I thought I’d start today’s update with a report that really highlights the antisemitic degeneracy that has infected our schools, from New York to California.

Antisemitism in NYC schools fueled by foreign actors, activist educators: report by Susan Edelman and Deirdre Bardolf with the New York Post

• Activists and foreign actors have infiltrated the city’s public schools with anti-Israel materials, fostering bias and hatred of Jews, according to a new report by a nonprofit think tank.
• Teacher groups like NYC Educators for Palestine have collaborated with extremist organizations, some allegedly tied to hostile foreign governments and terrorist groups, to bring “radical, anti-American ideologies” into schools, said the Network Contagion Research Institute, or NCRI, and the advocacy group New York City Public School Alliance, which co-wrote the report.
• “The report exposes how the Department of Education’s vetted resources enable radical sympathizers to shape young minds with biased information,” said Tova Plaut, a DOE pre-K coordinator and co-founder with teacher Karen Feldman of NYCPS Alliance, a group of Jewish educators who contributed to the project.

• The report found a network of “radical” curriculum developers, activist educator groups and foreign influences that have contributed to the infiltration of anti-Israel materials within the NYC public school system.
• It calls on the DOE to immediately conduct a curriculum review; enforce the chancellor’s anti-discrimination policies; adopt a definition of antisemitism and mandate training on it; and increase oversight of foreign funding.
• The DOE’s recommended resources for teachers include the Zinn Education Project, which provide lessons, workshops and articles highly critical of Israel and the US. The DOE staff resource list links to the Zinn website, which features a section on “Teaching About Palestine-Israel and the Unfolding Genocide in Gaza” that claims, “Israel has turned Gaza into a ‘graveyard for children.”
• Beacon High School in Midtown used Zinn lessons and articles, along with videos from Arab news network Al Jazeera, for a 10th-grade social studies class on the Israel-Palestine conflict, emails reviewed by The Post show.
• The content “demonized Jews” while referring to Hamas as “a political party and militant group,” not as terrorists, parents said.
• Other resources available for NYC teachers to use at “their discretion” include those from the Teach Palestine project, which gives materials that emphasize “Palestinian victimhood” and frame Zionism as a “colonialist” movement.
• Teach Palestine is financially supported by the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), a California-based nonprofit with reported ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
• In May, the PTA of Ella Baker School, a public elementary on the Upper West Side, hosted a “Teach Palestine” webinar, sponsored by Rethinking Schools, the report said.
• Materials covered topics such as “anti-Zionism is not automatically antisemitism,” and “Israel’s attacks on children, schools, and historical memory in Palestine.”
• The NCRI report cites an alleged case of foreign influence at Brooklyn’s PS 261. In January, news broke that teacher Rita Lahoud put up an “Arab World” map that excluded Israel on her classroom wall as part of an “Arab Culture Arts” program funded by QFI, the American wing of the Qatar Foundation, a nonprofit owned by the country’s ruling family.
• QFI has donated more than $1 million to the DOE for dual-language Arabic programs at PS 261 and PS 30 in Brooklyn, records show.
• The far-left PSL has documented ties to China and Chinese Communist Party-linked entities.
• Jewish advocacy groups have been urging public school parents to email the new schools chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos, urging her to take action.
• City schools are “unsafe for Jewish people, or in fact for any person who identifies as a Zionist or supports the right of Israel to exist,” the email reads.
• NYC public schools should deem the word “Zionist” as a proxy for “Jew” offensive and grounds for potential disciplinary action, it says.
• “Our ‘Meeting the Moment’ plan to fight antisemitism, Islamophobia, and all forms of hate has been extremely comprehensive,” Styer said. “It includes vetted instructional materials and professional development on how to best teach about the crisis in the Middle East and other complex current events. We have also done comprehensive and ongoing community engagement on this topic.”
• Link: Antisemitism in NYC schools fueled by foreign actors, activist educators: report

Situational Update

• Israeli journalist Marc Schulman writes: There are indications that a ceasefire may be nearing on the Lebanese front. It appears that all involved parties are close to agreeing on the framework of a new deal, which would essentially be a more robust version of U.N. Resolution 1701. The proposed agreement calls for a gradual, phased Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, while the Lebanese Army, along with reinforced UNIFIL troops, including German and possibly British forces, would assume control in southern Lebanon. Under this agreement, Hezbollah would be restricted to areas north of the Litani River. One critical element of the agreement grants Israel the right to take action against Hezbollah forces if they are discovered south of the Litani. Sources indicate that both the Lebanese government and Hezbollah may have accepted the terms, and the Israeli government has hinted that an agreement might be imminent. While it’s premature to celebrate, there is a hint of optimism. Defense Minister Gallant announced that 80% of Hezbollah’s rocket capabilities have been destroyed.
  • Israel’s Channel 12 adds: A complete and “effective” arms embargo on Lebanon on land, air, and sea as well as Israel will have the ability to unilaterally intervene if it detects Hezbollah rearmament.
• The Times of Israel reports: Lebanese state media reports that Israeli tanks have entered the outskirts of the village of Khiam, their deepest incursion yet into south Lebanon in a ground operation launched last month.
• The commander of Hezbollah’s forces in southern Lebanon’s Ayta ash-Shab was captured by troops of the Golani Brigade some two weeks ago. Rayla Givens, a great follow on X, writes about the importance of this:
  • The capture of such a senior field figure is extremely unusual. After a year of war – not a single Hams commander was taken prisoner.
  • The IDF did not just publish the surrender documentation for no reason. This has a very significant psychological effect, and the goal is to break the spirit and motivation of other Hezbollah terrorists and to provoke internal criticism of Hezbollah among its base – even the senior commanders surrender to the IDF and do not fight.
  • This is not just surrender – but also the delivery of critical information to the enemy. In a highly unusual move, the IDF published very sensitive details of all the intelligence information the field commander provided in his interrogation. This has not happened in any terrorist interrogation event to date. The goal is clear: to show the other side again – not only did your commander surrender, but he also played a role in the investigation and provided sensitive information that led to the killing of terrorists and the destruction of Hezbollah infrastructure.

Update on the Iran Attack

The Institute for the Study of War and the IDF reports on Irael’s operation:

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the IDF strikes “severely damaged” Iran’s air defense and missile production capabilities.
• Unspecified sources within the Israeli defense establishment reported that Israel’s attack destroyed all of Iran’s long-range surface-to-air missile batteries and long-range detection radars, leaving Iran with only domestically produced short-range defense batteries.
• The primary damage to the air defense batteries occurred in Tehran and western Iran. In Tehran, this means the Iranian capital has been left exposed and vulnerable.
• Western reporting has confirmed damage at a storage unit within the Abadan oil refinery in Khuzestan province and a TIECO oil and gas machinery factory in Tehran province, among others, following the IDF strikes. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called the strikes on Iran the most significant IDF Air Force operation since the Six-Day War in 1967, emphasizing that their impact represents “a change in the balance of power.” Gallant stated that the damage from the strikes puts Iran at a “huge disadvantage” when it comes to future Israeli attacks.
• Unspecified Iranian sources told Israeli media that Israel also targeted and breached Iranian radar systems in Syria before launching its attack on Iran. CTP-ISW previously reported that the IDF likely targeted Iran’s early detection network in Syria and Iraq that would have given Iran advanced notice of the incoming Israeli attack
• Constrained Russian manufacturing capacity for new ground-based air defense systems and Russia’s demand for these systems in Ukraine may limit Iran’s ability to acquire new S-300s in the near term.
• Iran has lost its strategic air defense capabilities for the next two to three years.
• Iran’s drone fleet was not affected.
• Preparations for a potential Iranian response: This time, the Americans are expected to play a more significant role in defense and interception, both due to the THAAD battery stationed in Israel and three ships equipped with AEGIS defense systems, capable of intercepting ballistic missiles, which were also involved in intercepting attacks in early October.

The Numbers

Casualties

• 1,758 Israelis have been killed including 782 IDF soldiers since October 7th (+6 since Sunday)
  • The TOI reports: Four Israeli soldiers were killed and an officer was seriously wounded during fighting in the northern Gaza Strip earlier Tuesday: Cpt. Yehonatan Joni Keren, 22; Staff Sgt. Nisim Meytal, 20; Staff Sgt. Aviv Gilboa, 21; Staff Sgt. Naor Haimov, 22

  

  • Master Sergeant (res.) Yedidia Bloch (31) died of wounds he sustained on the 24th in South Lebanon. Ynet reports: His wife is eight months pregnant; ‘I will tell your child about you so that he knows what a special and kind man his father was’

  

  • Major Guy Yaacov Nezri (25) succumbed to wounds he sustained last week in Gaza.

• 369 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza have been killed
• 100 Israelis (66 IDF soldiers) have been killed during the war in Northern Israel
• Israeli journalist Marc Schulman reports: Hezbollah fired 50 rockets at the Northern Galilee. While most were intercepted, a few rockets did land, including one that struck the town of Ma’alot-Tarshiha. This rocket directly hit an apartment, tragically killing Muhammad Naim (24), an Israeli Arab, just as he was about to enter a bomb shelter. The explosion also damaged the nearby mosque.

• Additional Information (according to the IDF):
  • 2,373 (+4 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 452 (no change since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
  • 5,196 (+46 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 768 (+4 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.

• According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 42,924 (+321 since one week ago) people have been killed in Gaza, and 100,833 (+1,074 since one week ago) 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.
  • 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 Sunday)

• 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: “The Ayatollah has no clothes” – with Rich Goldberg and Richard Fontaine

• As we continue to assess the threat FROM Iran and the threat TO Iran, we sat down today with two analysts and former national security officials with different perspectives on what we’ve learned so far and next steps.
• Link: “The Ayatollah has no clothes”

Watch

Senator John Fetterman responds in an interview with absolute moral clarity

• Interviewer: “There was a young child who was killed who was taking the pager to their parent.”
• Sen. Fetterman: “Daddy was a member of Hezbollah. That’s tragic. He brought that danger and evil into their home.”

Rocket Alerts

Yesterday, there were 114 red alerts, and a total of 1,479 in the past week

• +523 rocket alerts since Sunday
• +123 UAV alerts since Sunday

Source: Rocket Alerts in Israel

Humanitarian Aid

Source: Israel Humanitarian efforts – Swords of Iron

What We Are Reading

Israeli Strikes on Iran Expose Gap in Prowess Between Two Arch Foes, by Sune Engel Rasmussen, Laurence Norman, Anat Peled in Wall Street Journal

• The Israeli strikes on Iran hit several of Tehran’s most advanced air defenses, exposing Iran’s vulnerability to future attacks as the two enemies engage in a new era of direct confrontation.
• During the hourslong attack early Saturday, Israeli warplanes struck Iranian military assets in three provinces, including three Russian-supplied aerial defense systems known as S-300, according to U.S. and Israeli officials. A fourth aerial defense system was also hit. An Israeli official added that all the air-defense systems were rendered unusable.
• The Israeli attack came after significant U.S. pressure to avoid hitting Iran’s nuclear and oil facilities, with the U.S. saying Iran should now stand down from further escalations.
• The S-300 is a family of surface-to-air missile systems designed by the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s, and now used to defend against planes, drones and, to some extent, cruise and ballistic missiles. Russia supplied Iran S-300 systems in 2016, after nine years of delay due to nuclear negotiations and international sanctions.
• Although details about the systems aren’t publicly known, experts believe Iran received between 40 and 60 launchers as part of the total order, each of which is capable of carrying up to four missiles.
• The S-300 systems are used to protect high-value targets such as nuclear sites and the domestic Mehrabad airport used for official flights. One battery is kept mobile and travels with Khamenei when he visits his home city of Mashhad in the country’s east, according to Nadimi, whose research is based on sources inside Iran and satellite imagery.
• Successfully defanging Iran’s self-defense capabilities marks a new chapter in Israel’s confrontation with the Islamic Republic. It created a vulnerability in Iran’s air defenses that highlighted the significant gaps between the two sides’ military capabilities. Israel claims it now has the ability to fly over Iranian airspace.
• Israel struck one of the S-300 defense batteries positioned near the Natanz nuclear facility in April when it attacked Iran in retaliation for a 300-missile and drone barrage. Saturday’s attack is believed to have hit most if not all of the remaining S-300s. Experts say that, even as the damage from the attack is still being assessed, the fact that Israel was able to hit Iran’s most advanced aerial defenses and some of its most sensitive military sites is significant.
• Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns said in July 2023 that there were signs of Russian technicians working on Iran’s space launch vehicle program “and other aspects of their missile programs.” Iran’s space launch program is believed to be part of efforts to develop intercontinental missiles.
• Those relationships come with caveats, however. Russia and China both have strategic ties with some of Iran’s regional rivals, including Saudi Arabia. Russia shares some interests with Israel in Syria. China, which imports half of its energy from the Middle East and prefers to keep conflict in the Middle East subdued, has always been reluctant to provide military assistance to Iran, said Raz Zimmt, senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel, even as Beijing has worked to help Iran get around U.S. sanctions.
• U.S. officials question how quickly Russia will be able to provide Iran with new missile defenses when its resources are stretched by the Ukraine war. Some U.S. officials believe delays could strain Russian-Iranian relations, which historically have been characterized by mistrust.
• Link: Israeli Strikes on Iran Expose Gap in Prowess Between Two Arch Foes

Assad’s Plan To Keep Syria Out of the War in Gaza by Hassan Hassan in New Lines Magazine

• In September last year, an event on the Syrian border signaled the possibility of Iranian-backed forces opening a new front against Israel in Syria — yet, in a surprising turn, that front has remained quiet for the past year during the war in Gaza. Israeli tanks responded to Syrian troop deployments by striking two military structures inside Syria. This attack went largely unnoticed at the time, but in hindsight it is intriguing for two main reasons.
  • First, Israel did not respond in the same way to similar military reinforcements in 2011, when the Syrian military deployed troops, airplanes and tanks close to the Israeli border.
  • Second, the front between Syria and Israel has remained mysteriously calm for the past year — despite the involvement of other Iranian allies in the conflict and Israel’s strikes and operations inside Syria, including an attack on the Iranian Consulate in Damascus and the assassination of a top Iranian commander on April 1.
• The regime has used the war to restore an older perception, established first by former President Hafez al-Assad, that it alone has the ability to keep Syria’s border with Israel quiet and secure.
• For Syria, the risks could be substantial and catastrophic if Israel escalates its attacks to include targeting Syria’s top leadership, rather than focusing solely on logistical hubs tied to Iran’s military buildup in the country.
• Analysts have noted the strained relationship between Damascus and Hamas, stemming from the latter’s support for the 2011 uprising against the Assad regime despite Damascus’ long-standing support for the group, though that argument is less convincing.
• While these forces are driven by local dynamics, their calculated involvement is equally shaped by the broader regional alliance led by Iran. This alliance is built on foundational narratives of confrontation against Israel, the West and their regional allies. The local and regional drivers often intersect, with Syria being a key part of this alliance. Even allied militias in Syria and Iraq have participated in this regional conflict — either within Iraq, targeting Israel through drones or the American forces inside the country, or in Syria’s northeast, beyond the regime’s control, against U.S.-backed Kurdish forces.
• Iran has invested heavily in establishing a foothold in Syria since the war started. It has done so by building militias and networks from the ground up, reporting directly to it rather than to the Syrian military. It has used Syria as a hub to transfer weapons to Hezbollah and to build military facilities, ammunition depots and command centers in the country. To prevent the creation of another Hezbollah-style threat in Syria, Israel has played a relentless game of whack-a-mole against Iranian assets in the country for years. Though no Syrian close to the regime would be willing to be quoted as saying it, for many, while Israel is an enemy and its attacks inside Syria are unacceptable, the results are nonetheless not always unwelcome.
• More notably, Syria hasn’t merely avoided confrontation with Israel; its silence has been conspicuous. The regime has also softened its rhetoric during the conflict, refraining from issuing the usual statements of support to Hezbollah or Iran after major attacks.
• Meanwhile, social media accounts linked to President Bashar al-Assad have focused on domestic issues like a government reshuffle and general amnesty. When Damascus did issue a statement after the heightened Israeli attacks in Lebanon recently, it expressed solidarity with Lebanon without mentioning Hezbollah or the usual strong endorsement of the Axis of Resistance
• The consensus among these sources is that Syria’s strategy intentionally involves staying out of the war and maintaining calm along the Israeli border — and, crucially, making a point of visibly doing so. Another key insight is that Damascus has little concern about seeing both Hezbollah and Iran contained, even though both allies currently support Syria’s position publicly.
• …the Assad regime has undertaken a series of overtures aimed at the Gulf states and Turkey, signaling that it can be a pragmatic “frenemy,” even if it does not fully sever its ties to the Iranian axis. The most eye-catching of these moves was the expulsion of the Houthi representatives from Damascus and the closure of the Yemeni Embassy, just days after the war in Gaza broke out.
• Turkey, one of the few remaining countries without formal ties to Damascus, has also begun steps toward normalizing relations with Assad. Both the Syrian and Turkish presidents have made clear statements expressing a desire to restore relations, though no significant progress has yet been made. In July, the Turkish president said he would extend an invite to his Syrian counterpart “any time” to visit Turkey and mend ties. In a speech to the Syrian parliament in August, Assad addressed his domestic audience, explaining the rationale for reengaging with Turkey despite its leading role in efforts to topple his regime. Notably, he indicated that engagement with Turkey was not contingent on preconditions like a Turkish pledge to withdraw from Syria — an unusually flexible stance in the regime’s public discourse.
• But the biggest prize is not the perception that the Assad regime is maintaining peace on its border with Israel, it is regional normalization. Assad’s approach signals that while he remains a close strategic ally of Iran, he is capable of charting an independent course when it serves his regime’s interests. Gulf policymakers, once hopeful of pulling Damascus away from Tehran, now hold fewer illusions than they did in 2011. Much like their approach to Iraq, they seem increasingly willing to accept a complicated relationship with an Iran-allied Syria.
• For Saudi Arabia, engaging with Syria serves both broad and specific purposes. Broadly, it aligns with Riyadh’s new strategy of healing rifts with estranged neighbors and reducing its involvement in regional conflicts. More specifically, Saudi Arabia hopes that reengaging Syria could help curb the growing drug trafficking trade that has become a major concern for the region. For the UAE, the rapprochement is part of a broader effort to return to the pre-Arab Spring status quo, viewing a strengthened Assad regime as a stabilizing force in Syria and a counterweight to Islamist movements.
• In the mind of the Assad regime, if the Gulf states and Turkey return to Syria, Europe will follow. The best that Assad could hope from Washington is to somehow prevent it from actively blocking such efforts by enforcing sanctions or discouraging its allies from engaging or investing in Syria, for example. Should the Assad regime be rehabilitated, even cautiously or in limited ways, the calm on the Golan Heights and the pragmatic steps he has taken over the past year while Gaza burns could be remembered as key factors in rebuilding diplomatic ties in the region, and softening opposition from Israel and the West.
• Link: Assad’s Plan To Keep Syria Out of the War in Gaza

Where Is the Lebanese Zelensky? by Elliott Abrams in National Review

• The crisis in Lebanon is also an opportunity. But as of today, one would have to bet that Lebanese leaders will not take advantage of it.
• When the Gaza war began on October 7, Hezbollah might have stayed out. But because it acts in the interests of Iran and not Lebanon, it attacked Israel. In the past few weeks, Israel has attacked back and both decimated and decapitated Hezbollah.
• Thus the opportunity. But where are the Lebanese leaders stepping forward to take advantage of it? The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) have done nothing to assert the sovereignty of the state against a terrorist group, even though it was agreed in 2006 in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 that only the LAF could be present in Lebanon’s south and that Hezbollah must disarm. And there have been no profiles in courage among civilian leaders. Neither Sunni nor Christian nor Druze leaders have stepped forward to demand that Hezbollah relinquish its control of the state. Hezbollah’s support base is the Shiite community, which is less than a third of Lebanon’s population. (And who knows how much of the Shiite population is pro-Hezbollah today?) But anti-Hezbollah political forces are missing in action.
• There are two good excuses. First, there is a war on. But that war will end faster if the Lebanese, and the LAF, act to regain their sovereignty and start demanding and negotiating for a new Lebanon. Second, there is of course fear. Hezbollah may be on the run, but it has a vast arsenal and has always been willing to kill politicians, journalists, and others who oppose it.
• Still, where is the Lebanese Zelensky willing to stand up for his nation’s sovereignty? Where is the group of Lebanese leaders willing, arm in arm, to speak up and rally citizens so that the nation doesn’t lose its opportunity to get out from under Iranian control and rebuild? It would be nice to think that they will speak out and rally mass demonstrations, the day there is a cease-fire. But is that true? Or will the habit of deference to Iran and Hezbollah continue?
• Link: Where Is the Lebanese Zelensky?

Do Western Officials Actually Want to Solve the Gaza Aid Problem? by Seth Mandel in The Commentary

• How would Antony Blinken get through his days if suddenly he couldn’t complain about Israel’s aid restrictions in Gaza? And Blinken is far from the only one who finds a life-sustaining energy force in complaining about Israeli humanitarian-aid policy while Hamas is hoarding the aid that does come in and starving its own people.
• Which is why you can see a real fear develop in the faces of these people any time Israel tries to actually solve the problem.
• Case in point: reports that Israel is considering hiring private security firms to deliver aid.
• The main obstacle to delivering aid to Gaza is that it’s dangerous. Hamas militants hijack deliveries or put aid convoys in danger by insisting on riding with the delivery vehicles.
• Could Israel do the aid deliveries itself? No, because any safe delivery regime would look a lot like an IDF occupation, and anything that looks like a military occupation won’t be countenanced by the parties involved.
• Doesn’t the United Nations’ Gaza team masquerade as an aid agency? Why can’t they deliver the aid? Because Israel instituted the most basic customs rules, including requiring ID from anyone entering the war zone and an accurate listing of the contents of the deliveries. The UN doesn’t want or doesn’t think it can comply with such conditions—which, let’s be honest, should be a massive UN scandal all its own. It’s an admission that the agency cannot disentangle itself sufficiently from Hamas.
• What’s the solution? Well, the most realistic solution is to let Israel win the war already and defeat Hamas, whose existence is the barrier to feeding and supplying the Palestinian residents of Gaza. But Western governments are adamantly opposed to this option. They want a ceasefire and a cessation of hostilities that leaves the conflict frozen and gives Hamas a chance to regroup and survive as an organization.
• Fair enough, but the point is that in Gaza, aid convoys are attacked by Hamas not because they are seen as combatants but because they are seen as aid convoys. So whoever delivers the aid to Gaza is going to be attacked, at least at first. Experienced security firms might be willing to deliver the aid anyway—which the UN, recall, is not doing.
• Moti Kahana, however, is. His Global Delivery Company, which has rescued Jews from war zones around the world, has been in touch with a British firm of military contractors and is pitching itself as a solution to the aid problem.
• One riddle Kahana aims to solve: the fact that local Palestinians cannot distribute aid without being targeted by Hamas. GDC would hire Gaza-based Palestinians and put them under armed protection. That would keep Palestinians from being locked out of the process as well.
• Link: Do Western Officials Actually Want to Solve the Gaza Aid Problem?

Taking the War to Hezbollah: What It Might, and Might Not, Achieve by Matthew Levitt with Lawfare Media

• Within the span of a couple of weeks, the Israeli military, acting on information the country’s intelligence agencies have collected over the 18 years since the end of its last war with Hezbollah, carried out a series of attacks that degraded Hezbollah to the point that the group is now a shadow of its former self. From exploding the pagers and radios of Hezbollah operatives to the targeted killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the group’s military command headquarters, waves of spectacular Israeli attacks have significantly degraded Hezbollah’s leadership and its operational capacity. There is no denying that Israel has achieved clear tactical goals in its “Northern Arrows” campaign against Hezbollah these past few weeks, demonstrating a level of intelligence dominance even seasoned intelligence operatives found staggering in scope. Somewhere between a half to two-thirds of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile arsenal has reportedly been destroyed, and IDF infantry is aggressively dismantling Hezbollah tunnels and bunkers, killing local operatives and commanders, disrupting Hezbollah financing, and seizing weapons caches along the Lebanese side of the border.
• The impact of these tactical achievements should not be understated. It is no exaggeration to state that Hezbollah, the centerpiece of Iran’s Axis of Resistance, no longer exists as we knew it. The group still has thousands of fighters and no shortage of small arms, but the loss of its leadership, command centers, rockets and weapons, and frontline infrastructure along the border with Israel means the group no longer presents a clear and present strategic threat to Israel. It can still shoot rockets and launch drones across the border, but not in volumes necessary to overwhelm Israeli air defenses. It can still carry out acts of international terrorism, but this does not present a strategic threat. If this is all Israel achieves, Israelis will judge the IDF’s air and ground campaigns as having been tremendously successful.
• Israel is pursuing two strategic goals in its war with Hezbollah. First, the Israeli government is committed to frustrating Iran’s strategy of empowering proxies to coordinate incessant and coordinated attacks against Israel. Even now, despite all the pain Israel has inflicted on Hezbollah, the group’s acting leader announced the group was operating based on a “new calculation” that combines calling for a ceasefire with committing to inflict pain on Israel. For Israel, its nonnegotiable goal is to push back on Iranian efforts—together, with, and through its proxies—to impose a new normal on the Middle East in which Israel faces an unrelenting “ring of fire.” Hezbollah has long led the effort to make this concept a reality—Nasrallah talked about “uniting of the fronts” back in 2015—but it took another nine years for the kind of coordinated attacks against Israel that he envisioned then to finally be carried out in 2023. And while the coordination and support Hezbollah and Iran were ultimately willing to provide when push came to shove in 2023 did not live up to Hamas’s expectations, Iran has doubled down on this strategy since Nasrallah’s death, with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei pledging that “the fate of this region will be determined by the forces of resistance, with Hezbollah at the forefront.” Israel seeks to prevent the perpetuation of a “multi-front war” aimed at the country’s destruction, promising to hit back hard anytime it is attacked, in an effort to reestablish a measure of deterrence against Iran and its proxies.
• Second, Israel seeks to follow up on the war’s tactical gains to further undermine Hezbollah’s military position in southern Lebanon and, more broadly, its political position in Lebanon. Perhaps, the thinking in both Jerusalem and Washington goes, Israel’s tactical successes against Hezbollah will have undermined the group’s military strength to the point that the government of Lebanon could deploy the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to finally assert sovereignty over the country, establish a monopoly over the use of force, and sideline Hezbollah as a political and military force in Lebanon.
• Translating Israel’s tactical gains into strategic benefits first requires that Israel not get bogged down in Lebanon. But if, after destroying the military infrastructure and forward-deployed weapons that Hezbollah built up over the past 18 years, Israel completes its sweep of southern Lebanon and leaves, then the first step toward actually implementing UNSCR 1701 is empowering the LAF to fill the vacuum and deploy forces along the entirety of the border. With Russia and China as permanent UN Security Council members, no new, stronger Security Council resolution can be expected, leaving the full implementation and enforcement of UNSCR 1701 as the best remaining option, and one that Israeli officials would support if it were actually enforced. In practice, while individual Hezbollah operatives living in the south are sure to return, Hezbollah should not be allowed to reestablish its own closed military zones, tunnels, and arms caches south of the Litani River. To deploy along the border and patrol the area south of the Litani, the LAF would need to deploy a sufficiently large force and would therefore need to know that Western powers would help equip and underwrite such a mission. For their part, the LAF would only agree to deploy under the umbrella of a ceasefire and diplomatic agreement under which Hezbollah agrees not to redeploy to the border. Israeli officials also reportedly want agreement that Lebanese civilians will be prohibited from approaching the area immediately proximate to the border. Meanwhile, the Israelis will not take Hezbollah’s word to stay out of southern Lebanon at face value and should be expected to carry out surveillance flights on a regular basis and, if necessary, conduct air raids targeting Hezbollah movements south of the Litani River.
• Israel should continue to press its advantage in the south with the goal of sweeping out Hezbollah’s forward-positioned weapons, tunnels, and bunkers. Meanwhile, it should target Hezbollah’s medium- and long-range rockets, including its precision-guided missiles. But then, having severely degraded the strategic threat from Hezbollah, it should send its soldiers home and focus on diplomatic efforts to enforce UNSCR 1701 in southern Lebanon and to build a coalition to counter Iranian weapons shipments. As for Lebanon taking the opportunity of Hezbollah’s demise to retake the country from Iran’s proxy, Israel may have created that opportunity but only the Lebanese can decide whether or not to grab it. Israel appears to be successfully undoing 18 years of Hezbollah buildup since the end of the 2006 war, but what’s done in Lebanon and beyond once the bullets stop flying and the dust settles will determine whether a new version of Hezbollah emerges over time to present a threat to Israel and to Lebanon itself.
• Link: Taking the War to Hezbollah: What It Might, and Might Not, Achieve

Antisemitism

Thiel’s Palantir dumped by Norwegian investor over work for Israel by Stefania Spezzati and Gwladys Fouche with Reuters

• One of the Nordic region’s largest investors has sold its holdings in Palantir Technologies (PLTR.N), because of concerns that the U.S. data firm’s work for Israel might put the asset manager at risk of violating international humanitarian law and human rights.
• Storebrand Asset Management disclosed this week that it had “excluded Palantir Technologies Inc. from our investments due (to) its sales of products and services to Israel for use in occupied Palestinian territories.”
• The investor, which manages about 1 trillion crowns ($91.53 billion) in assets, held around 262 million crowns ($24 million) in Palantir, a spokesperson told Reuters.
• The data analytics firm, co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, provides militaries with artificial-intelligence models.
• Palantir has previously defended its work for Israel. CEO Alex Karp said he was proud to have worked with the country following the Hamas attacks in October last year and in March told CNBC that Palantir had lost employees and that he expected to lose more over his public support for Israel.
• Storebrand’s exit follows a recommendation from Norway’s government in March warning businesses about engaging in economic or financial activity in the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories, the asset manager said in its third-quarter investment review published on Wednesday.
• Storebrand said its analysis indicated that Palantir provides products and services “including AI-based predictive policing systems” that support Israeli surveillance of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
• Palantir’s systems are supposed “to identify individuals who are likely to launch ‘lone wolf terrorist’ attacks, facilitating their arrests preemptively before the strikes that it is projected they would carry out,” Storebrand said.
• In September Reuters reported that Norway’s $1.7 trillion wealth fund may have to divest shares of companies that violate the fund watchdog’s tougher interpretation of ethics standards for businesses that aid Israel’s operations in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Link: Thiel’s Palantir dumped by Norwegian investor over work for Israel

Sally Rooney’s Literary Mob by Lionel Shriver in The Free Press

• Last week, some 400 writers, including Sally Rooney and Arundhati Roy, signed a letter calling for a mass boycott of the Israeli publishing industry, excepting those who have denounced the “genocide” in Gaza. Now, Rooney, Roy, and their colleagues are certainly well within their rights to get exercised about the gravel pit that used to be Gaza. Because these are writers, you’d think their best route to making their feelings known would be, um, to write. After all, the impulse to form a mob is surely antithetical to the impulse to record your thoughts in text in private and to have your unique voice broadly heard. Me, I’ve never been a joiner, and I used to think my literary brethren weren’t joiners either, much less bullies. But even for writers, this is an age of aggressive groupsterism.
• But the intention is not only aimed at punishing Israel’s tiny cultural institutions. The boycott seeks to go well beyond the signatories and intimidate all authors into withdrawing their work for consideration at Israeli publishing houses and refusing to participate in Israeli festivals. That includes writers who disagree with the organizers and do not believe that the IDF’s effort to root out Hamas qualifies as genocide as well as a range of Jewish writers in and outside of Israel whose views on this war may be tortured or finely nuanced. Because we must all speak as one. As ever, a single perspective is permissible. Writers used to enjoy conflict, complexity, contradiction—duking it out on paper or raucously talking over each other on a festival panel. Now we chant in a unified chorus.
• I’m not so vain as to imagine that my refusal to have my novels translated into Hebrew would be crushing for the Israeli publishing industry or cripplingly disappointing for the country’s reading public. I’m delighted to learn whenever I’ve secured a translation deal, so in case any Israeli editors are reading this, allow me to go on the record: The Hebrew translation rights to my last novel are still available. And in case you might be reading this, Sally, whether I sell Hebrew translation rights is none of your business. Besides, to the degree that my fiction is the best expression of my own larger political outlook, disseminating my novels as far and widely as possible constitutes the optimal method of promoting that outlook. Publishing in translation sure beats prissily refusing to allow my precious sentences to be corrupted by the language of Jews.
• Publishing isn’t a very profitable enterprise. Literary festivals depend on fragile funding. Writers depend on both publishing and book festivals, and most writers do not make much money either. For authors, this latest fad for demanding that the industry and its promotional institutions conform to a specific political perspective—either by expressly endorsing that viewpoint or by puristically vetting financial supporters and writers for wrongthink—is self-destructive. Strict doctrinal conditions on supporters and performers make festivals in particular in danger of simply vanishing from the cultural landscape.
• Boycotts are about withholding, and for writers, boycotts are about silence as well as about silencing. It would be more in keeping with Rooney’s and Roy’s profession for these authors to put their anguish about Israel into words rather than to mutely withdraw their work and pressure other authors to shut up. Writing is a positive expression of faith in language to compel and persuade. I do not wish for other authors’ silence to speak for me. I do not wish for other authors’ collective silence to destroy avenues through which I might speak for myself, whether via translation or my personal appearances.
• Link: Sally Rooney’s Literary Mob

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