What Happened Today, Special Edition: Israel at War Day 18

October 25, 2023

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The Big Story

Remember last week, when several Western publications, including The New York Times, BBC, and The Wall Street Journal, ran with claims sourced from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health about an Israeli airstrike on Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City that had allegedly killed more than 500 civilians? Yes, we know: That story fell apart within about 12 hours. Yes, The New York Times issued an editors’ note admitting that its reporting “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified.” And yes, the IDF’s claims about the explosion—that it was the result of a misfired Palestinian rocket—have since been backed by U.S. intelligence assessments, open-source investigators, and independent analyses by news organizations such as CNN and the AP. 

Don’t tell any of that to Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), however. The last time we caught up with the congresswoman, she was repeating the hospital bombing story at an anti-Israel rally at the U.S. Capitol (hosted by her Rockefeller-funded pals), nearly a full 24 hours after the rest of the world had discovered that the initial version of the story was either fake or disputed in every significant detail: The hospital wasn’t hit, but a parking lot adjacent to it was; not as many as 500 people were killed, but far fewer were, by some estimates fewer than 100; finally, an Israeli airstrike didn’t cause the explosion, but most likely a misfired Palestinian rocket did.

Now, after having a few days to think about it, Tlaib is doubling down yet again. On Monday, the “Squad” member said in a statement that, given the U.S. and Israeli governments’ “long, documented histories of misleading the public about war and war crimes,” she “cannot uncritically accept Israel’s denial of responsibility as fact” until there is an “independent international investigation” of the explosion. Tlaib is not alone here. Scattered voices on the left have refused to budge from the initial story of Israeli responsibility, pointing to a BBC Channel 4 documentary and an open-source investigation from the research lab Forensic Architecture, which was founded by an anti-Israel activist and seems a rather overtly political group to be leading an investigation requiring technical expertise into a volatile controversy with global political implications. (Sample statement: “Forensic Architecture stands with Palestine. We believe this liberation struggle is inseparable from other global struggles against racism, white supremacy, antisemitism, and settler colonial violence and we acknowledge its particularly close entanglement with the Black liberation struggle around the world.”) For a taste of the current state of the discourse on the fashionable left, on Wednesday, The Baffler magazine’s homepage featured two articles mentioning the hospital explosion, both of which cited the Forensic Architecture investigation to imply that the Western press had swallowed IDF propaganda. 

On Tuesday, U.S. officials provided reporters with even more detail on U.S. intelligence about the explosion, confirming with “high confidence” that the IDF was not responsible, citing video analysis and images of the blast site. The officials said they had analyzed intercepted communications from Palestinians discussing the explosion as a failed rocket launch and concluded, based on speech patterns, that they were “affiliated” with Hamas—a direct refutation of claims made in the Channel 4 documentary, which implied these recordings were an Israeli forgery. And, while The New York Times published an investigation on Tuesday raising new questions about one of the multiple videos informing the U.S. and Israeli assessments, the CNN and AP investigations of that same video backed the U.S.-Israeli line. U.S. officials also noted that the Palestinians have failed to produce any debris from the hospital that could tie the explosion to IDF munitions, which they certainly would have done if they had any. 

The Scroll takes no issue with skepticism toward the claims of the IDF, the U.S. government, or any government or military, especially during wartime. The problem is the ideological double standard when it comes to what counts as a reliable source: The multiple open-source intelligence teams and journalistic investigations that backed up the findings of the IDF and U.S. intelligence are apparently all unreliable, but an activist university group committed to the global liberation struggle gets called in as the expert witness. Then the partisans of that struggle in Congress and in the media can turn around and say that “experts” have raised questions on both sides. It’s almost as if they aren’t really interested in the truth. 

Read more here: https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/rashida-tlaib-defends-hamass-hospital-blast-narrative-suggests-us-and-israeli-conspiracy/

IN THE BACK PAGES: Scroll editor Jacob Siegel on the new-old Jew-hatred of the American ruling class

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→Israel has agreed to delay its ground invasion of Gaza until the Pentagon can get air defense in place to protect U.S. troops in the Middle East, according to a Wednesday report in The Wall Street Journal. While the effort to protect U.S. troops appears legitimate on its face—Iranian proxies have attacked U.S. targets in Iraq and Syria on at least 13 occasions since Oct. 7—The Scroll noted yesterday that the United States was offering a new story every day for why Israel should delay its invasion. On Tuesday, that story was that Israel “lacks achievable military objectives in Gaza,” which prompted IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi to clarify, “We’ve prepared for this. The IDF and the Southern Command have prepared quality offensive plans to achieve the goals of the war.” So now we’re back to the paramount importance of defending U.S. troops, despite the United States declining to retaliate for the attacks that have already occurred or even name Iran as the responsible party.

Read more here: https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-palestinians-news/card/israel-agrees-to-delay-invasion-of-gaza-so-u-s-can-rush-missile-defenses-to-region-wFU3kduhruPhm6e8OM7b 

→Speaking of Iran, The Wall Street Journal also reported on Wednesday that roughly 500 militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad received specialized combat training in Iran shortly before the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The training exercise, which took place in September, was overseen by officers from Iran’s Quds Force, the foreign-operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which reports directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. U.S. officials, however, told the Journal that they had “no information to suggest Iran conducted training specifically to prepare for the events of Oct. 7.” Such denials are becoming something of a pattern. U.S. officials also disputed an earlier Wall Street Journal report that the Quds Force helped plan the attack at an Oct. 2 meeting with Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Beirut, and a Pentagon spokesman said over the weekend that the United States had not discovered a “direct order” from Khamenei telling Iranian proxies to attack U.S. targets. So, either the Iran-trained and Iran-funded “Axis of Resistance” is taking major operational decisions to attack U.S. and allied forces without Iran’s knowledge or consent, or U.S. officials are blowing smoke. As The Scroll’s readers are a smart bunch, we’ll leave it to you to decide. 

Read more here: https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-fighters-trained-in-iran-before-oct-7-attacks-e2a8dbb9 

→The U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians, several of whose employees cheered Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, is claiming that it will have to stop delivering humanitarian aid unless Israel agrees to provide fuel to Gaza, just weeks after announcing that Hamas was stealing fuel and medical equipment from the agency’s compound in a since-deleted X post. UNRWA, which received $344 million in funding from the United States in 2022 and is known to employ Hamas members and sympathizers, said on Wednesday that it will be forced to cease operations if it does not receive more fuel immediately. Israel is currently allowing the delivery of food, water, and medicine to Gaza but draws the line at fuel, which it fears will be diverted to support Hamas’ war effort. On Tuesday, in response to claims from Hamas and Al Jazeera that the Israeli fuel blockade was preventing Gazan hospitals from operating, the IDF released photos of fuel tanks in Gaza containing what it claimed were half a million liters of fuel—enough to keep every hospital in the territory operating for days. 

→Senior White House officials have been leading ethnically segregated “listening sessions” to reassure staffers that they are “supported,” according to a report in Politico. The news follows several reports in the Huffington Post last week about White House, diplomatic, and national security staffers feeling “stifled” by the Biden administration’s public support for Israel, with one administration official blaming Biden’s stance on the fact that his inner circle is “not at all diverse.” To address these very grave concerns, the White House has in recent days held separate small-group listening sessions for Jewish staffers and Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian staffers, as well as several larger meetings “featuring in-depth discussions about the crisis and its effect on aides’ lives.” If that doesn’t do the trick, we recommend that staffers still upset with U.S. policy begin reading The Scroll, from which they will be relieved to learn that the White House is supporting not only Israel but also Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah, as helpfully summarized in the following meme:

Read more here: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2023/10/24/white-house-holds-staff-meetings-on-israel-hamas-war-00123148 

→An overwhelming majority of Israeli Arabs oppose Hamas’ attacks on Israel, according to a recent poll. An Oct. 10 survey found that 80% of Israeli Arabs oppose the attacks, 85% oppose Hamas’ kidnapping of civilians, 66% support Israel’s right to defend itself, and 50% believe the attacks were “contrary to the values of Islam.” Arabs make up about 21% of Israel’s population, and at least 18 Israeli Arabs were killed in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. The attitude of Israeli Arabs, the vast majority of whom are Muslim, stands in stark contrast to the attitude of young Americans. According to an Oct. 23 Harvard/Harris poll, 51% of Americans aged 18-24 and 48% of those aged 25-34 believe the Hamas attacks “can be justified by the grievances of Palestinians.”

Read more here: https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/10/22/overwhelming-majority-israeli-arabs-oppose-hamas-violence-poll/ 

→Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah hosted leaders from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Beirut on Wednesday to trumpet continuing coordination between the different branches of the Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance,” according to a report in Lebanese media. Nasrallah met with Hamas Politburo head Saleh al-Arouri and PIJ leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah to discuss “what the parties of the Axis of Resistance must do ... to realize a real victory for the resistance in Gaza and Palestin[e] and to halt the brutal aggression [of Israel],” according to the report from pro-Iran Al-Mayadeen Media Network. The report went on to say that the leaders had agreed to hold follow-up discussions “on a daily or permanent basis.” Nasrallah also announced, in his first public statement since Oct. 7, that the Hezbollah fighters killed in recent clashes with Israeli forces must be seen as “martyrs.” The group’s fatalities rose to 39 on Wednesday, after two more Hezbollah fighters were confirmed killed by the IDF. 

Read more here: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-770067 

→The Scroll presents the latest installment in what we expect to be a long-running series featuring those who cheered America’s recent derangements only to discover, to their shock and dismay, that those derangements can be turned against them. We call this one “The Tale of Logan Levkoff: A Comedy in Two Parts.”

→Advice from Scroll editor Jacob Siegel to college students and their parents:

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TODAY IN TABLET: 

The DEI Complex Will Never Protect Jews, by Armin Rosen

The problem isn't that the system—of affinity groups, diversity officers, microaggression policing, and more—hasn't included Jews until now. It's that the system itself is dangerous.

America’s Democratic Socialists Loved Israel, by Michael Bernick

For decades, the DSA and its predecessors, and socialist leaders like Michael Harrington and Bayard Rustin, championed the Jewish State and defended Jews on campus. In 2017, the DSA embraced Jew-hatred.

America Needs a Decisive Israeli Victory, by Raphael Benlevi

That means destroying Hezbollah and striking Iran. Anything less is a major strategic defeat for Israel and the U.S.

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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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In addition to faith in the state, the other axiom of the Western Jew was belief in education, the certainty that it was not only his passport into a wider world but also that the educated classes were his unshakable allies. He had chosen to believe this, despite the growing Jew-hatred among the intelligentsia in the second half of the nineteenth century, and before 1881 the intellectuals of Russian Jewry followed him in that faith. But university students had joined in the making of pogroms and the outbursts of violence had been defended in respectable newspapers as valid expressions of popular discontent.
—Arthur Hertzberg, The Zionist Idea, 1959

History is haunted by ghosts of which the anti-Jewish spirit is one of the oldest and most alluring. The quote above, as applicable to the situation in the United States today as it was to the 19th-century Russian milieu it describes, comes from the introductory essay to Arthur Hertzberg’s seminal 1959 book The Zionist Idea, a compilation of writings by leading figures from the various schools of Zionist thought. The enlightened bourgeois faith that Hertzberg describes began to collapse in the wake of the vicious anti-Jewish pogroms that began in Russia in 1881 and sent millions of Jews fleeing for the United States, and smaller numbers for Mandatory Palestine. The promise of modernity as a emancipatory universalism was further discredited by the Dreyfus Affair in France, which began in the decade after the pogroms and seemed to prove once and for all that secularism and liberal civilization were, by themselves, no guarantee against the spirit of Jew-mad ghost hunting, which possessed the rational people as fully as it had their orthodox Medieval progenitors, if not more so. 

Judeophobia is a variety of demonopathy with the distinction that it is not peculiar to particular races but is common to the whole of mankind, and that this ghost is not disembodied like other ghosts but partakes of flesh and blood, must endure pain inflicted by the fearful mob who imagines itself endangered.
—Leon Pinsker, Auto-Emancipation, 1882

And yet ... And yet! Here we are again. Respectable party-loyalist fools like Paul Krugman and the leaders of the Anti-Defamation League have spent years indoctrinating liberal Jews into the belief that any signs of concern about the normalization of a progressive racial caste system in the United States is itself racist. The greatest threat to Jews, they claimed, came from angry “white men” in Middle America. For doing the party’s bidding in this way, Krugman and his ilk were well paid and rewarded with invitations to dinner parties and other markers of social prestige. All the while, a pathological, revolutionary Jew-hatred was being taught openly by government-sanctioned DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) administrators and professors at the nation’s most elite universities. 

Now that the festival has started and the bonfires are lit, everyone joins in. The right-wing demon chasers either excuse the pogroms as understandable reactions to the Jews’ attempts to drag the whole world down, or simply yawn in their general direction. Right or left, an agreement is found among the people who are prepared to call the Jews out for their guilt. What do the accusers have in common? They are the rational people, the bearers of civilization. It is in the name of justice that they condemn the Jews as stiff-necked, sadistic, self-satisfied, and arrogant, the cause of the very ruin they now bring down upon themselves. Perhaps it is not even so much as all that. It is only that they must be humbled.

“Glory to the martyrs” is the new slogan of the American university. When you see the students and the well-dressed young people in expensive cities chanting slogans of self-righteous bloodlust and celebrating the slaughter of Jewish babies, do not be fooled into believing that this was the result of sudden or unforeseen forces. The students are only following their teachers, who now control the ruling party of the United States.

—Jacob Siegel