February 6, 2024: Israel Is Winning in Gaza

Hamas rejects hostage deal (again); White House censored Amazon; Border deal dies

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The Big Story

This morning, The Times of Israel’s U.S. Bureau Chief Jacob Magid reported that while the United States remains publicly opposed to a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, behind closed doors, U.S. officials are speaking openly about their desire to secure a long truce as a Trojan horse for ending the war. As Magid reports:

Ending the fighting for good, a senior U.S. official told The Times of Israel on Monday, would allow the administration to advance regional initiatives that include an Israel-Saudi Arabia normalization agreement and the creation of a political horizon toward an eventual Palestinian state.

Interesting timing, what with Benjamin Netanyahu announcing Monday that the IDF is only “months” from victory over Hamas. Here’s Magid on the quiet part:

While the US aims to utilize the pause to negotiate a more permanent end to the fighting, left unsaid is what would happen to Hamas. The Biden administration’s approach suggests an expectation that the terror group will remain in some form.

So, to review: just as the Israelis think they’re on the cusp of victory, the Americans are scrambling to reach a deal that would preserve Hamas, end Iran’s attacks on U.S. assets, and wrap up the war in time for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to forget that Joe Biden sponsored an alleged “genocide.” The rest of today’s Big Story, on the U.S. play and how Israel is thwarting it, is lifted from an email from The Scroll’s geopolitical analyst, who asks to remain anonymous to preserve zir mystique:

“I think the assumption by U.S. planners was that Gaza would turn out to be a tar baby for Netanyahu. The strategic assumptions were therefore that after a few months Bibi would punch himself out, the Israeli offensive would grind to a halt. The United States would then take advantage of the resulting stalemate—which would also hopefully result in the collapse of Bibi’s coalition government and its replacement by a more pliant government led by the likes of Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, and possibly Yair Lapid—to pivot to establishing a Palestinian state, using the prospect of a hostage deal plus recognition by the Saudis as the carrots, and the threat of cutting off necessary U.S. munitions and U.S. diplomatic support as the sticks. The result would be a weaker, more pliant Israel surrounded by local Iranian clients, with Iran elevated to the status of America’s primary regional partner. 

“All of these initial assumptions struck me as sound enough. Furthermore, the United States was no doubt encouraged by its interlocutors within the Israeli security and political elite and by its previous successes working with those interlocutors to bring the coalition’s judicial reform bill to a crashing halt. Just to make sure, the United States quickly imposed its own constraints on Israel’s war effort in exchange for diplomatic and military support—like mandating the resupply of food, medicine, and other necessities to Hamas, publicly engaging with Qatar to free hostages, making Israel responsible for civilian casualties while refusing to relocate Gazans outside of the Strip, and other measures whose effect was to limit Israel’s advantages and strengthen Hamas’ resolve. By tilting the playing field against Israel, the United States was essentially working to produce a stalemate, which it could then exploit for its own preferred ends. 

“Initially, I saw plenty of evidence that the U.S. strategy was succeeding, from Yoav Gallant’s public statements about Israel’s need for U.S. resupply and the slow pace of Israel’s initial advances, to Israel’s seeming deference to U.S. wishes to not mention Iran or attack Hezbollah, to the relatively low Hamas casualty numbers relative to the size of their fighting force. By shaping the boundaries and nature of the fight, the United States was clearly gaining control over the likely nature of the result.

“Lately, however, the evidence I am seeing points in the opposite direction. I am seeing increasing Israeli success in killing more Hamas fighters and grinding down their ability to maneuver and launch rockets with diminishing Israeli losses. Even worse, from the U.S. perspective, is that it seems that Israel appears to have successfully innovated its way around U.S.-imposed constraints to arrive at more potent war-fighting strategies. The paradoxical result of U.S. constraints, which were meant to pen Israel into a cul-de-sac, is that they have led to the reduction of Israel’s dependency on the United States and therefore of U.S. leverage over Israel’s choices. 

“That Gantz and Eisenkot are now attacking Bibi from the right, for letting too many supplies into Gaza, and that voices in Washington that were previously exulting in “Bibi’s failures” have fallen silent seem like clear indicators of which way the wind is blowing. Another indicator here is the publicly purported willingness of the Saudis to accept increasingly vague promises of a future Palestinian state in exchange for recognition of Israel in the present. The price is going down—not up. 

“In general terms, I would summarize the innovations that have brought about this apparent and unexpected alteration of the strategic landscape as follows: Using sensors, intelligence, and other means, Israel has apparently mapped the Hamas tunnel network with a very high degree of precision, which in turn allows it to use heavy equipment to break up the tunnel network at key points by digging large, deep holes. By fracturing the tunnel network into disconnected segments, Israel has fractured and divided Hamas’ forces and badly disrupted its command-and-control network, forcing smaller and smaller units to function more or less on their own within confined areas of a grid that Israel can see better than Hamas commanders can. Within each square of the grid, Israel can then choose how to kill the terrorists who are trapped underground in discrete lengths of tunnel—whether by using engineering methods and explosives or by inserting small teams of commandos to kill terrorists in face-to-face combat. At this point, probably the most meaningful constraint on Israel’s ability to kill terrorists inside lengths of tunnel is incomplete intelligence about the hour-to-hour locations of Israeli hostages.

“Israel’s success in innovating its way out of a seemingly impossible situation while limiting casualties on both sides recalls the urban warfare innovations that helped Israel win the Second Intifada—the most notable of which was the tactic of blowing holes in walls and then moving small units from building to building, shielding its soldiers from many of the dangers of urban warfare while eliminating many of the advantages formerly held by a local enemy that controlled the rooftops.

“What’s notable about Israel’s new tactics this time around is not just that they save lives on both sides or reflect a robust culture of improvisation and innovation, but also that they eliminate the need for expensive munitions supplied by the United States. Substituting excavators and ordinary bullets for jet fighters and smart bombs saves lives on both sides while greatly reducing the financial, diplomatic, and PR costs of Israel’s war. As fewer Gazans die, and as the need for U.S. munitions becomes less urgent, U.S. leverage over Israel decreases, while the likelihood of a clear-cut Israeli victory increases. In the event of such a victory, it seems unlikely that Israel will be seeing a new government anytime soon or that Israelis will be in any mood to sign on to any kind of scheme that promises the establishment of a second Gaza Strip in the West Bank.”

IN THE BACK PAGES: Brandeis professor Leonard Saxe on why campus antisemitism matters

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The Rest

→Hamas officially rejected the latest proposal for a pause in fighting on Tuesday. In a statement, the terrorist group demanded “a permanent end to the war, the end of the Israeli-Egyptian blockade on Gaza, the reconstruction of the enclave, and the release of Palestinian security prisoners” as conditions for the release of Israeli hostages. Qatar, which finances Hamas and provides asylum to the group’s political leadership, characterized Hamas’ response as “positive.” Also on Tuesday, The New York Times reported on an internal Israeli military assessment that at least 32 of the remaining 136 Israeli hostages in Gaza are now dead.

→The White House pressured Amazon to censor books containing COVID-19 “misinformation” and Amazon complied, according to emails released on Monday by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan. On March 2, 2021, White House COVID-19 czar Andy Slavitt emailed Amazon to ask, “Who can we talk to about the high levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation of [sic] Amazon?,” flagging several titles (not named in the emails) that appeared when searching for vaccine in Amazon’s bookstore. Although the company was initially hesitant to intervene, after meeting White House officials on March 9, Amazon enabled “Do Not Promote” for books seeking to “persuade readers vaccines are unsafe or ineffective.” Jordan’s thread does not name any of the books, but a December 2020 Politico article, cited in internal Amazon emails as part of the combined media-White House pressure campaign on the company, mentioned titles by former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson and those “associated with” Didier Raoult, the French doctor who featured prominently in Tablet’s August 2020 article “Hydroxychloroquine: A Morality Tale.”

The emails date from the same time that the White House was successfully pressuring Meta (formerly Facebook), X (then Twitter), Google (which owns YouTube), and Spotify to remove what the Biden administration considered COVID-19 “misinformation”—including expressions of vaccine hesitancy and the theory that the virus was “man-made.” That theory has since been endorsed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Energy.

→But that’s not the only censorship story to break in the past 24 hours. Lee Fang reports on his Substack that in November 2020, Twitter bowed to pressure from the Department of Homeland Security to “shadow-ban” a post by a New York Times election reporter who accurately reported on a delay in vote counting in Green Bay, Wisconsin. On Nov. 4, 2020, Times reporter Reid J. Epstein posted the following (as you can see, the post still includes a content warning and cannot be liked, reposted, or replied to):

The post was flagged by an election clerk from elsewhere in Wisconsin, who claimed it must be false because Green Bay’s ballot scanners did not use ink. That turned out to be incorrect: Anticipating a high volume of absentee votes, Green Bay election officials had acquired additional ballot scanners that relied on ink-jet cartridges. But the false “debunking” of Epstein’s tweet came to the attention of employees at the Center for Internet Security, who forwarded it along in a Misinformation Report to officials at the DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The CISA officials then forwarded it to Twitter, which labeled the post and blocked users from sharing or interacting with it. Neither Epstein nor the Times has corrected the post. The Times cited the printer error in a Nov. 6 story but doesn’t appear to have challenged Twitter’s decision to label Epstein’s tweet as “misleading.”

Read it here:

Homeland Security Agency Cited Inaccurate Allegation to Censor New York Times Journalist

 

→Iran could produce a nuclear bomb in one week and six bombs in a month, The Washington Free Beacon reports, citing a new report from the Institute for Science and International Security. The increase in Iranian nuclear capabilities comes at a time when relations with the West are at a low point and the regime in Tehran is actively resisting international inspections of its nuclear program. The Free Beacon reports that in January, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency warned that Iran was refusing oversight of its nuclear program in “an unprecedented way.” 

→Image of the Day:

This chart, courtesy of the Financial Times, shows how Iran used shell companies to evade U.S. sanctions via Lloyds and Santander, two of the largest banking groups in the United Kingdom. According to the FT, which says it has reviewed “documents, emails and accounting records,” the British branch of the Iranian state-owned Petrochemical Commercial Company has continued to operate out of an office in London’s Belgravia neighborhood using an opaque network of front companies and “trustee agreements,” despite being sanctioned by the United States in 2018. The United States has accused the PCC of “raising hundreds of millions of dollars for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Forces and of working with Russian intelligence agencies to raise money for Iranian proxy militias.” 

→A federal appeals court unanimously ruled on Tuesday that Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion case. Trump, who faces four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, had attempted to claim presidential immunity because he was still in office when the alleged crimes took place. The three-judge panel in the D.C. District Court of Appeals, comprising two Democrats and one Republican, ruled that “any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as president no longer protects him against this prosecution.” Trump can still appeal the decision to either the Supreme Court or the full D.C. District Court of Appeals, but the panel ruled that if he chooses the latter, Smith’s prosecution can proceed in the interim. Earlier this week, the judge in the case postponed the trial, which was scheduled to begin March 4. No new date has yet been set. 

→The proposed Senate border deal, which would also secure funding for Israel and Ukraine, is likely dead, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) recommending that Republicans vote no in a Wednesday procedural vote. As we made clear yesterday, we think the deal’s border security measures are full of holes, and consider the deal unnecessary anyway, since Biden already has the legal authority to enforce existing immigration laws and undo his own administration’s steps to facilitate illegal migration. But given that McConnell deputized Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) to negotiate on behalf of Republicans only to abandon the deal as soon as the details went public, we’re left wondering what the point of the whole exercise was. The White House announced Monday night that it would veto a standalone bill to fund Israel that had been proposed by House Republicans.

For anyone interested in a deeper dive on the deal’s flaws, Art Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies has you covered: https://cis.org/Arthur/Good-and-Lot-Bad-Senate-Border-Deal

→Errata: Yesterday’s Big Story referred to Sen. “Drew” Lankford of Oklahoma. Drew Lankford was a college classmate of this newsletter’s author; the senator’s name is James Lankford. We regret the error.  

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TODAY IN TABLET: 

The People Behind ‘The Chosen,’ by Maggie Phillips

Jewish advisers help a hit television show about the life of Jesus grapple with Judaism

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SCROLL TIP LINE: Have a lead on a story or something going on in your workplace, school, congregation, or social scene that  you want to tell us about? Send your tips, comments, questions, and suggestions to scroll@tabletmag.com.

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Why Campus Antisemitism Matters

Studies and polls of American Jewish students reveal a startling degree of anxiety and fear

by Leonard Saxe

“Context” has become an ugly word. Used by a trio of college presidents to avoid agreement with a politically barbed question in a congressional hearing as to whether or not calling for genocide against Jews is acceptable student conduct, use of the term seemed morally obtuse. They failed to acknowledge their university’s responsibility to protect students from harassment. Two presidents later apologized and subsequently resigned; their testimony, however, has continued to inflame the already charged debate about antisemitism on campus.

In the case of antisemitism, “context” includes understanding how certain types of action and speech affect Jewish students. The moral obligation to speak out against calls for genocide notwithstanding, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act obligates a university to protect members of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from discrimination. Under a “disparate treatment” provision of the act, Jewish students must be treated in the same way as those who are members of other protected groups. Notably, the impact on the victim of prejudice—not only the intent of the source—governs assessment of discrimination.

In the wake of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, as reports of antisemitic incidents spiked, my colleagues and I launched a program of research to document Jewish young adults’ experiences of antisemitism. We wanted to understand how the war was affecting young diaspora Jews. Since the war began, we have conducted a set of surveys with nearly 7,000 Jewish young adults (college age to mid-30s) across the United States.

One recent study, conducted during November and December (with data collection before, during, and after a cease-fire), included a survey that garnered more than 2,000 Jewish respondents at 51 U.S. campuses that have large Jewish student populations. Our respondents were drawn from a pool of over 20,000 young adult Jews who had applied to Birthright Israel. Overall, the sample is broadly representative of Jewish students on U.S. campuses, although on average, respondents were slightly more engaged in Jewish life and more likely to have traveled to Israel than their Jewish peers.

Our survey was designed to give voice to Jewish students. We wanted to understand their reactions to the war and their campus climate; specifically, their perceptions of the level of hostility toward Jews and Israel, as well as their concern about antisemitism on campus. The three questions were highly correlated and yielded an index of hostility based on responses to these questions which enabled us to compare campuses with one another. 

Not surprisingly, we found that antisemitism experienced by Jewish students is now far more prevalent than in the past. Many of our respondents commented that they were scared by what was happening on their campuses and, among other issues, afraid to be recognized as Jewish. A 2016 study that used similar methods found that the overall rates of perceived hostility toward Jews were nearly half of what we are currently observing.

Nevertheless, there is substantial variation across schools, even after controlling for individual differences. Using our antisemitic hostility index, we arrayed campuses into four groups, from most to least hostile. Respondents at the highest hostility schools were five times more likely to indicate that they “very much” agreed that their campuses were hostile toward Jews and Israel compared to those in the least hostile group.

Antisemitic hostility is not concentrated at any one type of school. Schools with the highest levels of antisemitic hostility include elite private universities in the Northeast, as well as large public universities in California and the Midwest. Both private and public universities, including some highly selective, appear in the list of schools with the lowest levels of antisemitic hostility. That hostility varies across campuses suggests that we can identify predictors of anti-Jewish hatred and use that knowledge as the basis for addressing it more effectively. 

Across schools, one-third of the Jewish students we surveyed reported personal experiences of insult or harassment. Many reported being insulted or harassed on social media, but at the most hostile campuses, nearly one-quarter reported personal experiences of harassment. The vast majority also reported seeing antisemitic images on campus, and many said that they were blamed for Israel’s actions because they were Jews. Students at the most hostile schools were also much more likely to have these personal experiences than students at the least hostile schools.

Campus sentiment toward Israel was also directly related to Jewish students’ concerns about antisemitism. Antisemitism related to Israel was, for our respondents, much more of concern than antisemitism about traditional Jewish stereotypes. Again, these concerns were not limited to Jewish students with more conservative political views or those who were more “pro-Israel” or even among those Jewish students who had unfavorable views of the Israeli government.

Notably, when asked about the political orientation of the source of antisemitism on their campus, respondents expressed far greater concern about antisemitism emanating from the political left than from the political right. Consistent with other findings, this was evident even among those who identified as politically liberal. Students spend the bulk of their time with peers, so it should not be surprising that more are concerned about antisemitism from liberal sources.

Nevertheless, faculty and administrators have an important role and their words and actions shape what happens on a campus. Especially at campuses with the highest levels of antisemitic hostility, many more Jewish students are concerned about their safety. Among students in the group of campuses with the highest level of hostility, only one-quarter of our respondents felt “very safe” compared to nearly half who felt “very safe” at schools in the lowest hostility group. Their ratings are confirmed by student comments about being frightened and needing to hide their Jewish identity.

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So, what can be done? Our findings seem to confirm what was on display at the congressional hearing: a gap between the lived experience of Jewish students and how university leaders view the situation. The law requires that universities protect Jewish students, but many seem not to acknowledge the problem.

Apparently, some university presidents believe that Jewish students are not harmed by discourse that holds all Jews responsible for Israel’s actions and echoes Hamas’ call for the elimination of Jews. That such discourse is associated with threats and acts of violence against Jewish students is also ignored. These views appear to run counter to the way that other protected groups are routinely treated by those in charge of campus life and appear to violate Title VI.

Although we do not as yet have clear data about the impact of measures to recognize and act on antisemitism, it is difficult to imagine a solution that doesn’t involve academic leaders and faculty. As has been done with diversity, training faculty how to deal with ethnic and religious differences that includes specific discussion of Jewish students is needed. Whether or not Jewish students are considered a minority, they carry with them family histories and the memory of being targets of oppression. Most young Jews feel a connection with Israel and the Hamas attack on Israel reignited their sense of vulnerability.

Similarly, mobilizing an institution’s educational programs to offer students a better understanding of Judaism, Israel, and the Middle East conflict also seems essential to addressing antisemitism on campus. Offering such courses should be part of the mission of any college or university that accepts its responsibility to create an educated citizenry.

Unfortunately, antisemitism is only one of the challenges being faced today by colleges and universities. Institutions of higher learning are struggling to respect diversity, while also reckoning with fundamental curricular debates, questions about the role of scholarship, and financial pressures. At the same time, public approval ratings of higher education institutions are in free-fall.

A key question for university leaders in their response to pernicious antisemitism is the degree to which they are willing to exercise moral authority. Are they willing to address antisemitism by using their office to draw lines between acceptable and unacceptable conduct? Statements alone by academic leaders may not be sufficient to address the current problems, but actions that enforce guidelines for civil and productive discourse about issues such as the Hamas-Israel war seem essential. Guidelines should not be a matter of supporting the political left or right, but relate to institutions’ core educational mission.

Historically, Jews have been the “canary in the coal mine” and anti-Jewish discrimination has often served as an early warning of broader societal turmoil, including discrimination against other groups. Confronting antisemitism on campuses is therefore not only important for members of the Jewish community, but also for higher education and the aims of civil society. That’s one part of the context that has not yet been sufficiently appreciated by campus leaders.