 1950s, and knows the needs of its people intimately. Unless Israel is prepared to take over all of its relief activities, I think it would be much better for Israel to work with UNRWA (as hard as that may be) than to destroy it.

My readers may not agree with me about the value of UNRWA (and I'm no expert on it), but I think that those of us who support Israel need to think seriously also about how to ensure that there is adequate food, clothing, and shelter for the people of Gaza.

This is a good Times of Israel article on the laws, including denunciations of the laws by the UN, the UK, and the United States, among other bodies.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/knesset-approves-laws-barring-unrwa-from-israel-limiting-it-in-gaza-and-west-bank/ 

Despite widespread international opposition, lawmakers voted overwhelming on Monday evening to approve two bills essentially barring the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and their descendants from operating in Israel, and severely curtailing its activities in Gaza and the West Bank.

During the opening plenum session of the Knesset’s winter legislative session, MKs voted 92 to 10 to approve a law barring UNRWA from operating in Israeli territory, and 87-9 in favor of another measure curtailing UNRWA’s activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank by banning state authorities from having any contact with the agency.

Without coordination with Israel, it will be almost impossible for UNRWA to work in Gaza or the West Bank, since Jerusalem would no longer be issuing entrance permits to those territories or allowing coordination with the IDF. Israel also currently controls access to Gaza from Egypt, with Israeli forces deployed along the border between them.

UNRWA — short for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East — provides education, health care and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Responding to the “unprecedented” vote, UNRWA warned that the legislation “sets a dangerous precedent,” breaches the UN charter “and violates the State of Israel’s obligations under international law.”

“These bills will only deepen the suffering of Palestinians, especially in Gaza where people have been going through more than a year of sheer hell… and are nothing less than collective punishment.” the agency said in a statement.

“It’s outrageous that a member state of the United Nations is working to dismantle a UN agency which also happens to be the largest responder in the humanitarian operation in Gaza,” Juliette Touma, spokeswoman for UNRWA, told AFP.

According to the Ynet news site, the Foreign Ministry had warned of the dangers of passing the UNRWA legislation, stating that Israel could be found in violation of the UN charter and be expelled.

Ahead of the vote, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that passing the bills would be a “catastrophe,” while European Commission Vice President Josep Borrell stated that they “would have disastrous consequences.”

Immediately prior to the vote, the US made clear to Israel that it was deeply concerned by the legislation, with State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller telling reporters that humanitarian assistance was not getting to the people in Jabalia in northern Gaza, where the Israeli military has stepped up its campaign, and that Washington would not accept that.

A State Department spokesperson told The Times of Israel that the US was “deeply troubled” by the legislation, saying that it could force the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees to discontinue all of its operations in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also previously expressed concern over the bills, stating that the “enactment of such restrictions would devastate the Gaza humanitarian response” as well as the provision of “vital” services in East Jerusalem.

British Foreign Minister David Lammy expressed London’s “profound regret” over the legislation, stating that “the allegations against UNRWA staff earlier this year were fully investigated, and offer no justification for cutting off ties with UNRWA.”

Lammy added that banning the organization would not be in Israel’s “interests.”

In a seeming response to the international criticism, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel was prepared to work with international partners, both in the 90 days before the legislation takes effect and afterward, to ensure that humanitarian aid would still reach Gazan civilians.

“UNRWA workers involved in terrorist activities against Israel must be held accountable. Since avoiding a humanitarian crisis is also essential, sustained humanitarian aid must remain available in Gaza now and in the future,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement issued in English.

“In the 90 days before this legislation takes effect – and after – we stand ready to work with our international partners to ensure Israel continues to facilitate humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not threaten Israel’s security,” Netanyahu’s office said.

While Israel has worked to gradually limit UNRWA’s role in the delivery of humanitarian aid, in favor of the World Food Program, UNICEF and other agencies, UNRWA is still heavily involved in the Strip’s humanitarian operation, running shelters, clinics and warehouses.

An Israeli official told The Times of Israel that the security establishment and professional staff cautioned political leaders against passing the legislation in the middle of the war against Hamas in Gaza without a viable replacement in place.

While some Israeli political leaders recognized the humanitarian risk and the international backlash that would result, “the political cost of opposing the legislation became too significant to endure,” the official said, explaining that the IDF itself spent months building a campaign that ties UNRWA to Hamas.

The Knesset’s approval of the two bills in their second and third (final) readings came only days after UNRWA confirmed that a Hamas Nukbha commander killed in an Israeli strike, who led the killing and kidnapping of Israelis from a roadside bomb shelter near Kibbutz Re’im on October 7 last year, had been employed by the agency since July 2022.

Israel alleges that more than 10 percent of UNRWA’s staff in Gaza have ties to terrorist factions, and that educational facilities under the organization’s auspices consistently incite hatred of Israel and glorify terror.

In February, the IDF revealed the existence of a subterranean Hamas data center directly beneath UNRWA’s Gaza Strip headquarters. The IDF has also repeatedly targeted Hamas command centers and gunmen hiding out in UNRWA schools.

Israeli lawmakers celebrated the legislation’s passage on Monday evening. Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, the sponsor of the bill prohibiting UNRWA from operating within Israel, tweeted: “UNRWA terrorists, your story ends here; enemies have no right to exist in the State of Israel.”

“UNRWA will not operate in the territory of the State of Israel, their perks will be canceled, their entry into Israel will be prohibited, complete severance of ties,” exulted opposition Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky, the sponsor of the second bill.

“That’s it, it’s over. UNRWA is out,” cheered Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, calling the bills’ passage an “historic and significant move for the security of the country” against terrorists operating “under the auspices of the United Nations.”

“UNRWA employed terrorists who participated in the October 7 massacre and is educating young Palestinians about terrorism and hatred of Israel,” said Energy Minister Eli Cohen.

“Terrorists and supporters of terrorism have no place in the State of Israel,” argued Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf.

“I congratulate and thank the members of the Knesset from across the political spectrum for passing the laws that tonight put an end to the ongoing disgrace of cooperation with UNRWA,” said far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

“Whoever harms the security of the State of Israel, the State of Israel will harm him,” he added.

MK Benny Gantz’s centrist National Unity party also supported the legislation, and criticized Netanyahu for missing the votes against what it described as “an organization that was part of the Hamas apparatus and whose employees took part in the October 7 massacre.”

During a debate in the Knesset plenum ahead of the votes, Arab lawmakers railed against the laws, with Hadash-Ta’al MK Aida Touma-Sliman claiming Israel was carrying out “genocide” in Gaza.

“No Palestinian wants to be a refugee,” she yelled, adding that “the majority of Gazans are now refugees.”

Likud MK Tally Gotliv had to be physically restrained by Knesset ushers after approaching the podium during a speech by Hadash-Ta’al MK Ahmad Tibi, in which he railed against what he termed “fascist” legislation.

“The Palestinian people will be freed from the occupation,” Tibi screamed, as right-wing MKs called for him to leave the Knesset.

Israel had been extremely critical of UNRWA long before the Hamas invasion and slaughter in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, saying that its near uniqueness in the world — granting refugee status not just to the first generation of refugees but to their descendants — perpetuated the conflict and a culture of dependence among Palestinians.

At the same time, some Israeli politicians and officials saw the relief that the agency provided as a means of keeping the Gaza Strip, and parts of the West Bank, from deeper poverty and thus greater violence and terrorism.

Kamala Harris ad - "You will be protected"

 

Momodou Taal - praise for the "armed resistance in Palestine"

Momodou Taal, a foreign graduate student at Cornell (from the UK), has been banned from the Cornell campus because he has violated conduct rules for students. He is one of the leaders of an umbrella group called the Cornell Coalition for Mutual Liberation, which organized the pro-Palestinian encampment at Cornell in the spring. Cornell initially decided to suspend him, which could have resulted in his losing the visa that permitted him to stay in the US, but Cornell then backed down.

I was just reading an article from the Cornell Sun from February 3, 2024, reporting on a rally that occurred the day before. Taal made some disturbing and inflammatory remarks praising the "armed resistance in Palestine."

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.

At time of publication, Taal did not respond to repeated requests to elaborate on his remarks. Taal has previously described himself as the liaison representative for Cornell’s Coalition for Mutual Liberation, an activist collective that organized Friday’s protest.

Taal’s statement was not the only apparent praise of militant groups at the event. At one point, the crowd chanted, “Yemen, Yemen, make us proud. Turn another ship around.” Yemen’s Houthi rebels, a group the Biden administration recently labeled a terrorist organization, have fired at Red Sea ships, including commercial vessels and a U.S. warship.

In an online discussion on November 10, 2023, Too Black of the Black Myths Podcast sat down with Taal (also host of the Malcolm Effect podcast) "to discuss the current repression on college campuses against Pro-Palestinian students."

In his introduction, Taal said that he was the representative for intercampus organization for the Coalition for Mutual Liberation, which was formed in the fall. He said that, "We kind of realized that if we're going to be effective against the Zionist machine on campus that we have to be organized in our numbers, so we're trying to bring as many organizations together as possible. The Zionist lobby on campus is extremely well-funded and extremely well-organized and they have institutional backing, and so we thought let's bring an umbrella organization together which is Cornell's Coalition for Mutual Liberation and we're trying to - yes - in our thousands and our millions we are all Palestinians."

President Joe Biden's statement on the death of Yahya Sinwar

October 17, 2024 Statement from President Joe Biden on the Death of Yahya Sinwar Early this morning, Israeli authorities informed my national security team that a mission they conducted in Gaza likely killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.  DNA tests have now confirmed that Sinwar is dead.  This is a good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world.  As the leader of the terrorist group Hamas, Sinwar was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, and citizens from over 30 countries.  He was the mastermind of the October 7th massacres, rapes, and kidnappings.  It was on his orders that Hamas terrorists invaded Israel to intentionally – and with unspeakable savagery – kill and massacre civilians, a Holocaust survivor, children in front of their parents, and parents in front of their children.  Over 1,200 people were killed on that day, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, including 46 Americans.  More than 250 were taken hostage, with 101 still missing. That number includes seven Americans, four of whom are believed to still be alive and held by Hamas terrorists.  Sinwar is the man most responsible for this, and for so much of what followed.   Shortly after the October 7 massacres, I directed Special Operations personnel and our intelligence professionals to work side-by-side with their Israeli counterparts to help locate and track Sinwar and other Hamas leaders hiding in Gaza.  With our intelligence help, the IDF relentlessly pursued Hamas’s leaders, flushing them out of their hiding places and forcing them onto the run.  There has rarely been a military campaign like this, with Hamas leaders living and moving through hundreds of miles of tunnels, organized in multiple stories underground, determined to protect themselves with no care for the civilians suffering above ground.  Today, however, proves once again that no terrorists anywhere in the world can escape justice, no matter how long it takes. To my Israeli friends, this is no doubt a day of relief and reminiscence, similar to the scenes witnessed throughout the United States after President Obama ordered the raid to kill Osama Bin Laden in 2011. Israel has had every right to eliminate the leadership and military structure of Hamas. Hamas is no longer capable of carrying out another October 7. I will be speaking soon with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to congratulate them, to discuss the pathway for bringing the hostages home to their families, and for ending this war once and for all, which has caused so much devastation to innocent people.   There is now the opportunity for a “day after” in Gaza without Hamas in power, and for a political settlement that provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.  Yahya Sinwar was an insurmountable obstacle to achieving all of those goals. That obstacle no longer exists. But much work remains before us.   ###

"Drop Hillel" - a new antisemitic campaign on American college campuses

The anti-Israel, antisemitic movement has a new goal - driving Hillel off university campuses. There is a new organization, called "Drop Hillel," which as usual claims to be led by Jews, but I have my doubts. Notice the other Instagram accounts signing onto this message - including National SJP (which praised the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel), Cuny4Palestine (one of the most radical pro-Palestinian student groups), and teachingpalestine.

"Drop Hillel" blames Hillel for all the supposed harm done by Israel - including "material support to the Zionist project and its crimes." I can't help but feel that this is intended to parallel the wording of laws in the US that prohibit "material support" of terrorist groups, so that Drop Hillel is call Hillel a terrorist group.

In actuality, Hillels support a wide variety of types of Jewish life on campuses - religious activities, socializing, sharing meals, interfaith efforts, etc. If Drop Hillel managed to get college administrations to kick Hillel off campuses, this would immediately result in a deep drop in support for Jewish religious and social activities and for Jewish students. 

Drop Hille is an antisemitic organization (even if it is organized by Jews), and seeks to destroy the basis for healthy Jewish life on college campuses across the United States.

Ithaca College Students for Justice in Palestine glorifies Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 one year later

The latest Instagram Story from Ithaca College Students for Justice in Palestine includes a page with the slogans “Glory to the Martyrs. Victory to the Resistance.”

This page is from a series originally posted by @wawog_now, “Writers Against the War on Gaza.” The bottom illustration is from a photograph of the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, when the Hamas terrorists broke through the fence separating Israel from Gaza.

ICSJP chose to post this picture on October 7, 2024, the anniversary to the day of the Hamas attack. I cannot see this as anything but a glorification of the violence wrought that day by Hamas upon Israelis and citizens of other countries living in the kibbutzim and small towns on the southwest border of Israel with Gaza – violence which resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 250 others into Gaza.

I am outraged and my heart hurts that students at Ithaca College, by posting this image, are celebrating the murders and hostage-taking of Hamas.

And the slogan, “Victory to the Resistance,” in my opinion, is simply calling for more attacks by Hamas upon Israeli civilians.

The other Ithaca College pro-Palestinian student group, IC Students for Palestine, is planning a vigil for this coming Saturday night, October 12, which happens to be the end of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. This is their Instagram announcement.

This group also just posted another message on their Instagram account today (10/08/24): "Glory to the Martyrs. Glory to the Resistance. Free Palestine." What do they mean by the "resistance"? Do they actually understand what resistance means - murder, rape, torture, burning people alive in their houses, constant rocket fire from Gaza and Lebanon into Israel? Attempts to kill people in Israel, including my friends? Have they ever seen someone who died by violence? Why would they wish that on anyone? 

I want an end to this war - an end to the Israeli army's attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, an end to the deaths of Palestinian civilians, an end to the destruction of Gaza, a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that frees the hostages, an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and a halt to the Hezbollah rockets and missiles on Israel. It doesn't seem me to that this is what the members of these two student groups want - they glorify the resistance, they want the resistance to be victorious. And what does victory mean?