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Tag: Ceasefire

  • NowIt Makes Sense

    NowIt Makes Sense

    Now It Makes Sense

    Noah Rothman for National Review November 27, 2024 8:46 AM

    Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the plenum, during a discussion on the subject of hostages kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack, in Jerusalem, Israel, November 18, 2024.(Ronen Zvulun/Reuters)none

    When it was initially announced, the cease-fire with Hezbollah via the Lebanese government, to which Israel acquiesced on Tuesday, didn’t make much sense to me.

    Why would Jerusalem agree to put a halt to the war it was prosecuting so expertly with only some of its objectives secured and in response to security guarantees that look a lot like the failed architecture of the past? Now we know. Israel wasn’t persuaded to take a risk on peace. The Jewish state was blackmailed into it.

    In a press release, Senator Ted Cruz alleged that the Biden administration muscled Israel into a cease-fire by threatening not just to choke off the aid and materiel flowing into Israel. He threatened to join the cast of Middle Eastern jackals set on throwing the Israeli people into the sea.

    “Obama-Biden officials pressured our Israeli allies into accepting the ceasefire by withholding weapons they needed to defend themselves and counter Hezbollah, and by threatening to facilitate a further, broader, binding international arms embargo through the United Nations,” he wrote.

    Benjamin Netanyahu’s aides confirmed the broad strokes of Cruz’s account. The Israeli government claimed that the outgoing administration threatened to embargo arms transfers while promising to stand aside while the United Nations Security Council passed resolutions compelling Israel to put a halt to the fighting not just in Lebanon but Gaza, too.

    The Biden White House denies the Netanyahu government’s account. Democratic officials maintain that the Israeli government is trying to craft a narrative that ingratiates itself with the incoming Trump administration and soothes frayed nerves among members of Netanyahu’s coalition who are skeptical of the cease-fire.

    For its part, the center-left Israeli outlet Haaretz insists the “truth lies somewhere in between these contradictory stories.” And yet, the truth seems to be that Israeli officials believe the slow disbursement of aid is “a deliberate attempt to constrain it” and “that Biden could at any moment order his representative there not to cast a veto” in the UNSC. So, even if we’re in between truths here, we seem to be markedly closer to the Israeli version of events.

    If there is a reward for Israel in this, it seems to be that the European powers that initially entertained a willingness to enforce the International Criminal Court’s warrant seeking the arrest of Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant have backed off their pledge. Promising the non-enforcement of a non-enforceable edict issued by one of the U.N.’s contemptible appendages is some consolation prize. Given all the objectives Israel may have sacrificed, this hardly suffices for comfort.

    Commentary editor John Podhoretz summarized Biden’s Obama-like final insult to the Israeli people:

    Yes, Biden and his people have secured a ceasefire, as though a ceasefire means anything but its literal definition — a pause in the use of projectile force. It means nothing else. It does not mean peace. It does not mean negotiations. It does not mean a change in the relative positions of the forces at war. It’s a freeze. And when such a freeze freezes the military that’s on the march, it implicitly favors the side that is on its back foot. Thus America has, in effect, sided with Hezbollah.

    And for this morally degenerate compromise, Biden didn’t even get his cease-fire. “Hours after Israel’s cease-fire agreement with Lebanon went into effect on Wednesday, the IDF shot at a vehicle believed to be violating the terms of the deal,” Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reported on Wednesday.

    As for the stated goal of Israel’s offensive in Southern Lebanon — getting the tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by rocket and mortar fire back into their homes in Israel’s northern territories — that, too, is in doubt. As the Financial Times and others report, neither the IDF nor Netanyahu have altered their guidance to displaced Israelis to stay away from their abandoned residencies.

    Unless you were only rooting for Joe Biden to secure something he could plausibly call a cease-fire so he might burnish an otherwise historically klutzy legacy, there is little here to celebrate. Biden and his allies spent much of this administration sifting through the wreckage his policies produced for something resembling a victory they could tout for the cameras. The goal was only ever to win the news cycle, even at the expense of more salient objectives. Posterity will take a longer view of Biden’s dismal presidency.

  • Ceasefire? Updated – Signed Today

    Ceasefire? Updated – Signed Today

    There are reports out of Israel that indicate a 60 day ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon is imminent. This will see an – at least temporary end – to the hostilities that started more than a year ago. The news of this deal comes amid a backdrop of increased Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon as they further degrade Hezbollah’s combat power.

    According to the Times of Israel, the Netanyahu security cabinet is set to meet this evening to approve the deal.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene the high-level security cabinet in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening to approve a 60-day ceasefire with the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon after more than a year of war, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel on Monday.

    At the same time, the official stressed that Israel was accepting a cessation of hostilities, not an end to the war on Hezbollah.

    The deal calls for an immediate 60 day cessation of hostilities. It would see Israel leave southern Lebanon and Hezbollah retreat north of the Litani river. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that was what was supposed to happen at the end of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war. The Lebanese Army is supposed to move into southern Lebanon alongside UNFIL troops to ensure Hezbollah fighters leave the area.

    The deal is supposed to be administered by the US and France, although French participation was not worked out until the last minute. French president Macron angered the Israelis with a call for an arms embargo. That difficulty was overcome by France not committing to effect the ICC’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Gallant.

    Update:

    https://twitter.com/IsraeliPM/status/1861489234940514756

    Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announced the ceasefire has been signed in a televised statement to the Israeli people.

    “Citizens of Israel,

    I promised you victory, and we will achieve victory.

    We will complete the task of obliterating Hamas, we will bring home all of our hostages, we will ensure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel and we will return the residents of the north back home safely.

    The war will not end until we realize all its goals, including the return of the residents of the north safely home. And I tell you, it will happen, just like it happened in the south. 

    My friends, residents of the north, 
    I am proud of you, I am proud of your perseverance, and I am totally committed to your security, to the rehabilitation of your communities, to your future.

    To date, thanks to the bravery of our fighters in the IDF, the Israel Security Agency, the Mossad and Israel Police, we have made great inroads into the seven fronts of the “War of Redemption.”

    These achievements are a source of awe and admiration across the globe, and they are projecting Israel’s might throughout the Middle East:

    First, the head of the octopus—Iran. We destroyed major parts of Iran’s air defense system and missile-manufacturing capabilities, and we demolished a significant component of their nuclear program.

    I am determined to do anything needed to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. That threat has always been my top priority and is even more so today, when you hear Iran’s leaders state over and over again their intention to obtain nuclear weapons. For me, removing that threat is the most important mission to ensure the existence and future of the State of Israel.

    In Gaza, we dismantled the Hamas battalions and killed close to 20,000 terrorists. We killed Sinwar, we killed Deif, we killed senior Hamas officials and we brought 154 hostages back. We are committed to bringing them all home, the 101 hostages still in Gaza, those who are still alive as well as the dead, and end the terrible anguish of their families. We are of course committed to completing the annihilation of Hamas.

    In Judea and Samaria, we are taking out terrorists, we are destroying terrorist infrastructure and we are operating in all of the terror strongholds. There is no place out of our reach.

    In Yemen, we attacked the Houthis’ Port of Hodeida forcibly, which the international coalition had not done.

    In Iraq, we successfully thwarted, and are still thwarting, many drone attacks, and we have many challenges ahead.

    In Syria, we are systematically blocking attempts by Iran, Hezbollah and the Syrian army to transfer weapons to Lebanon. Assad must understand that he is playing with fire.

    And now, for the seventh front—Lebanon. Hezbollah decided to attack us from Lebanon on October 8th. A year later, it is not the same Hezbollah. We have pushed them decades back. We eliminated Nasrallah, the axis of the axis. We have taken out the organization’s top leadership, we have destroyed most of their rockets and missiles, we have killed thousands of terrorists and we demolished their underground terror infrastructure abutting our border, infrastructure they had been building for years.

    We have attacked strategic targets throughout Lebanon and we have brought down dozens of terror hi-rises in Beirut’s Dahieh. The ground in Beirut is shaking.

    Citizens of Israel,
    Only three months ago, this all would have sounded like science fiction. But it isn’t. We did these things.

    At every moment of managing this campaign, I observe all fronts simultaneously. That is what I did at the beginning of the war when I decided to focus on Gaza and not open a broader front in Lebanon. That is what I did several months ago when the conditions ripened to go north, and then we decided to focus on Hezbollah.

    That is what I did after the missile attack from Iran, when we meticulously decided on the time and nature of our response.

    And that is what I am doing today. I observe all the fronts simultaneously and see the broad picture. I am determined to give our courageous soldiers every resource to keep them safe and bring us victory.

    Therefore, this evening I will bring a ceasefire  outline for the cabinet’s approval. 

    The length of the ceasefire depends on what happens in Lebanon. 

    With the United States’ full understanding, we maintain full freedom of military action. If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to arm itself, we will attack. If it tries to rebuild terrorist infrastructure near the border, we will attack. If it launches a rocket, if it digs a tunnel, if it brings in a truck carrying rockets, we will attack.

    I hear the claim that if we enter into a ceasefire, we will not be able to attack and will not be able to renew the war. I remind you, that is exactly what they said when we had a ceasefire in Gaza to release the hostages. They said we wouldn’t go back to fighting, but we did. 

    They tell me Hezbollah will be quiet for a year or two, grow stronger and then attack us. But Hezbollah will be in violation of the agreement not only if it fires on us. It will be in violation of the agreement if it obtains weapons to fire at us in the future. And we will respond forcefully to any violation. 

    I know there are people who don’t believe we will do that. But many also didn’t believe we would enter Gaza on the ground, and we did. They didn’t believe we would go into Shifa and Khan Younis, and we did. They didn’t believe we would go into Rafah and the Philadelphi corridor, in the face of all the international pressure. Not only did we go in, we attacked, and then some. Many didn’t believe that we would attack in Lebanon, and we did that too. We attacked with force and sophistication that surprised the whole world.

    So after all that, maybe we should start believing? Believe in our determination, believe in our path, in our commitment to victory. 

    Why should we have a ceasefire now? For three main reasons:

    The first reason is to focus on the Iranian threat, and I won’t expand on that.

    The second reason is to give our forces a breather and replenish stocks. And I say it openly, it is no secret that there have been big delays in weapons and munitions deliveries. These delays will be resolved soon. We will receive supplies of advanced weaponry that will keep our soldiers safe and give us more strike force to complete our mission. 

    And the third reason for having a ceasefire is to separate the fronts and isolate Hamas. From day two of the war, Hamas was counting on Hezbollah to fight by its side. With Hezbollah out of the picture, Hamas is left on its own. We will increase our pressure on Hamas and that will help us in our sacred mission of releasing our hostages.

    Citizens of Israel, 
    In the past year, we turned the tables. We were attacked from seven fronts and we fought back with might. We are changing the face of the Middle East. We are doing all this thanks to our brave soldiers, thanks to your tenacity and thanks to the resolute and smart management of the war.

    I have said many times, a good deal is a deal that is enforced, and we will enforce it. 

    With God’s help, we will establish security, we will rehabilitate the north and continue, united, until victory.”

  • Why Israel’s Critics Stopped..

    Why Israel’s Critics Stopped..

    Why Israel’s Critics Stopped Pretending To Want a Ceasefire

    Seth Mandel for commentary.org

    The pro-Hamas protesters both outside and inside the Democratic National Convention may be poor folk singers and off-key banjoists, but at least they are honest.

    The banner briefly unfurled by activists inside the convention while President Biden was speaking said “STOP ARMING ISRAEL.” Outside, it was the usual band of explicitly genocidal Hamas fans singing the praises of the October 7 slaughter. Well-connected Pennsylvania Democratic activist and Kamala Harris delegate Morgan Overton, meanwhile, was quieter but no less honest about it. She backed a Pittsburgh BDS petition that would, as the Washington Free Beacon reported, “cripple the city’s Jewish organizations and punish its largest hospital system.” (The petition was shelved for this election cycle amid a dispute over signature requirements.)

    The specific demands made by Overton and her fellow signatories: that Israel end its campaign in Gaza and agree to a final settlement of the conflict that creates either a one-state solution (in which the Jewish state would be dissolved) or a two-state solution that Hamas opposes.

    What happened, you might ask, to the ceasefire? Isn’t that the cause animating the progressive throngs in the streets? Aren’t they motivated by a sincere desire to see peace?

    Well, no, obviously not. But why would they completely drop the CEASEFIRE NOW organizing principle they’ve been disingenuously running with since October 7? The answer is because Israel indirectly called their bluff. (I say “indirectly” because it’s not as though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is making decisions based on what tentifada pups claim to want.)

    The narrative all along, and pushed relentlessly by the Biden administration, has been that Netanyahu is the obstacle to a deal. But that narrative crumbled when the New York Times obtained internal documents related to the ceasefire negotiations. It turned out that Netanyahu was surprisingly conciliatory, and while his own negotiators wanted him to give up even more for a deal, they conceded that Bibi had reasonable demands: namely, that returnees to northern Gaza not be armed and that Hamas not be permitted to retake control over its crucial resupply tunnels to Egypt.

    While plenty of folks still disagreed with Netanyahu’s positioning, it was no longer tenable to say he was negotiating in bad faith or deliberately trying to torpedo the talks. Hamas and its supporters reoriented their talking points.

    Then Secretary of State Antony Blinken, forced to concede Bibi wasn’t the villain, handed the Israelis another test in the form of a compromise proposal intended to bridge the gaps between Israel and Hamas. Israel accepted these terms. Hamas flipped out, taking credit for an attempted mass suicide bombing in Tel Aviv and mobilizing terrorists in the West Bank in the hopes of expanding the war to yet another front.

    Netanyahu “confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal,” Blinken said. “It’s now incumbent on Hamas to do the same.” Blinken said the same in private, according to Israel’s Channel 12. “We have a way to measure if the prime minister is committed to a deal,” the secretary reportedly told families of Israeli hostages. “And this time our assessment is that he is.”

    On his way to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago yesterday, President Biden confirmed to reporters that “Israel says they can work it out… Hamas is now backing away.”

    Without any credible way to absolve Hamas of blame for the lack of a deal, the terms must change. The protesters, their supporters in the Squad faction of Congress, their mentors at “elite” universities—by and large these folks merely want Israel’s defeat, whatever the specific methods.

    Of course, if they really wanted a ceasefire, they would have been horrified by October 7 and angry at Hamas, since there was a ceasefire in place that Hamas broke by slaughtering over a thousand innocents, ensuring there’d be a significant response. To a true ceasefire supporter, let alone a person of any moral fiber, Hamas’s attack would have been the great unforgivable crime of the century.

    But the rallies in support of Hamas by progressive groups and on campuses began immediately after the massacre. Not only were these groups willing to forgive Hamas for destroying a status quo ceasefire, many of them were downright jubilant at the death and destruction caused by the terror group.

    Since it’s never actually been about a ceasefire, it has been easy for the “pro-Gaza” protest movement to pivot in its demands. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the ringleader of the Democratic anti-Zionist caucus who has long demanded that the U.S. go far beyond a ceasefire and take action against Israel, had a prime speaking slot at Harris’s nominating convention last night.

    There’s some value, of course, in all this dropping of pretensions. The Democratic Party with Harris as its standard-bearer is telegraphing a posture change; some in the party, such as Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, are hinting that such a shift could come sooner than later. It turns out that all it might take for Israel’s critics to drop the “ceasefire” charade is an actual ceasefire.

    It is inconceivable that there are individuals who do not yet understand the only thing that will satisfy Hamas is the complete destruction of Israel.