Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 25-26/2023
Video/Elias Bejjani: Christmas and Ingratitude Towards Parents: Honoring Parents Intertwines with Honoring God, The Father Himself./Elias Bejjani/December 25/2023
Text & Video/Elias Bejjani: Christmas and Ingratitude Towards Parents: Honoring Parents Intertwines with Honoring God, The Father Himself./Elias Bejjani/December 25/2023
Toppling the Iranian Jihadi and Terrorism Regime Is a Peace Global Necessity
Al-Rahi: The bankruptcy of the National Social Security Fund is a serious warning
Bishop Aoudi in the Christmas Mass: The world is watching the genocide of a people, the brutal killing of children, and the demolition of churches and schools, as if watching a play.
Plea for Lebanon to remain neutral amid Israel-Hezbollah hostilities
Israel-Hezbollah clashes: Latest developments
Gallant: We are hitting Hezbollah hard, and the Air Force is flying freely over Lebanon
Hezbollah" condemns the assassination of Radhi al-Musawi in Syria: a blatant and shameless attack that crosses the borders.
President Aoun on Christmas: From the children of Bethlehem to the children of Gaza, the scene is the same as those lacking humanity are watching
Enemy drone raids over area between Ramia & Beit Lif
Enemy raid over the outskirts of Mlikh, artillery shelling of Aita al-Shaab outskirts
Taymour Jumblatt: All hopes for the true salvation of Lebanon and all just causes everywhere

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 25-26/2023
The Pope prayed for peace in Gaza and called children devastated by war the 'little Jesuses of today'
Bethlehem resembles ghost town as celebrations halted due to war on Gaza
Israeli air strike in Syria kills senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards member
Iran vows revenge after its top general in Syria killed by Israeli strike
Traditional Christmas celebrations absent in Bethlehem amid Gaza War
Netanyahu visits Gaza, vows no end to fighting
Netanyahu outlines 3 prerequisites for peace in op-ed
At least 68 killed in central Gaza in airstrike, adding to weekend's bloodshed
Egypt floats an ambitious plan to end the Israel-Hamas war as Netanyahu vows to expand Gaza combat
Russia and China are on the brink of a military alliance that could overwhelm the US
Russian forces gain control of Maryinka in east Ukraine, defence minister says
Russia's air force appears to be backing off after Ukraine took out 3 of its jets, experts say
Belarus leader says Russian nuclear weapons shipments are completed, raising concern in the region
Eight civilians killed in Turkish strikes on Syria: monitor, media

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 25-26/2023
World's Most Dangerous Combination: China and Russia/Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/December 25, 2023
Deadly attack on police station in Iran exposes growing ethnic tensions/Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab News/December 25, 2023
Palestinian resistance remains undefeated/Ramzy Baroud/Arab News/December 25, 2023
Time to get rid of the short-sighted politics of migration/Ranvir S. Nayar/ArabNews/December 25, 2023
To defeat terror, lenient sentences for terrorists must end/Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch/JNS/(December 25, 2023
Two allegedly great thinkers think the Jews are Nazis/Phyllis Chesler/JNS/(December 25, 2023

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 24-25/2023
Video/Elias Bejjani: Christmas and Ingratitude Towards Parents: Honoring Parents Intertwines with Honoring God, The Father Himself.
Elias Bejjani/December 25/2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpRcbw7hGSg
December 25/2023

Text & Video/Elias Bejjani: Christmas and Ingratitude Towards Parents: Honoring Parents Intertwines with Honoring God, The Father Himself.
Elias Bejjani/December 25/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/125370/text-video-elias-bejjani-christmas-and-ingratitude-towards-parents-honoring-parents-intertwines-with-honoring-god-the-father-himself-elias-bejjani-december-25-2023/
As we celebrate Christmas, the birth of the incarnated God, the holy symbol of humility, love, and sacrifice, it is imperative to emphasize the importance of respecting parents, honoring their sacrifices, and demonstrating gratitude through practical deeds. Failure to do so would amount to a bold rebellion against moral virtues, self-respect, and Almighty God Himself, who is a father.
Ingratitude, an age-old affliction, is unfortunately becoming more prevalent in today’s society, especially among children towards their parents. From a biblical standpoint, ingratitude is sternly condemned, with numerous verses highlighting the significance of honoring and respecting parents.
The Bible, a moral compass for millions, stresses the commandment to honor one’s parents. In the Ten Commandments, the fifth directive explicitly states, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12). This commandment goes beyond mere familial respect; it is a divine decree that intertwines honoring parents with honoring God Himself.
As portrayed in biblical teachings, parents make profound sacrifices for their children. The Bible extols the virtues of selfless love and parental sacrifice. Yet, the contemporary landscape often witnesses children who, in times of need, display an alarming lack of gratitude. These children benefit from the sacrifices of their parents, but when the time comes to reciprocate or express gratitude, some fall short.
Biblical Insights on Ingratitude
Proverbs 23:22 : “Listen to your father, who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.” This verse emphasizes the sanctity of life given by parents and warns against disdain in their old age.
2 Timothy 3:2 : “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy.” This verse poignantly notes ingratitude as a negative trait, cautioning against its prevalence.
Luke 11:11-12 : “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?” This verse underscores the natural inclination of parents to provide for their children’s needs, highlighting the disheartening nature of ingratitude.
Ingratitude disrupts the sacred fabric of familial relationships and violates the divine principle of honoring parents. Parents sacrifice sleep, personal ambitions, and countless resources for the well-being of their children, yet some offspring respond with indifference or even scorn.
The Call to Gratitude
As society grapples with the erosion of familial values, a return to biblical principles is imperative. The commandment to honor parents is not a mere suggestion; it is a foundational principle that, when upheld, fosters a society rooted in gratitude, compassion, and divine respect.
Ingratitude, though prevalent, need not be an inevitability. By embracing the biblical wisdom that honoring parents is tantamount to honoring God Himself, we can rekindle the spirit of gratitude and restore the sanctity of parent-child relationships.
Let us heed the biblical call to gratitude, recognizing and appreciating the sacrifices parents make. In doing so, we honor not only our earthly guardians but also the Heavenly Father who ordained the commandment.

Toppling the Iranian Jihadi and Terrorism Regime Is a Peace Global Necessity
إسقاط نظام إيران الجهادي والإرهابي ضرورة عالمية للسلام
Elias Bejjani/December 23/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/125427/125427/
In the turbulent landscape of global terrorism, one nation stands out as a clear and present danger to peace and stability: Iran. The Iranian regime, under the control of the Mullahs, has been orchestrating a wave of atrocities across multiple countries, spreading its malevolent influence through assassinations, explosions, and the promotion of hatred and jihad. This ominous role extends to its armed proxies, strategically positioned in Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Yemen, West Bank, and the Red Sea, disrupting the peace in these regions and beyond.
Iran's destructive agenda is evident in its tight grip on armed proxies, unleashing chaos and undermining peace efforts in Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza, Iraq and Syria. The Iranian-backed militias have become instruments of havoc, exacerbating tensions and impeding any prospects for stability. In Gaza, the Iranian regime's support for militant groups fuels the ongoing conflict, perpetuating the cycle of violence and making a sustainable peace seem unattainable.
A particularly alarming aspect of Iran's aggressive strategy is its interference in the Red Sea through Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Houthi attacks against commercial ships pose a significant threat to international trade routes, jeopardizing the economic stability of the region. This maritime aggression not only endangers innocent lives but also disrupts the global supply chain, emphasizing the urgent need for decisive action against Iran's expansionist ambitions.
The Mullahs' anti-peace agenda is further evident in their oppressive measures against the Iranian people. Fabricated charges, arbitrary death penalties, and a regime built on oppression and dictatorship tactics have become the norm. The Iranian people endure daily hardships, their voices stifled in the face of an authoritarian regime that prioritizes its own survival over the welfare of its citizens.
Iran's anti-feminism policies add another layer to its regressive practices. Women in Iran face systemic discrimination, limiting their freedoms and opportunities. The international community must not turn a blind eye to the plight of Iranian women and the oppressive conditions they endure under the Mullahs' rule.
As the Middle East continues to grapple with unrest and conflict, it is imperative to recognize that the root cause lies in the Iranian regime's expansionist and destructive agenda. The international community must unite to support efforts to topple the Mullahs' regime and replace it with a government that prioritizes peace, stability, and the well-being of its citizens.
In conclusion, the global community must not underestimate the threat posed by Iran to global peace and security. The Mullahs' regime is not only fanning the flames of conflict in various nations but is also inflicting untold suffering upon its own people. It is high time for a collective and resolute response to dismantle the apparatus of terror that Iran has become, paving the way for a more stable and peaceful future in the Middle East and beyond.

Al-Rahi: The bankruptcy of the National Social Security Fund is a serious warning
NNA/December 25, 2023
Maronite Patriarch Mar Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi noted during Christmas Mass that “the bankruptcy of the National Social Security Fund is a serious warning,” regretting the absence of this topic from political and parliamentary discourse. The Patriarch expressed his regret that the representatives have not yet been able to elect a president of the republic who is competent, clean, and devoid of any personal or sectarian interest."Finally, he called for “electing a president of the republic, implementing the expected reforms, and removing social security from its known obstacles.”

Bishop Aoudi in the Christmas Mass: The world is watching the genocide of a people, the brutal killing of children, and the demolition of churches and schools, as if watching a play.
NNA/LCCC/December 25/2023
Metropolitan of Beirut and its environs, Bishop Elias Aoudi, presided over the Christmas Mass service in St. George's Cathedral in the presence of a crowd of believers. After the Gospel, he delivered a sermon entitled “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men.” He said: “How much the world in general, and our region and our country in particular, is in need of this supreme peace that the shepherd angels heralded. We are in dire need for Christ to be born in our hearts and in the dark hearts, to illuminate them with his divine grace, so that everyone will realize the ugliness of their sins and repent, and show their repentance through acts of righteousness.” And love is the place of selfishness, which has begun to guide people and push them on crooked paths in order to reach their interests. Even the Christmas tree has begun to disturb those whose hearts are blinded by fanaticism and extremism, while we need tolerance, love, and acceptance of others. We live in a materialistic, inhumane world, devoid of feelings and indifferent to justice. It is ruled by a hunger for money and a greed for power. Whoever has money demands more, and whoever has power seeks greater power, without mercy in the heart or prick in conscience. Tampering with people’s lives has become easy and controlling the fate of nations is permissible. Killing has become more easy and erasing of civilizations has become History and countries are permissible. Otherwise, how could the world watch the annihilation of a people, the brutal killing of children, the demolition of a country’s landmarks, the bulldozing of hospitals, and the demolition of churches and schools, as if one were watching a play? Where is the humanity in what is happening on the land that was blessed by the incarnation of Christ in it? And where is the absent conscience about the sins and atrocities that are happening in the world? ? As for us, where is the conscience in remaining silent about the absence of a head of state, when more than a year has passed since the presidential seat became vacant, and the state is collapsing, the citizens are suffering, the administration is in paralysis, which reflects negatively on the lives of the people, and the image of Lebanon is deteriorating more and more? He added: “The Lebanese citizen is worried about his tomorrow and his fate, and he is tired of waiting and tired of relying on representatives, leaders and officials who were not up to the responsibility, and do not realize the extent of the damage caused by their failure to address the situation. Therefore, we must put our hope in God alone because there is no salvation except the One who is coming.” From on high. The Lord alone is faithful and true in all His words and promises, as we read in the Holy Bible, and what is impossible for people is possible for the Creator of the universe (Luke 18:27). On this blessed holiday, we raise our prayers for everyone who is oppressed, tormented, and suffering on this earth. And for the sake of every sick person, kidnapped person, and homeless person, and we do not forget our brothers, Bishops Paul and John, whom we ask God to return to us safely. We also pray for us to be peacemakers, and for the Lord God to have mercy on our country, Lebanon, and its people, and rescue us from our ordeal, and keep away from us all that It leads to our fragmentation and our further sinking. We also ask him to enlighten the hearts of those responsible so that they will be rational and work to prevent the spread of war to our country, whose children only ask for peace and a comfortable life in a state that takes care of its children with truth and justice.”He concluded: “Our prayer today is that all your days will be a continuous birth of Christ in your lives. May peace find its way into souls and hearts, and reside in their midst forever.”

Plea for Lebanon to remain neutral amid Israel-Hezbollah hostilities
Arab News/December 25, 2023
BEIRUT: Maronite Patriarch Bechara Al-Rahi reiterated his plea for Lebanon to remain neutral on Monday amid continuing hostilities between Hezbollah and the Israel forces. In his Christmas sermon, the patriarch spoke about “the families afflicted by the genocidal war on Gaza and our families in southern Lebanon because of the extension of this ill-fated and rejected war to their towns and villages, with the deaths it left behind, the destruction of homes, and the destruction of property.”Al-Rahi condemned the “brutal genocide taking place in Gaza.”He said: “We reject its spread to the southern villages. Lebanon is not a land of war but a land of dialogue and peace.”Al-Rahi said: “The spread of the war to southern Lebanon contradicts Resolution 1701. Lebanon must return to its neutrality as a defender, through diplomacy, of any lost rights. “The Baabda Declaration in 2012, unanimously approved by the political blocs, affirmed Lebanon’s neutrality with the expression ‘distancing itself’ and adopted it. “Lebanon’s neutrality has been at the core of Lebanon’s identity since 1860, and it is politically neutral in that it neither fights nor is fought.” Al-Rahi’s new appeal came as hostilities between Hezbollah and the Israeli army entered a new phase. The attacks are now targeting residential houses on both sides of the Blue Line along the border, with some military operations transgressing the rules of engagement. A security source told Arab News: “Scenes of destruction can be observed in residential neighborhoods in the border areas targeted by Israeli bombing.”Hezbollah’s attacks are now hitting targets as far as 10 km inside Israel. Sheikh Naim Kassem, deputy secretary-general, reiterated that the movement’s military operations on the southern front “are to support Gaza, and no one believes that this matter is isolated from protecting Lebanon.”He said: “We are in one situation; the enemy is one, and this enemy is expansionist. Israel’s strategy is to target one group at a time, aiming to annihilate all.”On Monday, Hezbollah announced that it had “targeted buildings in the Misgav Am settlement with missile weapons, in response to bombing villages and civilian homes” in southern Lebanon. On Sunday, Hezbollah announced “targeting a residential building in the Avivim settlement, causing confirmed casualties.”For the past 79 days, Hezbollah’s hostilities on the southern border have been limited to Israeli military outposts and gatherings of Israeli soldiers. However, during the past week, the Israeli forces mainly targeted houses belonging to Hezbollah members and cadres in some border villages. Israel targeted a house in Kfarkila with three shells on Monday, setting it on fire, after targeting a residential home on Sunday in Markaba. Hezbollah announced the death of the house owner, Wissam Khalil Hammoud, who is one of its members. Hezbollah also announced on Saturday the death of Ibrahim Salameh from the Aytaroun village after Israeli shelling targeted his house. Hezbollah said it targeted a deployment of Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of the Metat barracks on Monday. Since Monday morning, there has been a tense atmosphere in the border villages. The outskirts of Naqoura, Hanin, and Wadi Hamul were targeted by Israeli artillery shelling. Hezbollah declared that it initiated missile strikes on the Beit Hilal military base located east of Kiryat Shmona, the Israeli military site of Jal Al-Alam, and a gathering of Israeli soldiers near the Birkat Risha site. Israeli forces conducted a series of attacks in the areas surrounding Aita Al-Shaab, Tallet Al-Raheb, Kafr Kila, and the Marjayoun Plain. Additionally, Israeli warplanes targeted the outskirts of Aitaroun and Mays Al-Jabal, launching air-to-surface missiles that caused explosions heard in the Bint Jbeil area. The Israeli forces used Burkan missiles, phosphorus bombs, and artillery in Monday’s bombardment and installed a surveillance balloon above the towns of Al-Dhahira and Alma Al-Shaab. According to statistics gathered by journalists in southern Lebanon, the total number of casualties from Israeli airstrikes during the clashes in southern Lebanon over the past 79 days reached 159, including 107 in the south and 14 in Syria. Among the casualties were 17 civilians in southern Lebanon, including three journalists, one soldier from the Lebanese Army, one from the Amal movement, one from the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, two from the Jamaa Islamiyya, and seven from the Islamic Jihad Movement, as well as nine casualties from the Hamas movement in Lebanon.

Israel-Hezbollah clashes: Latest developments
Naharnet/December 25, 2023
Hezbollah on Monday announced waging two attacks on Israeli posts in northern Israel as Israeli shelling and airstrikes targeted several Lebanese southern border towns. In a statement, Hezbollah said it attacked Israeli troops near the Mattat barracks with the “appropriate weapons.”In two other statements, the group said it attacked the Beit Hillel military base east of Kiryat Shmona, achieving “certain casualties,” and a gathering of Israeli troops neat the Birket Risha post. Israel’s Channel 12 meanwhile said that an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon had landed in the Miskav Am settlement causing no casualties. Israeli artillery shelling meanwhile targeted the outskirts of Adaisseh, Sarda, Wadi Hamoul, Kfarkila, Deir Mimas, Rwaisseh, al-Hamames, al-Ezziyeh, al-Awaida, Hanine and Aita al-Shaab. An Israeli airstrike meanwhile targeted an open agricultural area south of Mays al-Jabal, causing no casualties, as Israeli drones bombed the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab and the al-Raheb Hill. Israeli warplanes also struck the peripheries of the town of Aitaroun, with heavy smoke billowing and the explosions echoing across the Bint Jbeil district. Hezbollah meanwhile announced the death of two more of its fighters in south Lebanon, identifying as Abbas Hazimeh from Mays al-Jabal and Wissam Hammoud from Markaba. Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, Hezbollah and Israeli forces have engaged in near-daily clashes on the border that have killed around 150 people on the Lebanese side -- most of them fighters with Hezbollah and allied groups, but also at least 17 civilians. On the Israeli side, at least four civilians and eight soldiers have been killed, according to Israeli officials.

Gallant: We are hitting Hezbollah hard, and the Air Force is flying freely over Lebanon
Maqazia/LCCC//December 25, 2023
Today, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant assessed the situation in the Northern Command, saying: “We will not allow a return to the previous situation we were in until October 6 (before Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood).” Gallant added, “We are hitting Hezbollah hard, and the air force is flying freely over Lebanon, and we will intensify all these efforts.” Gallant added, “One thing is clear, in order to return the population, we need either a consensus measure that concerns us, where a different situation will be determined, or we will achieve a different reality.” As a result of military activity. Today, Monday, the Israeli authorities decided to close a large group of northern settlements from six in the morning until further notice, for fear of a “possible war” with Hezbollah. The Jerusalem Post newspaper said, "Five years after Israel launched Operation Northern Shield against Hezbollah's cross-border tunnels, there are concerns about Hezbollah's tunnels being threatened again."

Hezbollah" condemns the assassination of Radhi al-Musawi in Syria: a blatant and shameless attack that crosses the borders.
Maqazia/LCCC//December 25, 2023
The “party” indicated in a statement, “This afternoon, the Zionist enemy committed a new crime added to the record of its crimes and attacks, which is the crime of assassinating the dear brother, Brigadier General Sayyed Radhi al-Musawi, in Syria, who was working as a military advisor there, and we consider this assassination a blatant attack.” "It's rude and crosses the line."He continued: "The happy martyr, Mr. Radhi al-Moussawi, was one of the best brothers who worked to support the Islamic resistance in Lebanon for decades of his honorable life. He was dedicated to serving the resistance and its mujahideen. He was a companion in arms and path to the martyr commander, Lieutenant General Hajj Qassem Soleimani, may God have mercy on them." He added: “We extend our condolences to His Eminence the Leader, Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei, may his honorable shadow last, the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards in Iran, the honorable family of the martyr, and the general self-sacrificing and honorable Iranian people, and we ask God to join him with the righteous martyrs who preceded him on the path of resistance, jihad, and giving.”

President Aoun on Christmas: From the children of Bethlehem to the children of Gaza, the scene is the same as those lacking humanity are watching
NNA/December 25, 2023
Former President Michel Aoun wrote today on platform “X”: “From the children of Bethlehem to the children of Gaza, two thousand years and the same scene, and those void of humanity are watching idly...Hope remains in the birth of the Savior and the good news of love, great joy and peace on earth, so that the sleeping consciences may be awakened and the hardened hearts stirred, and so that the tragedy will end and the light of Christmas will shine...Merry Christmas!”

Enemy drone raids over area between Ramia & Beit Lif
NNA/December 25, 2023
Tyre - National News Agency correspondent reported that an Israeli enemy drone raided the area between the southern towns of Ramia and Beit Lif this evening.

Enemy raid over the outskirts of Mlikh, artillery shelling of Aita al-Shaab outskirts
NNA/December 25, 2023
Nabatieh - National News Agency correspondent reported that an Israeli drone carried out an air strike around 6:30 p.m. today, raiding a forest area outside the town of Malikh in the Jabal al-Rayhan area, firing a guided missile. Also, at approximately 7:00 in the evening, the outskirts of the town of Aita al-Shaab and the vicinity of al-Raheb site were exposed to intermittent artillery shelling coming from enemy positions inside occupied Palestine.

Taymour Jumblatt: All hopes for the true salvation of Lebanon and all just causes everywhere
NNA /December 25, 2023
MP Taymour Jumblatt wrote today on platform “X”: “In the time of the holiday season, the eye remains on the tragedy of the people of Palestine and the people of the south, and on the suffering of the oppressed in the land, those who have no shirt to cover their chests...All wishes for true salvation for Lebanon and for the causes of justice everywhere.”

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 25-26/2023
The Pope prayed for peace in Gaza and called children devastated by war the 'little Jesuses of today'
Juliana Kaplan/Business Insider/December 25, 2023
Pope Francis called children whose lives are devastated by war the "little Jesuses" of today.
He said he hoped for peace to come "in Israel and Palestine."
The pope said he particularly embraced the Christian communities of Gaza and the parish of Gaza. In a Christmas address, Pope Francis called for peace and a solution to the "desperate humanitarian situation" in Gaza. His remarks came after Christmas was canceled in Bethlehem amidst the Israel-Hamas war, with streets normally robust with tourism emptied. Pope Francis said he hoped for peace to come "in Israel and Palestine, where war is devastating the lives of those peoples." He said he embraced them all, particularly the Christian communities of Gaza and the parish of Gaza. He also reiterated his "urgent appeal for the liberation of those still being held hostage." "My heart grieves for the victims of the abominable attack on October 7," Pope Francis said. In his address, the pope pleaded "for an end to the military operations," and called for a solution to the "desperate humanitarian situation." He went on to call "all those little ones whose childhood has been devastated by war" the "little Jesuses of today." The Israel-Hamas war has left at least 20,000 Gazans dead, per Gaza's Hamas-affiliated health ministry, and over 50,000 injured, following Hamas's October 7 terrorist attacks that left 1,200 Israelis dead and thousands injured. A United Nations report found that half a million Gazans — one in four households — are facing a lack of food and starvation. Pope Francis has previously said that Israeli and Palestinian people "have the right to live in peace." Earlier this month, he condemned an attack on a Catholic Parish in Gaza. "Some say, 'This is terrorism. This is war.' Yes, it is war. It is terrorism," Francis said in the wake of the attack. In his Christmas address, the pope also called out rising arms production and public funding going towards war, rather than food. He spoke against "the interests and the profits that move the puppet strings of war," and called for peace worldwide, including in Ukraine, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. "People, who desire not weapons but bread, who struggle to make ends meet and desire only peace, have no idea how many public funds are being spent on arms," Francis said. He also called to "let us pray for peace in Palestine and Israel.""May there be an end to the fueling of violence and hatred," Pope Francis said.

Bethlehem resembles ghost town as celebrations halted due to war on Gaza
Associated Press/Mon, December 25, 2023
The typically bustling biblical birthplace of Jesus resembled a ghost town Sunday after Christmas Eve celebrations in Bethlehem were called off due to the Israel-Hamas war. The festive lights and Christmas tree that normally decorate Manger Square were missing, as were the throngs of foreign tourists and jubilant youth marching bands that gather in the West Bank town each year to mark the holiday. Dozens of Palestinian security forces patrolled the empty square. "This year, without the Christmas tree and without lights, there's just darkness," said Brother John Vinh, a Franciscan monk from Vietnam who has lived in Jerusalem for six years. Vinh said he always comes to Bethlehem to mark Christmas, but this year was especially sobering. He gazed at a nativity scene in Manger Square with a baby Jesus wrapped in a white shroud, reminiscent of the thousands of children killed in the fighting in Gaza. Barbed wire surrounded the scene, the grey rubble reflecting none of the joyous lights and bursts of color that normally fill the square during the Christmas season. Cold, rainy weather added to the grim mood. The cancellation of Christmas festivities was a severe blow to the town's economy. Tourism accounts for an estimated 70% of Bethlehem's income — almost all of that during the Christmas season. With many major airlines canceling flights to Israel, few foreigners are visiting. Local officials say over 70 hotels in Bethlehem were forced to close, leaving thousands of people unemployed.
Gift shops were slow to open on Christmas Eve, although a few did once the rain had stopped pouring down. There were few visitors, however. "We can't justify putting out a tree and celebrating as normal, when some people (in Gaza) don't even have houses to go to," said Ala'a Salameh, one of the owners of Afteem Restaurant, a family-owned falafel restaurant just steps from the square. Salameh said Christmas Eve is usually the busiest day of the year. "Normally, you can't find a single chair to sit, we're full from morning till midnight," said Salameh. On Sunday morning, just one table was taken, by journalists taking a break from the rain. Under a banner that read "Bethlehem's Christmas bells ring for a cease-fire in Gaza," a few teenagers offered small inflatable Santas, but no one was buying. Instead of their traditional march through the streets of Bethlehem, young scouts stood silently with flags. A group of local students unfurled a massive Palestinian flag as they stood in silence. An organist with the Church of the Nativity choir, Shukry Mubarak, said the group changed much of the traditional Christmas musical repertoire from joyful holiday songs to more solemn hymns in minor keys. "Our message every year on Christmas is one of peace and love, but this year it's a message of sadness, grief and anger in front of the international community with what is happening and going on in the Gaza Strip," Bethlehem's mayor, Hana Haniyeh, said in an address to the crowd.
Dr. Joseph Mugasa, a pediatrician, was one of the few international visitors. He said his tour group of 15 people from Tanzania was "determined" to come to the region despite the situation. "I've been here several times, and it's quite a unique Christmas, as usually there's a lot of people and a lot of celebrations," he said. "But you can't celebrate while people are suffering, so we are sad for them and praying for peace."
More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 50,000 wounded during Israel's air and ground offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers, according to health officials there, while some 85% of the territory's 2.3 million residents have been displaced. The war was triggered by Hamas' deadly assault Oct. 7 on southern Israel in which militants allegedly killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took more than 240 hostages. The Gaza war has been accompanied by a surge in West Bank violence, with some 300 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire. The fighting has affected life across the Israeli-occupied territory. Since Oct. 7, access to Bethlehem and other Palestinian towns in the West Bank has been difficult, with long lines of motorists waiting to pass military checkpoints. The restrictions have also prevented tens of thousands of Palestinians from exiting the territory to work in Israel. Amir Michael Giacaman opened his store, "Il Bambino," which sells olive wood carvings and other souvenirs, for the first time since Oct. 7. There have been no tourists, and few local residents have money to spare because those who worked in Israel have been stuck at home. "When people have extra money, they go buy food," said his wife, Safa Giacaman. "This year, we're telling the Christmas story. We're celebrating Jesus, not the tree, not Santa Claus, she said, as their daughter Mikaella ran around the deserted store. The fighting in Gaza was on the minds of the small Christian community in Syria, which is coping with a civil war now in its 13th year. Christians said they were trying to find joy, despite the ongoing strife in their homeland and in Gaza. "Where is the love? What have we done with love?" said the Rev. Elias Zahlawi, a priest in Yabroud, a city about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Damascus. "We've thrown God outside the realm of humanity and unfortunately, the church has remained silent in the face of this painful reality."Some tried to find inspiration in the spirit of Christmas. Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, arriving from Jerusalem for the traditional procession to the Church of the Nativity, told the sparse crowd that Christmas was a "reason to hope" despite the war and violence. The pared-down Christmas was in keeping with the original message of the holiday and illustrated the many ways the community is coming together, said Stephanie Saldaña, who is originally from San Antonio, Texas, and has lived in Jerusalem and Bethlehem for the past 15 years with her husband, a parish priest at the St Joseph Syriac Catholic Church. "We feel Christmas as more real than ever, because we're waiting for the prince of peace to come. We are waiting for a miracle to stop this war," Saldaña said.

Israeli air strike in Syria kills senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards member
BEIRUT (Reuters)/Mon, December 25, 2023
An Israeli air strike outside the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday killed a senior adviser in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, three security sources and Iran's state media said. The sources told Reuters that the adviser, known as Sayyed Razi Mousavi, was responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran. Iran's state television interrupted its regular news broadcast to announce that Mousavi had been killed, describing him as one of the Guards' oldest advisers in Syria. It said he had been "among those accompanying Qassem Soleimani," the head of the Guards' elite Quds Force, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in Iraq in 2020. There was no immediate comment from Israel's military. Israel has for years carried out attacks against what it has described as Iran-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran's influence has grown since it backed President Bashar al-Assad in the war that erupted in Syria in 2011.Earlier this month, Iran said Israeli strikes had killed two Revolutionary Guards members in Syria who had served as military advisers there.

Iran vows revenge after its top general in Syria killed by Israeli strike
Agence France Presse/Mon, December 25, 2023
A senior general with Iran's Revolutionary Guards was killed Monday by an Israeli strike in Syria, the military force said, with Tehran vowing to make Israel "pay for this crime."Iranian state media also reported the death of Razi Moussavi, describing him as "one of the most experienced advisors" of Quds Force, the foreign arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has repeatedly said it will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi expressed condolences for Moussavi's death, saying Israel "will certainly pay for this crime." The general "was killed during an attack by the Zionist regime a few hours ago in Zeinabiyah district in the suburbs of Damascus," official news agency IRNA reported, using a different name for Sayyida Zeinab south of the Syrian capital. Moussavi was "active in the field of providing logistical support to the axis of resistance in Syria," IRNA said, referring to groups backed by Tehran and arrayed against Israel. The IRGC in a statement said Moussavi was killed in a "missile attack" and also vowed to avenge his death. The statement noted that Moussavi was a companion of General Qassem Soleimani, Iran's revered Quds commander who was killed in Baghdad in a US drone strike in 2020. Next week Iran will mark the fourth anniversary of Soleimani's assassination, and Moussavi was the most senior Quds Force general killed since.
'Three missiles'
Iran's state TV said Moussavi was targeted by "three missiles" and aired footage showing smoke rising from the area of the strike. A Britain-based monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported Israeli strikes on positions used by Iranian groups and by Lebanon's powerful Tehran-aligned Hezbollah in the Sayyida Zeinab area. Residents reported hearing loud explosions and seeing columns of smoke rising from farms in the area. Since Syria's civil war began in 2011, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its northern neighbor, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions. On December 2, the IRGC accused Israel of killing two of its members in Syria, where the force said they had been on an advisory mission, without providing further details.Israel, which rarely comments on reported strikes in Syria, has intensified attacks there particularly against Hezbollah since the start of its war against Hamas -- also backed by Iran -- triggered by the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attacks. The Islamic republic, which supports Hamas financially and militarily, has hailed the deadly attacks on southern Israel as a "success" but denied any direct involvement. Iran does not recognize Israel and has made support for the Palestinian cause a centerpiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Traditional Christmas celebrations absent in Bethlehem amid Gaza War
Joe Fisher/UPI/December 25, 2023
It does not look like Christmas in Bethlehem on Monday as the Israeli-occupied city in West Bank has cancelled its traditional holiday festivities amid the war in Gaza. A nativity scene surrounded by rubble and barbed wire stands in place of the traditional Christmas tree in Manger Square. The display is a reminder of the bloody war between Israel and Hamas that has resulted in the deaths of more than 20,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestine Ministry of Health. "Christmas is upon us this year and we live in the most difficult and darkest circumstances and times as a result of what our people are suffering in the besieged Gaza Strip and in all cities, villages, camps in the West Bank and Jerusalem holy because of the continuous aggression on," Hanna Hannanya, mayor of Bethlehem, said during the inauguration of the display. The Scouts of the Holy Land, a youth organization that includes boys and girls, held a small procession on Christmas Eve. They carried banners calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, led Christmas Midnight Mass in the Church of St Catherine at the Basilica of the Nativity. During his address, he remarked on the plight of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who have been under bombardment by the Israeli Defense Forces for more than two months. People gather at Manger Square in Bethlehem to see the nativity scene "Birth Under the Ruins" on Christmas Eve Sunday. The display depicts the birth of Jesus Christ surrounded by rubble and barbed wire. Photo courtesy of the Bethlehem Municipality/Facebook .People gather at Manger Square in Bethlehem to see the nativity scene "Birth Under the Ruins" on Christmas Eve Sunday. The display depicts the birth of Jesus Christ surrounded by rubble and barbed wire. Photo courtesy of the Bethlehem Municipality/Facebook "My thoughts go to Gaza and its two million inhabitants," Pizzaballa said. "Truly the words 'there was no room for them' describe their situation, which is now known to all. Their suffering ceaselessly cries out to the whole world. No place or home is safe for anyone."The church service was largely attended by Palestinian Christians, according to Vatican News. Bethlehem, recognized as the birthplace of Jesus Christ, has a population of about 30,000 people, including a mixture of Christians and Muslims. The city cancelled many of its parades and ceremonies and bypassed its traditional decorations this year. The city, located about 45 miles northeast of the Gaza Strip, is typically a tourist destination on Christmas. Holiday tourist activity is a large contributor to its economy. Last year, an estimated 120,000 tourists made the pilgrimage to Bethlehem. In 2019, there were a record 150,000 tourists.
Many hotels, shops and restaurants have closed due to the lack of tourism. The conflict escalated on Oct. 7, when Hamas unleashed an attack that killed 1,200 Israelis while also taking an estimated 240 people hostage.

Netanyahu visits Gaza, vows no end to fighting
Ian Swanson/The Hill/December 25, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited his country’s forces in Gaza on Monday as he insisted Israel would go full force with its attack amid international pressure for an end to the fighting. “With our heroic fighters in Gaza – fighting until victory!” Netanyahu’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, stated Monday. The words accompanied a video that showed Netanyahu walking from a helicopter and then being escorted through scenes of bombed-out buildings with Israeli soldiers flanking him on both sides.
Netanyahu in an address to his political party previously vowed the war would not stop. “We are expanding the fight in the coming days and this will be a long battle and it isn’t close to finished,” he said in the address, according to the Associated Press. He delivered a similar message in a speech in Israel’s parliament, where families of the more than 100 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza held signs calling for Israel to reach a deal to bring them home immediately. “Now! Now!,” they chanted from the gallery, the AP reported. The United Nations Security Council last week approved a measure meant to step-up humanitarian aid to Gaza, where thousands of Palestinians have been killed from Israel’s bombardment of the country. Israel’s war is itself a response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 people and left hundreds more hostages in Gaza. The text called for the release of hostages, and for “urgent steps” to allow humanitarian access, and adds urgency to “create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”The U.S. abstained from the final vote but did not block the resolution, a sign of how it has been trying to step up pressure on Israel over its handling of the war. The Biden administration’s support for the war has led to divides in the Democratic Party and criticism internationally. Netanyahu’s trip to Gaza was his second since the war began, according to The New York Times.

Netanyahu outlines 3 prerequisites for peace in op-ed
Sarah Fortinsky/The Hill/December 25, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote an op-ed Monday outlining three prerequisites for peace in the region: the destruction of Hamas, the demilitarization of Gaza and the beginning of a deradicalization process of Palestinian society. In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Netanyahu said once those three requirements are met, “Gaza can be rebuilt and the prospects of a broader peace in the Middle East will become a reality.” Netanyahu has expressed support for these positions in the past, but in laying out his concrete position in a mainstream U.S. news outlet, Netanyahu makes Israel’s starting position clear as international pressure mounts to find a path to peace. The Biden administration, while supporting Israel, has also sent signals it wants to see an end to the fighting amid internal and external pressures. In advocating for the destruction of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, Netanyahu notes Hamas’s leaders have vowed to repeat the brutal Oct. 7 attack “again and again,” writing, “That is why their destruction is the only proportional response to prevent the repeat of such horrific atrocities. Anything less guarantees more war and more bloodshed.” Netanyahu pledged to “continue to act in full compliance with international law” in destroying Hamas, but he noted the difficulty in doing so, as he claimed Hamas frequently uses “Palestinian civilians as human shields.” Netanyahu emphasized Israel tries to minimize civilian casualties, outlining ways he said it does so. “Unjustly blaming Israel for these casualties will only encourage Hamas and other terror organizations around the world to use human shields. To render this cruel and cynical strategy ineffective, the international community must place the blame for these casualties squarely on Hamas,” Netanyahu wrote. Israel has come under significant criticism for the type of bombs it has dropped in Gaza, with some arguing it could do much more to limit civilian casualties. In demilitarizing Gaza, Netanyahu said Israel would need to retain “overriding security responsibility over Gaza” and dismissed the possibility of the Palestinian Authority (PA) overseeing the territory. President Biden, for his part, has said the PA could govern Gaza. Netanyahu said it “will require establishing a temporary security zone on the perimeter of Gaza and an inspection mechanism on the border between Gaza and Egypt that meets Israel’s security needs and prevents smuggling of weapons into the territory.”To deradicalize Gaza, Netanyahu argued change would need to come from leadership as well as in what students are taught in schools. He said he believes the change is possible, drawing on recent successes in forging the Abraham Accords and pointed to post-World War II successes. “Successful deradicalization took place in Germany and Japan after the Allied victory in World War II. Today, both nations are great allies of the U.S. and promote peace, stability and prosperity in Europe and Asia,” he wrote. His op-ed comes as calls for a cease-fire grow around the world. Hamas killed about 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7 in a surprise attack on Israel’s southern border and took about 239 hostages. Since then, about half have been released in a series of exchanges involving Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners. Since Israel began its retaliation with a barrage of airstrikes and a ground offensive in Gaza, more than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to estimates from the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza. Much of Gaza has been flattened in airstrikes and about a quarter of its population faces “extreme hunger.”

At least 68 killed in central Gaza in airstrike, adding to weekend's bloodshed
Associated Press/December 25, 2023
At least 68 people were killed by an Israeli strike in central Gaza, health officials said Sunday, while the number of Israeli soldiers killed in combat over the weekend rose to 17. Associated Press journalists at a nearby hospital watched frantic Palestinians carry the dead, including a baby, and wounded following the strike on the Maghazi refugee camp east of Deir al-Balah. One bloodied young girl looked stunned while her body was checked for broken bones. The 68 fatalities include at least 12 women and seven children, according to early hospital figures. "We were all targeted," said Ahmad Turkomani, who lost several family members including his daughter and grandson. "There is no safe place in Gaza anyway." Earlier, the Health Ministry in Gaza gave the death toll as 70. The Israeli military had no immediate comment. As Christmas Eve fell, smoke rose over the besieged territory, while in the West Bank Bethlehem was hushed, its holiday celebrations called off. In neighboring Egypt, tentative efforts continued on a deal for another exchange of hostages for Palestinians held by Israel. The war has devastated parts of Gaza, killed roughly 20,400 Palestinians and displaced almost all of the territory's 2.3 million people. The mounting death toll among Israeli troops — 156 since the ground offensive began — could erode public support for the war, which was sparked when Hamas-led militants stormed communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, allegedly killing 1,200 and taking 240 hostage. Israelis still largely stand behind its stated goals of crushing Hamas' governing and military capabilities and releasing the remaining 129 captives. That's despite rising international pressure against Israel's offensive, and the soaring death toll and unprecedented suffering among Palestinians.
HAMAS EXACTS A PRICE
"The war exacts a very heavy price from us, but we have no choice but to continue fighting," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. In a nationally televised speech, Israeli President Isaac Herzog appealed for the country to remain united. "This moment is a test. We will not break nor blink," he said. There has been widespread anger against his government, which many criticize for failing to protect civilians on Oct. 7 and promoting policies that allowed Hamas to gain strength over the years. Netanyahu has avoided accepting responsibility for the military and policy failures. "Over time, the public will find it hard to ignore the heavy price paid, as well as the suspicion that the aims that were loudly heralded are still far from being attained, and that Hamas is showing no signs of capitulating in the near future," wrote Amos Harel, military affairs commentator for the Haaretz newspaper. The Israeli military said it had completed the dismantling of Hamas' underground headquarters in northern Gaza, part of an operation to take down the vast tunnel network and kill off top commanders that Israeli leaders have said could take months. Efforts toward negotiations continued. The head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziyad al-Nakhalah, arrived in Egypt for talks. The militant group, which also took part in the Oct. 7 attack, said it was prepared to consider releasing hostages only after fighting ends. Hamas' top leader Ismail Haniyeh traveled to Cairo for talks days earlier.
INSIDE GAZA
Israel's offensive has been one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history. More than two-thirds of the 20,000 Palestinians killed have been women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. On Friday, Israeli airstrikes on two homes in Gaza killed 90 Palestinians, including dozens from an extended family, according to rescuers and hospital officials. One of the homes, located in Gaza City, became one of the deadliest airstrikes in the war after 76 people from the al-Mughrabi family were killed, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza's Civil Defense department. The Palestinian Red Crescent said a 13-year-old boy was shot and killed in an Israeli drone attack while inside al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, a part of Gaza where Israel's military believes Hamas leaders are hiding. An Israeli strike overnight hit a house in a refugee camp west of the city of Rafah, on Gaza's border with Egypt. At least two men were killed, according to Associated Press journalists in the hospital where the bodies were taken. At least two people were killed and six others wounded when a missile stuck a building in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.
And Palestinians reported heavy Israeli bombardment and gunfire in Jabaliya, an area north of Gaza City that Israel had claimed to control. Hamas' military arm said its fighters shelled Israeli troops in Jabaliya and Jabaliya refugee camp. Israel faces international criticism for the civilian death toll but it blames Hamas, citing the militants' use of crowded residential areas and tunnels. Israel has launched thousands of airstrikes since Oct. 7. It says it has killed thousands of Hamas militants, without presenting evidence. Israel also faces allegations of mistreating Palestinian men and teenage boys detained in homes, shelters, hospitals and elsewhere during the offensive. It has denied abuse allegations and said those without links to militants are quickly released. Speaking to the AP from a hospital bed in Rafah after his release, Khamis al-Burdainy of Gaza City said Israeli forces detained him after tanks and bulldozers partly destroyed his home. He said men were handcuffed and blindfolded. "We didn't sleep. We didn't get food and water," he said, crying and covering his face. Another released detainee, Mohammed Salem, from the Gaza City neighborhood of Shijaiyah, said Israeli troops beat them. "We were humiliated," he said. "A female soldier would come and beat an old man, aged 72 years old."
INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE
The United Nations Security Council has passed a watered-down resolution calling for the speedy delivery of humanitarian aid for hungry and desperate Palestinians and the release of all the hostages, but not for a cease-fire. But it was not immediately clear how and when deliveries of food, medical supplies and other aid, far below the daily average of 500 before the war, would accelerate. Trucks enter through two crossings: Rafah, and Kerem Shalom on the border with Israel. Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian Crossings Authority, said 123 aid trucks entered Gaza on Sunday, The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, reiterated U.N. calls for a humanitarian cease-fire, adding on social media that "the decimation of the Gaza health system is a tragedy." Amid concerns about a wider regional conflict, the U.S. Central Command said a patrol ship in the Red Sea on Saturday shot down four drones launched from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen, a while two Houthi anti-ship ballistic missiles were fired into international shipping lanes. The Iran-backed Houthis say their attacks are aimed at Israel-linked ships in an effort to stop the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

Egypt floats an ambitious plan to end the Israel-Hamas war as Netanyahu vows to expand Gaza combat
CAIRO (AP)/Mon, December 25, 2023
Egypt has put forward an ambitious, initial proposal to end the Israel-Hamas war with a cease-fire, a phased hostage release and the creation of a Palestinian government of experts who would administer the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank, a senior Egyptian official and a European diplomat said Monday. Word of the proposal came as Israeli airstrikes heavily pounded central and southern Gaza, crushing buildings on families sheltering inside. In the Maghazi refugee camp, rescue workers were still pulling bodies from the wreckage hours after a strike that killed at least 106 people, according to hospital records seen by The Associated Press -- one of the deadliest of Israel’s air campaign. The Egyptian proposal, worked out with the Gulf nation of Qatar, has been presented to Israel, Hamas, the United States and European governments but still appeared preliminary. It falls short of Israel’s professed goal of outright crushing Hamas after its Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, which triggered the war. It would appear not to meet Israel’s insistence on keeping military control over Gaza for an extended period after the war. It also is unclear if Hamas would agree to relinquish power. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed the war would not stop. “We are expanding the fight in the coming days and this will be a long battle and it isn’t close to finished,” he said, speaking to members of his Likud Party. He delivered a similar message in a speech in Israel's parliament, where families of the more than 100 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza held signs calling for Israel to reach a deal to bring them home immediately. “Now! Now!,” they chanted from the gallery. Netanyahu and other members of the War Cabinet are to meet later Monday, an Israeli official said, but would not say if they would discuss the Egyptian proposal. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. The war has devastated large parts of Gaza, killed more than 20,400 Palestinians and displaced almost all of the territory’s 2.3 million people. U.N. officials warning that a quarter of the population are starving under Israel’s siege of the territory, which allows only a trickle of supplies in. Arriving aid trucks are often met by crowds of desperate people who in some cases have looted boxes of food and water. A policeman with the Hamas-run Interior Ministry shot to death a 13-year-old boy when a group of people tried to seize aid from trucks arriving near the southern city of Rafah on Sunday, an official with Hamas government media office said Monday. Enraged relatives of the slain boy attempted to attack a police station, burning tires and demanding the policeman be held accountable. The devastation of the war over the past weeks has brought sporadic eruptions of anger against Hamas, something that has previously been unthinkable during the group’s 16-year rule over Gaza.
EGYPTIAN PROPOSAL
Despite growing international pressure for a halt, Israel has said it is determined to destroy Hamas’ governing and military capabilities after the Oct, 7 attack, in which militants rampaged in southern Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and abducting around 240. Israel also says it aims to free 129 people still held hostage.The Egyptian proposal was an ambitious bid not only to end the war but also to lay out a plan for the day after. It calls for an initial cease-fire of up to two weeks during which Palestinian militants would free 40 to 50 hostages, among them women, the sick and the elderly, in return for the release of 120-150 Palestinians from Israeli prisons, the Egyptian official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing talks.At the same time, negotiations would continue on extending the cease-fire and the release of more hostages and bodies held by Palestinian militants, he said.
Egypt and Qatar would also work with all Palestinian factions, including Hamas, to agree on the establishment of a government of experts, he said. The government would rule Gaza and the West Bank for a transitional period as Palestinian factions settle their disputes and agree on a roadmap to hold presidential and parliamentary elections, he added. In the meantime, Israel and Hamas would negotiate a comprehensive “all-for-all” deal, he said. This would include the release of all remaining hostages in return for all Palestinian prisoners in Israel, as well as the Israeli military’s withdrawal from Gaza and the Palestinian militants’ halting of rocket attacks into Israel. Close to 8,000 Palestinians are held by Israel on security-related charges or convictions, according to Palestinian figures. Egyptian officials discussed the outline of the proposal with Ismail Haniyeh, the Qatar-based political leader of Hamas, who visited Cairo last week and planned to discuss it with the leader of the Islamic Jihad group, Ziyad al-Nakhalah, who arrived in Cairo on Sunday, the official said. A Western diplomat said they are aware of Egypt’s proposal. But the diplomat, who demanded anonymity to discuss the matter, doubts that Netanyahu and his hawkish government would accept the entire proposal. The diplomat gave no further details.
INSIDE GAZA
Israel’s offensive has been one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history. More than two-thirds of the more than 20,400 Palestinians killed have been women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants among the dead.
Sunday night’s strike in the Maghazi camp levelled a three-story building and damaged neighboring ones. On Monday, first responders and residents, some digging with bare hands, pulled dozens more bodies out of the rubble. At Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, men prayed over several dozen bodies laid out on the ground. Sobbing relatives peeled open body bags to get a last look or kiss the face of a loved one. One man wept as he hugged a body wrapped in bloody plastic sheeting, the size of a small child. Another man knelt over the body of a relative, screaming, “I swear to God, he was a man. I swear to God, he was better than the whole of Hamas.” The bodies of another 80 people killed in other strikes across central Gaza were also received at the hospital from late Sunday to early Monday, hospital records showed. Since Friday, 17 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat, most in southern and central Gaza – an indication of the heavy fighting in and around the southern city of Khan Younis. Since the ground offensive began, 156 soldiers have been killed, a mounting toll that could erode public support for the war. Israelis still largely stand behind the war against Hamas. But there has been widespread anger against Netanyahu's government, which many criticize for failing to protect civilians on Oct. 7 and promoting policies that allowed Hamas to gain strength over the years. Netanyahu has avoided accepting responsibility for the military and policy failures. In northern Gaza, Palestinians reported heavy Israeli bombardment and gunfire in the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya, an area Israel had claimed to control. The Israeli military said it had completed the dismantling of Hamas’ underground headquarters in northern Gaza. Israel faces international criticism for the civilian death toll, but it blames Hamas, citing the militants’ use of crowded residential areas and tunnels. Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas militants, without presenting evidence. Israel also faces allegations of mistreating Palestinian men and teenage boys detained in homes, shelters, hospitals and elsewhere during the offensive. The military says it had detained hundreds of Palestinians, including more than 700 who were transferred to Israel for further interrogation about suspected ties to militants. It has denied abuse allegations and said those without links to militants are quickly released.Speaking from a hospital bed in Rafah after his release, Khamis al-Burdainy of Gaza City said Israeli forces detained him after tanks and bulldozers partly destroyed his home. He said men were handcuffed and blindfolded.
“We didn’t sleep. We didn’t get food and water,” he said, crying and covering his face.

Russia and China are on the brink of a military alliance that could overwhelm the US
Tom Porter/Business Insider/Mon, December 25, 2023
For decades, the US has been the world's main military superpower.
But the US faces formidable new threats, and rising global conflict.
In the wake of the Ukraine war, Russia and China have been growing closer.
For decades, the military might of the US was unchallenged.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US was the world's only military superpower, with its forces deployed all over the world to defend allies and deter aggression. But as 2023 draws to a close, conflicts are flaring across the world, and Russia and China are growing increasingly aggressive in their shared ambition to topple the US as the world's biggest power. Their authoritarian leaders, Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia, are seeking to exploit global instability to damage the US and its allies, say analysts, and are drawing closer to forming a military alliance that poses the biggest threat the US has faced in decades. "It is clear that the two states see themselves as military partners, and that this partnership is growing deeper and more experienced, even if it is not a formal alliance in the Western sense," Jonathan Ward, CEO of the Atlas Group, told Business Insider. Xi and Putin draw closer to formidable military alliance. In conflicts across the world, the rivalry between the US and the Russian and Chinese partnership is playing out. China has provided Russia with vital economic and diplomatic support in its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, while the US has provided billions in aid to Kyiv.
In the Middle East, Russia and China have aligned themselves with Iran and criticized Israel's attacks on Gaza to destroy the Tehran-backed terror group Hamas. The US, meanwhile, has provided military aid and diplomatic support for Israel.
China, say experts, is likely watching the outcome of the Ukraine war carefully for signs of how the world will react should it act on plans to seize control of Taiwan. And as they draw closer, China and Russia are increasingly coordinating their military resources. "The Russia-China 'comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era' has always been about military power," said Ward. Over the past two years, Russia and China have launched joint naval exercises in the Sea of Japan, Russia has handed China submarine technology that could give it the edge in a war with US allies in the Pacific, and the leaders have pledged to cooperate on high tech weapons development, Putin said in November. Russia has also sold China Su-25 jets, MI-17 helicopters, and S-400 air defense systems. Though the leaders have not signed a formal military alliance, such moves should be of huge concern to the US and its allies, writes Chels Michta in a recent article for the Center for European Policy Analysis. "A full-scale China-Russia alliance would present the United States with a threat unlike any it has confronted since the end of the Cold War," writes Michta.
US military urged to address new threat
During the Cold War, the Pentagon planned to be able to fight one major war and two smaller wars simultaneously. But in the face of changing threats, it shifted its strategy to be able to fight one major war and deter other attacks. The Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States in October said that the US now faces threats "fundamentally different [to] anything experienced in the past, even in the darkest days of the Cold War" because of the rise of China and Russia. It urged the Pentagon to revise its plans to be ready for the possibility of war with China and Russia simultaneously. "The Russia-China axis poses an enormous threat to the United States given that we will have to handle security in both Europe and Asia, as well as in the Middle East, with the risk of being stretched thin while Beijing and Moscow coordinate to pursue their respective regional ambitions," said Ward. Some experts remain skeptical of the stability of a Russian-Chinese alliance, pointing to long-standing tensions between the powers, and China's desire to retain strong ties to lucrative Western markets. But the possibility of a military pact between the authoritarian leaders is one which experts say the US has to ready itself for. The US' global alliances are hugely important for its capacity to offset the threat posed by the rival superpowers. Particularly in Europe, they have to urgently step up and boost their military capacity, said Ward. "The United States can still handle both threats, but this will require substantial increases in burden sharing, especially among European allies who have now seen the true consequences of Russia-China geopolitical 'coordination' since the invasion of Ukraine," said Ward.

Russian forces gain control of Maryinka in east Ukraine, defence minister says
MOSCOW (Reuters)/Mon, December 25, 2023
Russian forces have gained full control of Maryinka, a town in eastern Ukraine, Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin, one of Russia's most significant gains since the capture of Bakhmut in May. Most accounts of Maryinka, southwest of the Russian-held regional centre of Donetsk, describe it as a ghost town. Putin said control of the town, which was once home to 10,000 people, will allow the Russian forces to move enemy combat units away from Donetsk. "Our troops (now) have the opportunity to reach a wider operational area," he said in a video of the exchange between him and Shoigu posted online by a Kremlin journalist. Russia's last major success on the battlefield was the capture in May of Bakhmut, theatre of some of the bloodiest fighting. Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in June aimed at retaking land in the country's south and east, including Bakhmut. Kyiv's forces have made little progress in the counteroffensive in the face of entrenched Russian resistance. Russian troops have also intensified land and air-based attacks on the nearby town of Avdiivka since mid-October as the focal point of their slow-moving push through eastern Ukraine's Donbas region in the 22-month-old conflict. Avdiivka was briefly captured in 2014 by Russian-backed separatists who seized large chunks of eastern Ukraine. Fortifications were later built around the town - seen as a gateway to Donetsk. "Ukrainian defence forces continued to hold back the enemy in the areas of Maryinka and Novomykhailivka in the Donetsk region, repelling five Russian attacks," Ukrainian General Staff said in its dispatch early on Monday. There have been no comments so far from Ukraine on the latest developments.

Russia's air force appears to be backing off after Ukraine took out 3 of its jets, experts say
Lauren Steussy,Kieran Corcoran/Business Insider/December 25, 2023
Ukraine said it took out three Russian jets in quick succession, which would be a rare feat. War experts said that Russia's air force appeared to decrease its activity in response. The experts, from the Institute for the Study of War, said it could give Ukraine an opening. A Ukrainian killstreak against Russian combat jets may have forced it to pull back on airstrikes, experts said Sunday. The commander of the Ukrainian Air Force claimed Ukraine took down three Su-34 fighter/bombers on Thursday and Friday. (Three takedowns in quick succession would be remarkable — per Ukraine's own claims it destroys an average of 3.5 jets per week). The Russian air force quietened down after that, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Citing various Ukrainian officials, its December 24 update said that Russian was pulling back on aviation activity in general. It also said that Russia was notably pulling back on using glide bombs — a type of winged bomb that can fly a significant distance after being dropped. Glide bombs are generally seen as a safer options for Russian jets, because they can launch them without getting too close to Ukraine's air defenses. To pull back on even that kind of strike could be a sign of Russia's air force becoming extra cautious. On Monday, after the ISW assessment, Ukraine said it had extended its killstreak even further, claiming to take down another Su-34 and an Su-30 fighter jet. Russia also claimed to have taken down a bumper crop of Ukrainian jets on Sunday, claiming to have knocked out three Su-27s and an Su-24. Per the ISW, a letup in aerial activity could give Ukraine a chance to firm up its control in the Kherson region, including on the east bank of the Dnipro river where it has a small foothold it captured in a series of daring raids. Yurii Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Air Force, recently told Ukrainian TV after the first three strikes that it was a "brilliantly planned operation" and that a fighter jet such as the Su-34 "has not been included in our positive statistics for a long time." It's not clear how exactly the Ukrainians were able to mount the attacks, but analysts recently said Ukrainian forces may have been able to launch a Western-supplied Patriot missile system from the western side of the river, according to Reuters.

Belarus leader says Russian nuclear weapons shipments are completed, raising concern in the region
TALLINN, Estonia (AP)/December 25, 2023
The president of Belarus said Monday that Russia has completed its shipments of tactical nuclear weapons to his country, an initiative that raised strong concerns in neighboring Poland and elsewhere in the region. President Alexander Lukashenko said at a meeting of a Moscow-led economic bloc in St. Petersburg that the shipments were completed in October, but he did not give details of how many weapons were sent or where they have been deployed. Tactical nuclear weapons, which are intended for use on the battlefield, have a short range and a low yield compared with much more powerful nuclear warheads fitted to long-range missiles. Russia said it would maintain control over those it sends to Belarus. Lukashenko has said that hosting Russian nuclear weapons in his country is meant to deter aggression by Poland, a NATO member. Poland is offering neighbor Ukraine military, humanitarian and political backing in its struggle against Russia’s invasion and is taking part in international sanctions on Russia and Belarus.Russian troops based in Belarus invaded Ukraine from the north in the war's opening days, but Belarusian forces are not known to have participated,

Eight civilians killed in Turkish strikes on Syria: monitor, media
AFP/December 25, 2023
Turkish air strikes killed eight civilians in Syria's Kurdish-held northeast Monday, a war monitor and local media said, as Ankara launched operations in Iraq and Syria following deadly attacks on its soldiers. On Saturday, Turkey announced a new wave of air strikes in retaliation for two separate attacks on its bases in northern Iraq that killed 12 soldiers, which Ankara blamed on Kurdish militants. Eight civilians were killed in strikes on Monday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, revising an earlier toll of six deaths. The Britain-based monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria, said five of the victims were employees of a printing works in the northern city of Qamishli, near the Turkish border. Syrian Kurdish news agency ANHA also reported eight deaths. The strikes hit more than 20 targets, primarily in the Qamishli area of the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration, the monitor and AFP correspondents in the region said. Farhad Shani, spokesman for the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said on X, formerly Twitter, that the strikes destroyed "more than 25" civilian facilities and confirmed the death toll of eight civilians. The SDF spearheaded the battle to dislodge Islamic State group fighters from their last scraps of territory in Syria in 2019. On Saturday evening, an AFP correspondent as well as the Observatory reported strikes against oil sites near the Turkish border, without reporting any victims. In October, Turkey intensified air strikes on Syria's northeast after an attack in Ankara that wounded two security personnel earlier that month. Turkey views the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) that dominate the SDF as an offshoot of the PKK.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 25-26/2023
World's Most Dangerous Combination: China and Russia
Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/December 25, 2023
China and Russia are more than just working together. They are forming the core of a new axis. Around this core are proxies and proxies of proxies, such as Iran, North Korea, Algeria, and a host of terrorist groups. The Chinese and Russian leaders are forming this grouping because they believe the United States, the final guarantor of the international system that frustrates them both, must be taken down. Xi, by, among other things, declaring a "people's war" on America, has made it clear that the U.S. must be destroyed and Americans exterminated. Putin is less ambitious, only wanting the U.S. out of his way as he recreates the Russian Empire at its greatest extent. "Washington has little leverage over Russia. There are no carrots to offer to Putin, and the sticks haven't worked." — Rebekah Koffler, author of Putin's Playbook and former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, to Gatestone, December 2023.
In other words, China and Russia are preparing to go to war together. As no country threatens either of them, they are undoubtedly thinking of perpetrating more acts of aggression. China and Russia are more than just working together. They are forming the core of a new axis. Around this core are proxies and proxies of proxies, such as Iran, North Korea, Algeria, and a host of terrorist groups. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in Beijing on February 4, 2022. Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy knows how to end the greatest threat to American national security. That threat would be the combination of the world's two most dangerous states: China and Russia. "I would freeze the current lines of control," the candidate told Fox News's Jesse Watters during his prime time show, referring to the battlefields in Ukraine. "I would further make a hard commitment that NATO will not admit Ukraine to NATO. That's enough to get Putin to do the deal.""But I would require something even greater in return, Jesse," Ramaswamy said. "Russia has to exit its military alliance with China."Putin will take the deal, the charismatic candidate assured Watters: "He's gonna say, 'Ok' because I'm going to say, 'We'll reopen our economic relations with Russia and further, we'll end the Ukraine war and also make sure NATO never admits Ukraine.' "The interview occurred in late August, but these themes are often heard, in America and elsewhere. Is Ramaswamy on the right track?
In theory, it should be possible to separate Moscow from Beijing. After all, China and Russia have for centuries been competitors, adversaries, and even enemies. Take something as fundamental as their common border. After border skirmishes, they finally settled the boundary only in 2008, when Moscow formally transferred various parcels to China. Vladimir Putin knows, however, that no border is ever finally fixed, and Chinese migrants are pouring into the sparsely populated Russian Far East. There, many of them hope to "retake" lands ceded by the Qing dynasty to Moscow in the 1850s and 1860s in what Chinese officials now call "unequal treaties." Beijing has made no formal claim to Vladivostok and surrounding areas, but it has been continually pushing the idea nonetheless.
In short, China poses the greatest threat to Russia, at least over the long term.
The Ramaswamy proposal, however, ignores the reality that as long as Putin and Xi Jinping rule, there is no realistic possibility of breaking up the two states. Both dictators view the world in similar terms; believe that their short-term interests coincide; and identify the same adversary, the United States of America. As Xi said on December 20 as he welcomed Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to Beijing, "Maintaining and developing China-Russia relations well is a strategic choice made by both sides based on the fundamental interests of the two peoples."
The two regimes, Xi's words reveal, have been on the same page for some time. They declared their closeness with the 5,300-word joint statement issued after Putin met Xi in Beijing on February 4 of last year, just 20 days before Russia's attack on Ukraine. That is when they declared their "no-limits" partnership.
China and Russia are more than just working together. They are forming the core of a new axis. Around this core are proxies and proxies of proxies, such as Iran, North Korea, Algeria, and a host of terrorist groups.
The Chinese and Russian leaders are forming this grouping because they believe the United States, the final guarantor of the international system that frustrates them both, must be taken down. Xi, by, among other things, declaring a "people's war" on America, has made it clear that the U.S. must be destroyed and Americans exterminated. Putin is less ambitious, only wanting the U.S. out of his way as he recreates the Russian Empire at its greatest extent.
Moreover, Xi and Putin believe that the United States is in terminal decline. "Change is coming that hasn't happened in 100 years," the Chinese dictator said on March 22 to the Russian dictator in Moscow while bidding farewell after their 40th in-person meeting. "And we are driving this change together."
Even if Xi and Putin were not so confident there are reasons for the Russian leader to reject the overtures of a President Ramaswamy. "Washington has little leverage over Russia," Rebekah Koffler, the author of Putin's Playbook and former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, told Gatestone. "There are no carrots to offer to Putin, and the sticks haven't worked."
Yes, the Biden administration could drop sanctions and abandon Ukraine, but even those actions, which would be deeply injurious to the U.S. and the international system, would not be enough to break Putin's bond with Beijing. "Russia does not trust the U.S. and Europe," Koffler says. "Russia believes the West will continue to try to weaken it economically and militarily. Moscow believes that regardless of who occupies the White House, a Democrat or a Republican, the U.S. will pursue an anti-Russia policy."
Democrats and Republicans should pursue "anti-Russia" policies: Russia has refused to abide by the rules and norms of the international system. Russia is not only an aggressor state, but it is also engaging in barbaric acts in Ukraine, some of which constitute "genocide" as defined in Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Ramaswamy says "we have wrongfully cut off Russia from the West." It is true that Americans and Western actions, as Koffler remarked, "hit the key revenue drivers of the Russian economy," but how could any nation allow Putin to, among other things, use its banks and financial system while his soldiers were torturing, raping, and killing Ukrainian women and children; committing acts of mass murder in town after town; and abducting hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia in an apparent attempt to eliminate Ukrainian identity?
To finance acts of aggression and barbarism in the face of sanctions, Putin has found support from China. By November, China-Russia trade hit $218.2 billion in 2023, exceeding their announced target of $200 billion by the end of 2024. Trade during the first 11 months of 2023 was double the volume in 2018 of $108.3 billion, which itself represented an increase of 24.5% over 2017. Putin will not break this established and fast-growing trade relationship for mere promises from a West he neither likes nor trusts.
China does not, as Ramaswamy tells us, have a "military alliance" with Russia—China has no formal alliances except the one with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea—but the Chinese and Russian militaries are nonetheless close.
The two forces are worrying the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral John Aquilino. This month in Tokyo, he publicly stated that he was "very concerned" about their joint exercises: "I view it as far beyond the marriage of convenience at this point in time."
In other words, China and Russia are preparing to go to war together. As no country threatens either of them, they are undoubtedly thinking of perpetrating more acts of aggression.
Would Putin join Xi if China were to invade some neighbor? That is not clear, but it is highly likely that the Russian leader will help China. "Russia could conduct shows of force to stretch U.S. and allied surveillance," Rebecca Grant of defense consultant IRIS Independent Research told Gatestone. "Posturing military moves by Russia could also make U.S. leadership balk." She points out there could be, for instance, Russian bomber flights or even nuclear weapons exercises.
Russia could also help China by trying to grab even more of the Kuril Islands chain from Japan or moving against a NATO member, such as one of the three Baltic republics, engulfing the Eurasian landmass in conflict, from one end to the other.
*Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Deadly attack on police station in Iran exposes growing ethnic tensions
Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab News/December 25, 2023
According to Iranian state media and Baloch organizations, an armed group, probably the militant Sunni Jaish Al-Adl, earlier this month launched a deadly attack on a police station in Rask, a small city in Sistan and Balochistan, that killed at least 11 police officers. Since the 2000s, this southeastern province has been the site of frequent clashes between security forces and Sunni militants, as well as drug smugglers. Until 2012, the main armed Baloch group was called Jundullah before changing its name to Jaish Al-Adl. These clashes took place against a backdrop of economic and sectarian marginalization of the region.
Some Iranian analysts believe that an explanation for the latest armed attack can be found in the rapprochement between Iran and Pakistan. According to this view, the new regional dynamic has angered the Taliban, and the implementation of a joint plan between Iran and Pakistan against the militant group forced it to react. Iranian media and officials believe Baloch armed forces are attacking Iran from Pakistan border areas, while the headquarters of the group, their command and logistics centers, are in Afghanistan. The Taliban claim that Baloch militants enter Iran from Pakistani territory in order to threaten the relationship between Tehran and Islamabad.
Officials in Iran are blaming “foreign supporters” of the militant group. The target appears to be the Taliban themselves. Iranian officials also blamed Israel for the terror attack and, more broadly, “Iran’s enemies.” The day after the Dec. 15 incident, Iranian judicial authorities ordered the execution of an unspecified man in Sistan and Baluchistan province on charges that included cooperating with Mossad to assist anti-regime militias. Jaish Al-Adl has previously carried out attacks with improvised explosive devices in Iran. Its fighters were likely responsible for a Dec. 17 attack on an IRGC Special Forces Brigade vehicle near Zahedan, the capital of Sistan and Balochistan province. Iranian media said there were no injuries or significant damage.
At the political level, Jaish Al-Adl supports equal rights and better living conditions for Baloch people. Gen. Hossein Salami, the IRGC commander, threatened those responsible for the attack in Rask on Dec. 15, including “the foreign players who gave the order.” During the funeral for the police officers, Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said that terror organizations active in Iran are supported by Israel. After the incident, Iranian authorities also urged Pakistan to take further action against groups that frequently breach borders to commit terrorist acts in Iran.
At the international level, Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the UN, in a post on X, praised the Security Council’s condemnation of the attack on the police headquarters.
The state crackdown is a key factor in the rise of recent attacks.
These regional and international perspectives should not prevent the development of a comprehensive analysis based on the local and internal dimensions of the context in which this attack occurred. Sistan and Balochistan province is a poverty-stricken region bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan with a large Sunni population from the Baloch ethnic group who have been under pressure from Iran’s Shiite clerical rulers. Sunni Iranians are estimated to make up 15-20 percent of Iran’s 88 million population.
In July 2023, Jaish Al-Adl attacked a police station in Zahedan, claiming that the headquarters was involved in the massacre of about 90 people on Sept. 30, 2022, known as “Black Friday.” The Sunni leader in the city, Molavi Abdul Hamid, has repeatedly criticized the Shiite-led government in Iran, asking for tolerance for religious minorities, equal rights for women, and an end to repression. Speaking in his Friday sermon after the incident, Hamid said: “We must ensure that the security of the province and our safety are not compromised.”
Also, one has to take into account that the death penalty has been carried out much more frequently in Sistan and Balochistan than in other provinces since the beginning of the protest movement in Iran in September 2022. On Dec. 9, the UN special rapporteur on Iran described the levels of killing and brutality against the Baloch minority as “shocking.” It appears that Baloch citizens are disproportionately targeted and executed simply for belonging to the ethnic group.
This government crackdown is also a key factor in the rise of attacks in the province in recent months. State violence directed at Baloch protesters, who have staged demonstrations every Friday since the fall of 2022, could lead to a radicalization of local political forces. Indeed, the inability of the Iranian state to provide a minimum level of economic development because of its sectarian objective to control the religious life of Baloch citizens could transform the crisis of legitimacy of national institutions into a real crisis of authority.
Meanwhile, there is also the issue of presenting any protest in Iran as “a separatist” movement, thus pushing Baloch political forces defending religious, cultural and ethnic diversity to further extremes given the impossibility of a trustful dialogue with national authorities.
Finally, the response of Iran’s political elite is to blame “foreign states or players” for internal problems. In the eyes of most Baloch protesters and dissidents, this strategy of seeking a scapegoat to justify internal dysfunctional governance confirms the impossibility of reforming Iranian state institutions to be more tolerant of ethnic and sectarian minorities.
*Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami is the founder and president of the International Institute for Iranian Studies (Rasanah). X: @mohalsulami

Palestinian resistance remains undefeated
Ramzy Baroud/Arab News/December 25, 2023
The dramatic, earth-shattering events in Palestine starting on Oct. 7 have taken many people by surprise. But not attentive observers. Few expected that Palestinian fighters would be parachuting into southern Israel on Oct. 7 or that, instead of capturing a single Israeli soldier — as in 2006 — hundreds of Israelis, including many soldiers and civilians, would find themselves captive in besieged Gaza.
The reason behind the “surprise” is the same reason that Israel is still reeling in collective shock, which is the tendency to pay close attention to political discourses and intelligence analyses of Israel and its supporters, while largely neglecting the Palestinian discourse. For better comprehension, let us go back to the start.
We entered 2023 with some depressing data and dark predictions about what was awaiting Palestinians. Soon before the new year commenced, UN Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland said that 2022 was the most violent year for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005. “Too many people, overwhelmingly Palestinian, have been killed and injured,” Wennesland told the UN Security Council.
This figure — 171 killed and hundreds wounded in the West Bank alone — did not receive much coverage in the Western media. The mounting number of Palestinian victims did, however, register among Palestinians and their resistance movements.
As anger and calls for revenge grew among ordinary Palestinians, their leadership continued to play its traditional role — that of pacifying Palestinian calls for resistance while continuing with its “security coordination” with Israel. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, 88, carried on rehashing the old language about a two-state solution and the so-called peace process, but simultaneously cracked down on Palestinians who dared protest his ineffectual leadership.
Defenseless in the face of a far-right Israeli government with an open agenda to crush Palestinians, expand illegal settlements and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, Palestinians were forced to develop their own defensive strategies.
The Lions’ Den — a multifactional resistance group that first appeared in the city of Nablus in August 2022 — grew in power and appeal. Other groups, old and new, emerged on the scene throughout the northern West Bank, with the single objective of uniting Palestinians around a nonfactional agenda and, ultimately, producing a new Palestinian leadership in the West Bank.
These developments sounded alarm bells in Israel. The Israeli occupation army moved quickly to crush the new armed rebellion, raiding Palestinian towns and refugee camps one after the other with the hope of turning this nascent revolution into another failed attempt to challenge the status quo in the Occupied Territories.
The bloodiest of the Israeli incursions occurred in Nablus on Feb. 23, Jericho on Aug. 15 and, most importantly, in the Jenin refugee camp. The July 3 Israeli invasion of Jenin was reminiscent, in terms of casualties and degree of destruction, to the Israeli invasion of that very camp in April 2002.
The outcome, however, was not the same. Back then, Israel, having invaded Jenin and other Palestinian towns and refugee camps, succeeded in crushing armed resistance for years to come. This time around, the Israeli invasion merely ignited a wider rebellion in the Occupied Territories, creating a further schism in the already deteriorating relationship between Palestinians on the one hand and Abbas and his PA on the other.
Indeed, just days after Israel concluded its attack on the camp, Abbas emerged with thousands of his soldiers to warn the bereaved refugees that “the hand that will break the unity of the people … will be cut off from its arm.”
Yet, as the popular rebellion continued to build momentum in the West Bank, Israeli intelligence reports started talking about a plan composed by the deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau, Saleh Al-Arouri, to ignite an armed intifada. The response, according to Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, citing official Israeli sources, was to kill Al-Arouri.
Israel’s attention and counterstrategy was focused intently on the West Bank, as Hamas in Gaza, in Israel’s viewpoint, seemed disinterested in an all-out confrontation.
But how did Tel Aviv reach such a conclusion?
Several major events — the kind that would usually have pushed Hamas to retaliate — had taken place without any serious armed response by the resistance in Gaza. Last December, for example, Israel had sworn in the most right-wing government in its history. Far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich arrived on the political scene with the declared objectives of annexing the West Bank, imposing military control over Al-Aqsa Mosque and other Palestinian Muslim and Christian holy sites and, in the case of Smotrich, denying the very existence of the Palestinian people.
Resistance was predicated on the legendary steadfastness of a population that refuses to be weakened or displaced.
Their pledges were quickly translated into action under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ben-Gvir was keen on sending a message to his constituency that the seizure of Al-Aqsa Mosque by Israel had become imminent. He repeatedly raided or ordered raids on Al-Aqsa at an unprecedented frequency. The most violent and humiliating of these raids occurred on April 4, when worshippers were beaten up by soldiers while praying inside the mosque during the holy month of Ramadan.
Resistance groups in Gaza threatened retaliation. In fact, several rockets were fired from the Strip toward Israel, merely serving as a symbolic reminder that Palestinians are united, regardless of where they are in the geographic map of historic Palestine.
Israel, however, ignored the message and instead used Palestinian threats of retaliation, along with occasional so-called lone-wolf attacks — like that of Muhannad Al-Mazaraa at the illegal Ma’ale Adumim settlement — as political capital to ignite the fervor of Israeli society.
Not even the death of Palestinian political prisoner Khader Adnan on May 2 seemed to shift Hamas’ position. Some even suggested there was a rift between Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad following Adnan’s death as a result of his hunger strike in Ramleh Prison.
On the same day, Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired rockets into Israel, as Adnan was one of its most prominent members. Israel answered by attacking hundreds of targets inside Gaza, mostly civilian homes and infrastructure, which resulted in the deaths of 33 Palestinians and the wounding of 147 more.
A truce was declared on May 13, again with no direct Hamas participation, giving further reassurance to Israel that its bloody onslaught on the Strip had achieved not just a military purpose — often referred to as “mowing the lawn” — but a political one too.
However, Israel’s strategic estimation proved to be wrong, as attested by Hamas’ well-coordinated Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel, which targeted numerous military bases, settlements and other strategic positions.
But was Hamas being deceptive? Hiding its actual strategic objectives in anticipation of that major event? A quick examination of Hamas’ recent statements and political discourse demonstrate that the Palestinian group was hardly secretive about its future action. Two weeks before 2023 commenced, Hamas’ leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar had a message for Israel: “We will come to you in a roaring flood. We will come to you with endless rockets; we will come to you in a limitless flood of soldiers … like the repeating tide.”
The immediate response to the Hamas attack was the predictable US-Western solidarity with Israel, calls for revenge and the complete destruction and annihilation of Gaza, and revitalized plans for displacing Palestinians out of Gaza into Egypt and out of the West Bank into Jordan.
The Israeli war on the Strip, also starting on Oct. 7, has resulted in unprecedented casualties compared to all previous Israeli wars on Gaza and, in fact, on Palestinians during any time in modern history. The word “genocide” was soon used, initially by intellectuals and activists, but eventually by international law experts too.
Despite this, the UN could do nothing. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Nov. 8 that the UN had “neither money nor power” to prevent a potential genocide in Gaza. This effectively meant the disabling of the international legal and political systems, as every attempt by the UN Security Council to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire has been blocked by the US.
As the death toll mounted among a starving population in Gaza, Palestinians resisted throughout the Gaza Strip. Their resistance was not confined to attacking or ambushing invading Israeli soldiers, but was predicated on the legendary steadfastness of a population that refuses to be weakened or displaced.
This “sumud” continued, even when Israel began to systematically attack hospitals, schools and every place that, in times of war, should be seen as “safe” for a beleaguered civilian population.
On Dec. 3, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said “there is no safe place in Gaza.” This was repeated by other UN officials, along with other phrases such as “Gaza has become a graveyard for children,” which was first noted by UNICEF spokesperson James Elder on Oct. 31. This left Guterres with no other option but to invoke Article 99 of the UN Charter, which allows the secretary-general to “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
Israeli violence and Palestinian sumud also extended to the West Bank. Aware of the potential for armed resistance in the West Bank, the Israeli army quickly launched major, deadly raids on countless Palestinian towns, villages and refugee camps, killing hundreds, injuring thousands and arresting thousands more.
But Gaza remained the epicenter of the Israeli genocide. Aside from a brief humanitarian truce, coupled with a few prisoner exchanges, the battle for Gaza — in fact, for the future of Palestine and the Palestinian people — continues and at an unparalleled price of death and destruction.
Palestinians know full well that the current fight will either mean a new Nakba, like the ethnic cleansing of 1948, or the beginning of the reversal of that same Nakba — as in the process of liberating the Palestinian people from the yoke of Israeli colonialism.
While Israel is determined to end Palestinian resistance once and for all, it is obvious that the Palestinian people’s determination to win their freedom in the coming years is far greater.
• Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books, and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com.
X: @RamzyBaroud

Time to get rid of the short-sighted politics of migration
Ranvir S. Nayar/ArabNews/December 25, 2023
Earlier this month, developments took place in the parliaments of two European countries, with opposing results, but both incidents illustrate the same problem: that Europe continues to live in denial that it needs more immigrant workers for long-term economic prosperity.
In London, Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak surprised most by winning over rebels in his Conservative Party to push through a new law that allows the government to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda for resettlement. The bill was passed with a fairly comfortable margin of 43 votes in the House of Commons, despite a fairly united position adopted by opposition parties which voted against it.
Coincidentally, across the English Channel, France’s parliament was also voting on an equally controversial immigration bill brought by the government of President Emmanuel Macron. But Macron was unable to stem the revolt in his party and the bill was defeated, narrowly, in the Assemblee Nationale, the lower house of parliament, with 270 MPs voting against and 265 in favor.
Within minutes of having lost the vote, Macron promised to bring back the bill within days, which he did. And though he managed to get the bill passed in its second reading, with support from far-right MPs, it left Macron’s party deeply divided, with several MPs voting against it, and calling it too harsh.
While France’s legislation did not propose sending asylum seekers to a faraway land like Rwanda, it did call for a crackdown on immigration, with several repressive measures aimed at preventing migrants from coming to the country, as well as provisions for expelling those who commit crimes.
The far right in France, which has been on the ascendancy in the EU for over a decade, had dismissed the first bill as being too soft and not harsh enough to deter migrants. This position was stridently opposed by those on the left, who have maintained that these bills contravene international human rights laws.
The matter in France is headed to the courts because opposition parties have approached the Constitutional Court for its intervention.
But politics aside, there are extremely strong economic reasons for the EU to not only temper its anti-migrant policies, but actually reverse them and do so rather urgently.
For years, economists and businesspeople have been complaining of a shortage of workers in various sectors of the economy, starting with, but not limited to, areas where highly skilled people are needed. While most European governments have since woken up to these calls and are making it relatively easy for skilled foreign workers to enter the economy, the processes are far from smooth. And even now various studies point to a significant shortage of workers for the top-end of every EU nation’s economy. While skilled people are needed for European economies to keep pace with the rest of the world, the shortage of workers is more pronounced as one moves lower down on the skills ladder.
European nations need to open up their borders for their own long-term health and wealth. Take construction, for instance. It is a sector where skilled, semi-skilled and relatively unskilled workers are all needed. But construction firms throughout the EU have long complained of not being able to recruit locally and are often forced to turn to undocumented workers already in the country, even at the risk of penalties. Certainly, for some unscrupulous company owners, employing irregular workers is attractive because they can exploit them by not adhering to laws and regulations on minimum wages and other benefits.
According to the European Trade Union Confederation, the construction sector faces a shortage of 1.5 million new workers between now and 2030, and needs a further 1.2 million to replace those who would have retired by then.
A report by the European Commission also admits that a shortage of workers exists in all sectors and across all job profiles, from highly skilled to unskilled. It says that besides reskilling and involving more women in the workforce, the EU has to look at “targeted” migration in order to boost its workforce.
The report points to a worsening situation before the end of this decade as the total working-age population of the EU will drop from the current 265 million to 258 million, leaving a shortfall of at least 7 million workers to fill those jobs.
Also, the COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on the shortfalls in the healthcare and personal-care sectors of Europe. This is turning out to be the Achilles heel of a continent that has an ageing population, and no relief in sight from foreign replacements coming in, or citizens having more children.
While Britain and France are still relatively better off than most European countries in terms of the working age of their people, they are still vulnerable to possible labor crises. Even with this being a looming possibility, the British government has already announced that it will tighten immigration laws for skilled migrants from 2024, including nearly doubling the minimum salary required for an immigrant worker to get residency visas for family members. Incidentally, these workers need to earn at least 15 percent more than the average British worker to be able to get their family members over.
The British government will also tighten, or even possibly remove, the current rule that allows foreign students to stay on for two years after their studies without fulltime jobs.These restrictions fly in the face of moves being made by various European nations to get foreign students to study at their universities.
Such muddled policies and seemingly knee-jerk responses to what are long-term and systemic challenges for European nations, can only lead to a further deterioration in their labor market, which in turn may cause a lasting and serious impact on their economies and society.
European nations need to open up their borders for their own long-term health and wealth. It is time to get rid of short-sighted policies, and temper the politics surrounding migration.
• Ranvir S. Nayar is the managing editor of Media India Group and founder-director of EIFE.

To defeat terror, lenient sentences for terrorists must end
Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch/JNS/(December 25, 2023
A deep and thorough change in the sentencing of terrorists is essential to make it clear, once and for all, that the leniency of Israel’s legal system toward terrorists has ended.
The war Israel launched against the Palestinian terror organizations following the Oct. 7 massacre has many fronts. Part of the war is being waged in the Gaza Strip, part in Judea and Samaria (a.k.a. “the West Bank”) and other parts in other areas of Israel. Part is waged, and will keep being waged, in the courtrooms. Wherever the battle is fought, Israel’s goal must be a total victory over the terror groups. Although the general perception is that the Israel Defense Forces are winning on the physical battlefield, both in Gaza and in Judea and Samaria, there is a quieter issue that, if not dealt with promptly, could cause Israel to lose the campaign as a whole: the general prosecution and military prosecution, including the civilian and the military courts in the West Bank.
Although the IDF forces in Gaza are killing most of the terrorists, many are being arrested. In Judea and Samaria, few of the terrorists are being killed, most are arrested. According to announcements by the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, since the war began, more than 2,450 terrorists have been arrested in Judea and Samaria, half of them Hamas members. While the exact numbers of terrorists detained on the day of the massacre or during the fighting in Gaza have not yet been published, it appears that hundreds of terrorists have been apprehended.
Arresting the terrorists poses a particular problem: Whereas a terrorist who has been killed cannot return to terror activity, a terrorist who has been temporarily detained does not lose his murderous ideology, and once released, he returns to action in the terror group.
Since the subject of arrest, detention and prosecution of the terrorists is a subject encompassing many and varied issues, this article will focus on one specific topic, namely, the sentencing of the terrorists who have been arrested in Judea and Samaria since the beginning of the war.
The article makes a basic assumption that in Gaza, most of the terrorists will be killed, and the infrastructure of the terror groups operating there will be destroyed.
Palestinian terror groups operate in both Gaza and Judea and Samaria. Eliminating them requires a far-reaching effort on both fronts. If the terror operatives and infrastructure are destroyed in Gaza, but the terror operatives are not killed or arrested, and the terror infrastructure is not dismantled, in Judea and Samaria, Israel will fail in its task of toppling these organizations.
Therefore, because many terrorists in Judea and Samaria are arrested and not killed, the question is, what must be done to ensure that these terrorists do not go back to business as usual and rebuild the terror infrastructure?
Bringing terrorists to justice: The criminal process
The unit responsible for prosecuting terrorists in Judea and Samaria is the Military Prosecution for Judea and Samaria, a division of the Military Prosecution within the IDF Military Advocate General Corps. Daily, officers and soldiers of the Military Prosecution for Judea and Samaria (consisting of about 40 to 45 prosecutors, reinforced by reservists) carry a weighty burden. In ordinary times, the young officers and soldiers who serve in the unit prosecute the majority—more than 95%—of the terrorists who are arrested in Israel as a whole. This unit acts as the “last leg” of the IDF forces’ activity on the ground, and if the team does not deal with terrorists who have been apprehended, they are released within a short time. To prevent a revolving-door phenomenon, the unit’s soldiers and officers work day and night and prepare thousands of indictments per year. In an average year, the unit files between 3,000 and 3,500 indictments, two-thirds for offenses involving “terror activity.” The level of the unit’s activity can be considered the security pulse of Judea and Samaria in particular, and of Israel in general. The quieter the security situation, the fewer terrorists are arrested and fewer indictments submitted. When the security situation is less stable, more terrorists are arrested, and more charges are presented.
The root of the problem
The problem that needs to be addressed concerns how terrorists are sentenced in the current Israeli legal system, including in the military courts. Israeli criminal law is among the most advanced in the world. As such, sentencing does not usually entail severe and painful punishment. Instead, broader considerations prevail, including the rehabilitation of offenders. The legislative body defines the offenses and sets the maximum penalties. The system is tailored to a developed civil society, which, only for lack of an alternative, has to use criminal justice to deal with marginal social elements.
Accordingly, the judges are granted many tools and, most notably, full discretion in fitting the offender’s punishment to the offense he has committed and to his personal circumstances.
However, affording very wide discretion to the judges leads to a situation where the maximum punishments set by the laws are rarely imposed. Occasionally, an offender’s sentence sparks a public outcry. Members of the Knesset, and sometimes ministers, protest vehemently in TV studios and on radio interviews, but the storm quickly passes, and all the actors very quickly revert to their usual behavior.
Unfortunately, this method of sentencing is also applied to terror offenses and terrorists. Whereas the punishments for terror offenses stipulated by the legislation are generally severe, in practice, the punishments handed down to the terrorists are very light. For example, the law—in Israel and in Judea and Samaria—authorizes the judges to hand down a 20-year prison sentence to a terrorist convicted of stone-throwing. In actuality, if the terrorist gets a one-year term, it is a considerable achievement. This, of course, is just one of numerous examples.
The problem is that the judges have not distinguished, and do not distinguish, between cases in which it is appropriate to let the offender be rehabilitated and cases in which the offender, or more precisely the enemy terrorist, is not interested in “rehabilitation” because he does not see his terror activity as morally, ethically, or educationally flawed. Nevertheless, in the judges’ approach, as it has developed over the years, how terrorists are sentenced does not essentially differ from how ordinary offenders are sentenced. And so, for decades, thousands of terrorists have benefited from light punishments that are designed for common offenders and not for terrorists. The judges are not alone in this ongoing failure. Israeli governments and lawmakers, both civilian and military, are well aware of the phenomenon but have done nothing to counteract it. Apart from one instance in 2015, neither the governments nor the lawmakers have sought a change in the situation. Committees that dealt with “defining judicial discretion” came and went, and nothing changed. In other words, the problem is the current method of sentencing offenders. If we do not act, this method will lead to a catastrophe and could cause the State of Israel and the public to lose the battle against the terror groups.
Past failure as an omen for the future
In January 2006, elections were held in the Palestinian Authority. Hamas not only participated but won by a landslide. In light of the victory, P.A. chairman Mahmoud Abbas invited Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to form a government. And so he did, appointing ministers both in the Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Alongside the establishment of the Hamas government, the group continued its terror activity. On June 25, 2006, terrorists from Gaza infiltrated Israel, attacked a tank crew, murdered Lt. Hanan Barak and Sgt. Pavel Slutsky, and abducted Cpl. Gilad Shalit. In response to the ongoing terror activity, and all the more so to the infiltration, murder, and abduction, within a few days, hundreds of Hamas terrorists were arrested, including all the ministers of the Hamas government who lived in Judea and Samaria. Naturally, the government ministers were the most senior Hamas officials.
**Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch is the director of the Initiative for Palestinian Authority Accountability and Reform in the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs; a senior legal analyst for Human Rights Voices; and a member of the Israel Defense and Security Forum.

Two allegedly great thinkers think the Jews are Nazis
Phyllis Chesler/JNS/(December 25, 2023
Why are Judith Butler and Masha Gessen so popular? First, they are prize-winning public intellectuals. They are also very trendy in terms of their LGBTQ credentials. Gessen identifies herself as non-binary and trans and uses “they/them” pronouns. Butler, alas, is merely a lesbian, but one who is legally non-binary and uses both “they/them” and “she/her.”Strangely, they do not identify themselves as “feminists.” (Thank God for small mercies.)
Both of them are also dedicated conformists in terms of how they identify themselves personally and in their profoundly disturbing anti-Zionist views. They write “as Jews,” as if being Jewish is a sacred credential that entitles them to attack the Jewish state, including in antisemitic terms. Perhaps they are J Street’s Peter Beinart in drag.
Gessen recently published an article in The New Yorker titled “In The Shadow of the Holocaust” and appeared on the notoriously anti-Israel Christiane Amanpour’s PBS program. Butler has just published two pieces on the same subject, one in The London Review of Books and another in the Boston Review titled, “There Can Be No Critique.”
Both Butler and Gessen seem to revere Jewish vulnerability, statelessness and martyrdom. Are they also Nazis in drag? The two conformists see Jewish vulnerability to persecution as far more “ethical” than the Jews’ ability to defend themselves from persecution and genocide. According to Prof. Corinne Blackmer in her brave book Queering Anti-Zionism: Academic Freedom, LGBTQ Intellectuals and Israel/Palestine Campus Activism:
“Butler implicitly argues that Jews were better off suffering rather than perpetrating state-sponsored persecution. … Two possible lessons or conclusions can be drawn from the fact that Jews experienced considerable state-sponsored violence, persecution and discrimination in the galut [exile], culminating not only in the Holocaust but also the forced removal of nearly one million Mizrachi Jews from their ancestral homes in the Middle East before or during the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state in 1948. One, supported by Butler and other BDS advocates, states that precisely because Jews suffered extreme state-sponsored violence, they should endeavor to avoid state-building, although this formulation leaves unanswered precisely under what political system Jews should (peacefully?) reside.”
In her piece in The London Review of Books, Butler does “condemn without qualification the violence committed by Hamas. This was a terrifying and revolting massacre. This was my primary reaction, and it endures.”
However, she then goes on to “contextualize” this statement by trotting out all manner of false allegations against Israel: “We should develop some understanding of why groups like Hamas gained strength in light of the broken promises of Oslo and the ‘state of death, both slow and sudden’ that describes the lived existence of many Palestinians living under occupation, whether the constant surveillance and threat of administrative detention without due process or the intensifying siege that denies Gazans medication, food and water.”
Butler appears to be either ignorant of or deliberately concealing several important facts: Israel left Gaza in 2005. Hamas—an Iranian-funded Islamist terror group—controls, indoctrinates, tortures, torments and impoverishes Gazans. Hamas has taken the lion’s share of the aid meant for Gaza civilians and diverted it into their own bank accounts abroad and into building their terror tunnels and weaponry. No Arab country has been willing to offer Gazans refuge, even temporarily. Egypt has walled off Gaza from the Sinai. Hamas has increasingly forced women to wear veils, marry into polygamous families and risk being honor-killed if they “shame” their families.
Do this non-binary lesbian and this non-binary trans man not understand that, if they lived in Gaza, Hamas would torture and behead them—along with any other LGBT person Hamas could get its hands on?
Apparently not. Instead, both Gessen and Butler view Israel as committing genocidal violence and Hamas as a resistance movement whose patience has finally ended.
Gessen, unlike Butler, did not bother to condemn Hamas for its Oct. 7 rampage of crimes against humanity. All they (Gessen) write is “The video was set in Kibbutz Be’eri, the community where, on October 7th, Hamas killed more than ninety people—almost one in ten residents—during its attack on Israel, which ultimately claimed more than twelve hundred lives.”
Gessen further asserts that Zionists have “weaponized” the memory of the Holocaust to conceal their genocide of either Gaza or “Palestine.” They (Gessen) refer to both entities. They go further and, in their New Yorker piece, declare Israel a “Nazi,” genocidal state—a claim even the U.S. State Department considers antisemitism. They risibly compare what the Nazis did in the Warsaw Ghetto to what Israel is doing in Gaza.
“The term ‘open-air prison’ seems to have been coined in 2010 by David Cameron,” they claim, “but as in the Jewish ghettoes of Occupied Europe, there are no prison guards. Gaza is policed not by the occupiers but by a local force. Presumably, the more fitting term ‘ghetto’ would have drawn fire for comparing the predicament of besieged Gazans to that of ghettoized Jews. It also would have given us the language to describe what is happening in Gaza now. The ghetto is being liquidated.”
Thus, these two presumably Great Thinkers imply that Jews were born to suffer persecution and that doing so brings out our best selves because it means living with the “Other” in a non-violent way. The violence of the “Other” appears to be irrelevant. Please allow me to give Blackmer the last word: “Just as Herzl was wrong to conclude in The Jewish State (1896) that creating a Jewish nation would end antisemitism, so too does Butler err in contending that eliminating Zionism will also end hatred of Jews and, indeed, politically motivated violence, in her conception of Greater Palestine.”
*Judith Butler and Masha Gessen extol Jewish powerlessness and demonize the Jews’ capacity to defend themselves.