Henry Kissinger used to say that Israel doesn’t have a foreign policy, only a domestic policy.

It seems this saying is better befitting the Biden Administration at the moment, seeing as he alters his rhetoric toward Israel in general and toward the Netanyahu government in particular. Biden and his people have in recent weeks altered their rhetorical policy of public statements and of publicly criticizing Israel – things we would normally expect to be confined behind closed doors. The Administration staff, including Biden himself, stress their disagreements with Israel and with Netanyahu personally. For example, in his annual State of the Union address, Biden made a vague commitment to Israel’s security, however most of the time devoted to the war in Gaza included words intended directly for the Israeli leadership, without specifically mentioning Netanyahu by name, to warn it not to use humanitarian aid as a bargaining chip. This, while Israel has never even considered such a move and has in fact even increased the number of aid trucks admitted into the Gaza Strip compared with the pre-war days – in spite of the fact that this is an enemy population at a time of war. Vice President Harris even said in a speech she gave recently that the situation in Gaza amounts to a humanitarian catastrophe and called for an immediate ceasefire. This was the first time that such a senior Administration official uses this pair of words.

The change of the Administration’s tone toward the war

In an interview on MSNBC, Biden was asked what his red line would be for Israel, and whether this include a ground maneuver in Rafah. He did not answer the question directly, but he did say that it would be impossible to tolerate another 30,000 dead Gazans. The establishment media in Israel and in the United States reported this statement as if Biden’s red line is a ground maneuver in Rafah in general. We have recently been hearing reports that Administration personnel are considering breaking all the rules and even making military aid to Israel conditional on its not being used in Rafah. There has even been mention of abstinence from using the American veto in the UN Security Council. Is Biden intent on locking horns with Netanyahu, who is persona non grata within the American left, only in order to placate the Democratic and progressive base, which is frustrated by Biden’s policies toward Israel? This is the same Democratic and progressive base that blames him personally for all the suffering in Gaza. Or is Biden really doing a substantial about-face, not just saber-rattling?

I believe the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Biden is indeed driven by electoral considerations, as in the “Michigan stimulation strategy” (Biden sent his National Security Advisor to apologize to Muslim leaders for the administration’s stance toward Israel) but he and his staff have been consistently practicing a soft foreign policy of avoiding projection of military might, thinking that stability can be maintained in the Middle East under the euphemism of “containment”. The Administration is trying to avoid any direct clash with the Iranian axis of evil, for fear of escalation, especially now, during an election year. The Administration personnel believe it is possible to avoid conflict and that they are able to kick this can down the road. The further you push the conflict into the future, the greater success the policy seems to show.

The problem is that in geopolitics, as in the capital markets, expectations and beliefs are sometimes more important than the actual reality. If the United States presents itself as an unreliable ally that does not stand with its allies, one can rest assured that when war breaks out, this will serve only to incentivize the Iran-Hamas axis to act more aggressively, knowing that the United States will backtrack or throw Israel under the bus. These recent weeks, this line of thought of Hamas and Hezbollah is all the more evident in their assertion that Israel is abandoning Israel and therefore this is the wrong time to compromise.

Short-term-driven policy instead of long-term

The Administration has a vested interest in maintaining good relations all round, and will therefore prefer to erode the United States’ deterrent for years to come, assuming that this will succeed in producing an illusion of calm over the short term. We can already see this process in motion. It is not happening only for cold political expediency. It is also the result of a geopolitical concept based on misunderstanding of the regional players in the Middle East and how they think. America’s leadership does not understand that being perceived as seeking to avoid conflict at all costs only brings the conflict to the United States’ doorstep in a way that will be less convenient for America and more convenient for its adversaries. The Administration takes the same approach as an indebted borrower who takes out further loans to cover his immediate loan, thereby only deepening his financial distress and digging a hole for himself through the false belief that by putting off the biting of the bullet the problem is only going to get worse, not better. Similarly, the longer the United States avoids confronting the forces in the Iranian axis, which are building themselves up within a short timeframe, dealing with them when they are stronger is going to exact a much heavier price on the United States and its allies.

Just recently, in a Congressional hearing, the Centcom commander in the US Army, Michael Kurilla, testified that the United States is not a deterrent to Iran and that it has not made the Revolutionary Guards pay a price for their activities in the region. Another example of the attempt to achieve calm at all costs is the testimony of the Head of the CIA, William Burns, to the Senate, in which he emphasized the need to reach a ceasefire to help the “starving children” of Gaza.

Hamas and Iran have taken notice of the confusion in American policy and are using it to advance their own interests. The American concept of appeasement is harmful to Israel and to the United States in terms of achieving their political goals. A case in point is, that after Israel accepted the hostage deal proposed by the United States, Hamas rejected it. Why? It rejected the deal because according to reports, Sinwar is pleased with the international pressure being applied to Israel and he has no interest in reaching a deal while the pressure on Israel is continually mounting and time is on his side. If the United States is so determined to reach a ceasefire, why should Hamas pay a price for it? It is in Sinwar’s interest to drag his feet for as long as he can, thereby he will eventually be given a deal that is better for him, after Israel buckles under American pressure. Sinwar reads the pressure picture and operates rationally according to the incentives the Americans are unwittingly handing him.

American appeasement is detrimental to negotiations with Hamas

As far as the United States is concerned, it is much easier to pressure Israel. The United States has a relationship with Israel. It is able to directly influence it due to the Israeli dependence on the United States – both militarily and diplomatically. Quite naturally, the State Department wants to reach some sort of change, to be able to show any kind of “accomplishment” in this war. They therefore choose the simpler path of applying their pressure to their ally. Under the current circumstances – an election year, the need to present an “achievement”, the need to appeal to its electoral base, the Biden administration is motivated by self-interest, which is contrary to the American (and the western) interests. This American behavior also exposes an extremely negative aspect of the American decision-making process, where there are internal pressures that provide an incentive for the Iranian axis to follow its ambitions in order to drive an American foreign policy that will dovetail with its own interests.

At the moment, it appears that the Biden Administration’s foreign policy is not being managed through any long-term strategic thinking of creating positive incentives for regional players that are currently considering joining the Israeli-American-anti-Iranian axis. How will the moderate Sunni states, that fear Iran, react when push comes to shove if Israel, the United States’ closest ally, will be barred from achieving a decisive victory on the battlefield? Is the Biden Administration not aware that a policy of appeasement is destructive in the long term? I find that hard to believe. The likelier truth is that the Administration is waging a domestic policy battle, rather than maintaining a foreign policy during an election year. Who would believe it possible that Israel’s military strategy would be determined by a few thousand voters in Michigan?

The article was originally published on ynetnews

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the movement

הפוסט Biden’s domestic policy toward the war הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

The Americans have never excelled in creating the conditions for realizing their foreign policy. This is all the more true when it comes to the American attempt to influence the Israeli internal political ecosystem. The American failure to understand Israel’s political movements and the Israeli public opinion, results in a misguided, self-defeating policy.

Just recently the most senior of Democratic senators, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is renowned as a long-time friend of Israel, gave a speech. In his speech he created a distinction between the people in Israel and his commitment towards these people – on the one hand – and the Prime Minister of Israel – Benjamin Netanyahu – and his “radical government”, which is leading a policy harmful to Israel. Schumer and other pro-Israel Democrats like President Biden present themselves as being the real protectors of Israel, which means that there are occasions when Israel has to be protected against itself. This tone is clearly evident in speeches given by President Biden and his Vice President, Camala Harris. They make a distinction between Netanyahu and the Israelis themselves in order to be able to direct their anger at Netanyahu and his government.

An unequivocal expression of this lack of understanding of Israeli public opinion came in the form of Schumer’s call for Netanyahu to resign in order for elections to take place and for the Israeli leadership to be replaced. Schumer fails to understand that attempts at interfering in local Israeli politics from the outside is not something the Israelis take lightly. It is thus that we saw even Netanyahu’s most bitter opponents condemning this attempt by Schumer to interfere in Israeli politics. Not only does this not weaken Netanyahu, this is exactly what strengthens him and his political narrative. Netanya presents himself as the defender of Israel, guardian of its interests by deflecting international pressure to impose on Israel decisions contrary to its security interests. Schumer of course fails to understand this, He does not realize that these actions only strengthen Netanyahu.

American liberals equate Israeli public opinion with Netanyahu, and this is a gross misunderstanding of this public opinion. In the first place, there is no love lost between supporters of Israel and Netanyahu, to put it mildly. Within the broader American left, Netanyahu is synonymous with everything the American left despises – a leader that resembles a Republican, who is preventing peace, is a war monger, is corrupt, who violates human rights, an authoritarian in the image of other authoritarians like Orban and Putin. In these circles, Netanyahu is not just a politician, he is a metaphysical object embodying everything that is wrong with the world. He thereby has become a concept in his own right.

In such circles, Netanyahu is portrayed as a kind of omnipotent politician, a magnet for everything that is wrong with Israel, and he becomes the target for demonization, which is usually within the domain of Israel’s haters. Instead of saying “Israel”, they say “Netanyahu”. In more severe cases of toxic anti-Semitism, the anti-Semitic demonology is assigned directly to Netanyahu, rather than to the Jews in general in a more outright manner, like the cartoon in the Canadian newspaper depicting Netanyahu as a blood-thirsty vampire. Netanyahu is also radioactive within the Jewish American left and in the pro-Israeli left, in the spirit of the liberal Jewish columnist Thomas Friedman – who sometimes provides the most blatant reflection of this stream of thought. Over the years, Netanyahu has also become the object of anger and criticism from liberal Israel supporters who separate between their love for Israel itself and their distain for Israeli policy, which is a consequence of Netanyahu himself.

Whether or not it is through his actions, Netanyahu has in those circles become a barrier to regional peace and stability. Therefore, as far as they are concerned, only by removing him, will more pragmatic voices, more palatable to the Washington stomach (like Ehud Barak, Yair Lapid, Benny Gantz etc.) be able to ascent to power and lead to the changes the Administration is after, in the form of strengthening the Palestinian Authority in order to present a semblance of improvement in the situation.

Biden, Schumer, and other Democrats do not understand that the policies being pursued by Israeli government, under Netanyahu’s leadership, is not his own private whim or the whim of his “radical right-wing government”. Rather, it is a policy of fighting, which would be more or less identical for any other person that might be elected to be Israel’s Prime Minister. The desire to wipe out the Hamas battalions in Rafah and to topple the military and civilian regime in Gaza is an absolute consensus in Israel. Therefore, any attempt to create a distinction between the Israeli interests and those being led by the government with Netanyahu as its Prime Minister is doomed to failure and any policy which bases itself on this misunderstanding, is going to fail.

The distinction between Netanyahu and Israel is made not merely due to a fundamental misunderstanding of Israeli public opinion. It is also intended to strike a fine balance between criticizing Israel and defending Israel for the American domestic political arena. Biden and Schumer portray themselves as the beloved uncles from America who see in themselves the saviors of Israel from Netanyahu, who is leading it to oblivion with a misguided policy. This is a message that also addresses those parts of the left that would like to see Biden taking a tougher stance toward Israel, but not in such a way as to alienate the Israel lovers to the extent that they would abandon Biden.

This misunderstanding on the part of the Administration does not stop within the Israeli arena. It filters into the interpretations being given to their words by Israel’s enemies and other regional leaders. For weeks now Hezbollah and Hamas leaders have been following statements coming out of American Administration personnel, examining how the support for Israel is weakening. This is part of their long-term strategy. Any signal from a member of the Administration like Schumer, who in a speech claims American support for Israel is weakening serves to strengthen Israel’s enemies’ resolve not to compromise with Israel and to wait for the American pressure to do the work for them. Beliefs about the future are no less important than the reality on the ground. If Israel’s enemies will become convinced that in future their position will be better, they will be less amenable to compromise and more aggressive. If Israel’s enemies would know that Israel would always enjoy America’s backing, they would make the long-term calculation as to whether it is worth embarking on a prolonged conflict with Israel in the near future.

To maintain an effective policy, capable of changing reality in favor of a certain interest, the policy-makers must first of all gain an unbiased understanding of the current reality, whether or not it is consistent with the political narrative with which they feel comfortable. A hope-based policy and the imposition of beliefs as to the reality will not only defeat its own purpose, it is bound to cause virtually irreversible damage.

The article was originally published on ynetnews

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the movement

הפוסט The White House Doesn’t Understand Israeli Domestic Politics הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

The Iranian barrage was a complete failure. It produced important opportunities that could be beneficial for the State of Israel. However it also has implications that could put the entire region in danger, possibly the entire world.

The Iranian attack that was launched on the night between April 13th and 14th took me back to 1991. That same year I was a young Lieutenant Company Commander at an Engineers Corps Basic Training base. In the background, the Gulf War had begun, in which for the first time ballistic missiles were fired from Iraq into Israeli territory. The State of Israel at the time had no way of coping with this threat. The then-Prime Minister, the Late Yitzhak Shamir, realized this and, although he was known as a hard-line leader, he chose not to respond and let the Americans operate in our place.

In the aftermath of the Gulf War Israel realized that it has got to establish a defensive net over the country’s airspace in order to be able to independently cope with future threats. Over the years this net developed and evolved. Initially it was called the anti-aircraft network, then renamed Air Defense Network, following realization that the threats come not necessarily in the form of aircraft, rather they also come from missiles, rockets, UAVs and drones. Over time the interception systems also developed. We started with the Arrow system – an anti-ballistic missile system. Later on the Iron Dome system that provides defense against short-range rockets, and the David’s Sling system, which defends against cruise missiles and part of the UAV threats. At the same time the capabilities of the Israeli Air Force also developed. Some of the interceptions are indeed achieved by aircraft as we saw in the case of the most recent salvo from Yemen.

The air defense network has been well-tested in responding to attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah, however this latest attack has been the real test for it since it was the first time the network was required to defend against munitions being launched directly from Iranian soil. The attack was extremely massive. It included over 300 launches of UAVs, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. Despite this immense challenge, the State of Israel, combined with efforts of the Americans and Jordanians, succeeded in intercepting 99% of this barrage. This is an historic, unprecedented achievement from the defensive perspective, however it is important to understand that this event has major implications that are going to have an impact on the overall conflict.

We have been handed opportunities at negligible cost – now they just need to be seized upon

In this attack, Iran attempted to restore its honor but the actual result was that it proved its feebleness in terms of its image and of its political and military stature. This has delivered important opportunities for Israel at virtually no cost.

In terms of its image, we saw that Iran is weaker than we had expected and that Israel is in fact more powerful than we could have hoped. According to foreign media reports, roughly half of the rockets disintegrated on their way toward Israel. This is indicative of the relatively low level of fitness for purpose of the Iranian systems. At the same time, the State of Israel exhibited unprecedented defensive capabilities, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was capable of coping with the Iranian missile threat. Thus, after so many years in which the question hung in the air as to what would happen should Iran attack us, we were given the opportunity to witness the hollowness of the Iranian onslaught and to rid ourselves of the deep anxieties we had been harboring.

The second opportunity this Iranian attack has produced relates to world public opinion. Behind very move in the Swords of Iron War are Iranian fingerprints. However so far it has managed to differentiate between itself and the proxies it operates, avoiding taking any blame upon itself. This Iranian attack has brought it out of the shadows and exposed it in all its malice. From now on it is unequivocally clear just how dangerous a threat Iran is to the world.

From the Iranian side this is a tremendous strategic mistake since now both Europe and the United States realize that they have got to clip its wings. Already on the morning after the attack, the G7 convened and all the leaders of the industrialized countries condemned Iran. I predict that there is in this an opportunity to renew the drive for painful sanctions on all matters related to development of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Such sanctions will not only slow down its military force buildup, they will also deal a severe blow to the languishing Iranian economy, thereby posing a potent threat to the regime.

It is important to understand that it is not only the western public opinion that has changed following the attack. The Arab countries, too, the ones on the opposite side of Iran, now realize that Iran is the snake’s head, and that it is imperative that they join forces against it. The third opportunity we have been given, therefore, is added impetus to forming an alliance with the Saudis and with the entire Sunni world to counteract the dangers Iran poses to the region.

The forth and most important opportunity is that we have achieved a reversal of the narrative. At the outset of the war, Israel enjoyed virtually full support from the world powers but this support very quickly turned into severe criticism. Now the spotlight is on Iran and Israel is once again perceived as the victim. It now has renewed legitimacy to defend itself. This reversal can provide us the vital leeway we need to enable us to complete the mission in Gaza and also to deal with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The American Policy: a dangerous message to enemy powers

Besides the important opportunities we have been given, the Iranian attack also highlights the great danger inherent to the United States’ passive policy.

The United States is not just an ally of Israel – it is a global power and a significant regional power. As such, it bears the responsibility to preserve its deterrence so as to guarantee global stability. The United States is, in effect, projecting weakness and, instead of preventing conflicts, it is actually exacerbating them.

This unwillingness on the part of the United States to present a clear military threat and to attack Iran has severely impaired its deterrent capability. This is what paved the way to this attack in the first place. However the real problem goes beyond Iranian borders. The great danger is that Russia, China and North Korea, too, are watching this indecisiveness of the Americans and they sense they have sweeping freedom to operate along any front of their choice. Should Russia decide to ramp up its offensive in Ukraine and even spread it to other regions in Europe, we are going to find ourselves on the verge of a third world war.

In contrast to the American passiveness, the State of Israel will be compelled to respond to the Iranian attack. This response does not necessarily need to be immediate – it should come at a time and place best suited to Israel’s interests and priorities.

Dependence or Independence? This is how Israel will guarantee its independence

The Iranian attack took place in the run-up to the Passover Holiday. One cannot but be reminded of the immortal saying: “In every generation, there are those that seek to destroy us.” And indeed, even after the Iranian threat will be lifted, the State of Israel will need to continue dealing with other enemies. Some may wonder how one can achieve independence in a reality that forces us to live by the sword. In my mind, our ability to defend ourselves by ourselves is the greatest freedom a person and a nation can hope for.

To achieve this, our ability to ensure our security by ourselves, the State of Israel must reduce its dependence on external factors. First and foremost, there is a need to invest in the defense industry and in its manufacturing capacity. It must secure sizable stockpiles and spare parts to free us from the dependence on critical spare parts, so as not to have to rely on critical aid from foreign countries and to cope with restrictions, should these be imposed.

Similarly, we have to seek independence in the construction and agriculture sectors to enable us to guarantee our food security and safeguard our agricultural production capacity without having to rely on foreign products or workers, and first and foremost we must not rely on Palestinian labor.

At the same time we must free ourselves of the mistaken concept that wars end within several weeks and that we can make do with a smart, small army. We now see that wars can even last years, and that we have got to maintain a smart, but large army.

Besides increasing our independence, we must strengthen alliances. Like any other country in the world, we too need diplomatic cover and strategic partners. The stronger and more independent we are, the greater will our ability to form meaningful alliances.

The story of our exodus from Egypt, which we will be retelling around the Seder tables tonight, puts me in touch with the greatest power in the universe – willpower. The Passover marked the beginning of our journey to the Promised Land. In it we leaned a priceless lesson about willpower and we found that what drives us is the faith in the righteousness of our path.

Some two years after leaving Egypt, when the Israelites reached the Paran Desert, Moses sent twelve spies to tour the land. Ten of them claimed we would not be able to conquer the land, thereby condemning the Israelites to forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Only two of the spies, Joshua Bin-Nun and Caleb Ben-Yefune, believed the task was doable, but their voice was not heard.

In Swords of Iron too, we discover leaders and senior officials who have lost their faith in the righteousness of our path. With it they have also lost the willpower and trust in our ability to beat our enemies. Those leaders voice opinions of weakness, demoralizing opinions, thereby endangering our existence in the Land of Israel. Ahead of the Passover Holiday I wish each and every one of us to be blessed with the faith of the spies who were not deterred from taking over the land, and in the words of Caleb Ben-Yefune, who silenced the people: “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it” (Numbers 13, 30).

הפוסט Four opportunities and one danger: insights following the Iranian attack הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

The IDF’s decision to withdraw the 98th Division from the Gaza Strip indicates that the end of the War in Gaza may be near. Currently, the Nahal Brigade, part of Division 162, is operating in Gaza, focusing on security activities in the Netzer Corridor area, which separates the northern part of Gaza from the rest of the territory. The number of soldiers involved is in the hundreds, a significant decrease from the peak of about 35,000 soldiers (approximately four divisions) during the ground operations.

The IDF is moving towards the third phase of the conflict. The first phase involved aerial attacks on terrorist infrastructure, tunnels, headquarters, and weapon depots, preparing the ground for a potential ground invasion. The second phase consisted of ground maneuvers into Gaza, divided into sub-phases including maneuvers in the north and in Khan Yunis. The IDF is now preparing for the third phase, focusing on counter-insurgency and counter-guerrilla warfare to prevent Hamas and other terrorist organizations from regrouping.

However, to fully transition to the third phase, Israel must still conduct ground military operations in the central camps and Rafah. Approximately two Hamas battalions are still present in the central camps, with an entire brigade remaining in Rafah. As long as Hamas maintains its military and governmental capabilities, the shift to counter-insurgency warfare and low-intensity operations in Gaza will be hindered.

Moreover, it’s crucial to highlight that the presence of IDF forces in Gaza, even beyond operations in the central camps and Rafah, remains essential. This is especially true for areas already maneuvered by the IDF. For instance, shortly after the announcement of forces withdrawing from Khan Yunis, several rockets were launched from that area towards Israel (including on April 8), underscoring the ongoing challenges in the region. Additionally, in recent days, there have been multiple rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza.

The interim phase between the transition from the second to the third stage involves employing military raid tactics. Thus far, the IDF has conducted targeted raids as part of its maneuvers while its forces were within Gaza. It appears that these raids will now continue, but will be carried out outside the Strip, into the cities of Gaza.

Israel should promptly initiate a military campaign in Rafah and simultaneously target the central camps to dismantle all military and governmental entities associated with Hamas. Until Hamas and other terrorist organizations are vanquished from these areas, the objectives of the war will remain unfulfilled. Moreover, rocket attacks are likely to persist unless Israel establishes control over Rafah and the central camps, deploying military forces across the entirety of the Gaza Strip.

Occupying Rafah and the central camps is imperative for neutralizing threats along Israel’s northern border. Israel’s strategic interests discourage initiating a war with Hezbollah while the war in Gaza persists, as it could divert resources, armaments, and operational focus.

Therefore, resolving the threat from Lebanon hinges on concluding the initial phase of the Gaza war, transitioning to a strategy focused on systematically dismantling remaining terrorist infrastructure in the Strip, while concurrently engaging in efforts to confront Hezbollah decisively and eliminate the threat posed by the Shia militant organization.

The article was originally published on ynetnews

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the movement

הפוסט The withdrawal of forces from Gaza undermines the war’s objectives הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

The Biden administration has not missed an opportunity to remind Israel of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The President has placed this issue at the top of the American agenda. Of course, this crisis must be dealt with, but several facts cannot be ignored. Painful as it may be, one must not overlook the inconvenient fact that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a consequence of an act of Hamas aggression. It is not the result of a natural disaster, such as a tsunami or an earthquake.

We should follow the advice of Yigal Carmon, the founder of MEMRI, who takes the view that one must begin by listening to one’s adversary. So, let us learn from a small sampling. MEMRI television reported that “Mousa Abu Marzouk of the Hamas Political Bureau was asked in a February 22, 2024 interview on Alghad TV [Egypt] if Hamas’s Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades had any expectations regarding the consequences of the October 7 attack. Abu Marzouk said that “nobody in the whole world” could have expected such a “barbaric” response by Israel. He added that no one could have anticipated that the U.S., Britian and other Western countries would unite to wage war against Hamas.” Between the lines, this statement gives away far more information than Abu Marzouk intended. The Jews did not respond according to the Hamas script. Abu Marzouk would have much preferred something like the Hebron massacre of 1929 or the Farhoud in Baghdad of June 1941. In addition, MEMRI has cited “Ghazi Hamad of the Hamas political bureau [who] said in an October 24, 2023 show on LBC TV (Lebanon) that Hamas is prepared to repeat the October 7 ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ Operation time and again until Israel is annihilated…. [The] Palestinians are the victims of the occupation; therefore no one should blame them for the events of October 7 or anything else, adding: “Everything we do is justified.” To understand his state of mind, one need only take a glance at his face. Furthermore, there is a grave moral problem here. If, “Everything we do is justified,” one lives by the principle that the end justifies the means. This is pure Machiavellianism.

There is another problem, which the WSJ reported on February 29, 2024. Yihya Sinwar was reputed to have sent a massage to his followers, “Don’t worry, we have the Israelis right where we want them.” He was betting that “the militant Islamists can achieve a political victory by surviving Israel’s onslaught.” This wisdom comes from the real authority on guerilla warfare, Chairman Mao. Sinwar has defined the meaning of victory for Hamas. Outside observers have remarked that he was out of touch with reality. It is possible that Sinwar has the American policy-wonks right where he wants them, but the Israelis are not as cooperative.

Traditionally, terrorists have been considered to belong to the category of pirates and highwaymen, and dealt with accordingly. However, the international community has shown a willingness to “understand” them. David B. Rivkin and Peter Berkowitz have described “primitive pacifism,” namely, “an increasing willingness of humanitarian organizations to accept morally unacceptable behavior among certain favored groups (WSJ , December 13, 2023), “…. Since World War II humanitarian organizations, led by the International Committee of the Red Cross, have sought to provide special privileges for national liberation movements, an imprecise term that could include Hamas. These organizations have also tried to dilute rules that classify as unlawful enemy combatant fighters who don’t bear arms openly, don’t wear distinctive uniforms, and don’t operate in military organizations that feature well-defined command structure. Those efforts have constrained the military flexibility of law-abiding powers.”

At the same time, there is a secondary but important humanitarian issue, which Hamas intentionally brought upon its own people and for which it must accept responsibility. Recently, more dissenting voices in Gaza have spoken out, and they have defied the threat of death. They understand that Hamas leadership has brought suffering and ruin. Not everyone is glad to serve as a human shield. Many long for food security, decent health care, and the hope of better lives.

If America really wants to bring an end to this human suffering, it should facilitate the surrender of Hamas, rather than making a simple matter complicated. The optics would be much better. Justice must be done and seen to be done. There is a way to move forward. Hamas must first surrender unconditionally and publicly accept defeat. This solution will not please all parties, but it can be defended on moral grounds. The optics would be much better. America again would be viewed as a dependable ally and positive force, not only in Israel but in the entire region.

The article was originally published on Ynetnews

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the movement

הפוסט There is No Substitute for an Israeli Victory הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

American policy toward Israel, particularly the recent decision not to veto the UN Security Council resolution that separates a call for cease fire in Gaza from a demand for the release of the remaining hostages, living and dead, has been described a betrayal of the U.S. – Israel alliance. On the whole, good relations between both sides have prevailed. They have included early American recognition of the State of Israel, crucial help during the Yom Kippur War, diplomatic support for the emigration of Russian Jewry, and sharing of all manner of technology and know-how. This relationship has had its ups and downs.

On April 14, 2004, President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon exchanged of letters at the White House confirming an agreement that became part of the U.S. – Israel alliance. Its terms were drafted by the Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office, Dov Weissglas, for the Sharon government, and Steve Hadley for the Department of State. The text of these letters is posted on the White House website and that of the Foreign Ministry of Israel. This event is most important because it relates directly to the current situation in Gaza.

The agreement with the Bush administration is significant because of the circumstances and the manner in which both sides viewed it. An authoritative source was the late Dr. Raanan Gissin (1949-2023), a senior advisor to Prime Minister Sharon and spokesman for the Government of Israel (2001-2006). He was a first-hand witness who was able to explain the strategic reasons for government decisions and identify the key part of the agreement. I have slightly copy-edited my notes of his conversation with me on January 20, 2005.

Dr. Gissin chose to speak about the issue of the time, Israel’s plan of unilateral disengagement from Gaza and North Samaria. He cogently described the need for the security understandings with the United States in order to affirm Israel’s sovereign prerogatives in the event that the outcome failed to live up to expectations.

He explained the importance of the negotiation. The agreement was strategically important because it gives Israel what it needs to live with. Oslo and Geneva were inadequate and failed immediately. Israel could not live with these agreements.

He explained that when the government decided on unilateral withdrawal, it became necessary to gain American support, because no agreement can stand without deterrence. The United States is backing regional agreements [and that is why there is peace with Egypt]. If one’s partner is not trustworthy, the deterrent element becomes a matter of greater importance [in order to offset the risk]. At present, there is a state of armed peace, as in Europe of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is difficult to evaluate the Disengagement now, because it may be too early.

According to Gissin, the most important clause in the exchange of letters is Point 3, which deals with self-defense and self-deterrence. This clause appears on the White House website and contains the following passages: “… Israel will retain its right to defend itself against terrorism, including to take actions against terrorist organizations. The United States will lead efforts, working together with Jordan, Egypt, and others in the international community, to build the capacity and will of Palestinian institutions to fight terrorism, dismantle terrorist organizations, and prevent the areas from which Israel has withdrawn from posing a threat that would have to be addressed by any other means …. The United States is strongly committed to Israel’s security and well-being as a Jewish state. It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.^[1]

Gissin explained the spirit and real meaning of this clause as the Sharon Government understood it in 2005: Israel must be able to face all kinds of threats, including the existential threat. Because of the existential threat, there has to be a deterrent against it, and that is why the Americans understand Israel’s need for the nuclear option. In the event that Israel’s existence threatened, “you can kick ass.” [There are] no limitations on the type of reaction. American backing makes Israeli deterrence possible.

It is worth reading this document carefully, particularly its choice of language. President Bush referred to Israel as “a Jewish State,” whereas in his recognition of the State of Israel, President Truman refused to do so. Further, there were no limitations on Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism.

When the governments of the United States and Israel entered into the formal agreement of April 14, 2004, they did so with a clear awareness that unilateral withdrawal had risks. The United States understood Israel’s position and by entering into this agreement hoped to promote regional stability for the good of all parties. One would not have expected that the Biden administration would publicly attack Israel in a war of self-defense and express all manner of brutal criticism. At the very least, this type of attack represents a moral betrayal. The basic problem is that the United States of 2024 has become a different country with a different foreign policy than it possessed when it entered the 2004 agreement.

[1] Letter From President Bush to Prime Minister Sharon, (14 April 2004), https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040414-3.html

This article was originally published in ynet news

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the movement

הפוסט Misunderstanding or Betrayal? The Policy of the Biden Administration in Light of Previous American Commitments הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

The brutal assault against the audience that was seating itself ahead of a concert in a Moscow suburb was an Islamic terrorist attack. Some 137 persons lost their lives in this attack, which was the most brutal in Russia in the past 20 years.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, first through the organization’s news agency – A’maq – which caused a Russian response claiming this was “fake news”. Russia tried to link the attack to Ukraine using every means at its disposal.  Subsequently it transpired that the attack was perpetrated by an offshoot of ISIS, the “Islamic State – Khorasan” (ISIS-K), which is the organization’s branch in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. It is one of the group’s most active branches in recent years. In addition to that, the modus operandi – armed men carrying automatic weapons storming a building – is consistent with similar ISIS attacks

Why has ISIS-K attacked Russia?

As a rule, ISIS-K is the most vigorous and consistent branch of the Salafi organization when it comes to attacks within Europe. ISIS-K has planned 21 attacks in nine countries this past year, as opposed to eight in the previous year.

This murderous branch, which has been under pressure by the Afghan special forces and the American forces, took advantage of the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 to strengthen itself and recruit more fighters in each one of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

The American withdrawal from Afghanistan has also been exploited by Russia to broaden its influence in the south-central Asia region. Russia has strengthened its ties with Iran on the one hand and with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan on the other hand. This has of course incensed ISIS.

Just recently, the Taliban sent Russia its first military attaché, Ahmad Yasser, son of one of the organization’s senior leaders. The Taliban, through military cooperation, is interested in strengthening relations with Moscow, which on its part is interested in increasing its influence in the region.

Both ISIS in general, and the Khorasan Province in particular, have long been declaring their intention to attack Russia. They mentioned the past occupation of Afghanistan by the Russians in the 1980s and the long history Russia has of operations against Muslim communities in Russia, particularly in the Chechnya area. In addition, they mentioned Russia’s support for the brutal regime of Bashar Assad in Syria.

ISIS has launched various attacks in Russia between 2016 and 2019, while other attacks were foiled between 2021 and 2023.

Another piece of the puzzle is that most of the ISIS-K fighters that have been arrested in the past two years in Europe have been Russian nationals of persons of central Asian origin (like the Tajik terrorists that carried out the attack in the Moscow concert hall).

The recent arrests took place two weeks ago with the Russian authorities claiming to have foiled a planned attack on the Moscow Choral Synagogue.

Last month, a Russian citizen was accused of contacts with ISIS and was arrested in Poland, while another was arrested while working on the construction of a nuclear facility in Turkey.

Earlier this month, the United States and five other countries provided intelligence to the Russians warning that the ISIS-K was planning attacks in Moscow. These warnings were ignored by the Kremlin, which alleged they were intended to discredit Russia.

In recent years, most of the ISIS-K attacks have been in Afghanistan, where the majority of those were aimed at the Shiite Hazara community there.

The most outstanding attacks by ISIS-K are, for example, the suicide attack outside the Kabul airport in August 2021, at the height of the US evacuation, which resulted in 170 civilians and 13 US service personnel dead.

Another such example is an IED attack on the Russian embassy in Kabul, in September 2022, in which at least six people were killed.

ISIS-K also carried out a suicide attack in Kerman in Iran, in January 2024, which killed almost 100 people at a ceremony marking the fourth anniversary of the killing of the former commander of the Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani.

Iran and Russia even have a strategic alliance and they share many common interests, including the Iranian presence in Syria and the fight against ISIS. Both countries are also members of a coalition referred to as the “4+1” coalition, which includes Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq, where the “+” represents the Hezbollah.  The coalition was established in 2015. For the sake of this alliance, a center for the exchange of information about ISIS was established in Baghdad to enable the members to coordinate their operations against that organization in advance.

Besides Russia’s intervention to save the Assad regime and to fight ISIS, the radical Salafi organization regards Russia as an infidel crusader force, responsible for oppression of Sunnis in various places around the world – exactly like the United States.

Furthermore, Russia even supports Hamas and hosts Hamas delegations in Moscow. Why should this bother ISIS? Because ISIS is opposed to Hamas and it even ridicules it for having sided with Shiite Iran, which in the eyes of the Salafi organization is regarded blasphemous.

Moreover, ISIS’ ridicule of Hamas is due to its siding with Iran and also due to its support for Al-Qaeda, from which ISIS split off years ago. ISIS regards the Iran-Al-Qaeda-Hamas axis as a single unit to which it is vehemently opposed, all the more so since Al-Qaeda’s current leader, Saif al-Adel, is residing in Tehran.

A Conflict Far from the World’s Attention

In addition to its hostility toward Russia due to the events in Syria, the organization is also in confrontation with the Russians in an arena far from world media – the Sahel region in Africa.

Many organizations affiliated with ISIS have been active in this region for many years (for example the Boko Haram branches that have joined ISIS and other organizations such as ISIS Sahel and ISIS West Africa etc.). These brutal organizations operate in Mali, Niger, Burkina Fasso and even Mozambique in east Africa.

As in the case of Afghanistan, wherever the United States retreats, Russia comes in – thus also in these countries, when the United States and French troops withdrew from Chad, Mali and Niger. The Russians have provided these countries military assistance through the notorious Wagner Group for the fight against radical Islam on their territory. This is why ISIS has an interest in attacking Russia on its own territory, since its army is fighting against its fighters who are trying to expand the Islamic caliphate and take over Africa.

Despite the rivalry between ISIS and Al-Qaeda, the two organizations are gaining strength in these regions, far from world attention, such as the Sahel countries in Africa, the horn of Africa and even East Asian countries like the Philippines.

The West should be aware of the terror threat from these organizations and their branches and affiliates – the Moscow attack is a reminder that this threat is resurgent once again.

The continual growth of this deadly branch of ISIS – ISIS in Khorasan – ought to sound the alarm in the west regarding the struggle between radical organizations in remote regions, which are bound to strike out against the West.

The article was originally published on ynetnews

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the movement

הפוסט The Motivation behind the ISIS Attack in Moscow הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

One may assume that Israel, who was most probably behind the air strike in Damascus that killed General Zahedi and many of his IRGC Quds Force colleagues, knew the location of this Iranian command facility for a while. If so, the question is why did Israel decide to act now, in a way that certainly forces Iran to consider harsh retaliation? This is even more interesting since the attack took place during the final days of the month of Ramadan and a couple of days before The Jerusalem (Al-Quds) day this Friday that bring Iranian hate to Israel and commitment to destroy it to an annual peak.

There might have been a special and irresistible opportunity as many of IRGC team leading the smuggling of arms from Iran to its proxies were in the same place, but it seems that this was not the main reason. Rather it looks as if Israel wanted to convey to the Mullahs in Tehran a message of deterrence following two activities carried out by Iran and its proxies that were perceived in Israel as an Iranian attempt to stretch the envelop of the rules of the game between Iran and Israel a bit too far.

One case was the attempt to smuggle advanced weapons to terrorists in the Palestinian Authority controlled area in the West Bank that Israel managed to foil, and the other was the launching of an attack UAV towards the southern port of Eilat that hit a military base. To deter Iran from further stretching the envelop, Israel had to stretch it a bit itself and that is perhaps the reason for the kind of strategic target that was chosen and for the timing of the attack.

Rather than indicating that Israel wishes to go to a wider war scale and open a full war with tearing the envelop or keeping the rules of the game unchanged. Attacks on IRGC high ranking officers in Syria are not uncommon and happened even recently so this current attack, though directed against a higher ranking official in a very sensitive location, is still within the confines of the rules of the game according to which Iran may try to arm its proxies through Syria to enable them to hit Israel, but Israel may use force to thwart these attempts. But Israel clearly says to Iran that it is ready also to a wider confrontation if Iran chooses to go there.

What are the Iranian options? First, they may issue threats and promise to retaliate within the rules by encouraging their proxies to keep launching attacks against Israel, while they limit the direct Iranian involvement in it and operate in a more secret way. That is what they did several times in the past, and recently they advised the Shiite militias in Iraq to refrain from attacking American bases following the American attack on key operatives of the militias in retaliation to the attack on an American base in Jordan that killed 3 American soldiers. But Iran can also try to hit Israel directly in manners that it has already tried many times such as attempting to murder Israelis abroad or in Israel. Many other options are possible and clearly Israel has to take the necessary measures to foil them, even if the probability that Iran will employ them is low.

As for the damage to the Iranian effort to encircle Israel with Iranian proxies caused by the elimination of some of the key operatives who are responsible for promoting it, there might be a short lived harm as the experienced leadership is replaced but the commitment of Iran to this effort will remain very high.

This article was originally published in ynet news

הפוסט The envelop that defines the rules of the game between Iran and Israel is stretched. Will Iran tear the envelop? הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

Establishment of a provisional civil administration in the Gaza Strip at the end of the war is the State of Israel’s legal and ethical imperative. Without it, Gaza will descend into anarchy and we will all be paying the price.

At the end of World War 2, Germany surrendered to the Allies. Who governed Germany in the immediate aftermath? From the moment Germany surrendered in 1945 until 1949, Germany was under a civil administration imposed by the Allies. Japan, which surrendered shortly after Germany, was also governed by a United States civil administration. This lasted for six years. The civil administrations in these two countries managed all the civilian aspects and saw to the rehabilitation of the affected areas. This was not done out of the kindness of the hearts on the part of the Allies. It was done because this was the civil practice necessary in such situations.

When an army conquers land and topples the local regime, a vacuum is created in the leadership and the conquering country is ethically and legally responsible for managing the population within the conquered area. The civil administration is by its very nature a stopgap solution, the intention being that the conquering state will rule the area until a suitable local leadership will emerge.

A look at world history and regional history shows that most civil administrations did indeed end within a few years. The State of Israel also installed provisional civil administrations during several transitional periods. This is exactly what has to be done in the Gaza Strip following the toppling of Hamas.

This is what the provisional civil administration will look like in Gaza

The Swords of Iron war will only come to an end after the Hamas regime has been toppled. We will then have to examine who will rule the Gaza Strip in its place. From the security standpoint, there is no question – the State of Israel will have to continue ruling the Strip. Such a rule could last forever. From the civilian perspective, on the other hand, the goal is to gradually install a local government.

Anyone that thinks local rule can materialize out of thin air the day after Hamas has been vanquished is having a pipe dream. This is a lengthy process. It will take years and until this happens it will be the State of Israel that will have to take care of managing civilian affairs in Gaza.

The provisional civil administration in Gaza ought to be provided by Israel through cooperation between the Security Forces and the Operations, Intelligence and Civil Administration units in the IDF. The first order of the day for the administration that will be set up will be to provide basic humanitarian solutions. These will be delivered with assistance from local players and international organizations. Such organizations cannot be of the contrarian type like UNRWA. At the same time, the lengthy process of finding a local leadership will need to proceed one step at a time.

The concept of a civil administration is perceived mostly as a negative idea, however such an administration has many advantages and it can also be strategically beneficial for Israel. A provisional civil administration will allow the population to disengage from Hamas. It can promote deradicalization processes and it can provide accessibility to significant intelligence that will be helpful in dismantling the Hamas infrastructures. In addition, the State of Israel will be able to continue to use the funds and resources at its disposal as leverage in leading in-depth processes that will create a new reality in the Strip.

Israeli rule over Gaza will also be helpful in terms of the voluntary emigration issue. There are today hundreds of thousands of people who would like to emigrate from Gaza to other countries but are unable to do so. Since Israel would also prefer as few as possible inhabitants in the Strip, there is a clear convergence of interests here. Under the provisional civil administration, the State of Israel will be able to assist all those interested in emigrating from the Strip.

Is the civil administration going to violate the Palestinians’ rights? Quite the opposite

The advantages of a civil administration in the Strip are clear. This being said, there are those that cling to lame excuses in an attempt to portray this as a horrific idea. One claim being made is that such an administration will drain considerable funds from the State budget. One need not look far to see the flimsiness of this claim. When looking at the current state in Judea and Samaria, one can see that the money from the local population and the international aid payments cover all of the expenses. This is also going to be the case in the Gaza Strip.

Another claim is that a civil administration going to violate the rights of Palestinians living in the Strip. Here, too, this is a mistake. Before a civil administration was set up in Judea and Samaria, the region had not a single university. Now every city in the region has universities, hospitals and advanced infrastructures.

The Israeli administration in Judea and Samaria has contributed much more than the corrupt Palestinian Authority has to the local population, and certainly more than what entities the likes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad will. Similarly, while Israel installed a civil administration in Gaza, we witnessed an improvement in the standard of living, which consistently deteriorated under the Palestinian Authority and subsequently under Hamas. This being the case, not only would Gaza’s residents not be harmed by an Israeli-dominated provisional civil administration, they stand to gain from it.

De-Nazification, Gazan style: the change begins with education

Besides the humanitarian civilian aspects, the greatest challenge Israel will be facing with the provisional civil administration is managing education in the Strip.

Israel has never made a significant difference in the Palestinian education system. Even in the education of the Israeli Arabs,, the State does not intervene. In Gaza, however, one must understand that the state of education is extremely problematic. Education in Gaza has been controlled by UNRWA, which blatantly incites and educates its public to annihilate Israel. This being the case, education there has got to undergo fundamental changes, exactly the way education in Nazi Germany was transformed in the process of denazification led by the Allies.

One must understand that if the State of Israel does not assume responsibility for education in the Strip, it will perpetuate the same cesspool that has produced such a catastrophic crop of terrorists. The change in the education has to be under our responsibility, however it is advisable to be assisted by external bodies such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which understand the culture and the language and have already carried out a similar process. It is also advisable to make the funds coming in from these countries and the international aid moneys conditional on the actual roll-out of the new education programs. At the end of the day, it is only through controlling the money that the reality on the ground can be changed.

The day after the provisional civil administration: the future leadership in the Gaza Strip

After rehabilitating the Gaza Strip, civilian rule must be assigned to a competent body. To understand what kind of leadership will be established in the Gaza Strip going forward, one has to first understand what kind of leadership is not going to be established there – and this is the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. This is not an option because the Authority is no better than Hamas and  the State of Israel cannot afford to assume such a risk. Another possibility is to assign control to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This possibility might have been suitable but it is inapplicable because there is not a single Arab country that has any interest in taking over management of the Gaza Strip.

The desirable course therefore is for civil management to be assigned in full to local leaders, who will evidently be selected from among the leaders of the large clans. Hamas is extremely fearful of the clans since they pose a serious threat to its existence, especially now that they are once again coming to life and are beginning to assert themselves on the ground. As opposed to Hamas, the clans seek stability in the strip, they have an interest in developing the region, and they have legitimacy from the local population. Therefore they are the entity with which Israel can and should engage. In any case, transfer of civil rule will be gradual with Israel finding the most suitable course through a process of trial and error.

Either Civil Administration or Anarchy

Certain quarters regard the idea of a provisional civil administration in Gaza to be a malicious whim of the State of Israel, the occupier. In fact this is a legitimate, commonly-accepted military solution. It is even a moral obligation. Should Israel fail to put together a systematic, gradual plan for ruling the Gaza Strip, the situation there will very quickly descend into anarchy and the rest of the world will blame us. Anarchy will first and foremost be detrimental to the Strip’s population. It will also be fertile breeding ground for re-emerging terrorism, which in turn will pose a threat to the State of Israel.

Any way one looks at it, the establishment of a provisional Israeli civil administration is the moral, much-needed solution for restoration of the Strip and for restoring calm to the region. The time has come to jettison unfounded allegations and erroneous concepts, the time has come to stop fearing the concept of a “civil administration”.

הפוסט Who’s Afraid of a Provisional Civil Administration? The civilian solution in Gaza the day after toppling Hamas הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

Recently, in one of the Pentagon’s press conferences ahead of the American mission to establish a causeway for aid in Gaza, Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder was asked how the Administration was going to ensure the humanitarian aid reaches civilians and not Hamas. In other words, the Israeli allegation is that the bulk of the aid gets stolen by Hamas the minute it enters the Gaza Strip via the land crossings. It does not reach the civilians – which helps Hamas maintain its war machine. Ryder, in reply, was nothing less than flabbergasting: “If Hamas truly believes that the people, the Palestinian people are suffering, then why would they want to take this aid and use it for themselves to support their terrorist organization? One would hope that this aid will get to the people that are most deserving and in need.” 

In fact, Ryder admits the Administration’s policy assumes that at the end of the day, Hamas cares about the well-being of the Palestinians. With this, the Administration falls for Hamas’ cynical manipulation, which counts on world goodwill, which for its part sees the suffering of the Gazan people and is prepared to pressure Israel to ease their suffering. Hamas uses the suffering of the people in Gaza for its propaganda purposes and for pressuring Israel. The fact that the USA has fallen for this Hamas tactic is no less than shocking. It only reinforces Hamas’ incentive to use the civilian population as a human shield since this strategy works – it is more harmful to Israel than it is to Hamas. Instead of forming a method for aid distribution that would ease the humanitarian situation in Gaza on the one hand, while preventing the aid from reaching Hamas on the other, the Administration is once again engaging in public declarative gestures aimed at pacifying domestic public opinion.  

Ryder was then asked about the potential risks to the American mission, such as for example Hamas endangering American crew members and launching rockets against them. He gave a similar answer:  If Hamas truly does care about the Palestinian people, then again, one would hope that this international mission to deliver aid to people who need it would be able to happen unhindered – said Ryder. In this response he exposed the American lack of long-range thinking about Gaza and about the most basic logical flaws in this aid plan. In fact, in his answer he reflects the American lack of understanding of the Middle East in general, and of the Palestinian people in Gaza in particular. The Administration’s policy is gradually but consistently drifting toward hope-based and optimism-based policy, rather than being pragmatic, which raises serious concerns regarding their ability to develop realistic plans for the conflict going forward. 

For the United States, the optics of the situation in Gaza supersedes long-term thinking, which would put in place the conditions for improving the lot of the people in Gaza – in other words, by toppling Hamas rule in Gaza. As a terrorist organization and a non-state player, Hamas is able to use the most powerful weapon in its arsenal, which is to create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza in order to generate international pressure. This tool of theirs is s force multiplier, which it uses to the utmost effect on world public opinion which, quite justifiably, is shocked by the human suffering there. 

In such a situation, a terrorist organization will always be able to extract concessions from the other side. Hamas loses nothing when Gazan civilians die. It can only gain from this. Therefore it has no interest whatsoever in avoiding actions which would exacerbate the humanitarian predicament in Gaza while still maintaining the pretense of fighting for the good of the Palestinian people. When American humanitarian aid will enter Gaza by sea, there is no guarantee Hamas won’t commandeer it. In an extreme scenario, which is by no means unrealistic, Hamas might indeed attack the American warships using the ever-effective excuse – defending the Palestinian people against a Western invasion, rejection of aid from a world power that is aiding the Israeli “occupation” in Gaza or other propaganda-friendly pretexts. 

Anyone that has a genuine interest in stabilizing the Gaza situation and preventing Hamas growth long-term, must insist on three conditions: 1. Destruction of Hamas’ military and governmental capabilities. 2. Prevention of any dependency between the civilian population and Hamas, which will exploit its distress to pursue its own goals and 3. De-radicalization of the education system, purging it of incitement, in such a way that it will no longer toxify the next generation of Gazan children, preventing them from becoming tomorrow’s terrorists. 

To achieve these goals, and to reduce the number of dead in the long term, Hamas must be defeated at all costs. Failure to get the job done is going to be much more costly to Israel and to the Gazan population in the long term. The United States, too, was forced to reach some highly-agonizing decisions during World War 2, such as the fateful decision to drop two Atom bombs on Japan. In the short term the bombs killed hundreds of thousands, but in the long term it saved millions of Japanese lives since that country surrendered several days later. This, according to historical estimates, prevented the unnecessary death of millions more on both sides – American and Japanese. Israel, for its part, is not even seeking to end the war in Gaza this same painful way – it only seeks legitimacy for the eradication of Hamas’ military and government apparatus, and is doing so with the greatest surgical precision possible under the difficult circumstances presented by the battlefield. 

To be able to comprehend this simple principle, it is advisable first to begin understanding the Hamas enemy itself – instead of assuming it is ultimately interested in the good of the Gazan population. 

This article was originally published in ynet news.

הפוסט Hamas Strategy Succeeding with the Americans  הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

After the October 7 massacre, the international community was shocked by the harsh atrocities committed by Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and Palestinian civilians who participated in the massacre. 

Hamas has been compared to ISIS and the Nazis, which has given Israel a broad international support and credit for acting in Gaza to topple Hamas and bring the abductees back home. 

The Israeli advocacy found a sympathetic ear, since most members of the international community could not support the Palestinian side that committed these inhumane atrocities. 

Hamas and the Palestinians were in trouble. How will they be able to correct the world consciousness that now classifies them in one line with the Nazis and ISIS? Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority realized that in order to win this war they would have to use the card that the Palestinians have been using for years – the card of consciousness to smear Israel’s legitimacy in the world. 

Although the incitement to carry out terrorist attacks against Jews continues unceasingly in Arabic, in the ears of the international community there is a different melody. 

In recent months, senior officials of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, used statements of ‘reverse advocacy’. 

This advocacy is based on one simple method: the use of terminology in which all the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th and testimonies of abductees who returned from captivity are used to accuse Israel. 

What is the Palestinian reverse advocacy? 

The Palestinians use core concepts from the Israeli narrative of October 7 and turns it into a Palestinian narrative. 

Hamas is attentive to the Israeli public pain points and recognizes the international reaction to the Israeli narrative after October 7.  

In December 2023, Hamas used the symbolic date, October 7 as the day the attack on Gaza began, “the day the attack on our people began”. 

This is how the murderous organization tries to obscure the symbolic date of the horrible massacre it carried out against Israel – and makes the date symbolic for the Palestinians – as “the day Israel attacked the Palestinians”. 

Also, the organization calls the terrorists detained by Israel, as detainees, saying that among them are women, elderly and children (similar to the description of the Israeli abductees who were held by Hamas and released) “and they are subjected to the most terrible conditions”. Hamas recognizes the humanitarian motive that also influences international public opinion and uses this to its advantage. He calls those prisoners, among them terrorists with blood on their hands, as detainees who “disappeared”, as a kind of kidnapping of “innocent Palestinians” by Israeli forces. Hamas takes his brutal attack, turns it over and presents itself as a victim: 

• Israel attacked from October 7th on (using October 7th as a symbolic date, like 9/11 only in reverse- smearing the Israeli narrative). 

• Calling the arrest of terrorists and Hamas supporters’ “disappearance” or kidnapping – turning the narrative so that Israel kidnaps Palestinians as opposed to the kidnapping of Israeli citizens held by Hamas. 

• Hamas presents false information that Israel keeps women, elderly people and children in extremely difficult conditions 

This was propagated after hostage deals were held, in which Israeli women, elderly and children were released from the hands of Hamas. Hamas recognizes the effect of combining women, elderly people and children to build a new narrative: Israel is “the aggressor”, kidnapping women, elderly people and children. 

Moreover, Hamas officials use the word “Nazi” in their statements to describe Israel and its actions – in order to break the comparison of Hamas to the Nazis and turn the equation so that Israel is compared to the Nazis. 

In his January 2024 speech, Hamas official Usma Hamdan made sure to use the terms “Nazi aggression” and the “war of extermination” that Israel is waging, to describe what is happening in Gaza. 

Additionally, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for the office of Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority, said that the “series of daily killing crimes” of the IDF in the Gaza Strip and in Judea and Samaria is a comprehensive “war of extermination against the Palestinian people”.  

Palestinian officials from the PLO and Hamas use the terms “extermination” and “Holocaust” to strengthen the influence on public opinion that Israel is committing a “Holocaust” to the Palestinian people. They try to create awareness among the international community of “How can the Jewish people, who went through the Holocaust, perpetrate a Holocaust on other people?” Moreover, the Palestinians want to create “guilt feelings” because following the Western support for Israel a holocaust is being carried out against their people. 

In January 2024, Hamas started a campaign on social media using female terrorists imprisoned in Israeli prisons for its counter propaganda. He published various posts in which the “Palestinian women prisoners” are described as experiencing abuse in the prisons and that they are “in danger”. Moreover, Hamas detailed the “abuses” that Palestinian women suffer in Israeli prisons: “Severe beatings and torture, a shameful (physical) examination” and more. 

The cynical use of humanitarian motifs that fort on the emotional strings of the international community -plays into the hands of the Palestinians when they come to clear themselves from the guilt of October 7th massacre and make Israel the “bad guy” in the story. 

The PLO and Hamas officials are united in their efforts to change the discourse regarding the war in Gaza. Although for the Palestinians, Hamas is the one who brought the “achievement” of a lawsuit against Israel at the ICJ by South Africa – the PLO is trying to align with this blood plot regarding “genocide” and fail Israel in the international arena. This activity of the Palestinian Authority is added to its long-standing activity to fight Israel: using the international community to eliminate Israel’s legitimacy in the world. 

This article was originally published in ynet news.

הפוסט Reverse Advocacy: Hamas As A Narrative Swindler  הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

As our soldiers are fighting in Gaza and girding up on the Lebanon border, we as leading voices in the Israeli security milieu and reserve officers bear a special responsibility. Our utmost duty, above correctly reading the map and diagnosing the trends around us, is to acknowledge how the system was underprepared for October 7, and how achieving total victory in Gaza will best serve Israel’s security interests not just in the Gaza Strip, but vis-à-vis Lebanon and the region. Describing “total victory” as an empty slogan could not be further from the truth. Therefore, the worse thing we could possibly do is to politicize what the vast majority of Israelis view as absolutely indispensable.

Some voices in that milieu, including that of Major General Giora Eiland whom I greatly respect, call Israel to give up on such nonsensical notions such as finishing the job in the Gaza Strip, by not taking over Rafah and the Philadelphi Route. By so doing, they say, Israel will not only finish the war in Gaza as quickly as possible, but also avoid an unnecessary war in Lebanon. How can they tell? Well, based on statements by world leaders, and Hassan Nasrallah.

One of the most important lessons we learned after October 7, which I also described a year ago in my book “Heros of Our Own Story” (“We Will Not Go Back” in Hebrew) was that Israel must never deposit its security in the hands of others. Nor should it ever submit to irrelevant pressure by elements who only aspire to promote their own interests on the expense of Israel’s vital security needs.

As the IDF progresses in Khan Younis and braces for a critical phase in the war, the battle for Rafah, Eiland and others call to essentially give up, go back to pre-October 7, and dance to the tune of international trends, war fatigue, and continuously failing strategy of appeasement. Yet this is precisely what would lead us to ensure the next October 7 and have IDF soldiers’ blood spilled in vain. Israel knows how to push back on that pressure, and it should not guide keeping Israel’s vital security needs.

Yet even when by examining President Biden’s statements, it is clear to him too that it is indispensable to finish the job. The US shifted from officially warning Israel against an operation in Rafah to simply stress how “a military operation should not proceed without a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for the civilians in Rafah”. That is basically the Israeli position. The IDF already offered plans to construct vast “tent cities” north to Rafah to ensure a safe passage and refuge place for civilians.

Yet the other part of that logic makes even less sense. Judging by statements made by the arch-terrorist Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, it is tempting to believe that all Israel needs to do in order to avoid war with Lebanon is to retreat in Gaza, and let Hamas off the hook. In his speeches, Nasrallah threatens that the war in the north “will not stop until Israeli aggression in Gaza stops.”

Yet why should Israel submit to menacing statements by Nasrallah, and why should we believe him? An oversimplified calculation that Nasrallah’s terms are clear, and so that makes the path to calm clear, is simply non-sensical. Nasrallah’s whole philosophy is based on the armed struggle. Without it, Lebanese would notice more boldly his organization’s destruction of what used to be the Middle East’s cedar heaven. Hezbollah would lose its reason to exist.

We also know it’s false because we can examine the pre-October 7 situation in the north. In our IDSF Research Department’s study, “Hezbollah: On the Brink of Eruption?” dated August 2023, we elaborate on hundreds of incidents along the Lebanon border just since early 2023, including tearing off security cameras, confronting soldiers, shooting attacks, the launching of 34 rockets in Passover, the Megido suicide attack, and constructing tents in Israeli territory. Should Israel go back to those level of conflict with Hezbollah?

This precise attitude of defeatism led Israeli leaders to conclude the disastrous Gas Accord with Lebanon in October 2022, which we analyzed in detail. Against any common sense, Nasrallah’s “clear terms”, then and now, led Israel to surrender a maritime territory larger than the Tel Aviv district simply to avoid war and “buy silence” for the following months. What we got is an unmatched domestic achievement for Nasrallah in Lebanon, and the very opposite of silence. Those same security voices cheered on that step, inverse to what my colleagues and I viewed as quintessential to Israel’s security: a clear message that nobody should test our resilience to fight.

Surrendering to the terms of Hamas and Nasrallah in Gaza by retreating will serve our enemies well, and push the notion of peace with Saudi Arabia further than ever before. Our enemies understand assertiveness, not defeatism. Israel must finish the job in Gaza by annihilating all of Hamas’ remaining brigades, then ensure the IDF’s eternal freedom of operation in the Gaza Strip. No one will do that for us.

The objective of total victory in Gaza does not belong to any government or party; we hear it from combatants, commanders, evacuees, families of victims and hostages. And we know how vital it is given the humiliating failure of the Israeli containment strategy for decades around our borders. Now as our soldiers show immense bravery in the battlefield, they show the opposite of that defeatist attitude that calls to trust Israel’s security in the hands of others. Our security can only be trusted in our own hands.

This article was originally published in ynet news.

הפוסט When Common Sense Ends: Why Surrendering to Nasrallah’s Terms Will Only Pave the Path to War with Lebanon הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

This interview with Yanir Melech, who was a special operations officer in the Judea and Samaria area in the days before Oslo and was known as “King of Manhunters in Judea and Samaria” (“Melech” means “King” in Hebrew), took place shortly after he finished another routine meeting with a business owner in a Galilee village. 

Since leaving the Israel Security Agency (the ISA, or Shabak) in the 1990s, he has been working in security for businesses that are vulnerable to violence and other types of crime. This time, he says, the business owner had won a tender for constructing a building for a government institution and throughout the construction he was targeted for attack by those who lost the tender. Shots were fired at his trucks, his drivers were injured, his business itself came under fire, and when he persisted in the project, a grenade was thrown into his children’s bedroom and another into his brother’s living room. 

“This isn’t an incident from Judea and Samaria, it’s from near Haifa, and it’s the same situation today all over the Arab sector in Israel. Gangs of masked men, armed to the teeth, are circulating freely in the Arab cities and towns, and the loss of control is nearly total. The police don’t have the resources for dealing with these attacks. If the ISA doesn’t enter the arena at full strength, the next ‘Guardian of the Walls’ will be a catastrophe.” 

Melech, a military academy graduate, served in the Sayeret Matkal special reconnaissance unit and as a special operations officer in Lebanon and in the Judea and Samaria area, including Jenin. In view of his operations, he was described in the Kol Ha-Ir newspaper as “the West Bank Angel of Death.” After leaving the IDF, he served as a coordinator in the ISA; but a road accident contributed to his early retirement from there, shortly after the Oslo Accords — which had brought policy changes at the ISA that were significant and that ran counter to his security thinking. 

Did you retire because of your injury or because of Oslo? 

“Retiring made sense, because I didn’t believe in the Oslo Accords and I didn’t like the new instructions. One of them, for example, was to erase all members of Al-Fatah from the wanted list. When I was interviewed for work at the ISA, they asked me why I was applying and I said that I wasn’t willing for Jews to be killed for being Jews. But the new policy looked to me like letting Jews be killed and I had a problem with that. My retirement was welcome mutually, because my world view wasn’t compatible with theirs. In my opinion, the same kind of policy put the security forces off guard not just on October 7 but earlier as well — for the Yom Kippur War, the First Intifada, the Western Wall Tunnel confrontations in 1996, and the Second Intifada.” 

Murder, kidnapping, and rape inside Israel 

Besides his security work in the business sphere, he has also written a book, titled Crime Ltd. and published last Rosh Hashana, about organized violence in the business world and how that violence is linked to terrorist organizations. “The crime families are fed by the terrorist organizations and receive enormous quantities of weapons from them. That tells us what to expect in the next round of fighting. Sometimes they pull suspected collaborators out of their homes and kill them, kidnap them, rape their wives. There’s no law and no order. I’ve heard of cases where the victim is shot in the testicles to make sure that he won’t produce another generation. All this is happening today inside Israeli territory.” 

How did we reach this point? 

“The Jewish crime families suffered heavy damage from Case 512, where most of the heads of crime families in Israel were convicted. Then Arab crime families stepped into the vacuum. Jewish Israeli crime families usually include two or three brothers but the rest of the members aren’t relatives. Among the Arabs almost all the members of the crime family are also blood relatives and they hardly ever use subcontractors. For that reason it’s very hard for intelligence agents to penetrate Arab crime families. What’s more, many murders that have roots in crime become overlapped with vendettas and clan feuds. There’s also a connection with the change of generations in Arab society. Veteran criminals wouldn’t harm innocent people, women, or children; they had red lines. The young ones don’t. If they need to eliminate a father and he’s in a car with his son, they don’t hesitate. But if they kill a child, then a conflict between criminals changes into a vendetta, and as soon as that genie is out of the bottle, nobody can push it back in.” 

Terrorist organizations trade weapons for intelligence 

How did the crime families acquire so much weaponry? 

“The weapons come from a number of sources. Some are smuggled from Lebanon, Jordan, and the Judea and Samaria area, and even from military bases, which are being broken into all the time. There’s also cooperation between the terrorist organizations and the criminals. The crime families receive weapons and they pay the terrorists with intelligence, with free entry into Israeli territory, and otherwise.” 

How is Israel supposed to deal with this? 

“The laws have to change. For carrying firearms, for extorting protection money, for membership in a crime family, and so on, the penalties should be much stronger. In the USA, just for belonging to a crime family you can receive a life sentence, and if you’re the head of the family you’ll serve it out. Here, the head of a crime family receives two to three years, or even less. Also, the laws of evidence need to allow more tools for the police, and the ISA needs to be brought in to deal with illegal weapons. Since the start of 2024, more than 70 Israeli Arabs have already been murdered. In 2023, there were 244 murdered, which averages more than one murder per two days. That problem can easily spread outward from the Arab sector.” 

What happened after Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s car was stolen 

The flow of weaponry to terrorist and criminal organizations can be attributed, says Yanir Melech, to the Oslo Accords. “Giving them guns was a mistake. Rabin said that if the barrels were ever swung back at us, we’d put an end to it. But those were empty words, because clearly you can’t retrieve 5,000 Kalashnikovs. And what’s more, as soon as the floodgates were open, thousands more weapons flowed into Judea and Samaria. When the suicide terror attacks began, we saw that with one hand the Palestinian Authority was abetting those attacks while with the other one it was shaking hands for peace. Also, the Oslo Accords included matters of general security such as suppressing auto theft. But from a shallow point of view, the state and the insurance companies profit from those thefts, while the harm is primarily to the individual’s wallet and personal security.” 

Is the Palestinian Authority responsible for this? 

“Certainly. I’ll tell you a story. One time, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s car was stolen. A message was passed to Jibril Rajoub, and he was able to get the car returned immediately. How does that happen? We simply accepted understandingly that the Palestinians were not going to stop their offenses of all kinds against Israelis — counterfeiting, theft, burglary. They broke into the Ministry of Health’s emergency stores and stole life-saving medicines. They broke into army camps and stole rifles. We tolerate it because it can be classified as ordinary crime, but it’s really part of their nationalist preparations for the day of reckoning.” 

And all that weaponry wasn’t out there before the Oslo Accords? 

“That’s right. When I left the security services, there were almost no weapons in Judea and Samaria. The Black Panther squad — the operational arm of Al-Fatah in Judea and Samaria in the 1980s — was armed with box cutters. The professionals got a commando knife. Here and there we saw firearms, but they made a point of hiding them well because anyone carrying a gun had no right to live. But under the Oslo Accords, we had to furnish the Palestinian security forces with firearms, and since then weaponry has flowed into every corner of their territory, with no supervision. Today the people from the Lion’s Den squad of Nablus are armed like Sayeret Matkal raiders, with all the tactical equipment. Our security services have lost all control over the quantity of weapons in Judea and Samaria, and inside Israel.” 

Why doesn’t the IDF mount targeted operations against them? 

“Until October 7, the IDF wasn’t using its abilities in Judea and Samaria. The largest recent operation in that period was Home and Garden, last July in Jenin, when 11 terrorists were killed. Since October 7, the IDF has killed 450 terrorists and arrested another 3,500. Matters weren’t supposed to reach that point. Now we should stop allowing the armed marches that are being held in Tulkarm and in the West Bank cities. And we haven’t even talked about the Disengagement and what happened in Gaza.” 

Has Israel learned its lesson from the Oslo Accords? 

The Oslo Accords, says Yanir Melech, are the root of all the evil, but the problem started earlier, with the protests urging an IDF withdrawal from Lebanon, and then from Gaza. “People were shouting ‘Why is a whole battalion of paratroops guarding the village of Netzarim in Gaza?’ So we withdrew from Lebanon and from Gaza and now instead of one battalion there are five divisions in Gaza and they’re not enough. In this neighborhood we live in, if you’re not using your fists every day, you don’t survive. The dream of reconciling with our enemies has to be shelved. In his time, Fuad Ben-Eliezer, who was a cabinet minister, said it’s possible to live with rockets fired at Netzarim but a Qassam rocket hitting Sderot is another story. Since then, more than 50,000 rockets have been fired into Israeli territory and in the attempt to appease the enemy, there was an agreement signed with Hamas that stopped targeted killings by Israel.” 

And you’d say that the Disengagement was rooted in the existence of the Oslo Accords? 

“We have to remember that the Oslo Accords were part of the PLO’s ‘Doctrine of Stages,’ which was not about the ‘Territories’ at all. To the Palestinians, Palestine is from the river to the sea, meaning above all else Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Acre, Ashkelon. In the first Palestinian National Charter, from January 1964, Article 24 says that the PLO will have no sovereignty over the West Bank, which Jordan controlled at the time, or over the Gaza Strip, which Egypt controlled, or over the Himmah area in the Golan Heights. So what liberating Palestine means is liberating it from the Jews. The ambitions of the Palestinians are focused on Israeli territory inside the Green Line. To the Palestinians, we are all settlers, wherever we are in the country. Including, most ironically, those of us living in Tel Aviv.” 

Do you think supporters of the Oslo Accords are beginning to reconsider after October 7? 

“Every week, I travel to the north or south to bring the soldiers something of home and whatever they need, and on one drive south I was joined by a kibbutz member who’d been evacuated from the north. When we entered Kfar Aza and Be’eri, he said to me: ‘You know, if Israel had gone to war on the evening of October 6, I’d have been the first one out to demonstrate against that war.’ Until we experienced October 7, there were those of us who didn’t understand that we need to eliminate Hamas.” 

But now they’re beginning to understand, right? 

“When Hamas set out on October 7, there were two things it left out of account: one is that despite all our internal conflicts, we Israelis would curl into one fist against attack. The other is that we really will follow through on our decision to pulverize Hamas.” 

הפוסט Yanir Melech: The link between crime families and terrorists will turn the next “Guardian of the Walls” into a catastrophe  הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

After three months of reserve military service as IDF Spokesman for international media, IDSF member Lieutenant Colonel (Res.) Jonathan Conricus speaks of the challenges and dangers affecting the international legitimacy of Israel’s actions in its wars and what should be done in this respect. 

“Assign intelligence resources to collect facts on the ground” 

Right off the bat, Israel’s standing as far as the media and social media are concerned is problematic, to say the least. “Israel is playing on a playing field skewed against it. Purely quantitatively, there are many more ‘natural supporters’ for the Palestinian narrative – Arabs, people of Arab or Islamic parentage, etc. – than there are of ‘natural supporters’ for the Israeli narrative. Add to this that as a rule Israel is perceived to be the top dog and the Palestinians the underdog, where empathy quite naturally favors the underdog. Regardless of the fact that we are in the right, the tendency is to side with the underdog”. 

Add to this weak starting position, the powerful forces currently active in the anti-Israeli camp. “There is a complex, multi-pronged system of delegitimizing agitation against Israel and against our very presence in the Middle East, which is being stoked and financed among others by Iran, the Palestinian Authority and the terrorist organizations themselves, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. This battle is being played out in the media, in legal forums, such as the Hague, and also around parliaments and Congresses. Whereas formerly our enemies attempted to destroy us militarily – in the pre-state years, and then in 1948, 1967 and 1973 – in recent decades the struggle has been diverted into terrorism and guerilla, besides legal warfare and economic and cultural isolation through the BDS and the likes. This is the playing field in which I am playing”. 

From your experience, is the IDF managing to cope with these challenges?  

“In this war I see a noticeable improvement in the way Israel has conducted itself vis-à-vis international media, particularly in comparison to the 2021 Operation Guardian of the Walls, where our conduct was disastrous. This improvement is thanks primarily to the wall-to-wall awareness of the importance of the media battle – from the Chief of Staff and Head of Intelligence down to the IDF Spokesman personnel themselves”. 

How is the IDF’s attitude toward the media different? 

“The realization that there is a need to assign intelligence resources to collect and document facts on the ground, recordings, prisoner interrogations etc. IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari is attending to this personally. In the past, the IDF Spokesman would prioritize Israeli reporters for access to content – and let the rest fend for themselves. In the present battle, for the first time, I am seeing a consistent, methodic prioritizing of international media in order for it to provide coverage of the things that are important for us to show the world public. This comes not at the expense of the domestic audience, but if we uncovered a terror tunnel underneath Shifaa Hospital, the first media players brought in were BBC and Fox News”. 

Room for improvement: More women spokespersons and strategic handling of TikTok 

Shifaa Hospital was critical for the IDF in this respect, due to the need to prove to world media that Hamas was using hospitals, and specifically Shifaa Hospital, for its military purposes, in direct violation of international law. Therefore once the IDF subdued the location and cleared it, Conricus brought in the international media to the hospital to show them what had been found there, next to the MRI machines: weapons, explosives, computers, mobile phones, training materials etc.  

But the compelling proof only came later, when the underground complex was discovered. 

First of all we brought reporters there to witness for themselves, first-hand, Hamas’s undisputable military presence. Following that, when our forces uncovered the tunnel and the underground complex beneath the hospital, we were also able to back up with video imagery our allegation against Hamas, which contrary to its claims, was making extensive use of the hospital for its military purposes. Nobody is cutting us any slack, the standards applied to Israel are virtually unattainable, and it is a never-ending uphill battle, and we have got to steel ourselves and invest considerable resources in video and irrefutable evidence”. 

Where is there room for improvement for Israel’s media presence?  

“I think today we have plenty of eloquent spokespersons, but I would be glad to see more women speaking for the IDF. I also think we are facing a challenge from social media, mainly TikTok. I’ve seen figures and analyses, there is an insurmountable advantage for anti-Israeli propaganda, and apparently the algorithm prioritizes this content over other. One should take a strategic view of this, to understand how the algorithms work, and to move correctly in this arena to make it less prone to anti-Semitism, fake news and anti-Israel propaganda”. 

“We must expose statements from staff in foreign campuses” 

Beside external forces that impede the spokesman’s office’s work, Conricus highlights the damage inflicted to our outreach and legal effort by political players and other influential individuals – this has come to the fore in recent days especially against the backdrop of the deliberations in the court in the Hague. “Ministers and politicians are behaving crudely and irresponsibly, allowing themselves to make politically-motivated, self-adulating statements. They are receiving considerable negative attention around the world and are having a detrimental effect on our ability to explain ourselves. I think these statements should be dealt with more decisively”. 

And how can Israel deal with the anti-Israeli climate in USA and European campuses?  

“This problem has been around not from today, we have been seeing this process developing for years. I think Israel has not devoted the proper attention and resources to this issue and has allowed anti-Israeli organizations to make inroads unimpeded into the campuses of the most important universities in Europe and the United States. These are the institutions from which the people that are going to shape the policies of the next generation come, and what they are teaching there is, to say the least, problematic from Israel’s point of view. This is what has brought us to a situation where in a Congressional hearing for three presidents of the most important universities in the United States, we witnessed institutionalized anti-Semitism”.  

Is Israel able to deal with this at all? These are broad cultural trends.  

“Israel can’t prevent everything, there are deep mindset shifts here, but we have to be present in the conversation with the universities, to check the curricula, to expose lecturers’ utterances, including anti-Semitism and support for terrorism, and we must demand they be held accountable for their words. If a lecturer or student speaks in an anti-Semitic manner, he must be made to bear the consequences. For this we can also get help from civil society organizations and from donors, many of whom are Jewish, and we can make it clear to them exactly where their money is going. There’s an internal conversation about this in the United States, but Israel has to expose it and send speakers into these campuses”. 

The importance of “Spokesman-Supporting Intelligence” 

What is the main theme that guides you in your media appearances?  

“As an official spokesman of the IDF, the fundamental asset is reliability. Reports have got to be correct and consistent. Besides that, a military information source is expected to provide facts, figures and data – and all of these have to be cross-checked and precise. As in any other spokesman’s office, there is a continual tension between the speed of our response and accuracy. If we release information quickly and it turns out to be inaccurate, this would be counterproductive. Another principle is, as we say, “Show, don’t tell”. The most effective materials are videos, aerial photographs, recordings etc., tangible materials that one cannot argue about. If I show a video of someone firing from inside an UNRWA compound – it can’t be compared to a spokesman standing and alleging that Hamas fired from inside an UNRWA compound. This is what we call ‘spokesman-supporting intelligence’”. 

What else of importance should one know when advocating on Israel’s behalf abroad? 

“One has to understand the culture and the beliefs of the people to whom you are trying to transmit your messages. For example, if I am being interviewed during the American thanksgiving period without making a reference to it, I’d be missing a point. In an interview I gave on thanksgiving morning, I told the anchor, ‘Today American families are gathering in their homes to celebrate, while Israeli families are shattered, evacuated from their homes, and we have 200 hostages. This is our reality. The audience can relate to that”. 

Is it at all possible to influence world public opinion through rational explanations, or are these deeper, mainly emotional processes? 

“IT’s true that the most effective way of influencing people is through their emotions, the human stories behind the facts, which can arouse empathy even among people who are not necessarily familiar with the details. But the State’s duty is first and foremost to provide the facts about the casualties, the hostages, and the situation on the ground underpinning these stories. For example, the foreign ministry decided from the outset to post awful images on its official accounts – of Israeli casualties – this is something that wasn’t done very often up until now, to show how civilians were hurt. It’s also possible to use South Africa’s ridiculous allegations against Israel – all one big lie – to put forward our position. These are absurd allegations – easy to refute, and to explain what Israel is doing to protect the lives of residents in Gaza”. 

What can every Israeli individual do to help with outreach? 

“The most basic thing is to retweet the contents that present the Israeli position on social media. Have you watched an IDF Spokesman clip, an IDSF clip, or a clip from any other Israeli spokesman? Click Like, share, respond – this way you’ll be signaling to the algorithms that this is valuable content, and this will help spread the word”.

הפוסט Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus on the International Media Landscape: “The standards applied to Israel are virtually unachievable”.  הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

Reality proves: Wars don’t die 

With the fall of the World Trade Center towers in September 2001, Huntington’s theory was irrefutably proven to be right, and that religion-based and culture-based wars would continue to pitch civilizations against one another in new forms. Since then, we have been given more and more painful reminders that warfare anywhere around the world is nowhere near coming to its end, and might never end – and despite all this, many people persist in clinging to Fukuyama’s delusional theory. 

Within Israeli society, too, there are groups that have for years been driven by religious-messianic thinking, according to which world peace will come within reach only if we subject ourselves to security and political concessions.  

The unspeakable tragedy that engulfed us on October 7 has, admittedly, profoundly tarnished this concept; the majority among the populace have come to their senses and realized that the old doctrines are no longer realistic. At the same time there are still groups that are unwilling to let go of their naive concepts, and continue to believe that Israel must take the path of withdrawals and compromise instead of caring for its security. These groups, while not being very large, are part of the elites and wield considerable influence within Israeli society.  

Leaders: Give the people some credit 

The yearning to rest each man under his vine and under his fig tree is the most natural of human aspirations, however when it fails to resonate with reality, it can lead to dangerous decisions – as we saw in the early 1990s, with the signing of the Oslo Accords.  

One of the reasons that drove the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to sign those accords and to commit to far-reaching concessions detrimental to Israel’s security to this day, was the belief that Israeli society was tired of fighting and was prepared to pay any price for peace. 

Then, as now, this was a gross underestimation of just who the people of Israel really are. We see that the people are far more resilient and determined than its leaders. The Israeli public as a whole wants one thing – victory. Civilians and soldiers are also prepared to pay a heavy price to achieve this victory, provided the State of Israel makes no concessions, and this is something the leadership elites have got to understand. Thus for example, a recent IDSF Index survey found that 78% of those polled from within the Jewish population in Israel believe that defeating Hamas is the primary goal of the war, and that hostage releases should take place provided they do not interfere with this goal. 

Regrettably, despite the strength and resiliency the people are exhibiting, some within the leadership elites still persist in sending contradictory, counterproductive messages. We are hearing calls for a compromise that will end the war, since Israel does not have any chance of winning. Some of our leaders believe there is no military solution to the problem. They suggest dangerous political solutions in the form of establishing a Palestinian state, or the handover of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority that is intent on annihilating us. Such statements imply feebleness, weakness, and pessimism, which are dispiriting to the public. Never has the chasm between the battlefield achievements and resoluteness on the ground – and the leadership – been so wide, so far removed from its people.  

How can we preserve unity and lead Israel to victory? 

The people’s unity depends on us. I am greatly encouraged by the way Israeli public has conducted itself these past months, however to achieve victory, the leadership and the media have to toe the line and project stability and resiliency.  

Let’s start with the political leadership. The main, most pressing role for the government is to maintain unity, to lead the State of Israel toward victory. I take a very dim view of the calls for elections in the midst of the war. Political squabbles while sending our soldiers in harm’s way are irresponsible. Instead of taking the path of elections, all the Zionist parties should unite and join the war cabinet.    

The army and its commanders also play a role in shaping the victory mindset. The army’s role is to continue to push for victory. It is important to understand that the government is influenced by the messages coming from the army. What we, in Israeli society, must do to strengthen the army is to set aside the preoccupation with investigating the October 7 military lapse, and stand behind the soldiers and their commanders. Once the war is over, the time will come for inquests and committees of inquiry, and those who have to will be subject to accountability for what went wrong, but now is the wrong time to deal with this. So long as the war continues, the people have to continue pushing the IDF forward, and the IDF, in turn, will push the government toward a clear victory in the war.  

And this is where we come to the role the media must play. True, it is up to the media to ask questions and present a plurality of opinions, but these days, while we are fighting for our lives, the media have another role, which takes precedence over all their other roles. The media have got to mobilize in favor of the war effort, to highlight the soldiers’ heroism, and to strengthen the people’s spirit. This is not to say that we gloss over problems. It is not to say questions must not be asked. But the way this is done must be conducive to reinforcing, toward cautious optimism. The reality is that many media outlets choose to ask questions in a manner that projects cowardice. Some media organizations choose to highlight yesterday’s people, who have been left behind with the October 6 concepts, expressing agendas harmful to national morale, making defeatist statements playing into our enemies’ hands. So long as Israel is subjected to an existential threat, we – all of us – are all called upon to mobilize, at least in terms of the way we approach the conversation about the core issues. 

Before reaching the boiling point: the frog jumped out of the cauldron 

About two years ago we presented our IDSF strategic situation picture, in which we likened the State of Israel to the frog in the cauldron, swimming while the water is imperceptibly heating up and cooking it. The events of October 7 alerted the frog.   

The horrific tragedy we endured on October 7 exacted an incredibly high price from Israeli society. This being said, it is possible that with a long-term historical perspective, we will find that this jolt has saved us from an even worse process of total annihilation. 

We must not allow the frog to jump back in the cauldron. We have got to mend our ways and leverage this threat in order to emerge victorious against our enemies and guarantee the State of Israel’s security for generations to come. To get there, the road must pass through a sober look at reality, through realization that there are concepts that cannot be resurrected, and through admiration of our people, who are proving outstandingly resilient, which fills us all with great hope.

הפוסט The people are strong and the soldiers resolute – so why is the messaging from our leadership elites so feeble? הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

“Y.” arrives at 11:00 on the dot. His stride radiates confidence, but once he’s seated, he looks a little hesitant. Before all else, he wants us to agree on what we’ll discuss, and especially what we won’t. He isn’t accustomed to being interviewed, he explains. And in fact, simply by sitting here and speaking about his service, only two months after retiring from the Mossad, he is implying something about that organization as a whole. 

“Once there was no way a senior Mossad official would sit down and be interviewed, but today the organization is much less secretive than it was,” Y. says. “Sometimes it seems that giving up on secrecy in certain areas not only hasn’t hurt but may have helped, but it’s important to understand that any gap in the secrecy can only widen.”  

Secrecy isn’t the only aspect that’s different now. It turns out that the Mossad has been through more than a few big changes in recent years. Threats that didn’t exist before, technological advancements, globalization, economic changes, and new social attitudes — all those have influenced the behavior of Israel’s espionage authority, and they still do. “I came to the Mossad in the mid-1990s, and all that interested the personnel then was to serve the nation,” Y. recounts. “It was clear to them why they were there and what they were doing. But today that’s not always how it is.” 

“For a new immigrant, nothing could fulfill the Zionist dream more concretely”

immigrated to Israel alone from Europe as a young man, motivated purely by Zionism. He enlisted in the IDF, served a term in the regular army and became an officer, and joined the Mossad as soon as he was discharged. He stayed in that organization for 30 years and retired only a few months ago. During his career, he filled various operational and supervisory positions, and in his final years he was part of the senior command, deputy to the head of a branch. “I did wonderful things that a person can only dream about,” Y. says, and he can’t help smiling. “I think that for a new immigrant, nothing could fulfill the Zionist dream more concretely.”

During his long service, Y. both took and gave field assignments. “I liked both worlds,” he attests. “When I was a field commander, I had a lot more freedom of action because there are decisions that need to be made in real time. On the other hand, there are decisions that only a headquarters officer can make, and that was also an interesting experience.” 

“In order to win, hi-tech sometimes needs lo-tech” 

As someone who switched among disciplines and held a variety of jobs, Y. deeply understands the way the Mossad works, and he also can identify how the organization has changed over time. He says that one of the most obvious changes has to do with the acceleration of technological advancement during the past few decades. 

“The speed of change is enormous,” he says. “If in the past we could estimate developments ten years ahead, today we hardly know what’s going to happen an hour from now. That’s a very challenging position to be in for organizations that are required to work under secrecy.” According to Y. each technological development offers new capabilities but also creates new threats. “Israel is a technological superpower, and we very quickly exploit new capabilities and establish a lead over our enemies,” he continues. “The problem is that we belittle our opponents. We assume that they can’t catch up and achieve the same capabilities. As soon as we identify a new technological advance, we need to learn not only how to use it but also how to protect against it — and on that point, we’re always failing.” believes that such progress triggers another problem, which is overreliance on technological tools. “Without a doubt, we’re depending too much on technology,” he states. “Technology is an important tool, but as soon as it becomes our sole support, we’re in a bad position. We think that technology makes processes more efficient, but sometimes it actually interferes because its development effort consumes a lot of time and resources. Besides that, the technological solutions, however good they may be, don’t have the nimbleness and flexibility that humans have.”

Over recent years, in Y.’s opinion, we’ve become embroiled in a technological arms race, with each side trying to progress past the other. “Our tendency is to constantly push for advancements and sophistication, but the best solution is often to go less technological,” he explains. “If there’s one thing I learned from organizations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, it’s that in order to deal with hi-tech, sometimes you need to use lo-tech.” 

The State of Israel has lost its ability to pay a price 

The new Mossad retiree mentions another key change, besides the technological changes, in his organization — the ability to manage risks. “The guiding principle in all Mossad missions is preserving the safety of the team. But in many cases that principle leads to cancelling the mission, or downsizing the objective to the point where the mission isn’t worthwhile,” Y. explains. “There are missions that only the Mossad can undertake, and we’ve completely failed in them because we were afraid of a challenge.” 

According to Y., the Mossad’s reluctance to take risks is connected to a broader trend. “I think that over the years, not only the Mossad but the entire State of Israel has lost the ability to take a risk and pay a price,” he says. “In the fifties and sixties, the State of Israel carried out astonishing missions inside enemy territory. It sustained a lot of losses, but it had no choice. With time, and especially after the long occupation of the security zone in Lebanon, the state and the citizens couldn’t bear the grief any more. Then when the Oslo Accords were signed, the population developed a strong sense of hope and a desire for normalization. That hope diverted us from our ideology and our belief in the justice of our path. We began to ogle the countries of the West and to want to resemble them, but we’re in the Middle East — and in the Middle East, the rules of the game are different.” 

As the streets hummed with the anticipation of a new kind of life, the decision-makers in the government and army succumbed to the influence. “For years we saw commanders and politicians searching for the path that would lead to the greatest of achievements at the lowest price while assuming the minimum of risk,” Y. says. “That’s no way to work. If a country isn’t willing to take a risk and — in, heaven forbid, the worst case — to pay whatever the price is for defending itself, then that country can’t continue to exist.” 

The Iranian reactor and October 7: Can we put ourselves in the enemy’s shoes? 

As viewed by Y., one of the areas where Israel paid a heavy price for its reluctance to take risks was the issue of the Iranian nuclear reactor. Responsibility for dealing with the reactor rested mostly with the Mossad, and the Mossad did go to great lengths to dispel the danger. However, according to the retired senior official, it could have done more. “The results that we obtained in the last twenty years, when you consider them, aren’t satisfactory,” he says. “We delayed the nuclear program but we didn’t halt it; and as years pass, it becomes harder and harder to close the gap.” adds that even Israel’s successes in connection with the Iranian reactor are, in retrospect, accompanied by problems. “We didn’t take the price of our successful operations into account, and we didn’t consider the implications on the Iranian side. Our enemy has learned very well from our successes, and I don’t think that we were clever enough to imagine ourselves in the enemy’s shoes and accurately understand how Iran analyzes the situation.”

The problem of the Iranian reactor is an important and worrisome one, but currently Israel is focused on the war of “Iron Swords.” The Israeli public, under the shadow of that war, is still demanding to know how the blunder of October 7 came about. Central targets of the trenchant questions are the government, the army, and the Israel Security Agency. The Mossad, in contrast, has been left largely outside that discourse. “The public has scarcely required any accounting from the Mossad, and the Mossad finds that convenient,” says Y. “I think that at the moment the organization is pretty successful at equivocating.” 

Although the Mossad concentrates on threats that are far off geographically, it isn’t automatically excluded from responsibility for the fiasco. “Certainly someone needs to investigate whether there was an intelligence failure at the Mossad as well,” Y. emphasizes. “Did any player from the outer circle, such as Iran or Qatar, influence the events? If the Mossad could have uncovered activity far away that led to the disaster of October 7, then the Mossad failed.” cautions that his Mossad service hasn’t necessarily made his opinions more correct than an outsider’s, but he will try nonetheless to answer the gnawing question: Why doesn’t Israel eliminate the leaders of Hamas?

“I always claimed that targeted killings are the State of Israel’s national sport,” he says. “It suits us to channel our resources there because targeted killings make a good impression and bring press coverage. But for the most part they don’t really prove themselves. The results don’t meaningfully improve national security. Other solutions would be more effective, but we don’t favor them because they’re complicated and lengthy and, in the end, they don’t create the same big impression. There’s no denying we’ve fallen in love with the wrong practices.” emphasizes that in most cases targeted killings are the easy solution and that, in his opinion, Israel certainly could have eliminated the Hamas leaders as well: “The State of Israel can do anything. The Hamas leaders are alive only because the State of Israel, for various reasons, lets them live,” he avers. “But it has to be understood that in terms of politics and security, the story with Hamas is very complicated, particularly because the conflict is so close to home. Any assassination of a top figure, and certainly of Sinwar, will bring a response, and so it’s a heavy decision to take. What’s more, there’s no telling who will replace those top figures and what implications will come out of appointing them. Personally, I don’t think that eliminating one leader or another will make a significant difference. Hamas won’t collapse just because its leaders are eliminated. Its infrastructures need to be eliminated, and that’s already a much more complicated job.”

The government’s organizations have forgotten their purpose

served at the Mossad until only a few months ago, so he knows its current incarnation well. Despite his great love and appreciation for the organization where he learned and grew professionally, he finds much to criticize.

“When I came to the Mossad, there was much more humility. Nothing was a matter of ego. We came to serve the country and not to trumpet what we were doing,” he says. “Today secrecy doesn’t come so naturally.” explains that the wall of secrecy is cracked not only by the personnel but also by the organization itself. “The Mossad started to develop a brand for itself, deliberately and actively,” he says. “That branding is important, because ultimately the Mossad is competing with other security services to have staff positions authorized, filled, and equipped. The problem is that in the attempt to emphasize its importance, the Mossad is tempted to look for quick accomplishments. That’s a game that generates corruption, and it’s turned the Mossad from a patriotic organization into a bureaucracy that’s less concerned with serving the country than in nourishing itself.” is not sparing in his criticism of everything connected with the use of resources. “No government organization is an efficient organization. They all waste money and maintain superfluous jobs. Every organization is just trying to justify the salaries it was allocated and looking for ways to use up its entire budget, even if it means spending money inefficiently.”

He goes on to say that inefficiency is another indication that patriotism has been replaced by bureaucracy. “When you’re part of a government organization, you’re responsible to the citizens of the State of Israel, because you’re using the citizens’ money and taking resources that could have been used elsewhere,” he says. “I think that the government organizations are no longer conscious of that. Their work plans are tailored to their own needs and not necessarily to what has to be done. They’ve forgotten their purpose and forgotten who it is they’re serving.” 

The solution to the problem, in Y.’s opinion, must include incentives for efficiency, and external inspection as well. “As of today, the Mossad has no incentives encouraging efficiency and economy. What it has is the opposite,” he says. “And in addition, it has no inspection from outside. With the excuse of secrecy, the Mossad answers primarily to itself — and regarding only those things that it doesn’t mind answering for. There’s no alternative to bringing in external inspectors who have the appropriate clearance and creating a balance between secrecy and transparency.” 

“I was rewarded with a great life” 

Although Y. was careful to arrive for the interview on time, he never checked how long it was taking. In his new life, he isn’t hurrying anywhere. That’s a situation very different from everything he experienced over the three decades before. “In organizations like the Mossad, the tendency is to work 24/7,” he says. “The job doesn’t really end when you leave the office, because there are tasks that you can’t set aside. As a commander, you carry a heavy responsibility; and a mistake can be very costly. At my busiest, I was required to make one or two hundred significant decisions a day. Besides that, the nature of our work means we travel abroad a lot. There were years when I was out of the country 150 days.” admits that the pressure and the travel interfered more than once with his personal life. “It’s no coincidence that I’m divorced,” he said, chuckling casually but quickly serious again. “My children remind me all the time how many important events in their lives I missed, and that’s painful. Today the Mossad makes quite an effort to narrow the gulf between work and family, but I don’t know whether that’s really possible. At the end of the day, whoever signs up at the organization has to know that the personal price will be heavy.”

In retrospect, Y. would have been glad to spend more time with his children. But he refuses to live in the past. “I don’t believe in regrets. There’s nothing useful about them,” he says. “The bottom line is I’d choose the same career again, without hesitating. It was a great privilege to serve at the Mossad. I did amazing things that only a few people have a chance to do, and I was rewarded with a great life in the Land of Israel.  

Since leaving the Mossad, Y. has been concentrating on master’s degree studies; and he doesn’t rule out continuing for a doctorate. Besides being a student, he is a recently enrolled member of the IDSF. “I identify with the ideas the movement is based on, and I agree with most of its principles,” he says. “I found it important to join, because I believe there aren’t enough organizations that are able to counterbalance the opinions that appear in the mainstream media and the time has come to give a boost to the messages that come from other viewpoints too.” 

הפוסט “Whoever signs up has to know that the personal price will be heavy” Interview with a former senior official of the Mossad הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

Between IDSF member Brig. Gen. (Res.) Ari Singer and the Israeli army, the bond was a matter of several decades and it relaxed only two years ago or so. In his last position, he served as commander of the reserves, so he has a deep understanding of the military system in general and of the reserves in specific. 

The commander of the reserves is responsible for the reservists in all respects, both within the army and vis-à-vis the government. Where the government is concerned, his position is subordinate to the Ministry of Defense. Where the army is concerned, until recently it was subordinate to the Deputy Chief of Staff but currently it is subordinate to the Adjutant General. Singer believes that the transfer of authority was a mistake. “The reserves fill a central role in the army,” he says. “I hope that as we put the lessons of the war into practice, we’ll understand that the commander of the reserves should be returned into the forum of the Chief of Staff.” 

That issue of the commander’s affiliation is not the only thing that’s changed over time. “In recent years, doubts had been brewing as to whether the reserves were necessary. A belief was setting in that we could win our military confrontations with fewer reserve soldiers,” Singer says. “Because of that thinking, the reserves lost some of their standing, their assignments were reduced, and the number of reservists was cut. Now we’ve discovered that the wars have not ended, and everyone realizes that in wartime you need to do even more than beef up the reserve units. The units of the enlisted army itself can’t function without reservists.”  

The unbearable easiness of exemption 

According to the former commander of reserves, not only must the reserve forces not be reduced, but the IDF’s order of battle must be augmented, both in the enlisted army and in the reserves. 

Singer suggests a number of ways to make that possible. First, he believes that compulsory service must be lengthened back to three full years. Second, he says that further population sectors should be drafted that are currently not among the ranks. He mentions the haredim, among others, as well as those exempted for various reasons. “Some exemptions are defensible,” Singer says, “but these days anyone who wants one enough can get an exemption from the army. It’s unacceptably easy.” 

Another suggestion from Singer is to make a reservist of every discharged soldier. “Today a sizeable fraction of noncombatant soldiers, and women soldiers, are exempted right away from reserve duty. That has to change,” he states. “Even though some soldiers haven’t served in an especially meaningful position as draftees, that doesn’t mean they can’t be placed in an important position as reservists. Many soldiers who served at desk jobs find themselves civilian jobs in engineering and hi-tech, and they can contribute their knowhow to the army. And of course, women soldiers can also continue contributing to the army as reservists.” 

When Singer mentions the order of battle, he means not only the enlisted soldiers and reservists, but also the volunteers. He says that the volunteers deserve appreciation but need better organization and firmer obligation. “Right now, you can stop volunteering at any moment; and that’s a problem,” he explains. “It’s as if you started to help an old woman across the street and then decided against it halfway across and left her there alone. It’s impossible to behave like that. If you volunteer, you have to accept a commitment and report for training like the rest of the reservists.” 

Changes in reserve duty? Don’t rush to legislate. 

Singer is not the only one in favor of augmenting the order of battle. Many ideas are on the table for increasing the number of active IDF personnel. Suggestions include, among others, raising the age of discharge from the reserves and adding days of active duty for all the reservists. 

According to Singer, the system of reserve duty needs to be re-evaluated but decisions must not be hasty. “We’re in a state of complete uncertainty, where we don’t know how the conflict is going to evolve,” he explains. “I say to all the decision-makers: ‘Don’t rush to legislate.’ Any change in the law has ramifications many years onward and it’s wrong to make decisions when we’re experiencing an emergency and don’t know how it will end. We need to find temporary fixes for the coming year, and we have the legal tools for doing that. Just now it was decided to add one year to the exemption age, and that was a temporary order. It was a necessary decision. Later, we’ll consider whether we need a lasting raise in the exemption age and for how long we need it.” 

Singer stresses that even if it’s decided that the Reserve Duty Law should be changed, it’s important to ensure that it remains fair to the reservists. “The elements of the Reserve Duty Law must be balanced,” he states. “If we take it on ourselves to demand more from the reservists, we have to take it on ourselves to show them appreciation and compensate them fairly.” 

Singer adds that compensation should go not only to the reservists themselves but also to their support systems. “The families and the employers of the reservists are also ‘called to duty’ whether they like it or not,” says the former commander. “We have to be sensitive to the families’ needs, and considerate as possible to the reservists, in order to reduce the damage to their personal lives. Besides that, we need to be fair to the employers. We can’t reach a point where employers are absorbing the cost for the call-up of all their workers, because then they won’t want to employ anyone who’s eligible for reserve duty.” 

Refusal to serve? Reality shows otherwise. 

Since the war of “Iron Swords” started, the reservists have stood at the center of the public discourse and their contribution has been heartily appreciated. It’s almost difficult to recall that only some months ago the reservists were in the headlines for entirely different reasons. During the protests against judicial reform, many reservists announced that they were refusing to report for duty. That attitude of unwillingness aroused much criticism, and great concern gripped the country and its citizens. There was actual fear that the refusals would diminish the presence and the preparedness of the reservists and make Israel’s self-defense more difficult. According to Singer, the fear was disproportionate even before the war, and it proved illusory after war broke out.  

“Despite a lot of noise in the media, there were more threats of refusal than actual cases even during the period of protests,” he says. “On October 7, as soon as war was declared, the reservists came to pick up their equipment before they even received the call. In fact, tens of thousands of reservists who were already exempt on account of age returned to serve at their own initiative. I believe that the IDF will need to investigate the way it handled the threats of refusal and to take the lessons into account going forward; but in the current war, the influence was zero.” 

De-Halfonization: No more farcical image 

Over the years, along with the internal changes within the ranks of the reservists, a change occurred in the attitude of Israeli society toward the reservists and their professionalism. “I think that respect for the reservists has increased in recent years,” he says. “Once, when reservists were mentioned, people thought of the farcical Halfon Hill movie where the reservists were slackers who cared only about the food and didn’t even know why they were called up to serve. But the system of reserves and the society of Israel have gone through what I call de-Halfonization, and today the reservists are professional, effective, and dedicated. And that’s recognized, even though there’s plenty of room for improvement.” 

Singer asks to make some further points about the connection between society and army. He explains that IDF strategy considers the reservists to be delegates in both directions, representing the army to society and representing society to the army. In his view, that’s the best way to phrase the idea. “When I’m asked whether the reservists belong more to the army or more to the society, I answer that they’re the hyphen that links those two. To the army, the reservists contribute the maturity and experience that they accumulated in civilian life. Similarly, they bring back to society what they acquired in the IDF — principled performance, responsibility, and tolerance for sectors who differ from themselves. The reservists, you know, are a mosaic from all over Israeli society, so reserve duty takes you out of whatever bubble you live in and you can develop a real friendship with someone completely different from you, whose ideas are the opposite of yours.” 

Much more than a booklet: The importance of IDF values 

Not seldom, the reservists’ important contribution to the current war effort comes at a heavy cost. As of today, more than half the war’s IDF fatalities have been reservists. In Singer’s opinion, that painful statistic does not deter the reservists. On the contrary, he explains, “The reservists understand that their task involves values. In their own eyes, each of them is rescuing the country.” 

According to Singer, the fighting spirit is not merely born of necessity but built first and foremost on principles. “The IDF spirit is a consistent set of principles obligating everyone who serves,” he says. “It’s a tool of the trade in every way, not just some booklet pushed into the pocket of a recruit.” 

Singer believes that just as the principles of the IDF spirit are inculcated, the importance of defending the country should be absorbed by the Israeli public from an early age. “We’re not an army of mercenaries, so it’s important for us to understand why we’re drafted and why we serve,” he says. “The reservists are motivated by a sense of mission, but a mission has got to be a mission for something or somebody. Who sent them on their mission? I’ve asked a lot of people, and mostly they say it’s the commanders or the government. But when I ask the reservists themselves, they almost all say it’s the country. When I’m on reserve duty, I also see myself as on a mission for the State of Israel and for the People of Israel over the generations — both past and future.” 

הפוסט The reserves: The hyphen connecting the military with society הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

Of all the blood-soaked months of the second Intifada, March 2002 was the deadliest of them all. In fact, this was the deadliest month in the entire history of Palestinian terrorism until October 2023, with the lives of 105 civilians and 26 soldiers lost. Barely a day went by that month with out a terrorist attack, culminating in the attack on the Park Hotel in Netanya on the Passover Eve, which claimed the lives of 30 victims and injured 160 more.

Following this brutal attack, in which many family members and elderly people were murdered, some of whom were Holocaust survivors, the Government decided, in a meeting the day after the holiday, to embark on a comprehensive operation to eradicate terrorism in Judea and Samaria. This began immediately on the morning following that meeting, on March 29, 2002.

 The Goal: “Hit anyone that takes up arms”

The then-Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, defined the operation’s goals:

“To enter the towns and villages that have become terrorist safe havens; to capture and arrest terrorists and in particular those who send them and those financing them and providing them  with cover; to capture and seize weapons and munitions aimed at attacking Israel; to expose and destroy terrorist infrastructures, bomb-making labs, weapon-making facilities and hide-outs. The orders are clear: to hit anyone taking up arms and to neutralize whoever attempts to resist the forces in their tasks and put them in harm’s way, and to avoid harm to the civilian population.”

The operation was given its name by Colonel Gal Hirsch, who was then the Operations Officer in the Central Command. It was taken from a poem by Poet Haim Heffer, “Between Boundaries”: “To the Poor and the Aged / we are a Defensive Shield”. Some 25 thousand soldiers were called up under “Order 8”, and the response rate exceeded 100% with soldiers competing for rides to the rallying centers.

How Marwan Barghouthi was Captured

Where did the IDF wage battle? In all the Judea and Samaria cities with the exception of Jericho and Hebron.

In Ramallah the IDF laid siege to the Mukataa complex – the government complex and official residence of the Head of the Palestinian Authority – which resulted in Yasser Arafat barricading himself within the compound along with a few wanted men. When the forces combed the building, they found a large arms cache and documents indicating Arafat himself had approved terrorist attacks. Among the documents was also a document which became known as the Shobaki Document – an invoice written out by the Authority’s financial official, Fouad Shobaki and signed by Arafat himself, containing direct payments made for launching terrorist attacks and also financial support for shahid families. The document was one of many found, which were indicative of the deep involvement of the Palestinian Authority in terrorism.

Following the IDF siege, the Americans intervened and an arrangement was reached according to which those wanted for the murder of Minister Rehavam Zeevi would be turned in and transferred to a prison in Jericho. Besides that the entire fighting apparatus of the terrorist organizations in Ramallah collapsed and, toward the end of the operation Marwan Barghouthi was also captured. Barghouthi had been leader of the Tanzim – the military wing of the Fatah organization – an organization that had orchestrated many terrorist attacks within Israeli territory. Barghouthi is still imprisoned in Israel after having been sentenced to five life sentences.

“Walking through walls”

In Nablus, the IDF purposely began operations belatedly, on April 5, so as to attract to it terrorists who thought the IDF was avoiding operations in the city. To deal woth the threat of snipers and ambushes in the crowded narrow alleys in the Nablus kasbah, the IDF developed a new strategy of “walking through walls”. This involved breaking through house walls using cold means (sledgehammers, for example) and hot means (explosives), thereby advancing through the homes rather than through the streets and alleys. The bulk of the fighting in Nablus was conducted this way. The operation ended with a decisive IDF victory with dozens of dead terrorists, dozens more in custody and large quantities of weapons and munitions captured.

In Jenin, on the other hand, the bitterest of battles took place. The terrorist organizations had booby-trapped the camp with IEDs and had prepared ambushes in the town’s narrow alleys. The IDF suffered many casualties and progress was slow. Following a deadly ambush on April 9, which cost the lives of 13 reserve soldiers from the Nahshon battalion, a decision was made that when a home was suspected of harboring terrorists, warning would be given to enable the terrorists to turn themselves in. Following that the house would be demolished using armored D9 bulldozers. This tactic smoked out dozens of terrorists, including some senior ones, who turned themselves in to the IDF forces.

In Bethlehem, after the city was captured and many wanted men were arrested, a group of 38 wanted men barricaded themselves inside the Church of the Nativity which, according to Christian tradition is located above the manger in which Jesus was born. The armed men took with them as hostages dozens of monks and some 200 civilians, including children. The world issued condemnations and warnings to Israel not to harm the site, which is one of Christianity’s holiest. Following a stand-off that lasted more than a month agreement was reached in which the 13 senior wanted men would be exiled, the 26 others would be banished to Gaza and the hostages would be released.

The achievement: restoring the IDF’s freedom of operation

The operation lasted six weeks until May 10, 2002. It resulted in the destruction of the operational infrastructure of the Tanzim and the Hamas in Judea and Samaria. Additionally, the Palestinian Authority was disarmed and the symbols of its authority, including the Mukataa, were demolished. The main accomplishment, nevertheless, was the restoration of the IDF’s freedom to operate throughout the entire area of Judea and Samaria and improvement of the intelligence grip on the ground.

After the operation, the members of the Tanzim told their Shabak interrogators that they had no idea of the true force of the IDF until they confronted its soldiers face-to-face. Until then aerial bombing was proof to them that the Israelis were too scared to fight them (from: Ofer Shelach, Maariv, December 26, 2008).

The operation cost the lives of 28 soldiers and members of the security forces in Judea and Samaria. Three more were killed in the Gaza Strip. 185 were injured, seven severely. Some 200 Palestinians were killed, 56 wanted men were captured, ten potential suicide bombers and thousands more suspects were arrested. 50 bomb-making labs were destroyed and large quantities of ammunition were seized.

הפוסט 22 Years Ago Today: Operation Defensive Shields Begins הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

The United States’ choice not to veto a UN Security Council resolution advocating for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza conflict, even without the release of Israeli hostages by Hamas, marks a notable deterioration in relations between Washington and Jerusalem. This move also signals a notable shift in the Biden administration’s stance since the onset of the Gaza war.

Initially, President Joe Biden staunchly supported Israel’s right to self-defense and its efforts to dismantle Hamas both militarily and politically. However, as the war progressed, the administration’s approach evolved. The deliberate abstention in the UN Security Council, likely orchestrated by the Biden administration, serves as a warning to Israel. It suggests that if Israel persists in its demands regarding hostage negotiations and continues its preparations for a military operation in Rafah, the US is prepared to take farther actions, even if it means deviating from established political norms in their bilateral relationship. The recent action taken by the US in the UN Security Council could potentially foreshadow more drastic measures, such as reducing or halting the shipment of weapons and ammunition to Israel.

For decades, the US’s influence within the UN Security Council has served as a crucial leverage point, exerting pressure on Israel while also providing a diplomatic shield for the state. However, these dynamics are shifting, as evidenced by this recent move, which challenges the traditional framework of unwavering US support for Israel.

Despite occasional tensions and complexities in their relationship, particularly concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the United States has historically maintained certain boundaries and refrained from altering its stance towards Israel. This remained the case, with the exception of a shift at the end of the Obama administration in December 2016.

This move by the Biden administration severely undermines a Western democratic state’s struggle against extreme Islamic terrorism. Rather than aiding in the outcome of the war, the US decision risks prolonging it.

The primary beneficiaries of this shift in American policy are Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza. They are emboldened by Washington’s support, which sustains their resolve to continue fighting Israel and holding captives. Hamas is unlikely to agree to a compromise in hostage negotiations or rein in its terrorists when Israel’s most significant ally and the world’s largest power appears to be abandoning its support for it and adopting the narrative of a murderous Nazi-style terrorist organization.

The US decision is particularly egregious considering the numerous concessions Israel has made at the Biden administration’s request. These include facilitating humanitarian aid and even reducing the intensity of the military operations, all of which undermine Israel’s ability to effectively wage war and endanger the lives of IDF soldiers.

Nevertheless, considering the power dynamics between the two nations and Israel’s reliance on American assistance and support for weapons procurement, defense aid (as evidenced by the recent $3.3 billion security aid package approved by the American Congress), and ongoing diplomatic and political backing (even after the Biden administration’s recent decision), Israel must exercise restraint and avoid acting hastily based on fleeting emotions.

A measured response could involve reevaluating the extent of American involvement in the Israeli decision-making processes. Since the onset of the Gaza conflict, Israel took a perplexing, historical, and unprecedented measure by involving official American officials in its war decision-making. For example, American Secretary of State Anthony Blinken participated at least twice in the discussions of the Israeli War Cabinet. Israel should now convey to the American administration that while coordination and synchronization between the two nations regarding the conflict will proceed as usual, Israel will no longer permit the direct involvement of American officials in its sovereign decision-making process.

Moreover, there is a need for a unified stance within Israel’s political system. Both coalition and opposition parties should convey a clear and unified national message to Washington. This message should express Israel’s rejection of the US abstention at the UN Security Council, while also expressing gratitude for the political and security assistance received from the US.

Simultaneously, Israel should initiate a comprehensive information and influence campaign within the United States and globally to accurately portray the events of October 7, 2023. While such efforts were made immediately following the Hamas attack, they have since waned. Presently, the media, public figures, influencers, and decision-makers are predominantly exposed to a one-sided narrative emanating from Gaza, based on Hamas propaganda.

Moreover, Israel should capitalize on the current situation to launch a military operation in Rafah aimed at dismantling Hamas’ four battalions in the region, or alternatively, initiate a military campaign targeting remaining Hamas forces in central Gaza Strip. It is imperative for the United States to recognize that this equation has two sides, despite overwhelming power and generous assistance by one party to another.

Israel is not a puppet state dictated by foreign interests, as erroneously suggested by U.S Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who advocated for the ousting of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The US government, in its entirety, must acknowledge the consequences of throwing Israel under the bus on its own security, especially after Israel’s numerous concessions and coordination efforts with Washington.

This article was originally published in ynet news.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the movement.

הפוסט The Biden Administration is Throwing Israel under the Bus הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

With G–d’s help

Adar 4, 5784

February 13, 2024

In a well-timed move, the United States, Britain and France, separately, imposed economic sanctions on four Israeli citizens living behind the Green Line. The sanctions were imposed as part of the “Settler violence” campaign. This campaign might be ramped up a notch sometime soon, once the sixty days the Israeli government was given to respond to the allegations of soldier brutality in Judea and Samaria will expire. Before they, too, our IDF soldiers that were fulfilling their duties, become subject to sanctions.

Newsmen Kalman Liebeskind in Maariv, and Ariel Kahane in Israel Today exposed the lie underpinning the campaign and refuted the claims on which it stood, to the extent that the IDF itself retracted some of the things they had said. It’s not that there is never any anti-Arab violence perpetrated by Jewish settlers. It’s just that the facts fall far short of what is being reported. The incidents are investigated with prejudice and get classified erroneously, falsely, and that “worrying escalation” we are hearing about is a total fallacy.

We must, therefore, ask ourselves: if the campaign is based on distortions and lies, how is it that not only does it get taken off the air, and instead the opposite happens – it continues to be parroted by media reports and “expressions of concern” on the part of American and European officials?

The roots of the “settler violence campaign” are described succinctly in the book written by former Israeli ambassador to the United States, Dr. Michael Oren. The book, entitled Ally: My Journey Across The American-Israeli Divide, focuses on Oren’s tenure as ambassador under Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama.

Oren describes how the murder of the Fogel family was received with shock and fear among Americans. The White House sharply condemned the murder. But, as in the case of the October 7 events, this shock wore off soon enough. The community at Itamar, being right-wing religious, writes Oren, had been identified with the “settler violence campaign”. The settlements, which are regarded as “illegitimate” by the Obama administration, and which are held to be illegal by the United Nations, were perceived by broad swathes of international organizations to be fair game for attack.

Oren tells how he expressed his concerns to his advisors in the embassy. Concerns that the entire settlement population had undergone a “Fogelization”, and had been stigmatized as “occupiers that deserve what they get”. Oren’s fear was that Israel’s entire population might gradually undergo “Fogelization”, and would come to be perceived as “deserving the rockets being fired at it”.

This fear might have sounded far-fetched back in 2011, but merely 13 years later every Israeli citizen found out that this fear was far from being unfounded.

Obama’s belated response for the massacre, 3 whole days after October 7, already included a reference for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as he wrote: “we must keep striving for a just and lasting peace for Israelis and Plestiinians alike”.  Amonth later he sums up the concept quite lucidly on a podcast: “What Hamas did was horrific, and there’s no justification for it,” said the former boss of most of President Biden’s administration, and the man that brought the “Arab spring” to the Middle East, and – he stressed – “what is also true is that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable.. There are those who hear, in this statement, the precursors of the Hamas-progressive propaganda strategy to the tune that “Gaza is an open-air prison”, and some would draw a straight line between this concept and the concept that “Palestinian resistance is left with no other option”.

It also seems that, to the former president’s chagrin, Israel and the Jewish People are too preoccupied with perpetuating the lessons from the Holocaust and with viewing the videos of the October 7 horrors, therefore “we will not stop those (Palestinian – RKA) kids from dying”. What was it Mohammed Darawsha told Channel 14’s newsman Yishai Friedman? “The religious Zionism… is dripping an ideological drug throughout the country”. Except that now it’s not just the religious Zionists. Just as Oren foresaw, it’s anyone seeking to remember the October 7 events and draw actionable conclusions from them.

If anyone concludes from what I’m saying that this is merely a cognitive war, they’re wrong. This is deliberate propaganda with a very tangible goal, which is to legitimize a Palestinian state throughout the territories of Judea,Samaria and Gaza, which will involve evacuation of Jews from their homes. Once again.

Quite clearly in order to realize such a hallucinatory scenario, extensive cognitive priming is required, and this is taking place by means of two strategies.

One strategy is the strategy of “incrimination”. A tried and true strategy. It’s been working for years already. There are two target audiences for this strategy: The first one is – the Israelis Incrimination of the settler population through a “settler violence campaign” is intended to make the Israeli public forget that these settlers are the first line of defense for Kfar Sava, the Sharon Plain and the entire center of the country. The expected cognitive illusion is agreement to “sacrifice” the “problem settlers”, while deluding ourselves that with this all our problems will be solved. The second: the international community, which is expected to support ever-increasing measures against Israel and its citizens.

The second strategy is the strategy of “silencing”, and for this we are seeing the sanctions being applied. As former ambassador David Friedman wrote yesterday, the terms of the American sanctions apply to any Israeli who is opposed to a Palestinian state.

I repeat, e v e r y Israeli.  At the moment this accounts for 80% of Israel’s population, says Friedman. In other words, by writing this column I might be falling into the sanctions trap, as might every dinner table conversation and every newsroom utterance.

This affects not only the matter of free speech, it also means individual control over the actions of each and every Israeli, obviating Israel sovereignty and it’s judicial system. Did you assemble outside Arab student dormitories in Netanya, in a manner they construed to be threatening? Did you demonstrate against your neighbors in Nof HaGalil and did they contemplate moving away? Have you hung an Israel flag from your balcony in Tel Aviv’s Bavli neighborhood and hurt someone’s feelings? There’s no way to be sure you haven’t crossed the line, or as Friedman put it, “Anyone who the State Department feels is hostile to the creation of a Palestinian terror state, could wake up morning and find his funds frozen at his local bank!”.

What is most outrageous is that there are those inside Israel who, by design or by ignorance, go along with this campaign. Never mind if these are ignorant private individuals writing things like “let the Americans do our work for us”, not realizing that the joke is entirely on them. But when the Commander of the Central Command conducts a “kidnapping” maneuver where the kidnappers are settlers, or, as Boaz Golan reported on Channel 14 and on 0404, if the IDF Spokesman anonymously briefs against “settler violence”, thereby stimulating the media reports disproportionally – well in such a case this amounts to moral bankruptcy, it’s part of a misguided, distorted concept. It leads us all down the path to “Fogelization”, whether this be in Judea and Samaria, in the Gaza Envelope, in the Galilee and Golan or in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

Our decision-makers have got to come to their senses immediately. They must understand that the “settler violence campaign”, which has been waged for over a decade against Israel, sometimes with insider help – has got to be stopped immediately. We have to direct all our outreach resources in to undermining the “inner logic” of this campaign. Politicians, military men and Israeli media should under no circumstances entertain it. If we fail to make a steadfast stand, we are going to find that (once again) our blood is fair game, and that (once again) this has come to pass with active support from our very selves.

One final anecdote – in his book, Michael Oren tells how he was shocked when President Obama refused to make a comparison between Hamas and al Qaeda. I wonder if he accepts the parallel between Hamas and the Nazis.

The article was originally published on ynetnews

הפוסט Coming Soon: Sanctions against Settlers from Bavli, Lod and Nof HaGalil הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

With G–d’s help

25 Adar I, 5784

March 5 2024

On February 26, 1993, a truck bomb exploded in the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center, bringing death to 6 civilians and injuring 1,042 more people. The USA arrested everyone involved in the attack, but paid no attention to the infrastructure that amounts to a hothouse for terrorism inside US borders. American attitudes persisted unchallenged by the fact that the planner of the attack successfully crossed the border as a phony Iraqi refugee, for example. Or by the fact that he was sheltered at a mosque in a New Jersey city by an Egyptian preacher who had settled there. Or by the fact that the terror infrastructure burgeoned under the wing of institutionalized values held holy by Americans — aid for refugees, and freedom of worship.

Three years later, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was already articulating the plan to collapse the World Trade Center, and he presented it to Bin Laden. After another five years, in 2001, the free world was taken aback when it saw, broadcast in real time, the crumbling of the world’s most famous skyscrapers, which had become a hallmark of Western dominion and might.

As a result, the USA — together with other countries — launched a war in Afghanistan and in other hotbeds of terror in the world. The war lasted 20 years, from 2001 to 2021. The USA deposed the Taliban regime and established a new pro-American order in its place. Then as soon as the American troops exited the borders of Afghanistan, the Taliban regime returned.

Without entering into a historical survey of all the terrorist attacks perpetrated by radical Islam on European soil, it may still certainly be seen how Islamic terror spread through the capitals of Europe.

In May 2013, the UK suffered a brutal attack as two Islamists beheaded a British soldier on a city street in broad daylight. Surprisingly, the terrorists did not hurry to flee the scene but stayed to “inform” the stunned passersby that the attack was their fault. “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you,” they said as their bloodstained hands still held the machetes and knives. “The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers. This British soldier is one – he is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” the terrorists said, brandishing the usual victimization narrative of the Muslim attackers.

A year and a half later, in January 2015, it was France’s turn for a September 11 of its own, as the local media called it. Two masked men burst into the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris at midday and murdered twelve people — ten journalists and two police officers — after the magazine dared to publish caricatures of Muhammad. That attack engendered a chain of terrorist incidents in and near Paris, including a shooting in which a policewoman was murdered and the Hypercacher supermarket attack in which four hostages died. A total of eighteen people were murdered in that wave of terrorism — fifteen civilians and three police officers.

Despite the horror of the Charlie Hebdo attack, those who termed it France’s September 11 had no idea what the future held for Paris later that same year. In November, Paris endured its deadliest assault since World War II. At a stadium, in the middle of a rock concert, an attack killed 127 people and wounded dozens.

In 2016, Germany too suffered an attack: A terrorist rammed a truck into a crowd and twelve people died, including tourists and locals alike.

Clear threads of commonality stretch between those attacks and others. Firstly, inspiration and imitation link the attacks into chains. Secondly, radical Islam employs cruelty as a work method in order to create deterrence and a psychology of terror, thus deadening the possibility of response from the society being attacked. Third, there is propaganda. Radical Islamic terror comes with a consistent excuse based on the attitude of the persecuted victims whose “sensitivity” to being wronged drives them to commit monstrous crimes against humanity. And fourth, in order to destroy the West, radical Islam leverages the values that the West holds sacred.

The sacred values of the West are used in two ways to destroy it. The first way is to strike at the symbols of the West. The World Trade Center was not chosen at random; it was not only a hub of global commerce but also a symbol of Western ascendency. The French magazine Charlie Hebdo was a symbol of the basic right to free expression. A rock concert in a French stadium symbolizes Western popular culture. The intent, in attacking all those, was to strike at the fundamental values of the West.

The second way that the West is undermined by use of the values it holds sacred is much wilier. Incitement at the mosques obviously maneuvers the West into a dilemma regarding freedom of expression. A terrorist who arrives with refugee papers arouses empathy and reverberates at the humane core of Western values. By constantly accusing the West of aggression, radical Islam exploits the West’s ambivalence regarding the use of force, knowing that the West wishes to bring about peace and shun war. And the masterpiece is the use of the formula whereby the weak are always in the right. The Muslims are always presented as weak in the face of the imperialistic West and therefore more righteous.

In retrospect, one can only wonder what would have happened if after the truck bomb of 1993 the Americans had been compelled to destroy their own country’s terrorist infrastructures, by means including stricter examination of refugees entering the USA, restrictions on mosques and other religious institutions, and revocation of citizenship, with expulsion from US territory, for those practicing incitement.

It may be that not only would the attack on the World Trade Center have been prevented, but in addition the rise of radical Islam would have been more moderate in the face of the West’s decline, and the inspiration for further attacks that took place on European soil would not have existed.

In December 2023, with the approach of last Christmas, Europe was already perceptibly echoing the Israeli discourse of “preparedness for the holidays” and deploying to face Islamic terrorism.

Apparently, Europe is beginning to show signs of life, under the pressure of the Islamic terrorism that is flooding in. In Western Europe alone, thousands of Islamist operatives are being watched. In Germany, for example, the head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (the country’s internal security service) announced that the country was facing “the greatest danger in years” from a possible terrorist attack, and indeed that “such an event could occur any day.” That announcement came in the wake of an attack in Paris not long before. And recently even the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, said that “our streets have been hijacked by those who are hostile to our values.”

But the hothouses of terrorism, and the terrorists themselves, enjoy a protective umbrella — the importance of which cannot be overestimated — in the form of a policy of accommodation based on acceptance of the psychological propaganda from radical Islam as described above.

Often when radical Islam complains that its violence and cruelty are the fault of “others,” Israel is the one accused. In the case of Israel, radical Islam is all the more an aggressor masquerading as a victim. Beneath the demonstrations of support for the “poor” Gazans is a normalization, in the public mind, of some of the grisliest massacres and rapes that humanity has known. As in every radical Islamic terror attack, and as is customary in the consistently hypocritical policy of Islam, along with the sword comes the assurance that if only the Israelis were not so cruel to us, we would not be forced to rise up even against Europe.

In other words, radical Islam draws an imaginary boundary that purportedly encloses the quarrel and violence, and it creates a mendacious equation whereby if that particular limited quarrel were solved — and it is a different quarrel each time — then Islam would feel no reason to be violent.

Indeed, there are those who swallow the propaganda of radical Islam and volunteer to popularize and normalize the belief in its messages. One example was raised in a recent debate at the British Parliament, in which the BBC was accused of effectively becoming complicit in Hamas’s well-orchestrated disinformation campaign, which according to the parliamentarian contributed to a spike in antisemitism globally.

Anyone who thinks that the BBC is offensive to Israel, and friendly to covert and overt anti-Semitism, is correct but is missing the most important lesson for Europe and the West. Acceptance of the radical Islamic claims, and of the excuses for violence, will vitiate morality and awareness where Europe is concerned, just as it has where Israel is concerned.

Islamic terrorism begins as poisonous propaganda that paralyzes the sense of morality and justice. It leverages Western values against the West, and then it launches its massacre.

The attempt to give the current conflict a fabricated boundary that limits it to Israel, and to impose a ceasefire on Israel in hopes of buying quiet for the West, is no different from Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement in the face of the Nazi enemy, and it could cost the West dearly in blood and in loss of the global hegemony that the West currently possesses.

The attempt to accommodate radical Islamic terrorism is doomed to fail, as the Israeli case study demonstrates.

The article was originally published on ynetnews

הפוסט The west should learn from Israel on Not Accommodating Terrorism in its own cities הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

The rushed condemnation for the incident where multiple Palestinians were crushed to death by an aid truck shows how much prominent world leaders are cherry picking their factchecking, and how transparent became the attempt to leverage Hamas’ brutal slaughter into a Palestinian victimhood story.

“Disinformation is not just misleading,” said António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations just last July, “it is dangerous and potentially deadly.” This type of commitment for the truth, however, is left on the sidelines by Guterres and others when it comes to Israel. In which case, truth becomes secondary to the narrative.

On Thursday, an Israeli pilot operation took place in which trucks were let in the Gaza Strip, carrying humanitarian aid to northern Gaza through Israeli territory, to reduce dependency of Hamas and UNRWA. What followed was less than a smooth transition: a Palestinian mob stormed the trucks, apparently seriously desperate for aid, which eventually evolved into a deadly stampede where multiple Palestinians were reportedly crushed to death or ran over by terrified truck drivers.

Guterres later said he was “shocked” and “appalled at the reported killing and injury of hundreds of people … Life is draining out of Gaza at terrifying speed.” He then reiterated his call for an immediate “humanitarian cease-fire”. Israel’s Defense and Security Forum – Habithonistim covered that incident in our Weekly War Summary.

Headlines around the world jumped to the conclusion that “Israeli soldiers fire[d] on crowds seeking aid”, as one paper pointed out, and that “Israel not only prevents entry of aid into Gaza, but also kills those who try to receive it”. Egypt issued a strong condemnation, calling the attack “an inhumane Israeli attack on Palestinian civilians waiting for the arrival of humanitarian aid trucks.” The Security Council convened at Algeria’s request, focusing on the Israeli troops who defended themselves. Guterres himself repeatedly accused Israel of causing a “totally unprecedented” number of civilian casualties during the war.

However, by slandering Israel and pointing its responsibility to the incident, they failed to mention the most obvious detail of the story – Israel facilitated humanitarian aid into Gaza, and risked its soldiers’ lives in order to secure a humanitarian corridor to that end. Instead, the story evolved into depicting IDF soldiers as impervious to the lives of Palestinians.

Such was the utter disregard to the IDF’s safeguarding of the Saleh A Din humanitarian corridor to allow the smooth movement of Gazan population southward in October and November 2023. Incredibly, a surreal scene eluded the eyes of the critics: IDF tanks and troops safeguarded the Palestinian civilians while Hamas did everything it could to prevent the movement, fearing it will compromise its fighting against the IDF. Hamas used roadblocks to stop the movement, and its snipers and militants even targeted their own population with fire and IEDs. Hamas’ Ministry of Communication accused fleeing Gazans of “colluding with a second Nakba”.

Disinformation attempting to sabotage Israel’s war on terrorism is nothing new in this war: the same goes for the claim that 30,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel in Gaza, of which 70% are women and children, widely echoed by the UN, the EU and some media outlets – only that these figures are provided by Hamas’ fictitious “Ministry of Health”. The claim that Israel killed 500 Palestinians in the Al Ahli Al Arab hospital took minutes to reach front-page news, resulting even in the cancelation of President Biden’s attendance to a summit in Jordan – while in fact, a misfired PIJ rocket landed in a nearby parking lot, injuring several people.

How come Hamas is not only cooking the books, but feeds this information to some prominent world leaders? Whether voluntarily or not, it appears that the UN has caught up with the trend to effectively become a mouthpiece for Hamas’ and Iranian propaganda, for whatever reason one might imagine. The scale and scope of this phenomenon indicates just how unusual the marginalization of truth and facts has become when it comes to Israel’s fight against terrorism, as opposed to the commitment to truth and tackling disinformation in the case of Covid-19, Russia’s war on Ukraine and elsewhere.

This pattern simply keeps repeating, yet those of us who don’t usually keep track or pay close attention might get lost in the daily spiral of news to be able to detect it. The “100 UN aid workers” killed by Israel were in fact Hamas operatives in disguise; many of the claimed “94 journalists” turned out to be known Hamas or PIJ affiliates and militants, such as Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Washah and the senior PIJ militants whose salary slips were published by the IDF.

Hamas savvily identifies PR golden opportunities and leverages them, knows on which strings to pluck, and the receiving end of that music happily resonates its tune.

The truck incident is therefore yet another transparent attempt by Hamas to deflect attention from the slaughter of 1,200 Israelis on October 7 and turned it around into a Palestinian victimhood story, rather than the most brutal assault in Israel’s history. The issue is not Hamas in this case, but those who repeat its messaging.

Every world leader, journalist and social media user needs to be acutely aware of Hamas’ and Iran’s clever disinformation methods, and take caution. The easy choice is to ride on the already-provided track. The less-than-obvious choice, however, happens to be the right one: the choice to seriously question information coming out of Gaza, and recognize the real danger to the safety and security of the democratic world – terrorism and the Russia-China-Iran axis. Extra factchecking and caution against disinformation is of the essence in this war – even when it comes to Israel.

The article was originally published on ynetnews.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the movement.

הפוסט The Truck Incident: Hamas Cleverly Leverages the World’s Disinterest for Factchecking הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

The deadly terror attack near Maale Edumim shows how the Palestinian Authority’s declared policy of incitement against Israel, including the Pay for Slay law, result in more dead Israelis. Toward Ramadan, it’s time to face the challenge head-on in Judea and Samaria

Against the backdrop of numerous successful counterterrorism operations around the territory of Judea and Samaria by the IDF, the ISA and the Police’s elite units, another well-planned anti-Semitic attack near Maale Edumim today resulted in the death of one Israeli and severely wounded several others. The quick neutralization on the spot by an individual who fought in Gaza for four months, with ample battle experience, illustrates the vitality of trained armed civilians on the scene to address deadly incidents within seconds.

Especially toward Ramadan, and as Israel fights on seven fronts, it is vital to keep an eye out for the possible eighth theater of war – the internal scene, especially in Jerusalem, by Palestinian militants and some factions among Israeli Arabs. The Israeli Police’s activity in East Jerusalem is noteworthy in that regard. The number of arrests and the rampant level of incitement shows the spirit of Palestinian nationalism has not eluded Israel’s capital.

Yet terrorist attacks never occur in a void. For years, the Palestinian Authority has been inciting for anti-Semitism, bragging the success of Fatah, its main faction, in murdering Jews, and actively paying Palestinians to murder more and more Israelis in exchange for lavish paychecks. In our study “Terrorists in the Civil Service”, our Research Department shows how the PA’s official policy, dubbed “Pay for Slay”, is anchored in laws designated to incentivize the everyday Palestinian to join the circle of terrorism as well as reward professional terrorists to murder Jews. Whether affiliated with Fatah, Hamas, Popular Front or unaffiliated, the murderer will be paid over 8 times the Palestinian minimum wage, 4 times more than the average Palestinian professor and engineer – 12,000 NIS per month at the highest bracket.

This attack also shows the complete dismantlement of the PA’s ability to function and govern effectively. As Israel’s security forces successfully clean the mess that the PA leaves around the territory, arresting over 3,000 terrorists and suspects and thwarting hundreds of major attacks, the PA stands powerless against local factions that have effectively taken over enclaves in some part of Judea and Samaria.

In fact, a senior Israeli official said that they were reinvigorated with a determination to completely dismantle the terrorism infrastructure in Judea and Samaria. Past October 7, Hamas’ strategy of the coalescence of theaters – its threat to intervene from Gaza if Israel acts in Judea and Samaria – was rendered moot. The success in Gaza actually motivates the security forces to act around Judea and Samaria – one might even say, the Israeli coalescence of theaters.

It is quintessential to level up the Israeli preparedness for the internal scene toward Ramadan, by doubling down on terrorism infrastructure in Judea and Samaria, in Jerusalem and noting possible effects on radical Israeli Arab factions. That includes increased intelligence, arrests, and strengthening the Rapid Response Squads based on local civilians, armed and organized to respond to events on the scene. In an era of new challenges, the Israeli innovation must bring to the table new and daring measures.

The article was originally published on ynetnews

הפוסט The Underbelly of Terrorism: PA’s Incitement Results in Deadly Attacks הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

Nearly five months into the Gaza conflict, Israel’s primary front is now in Lebanon. Hezbollah has intensified its attacks against Israel in recent days, corresponding with Israel’s increased actions, including the elimination of field-level commanders within the terrorist organization.

Since the conflict’s inception, approximately 80,000 Israeli residents have been evacuated from the northern region due to Hezbollah attacks from Lebanon. Media reports and statements from Israeli officials suggest that Israel aims to resolve the limited conflict with Hezbollah through a diplomatic agreement, akin to Security Council Resolution 1701. This agreement would require Hezbollah to withdraw several kilometers from the Israeli border, pushing their forces beyond the Litani River. Nasrallah on his part does not seem so sure – he argued cynically that it would be easier to bring the Litani river closer to the Israeli border than to push Hezbollah militants from the Israeli border to the Litani river.

Despite this, it appears that the Israeli government remains committed to the concept of October 6th. Meanwhile, mayors and residents in the north have stated that they will not return to their homes until Israel provides them with a sustainable solution.

Even if Israel succeeds in pushing Hezbollah several kilometers back from its border through limited political or military means, such a move would be far from resolving the northern threat. The notion of Hezbollah withdrawing beyond the Litani River is outdated and naive, offering no long-term solution. The threat from Hezbollah extends beyond border incursions and settlements adjacent to the fence.

Hezbollah would still possess approximately 200,000 missiles and rockets, a fleet of UAVs, and advanced surveillance capabilities. They would continue to upgrade their air defense systems and bolster their military presence throughout Lebanon. Even if Hezbollah abides by an agreement to retreat beyond the Litani and refrains from attacking northern settlements, their power and capabilities are likely to strengthen over time.

This scenario would leave Israel to confront a more formidable enemy in the future, as Hezbollah already represents a serious and dangerous threat, second only to Iran. Additionally, Hezbollah’s arsenal of missiles and rockets would continue to pose a significant and destructive threat to Israel as a whole.

The likelihood of Hezbollah agreeing to voluntarily withdraw from southern Lebanon is slim. As their attacks persist and Israel responds with measured severity, deterrence may continue to erode, emboldening Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s identity as a “resistance organization” is rooted in its opposition to Israel, ostensibly to protect Lebanon. Withdrawal could weaken its image as Lebanon’s defender and the champion of Palestinian aspirations, leading Hezbollah to resist such a move.

For Israel to push Hezbollah beyond the Litani River, it would likely require significant military force. Israel must reassess its security strategy, not only in the south but also in all areas, especially in Lebanon. Relying on a military or political solution that only safeguards northern settlements is insufficient. Israel should not assume that Hezbollah will agree to evacuate voluntarily, and even if it does, there is no guarantee it won’t return to the area south of the Litani River.

Israel must shift from a strategy of deterrence to one of decisiveness. Military actions should not aim solely at deterring Hezbollah, as was the case in the Second Lebanon War, but should be part of a comprehensive war to defeat Hezbollah. This would involve preparing the Israeli public for a large-scale war in Lebanon aimed at dismantling Hezbollah, including the occupation of southern Lebanon and the destruction of major Lebanese cities like Beirut.

In such a scenario, it is likely that the American administration would support Israel’s actions, given Israel’s restraint in responding to Hezbollah’s provocations since October. This restraint was part of an unofficial agreement with the Biden administration, which sought to prevent a war in Lebanon. If Hezbollah does not withdraw beyond the Litani River through diplomatic efforts, Israel would have American legitimacy for a full-scale war.

Ultimately, Israel should take control of its destiny and not rely on foreign entities. Only by defeating Hezbollah and destroying its infrastructure throughout Lebanon, even if it means devastating Lebanese cities, can Israel achieve a better security reality and long-term peace.

The article was originally published on ynetnews

The writer has a PhD in political studies. He is a military strategy and national security expert, and a researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) and at the Israel Defense and Security Forum (Habithonistim). The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the movement.

הפוסט To provide security to its citizens, Israel must go to war with Hezbollah הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

Once again, Israel’s use of force in self-defense has disturbed a certain type of political leader with pretentions of moral superiority.  It has been reported that, Pope Francis warned Israel’s President Isaac Herzog in a telephone conversation that it is “forbidden to respond to terror with terror.”  A statement of this type misses the mark and fails to draw the distinction between real terrorists and their victims who exercise their recognized legal right to self-defense. There is no parity here. In plain talk, this approach is called “both-sideism.”  Two legal scholars, David Rivkin and Peter Berkowitz, analyzed this phenomenon in the Wall Street Journal of December 13, 2024.  They called it an example of “primitive pacificism,” because of it fails to take into account the Catholic Church’s own theory with regard to the “Just War,” which Israel is now fighting.

There is another problem. the Holy Father’s admonition reflects a failure of compassion but he has company.  After the massacre of October 7, António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, declared that, as a consequence of the “Occupation,” Israel got what it deserved.  Not the least, the President of Brazil, Luiz Ignácio Lula da Silva, accused Israel of genocide, “comparing Israel’s war with the Hamas terror group in Gaza to the Holocaust ‘when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.’”  Furthermore, one should not omit the initiative of the South African Government to bring a case before the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Chief Rabbi of South Africa, Warren Goldstein, declared that “If Israel’s war is not just, there has never been a just war” and accused his government of being Iran’s “useful idiots.”

The inability of Israel to satisfy the world’s critics of Israel’s morality dates back more than half a century.  In January 1961, as reported in the newspapers in Montreal, the prominent British historian, Professor Arnold Toynbee, “compared from a moral standpoint, the attitude of Israel to the Arabs in 1947 and 1948 with the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews.”  He was also quoted to have said that “the Jews have no historical right to Israel.”  In response, Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Yaakov Herzog, challenged Toynbee to a debate, which took place at McGill University on January 31, 1961.

During this debate, Ambassador Herzog made a memorable statement, which has retained its validity:

But how can two events – the destruction of one third of our people and the Arab refugee problem created by a war started by the Arabs themselves – be mentioned in the same breath?  Shall we pass an amendment to article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations on the right of self-defense: an amendment to say that if you are attacked you may resist, but remember, no matter what you suffer in the process, if the man attacking you suffers, you will be condemned by history as having been affected by Nazi influence.[1]

Among such outrageous statements, we must include French President Charles de Gaulle’s infamous press conference of November 28, 1967 in which he characterized Jews as “an elite people, self-assured and domineering.”  Dr. Raymond Aron wrote that this sermon broke a taboo, making public expression of antisemitism acceptable again.  At the same time, Aron wrote that de Gaulle “went over to the Arab camp.”  Enough time has passed for us to appreciate the consequences of his decision. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that he was unfair to Israel and, even more so, to his patrie.

Statements and deeds of this type are not entirely surprising, but they are disappointing because they lack compassion for the real victims of premeditated war crimes on a massive scale.  In their condemnation of Israel’s right to self-defense, these connoisseurs of morality betray the Judeo-Christian values of Western civilization, condone barbarism and appease its perpetrators.

[1] A People that Dwells Alone: Speeches and Writings of Yaakov Herzog, (ed. Misha Louvish, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975): 23.

The article was originally published on ynetnews

הפוסט Israel’s Right to Self-Defense: What will the Gentiles Say? הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

The approaching Ramadan month will raise more than a few security challenges for Israel. Against the background of war in Gaza and accelerating escalation with Hezbollah in the north, Ramadan will be observed this year in a particularly tense and extreme atmosphere, over and above the challenges and inherent complexities that always accompany the month — a month identified with attempted and successful attacks on Jews.

Because Gaza is, for the most part, currently under Israeli security control, and because the army is poised and prepared for the start of all-out war at the northern border, naturally Israel’s chief remaining worry is related to the Judea and Samaria area and East Jerusalem.

In Judea and Samaria, a significant wave of terrorism has been in progress since late 2021, at varying intensity. Israel’s military action in the various cities of Judea and Samaria since the start of the war in Gaza (and previously, in what were known as “operations” — Operation Breakwater and Operation Home and Garden) has not been sufficiently powerful and broad. It bespeaks a strategy of “mowing the grass” at best, intended to limit the military buildup and empowerment of the area’s terrorist organizations. Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel has in fact arrested some 3,450 terrorist operatives in various parts of Judea and Samaria, including some 1,500 Hamas operatives, but they form a drop in the bucket and, what’s more, a great number of them apparently have been or will soon be released. There are still well-established and organized terrorist organizations in the area. Some are independent, others are linked variously to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Fatah.

Another challenge is rooted in the area of Jerusalem’s holy sites and East Jerusalem. In recent years Hamas has succeeded — under tutelage of radical Islamic powers such as Qatar, Turkey, and Iran — in acquiring a foothold on the Temple Mount and becoming a barometer for escalation-related matters there. In recent years, every Ramadan has seen anti-Israel rioting by Muslims who ascended the Temple Mount. They have barricaded themselves in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, aimed and shot fireworks as weapons, flung rocks and stones at police, tried to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount, and attacked both civilians and security forces in the area. Moreover, various parts of East Jerusalem itself have turned into war zones.

At the same time, there is still significant fear of an “Operation Guardian of the Walls II” situation of unrest in the mixed cities and in the cities of the Arab “Triangle.” Such a scenario was also feared after the Hamas attack of October 7, but the Israel Police, reinforced and wisely deployed in the mixed cities, stopped that eventuality before it arose. It must also be noted, however, that Israel’s Arab communities showed responsible behavior and maintained calm internally — apparently both because of the ferocity of the Hamas attack, which astonished even them, and because of security warnings from the Israel Police and the Israel Security Agency (ISA), which were prepared for the scenario in advance.

In this coming month of Ramadan, those arenas are liable to be even more challenging because of a convergence of events, including the assignment of religious overtones to the war in Gaza (including the name that Hamas chose for its October 7 attack, “The Al-Aqsa Flood”); attempts by Turkey, Iran, Hezbollah, the Palestinian Authority, and the Hamas leadership abroad to enflame the area by targeted funding and by smuggling weaponry to terrorists; and incitement by radical elements on social media.

Those circumstances could further intensify the attempts at terror attacks by organizations, by unaffiliated squads, and by individuals. A strong, widespread escalation would hamper Israel’s military focus on the Gaza Strip and harm the preparations for possible war on the northern front. Widespread escalation would force the IDF and other security services to redeploy their personnel, diverting fractions of them — while also diverting resources — to cover the various arenas.

In order to make its way through Ramadan during a time of security complications, Israel must take a number of steps. First the Israel Police must reinforce its presence in the mixed cities and Arab cities in the same way that it was deployed after the October 7 attack. In this context, the National Guard should be employed to keep close contact with the grass roots and forestall any chance of riots or of terror attacks.

In Judea and Samaria, the government should instruct the IDF to intensify its military activity, to more broadly authorize targeted assassination by means of UAVs, and to mount a series of extended tactical military operations throughout Ramadan in a number of cities at once (especially in northern Samaria and in the Hebron area) in order to prevent terrorism from raising its head and to limit its ability to attack.

In the Temple Mount area, Israel’s government must provide the Israel Police with wide-ranging support for incapacitating terrorist elements and resources in advance by resolute aggressive action such as confiscating fireworks, knives, and other potential means of terrorism and of injuring the security forces. In addition, a plentiful force of police must be stationed at the compound in order to demonstrate presence and strengthen deterrence.

East Jerusalem requires an overall strategy that integrates physical/military tools with technological tools. The area must be substantially reinforced with personnel from the Border Police and National Guard. In addition, Israel must mount an extensive operation of weapons confiscation and preventive arrests in the various East Jerusalem neighborhoods. Such an operation will strengthen the standing of the State of Israel as the actual government on the ground and will reduce the terror supporters’ ability to harm Jewish citizens. The operation must be carried out together by the Israel Police, the Border Police, the ISA, and the National Guard, with support from various military elements. At the same time, Israeli intelligence must take action to strengthen its hold in the social media by means of advanced artificial-intelligence systems, in order to find terrorist operatives and foil them in advance. Meanwhile, Israel must demand that the social networks’ platform companies expel the disseminators of incitement and block them from the platforms.

The Israeli government’s overall strategy for the Ramadan month, and for overcoming the Muslim terror that accompanies it, must rest on proactive attack rather than merely on defense and response. The rationale should be to smother terrorism in advance in order to stop it from taking hold, just as a fire is smothered to stop it from spreading.

The article was originally published on ynetnews

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the movement.

הפוסט The formula for Ramadan: Switch from reacting defensively to attacking proactively הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

Rafah is where the last remaining Hamas battalions are concentrated and defeating them is key to winning the war. Hamas’ top commanders are hiding, and holding an unknown number of hostages, in miles of underground tunnels between Khan Younis and Rafah on the Egyptian border. Since dismantling Hamas’ operational control over northern and central Gaza, Israel is now fighting to destroy the Hamas infrastructure in the southern city of Khan Younis.

With Rafah’s suspected weapons-smuggling tunnels running into the Sinai, four Hamas battalions and an underground tunnel network for the Hamas leadership to fall back on, destroying Hamas there is the deciding factor to whether Iran’s terror proxy survives the war. Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it clear that Rafah and the Philadelphi Route are must-haves in order to finish the mission in the Gaza war.

After 5 months of fighting in underground tunnel conditions, Israel is confident of its ability to prevail in Rafah. Once Khan Younis falls, Rafah will be Hamas’ last stand. 

President Biden is not supportive, despite the immense risks regionally

President Biden told MSNBC on Sunday the 10^th of March however, that a Rafah operation would cross a “red line”, although he balanced that statement with a commitment to support Israel’s right to self-defense. With sufficient bilateral coordination, and wise conduct, however, Israel can have the US’ back in this operation.

The Americans should understand the consequences of that red line: a guarantee that another October 7 will happen again, that hostages will never come home, that an emboldened Iran will intensify on all fronts and that Hamas-oppressed civilians will suffer indefinitely.

President Biden could be bowing to internal pressure prior to the election

One of the reasons for this could be President Biden’s willingness to avoid dissent at the Democratic convention in August, and he is worried about losing Michigan State in the coming election as young people and Arab-Americans defect over his Israel policy. Israel has a right to defend itself, he seems to now be saying, but it should stop the war now. President Biden expressed this dichotomous position in his State of the Union address last week and reiterated this point in the MSNBC interview.

Hamas disinformation minimizes the risks

When Hamas invaded Israel, it did so knowing there would be a massive response by Israel and an operation into Gaza. It knew many Gazan civilians would die, indeed they counted on it, referring to their population as a “nation of martyrs.” In the process of extirpating Hamas, it was sadly inevitable that civilians would be killed. This was because Hamas intended it that way for propaganda appeal.

President Biden and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres are wielding Hamas disinformation as a weapon to pressure Israel not to enter Rafah. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says an Israeli military “assault” on the southern Gaza city of Rafah “could plummet the people of Gaza into an even deeper circle of hell.” Antonio Guterres urged Israel and Hamas to honor the Muslim holy month of Ramadan by “silencing the guns” in the Gaza Strip. The insistent effort by governments, officials and some of the media in the U.S. and Europe to pressure Israel to relent against enemies that actively seek to destroy it gives rise to the suspicion that for too many of them, perhaps Israel does not deserve the right to exist at all.

Israel Will Do All It Can To Alleviate Suffering In Rafah

In his interview with Fox, Prime Minister Netanyahu pledged that the IDF would “first enable the safe departure of the civilian population from Rafah before we go in”. “We don’t need any prompting,” he said. Israel has also agreed to open the Kerem Shalom Crossing for inspection of trucks carrying humanitarian aid and to alleviate congestion at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. Israel is planning to establish 15 sites with medical field clinics across the southwestern area of the Gaza Strip. It has done everything possible to enable civilian evacuation in every other major city where it defeated Hamas — and it will surely do the same in Rafah.

The article was originally published on ynetnews

הפוסט Rafah Is Key To Winning The War הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

The Israeli public is intensively discussing the priorities of its war objectives. Does bringing the hostages home override defeating Hamas, or vice versa? The answer is to be found in Rafah, because without Rafah and without control over the Philadelphi Corridor, those two objectives will remain unachieved and so will the long-term objective of preventing Hamas from rebuilding its strength in the future.

The retreat from Rafah:
The Philadelphi Corridor and the start of the Tunnel Era

The Philadelphi Corridor stretches for 14 kilometers, with a width of only 100 meters. Despite its small area, the Corridor was one of the central factors enabling Hamas to acquire strength and become a terrorist army, and it is also the key to Israeli victory in the war of Iron Swords.

An understanding of what the Philadelphi Corridor is, and how it is related to control over Rafah, requires an understanding of the Rafah district’s history in the first place, which means going back to 1906. In that year the British were ruling Egypt and increased its territory at the expense of the Gaza Strip. In an agreement between the British and the Ottoman Empire, which was ruling the Land of Israel, the Egyptian border was defined as passing through the city of Rafah — putting half of the city under British rule and the other half under Ottoman rule. Some years later, the British conquered the Land of Israel as well and took over the entire Gaza Strip, so that the border arranged with the Ottoman Empire lost its relevance.

The 1906 border regained importance when Israel signed its peace treaty with Egypt in 1979. That treaty stipulated that the border between Israel and Egypt would be the same as the historic border marked by the British, so that once more Rafah was divided — into Gazan Rafah and Egyptian Rafah. In 1982, when Israel handed Sinai to Egypt under the treaty, a narrow space was created between Gaza and Egypt and received the now well-known name “the Philadelphi Corridor.”

For roughly a decade, Israel controlled the Philadelphi Corridor and the IDF operated freely in the cities of Gaza. That arrangement changed in the early 1990s, with the signing of the Oslo Accords. Those agreements stipulated, among other things, that Israel would withdraw from the cities of Gaza and not re-enter. From the moment that Israel left those cities, a large-scale project of tunneling began but because the Philadelphi Corridor was still in our hands, we were able to maintain a certain level of awareness and influence.

However, the Disengagement that was implemented in 2005 changed the picture completely. Despite many warnings from the security services, the Israeli government chose to withdraw completely from the Gaza Strip and yield control of the Philadelphi Corridor. Expectably, the scope of smuggling there increased exponentially and reached incredible proportions.

The Egyptian government, newly responsible for the Philadelphi Corridor, looked the other way and permitted copious smuggling from Sinai into Gaza, including weaponry, commercial goods, and even people. It was that smuggling that enabled Hamas to turn into a well-armed terrorist army and thus brought about the disaster of October 7.

A smuggling industry with a turnover in the billions:
The present situation at the Philadelphi Corridor

In recent years, smuggling from Egypt into Gaza has become central to the Gazan economy and key to the strengthening of Hamas. Even today the city of Rafah is full of smugglers, who bribe the Egyptian police and run a business sector with a turnover in the billions.

The smuggling still continues during wartime, as war materiel and other goods flow from Sinai into Gaza every day. And there is fear that such smuggling is, or will be, accompanied by smuggling in the other direction. Senior Hamas figures are likely to try to escape into Egyptian territory, with hostages, and from there to Iran. While Egypt certainly has a strong interest in preventing such incidents, which would cause it great embarrassment, still the scenario is undeniably possible and the true question is how much Egypt can do to stop it.

Not only smuggling: To control food distribution is to control Gaza.

Besides the problem of smuggling, absence of Israeli control at the Philadelphi Corridor also causes a severe problem of supervision over the humanitarian aid to Gaza. Since the start of the war, thousands of trucks have entered Gaza with humanitarian supplies and food. The distribution of aid is managed officially by UNRWA and by “charitable organizations,” but in practice, behind all that management, Hamas is pulling the strings. It is important to understand that as long as Hamas wields control over the supplies, they are channeled first and foremost to its own purposes, and in that way Hamas succeeds in operating more forcefully while also gaining the population’s acknowledgement of its authority.

In order to deprive Hamas of its relevance and its ability to regain strength in the future, the State of Israel must exercise supervision over everything that enters Gaza. Among the implications, of course, is that the IDF must assume responsibility for the humanitarian aspect, because to control the distribution of food is to control Gaza.

The defeat of Hamas must take place in Rafah

As mentioned, both the history of Rafah and its current situation show that if Hamas is to be defeated as a governing body, the IDF must control the Philadelphi Corridor, Israel must have full authority over the entry of all goods into Gazan territory, and there must be a ground operation in Rafah.

Such a ground operation is indispensable, because Rafah is the last stronghold of the Hamas leadership and the only place where its battalions still are active as organized military units. Currently the Israeli public is concerned that the IDF, despite attaining many, many successes, has not laid its hands on the senior Hamas figures and has not located the hostages. The entry into Rafah will be the decisive battle, leading us to the top Hamas commanders and to their last military stronghold, and to the hostages. Therefore we must enter the city, and as promptly as possible. Contrary to the widespread conception, Rafah is not a difficult military objective. Tougher places have already been taken, so this task is certainly doable.

Rafah first? Why Israel’s operation didn’t start in the south of Gaza

As of this writing, the military has authorized plans for entering Rafah but the timing depends on the course of negotiations for freeing the hostages and on other operational constraints. The reason that the IDF did not take control of Rafah and the Philadelphi Corridor at the outset of the war, even in light of the Corridor’s importance for preventing smuggling, is that Israel’s strategy was first to destroy the government’s primary institutions and military strongholds, which were chiefly in the northern Gaza Strip and Khan Younis, and only then to progress to Rafah, definitively dissolve the last four battalions, and end the rule of Hamas. Time will tell whether that planning was correct.

There is little, in my opinion, to contention that the reason for staying out of Rafah so far has been fear of Egypt’s reaction. The only thing that worries the Egyptians is that Gazan refugees might enter Sinai; and provided that the State of Israel makes clear that no such thing is intended, and makes sure to move the refugees who are in Rafah to other areas such as Khan Younis, there is no reason — despite the harsh rhetoric from Egypt in public — to consider Egyptian interests harmed.

The Day After: Here too, the key is at the Philadelphi Corridor

What can make it possible to ensure that the threat from Gaza will not re-emerge and gain strength after the war? One proposal among others is an underground slurry wall on the Egyptian side of the Gazan border to impair the digging of tunnels. Another suggestion is to install an alarm system along the Corridor, for real-time alerts regarding tunnel-digging and UAVs. Such measures may well be useful, but only as supplementary solutions. They cannot stand alone. The old security strategy, as we all realize, did not prove itself; and whoever thinks that technology can take the place of a significant military presence is still living on October 6. I am gratified that even in the scenario recently publicized by the Prime Minister, Israeli control over Gaza’s southern portal appears to be a fundamental requirement for the Day After.

The bottom line is that the citizens and decision-makers of Israel must recognize conquering Rafah and fully controlling the Philadelphi Corridor as an indispensable element of victory. Otherwise, the attainment of the war’s objectives is in considerable doubt and, moreover, Israel will be unable to prevent Hamas from regaining strength.

הפוסט The precondition for victory: Conquer Rafah and control the Philadelphi Corridor הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

For decades, the world at large and Israeli society in specific have been debating the question of Judea and Samaria. Should a Palestinian State take form in those territories? Should Israel annex the area, and can it? Apparently everyone in the West has a firm opinion on the subject, but many are relying on inaccurate data and half-truths, not to say absolute lies.

It is surprising to discover that like the average citizen, the Israeli decision-makers too rely on inaccurate data wherever the matter of Arab demography in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip is concerned. Over the years, the country’s decision-makers have refrained from determining what the exact figures are, and depended instead on figures from the Palestinian Authority’s Central Bureau of Statistics, ^[1] which — by the nature of things — has a clear interest in falsifying data for various reasons, including the padding of budgets, the rallying of world opinion, and most of all, the imposition of pressure on Israel, as Israel would rather yield territory than upset its demographic balance. There is no need to expound on why the answering of such a sensitive question should not be outsourced to an institution that funds terrorism and that objects to the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.

Are the numbers from the Palestinian Authority inflated?

There are currently two main approaches regarding the demographic question. The first contends that the figures from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics are reliable and that there truly is a demographic danger in annexing Judea and Samaria to the State of Israel. Those who favor this approach claim that more than 3 million Arabs presently live in Judea and Samaria in addition to roughly 2 million Arabs in Gaza. ^[2]

The second approach contends that the population figure from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics is a complete falsehood amounting to nearly double the true number of Palestinian residents in Judea and Samaria,^[3] a true number in the area of 1.6 million. This approach relies on independent research that its supporters conduct, along with statements from the past by senior officials of the Palestinian Authority. ^[4] The lower figure means that Judea and Samaria could be annexed with no great fear of the demographic implications. ^[5]

It seems that throughout the Land of Israel the demographic problem is indeed smaller than most people believe: the average number of births per Arab woman in Judea and Samaria is lower today than the number per Jewish woman — approximately 2.98 among the Arabs versus approximately 3.13 among the Jews. ^[6] In addition, there is net emigration from the Judea and Samaria area of 20,000 emigrants per year, mostly young people.^[7] And the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics is also counting people who died many years ago; its census included people born in 1845.

“It’s embarrassing that Israel doesn’t know how many Palestinians live in Area C.”

Considering the issue’s importance, the State of Israel should be expected to determine the exact number of Arabs living in the Judea and Samaria area, in order to let us know whether the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics is in fact falsifying data as experts in the discipline contend and only 1.6 million Palestinians are residing in Judea and Samaria, or whether the figures from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics are actually true and the number of Palestinian residents in Judea and Samaria stands at 3 million or so.

In 2016 a subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee met and the question arose as to how many Arabs live in Area C of Judea and Samaria. ^[8] During the discussion, it emerged that the State of Israel is unable say how many people do live in that area and relies on data from the Palestinian Authority^[9]. As Knesset Member Hilik Bar of the Zionist Camp party said during the discussion, “Notwithstanding my respect for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories and the Population Authority, I feel it’s embarrassing that the State of Israel doesn’t know how many Palestinians are really living in Area C. We know how many tanks are in Syria, but we don’t know about citizens under our own responsibility… And what’s more, because the Prime Minister and Defense Minister have become promoters of the two-state idea, I’d like to know how many Palestinians we would be parting from, or how many potential citizens the state would have.”

That discussion illustrates a deeper point: If the State of Israel doesn’t know how many people reside in Area C, an area where it holds municipal and security responsibilities, how can it know how many people reside in Areas A and B, where most of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria live? How can the State of Israel rely on data from an institution that wants Israel destroyed, hasn’t condemned the Simchat Torah massacre, and is currently cooperating toward the objectives of Hamas?

The specialized unit that closed in 1997

In a 2022 interview following his publication of an open letter, diplomat Yoram Ettinger — a member of the American–Israeli demographic research team — related that between 1993 and 1996 a unit had operated under the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics with the purpose of examining data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. ^[10] That unit exposed discrepancies and contradictions in the Palestinian figures, but the unit was closed in 1997. It appears that since then, the State of Israel has been relying on figures from the Palestinian Authority without verifying them. Isn’t it time to re-establish the unit and stop trusting the Palestinian Authority’s unverified figures?

Besides the political and strategic need, there is an obvious security need for a demographic snapshot of Judea and Samaria, and all the more so in light of the crumbling of assumptions in the wake of the Simchat Torah massacre. How can the IDF prepare for a scenario in which the Arabs of the Judea and Samaria area decide to invade the territory of the State of Israel, if it doesn’t know the number of people in that area? ^[11] How will it know how many battalions and brigades to deploy at the borders? How will it know how many people are capable of bearing arms in those territories? Above and beyond the military considerations, how can the State of Israel be prepared to manage risks at the national level if it doesn’t conduct an organized census that will give it the tools for making fundamental decisions?

In summation, the demographic question in Judea and Samaria presents Israel with many problems and challenges — economic, political, security-related, and more. In order to understand what options are open to us as a state, and to solve the problems, we must know the exact figures from the field. For that purpose, we must ascertain — by whatever means are at our disposal as a nation, whether involving intelligence activity or other tools — how many Arabs are living today in Judea and Samaria, where their residences are, what their trends of migration are, and what conditions the city dwellers and village dwellers of those territories live under. Only afterward will it be possible to arrive at wise decisions regarding the most correct and appropriate solution to the Arab–Israeli conflict.

The content of this article is solely the opinion of the author and does not reflect a stand on the part of the IDSF.

^[1] See https://www.maariv.co.il/journalists/opinions/Article-951114

^[2] See https://www.maariv.co.il/new/military/Article-629256

^[3] See https://www.meteg.co.il/%d7%a2%d7%99%d7%93%d7%9b%d7%95%d7%9f-2023-%d7%a9%d7%9c-%d7%94%d7%a1%d7%95%d7%92%d7%99%d7%94-%d7%94%d7%93%d7%9e%d7%95%d7%92%d7%a8%d7%a4%d7%99%d7%aa-%d7%a8%d7%95%d7%91-%d7%99%d7%94%d7%95%d7%93%d7%99/

^[4] There are known references to a purported 1998 statement by Hassan Abu Libada, a former head of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics who was charged with corruption and fraud, that “We counted 325,000 people who have been living for more than a year outside Palestinian territory.”

^[5] Caroline Glick, Sipuach Achshav, Sela Meir, 2015, pp. 159–172.

^[6] See https://idsf.org.il/opinion/%D7%96%D7%94-%D7%9C%D7%90-%D7%94%D7%93%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%92%D7%A8%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%94-%D7%96%D7%94-%D7%94%D7%A9%D7%A7%D7%A8/ and the 2022 figures from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. The decline in the number of births per Arab woman is a widespread phenomenon throughout the Middle East, applying in Arab states such as Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Libya.

^[7] See https://mida.org.il/2018/05/08/%D7%94%D7%A0%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%9B%D7%99%D7%97%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%90%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%9D-%D7%A4%D7%A6%D7%A6%D7%AA-%D7%96%D7%9E%D7%9F-%D7%93%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%92/

^[8] See https://main.knesset.gov.il/activity/committees/foreignaffairs/news/pages/pr070616.aspx

^[9] In this connection, Abu Libada said of the first Palestinian census, as it was under way in 1997: “In my opinion, it is as important as the intifada … It is a civil Intifada.” See https://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/11/world/palestinian-census-ignites-controversy-over-jerusalem.html

^[10] See https://www.giluydaat.co.il/%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%95%D7%97-%D7%9E%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%99-%D7%A9%D7%9C-1-5-%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F/

^[11] The distance from the westernmost point of the Green Line to Tel Aviv measures roughly 20 kilometers. Other cities of Central Israel, including Kfar Sava and Rosh HaAyin, are even less distant.

הפוסט Opinion: How has the number of Arabs living in Judea and Samaria remained a mystery? הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.

During the current war in Gaza, unlike previous conflicts, one of the new threats that may affect the course of the war is the use of artificial intelligence (AI), for purposes such as disinformation, for example, in deep-fake videos by Hamas. It seems that at the same time as the battlefield continues on the ground, cyberspace also serves as a central battlefield.

The use of disinformation may have a dramatic effect on both decision makers and public opinion.

The deep-fake phenomenon was first popularized for its entertainment value and its private use by many users. Various deep-fake apps have allowed users to stamp faces on various characters or create videos for entertainment purposes. However, the potential of the advanced technology has not gone unnoticed by the terrorist organizations.

Various extremist groups have recognized the potential in planting synthetic data and thus to manipulate the information environment to serve their nefarious purposes. For example, the Indian militia called the “Resistance Front” (Tehreeki-Milat-i-Islami) used fake videos and photos to manipulate Indian youth.

Disinformation and deception have become powerful weapons with far-reaching consequences. In the digital age, the proliferation of social media platforms has made it significantly easier for malicious actors to manipulate public opinion, sow discord and undermine trust in democratic institutions and processes. By distributing fabricated visual content, these groups aim to incite violence, exacerbate existing tensions, and deliver extreme messages to their intended audience.

As part of the radicalization process, the offensive deep-fake is developing at an increased rate, and requires increased attention to deal with.

A striking example of this could be seen in a deep-fake video of the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, in which he implores Ukrainian fighters to lay down their weapons, as can be seen in this link.

Moreover, even in the US and UK, deep-fake of political leaders is used to influence public opinion.

Hamas and its supporters have already used deep-fake in the current war. Especially on the subject of the hostages held in Gaza, the use of deep-fake made people think through social engineering that something happened that did not really happen.

These elements use viral content to shift public opinion – and such content is distributed without delay on various platforms, such as Telegram. In fact, the vast majority of deep-fake videos come from content groups created by Telegram users.

In addition to disinformation, Hamas also uses AI advanced graphics combined with artificial intelligence (AI) to spread its propaganda to incite many to carry out “lone wolf” attacks and also to garner support among the Palestinian public in particular, and in various countries in the world in general.

In many posts on Telegram channels, Hamas and its supporters distribute graphics by artificial intelligence to spread their extreme propaganda and calls to harm Israelis.

An example of this are advanced graphical designs based on artificial intelligence in which masked terrorists are seen aiming to attack an Israeli town, similar to what Hamas has done on the October 7 attacks.

Other examples are designs in which there is a clear call to carry out trampling attacks against Israelis or incitement to carry out “lone wolf” attacks as a response to IDF actions or to provoke additional combat arenas to the ones in Gaza.

Hamas is not the first organization to use artificial intelligence for propaganda purposes and to incite supporters for attacks. Other jihadist organizations, such as ISIS and Al Qaeda, preceded it and likewise, a lot of use of AI was also made by white supremacists’ groups.

Terrorists love technology

Jihadi factors were early adopters of developing technologies from the very beginning – as part of their belief that they should use Western advancement in order to defeat the West. This is how the former Al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, used email to convey his plans for the September 11 attacks. This is how the former al-Qaeda most inspiring leader, Anwar al-Awlaki, used YouTube for outreach and message delivery, and even earned the nickname “Bin Laden of the Internet,” while recruiting an entire generation of followers in the West (Al-Awlaki, who was Yemeni-American, spoke to his followers in fluent English and distributed hundreds of video lectures on YouTube).

Throughout more than 20 years of using the Internet and social media, terrorist organizations have always looked for new ways to maximize their online activity to plan attacks, outsmart the West’s countermeasures, and recruit supporters. This is how AI entered as much as a game changer for them in their jihad war against the world.

The dark side of AI

On December 6, 2022, a devout user of the ISIS-operated Rocket.Chat server, with a large number of followers, posted that he was using the free ChatGPT software for advice on supporting the Islamic Caliphate.

Two weeks later, other ISIS supporters expressed interest in another AI platform, ‘Perplexity Ask’, to create jihadi-promoting content. Another user shared his findings in a large discussion where users agreed that AI could be used to help the extremist jihadist organization.

Communication platforms, such as chat apps, have the potential to become powerful tools for terrorist actors to incite and recruit people. Using artificial intelligence algorithms, these platforms may send a tailored message that serves the interests of potential recruits.

The use of chatbots can normalize extreme ideologies and foster a sense of pertinence to various extreme groups.

Various terrorists can use the anonymity of these platforms to hide their identity while interacting with potential recruits. In addition, the multilingual capability of AI chatbots allows terrorists to reach a large audience around the world, overcome language barriers and expand their recruitment space.

Jonathan Hall KC, an independent reviewer on behalf of the British government on terrorism legislation, was interviewed by the British ‘Telegraph’ and said that he conducted an experiment on the website ‘Character.ai’, where conversations created by artificial intelligence can be conducted with chatbots created by other users.

Hall spoke to several bots allegedly designed to mimic the reactions of militant and other extremist groups. One even said it was “a senior leader of the Islamic State.” He said the bot tried to recruit him and expressed “complete dedication and devotion” to the extremist group. Hall said that as long as the messages were not created by a person, no crime was committed under British law. As part of the experiment, Hall was able to create his own (quickly deleted) chatbot, “Osama Bin Laden” with an “unbridled enthusiasm” for terrorism.

Hall’s experiment shows the ease with which AI tools can be used and the manner in which extremist elements can exploit AI tools in the future. His experiment follows growing concern about how extremists might exploit advanced AI in the future.

A report published by the British government in October 2023 warned that by 2025, generative artificial intelligence could be used “to gather knowledge about physical attacks by violent non-state actors, including for chemical, biological and radiological weapons.”

The rise of AI among terrorist organizations is not only a critical threat to national security, but is also a force multiplier for their destructive agenda.

The increase in the use of AI by terrorist organizations can be attributed mainly to the accessibility and affordable price of this innovative technology. In the past, access to AI was limited to state actors or multinational corporations. Today, however, the openness of this technology to the general public has made it easier for terrorists to acquire and use AI capabilities, even plan and execute attacks with more precision.

The Jihad Machine

The use of AI in the development of autonomous weapons poses significant dangers to both military and civilian populations. These AI-powered machines have the potential to make decisions on their own, focus and use lethal force without human intervention. This raises great concern that these weapons may be integrated into warfare by terrorist organizations.

This possibility creates a terrifying scenario in which terrorists could gain access to advanced technologies, perhaps in the future fully autonomous killer robots that are deployed in the field, without logistical and manpower constraints.

Use of drones by terrorist organizations

There have already been reports of terrorists experimenting with armed drones and other remotely controlled technologies. For example, it is known that ISIS uses drones equipped with explosives in its attacks.

In 2021, two drone-assisted explosions occurred at an Indian Air Force base in Jammu, which indicated the involvement of the Pakistani terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba. The first explosion caused severe damage to a one-story building, while the second occurred in an open area on the ground. In the investigation of the drone attack, substantial information emerged regarding the nature of the attack. It was found that the terrorists used low drones to attack at night. This strategy prevented their discovery and allowed their penetration into the high security area of the Indian security system. The use of drones resulted in great accuracy in delivering explosive charges to their targets.

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah is known for its extensive use of drones, making it the violent non-state entity with the most extensive history of drone use. Hezbollah’s drone program is growing and developing. The organization now has a fleet of drones, which includes Iranian-made drones such as ‘Ababil’ and ‘Mirsad-1’ (an updated version of the early Iranian ‘Mohajar’ drone used for reconnaissance during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s).

Hamas, as part of the “Axis of Resistance” has long-standing strategic cooperation with Hezbollah and Iran that has expanded into the fields of technology. In 2021, a new threat from Hamas appeared when they released the video of the “Shahab” suicide drone, which has ammunition with built-in warheads.

Following similar patterns, ISIS began using drones in 2013. Unlike other terrorist organizations, neither advanced military capabilities nor government agencies contributed to ISIS’s drone program. The Salafist organization used easily accessible commercial technologies in a ‘do it yourself’ (DIY) manner. However, ISIS has developed a robust drone infrastructure, and has used it intensively. In January 2017, it was reported that ISIS published a statement in its weekly magazine, “Al-Nabaa” regarding the establishment of a new division called “The Unmanned Aircraft of the Mujahideen”. This specialized unit was established with the express purpose of promoting ISIS’s drone capabilities and integrating them into its operational strategies.

In conclusion, the chilling potential of AI in the hands of terrorists makes it even more important for the international community to work together and develop robust strategies to prevent the misuse of AI technologies.

Appearances of various and accessible AI technologies, such as deep-fake, chatbots and drones, for example, represent a step up in the propaganda and operational capabilities of the terrorist organizations in order to refine the messages, recruit supporters and carry out higher quality attacks.

We are at the beginning of a new era, in which the use of artificial intelligence is expanding to various areas in the world. The more accessible this technology is, the more convenient it is for terrorist organizations to use. In order to maintain the development of artificial intelligence technology in a friendly digital space – so that it will be a useful tool and not a threat in the physical space – intelligence and security agencies must surpass the capabilities of the terrorist organizations and upgrade the capabilities of counter terrorism in the new era.

הפוסט Will AI Be Used By Terrorists? הופיע לראשונה ב-IDSF.