Today’s report is long – as I tried to capture some of the breaking analysis from Israel’s attack in Iran this weekend, now called Operation Days of Repentance, in which all Israeli military aircraft and personnel returned safely to Israel after a successful operation.

The Iran Attack

• From the Times of Israel: Israel launched a long-awaited retaliatory strike against Iran early Saturday, almost four weeks after the Islamic Republic’s massive ballistic missile barrage on the country, with the military saying the “precise strikes” by the Israeli Air Force targeted strategic military sites — specifically drone and ballistic missile manufacturing and launch sites, as well as air defense batteries. Reports of explosions near Tehran began to emerge around 2:15 a.m. local time, with the Israel Defense Forces quickly releasing a statement confirming that it was attacking, in response to “months of continuous attacks from the Iranian regime against the State of Israel.” The strikes were carried out in several waves over the course of several hours, in various areas of Iran, with the Islamic Republic closing its airspace for the duration and seemingly showing little ability to counter the assault. Strikes were reported in the Tehran, Karaj, Isfahan and Shiraz areas.
• The Jerusalem Post adds: The Arabic independent online newspaper Elaph reported Israel targeted a secret ballistic missile factory in Iran, destroying a large number of heavy fuel mixers used to power Kheibar and Haj Qasem missiles – both of which were fired by Iran at Israel at the beginning of the month.
• The report said that the ballistic missile factory was completely destroyed. One source told Elaph that it was the “backbone of Iran’s missile industry” and that Israel had “put it out of service,” also reporting that each heavy fuel mixer destroyed was estimated to be at least two million dollars and about twenty mixers of this type were destroyed.
• Overall, more than 100 Israeli aircraft participated in the attack on Iranian targets, Ynet reported, stating that their mission was to hit the most advanced anti-aircraft systems of the Islamic Republic and develop air superiority there for any possible upcoming IAF operations – in such a way that Israeli fighter jets would be able to fly even at a relatively low altitude in the skies of Tehran itself in the future.
• Axios’s Barak Ravid writes: One of the key targets Israel attacked in its retaliatory strike against Iran was 12 “planetary mixers” that are a critical component in Iran’s ballistic missile program, according to three Israeli sources. The “planetary mixers” are used to produce solid fuel for long-range ballistic missiles, and their destruction severely damages Iran’s ability to renew its missile stockpile
  • Israeli sources said that the mixers are highly sophisticated equipment that Iran can not produce on its own and must purchase it in China. Remanufacturing of the mixers could take at least a year
  • The destruction of the equipment severely damages Iran’s ability to renew its missile stockpile and could deter Iran from further massive missile strikes against Israel, the sources said.
  • Israeli sources said that four S-300 air defense batteries that were in strategic locations and protected Tehran and nuclear and energy facilities in Iran were also attacked
  • Israel also attacked a factory for the production of drones and conducted a “symbolic” strike on a facility in the city of Parchin that was used in the past in the past for the research and development of nuclear weapons
• Israeli journalist Marc Schulman writes last night: It’s important to understand the strategic shift resulting from the substantial weakening of Hezbollah’s capabilities. Previously, Hezbollah’s potential to launch thousands of rockets and missiles at Israel served as Iran’s deterrent against Israeli aggression. With that threat now neutralized, Iran’s long-standing strategy of encircling Israel with “a ring of terror” has been thwarted—at least for now.
• Ambassador Michael Oren writes Game-ender or game-changer?
  • The raid followed weeks of intense pressure on Israel from the Biden Administration, which adamantly opposed an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear and oil facilities. The president, publicly and injudiciously, called on Israel not to bomb these sites and later claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed.
  • Yet, despite its heavy and often ham-handed approach, the White House got its way. Accordingly, it praised the operation, deeming it a legitimate act of self-defense, and urged Iran to refrain from further escalation.
  • In addition to pleasing Washington, and despite their pro forma condemnations, the raid was no doubt received favorably by Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Jordan, and Egypt. All wanted Iran to be punished but not at the price of an all-out Middle East war. By contrast, Iran’s Russian ally suffered a major setback as its most sophisticated anti-aircraft systems were shown to be powerless to stop the Israelis.
  • …with all its outstanding results, the question remains whether the mission secured its fundamental objective of deterring Iran. Will it dampen in any way Iranian support for its terrorist proxies or, by contrast, lead it to back diplomatic solutions? Did the limited operation reduce or enhance the danger of an Iranian decision to break out and create a nuclear weapon?

[PODCAST] Call Me Back with Dan Senor: EMERGENCY EPISODE – Israel Attacks Iran: with Nadav Eyal and Jonathan Schanzer

• Link: EMERGENCY EPISODE – Israel Attacks Iran

Former IDF Spokesman Jonathan Conricus writes: My preliminary take on tonight’s Israeli strike in Iran:

• Pending confirmed and high-resolution BDA, which likely will take days to establish, it appears that the Israeli strike achieved a few goals: the most important components of Iran’s air defenses were taken out, and storage facilities for hundreds of missiles were struck.
• Tehran, with all of its regime targets and sensitive infrastructure, might now be totally exposed to future Israeli strikes. Israel chose the least escalatory option of the various available, and refrained from hitting financial, regime or nuclear targets, probably as a result of US influence. However, should Iran decide to escalate by attacking Israel again, Israel is ready and capable of striking almost every target in Iran.
• The Iranian regime is conducting a massive propaganda denial effort, but it will be difficult to obfuscate the results of some 20 military installations struck.

FDD’s Mark Dubowitz writes: My assessment of the Israeli strike:

• Israel conducted a precise operation, successfully targeting and destroying key Iranian military and defense industry assets, including air defense systems, missile production facilities, and UAV production sites, achieving nearly 100 percent accuracy on intended targets.
• In particular, Israel neutralized multiple S-300 air defense systems, demonstrating Israel’s ability to cripple Iran’s ability to defend its airspace and critical infrastructure and facilities. This was accomplished without a single loss of Israeli aircraft, including fighter jets, refuelers, missiles and UAVs—demonstrating Israel’s air dominance and operational precision.
• The strike sent a clear, strategic message to Iran: Israel can deliver a disproportionate amount of damage with fewer resources, a sharp contrast to Iran’s ineffective attempts. For example, Iran’s large-scale missile and drone assaults on April 13 and October 1st caused minimal damage, underscoring the gap in military capabilities. One of the key objectives was the Parchin military complex, where Israel reportedly dismantled critical rocket engine manufacturing facilities linked to long range missile production. There may also have been damage caused to facilities connected to the early stages of nuclear weaponization, though Iran, which denies nuclear activities at Parchin, is left with little ground for complaint.
• Once again, Israel has demonstrated its ability to execute precision strikes against Iranian assets while maintaining air superiority. The operation also serves as message and as a preparation for future actions, should they become necessary if Iran will react, or as part of a future wider confrontation.
• For now, Israel seems to have achieved its goal of “closing this round,” as Iran downplays the extent of the damage to save face and risk further more wide-scale damage to its capabilities.

Situational Update

• FDD reports: A Hamas commander who directed the murder of Israeli civilians seeking shelter after they fled from the terrorist group’s massacre at the Nova dance music festival on October 7, 2023, was eliminated in an IDF operation on October 24. A joint statement from the IDF and the Shin Bet intelligence agency confirmed the killing of Mohammad Abu Itiwi, a commander in Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force, highlighting that since July 2022, he had been an employee of UNRWA, the UN agency solely dedicated to the descendants of Palestinian refugees. Abu Itiwi led the attack on a bomb shelter on Route 232 in the Re’im area of southern Israel, where 27 of the Nova revelers had sought shelter after escaping from the slaughter at the festival site. Sixteen of them were murdered, while four — including Israeli American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin — were abducted and hauled to Gaza as hostages.
• FDD adds: The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shared evidence on October 23 exposing six Al-Jazeera “journalists” as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists. The documents, which the IDF seized in Gaza, include “personnel tables, lists of terrorist training courses, phone directories, and salary documents” and reveal the “military affiliation” of four Al-Jazeera Gaza correspondents with Hamas and two with PIJ. Hamas and PIJ are both U.S.-designated terrorist organizations. The IDF released a second trove of documents on October 24 showing how “Hamas directs Al Jazeera’s media coverage to serve its own interests,” such as instructing the network to whitewash failed attacks. These documents serve as proof of the integration of Hamas terrorists within the Qatari Al Jazeera media network.

• The IDF located and destroyed with some 400 tons of explosives an underground strategic military facility built by Hezbollah over the past 15 years. The route is more than a kilometer and a half long, and contains equipment used by hundreds of terrorists for extended stays, food, beds, cupboards, electricity and a large quantity of weapons – anti-tank missiles, rockets, RPGs, mines and many IEDs.

The Numbers

Casualties

• 1,743 Israelis have been killed including 776 (+11 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers since October 7th

  

  • In the North, A Hezbollah fighter had emerged from a tunnel and thrown a grenade at a group of soldiers killing: First-class Sergeant (res.) Shuvael Ben-Natan (22), Master Sergeant (res.) Shlomo Aviad Nayman (31), Sergeant Major (res.) Shmuel Harari (35) and Warrant officer (res.) Mordechai Haim Amoyal (45)
  • Maj. (res.) Dan Maori (43), Cpt. (res.) Alon Safrai (28), Warrant Officer (res.) Omri Lotan (47), Warrant Officer (res.) Guy Idan (51), and Master Sgt. (res.) Tom Segal (28) were killed when building that was being used as a Hezbollah logistics hub was hit by a rocket
  • Sergeant First-Class Gai Ben-Haroosh (22) was killed in South Lebanon.
  • Three Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed Friday during fighting in the northern Gaza Strip’s Jabaliya as the military pushed ahead with an offensive in the neighborhood, including taking control of the area’s last functioning hospital in pursuit of Hamas operatives: Cpt. Barak Israel Sagan, 22; Sgt. Ido Ben Zvi, 21; and Sgt. Hillel Ovadia, 22.
  • Arjwan Manaa, 19, and Hassan Suad, 21 were killed and seven injured on Friday after rockets fired by Hezbollah struck the northern Arab town of Majd al-Krum, as several barrages from Lebanon targeted the north. They both succumbed to critical wounds sustained when a rocket hit near a minimarket.

    

• 364 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza have been killed
• 93 Israelis (60 IDF soldiers: +10 soldiers and +2 civilians since Wednesday) have been killed during the war in Northern Israel
• Additional Information (according to the IDF):
  • 2,369 (+7 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 453 (no change since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.
  • 5,150 (+107 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 764 (+16 since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.
• According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 42,603 (no new reported numbers) people have been killed in Gaza, and 99,759 (no new reported numbers) have been injured during the war.
  • On October 7th, Ohad Hemo with Channel 12 Israel News – the country’s largest news network, a leading expert on Palestinian and Arab affairs, mentioned an estimate from Hamas: around 80% of those killed in Gaza are members of the organization and their families.”
    • The article goes on to say: “In an N12 article that came out this morning, Hemo also pointed out that since the elimination of key leader Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s top echelon has gone underground and fled Iran and Lebanon, with some relocating to Turkey and Qatar – with the hope that Israel will not strike them there.
  • We also encourage you to read this well documented piece from Tablet published in March: How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers
  • The Associated Press, an outlet with a demonstrated anti-Israel bias, conducted an analysis of alleged Gaza death tolls released by the Hamas-controlled “Gaza Health Ministry.” The analysis found that “9,940 of the dead – 29% of its April 30 total – were not listed in the data” and that “an additional 1,699 records in the ministry’s April data were incomplete and 22 were duplicates.”
• The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes official details on every civilian and IDF casualty.

Hostages (no change from Wednesday)

• There are currently 97 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza
• 7 hostages are Americans: Meet the Seven American Hostages Still Held By Hamas
• On October 7^th, a total of 261 Israelis were taken hostage.
• During the ceasefire deal in November, 112 hostages were released.
• 146 hostages in total have been released or rescued
  • The bodies of 37 hostages have been recovered, including 3 mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
• 8 hostages have been rescued by troops alive
• This leaves 101 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
  • 30-50 hostages are assumed to be dead and held in captivity
  • Thus, at most, 50-70 living hostages could still be in Gaza.
• Hamas is also holding 2 Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of 2 IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.

Listen

[PODCAST] Call Me Back with Dan Senor: Scott Galloway – One Year Since October 7

• For the sixth and final episode in our series, we sat down with Scott Galloway, who is a Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business where he teaches Brand Strategy and Digital Marketing. He’s the host of the Prof G Podcast and the Pivot podcast, which he co-hosts with Kara Swisher. He is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous books, including “The Four”, “The Algebra of Happiness”, “Adrift: America in 100 Charts”, and most recently, “The Algebra of Wealth: A Simple Formula for Financial Security.”
• Link: Scott Galloway – One Year Since October 7

[PODCAST] Honestly by The Free Press: Gad Saad Survived War in Lebanon. He’s Warning About One in the West.

• Gad Saad was born in Beirut in 1964 into one of the last Jewish families to remain in Lebanon. But the country that was once called “the Paris of the Middle East” began to turn.
• In 2024, many of us in Western democracies find ourselves saying the exact same things: This will pass over. We will be fine. Even as Hamas flags and “I love Hezbollah” posters wave in cosmopolitan capitals across the West. How worried should we be? And, is there a way to roll back admiration for anti-civilizational groups? Those are just some of the questions we were eager to put to Saad in today’s conversation.
• Saad said that witnessing the Lebanese Civil War gave him a crash course in the extremes of identity politics, tribalism, and illiberalism. He argues that immigrants like himself, who have lived without the virtues of the West—freedom of speech and thought, reason, and true liberalism—uniquely understand what’s at stake right now in Western cultural and political life. It’s no coincidence, Saad said, that the most prominent defenders of Western ideals are immigrants, people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Salman Rushdie, and Masih Alinejad.
• Today, Bari Weiss asks one of the most insightful and provocative thinkers about the risks of mob rule and extremism on the left, where these “parasitic ideas” came from and why they’re encouraged in the West, if progressive illiberalism is waxing or waning, and if these trends are reversible.
• Link: Gad Saad Survived War in Lebanon. He’s Warning About One in the West

Watch

Lebanese Hezbollah Select Worldwide Activity Interactive Map by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

• Link to Map: Lebanese Hezbollah – Select Worldwide Activity
• Lebanese Hezbollah is a global, multifaceted organization, engaged in a wide range of endeavors, including overt social and political activities in Lebanon, military activities in Lebanon, Syria, and throughout the Middle East, and covert militant, criminal, and terrorist activities around the world.
• Hezbollah is very public about its social and political activities, but the group goes to great lengths to conceal its covert and illicit pursuits. In the words of one Hezbollah operative, the “golden rule” of the Islamic Jihad Organization (aka External Security Organization)—the entity responsible for Hezbollah international terrorism operations—is “the less you know about the unit, the better.” When information about Hezbollah’s covert and illicit activities does come to light, it typically happens in small bursts—a fact here, a snippet there. Another reason for the dearth of publicly available material about Hezbollah operations is that governments, while collecting significant amounts of information on the subject, are wary of using that classified information in any public way for fear of revealing intelligence-collection sources and methods.
• As a result, no single repository of the collected, open-source information about Hezbollah’s worldwide activities has appeared to date. The lack of transparency and available information has severely hampered the emergence of an informed public debate about the totality of Hezbollah’s activities.
• The Lebanese Hezbollah Select Worldwide Activity Interactive Map and Timeline, based on research done for my book and a subsequent body of work, aims to fill this knowledge gap. An interactive multimedia tool, the map is searchable by category, location, timeline, and text keywords. Each entry includes photographs or videos, a summary of the event, geographic and/or thematic linkages to other related entries in the map, as well as primary-source documents. Launching with approximately a thousand entries, complemented by hundreds of documents—comprising declassified government reports, court documents, congressional testimony, and research reports—it constitutes the largest database of open-source documentation on Hezbollah’s malign activity and the counterterrorism actions against it. As a “living” project, the digital interface will be updated as more information and documentation becomes available.
• This project illuminates the full geographic and temporal range of Hezbollah’s activities, from granular logistics such as travel routes, aliases, operatives, and handlers, to larger themes related to the organization’s founding and development, its relationship with key state sponsors, and its unitary nature.

Rocket Alerts

Yesterday, there were 106 red alerts, and a total of 1,798 in the past week

• +729 rocket alerts since Wednesday
• +103 UAV alerts since Wednesday

Source: Rocket Alerts in Israel

What We Are Reading

Israel’s Iran Strike—and America’s Strategic Weakness. Once again, Israel appears to have ignored Washington’s advice. Once again, that decision has paid off. By Niall Ferguson in The Free Press

• The past year has revealed many things—not least the moral confusion of many young Americans—but two major points stand out. First, Israel has pursued a strategy of targeted retaliation of impressive precision and effectiveness. Second, the United States has lost all but a shred of the influence it once had over Israeli policy.
• The political consequences are twofold. First, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has successfully outmaneuvered his critics at home and abroad, who wrongly assumed that, by relentlessly exaggerating the collateral damage of Israel’s campaign against Hamas, they would prevent Israel from exacting vengeance—and from reestablishing deterrence.
• Second, the Biden-Harris administration has been left looking even more hapless in its national security strategy than Jimmy Carter’s did in 1980, when Ronald Reagan swept to victory with a promise to achieve “peace through strength.”
• The U.S. government has stated that it was notified by Israel ahead of the strikes. American officials are framing the strike as a success for U.S. mediation, arguing that it successfully lobbied Israel to direct its strikes away from oil facilities and nuclear sites. The administration is also briefing that there was no American involvement in the Israeli strikes. It is not clear to me where Washington got the leverage to determine the targets of an attack it was not involved in.
• The key question now is whether Israel will be satisfied with proving it can hit Iranian military assets within the country, or whether this attack represents the first step in a plan to neutralize Iran’s nuclear program. I would bet on the latter.
• …both terrorist organizations are merely the tentacles of an octopus whose head resides in Tehran. That is why direct strikes against Iran’s military defenses are best understood as part of a more ambitious strategy of phased escalation.
• Israel’s resurrection has also been the resurrection of a core strategic principle familiar to game theorists: When you are attacked, always strike back with greater force than the attacker could muster. At every stage of Israel’s retaliation, the Biden-Harris administration has urged de-escalation. Netanyahu has rightly ignored this foolish advice.
• Link: Israel’s Iran Strike—and America’s Strategic Weakness

UNRWA is a front for terrorism, by Gadi Taub in Jewish National Syndicate

• A bill to outlaw any dealing with the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is supposed to come up for a vote in the Knesset at the end of the month. International pressure spearheaded by the Biden administration to take it off the agenda is mounting.
• This is, of course, part of the effort to resurrect the so-called “two-state solution” out of the ashes of Oct. 7. The effort depends on preserving the illusion that there are viable, meaningful forces in Palestinian society capable of contributing to constructive nation-building, pragmatic civil administration and, eventually, peace.
• The United Nations has a general agency for refugees (UNHCR), but the Palestinians have a specialized, separate refugee organization. The Arab enemies of Israel insisted on creating it to ensure that the problem would not be solved, so it could fester like a thorn in Zionism’s side, poised to bring its eventual ruin.
• That result could be brought about by a combination of demography (UNRWA schools keep indoctrinating children to believe they have a “right of return” into Israel proper) and violence (UNRWA schools also indoctrinate children to aspire to “martyrdom.”)
• Like a cancerous growth attaching blood vessels to itself at the expense of healthy organs, UNRWA sucks in aid money that is supposed to help Gazans and funnels it into the perpetuation of the war that ensures their continued misery.
• That is how the agency gradually turned into a terror-supporting organization, and eventually the handmaiden of Hamas. The sadistic, savage perpetrators of the Oct. 7 massacre were brought up in UNRWA schools and kindergartens, where instilling bloodlust and wild racial and religious antisemitism is the perennial aim of the curricula.
• In fact, the alleged organizational separation between UNRWA and Hamas is more fiction than reality. Out of 12,790 UNRWA employees in Gaza, more than 12,000 are either Hamas members or spouses of Hamas members.
• And there’s more. There are hundreds of men on the UNRWA payroll who are actual active Hamas soldiers. And it is worth noting that in Judea and Samaria, too, about 4,000 UNRWA employees serve similar causes while enjoying UNRWA’s diplomatic immunity.
• In the event, MK Amit Halevi (Likud), who sits on the committee, demanded the removal of this clause and its replacement with a clause that says the exact opposite: That none of the obligations undertaken by the State of Israel will abrogate the provisions of this law. Halevi’s language cited the fact that the fundamental change of circumstances since UNRWA’s establishment justifies the termination of these obligations.
• Halevi achieved partial success. The clause was struck down, but his alternative was not adopted, thus leaving the bill more open than it would have otherwise been to further meddling by judges and legal advisers. The bill is up for a Knesset vote later this month, where Halevi’s amendment may still be adopted.
• That the matter is ultimately political rather than legal was underscored by the fact that the Biden administration is threatening to punish Israel if the bill passes in the Knesset. This is one more way in which the United States is trying to prevent Israeli victory in this war, and it should be resisted, either directly or in less conspicuous ways.
• And by this topsy-turvy logic, we are supposed to cooperate with our own enemies, because human rights and international law bind our hands in just wars against them while freeing theirs to commit the most unthinkable atrocities against us.
• Link: UNRWA is a front for terrorism

Iran to direct majority of oil, gas revenue to IRGC, report reveals, by Jerusalem Post Staff

• The government is expected to receive about €24 billion from these exports, which constitutes 37.5% of the total revenue generated, the report stated. Of that amount, approximately €12 billion, or 51%, will be directed toward military spending, according to the report.
• The Iranian armed forces, officially known as the Islamic Republic of Iran armed forces, encompass the Army, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the Law Enforcement Forces (LEF). Meanwhile, 42.5% of the remaining funds will support the government’s operational expenses, and 6.5% will be allocated for “special projects,” the report indicated.
• A significant aspect of the budget is an increase in the official euro exchange rate, rising from 310,000 rials this year to 502,000 rials next year, the report highlighted. This change is expected to significantly boost military funding from oil revenue, raising the armed forces’ income to over €12 billion next year—up from €4.3 billion this year and €3 billion the previous year.
• In practice, the government will provide oil, priced in euros, to the armed forces, which can then sell it on international markets, the report detailed. With oil priced at €57.5 per barrel, this equates to a daily provision of 583,000 barrels to the military.
• Data from oil tanker tracking shows that the IRGC ships approximately 85,000 barrels of oil per day to Syria, according to the report. However, the majority of the oil allocated to the armed forces is expected to be sold to China, which receives 95% of Iran’s total oil exports, the report claimed. This year, the military has received over 200,000 barrels daily, with a significant portion going to Chinese markets and the rest to Syria.
• In addition to oil revenues, the armed forces benefit from other financial sources within the broader national budget, as highlighted in the report. This year, their total budget is estimated at around $17 billion, including $4.5 billion worth of oil shipments.
• According to the report, Iran is projected to generate €64 billion from oil and gas exports next year. This includes €4.8 billion from gas exports, based on 16 billion cubic meters sold at 30 cents per cubic meter, and €59 billion from oil and petroleum product exports.
• Customs data indicated that last year, the country’s total revenue from oil and petroleum exports amounted to approximately $37 billion. In the first half of this year, it has already reached $24 billion, the report noted.
• The National Development Fund (NDF), which is supposed to receive 48% of oil export revenues, will see its share reduced to 20%, with the government borrowing back the remaining 28%—around €17.9 billion, according to the report. This means that 65.5% of the oil and gas revenue will go to the government’s budget, while 14.5% will be allocated to the National Oil and Gas Companies and 20% to the NDF.
• In addition to oil exports, the government expects to earn €4.5 billion from the domestic sale of petroleum products and gas, the report concluded.
• Link: Iran to direct majority of oil, gas revenue to IRGC, report reveals

[SPECIAL REPORT] Ilan Berman with American Foreign Policy Council released Navigating the Iranian Opposition – A National Security Blueprint for the United States

• In the Fall of 2023, Iranians from all walks of life took to the streets to vent their rage at their country’s ruling clerical regime. The immediate cause for their anger was the September 2022 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of regime security forces for the crime of improperly wearing her Islamic headscarf, or hijab. Quickly, however, what began as grassroots unrest over regime brutality transformed into something more: a fundamental rejection of the Islamic Republic’s religious system of government. And as the protests went on, hopes rose in the West that they might, at long last, coalesce into a real challenge to the country’s four-plus decades of draconian clerical rule. Two years on, however, the promise of what has come to be known as the “woman, life, freedom” movement has mostly dissipated.
• Nevertheless, as numerous experts have pointed out, the “woman, life, freedom” protests represent a watershed of sorts. They mark the crossing of an ideological Rubicon, showcasing the fundamental alienation of Iran’s captive population from its ruling regime. They also highlight a quickening in the pace of domestic unrest, instances of which have taken place with growing frequency since the late 1990s. As a result, these observers contend, Iran will invariably face another cycle of anti-regime activity, and likely sooner rather than later. In turn, those future protests may succeed where previous ones have not, and catalyze fundamental political change within the Islamic Republic.
• Executive Summary
  • National integrity: Support opposition elements that are firmly committed to maintaining Iran’s territorial cohesion. Iran’s diverse ethnic makeup, while a potential point of leverage, should not be exploited to fragment the country. A fractured Iran poses significant security risks, particularly given the advanced state of the country’s nuclear program. Balkanization could lead to a “loose nukes” scenario, making the security of Iran’s nuclear technology, enriched uranium stockpiles, and related components an overriding concern.
  • Civil society: Prioritize opposition groups advocating for robust civil society and meaningful engagement across Iran’s political spectrum. Such a focus is necessary to counter the Islamic Republic’s long legacy of repression and its systematic undermining of pre-Islamic culture. Support should be directed toward forces committed to broadening and strengthening the country’s civil society, ensuring true pluralism and participation from diverse political factions and perspectives.
  • Secular governance: Promote legislative frameworks allowing for the broadest possible expression of faith without compelling adherence to any particular belief system or religion. Such an approach would recognize the growing distance from religion exhibited by the Iranian population writ large, and seek to avoid the unintended consequences that have accompanied recent embraces of state religion in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
  • Nuclear development: Recognize that a will to nuclear power will likely persist in a post theocratic Iran, given broad popular support for nuclear status among ordinary Iranians. However, opposition forces must commit to pursuing any development in this arena through a transparent, verifiable process that is both internationally monitored and regulated.
  • Pluralism: Focus on fostering religious tolerance, gender equality, and social inclusiveness rather than insisting on Western-style democracy as the only acceptable outcome of a post-theocratic transition. Historical data suggests that environments which protect religious, gender, and ethnic minority rights have a better chance of evolving in a pluralistic, inclusive direction. The U.S. should encourage cooperation among disparate Iranian opposition groups and foster durable coalitions committed to these principles.
  • Accountability and rehabilitation: Encourage opposition plans that balance holding regime officials accountable for past atrocities with reintegrating key segments of the current power structure into the country’s future political order. This is particularly crucial with regard to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which wields extensive economic and strategic influence in present-day Iran. As such, the complete exclusion of the IRGC from public life would be difficult and potentially unwise. However, its subordination to the new political order is essential. Opposition forces should articulate a clear process for rehabilitating and reintegrating this and other key regime groups while ensuring their accountability.
  • Link: Navigating the Iranian Opposition

Antisemitism

[MUST READ] How Wikipedia’s Pro-Hamas Editors Hijacked the Israel-Palestine Narrative: a powerful group of editors is hijacking Wikipedia, pushing pro-Palestinian propaganda, erasing key facts about Hamas, and reshaping the narrative around Israel with alarming influence by Ashley Rindsberg in Pirate Wires

Executive Summary

• A coordinated campaign led by around 40 Wikipedia editors has worked to delegitimize Israel, present radical Islamist groups in a favorable light, and position fringe academic views on the Israel-Palestine conflict as mainstream over past years, intensifying after the October 7 attack
• Six weeks after October 7, one of these editors successfully removed mention of Hamas’ 1988 charter, which calls for the killing of Jews and the destruction of Israel, from the article on Hamas
• The group also appeared to attempt to promote the interests of the Iranian government across a number of articles, including deleting “huge amounts of documented human rights crimes by [Islamic Republic Party] officials”
• A group called Tech For Palestine launched a separate but complementary campaign after October 7, which violated Wikipedia policies by coordinating to edit Israel-Palestine articles on the group 8,000 member Discord
• Tech For Palestine abandoned its efforts and its members went into a panic after a blog discovered what they were doing; the group deleted all its Wiki Talk pages and Sandboxes they had been using to coordinate their editing efforts, and the main editor deleted all her chats from the group’s Discord channel

Additional Points

• On everything from American politics to corporate brands, Wikipedia plays host to a smoldering battle of ideas and values that occasionally erupts into white-hot, internecine edit wars. But no fire burns hotter than the Israel-Palestine topic area. The topic is such a flashpoint that the Palestine-Israel Articles (PIA) designation is used synonymously with its own dispute resolution abbreviation — Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel Articles, known as ARBPIA in Wiki-speak.
• A separate but complementary campaign, launched after October 7 and staged from an 8,000 member-strong Discord group called Tech For Palestine (TFP), employed common tech modalities — ticket creation, strategy planning sessions, group audio “office hour” chats — to alter over 100 articles. Operating from February 6 to September 3 of this year, TFP became a well-oiled operation, going so far as to attempt to use Wikipedia as a means of pressuring British members of parliament into changing their positions on Israel and the Gaza War.
• These efforts are remarkably successful. Type “Zionism” into Wikipedia’s search box and, aside from the main article on Zionism (and a disambiguation page), the auto-fill returns: “Zionism as settler colonialism,” “Zionism in the Age of the Dictators” (a book by a pro-Palestinian Trotskyite), “Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims,” and “Racism in Israel.”
• To skirt this, the pro-Palestine group leverages deep Wikipedia know-how to coordinate efforts without raising red flags. They work in small clusters, with only two or three active in the same article at any given time. On their own, many of these edits appear minor, even trivial. But together, their scope is staggering, with two million edits made to more than 10,000 articles, a majority of which are PIA or topically associated. In dozens of cases, the group’s edits account for upwards of 90% of the content on an article, giving them complete control of the topics.
• In August, an analysis of the intensity of editing in PIA between January 2022 and September 2024 found that the top contributor to PIA by number of edits, a user called Selfstudier, made over 15,000 edits in the space in that period. Iskandar323 contributed over 12,000 edits to PIA articles in the same period. Other members of the pro-Palestine group are equally prolific, with top contributors including CarmenEsparzaAmoux (8,353), Makeandtoss (8,074), Nableezy (6,414), Nishidani (5,879), Onceinawhile (4,760) and an admin called Zero0000 (2,561).
• The 15,000 edits by Selfstudier and the 12,000 by Iskandar323 put those two users in the top 99.975% of editors by number of edits — solely for their PIA edits made in under three years. The other pro-Palestine group members’ PIA edits from this period place them among the top 99.9% of Wikipedia editors. All together, the top 20 editors of this group made over 850,000 edits to more than 10,500 articles, the majority of them in the Palestine-Israel topic area, or topically connected historical articles.
• It’s not just the raw number of edits that matters. The same analysis shows that fully 90% of total edits by Selfstudier in that period were made to Palestine-Israel articles. Other members of the group clock in at 90% (sean.hoyland), 86% (CarmenEsparzaAmoux), 82% (Makeandross), 64% (Nishidani), and 43% (Onceinawhile). After October 7 the intensity increased, with Selfstudier peaking at 99% in October 2023, while others got to 97%, 98% and even 100% of their total monthly edits dedicated to PIA.
• To evade detection, the group works in pairs or trios, an approach that veils them from detection. They also appear to rotate their groupings for the same reason. Likewise, one or more of the group’s editors can come to the aid of another in the case of pushback. In many instances, editing by the group is made to articles focused on historical issues, where a single editor might be patrolling for this kind of abuse, making it easy for two dedicated users to overwhelm or exhaust the lone editor.
• This exchange embodies the rhetorical approach taken by the group: the shifting of language, the torturing of settled definitions, and positioning fringe academic theory as mainstream — an approach developed by the radical left, in concert with global Islamist movements, in the wake of 9/11, when the attacks put Islamism on the moral back foot. In response, the leftist-Islamist alliance launched two decades of ideological assault on the US, and the West more generally. The same post-9/11 dynamic took place after October 7, when the savagery of the Hamas attack opened a vulnerability as the broader public would recognize it as a barbaric attack on civilians.
• There is little doubt that the kind of careful, intelligent Wikipedia coordination detailed above will continue. Wikipedia is simply too powerful a tool — and one too easy to manipulate — for actors like the pro-Palestine group and TFP activists to stay away from. But Wikipedia is coming to a crossroads. The ask-and-answer modality of generative AI will eat away at the value of the site’s privileged position within the Google information ecosystem. Groups less savvy than pro-Palestine will also learn to exploit the site, to much more public effect. As with so many of our once-cherished institutions, trust will be lost, and credibility will soon follow.

Why Is ‘The New York Times’ Not Disclosing a Source’s Ties to Hamas? by Olivia Reingold in The Free Press

• On October 7, 2024—one year after Hamas invaded Israel, murdering 1,200 people—The New York Times published an episode of its flagship podcast, The Daily. It featured two men on opposite sides of the conflict: an Israeli man who’s moved from hotel to hotel after Hamas destroyed his community, and a father trying to survive in Gaza.
• But while the Israeli man was described in full—as a “liberal” 44-year-old father named Golan Abitbul, born and raised on Kibbutz Be’eri, the Palestinian man’s identity was shrouded in secrecy. The New York Times simply referred to him as “Hussein, a Palestinian man living in Gaza.” The host, Sabrina Tavernise, did not ask Hussein any follow-up questions when he revealed that, unlike most Gazans right now, he has “a good income” and is able to pay about $1,000 a month for rent. And she let him explain—uninterrupted—about why, a year later, the war ravages on.
  • “I’m surprised that there is humans doing this force,” Hussein said of Israeli soldiers, in broken English. “How could human became this evil, killing others, imposing collective punishment on over two million people with no reason? What are they going to gain? Why they are doing this?”
• But what Tavernise did not say is that “Hussein” is Hussein Owda, whose name is listed in the show notes on audio platforms that host the podcast, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And what The New York Times does not reveal is that Owda’s background suggests links to Hamas. A simple Google search turns up his LinkedIn page, where he publicly lists an eight-year stretch working for the Municipality of Gaza, which sources told me is controlled by Hamas; a new job at the controversy-riddled United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (also known as UNRWA); and an eight-month stint at Muslim Hands, a nonprofit exposed by the UK’s Telegraph in 2014 for having “close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.” Hamas was originally established in the 1980s when it spun off from the local Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
• From September 2015 until August 2023, Owda lists his job as the head of public relations for the Municipality of Gaza. “Every government structure in Gaza was run by Hamas,” Jon Schanzer, a former terrorism analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, told me. “The people that were paying his salary ultimately would’ve gone up the chain to Hamas itself.” Schanzer added that Owda was likely “providing propaganda” to advance the mission of Hamas.
• When The Free Press asked The New York Times why its podcast concealed key parts of Owda’s identity and his Hamas ties, the paper replied with a statement. “For the October 7, 2024 episode of ‘The Daily,’ we interviewed Mr. Owda as a father and private Gazan citizen to offer a snapshot of life on the ground, one year after the attack. We are aware of his employment with UNRWA, which we’ve disclosed in our earlier reporting,” said Danielle Rhoades Ha, SVP of external communications for the Times. 
  • In the link Rhoades Ha sent, Owda is cited as “an aid worker with UNRWA.” In total, the Times has quoted Owda four times—in two podcast episodes and two stories—citing his work for UNRWA twice but revealing no other affiliations. He denied these claims after being asked by TFP, signing it off with a “laughing emoji”.
• Since Israel’s war against Hamas began, multiple legacy media outlets have quoted Owda as an ordinary citizen trying to survive the war. The first time The New York Times quoted Owda was last October, right after Israel launched its retaliatory ground invasion in Gaza, in which he said “every basic need for humans became a distant dream for us.” NBC News, in a report from this past March, identifies Owda as a “computer engineer” who said his home was destroyed—along with that of his parents, sister, brother, uncle, and grandfather. In January, Al Jazeera described Owda’s work as multimedia producer for UNRWA as “highlighting the plight of other displaced Palestinians and their suffering in light of the lack of safety, shelter, food, water, and healthcare.” Al Jazeera, it should be noted, is backed by the Qatari government, which harbors leaders of Hamas. NBC News and Al Jazeera did not reply to multiple requests for comment from The Free Press.
• According to a new Gallup poll out last week, the media is now the least-trusted civic and political institution in America. That’s no surprise when you consider the fact that The New York Times has fallen for Hamas propaganda in the past. Or when you factor in the Times’ description of the late Hezbollah terrorist Hassan Nasrallah as “beloved among many Shi’ite Muslims.”
• Link: Why Is ‘The New York Times’ Not Disclosing a Source’s Ties to Hamas?

The Foundation to Combat Antisemitism highlights: Twitch Facing Backlash Over Antisemitism Handling

• Streaming company Twitch has come under fire recently for its handling of antisemitic content and decisions to welcome back creators previously banned for spreading harmful views. Prominent podcaster Ethan Klein voiced his frustration, accusing the company’s leadership of antisemitism after Twitch reinstated streamers like Sneako and Fresh & Fit, who have been known to promote Holocaust denial and other conspiracy theories about Jews. Shortly after returning, Sneako described Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as “inspiring” and a “martyr” on stream and has since been banned again.
• The controversy grew even more heated following the resurfacing of a clip from TwitchCon 2024, where a panel at the event asked participants to rate streamers by categories ranging from “Arab” to “Loves Sabra,” which is a reference to the US-based hummus manufacturer that is popular in Israel. Twitch has removed the recording of the stream from its site and has temporarily suspended the creators involved in the panel.
• The company’s vague responses to specific cases of antisemitism, combined with the decision to lift bans on problematic creators, have led to growing criticism that Twitch is selectively applying its rules. The Command Center has observed a 316% increase in mentions of Twitch this week compared to the previous week.

Sources: JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, and the Times of Israel