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If Israel Is Forced to Continue War Alone, America Will Be the Loser
US President Joe Biden is welcomed by Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu, as he visits Israel amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Superpowers like the United States often have difficulty comprehending the concept of “existential threat” — the reality that a country could actually be destroyed.
This danger, and the determination it produces, was eloquently expressed in Prime Minister Golda Meier’s famous quote during the Yom Kippur War, “We have a secret weapon here in Israel… we have nowhere else to go.”
Less well remembered is that at the time, she was speaking to a young Senator Joe Biden.
On Monday, the United States permitted the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to pass Resolution 2728, demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and return of all hostages. Yet international law and bodies have no impact on Hamas, so the demand to return the hostages has no real-world impact.
For Israel, the war in Gaza has two objectives: the rescue of 134 Israeli hostages and destruction of the Hamas terror organization, by far the most important goal.
Therefore, the demand for a ceasefire presents a powerful danger.
Monday’s resolution was passed under Chapter 6 of the UN Charter: a demand without an immediate enforcement mechanism. However, if Israel does not comply, the UNSC has the option to follow up with a Chapter 7 resolution, which would have the force of international law and may include crippling sanctions and even direct military action against Israel. (For example, a Chapter 7 resolution triggered the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991.)
If it does not exercise its veto, the United States would become the first nation in history to permit a Chapter 7 resolution against a close ally, which would produce untold consequences for America’s future.
Israel must enter Rafah, the last stronghold of Hamas in Gaza, and the location of most of the remaining hostages, because the Jewish State believes it is the only way to ensure Israel’s safety.
The White House claims that “there are other ways,” to defeat Hamas, though the administration has not explained how.
If America reduces its military support at a critical time, or allows a Chapter 7 enforcement action at the UNSC, then Israel will face existential danger, both from its enemies and from international sanctions. Whether Israel then succeeds in spite of being abandoned — or fails because of it — American credibility will be demolished.
American allies, out of their own self interest, will likely seek alliances with other major powers, such as China and Russia. Meanwhile, America has no shortage of enemies, such as the Houthis in the Red Sea, Russia in Ukraine, Iran with its nuclear program, and the myriad of terror groups looking to attack the US at home. All such enemies will be emboldened, just at a time when America’s alliances are weakened.
Ironically, this UN action has already brought the Middle East farther away from peace rather than closer — because Hamas sees international pressure on Israel as a viable path to potential victory.
Case in point: on Sunday, Israel agreed to an international proposal for the release of some 800 Palestinian prisoners, including violent offenders, in exchange for 40 Israeli hostages, a six week truce, and steps toward a permanent ceasefire. Hamas, which has rejected dozens of ceasefire offers, appeared to be seriously considering the new proposal. Yet just hours after the UNSC resolution, Hamas rejected the proposal outright, dashing international hopes.
There are two possible explanations for this state of affairs between Israel and the US.
President Biden is facing a tough election fight, including a tidal wave of public pressure over civilian casualties in Gaza. This is a highly calculated component of Hamas’ strategy to defeat Israel through international pressure. While civilian casualties are disturbing, much of the accepted narrative is simply untrue.
Even at a risk to Israeli troops, the Jewish State has taken unprecedented measures to protect civilians, and the results speak for themselves: the civilian to combatant casualty ratio, at close to 1:1, is the lowest in history for a conflict of this type.
Furthermore, the total casualty count is orders of magnitude lower than other conflicts in the region, such as Syria, Yemen, and Iraq.
Numerous other conspiracy theories including that Israel shelled hospitals, have proven to be outright false. Nonetheless, Hamas’ war of propaganda has been effective, not just against Israel directly, but also as a factor in the US elections.
Another possibility is that the tension is personal: Prime Minister Netanyahu and Presidents Obama and Biden have long disagreed. Indeed, Monday’s resolution does seem reminiscent of the 2016 UNSC resolution 2334, widely seen in Israel as a “parting shot” by President Obama against Prime Minister Netanyahu. Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer also called for Israel to hold early elections and thereby oust its prime minister (a rare statement when speaking to a close and democratic ally), which further supports the idea that tensions may be personal.
Hamas’ continued existence is an existential threat to Israel — and its leaders have promised to carry out October 7 style massacres “again and again.” Yet the White House has underestimated just how powerful an existential threat can be. No amount of pressure or leverage, even from a powerful ally, can compete with the possibility of utter destruction.
Israel may be forced to go it alone, and America will lose either way.
Daniel Pomerantz is an expert in international law, an adjunct professor at Reichman and Bar Ilan Universities in Israel, and the CEO of RealityCheck, an nonprofit NGO dedicated to clarifying global conversations with verifiable data. Daniel lives in Tel Aviv, Israel and can be found on Instagram at @realitycheckresearch or at www.RealityCheckResearch.org.
The post If Israel Is Forced to Continue War Alone, America Will Be the Loser first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Destroyed Top Secret Iranian Nuclear Weapons Site
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
JNS.org – The Israeli airstrikes on Iran last month destroyed a secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, 19 miles southeast of Tehran, Axios reported on Friday.
The clandestine site held sophisticated equipment used for testing explosives needed to detonate nuclear devices, the report read, citing three US officials, one current Israeli official and one former Israeli official.
The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security acquired high-resolution satellite imagery of the facility, which showed that it was completely destroyed in Israel’s Oct. 26 attack.
Israeli and US intelligence agencies began noticing activity in the Taleghan 2 facility in the Parchin military complex in early 2024, which had been largely inactive since 2003, when the Islamic Republic froze its military nuclear program, according to Axios.
One unnamed US official quoted in the report said: “[The Iranians] conducted scientific activity that could lay the ground for the production of a nuclear weapon. It was a top secret thing. A small part of the Iranian government knew about this, but most of the Iranian government didn’t.”
Although President Joe Biden asked Jerusalem not to target Tehran’s nuclear facilities, the site in Parchin was chosen as a target because it was not part of Iran’s declared nuclear program.
This placed the mullah regime in a position where admitting a hit to the site would expose its efforts to resume activity forbidden by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Moreover, “The strike was a not so subtle message that the Israelis have significant insight into the Iranian system even when it comes to things that were kept top secret and known to a very small group of people in the Iranian government,” the report cited a US official as saying.
Last week, Rafael Grossi, the director of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency, visited Iran for the first time since May.
He is expected to meet with his agency’s board of governors in Vienna this week for a vote on a resolution to censure Tehran for its lack of cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
Speaking about the tensions between Israel and Iran, Grossi said during a news conference in Tehran on Thursday that the Islamic Republic’s “nuclear installations should not be attacked.”
Earlier in the week, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz suggested that Iran’s nuclear facilities may be targeted.
Iran is “more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities. We have the opportunity to achieve our most important goal—to thwart and eliminate the existential threat to the State of Israel,” Katz said.
Israel’s two assaults against Iran’s air defense system this year have left the country vulnerable to future attacks, with all four of Tehran’s Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries destroyed, according to U.S. media.
On April 19, Israel took out one of the S-300 systems in response to Tehran’s first-ever direct attack against the Jewish state. On Oct. 26, in response to a second Iranian attack, Israel targeted 20 sites in Iran, destroying the remaining three.
“The majority of Iran’s air defense was taken out,” a senior Israeli official told Fox News.
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Yemen’s Houthis Say They Attacked ‘Vital Target’ in Israel’s Eilat
Houthi-mobilized fighters ride atop a car in Sanaa, Yemen, Sept. 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Yemen’s Houthi forces attacked “a vital target” in Israel’s Red Sea port city of Eilat with a number of drones, the Iran-aligned group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Saturday.
The terrorist group has launched dozens of attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea region since November in solidarity with Hamas.
“These operations will not stop until the aggression stops, the siege on the Gaza Strip is lifted, and the aggression on Lebanon stops,” Saree added in a televised speech.
The Houthi attacks have upended global trade by forcing ship owners to reroute vessels away from the vital Suez Canal shortcut, and drawn retaliatory U.S. and British strikes since February.
The post Yemen’s Houthis Say They Attacked ‘Vital Target’ in Israel’s Eilat first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Muslims from ‘Abandon Harris’ Campaign Gutted by Pro-Israel Cabinet Picks
US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, Sept. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
JNS.org – Muslim leaders in the United Stated who called for supporting President-elect Donald Trump at the expense of Democrat runner Kamala Harris are deeply disappointed with the former president’s Cabinet nominees, Reuters reported on Thursday.
“It’s like he’s going on Zionist overdrive,” Abandon Harris campaign co-founder Hassan Abdel Salam, a former professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, said about Trump’s recently announced picks.
“We were always extremely skeptical. … Obviously we’re still waiting to see where the administration will go, but it does look like our community has been played,” Abdel Salam told Reuters.
Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump, was cited as saying: “Trump won because of us and we’re not happy with his secretary of state pick and others.”
Some political strategists believe that the Muslim vote for Trump, or the renunciation of Harris, helped tilt several swing states such as Michigan in the favor of the Republican candidate.
“It seems like this administration has been packed entirely with neoconservatives and extremely pro-Israel, pro-war people, which is a failure on the side of President Trump, to the pro-peace and anti-war movement,” said Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network.
On Wednesday, Trump named Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as his choice to be secretary of state.
Rubio is known for his staunch pro-Israel stance, including calling on Jerusalem earlier this year to destroy “every element” of Hamas and dubbing the Gaza-based terrorist organization as “vicious animals.”
Rubio joins a slew of pro-Israel officials Trump has tapped since he won the U.S. election, including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) as his U.N. ambassador with a seat in the Cabinet.
Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), told JNS that Trump’s focus so early in the transition process on Israel-related foreign policy picks is a mark of how his second administration will approach the region.
“That, in and of itself, signals that President Trump and his administration are going to take the region, the Middle East, the threats confronting Israel, seriously and take the U.S. friendship with Israel seriously,” Misztal said.
“The people that we’ve seen are known to be tremendously strong friends of Israel, first and foremost, but also very clear-eyed about the threats that the United States and Israel face together in the region.”
Before the election on Nov. 5, Trump promised Arab and Muslim voters he would restore stability in Lebanon and the Middle East, while criticizing the current administration’s regional policies during campaign stops targeting Muslim communities in Michigan.
Trump recently addressed Lebanese Americans, stating, “Your friends and family in Lebanon deserve to live in peace, prosperity and harmony with their neighbors, and this can only happen when there is peace and stability in the Middle East.”
Israel has been at war for more than a year on its southern and northern borders, ever since Hamas led a surprise attack on communities near the Gaza Strip border on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering some 1,200 people and abducting 251 more into the Palestinian enclave. A day later, Hezbollah joined Hamas’s efforts by firing rockets into Israel’s north.
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