All the news that's fit to print
Wednesday, January 31, 2024
BIDEN DOESN'T HAVE THE BALLS TO ATACK THE REAL CULPRIT - IRAN
US preparing 'WEEKS' of strikes and cyber attacks against Iran-linked targets after deaths of three American soldiers as Tehran threatens to 'decisively respond'
Biden says he has decided on a response. Antony Blinken mentioned 'multileveled' approach. Iran threatening retaliation if attacked
By Geoff Earle
Daily Mail
Jan 31, 2024
The Biden administration is preparing a wave of strikes and cyber attacks that could last 'weeks' in response to the Iranian-backed drone attack that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan.
U.S. officials have given public and private signals that the operation it is planning will be multi-faceted.
Officials told NBC News it will include Iranian targets outside Iran and would consist of both strikes and cyber operations.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said it will be 'multileveled' and the White House has said it would be 'tiered'.
Potential targets reportedly include Iranian commercial interests and proxy groups with forces in Iraq and Syria.
President Biden is believed not to be planning attacks inside the territory of Iran, despite the urgings of some Republicans in Congress.
Biden says he holds Iran responsible for providing the weapons to the militia behind the attack as he faces a monumental decision on how to hit back. He said he has decided how the U.S. will respond to the drone attack
Biden told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that he has decided on a response, but his administration has yet to reveal any plans, saying the U.S. will respond at a time and place of its choosing.
'I do hold them responsible in the sense they are supplying the weapons to the people who did it,' Biden said at the White House when asked if he holds Iran responsible.
When asked if he held Tehran directly responsible, he said: 'We will have those discussions.'
But he also cautioned: 'I don't think we need a wider war in the Middle East, that's not what I'm looking for.'
On Tuesday night, Iran's UN envoy Amir Saeid Iravani told reporters that giving a 'strong response to enemies' who target the country is 'the fundamental policy of Iran,' according to a report in the state-controlled Islamic Republic News Agency.
Iran's United Nations Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani has said Iran will retaliate to attacks on its interests
Revolutionary Guard commander Gen. Hossein Salami, who answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threatened the US if it attacks Iran, saying "We are not after war, but we have no fear of war."
He vowed a 'decisive response' to attacks on 'Iran's territory, or its interests or citizens abroad. He claimed in a letter to the UN Security Council that Iran 'is not responsible for the actions of any individual or group in the region' – despite the U.S. pointing to decades of support for proxy groups that carry out attacks and rely on Tehran for arms, funds, and training.
Blinken, speaking on Monday, added: 'We will respond decisively to any aggression, and we will hold responsible the people who attacked our troops. That response could be multileveled, come in stages and be sustained over time.'
Aboard Air Force Once, national security spokesman John Kirby provided only a sketch of what was under consideration. 'It's very possible that what you'll see is is a tiered approach here – not just a single action but potentially multiple actions.'
The Pentagon and the White House have pointed to the Iran-backed militia Kata'ib Hezbollah, which is based in Iraq, but has not made a final public determination.
The group's Secretary-General Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi said in a statement Tuesday: 'As we announce the suspension of military and security operations against the occupation forces - in order to prevent embarrassment of the Iraqi government - we will continue to defend our people in Gaza in other ways.'
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said at a security forum in San Diego that he told Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in a meeting in Thaland that China had an 'obligation' to use its influence with Tehran to get Houthi rebels to stop attacking commercial shipping interests in the Red Sea.
Biden is planning to travel to Dover Air Force Base on Friday to attend the dignified transfer ceremony for the return of the three U.S. troops.
EXPERTS ASSERT THE COMMANDO ACTION INSIDE THE JENIN HOSPITAL CONSTITUTES A WAR CIME ..... SO WHAT!
Israeli commandos, dressed as doctors, foil terror attack in Jenin hospital
The Israeli commando forces entered the hospital dressed as doctors and nurses, as seen in CCTV footage shared on social media.
Jerusalem Post
Jan 30, 2024
CCTV footage from the Ibn Sina hospital in the West Bank shows a dozen Israeli commandos disguised as Muslim women and medical workers during a deadly raid Tuesday.
Israeli counterterrorism forces foiled an October 7-inspired terror attack overnight on Tuesday, targeting a cell hiding and planning the attack from the Ibn Sina hospital in Jenin, the West Bank.
According to a joint statement by the IDF, Israel Police's YAMAM counterterrorism forces, and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), Hamas terrorist Mohammad Jalamna was killed during the operation, along with two fellow terrorists who hid alongside him at the hospital.
Twenty-seven-year-old Jalamna, a resident of the Jenin refugee camp, held direct communications with Hamas leadership abroad. According to the statement, he was responsible for transferring weaponry and ammunition to Hamas terrorists across the West Bank for shooting attacks targeting Israelis.
The Israeli commando forces entered the hospital dressed as doctors and nurses, as seen in CCTV footage shared on social media.
'Planned to carry out October 7-inspired attack'
Furthermore, Jalamna used the Jenin hospital as a secret base of operations as he was planning an infiltration attack akin to and inspired by the October 7 massacre, it added.
(Left to right) Muhammad
Jalamneh and brothers Muhammad and Basel Ghazawi, alleged terror
operatives killed by Israeli forces at Ibn Sina hospital in the city of
Jenin in the West Bank, January 30, 2024
Along with Jalamneh, Mohammed and Basel Ghazawi, brothers and Palestinian terrorists, were also killed by Israeli forces. Mohammed was a terrorist operative of the Jenin battalions who was involved in numerous attacks including firing at IDF soldiers in the area in recent weeks, the IDF said.
Basel was a Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative involved in terror activities in the area.
Hamas's use of hospitals as bases of terror
The security forces stated that for a long time, a large number of wanted persons had been hiding in hospitals and were using them as a base for planning terror attacks and carrying them out, and that they believed that the hospitals would serve as protection against Israeli security forces.
The statement said that the operation was made possible due to accurate intelligence received before the operation, and an operation of this nature was unprecedented.
One senior official stated, "There are no cities of refuge in the West Bank and there will not be - every terrorist should know this. The hand of the IDF and the security establishment will reach everyone."
IS THIS YET ANOTHER EMPTY IRANIAN THREAT AGAINST THE US?
Iran threatens to respond to any US strikes
The US has signaled it is preparing for retaliatory strikes in the Mideast in the wake of the Sunday drone attack that also injured at least 40 troops at Tower 22, a secretive base in northeastern Jordan that's been crucial to the American presence in neighboring Syria.
By AP and Israel Hayom
Jan 31, 2024
Revolutionary Guard commander Gen. Hossein Salami, who answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threatened the US if it attacks Iran, saying "We are not after war, but we have no fear of war."
Iran threatened Wednesday to "decisively respond" to any US attack on the Islamic Republic following President Joe Biden's linking of Tehran to the killing of three US soldiers at a military base in Jordan.
The US has signaled it is preparing for retaliatory strikes in the Mideast in the wake of the Sunday drone attack that also injured at least 40 troops at Tower 22, a secretive base in northeastern Jordan that's been crucial to the American presence in neighboring Syria.
However, concerns remain that any additional American strikes could further inflame a region already roiled by Israel's ongoing war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the ongoing attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels on shipping in the Red Sea.
A US Navy destroyer in the waterway shot down an anti-ship cruise missile launched by the Houthis late Tuesday, the latest attack targeting American forces patrolling the key maritime trade route, officials said.
The Iranian warnings first came from Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations in New York. He gave a briefing to Iranian journalists late Tuesday, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
"The Islamic Republic would decisively respond to any attack on the county, its interests and nationals under any pretexts," IRNA quoted Iravani as saying. He described any possible Iranian retaliation as a "strong response," without elaborating.
The Iranian mission to the UN did not respond to requests for comment or elaboration Wednesday on Iravani's remarks.
Iravani also denied that Iran and the US had exchanged any messages over the last few days, either through intermediaries or directly. The pan-Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera, which is based in and funded by Qatar, reported earlier that such communication had taken place. Qatar often serves as an intermediary between Washington and Tehran.
"Such messages have not been exchanged," Iravani said.
But Iran's government has taken note of the US threats of retaliation for the attack on the base in Jordan.
"Sometime, our enemies raise the threat and nowadays we hear some threats in between words by American officials," Revolutionary Guard commander Gen. Hossein Salami, who answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said at an event Wednesday. "We tell them that you have experienced us and we know each other. We do not leave any threat without an answer."
"We are not after war, but we have no fear of war," he added, according to IRNA.
On Saturday, a general in charge of Iran's air defenses described them as being at their "highest defensive readiness." That raises concerns for commercial aviation traveling through and over Iran as well. After a US drone strike killed a top general in 2020, Iranian air defenses mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane, killing all 176 people on board.
Meanwhile, attacks by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels continue in the Red Sea, most recently targeting a US warship. The missile launched Tuesday night targeted the USS Gravely, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, the US military's Central Command said in a statement. "There were no injuries or damage reported," the statement said.
A Houthi military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, claimed the attack in a statement Wednesday morning, calling it "a victory for the oppression of the Palestinian people and a response to the American-British aggression against our country."
Saree claimed the Houthis fired "several" missiles. something not acknowledged by the US Navy. Houthi claims have been exaggerated in the past, and their missiles sometimes crash on land and fail to reach their targets.
The Houthis claimed without evidence on Monday to have targeted the USS Lewis B. Puller, a floating landing base used by the Navy SEALs and others. The US said there had been no attack.
Since November, the rebels have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea over Israel's offensive against Hamas in Gaza. But they have frequently targeted vessels with tenuous or no clear links to Israel, imperiling shipping in a key route for global trade between Asia, the Mideast and Europe.
The Houthis hit a commercial vessel with a missile on Friday, sparking a fire that burned for hours. The US and the United Kingdom have launched multiple rounds of airstrikes targeting the Houthis as allied warships patrol the waterways affected by the attacks. The European Union also plans to launch a naval mission in the Red Sea within three weeks to help defend cargo ships against the Houthi attacks, the bloc's top diplomat said Wednesday.
BLACKS CONSIDER JEWS AS OPPRESSORS ..... BLACK CHURCHES PRESSURE BIDEN TO MAKE HAMAS VICTORIOUS
How intersectional myths killed the black-Jewish alliance
Black pastors are pressuring President Joe Biden to save Hamas because they identify with “oppressed” Palestinians who launched a genocidal war, not a drive for civil rights
By Jonathan S. Tobin
JNS
Jan 31, 2024
For the 1,000 black pastors who have joined a movement to pressure President Joe Biden to force a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, the issue is solidarity with the “oppressed.” This can be seen as part of a general revolt within the activist base of the Democratic Party against the administration’s policy in the Middle East. Much like the petitions signed by lower-level officials throughout the government, Democratic congressional staffers and even the president’s campaign staff. But as reports in The New York Times, NPR and other publications have made clear, the opposition of black churches, which have long been key to get-out-the-vote campaigns to elect Democrats, to Biden on an issue they say “isn’t marginal” poses a potentially lethal threat to his hopes for re-election.
But the key question to be asked about this effort is not so much about its political impact, significant though it may be. It’s why so many African-Americans, especially church leaders who have real influence among their congregants as well as the general black community, could come to believe that the cause of the Palestinians is somehow linked to their own interests and beliefs.
The answer to this puzzle is clear. Intersectional myths in which the Palestinian war to destroy the one Jewish state on the planet is somehow analogous to the struggle for civil rights in the United States are no longer merely a talking point of academic fashion. These toxic ideas have now been embraced by the African-American community. The teaching of critical race theory and the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) divides the world into two immutable groups locked in a never-ending struggle: white oppressors and people of color, who are always the victims. Black pastors have swallowed the neo-Marxist lies that Jews are “white” oppressors and that Palestinian Arabs are victimized people of color—and are sharing that with their congregants.
Racial myths about the Middle East
That the conflict in the Middle East isn’t about race—Jews and Arabs are the same ethnicity—and that about half of Israeli Jews are themselves people of color because they trace their origins to the Middle East and North Africa, is left out of the discussion about American blacks’ opposition to Israel. They seem equally ignorant or disinterested in the Palestinians’ consistent rejection of every compromise offer, including those that would have granted them independence and statehood provided they were willing to live peacefully alongside a Jewish state. That a ceasefire existed before Oct. 7 and that Gaza hadn’t been occupied since 2005—or that Jews are the indigenous people in the place Americans call “the holy land”—is also omitted from these discussions.
The facts about the Palestinian Arabs’ century-long war against Zionism don’t matter if you believe that any struggle can be reduced to an intersectional equation of good people of color versus evil whites, with the “whites” always in the wrong no matter what either group does.
The language used by pastors in describing their campaign to bludgeon Biden, who knows all too well that he only won his party’s presidential nomination in 2020 and then the general election that year because of black support, is not so much a reflection of political calculations as an attempt to frame their stand as an extension of civil-rights advocacy.
Barbara Williams-Skinner of the National African American Clergy Network, a group that claims to represent 15 million black churchgoers, told the Times that “black clergy have seen war, militarism, poverty and racism all connected.” But she said that anger directed at Israel exceeded any protests heard from her members about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. She asserted that the images of Palestinians set off the sort of, “deep-seated angst among black people that I have not seen since the civil-rights movement.”
This was echoed by another pastor quoted in the Times, “We see them as a part of us,” said the Rev. Cynthia Hale, the founder and senior pastor of Ray of Hope Christian Church in Decatur, Ga. “They are oppressed people. We are oppressed people.”
Missing from these statements is any sense of context about the war. Also left out of the equation is what it is the “oppressed” Palestinians want, as well as how they are going about trying to obtain their objectives and whether that has anything in common with the objectives of the civil-rights movement. Indeed, the narrative of solidarity with the cause of the Palestinians has erased Israel, the rights of Israelis, their suffering or their efforts to ensure that the atrocities of Oct. 7 never be repeated. It also should extinguish the last vestiges of support for something that many once took for granted: the alliance between African-Americans and Jews.
Erasing antisemitism
When pressed for any acknowledgment of how the current war started or about Israel, the pastors say that they are against terrorism and in favor of the release of the estimated 136 Israelis who continue to be held hostage in Gaza by Hamas. And they disclaim any connection with antisemitism. But the disconnect is not on the side of Jews who are wondering how a group that they had resolutely supported has effectively abandoned them.
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas pogroms against communities in southern Israel, there has been an unprecedented surge of antisemitism in the United States. This shocking increase in open Jew-hatred on the streets of American cities and college campuses, as well as in commentary in many mainstream outlets like the Times, is directly tied to efforts to demonize Israel and to treat its citizens and its American Jewish supporters as fair game for terrorism. Yet the very people that liberal Jewish groups have always worked closely with—black spiritual leaders—are so obsessed with their alleged common ground with Palestinians that they are completely ignoring the way their former friends are besieged by antisemitic incidents and hate speech.
This is a shocking turnabout, especially when you consider how loyally legacy Jewish groups have stuck with the African-American community even as the evidence that the relationship wasn’t reciprocally mounted. Organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee have endorsed the Black Lives Matter movement in spite of the fact that it was connected to and led by Jew-haters. They also remain determined to support DEI policies despite the way they provide a permission slip for antisemitism—something that has become obvious since Oct. 7 as colleges and universities failed to protect their Jewish students from the hate directed at them by anti-Israel mobs.
The truth about the Palestinians
The images that have pervaded the media about Palestinian suffering can explain some of the sympathy for their cause, but only if you don’t consider why that suffering occurred or the practical alternatives.
The population of Gaza has suffered terribly as a result of a war they started on Oct. 7 with an orgy of mass murder, rape, torture and kidnapping that they initially cheered as a great “victory.” Having sown the wind with terrorism, they then reaped the whirlwind as Israeli forces began a systematic attempt to root out Hamas terrorists from their Gaza strongholds. The devastation has been great as Hamas had dug itself into the Strip building a tunnel network underneath homes, mosques, schools and hospitals. Gazans didn’t protest when billions in international aid money was diverted from humanitarian projects to turn the area into a subterranean fortress where terrorists can hide behind the civilians they deliberately expose to harm.
The notion that Israel has no right to attack Gaza after Oct. 7 is a novel theory of war. If terrorists are now granted the right to use populations as human shields while fighting a war—Hamas has shot more than 15,000 rockets and missiles at Israeli civilian targets since Oct. 7—then murderers will, in essence, be granted immunity for even the most barbaric crimes. And if a ceasefire is imposed on Israel before Hamas is eradicated, that’s what will happen.
At no point do black civil-rights activists who believe the Palestinian cause is no different from theirs acknowledge why Hamas started the fighting on Oct. 7. The terrorist organization based in the Gaza Strip is explicit about the fact that it aims to destroy Israel and slaughter its people. Contrary to some of Biden’s disingenuous statements about the issue, voting and polls have consistently shown that Hamas and its genocidal platform are widely supported by Palestinians.
This suffering for the Palestinians began when Hamas launched its murderous attacks on Israel. It could have been ended at any point by Hamas’s surrender and the freeing of all hostages. But Hamas and its allies don’t care about Palestinian suffering. On the contrary, they wish to maximize it in order to garner more foreign sympathy. Black pastors claim to oppose the “occupation” without understanding that to the Palestinians, that term refers to any land that Israel controls. These clergy leaders may claim to oppose everything Hamas stands for, and yet they support it because they have accepted the lie that the Jews are intrinsically evil by seeking to defend their homes and families.
How does that differ from the American civil-rights movement? African-Americans fighting against Jim Crow laws didn’t seek to kill whites or establish a principle that blacks must rule as the Islamists of Hamas do about Muslims. They wanted equal rights and an end to legal segregation. The goal of Martin Luther King Jr. was coexistence and a society where his children would be judged by “the content of the character rather than the color of their skin.”
Morally bankrupt pastors
It is only in the upside-down world of intersectionality and critical race theory that turns hope on its head that the American black community, which claims to be a champion of civil rights, would consider a cause rooted in genocidal intent and intolerance of any notion of coexistence with other faith or ethnic groups as seeing themselves in the actions and fate of the Palestinians.
Shockingly, people like the black pastors, who pretend to have moral authority would identify with a cause that would benefit the killers of Hamas. It’s equally astonishing that they stand with the mobs chanting for the destruction of Israel (“from the river to the sea”) and terrorism against Jews wherever they live (“globalize the intifada”), rather than with their former Jewish allies as they suffer from prejudice and violence. But in this brave new intersectional world, that is what passes for civil-rights advocacy in the black community.
This is all the more disturbing when throughout the world, atrocities are being carried out against black Africans in countries like Nigeria, Mauritania or Sudan by Islamist forces, including mass killings, rape and even a modern-day version of slavery. Why aren’t these atrocities being spoken about by pastors to their congregations? Having accepted intersectionality, they are now prepared to ignore crimes committed against people with whom they ought to have a natural affinity—black Africans—because the perpetrators are Muslim or Arabs, while claiming to see Palestinians who want to slaughter Israelis as worthy not just of sympathy but the expenditure of their political capital.
It is long past time for the Jewish groups that have slavishly stuck to the pretense that these pastors and the organizations that they represent are allies to stop putting their heads in the sand. Those who enable antisemitism and wish to assist those who slaughter Jews are enemies, not friends. When it comes to support for Hamas and indifference to antisemitism, there is no middle ground. Black pastors who seek to demonize Israel and are silent about the Jew-hatred that is inherent in their intersectional stands embracing the cause of Israel’s destruction should be under no illusions about the choice they’ve made. For all of their high-flown rhetoric about compassion and the oppressed, these pastors are morally bankrupt. And American Jews who have long stood by their side in the struggle for civil rights should bluntly tell them that they are finished with such antisemites dressed in clerical garb.
THE TRUTH IS THAT THERE IS NO SUBSTANTIAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY AMD HAMAS
Hamas and the PA have no place in post-war Gaza
The terror-supporting entities must not be allowed to reestablish themselves on Israel’s border.
By Farley Weiss and Leonard Grunstein
JNS
Jan 31, 2024
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Cairo on Feb. 23, 2012.
The “day after” Israel’s war with Hamas, the U.S. must help ensure that nothing like the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre can ever happen again. Yet even now, the U.S. is pressuring Israel to replace Hamas in Gaza with the Palestinian Authority. This would be a serious mistake.
First, no P.A. government would last. Among the Palestinian public, Hamas is far more popular than the Fatah-led P.A. and, even if Hamas is destroyed, a similar radical Islamic group would likely overthrow the P.A. in short order. Indeed, backed by the Iranian regime, Hamas already has succeeded in infiltrating areas nominally controlled by the P.A. in Judea and Samaria.
Moreover, the P.A. is hardly innocent of terrorism. In fact, it actively promotes terrorism through its “pay-to-slay” payments to terrorists and their families, as well as its school system, which is a virtual factory for Jew-hatred and terror. Despite repeated pledges to reform, the P.A. has refused to do so.
Despite all this, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reportedly already offered rule of Gaza to P.A. chief Mahmoud Abbas, who apparently accepted.
It is unlikely that Blinken put any specific conditions on a P.A. takeover of Gaza, such as ending pay-to-slay payments, eliminating Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives in the areas under P.A. control, reforming the P.A.’s school system by revising antisemitic teaching materials and firing educators who promote Jew-hatred, or demanding that Abbas tell his people in Arabic that such reforms are necessary and steps will be taken to implement them.
There are no indications in reports of the Blinken-Abbas meeting that Blinken raised any of these issues. It appears that there is no hope on the part of American officials that any of these necessary reforms can be achieved, which in the case of the P.A. may well be true. Yet the Biden administration’s virtue signaling and pious pronouncements continue even though they serve no useful purpose and are, in fact, counterproductive.
The truth is that there is no substantial difference between Hamas and the P.A. Neither has accepted the existence of Israel and it has been reported that Fatah has bragged about its participation in the Oct. 7 atrocities. Oct. 7 terrorists are already being paid off by the P.A. Mohammad Shtayyeh, the P.A. prime minister, reportedly wants to include Hamas in any P.A. government of Gaza.
After 9/11, then-President George W. Bush said that the U.S. would treat terrorists and those who give safe haven to terrorists as equally culpable. He coined the term “Axis of Evil” for such terror-supporting regimes. It is antithetical to U.S. interests to install an anti-American terror-supporting entity in Gaza, whether it is ruled by the P.A. or a hybrid Hamas-P.A. confederation. Instead, it is time for a realistic plan that can secure peace and security for Israel.
Consider, for example, the case of France and Monaco. Under the Franco-Monegasque Treaty of 1918, Monaco was recognized as a sovereign and independent state. However, it was stipulated that France is responsible for the defense of Monaco. France patrols the adjacent sea and the airspace above. The only security forces within Monaco are the police force and the Prince’s Guard. There are no other domestic armed forces. Monaco’s foreign relations are the responsibility of a minister of state, who is a French citizen appointed by the prince from among several senior French civil servants proposed by the French government. This arrangement has been successful for over a century. In fact, it was reinforced in 2017 with the signing of a general security agreement.
The Monaco solution provides for self-government, independence and sovereignty, as well as security for all parties concerned, especially against foreign threats.
Such an arrangement could work in the case of Israel and Gaza, but it cannot work so long as Hamas or the P.A. is considered a legitimate participant. Neither is interested in living side by side in peace with Israel, which is the prerequisite for any political solution. The only solution, then, is to find an alternative to Hamas and the P.A. Responsible parties on the Palestinian side must be identified and invited to join the political process.
To accomplish this, however, Israel must first win the war. Hamas must be destroyed and Gaza must be completely demilitarized. Security protocols must be put in place that prevent rearming, rebuilding tunnels or any other terrorist activity.
Until this is achieved, there should be no equivocation or ambiguity about American support for Israel. May Israel succeed in its sacred mission and may the valiant soldiers of the IDF and the hostages return home safely.
$6 BILLION FOR IRAN TO FUND ITS TERRORIST PROXIES
US ‘committed’ to deal releasing $6 billion, Iran claims
Tehran is moving closer to accessing frozen funds, according to Iranian and Qatari readouts of a call between the nations’ foreign ministers.
U.S.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al
Thani, prime minister and foreign minister of Qatar, at the U.S. State
Department in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 29, 2024.
Critics of the $6 billion deal have argued that money earmarked for humanitarian purposes nonetheless frees Iran to spend more on its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs and to support regional terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi even said in an interview in September that Iran will spend the money “wherever we need it.”
Kirby said the “fungibility argument” is false, during an interview with Fox News in October.
“It’s not like the Iranians were sitting around and saying, ‘Hmm. Well, we have $6 billion that we can free up to go fund terrorists and not feed our—we don’t have to worry about feeding our people,’” he said. “They were never worried about feeding their people. They were never worried about actual humanitarian assistance to their own population and again, they don’t have any access to it.”
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House spokeswoman, was asked on Monday during the White House press conference whether U.S. President Joe Biden was considering sanctioning Iranian oil revenues in response to an attack on Sunday, in which Iran-backed proxy forces killed three American soldiers in Jordan.
“I just don’t have anything to share on that particular thing,” Jean-Pierre said. “As the president said himself yesterday, after he acknowledged the three souls that were taken from us, our service members, who bravely protect our national security, and obviously, us as a country, he said that we shall respond.”
“I’m just going to not get ahead of that,” she added.
MORE EVIDENCE THAT UNRWA SUPPORTS AND PARTICIPATES IN PALESTINIAN TERRORISM
Islamic Jihad explosives found hidden in UNRWA sacks
Soldiers discovered rockets, anti-tank missiles and mines in the U.N. agency's plastic sacks.
Israeli
soldiers found these explosive charges hidden in UNRWA sacks inside a
subterranean Palestinian Islamic Jihad weapons factory in Khan Yunis.
Israeli soldiers in Khan Yunis destroyed an underground weapons factory belonging to Palestinian Islamic Jihad where weapons were found hidden in sacks belonging to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency.
Hidden inside the UNRWA sacks were rockets, anti-tank missiles, mines and explosive charges, the IDF said.
Soldiers also destroyed a rocket-manufacturing lathe and seized
Kalashnikov rifles, warheads designed for rocket-propelled grenades,
cartridges, spray charges, hand grenades and other explosives.
Israel demands that UNRWA be stripped of its authority in Gaza amid revelations that members of the agency’s staff participated in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. The U.S., European Union and 16 other countries have suspended funding for the agency.
Israel provided intelligence incriminating 12 staffers for their participation, including using UNRWA vehicles and facilities as some 1,200 persons were massacred in Israel. The Wall Street Journal subsequently reported that one in 10 UNRWA employees is either an active member or has ties to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Since Oct. 7, the agency has been under fire numerous times, prompting Knesset lawmakers to reassess Israel’s relationship with UNRWA.
Reports released by IMPACT-SE and UN Watch documented many UNRWA employees expressing support for the attacks on social media.
Soldiers found missiles hidden among UNRWA relief supplies while sacks belonging to the agency were filled with dirt and used in the lining of terror tunnels.
Palestinian refugees are the only refugee population with their own dedicated UN agency. The rest of the world’s refugees fall under the mandate of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Israeli officials have called for UNRWA to be closed and for Palestinian refugees to be brought under the responsibility of the UNHCR.
Israel’s biggest criticism of the UNRWA is that the agency’s definition of refugee not only includes the original refugees but also their descendants in perpetuity, including those who have citizenship in other countries. The UNHCR has no such policy.
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
EISENHOWER MADE HIS OFFICERS VIEW THE BURNED CORPSES OF JEWS AT A NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMP SO THAT THE WORLD WOULD LEARN ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST ..... THE PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS SHOULD BE MADE TO VIEW THE MUTILATED CORPSES OF THE ISRAELIS SLAUGHTERED BY HAMAS ON OCTOBER7
EXCLUSIVE 'I was in charge of gathering the bodies after the Nova Festival massacre... they were still smouldering 12 hours later': Israeli official gives devastating account of sickening scene after the Oct 7 Hamas terror attack that plunged the world into crisis
Haim Otmezgin led the clean-up effort at the Nova Festival massacre. He has spoken out about his experience for the first time
By Perkin Amalaraj
Daily Mail
Jan 30, 2024
Haim Otmezgin (pictured) is a top official of ZAKA, a rescue and recovery organisation that was tasked with cleaning up the 1,200 killed by Hamas on Black Saturday in accordance with Jewish customs
The sight and smell of the 30 charred bodies that still smouldered as Haim Otmezgin pulled up to the site of the Nova Festival on October 7 will never leave him.
But Haim, a 50-year-old top official of ZAKA, a rescue and recovery organisation that was tasked with cleaning up the 1,200 killed by Hamas on Black Saturday in accordance with Jewish customs, had a job to do.
As the commander of the special units at ZAKA, he was in charge of coordinating the response to the deadly attacks, and ensuring that all the bodies were accounted for and treated properly as soon as possible.
But the brutality with which Hamas had killed more than 360 innocent partygoers at the Nova Festival shocked even him, a volunteer who had been working for ZAKA since he was just 18 years old.
Haim, who spoke to MailOnline through a translator, said: ‘There were at least 30 bodies that were burned alive.
More than 360 people were killed at the Nova Festival on Black Saturday
A man holding a weapon grabs another man next to a car during an attack by Hamas militants on October 7
‘Many needed to have water poured on them because they were still burning 12 hours after because of the fuel they used to set them on fire.
‘Their bodies were soaking with this fuel that [caused them to burn for a long time].’
Hamas didn’t just use fire as a weapon of war against partygoers at the festival. Sexual violence was used to humiliate the victims at the site, many of whom were young women.
He said: 'When I go back to the memories, I remember lots of bodies were mutilated to pieces.
‘Organs were separated from their bodies, women had been shot in their very private areas, the upper parts of their legs, their heads.
‘Women were undressed and then they were shot.
‘A few bodies that were hit by rocks in a very barbaric way, in a way that crushed the skull.
‘I saw [stab wounds] in very specific areas on women, around their genitals.’
Haim, who became aware of reports of a Hamas attack early that morning arrived at the site of the Nova massacre at 9:30pm, says his role as a leader at ZAKA meant he had to prevent these images from affecting him.
He says he had to ‘become a machine’, and was forced to make some incredibly difficult decisions on his way down from his base in Petah Tikva to Kibbutz Re'im.
Haim, who spoke to MailOnline through a translator, said: ‘There were at least 30 bodies that were burned alive'
ZAKA
search and rescue volunteers at Kibbutz Be'eri identify the bodies of
Israelis slain by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, Oct. 11, 2023.
Destroyed cars and belongings left at the Nova Festival site where hundreds were killed and dozens taken by Hamas
Destroyed cars are seen at the rave party site near the Kibbutz Re'im
Relatives of Israelis killed at the Nova music festival plant trees in memory of the victims
Israeli women May, left, and Lilach, right, comfort each other as they visit the marker for Tifret Lapidot, their friend who was killed on October 7, 2023 at the Nova music festival
‘On the way from Petah Tikva to the south, I saw a few civilians waving at my ambulance.
‘I started thinking “I know I need to get south, but maybe in order to prepare for this, I should let myself into this situation slowly and see what these people wanna say.”
‘I thought that they probably want to tell me something in regard to what’s going on in the south.’
So he slowed down, and let the civilians, who had a car, approach him.
‘They said: “We have two of them”.
‘I asked them: ‘“What two? What are you talking about?”
‘And they just showed me two dead bodies, young women, both shot in their heads.’
He had no choice but to take their bodies, and continue down to the site of the festival.
More and more civilians tried flagging him down as he made his way down with the women’s bodies in tow, each one holding a different person slaughtered by Hamas fighters, who were still rampaging throughout southern Israel.
Haim said he had to make the very difficult decision to keep going, in spite of the horrors he saw.
‘I understood that I couldn’t just stop and take every person on the way, so I carried on.
‘We needed at least 15 ambulances and a few trucks in order to take all the dead bodies that were found on the way to the festival,’ he added.
This was, as Haim put it, when he ‘made the transition from being a human being to a machine.
Hang-gliding Hamas terrorists were seen flying into Israel on October 7
Dozens of hostages were taken from the Nova Festival
A terrified IDF officer asked Haim: ‘How long does it take for a body to rot?’
‘I basically [was] just seeing these images, and just translated it into data.’
Haim said that he did not expect his day would turn out like this, when he was awoken at 6:42am that morning, next to his sleeping wife.
He was called, and told to immediately report to his base, not knowing how important his job was to become.
The ZAKA officer was so in the dark that wasn’t sure whether to wake his children up, not knowing how long he would be away for.
But he knew enough to know that October 7 would be the most consequential in Israel’s modern history.
This was cemented at 7:30pm, at his base in Petah Tikvah. There, while preparing for a threat with a then-unknown magnitude, he received a call from the Nova Festival.
A terrified IDF officer asked him: ‘How long does it take for a body to rot?’
Taken aback, Haim told the officer he needed more details. The ZAKA officer said he was told:’I have a carpet of dead bodies in the middle of the forest, I don't know what to do with them.
Destroyed cars and personal effects are still left scattered around the Supernova Music Festival site
Cars and belongings left at the Nova Festival site
Ela Bahat touches a picture of her 30-year-old son Dror, who was killed on October 7
‘Nobody explained to me what to do with them. I don't have any way of treating them. I don’t have the equipment, the volunteers to deal with this. Maybe you can help me with this.’
Haim, still unsure what the officer mean, said he asked to speak on a video call. It was then, watching a blurred and jumpy video streamed from a smartphone, that Haim understood the scale of the atrocity.
He said the officer told him that he had counted at least 125 bodies, but that there were many more that needed to be counted.
In the four hours after he arrived at the site of the Nova massacre, his team had to clear as many bodies, in line with Jewish customs, as possible. He said ZAKA was able to clear 237 bodies in just four hours, while still under fire from Hamas’ rockets and guns.
But with dozens more bodies at the Nova Festival site alone, and hundreds more across Israel, Haim said his physical health took a toll as he carried his work on.
‘I didn’t stop working for 60 days. I was only getting four hours of sleep a night, and I lost 9 kilos in two months because I didn’t have time to eat.’
It wasn’t only his physical health that suffered.
Personal items from the Nova music festival site that have been put on display for family and relatives to collect at the Kochav HaYam complex
The family of Liraz Assulin, 38, who fled from the Nova festival and was killed during the deadly October 7 attack by gunmen
A person looks at photos of people who were killed and kidnapped during the October 7 attack by Hamas gunmen from Gaza
Haim said he refused to think about what he was seeing on October 7, instead focusing on the main task at hand as he worked.
He said it was only ‘months after’ the attack, when he spoke to his colleagues, that he began to process the horrors he bore witness to.
‘I didn’t want to think about it, but I felt that I needed to speak out after hearing that these things were being ignored and denied.’
‘For the first two weeks after October 7, many people were chasing after me in order to give my testimony. The police, international media, big networks around the world were asking to hear the story.
‘But I was escaping. I didn't want to do it, and I still had this excuse of having many things to do, still operating everything.
‘It wasn’t a lie; We were still operating on a lot of the highways. I spent more than 60 days on duty.
‘But I had the privilege of escaping. I didn’t put on any news channels, or social media. I was completely disconnected, focusing on the mission.’
‘Maybe it was easier to do this, more convenient.’
Destroyed cars and personal effects are still left scattered around the Nova Music Festival site
Israeli soldiers drive by the rave party site, where scores were killed, near the Kibbutz Re'im
Destroyed cars are seen at the rave party site near the Kibbutz Re'im
‘You can never be a total machine in front of these scenes and images of what we saw. But what we witnessed over there was bigger than any physical or mental difficulty.’
His 13-year-old son kept begging him for details, driven by morbid curiosity and fear for his father.
He said he would always push the requests back, claiming that there was little signal in the south of Israel, and conveniently forgetting to tell his son about what he saw whenever he went back.
But Haim couldn’t tell his family about the horrors of what he saw, as they didn’t deserve to be weighed down with even a fraction of the horrors he witnessed at the site of the festival.
‘There’s a balance between being supported by my family, and keeping them away from the sights as a professional. You can tell part of the story, but not all of it.’
Haim said he rarely told people about what he did at work even before Black Saturday.
‘Whenever I come back from any operation that ZAKA conducts, people ask me “what happened, what’s going on, tell us about it.”
‘Usually I tell them: “Read about it in the papers, I don’t want to talk about it.”’
He said that Black Saturday was a wakeup call for Israel: ‘It reveals the reality of how naive we were about the values of war.
‘This war was about humiliating us. It was about deep hate, it was about defiling [us].’
EDITOR'S NOTE:
Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and a group of high ranking officers, including Generals Omar Bradley and George Patton, are pictured looking at the charred remains of bodies at the Ohrdruf Concentration Camp.
The Pro-Palestinian protestors should be made to view the mutilated corpses of the Israelis slaughtered by Hamas on October 7.
THE OBAMA/BIDEN APPEASEMENT POLICY GOT THREE AMERICAN SOLDIERS KILLED
DAVID MARCUS: Three Americans dead - but Biden has almost nothing to say… and draws Bugs Bunny cartoon lines in the Iranian sand instead. He truly is a caricature of courage
By David Marcus
Daily Mail
Jan 30, 2024
Under the roaring blades of Marine One, President Biden finally faced reporters more than 48 hours after three American soldiers were killed and dozens more injured in an Iranian-backed drone attack.
Under the roaring blades of Marine One, President Biden finally faced reporters more than 48 hours after three American soldiers were killed and dozens more injured in an Iranian-backed drone attack.
Busy Candidate Joe was on his way to donor events in Palm Beach, Florida, after being out of sight all of Monday.
And today, President Joe didn't have much to say for himself.
Asked if he's decided how the United States of America will respond to the murder of its own, the President said, 'Yes.'
His words were barely audible over the drone of the engines.
Asked whether America's response will deter future Iranian proxy attacks on U.S. soldiers Joe answered, 'We'll see.'
Then he toddled off to his aircraft.
Perhaps, it was all by design. The White House doesn't put the President next to a noisy helicopter when they want him to take questions.
Nonetheless, this is the degree of seriousness that we've come to expect from an administration that loses track of its Secretary of Defense.
'I don't think we need a wider war in the Middle East. That's not what I'm looking for,' the President squeaked.
Unfortunately, it appears that war is widening whether Biden wishes it or not.
After the October 7th terror attacks in Israel, the President and his national defense team repeated an apparent warning to the mullahs of Iran, like B-movie action heroes.
If the rogue regime was considering capitalizing on the chaos of the Israel-Gaza war to advance its regional domination, Biden had one word for them: 'Don't.'
Well, Mr. President – they did.
Again and again.
Since mid-October, Iranian trained and financed militias have attacked American assets in the region at least 160 times across multiple countries.
The White House has done little in response – making the President look like Bugs Bunny drawing lines in the sand for Yosemite Sam.
Shades of Obama?
'We have been very clear to the Assad regime,' President Obama warned in August 2012, as Syria's dictator Assad massacred his people, who had risen to oppose him, 'that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus.'
Then, a year later, when horrific videos emerged showing Syrian civilians foaming at the mouth, gasping for breath and writhing on hospital room floors – the telltale signs of sarin gas poisoning – President Obama did nothing.
Of course, America does not want war in the Middle East. But neither did the U.S. nor Europe want war with Germany more than eight decades ago. How often does this lesson need to be learned and forgotten?
The best Biden can muster is 'we'll see?' Is this deterrence? Or deference?
His cabinet and staff has employed the same bloodless rhetoric.
Sergeant William Rivers (center), Specialist Breona Moffett (right) and Specialist Kennedy Sanders (left) were indeed sacrificed to a naive fantasy in which Iran wants peace and the United States and Israel are the real aggressors.
The U.S. 'response could be multi-leveled, come in stages and be sustained over time,' muttered U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
'We are not seeking a conflict with the regime in the military way,' said White House national security spokesman John Kirby.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who returned to work from extended sick leave just in time for a photo opportunity in the White House, had pathetically little to add.
Biden and the Democrats always hold themselves up as enlightened problem solvers. If only they are given power, they tell us, they'll solve the world's most intractable conflicts through dialogue, negotiation, and humility.
Somehow that strategy always ends in hundreds of millions of dollars in hard cash payments, sanctions relief, or some other type of wealth transfer.
The checks always cash. But the genius plan never works.
Not once.
When President Donald Trump took out Iranian terrorist general Qasem Soleimani, we were told our president was a madman hellbent on World War III. That didn't happen.
But on peacenik Joe Biden's watch, war appears on every horizon.
This is the same administration whose National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, said a week before Hamas' butchery on 10/7 that 'the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.'
More delusional wish-casting.
It's only going to get worse as America barrels headlong into a presidential campaign.
Self-described 'very historic person', White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre went on national television to claim our three fallen American soldiers died serving the Biden administration.
Not the flag or the nation.
Serving Joe Biden.
The saddest part is that – that's true.
Sergeant William Rivers, Specialist Breona Moffett and Specialist Kennedy Sanders were indeed sacrificed to a naive fantasy in which Iran wants peace and the United States and Israel are the real aggressors.
Self-described 'very historic person', White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre went on national television to claim our three fallen American soldiers died serving the Biden administration.
The wages of Joe Biden's spineless appeasement are now being paid in American blood.
Nothing will change the minds of Iran's fundamentalist dictators. They will always want Americans dead.
So, we now have a staggering foreign policy crisis, and the president looks more like a candidate on the campaign trail than a commander in the Situation room.
Maybe he'll tell his wealthy campaign supporters how the nation will respond to being attacked. For everyone else – including those watching from their lavish apartments in Tehran and Qatar – the message is clear: Joe wants to wish this all away.
He is careful not to upset the pro-Hamas campus radicals and street protestors with belligerent talk of retaliation, national defense, or pride. The socialists, the anti-capitalists, the anti-imperialists don't like that talk.
But the rest of us demand justice. We demand a president with courage.
Instead, we have a decrepit grasping old cynic who does little more than glad-hand donors and avoid reporters.
Joe Biden's feebleness has been a punchline throughout his presidency.
Now, it is deadly serious.
Now, it is getting Americans killed.
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