The Big Story
As The Scroll set to publish on Monday, the final 11 Israeli hostages from the deal announced last week between Israel and Hamas were freed. Despite a string of delays and violations—including Hamas splitting up families and Palestinian crowds stoning the vehicle convoy carrying the first batch of Israeli hostages released on Thursday—the deal has been a success on its own terms. The cease-fire has held for four days, and the 11 Israelis freed today will bring the total number to 50, per the initial agreement. The Israelis even confirmed late Monday that they had reached an agreement with Hamas to extend the cease-fire for another two days, in exchange for the release of 20 more Israeli civilian hostages. A Hamas official, Khalil al-Hayya, told Al-Jazeera on Monday that he hoped negotiations over the release of “hostages other than women and children”—presumably meaning IDF soldiers and Hamas leaders and fighters held in Israel—would begin “immediately after the current cease-fire.”
Assuming that the extension of the cease-fire holds until Thursday, what comes next remains an open question. Fears that the deal could strengthen Hamas may have overestimated the terrorist group’s capacity to capitalize on the pause in fighting. Amos Harel, writing in Haaretz, notes that the IDF is in no rush to resume its ground operation, as it too “needs time to refresh its troops and prepare them for the next stage.” The consensus in Israeli security circles appears to be that Hamas is disorganized, demoralized, and on the back foot, and that the terms of the hostage deal are evidence of the group’s weakness. In the Gilad Shalit deal in 2011, Israel swapped more than 1,000 Palestinians, including senior Hamas leaders, for one IDF soldier. Now that ratio has shrunk to 3-to-1, and Hamas seems mostly interested in buying whatever time it can to evacuate its forces south for the next stage of the fighting.
Israeli military and political leaders have repeatedly announced their intention to resume the war with full force once the cease-fire expires later this week, promising that nothing will stop them in their ultimate goal of destroying Hamas, including in southern Gaza where most of the group’s fighters are believed to be sheltering among the civilian population. On Monday evening, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told a group of IDF soldiers that the fighting after the end of the cease-fire “will be bigger and take place throughout the Gaza Strip.” But practically, it is difficult to see how Israel could replicate its operation in northern Gaza in the south without forfeiting what remains of its international support. Having evacuated hundreds of thousands of civilians from northern Gaza into designated “safe zones” in the south, the IDF cannot turn around and unleash a massive bombing campaign on the south—or at least it cannot do so without provoking fierce resistance in Washington. Benjamin Netanyahu has not always aligned himself perfectly with the Biden administration, but he has also been willing to overrule his own generals in order to avoid the appearance of open conflict with the United States. Whatever the military calculus or the wishes of men like Gallant, defying Washington here would require Bibi to take a political risk that he has not yet been willing to take.
IN THE BACK PAGES: Jay Mens on Tehran’s—and Washington’s—implausible attempts to obscure Iranian responsibility for Oct. 7
The Rest
→The owner of the world’s most influential communications platform flew to Israel to pay his respects at the site of the Hamas massacre. In response, several Jewish communal leaders called him an antisemite. After touring the Kfar Aza kibbutz and other sites of the Oct. 7 massacre, Musk livestreamed a conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu in which he agreed with the Israeli prime minister that Hamas has to be destroyed, adding, “There’s no choice.” In response to the visit, Amy Spitalnick, who heads the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, posted a hysterical statement in response to the visit: “This is now the second time Bibi has given cover to this raging antisemite—just after Musk’s explicit embrace of conspiracy theories directly responsible for the mass murder of Jews and others. Make no mistake: normalizing Musk directly undermines Jewish safety.” Back here on Earth: It is because of Musk’s decision to purchase X that the full extent of Hamas’s documented war crimes against Jews—and the vile responses of the terrorists’ left-wing apologists—have been aired in public rather than censored, as they undoubtedly would have been under previous ownership. Also, in the annals of things currently undermining Jewish safety, the quality of Jewish communal leadership in America is high up there:
Read more here: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/replace-american-jewish-communal-leadership-adl
→Students at a New York City high school rioted for hours on Monday of last week over a Jewish teacher’s pro-Israel social media posts, forcing her to shelter inside a locked office until the NYPD could arrive to disperse the mob. According to sources interviewed by the New York Post, students organized the “protest” after discovering a Facebook photo of the teacher, who is remaining anonymous due to safety concerns, holding an “I Stand With Israel” sign at an Oct. 9 rally. Videos posted on TikTok showed students storming through the hallways of the school and ripping a water fountain out of the wall; in comments on the videos, students called the teacher a “Zionist,” “racist,” and “cracker ass bitch” and called for her to be fired. As in the anti-Jewish riots in Dagestan in October, the crowd was apparently whipped up by a blood libel—in this case, false accusations that the teacher was abusing Muslim students and celebrating the killing of Palestinian children. Mayor Eric Adams and other city leaders condemned the riot, but social media users pointed out that this was not the only recent incident at Hillcrest High School. A week before the riot, police arrested four students after they were caught on video brutally beating an NYPD officer who had attempted to break up a fight.
→Riots broke out in Dublin on Thursday evening, after an Algerian immigrant stabbed a woman and three children outside an Irish-language school earlier in the day. Police arrested more than 30 rioters, some of whom looted shops and lit cars and buses on fire during their rampage through central Dublin. Ireland’s police chief blamed the rioting on a “lunatic, hooligan faction driven by far-right ideology,” which, however true of the property destruction, obscures the tensions that have been building for some time over Ireland’s generous immigration and asylum policies. From April 2022 to April 2023, Ireland, with a population just over 5 million, admitted more than 140,000 immigrants, and the foreign-born share of its population has risen from just over 6% in the mid-’90s to about 20% today. In February, Irish police reported an “exponential” increase in protests in 2023, many of them related to immigration.
Now the Irish government, led by Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, is using the riots as an excuse to renew a push to pass a draconian hate-speech law that would criminalize, among other things, the possession of “hateful” content on personal electronic devices, which police would be empowered to seize and search. Irish police are also reportedly investigating Conor McGregor for a series of high-profile social media posts on Thursday in which the professional fighter criticized government immigration policy and the police response to the stabbing attack.
Read more here: https://compactmag.com/article/the-rage-behind-the-dublin-riots
→That hate-speech law sounds bad, but at least it couldn’t happen in America, right? Don’t be so sure. The Washington Post reported Friday that the Biden administration is “working with TikTok creators to tell positive stories of Biden’s economic stewardship, while also working with social media platforms to counter misinformation.” The “misinformation,” in this context, is exaggerated claims about the real increase in consumer prices since Biden took office, but the mechanism—i.e, the government shaping narratives and suppressing information through third-party partners rather than through direct control—offers a view into how the anti-misinformation and -disinformation industry is being transformed in response to the Twitter Files revelations and the ongoing Missouri v. Biden court case. Foundation for Freedom Online director Mike Benz explained how it works in a recent interview:
The way the censorship industry is currently being structured, in anticipation of a devastating Missouri v. Biden ruling, is to do a sort of middle-out restructuring where, instead of having things run out of CISA [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] at the DHS [Department of Homeland Security], or the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, it would be run out of what they’re calling a middleware company, a censorship service provider who sits in the middle between the user and the platform but is intermediated by essentially intelligence agencies and major government figures, who inform that middleware censorship company’s policies and filtering mechanisms.
→Euphemism of the day, courtesy of Adaam James Levin-Areddy:
→A suspect has been arrested in a potential hate-crime shooting of three Palestinian college students in Burlington, Vermont, on Saturday evening. The students were wearing keffiyehs and speaking in Arabic at the time they were shot, according to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and a lawyer for one of the victim’s families. The suspect, Jason Eaton, 48, who lives in an apartment near the site of the shooting, was arrested on Sunday. Police say they are investigating the possibility that Eaton committed a hate crime, but they have not yet released further information about his motives. The three victims survived the shooting, but two were in the ICU and one had sustained “very critical and serious” injuries, according to a statement from the ADC on Sunday.
Read more here: https://nypost.com/2023/11/26/news/3-top-palestinian-college-students-shot-in-vermont-in-alleged-bias-attack/
TODAY IN TABLET:
The Last Jewish Intellectuals, by David Mikics
Susan Sontag and George Steiner star in ‘Maestros & Monsters’
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.
Iran's Implausible Deniability
The terror state and its various proxy militias—including Hamas—are obviously acting in concert. Why won't the U.S. admit it?
By Jay Mens
The Biden administration came into office with the pledge to take the U.S. off a “war footing” with Iran, which the incoming team said had characterized the term of its predecessor. “De-escalation,” as the administration called it, is the way we would achieve peace in the region. Tehran would not be held to account for its malign activities, whether they were conducted directly or through its extensive regional network of proxies. If anything, the Biden team telegraphed, Iran would be rewarded.
As recently as September, the administration was congratulating itself on its approach: “the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades," National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan famously declared. The slaughter of at least 1,200 Israelis, and more than 30 Americans, at the hands of Iranian proxies has not made a dent in the administration’s worldview. On the contrary, the White House’s overriding concern over the last month has been to artificially distance Iran from the Oct. 7 massacre and the subsequent attacks on U.S. bases and personnel in the region.
The separation is absurd on its face. This year alone, before and after Oct. 7, there have been dozens of meetings, in Lebanon and Iran, between Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the Iranian command. These groups, in addition to the Houthis in Yemen, and a host of Iraqi Shiite militias all belong to what they call the “axis of resistance." The axis is an Iranian creation: ideologically, financially, operationally, and strategically. Iran is the state power that undergirds this network of armed groups, providing them with funds, weapons, and guidance in the service of Iranian geopolitical interests. Tehran does not merely back these militias. To a huge degree, it controls them.
And yet, the administration has been at pains to deny Iran’s involvement in the Oct. 7 massacre, pushing back against a series of media reports that highlighted Iran’s role in the planning, training, and timing of the attack. The reports make clear that coordination between Iran and its so-called "joint operations room" in Lebanon (which includes Hamas, Hezbollah and PIJ) was constant, a fact made evident by the frequent visits to Beirut by top Iranian officials, especially Esmail Qaani, commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s (IRGC) Quds Force, in the months and weeks before Oct. 7. Hamas and PIJ leaders like Saleh al-Arouri and Ziad Nakhaleh, both of whom are based in Lebanon under Hezbollah’s protection, held regular meetings in Beirut and in Tehran with Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and the Iranian leadership.
Since then, Tehran’s direct involvement has been even more visible. Qaani has been in Lebanon almost continuously since Oct. 8, overseeing the joint operations room. But none of that matters to the Biden administration. When asked about Iranian communication with Hezbollah during the ongoing attacks on Israel from south Lebanon, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said he wasn’t “aware of anything overt.” Apparently, the commander of the Quds Force camping out in Lebanon for the past month doesn’t count.
To justify this posture toward Iran, administration officials insist they are preventing a “broader regional escalation” which would encompass Iran and Hezbollah, and thereby draw in the U.S., endangering American personnel in the region. The problem is that, since Oct. 17, Iranian-controlled militias have conducted more than 60 attacks against U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria. At least 62 American soldiers have been injured in these attacks.
It should come as no surprise that the Iranians have primarily targeted American forces. Iran views Israel as an American proxy: Take away American backing and Israel collapses. Hence, while most observers have been focused on the possibility of Iranian action against Israel, Iran’s strategy has been to turn up the heat on the United States, in order achieve the objective of forcing a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. That would entail Hamas' survival, and, consequently, a humiliating defeat for Israel. Iran also wants Washington to restrain Israeli action against Hezbollah, which is Tehran’s main point of leverage over Jerusalem.
It’s a risky proposition for Iran to target the U.S. itself. Regional proxies offer Iran a degree of separation. This façade—known as "plausible deniability”—allows Iran to wage cost-free proxy warfare. But for it to work, the U.S. must play along and subscribe to the fiction that Iran and the militias it arms, funds, and trains are totally distinct.
By obfuscating Iran’s role, the Biden administration is validating Tehran’s regional strategy, thereby shielding it and its key assets against retaliation. Hence, Washington has publicized its opposition to any Israeli “preemptive strike” against Hezbollah in Lebanon. President Biden has sent his special envoy, Amos Hochstein, to Israel and Lebanon to confirm that Beirut enjoyed an American protective umbrella. The administration also signaled that it would hold Israel responsible for any conflagration in the north, leaking that Israel was “trying to provoke” Hezbollah. Should that happen, the administration was hinting, Israel would be blamed for any subsequent attacks on U.S. assets.
The White House publicly demonstrating that it can curb Israeli action against Iranian interests validates Iran’s view of Israel as an American proxy. At the same time, the administration reserves the right to be selective in its approach to Iran’s proxies—but always in a manner that benefits Tehran. On the one hand, the Biden team signals its commitment to Iranian interests in Lebanon by shielding Hezbollah’s base of operations from any Israeli action. On the other hand, when Shiite militias attack U.S. bases and personnel in Syria and Iraq, the administration upholds the fictional distinction between these groups and Iran. Whenever it retaliates, the U.S. only strikes the militiamen and their facilities. Iran is off-limits. And even then, the administration is quick to reassure Iran that it was acting only in “self-defense” using “discrete, precision strikes,” and that U.S. action is "separate and distinct” from Israel’s war in Gaza. At a recent briefing, Kirby was asked if containment of Iran was working. The NSC spokesman rejected the term itself: “we wouldn’t associate ourselves with the word containment."
True to form, Tehran is rubbing it in. The head of the IRGC’s aerospace wing, Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, mocked the administration saying: “The Americans don’t threaten us.” Instead, “They sometimes have three rounds of correspondence with Iran in one night … all in a tone of begging.” The administration's weak, pleading language suggests he might be telling the truth.
Please take a look at the NYT's children section that came out yesterday. It's sad to see the subtle anti-Isreal propaganda being fed to children. All of the photos are of Gaza after the bombings, but there is nothing showing the homes burned, ransacked, and blown up by terrorists, i.e., what caused Israel to bomb Gaza in the first place.
The head of the JCPA should be replaced with someone who can appreciate that Musk understands the facts on the ground of 10/7 as opposed to engaging in woke posturing