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Israel Is Burning: The War in the North Could Make Gaza Look Small in Comparison
Flames seen at the side of a road, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, close to the Israel border with Lebanon, in northern Israel, June 4, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ayal Margolin
Large swaths of northern Israel, already rendered uninhabitable by months of Hamas rocket fire, are now ablaze. Nearly 100,000 Israelis who were forced from their homes in October have been living as “displaced persons” for almost eight months. Hezbollah has also succeeded in carrying out a number of ground incursions into Israeli territory in “October 7 style,” though fortunately all civilian communities have been evacuated.
After three quarters of a year, the Israeli people are asking: when will we go back home to the north?
This week may finally provide our answer: amidst rumors of a June IDF ground operation into Lebanon, Israel has just called up 350,000 reservists: nearly the entire reserve corps. Yet this war will be unlike anything we’re used to.
In October, Hamas had an estimated arsenal of 30,000 rockets. Hezbollah, by contrast, is estimated to have nearly a quarter million, and can fire more rockets in a single day than Hamas can in an entire month — enough to overwhelm the Iron Dome missile defense shield.
Moreover, an estimated 10% of Hezbollah’s arsenal consists of guided, precision high yield missiles, smart-bombs, and drones. Combined with the ability to overwhelm Iron Dome, these precision weapons have a terrifying capacity to destroy specific targets.
(Source: Alma Research and Education Center)
So what will Hezbollah strike, given the opportunity and capacity? Israelis have some thoughts on this: for months Israelis have been quietly stockpiling food, bottled water, AM/FM radios, flashlights, and extra batteries. This is because Israelis believe that Hezbollah will attempt to destroy electric plants, water systems, the roads that transport food, as well as communications and Internet connections (making old style radios potentially the only way to access information). Israelis are accustomed to hearing a siren and going to the bomb shelter for 10 minutes, However, in a war with Hezbollah, Israelis could be stuck in shelters for hours or even days at a time.
But there is at least some encouraging news: Israel has been preparing for this scenario for the past eight months. There are clues to indicate that Israel may have been quietly building back-up systems and other protections for much of the civilian infrastructure, but it is nonetheless a far more dangerous scenario than a face-off against Hamas.
Israel faces another dilemma in this upcoming Lebanon war: Lebanese casualties.
Israel’s operation in Gaza has produced the lowest civilian to combatant casualty ratio in human history, nine times lower than the UN published global average, and far lower than numbers achieved by the United States and coalition allies in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Part of the reason Israel was able to act with such incredible restraint is the Iron Dome: if an active Hamas rocket launcher is surrounded by civilians, Israel can afford to issue warnings and wait before destroying it, knowing that Israeli civilians will have a measure of protection in the meantime.
Not so in Lebanon: with the Iron Dome potentially overwhelmed and with Hezbollah’s high yield precision munitions pointed at Israeli civilian targets, the IDF will have no choice but to destroy the active rocket launchers quickly. If such rocket launchers are located in densely populated areas, such as downtown Beirut, that could mean very high levels of civilian casualties.
Self-defense under these circumstances is absolutely permitted by international law, morality, and basic common sense, whereas Hezbollah’s practice of hiding weaponry in civilian areas is not.
Lebanese casualties would be tragic and worthy of empathy, yet even so, the blame should fall squarely on Hezbollah (and not Israel) for turning an entire nation into one massive human shield. Even Israel’s historical restraint in Gaza has not been adequate to stem the tide of accusations of genocide, war crimes, and international legal actions. With Lebanese casualty counts potentially tens to hundreds of times greater, one can only imagine the international storm that will ensue. And that’s not even counting the dangers that await the Israeli homeland.
A war in the north could have unprecedented consequences for the Jewish State.
Daniel Pomerantz is the CEO of RealityCheck, an organization dedicated to deepening public conversation through robust research studies and public speaking.
The post Israel Is Burning: The War in the North Could Make Gaza Look Small in Comparison first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai
Around 200 people gathered for a pro-Israel demonstration at University of Toronto’s downtown campus at King’s College Circle—which was the site of one of Canada’s largest pro-Palestinian encampments during May […]
The post A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters
A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
The campus group National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) is waging a campaign to gut Jewish life in academia, calling for the abolition of Hillel International campus chapters, the largest collegiate organization for Jewish students in the world.
“Over the past several decades, Hillel has monopolized for Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes,” a social media account operating the campaign, titled #DropHillel, said in a manifesto published last week. “Across the country, Hillel chapters have invited Israeli soldiers to their campuses; promoted propaganda trips such as birthright; and organized charity drives for the Israeli military.”
It continued, “Such actions reveal Hillel’s ideological and material investment in Zionism, despite the organization’s facade as being simply a ‘Jewish cultural space.’”
DropHillel claims to be “Jewish-led,” although only a small minority of Jews oppose Zionism, and the group has been linked to and promoted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters.
Hillel International has provided Jewish students a home away from home during the academic year. However, NSJP says it wants to “weaken” it and “dismantle oppression.”
The idea has already been picked up by pro-Hamas student groups at one college, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to The Daily Tar Heel, the school’s official student newspaper. On Oct. 9, it reported, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) unveiled the idea for “no more Hillel” during a rally which, among other things, demanded removing Israel from UNC’s study abroad program and adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Addressing the comments to the paper days later, SJP, which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations, proclaimed that shuttering Hillel is a coveted goal of the anti-Zionist movement.
“Zionism is a racist supremacist ideology advocating for the creation and sustenance of an ethnostate through the expulsion and annihilation of native people,” the group told the paper. “Therefore, any group that advocates for a supremacist ideology — be it the KKK, the Proud Boys, Hillel, or Heels for Israel — should not be welcome on campus.”
The #DropHillel campaign came amid an unprecedented surge in anti-Israel incidents on college campuses, which, according to a report published last month by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), have reached crisis levels.
Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report — titled “Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024” — painted a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
“As the year progressed, Jewish students and Jewish groups on campus came under unrelenting scrutiny for any association, actual or perceived, with Israel or Zionism,” the report said. “This often led to the harassment of Jewish members of campus communities and vandalism of Jewish institutions. In some cases, it led to assault. These developments were underpinned by a steady stream of rhetoric from anti-Israel activists expressing explicit support for US-designated terrorists organizations, such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and others.”
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents — 52 and 38, respectively. Harvard University, the University of California – Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, it continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza
Former US President Donald Trump is seen at a campaign event in South Carolina. Photo: Reuters/Sam Wolfe
The “Muslims for Trump” organization has officially launched initiatives to help elect Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to the White House, arguing that he would be more likely to end the war in Gaza than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
In a statement released on Monday, the group said it will focus on recruiting Muslim voters in key battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina. The organization both praised Trump for his supposed “peace-focused” approach to ending the war in Gaza and condemned Harris for helping facilitate a so-called “genocide.”
“After meeting with President Trump, it was clear to me he is the right leader for Muslims to get behind,” Rabiul Chowdhury, co-founder of Muslims for Trump and former co-chair of the “Abandon Harris Movement,” said in a statement.
Chowdhury added that during his discussions with Trump, the former president vowed to “ending the escalation of wars and bringing peace to war-torn regions.” In contrast to Trump’s promise to stop the “bloodshed” in Gaza, he claimed, Harris has “recklessly pushed us toward World War III.”
Chowdhury, a self-described “peace advocate,” urged the Muslim community not to fall victim to supposed “misinformation” campaigns by the media and Democrats that paint the former president as hostile to immigrants. He claimed that the former president’s focus is on “ending war, not dividing families through false immigration claims.”
Samra Luqman, chair of the Michigan chapter of Muslims for Trump, underscored the need to punish the Biden administration for what he described as supporting a “genocide” in Gaza.
“The goal of this election is to hold the Biden administration accountable for a genocide. No amount of fear mongering or scare tactics will persuade my community into forgiving the mutilation, live-burning, and genocide of over 200,000 people,” he said.
According to data produced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, roughly 40,000 people have died in Gaza since the war began last October. Israel has said that its forces have killed about 20,000 Hamas terrorists during its military campaign.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
On the organization Muslims for Trump’s official website, it claims that the Abraham Accords, a series of historic, Trump administration-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several countries in the Arab world, helped stabilize the Middle East. It also says that had Trump not lost the 2020 presidential race, the so-called “genocide” could have been prevented.
“Under Trump’s leadership, the Abraham Accords were brokered, fostering peaceful relations between Israel and several Arab countries. Supporters might argue that Trump’s diplomacy prioritized peace and stability in the Middle East, reducing the likelihood of large-scale conflicts like genocide,” the group wrote.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump has repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them if he were to win November’s US presidential election.
Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran under Trump crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress have criticized the Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
Despite Harris’s repeated efforts to woo Muslim voters, polling data indicates that the demographic has made a dramatic swing away from the Democratic Party. Polling data from the Arab American Institute reveals that Trump slightly edges Harris among Muslim voters by a margin of 42 to 41 percent. A report from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shows that Green Party candidate Jill Stein leads Harris and Trump with Muslim voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
The post ‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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