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Jerusalem Center for Security
and Foreign Affairs
DAILY ALERT
Tuesday,
August 12, 2025
In-Depth Issues:

Hizbullah Chief Says 5,000 Fighters Killed and 13,000 Wounded in War with Israel (Reuters)
    Hizbullah chief Naim Qassem said in a televised speech on Aug. 5 that in the war with Israel that ended in November, 5,000 Hizbullah fighters were killed and 13,000 wounded, the first official toll the group has given.
    Washington and Beirut have been in talks since June on a U.S. roadmap to fully disarm Hizbullah in exchange for a halt to Israeli strikes, the withdrawal of Israeli troops still occupying five points in south Lebanon, and funds to rebuild areas destroyed during the war.


In Hostage Video, Israelis Are Seeing Something that Americans Aren't - Aviya Kushner (Forward)
    While many have seen the photo from the Hamas video of Israeli hostage Evyatar David, a young man who has been held hostage by Hamas since Oct. 7, 2023, looking weak and malnourished, they may not have seen the 5-minute video.
    The experience of watching the entire video cannot be emphasized enough.
    David looked obviously and intentionally starved, for a very long time, and he was barefoot in a hot tunnel, beyond weak, and digging his grave.
    In the video, he detailed on a makeshift calendar what he had eaten each day in the month. There were days when he received no food; sometimes two days went with no food.
    And what did he eat for the entire month? Lentils. That's it. "This is not fiction, this is real. There's no food," David says.
    This long video reminds everyone in Israel of the cruelty and brutality of Hamas. Which is well-fed. And muscular.


Israel and the Real Lessons of the Strikes on Iran - Lt.-Gen. (ret.) David A. Deptula (Foreign Affairs)
    For years, military theorists and political scientists have argued that airpower is overrated, that leaders have grown overconfident in the ability of precision airstrikes to coerce states into submission.
    Then, in June, Israel launched an air campaign against Iran. Over just 12 days, Israel's air force flew 1,500 combat sorties, conducted more than 600 aerial refuelings, and struck over 900 Iranian targets, including hardened nuclear facilities, missile batteries, and military command centers.
    The results were decisive: Iran's nuclear program was significantly disrupted, key elements of its air defense network were shattered, and Tehran's military leadership suffered serious blows, while not a single manned Israeli aircraft was lost.
    Although Israel did not fully eliminate Iran's nuclear capabilities, its air campaign delayed, degraded, and deterred Iran's ambitions, and transformed the Middle East's political landscape.
    Israel's operation was a stunning demonstration of what a modern air force, backed by sound strategy and political resolve, can accomplish.
    It reaffirmed airpower's ability to achieve meaningful political outcomes without a drawn-out ground war.
    The Israeli air force used stealth F-35I fighter jets to suppress and destroy Iranian surface-to-air missile batteries.
    These aircraft provided real-time targeting information to nonstealth F-15I and F-16I fighters, which carried out precision strikes on additional targets.
    Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) collected intelligence, jammed communications, and allowed Israel to deliver additional precision-guided munitions.
    By degrading Iranian defenses, Israel also cleared the way for U.S. B-2 stealth bombers to strike deeply buried nuclear facilities at Fordow and Natanz.
    The writer is Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and a Senior Scholar at the U.S. Air Force Academy.


Israel Deploys New Communications Satellite - Stav Levaton (Times of Israel)
    Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) announced Monday that its national communications satellite, Dror-1, has reached its designated altitude of 36,000 km. (22,000 miles) and commenced its operational mission.
    The satellite was launched on July 13 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral.
    IAI President and CEO Boaz Levy said Dror-1 is designed to provide "flexible, secure and reliable" communications.


UNIFIL and Lebanese Army Discover 300 Hizbullah Arms Caches in Southern Lebanon (L'Orient Today-Lebanon)
    The French army and other UN peacekeepers said Thursday that they and the Lebanese Army uncovered a network of Hizbullah tunnels and weapons in southern Lebanon.
    UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti described "a vast network of fortified tunnels" near the villages of Tayr Harfa, Zibqine and Naqoura, containing shelters, artillery pieces, rocket launchers, hundreds of missiles and rockets, anti-tank mines and other explosives.
    As of Aug. 4, 2025, UNIFIL said it had identified 302 arms caches.


Egypt Depends on Israeli Gas - Dean Shmuel Elmas (Globes)
    NewMed Energy's announcement on Aug. 7 of a new natural gas deal with Egypt from Israel's Leviathan offshore field for $35 billion drastically increases Egypt's dependence on Israeli gas.
    Several months ago, production disruptions at the Leviathan and Karish fields resulted in darkness for many parts of Egypt.
    In 2024, Israel exported a record 10 billion cubic meters (BCM) to Egypt, despite the war, up 16% from 2023.
    Egypt's domestic gas production rate was 45 BCM in 2024, while its annual consumption stands at 70 BCM.
    Egyptian leaders prefer criticism of the relationship with Israel to being in danger of a coup because their citizens don't have electricity during the harsh summer heat.


Hamas's Plan to Undermine America's Arab Allies - Khaled Abu Toameh (Gatestone Institute)
    Hamas is trying to incite Arabs to revolt against their own governments under the pretext that the Arab leaders have failed to help the Palestinians in Gaza.
    Recently, senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya called on Arabs to "march toward Palestine by land and sea and besiege the [Israeli embassies in Arab countries, especially Egypt and Jordan]."
    Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, Hamas officials have been indirectly urging Egyptians and Jordanians to revolt against their governments for not cutting their diplomatic ties with Israel.
    Fortunately, most Arab countries have refused to join Hamas's genocidal scheme.
    Apparently, the Arab leaders understand the dangers of allowing Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, to drag their countries into war with Israel.
    That is why Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE, and recently, Jordan have banned or outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood.
    It is time for the Trump administration not only to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization, but also finally to call out Qatar and its Al-Jazeera TV network for promoting Islamist terror groups that target Israel and America's Arab allies.
    The writer, a veteran Israeli journalist, is a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.


Antisemitism New Normal in Many Ontario Schools - Lorrie Goldstein (Toronto Sun-Canada)
    The study released in July, Antisemitism in Ontario's K-12 Schools, commissioned by Canada's federal special envoy on combatting antisemitism, suggests it's open season on Jewish students in Ontario schools.
    University of Toronto sociology professor Robert Brym surveyed 599 Jewish parents who reported 781 antisemitic incidents aimed at Jewish children between October 2023 and January 2025.
    Among the incidents cited: A six-year-old girl in Ottawa was told by her teacher that she was only half human because one of her parents is Jewish.
    A 13-year-old girl in Waterloo was repeatedly surrounded by five boys shouting "Sieg Heil," several times a day on multiples days.
    An Ottawa teacher, noticing a six-year-old girl wearing a necklace with a pendant in the shape of a map of Israel, informed her it was a map of Palestine.
    When a fellow student responded, "it's Israel," and explained it was a gift from their Hebrew school, the teacher responded: "Your Hebrew school teachers are lying."
    None of this is surprising, given that nationally, incidents of Jew-hatred through harassment, vandalism and violence increased by 125% to 6,219 incidents in 2024 compared to 2,769 in 2022, according to B'nai B'rith.
    Statistics Canada reports that while Jews make up 1% of Canada's population, 70% of all religiously-motivated hate crimes today are aimed at Jews.

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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
  • Trump: Hamas "Can't Stay" in Gaza - Barak Ravid
    President Trump told Axios on Monday that it was always going to be "very rough to get" the Israeli hostages out and that Hamas "are not going to let the hostages out in the current situation." Trump said in his opinion, Hamas "can't stay" in Gaza. "I have one thing to say: remember October 7, remember October 7."
        Trump said he'd had a "good call" with Prime Minister Netanyahu on Sunday. Netanyahu's office said they "discussed Israel's plans to take control of the remaining Hamas strongholds in Gaza in order to bring an end to the war through the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas."  (Axios)
  • Proof of Slain Al Jazeera Journalist's Ties to Terror - Novi Zhukovsky and Jotam Confino
    Al Jazeera senior journalist Anas al-Sharif, targeted Sunday in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, "was a terrorist who headed a Hamas cell guiding rocket attacks at Israeli civilians, given journalistic cover by Qatari-funded Al Jazeera," Hillel Neuer, director of UN Watch, said Monday.
        "Not one single media outlet has mentioned the ample open-source evidence...showing Anas al-Sharif is anything but a journalist. Pictured with Hamas leaders? Showering praise on the murderers and rapists of October 7th? Nah, not relevant," said investigative journalist Eitan Fischberger on X.
        Fischberger attached screenshots from al-Sharif's Telegram page that put on display his full-fledged support for Hamas's terror attacks and his personal relationships with Hamas members. One post from Oct. 7 reads: "9 hours and the heroes are still roaming the country killing and capturing....God, God, how great you are."
        The IDF said published documents in October "prove he was a Hamas operative integrated into Al Jazeera." The documents include rosters, terrorist training lists, and salary records. The IDF identifies al-Sharif as a member of Hamas's East Jabaliya Battalion who enlisted in 2013. (New York Sun)
        See also IDF Says Al Jazeera Reporter Received Hamas Salary - Emanuel Fabian (Times of Israel)
        See also Governments across the Mideast Say Al Jazeera Gives Voice to Terrorists - Ephrat Livni
    Al Jazeera was founded in 1996 with funding from the government of Qatar. The network has come under criticism from Israel and the Palestinian Authority, both of which have banned it, accusing Al Jazeera of supporting Hamas. In 2017, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain all banned Al Jazeera. Critics of the network throughout the region say it amplifies the voices of militant groups.
        Experts who track the network say its coverage and commentary echo many of Hamas's claims and increases support for its actions. "The fact that it just gives the primary platform to Hamas, Hamas officials, Hamas spokesmen, et cetera, the fact that it cuts off any voices that are critical of Hamas - it has basically made it such that on Al Jazeera, Hamas is really the spokesman for the Palestinian people," Ghaith al-Omari, a Palestinian affairs analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said last year. (New York Times)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
  • IDF Finalizing Plans for New Gaza Offensive - Yoav Zitun
    Israeli military leaders will soon finalize plans for a large-scale ground operation in Gaza, following the Cabinet's recent approval of a "conquest of Gaza" strategy. Military officials indicate the offensive will not begin in a significant way before the end of August. The military anticipates that Hamas will reinforce defenses around Israeli hostages and may disperse them in the coming weeks. IDF forces will not attack areas where hostages are known to be held. (Ynet News)
        See also below Observations - Netanyahu: Israel Has No Choice but to Finish the Job and Complete the Defeat of Hamas (Prime Minister's Office)
  • Hamas Inflating Malnutrition Deaths in "Orchestrated Campaign" - Emanuel Fabian
    Hamas has been inflating the toll of Palestinians it says have died of malnutrition, and most of those who have died had preexisting medical conditions, Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said. Israeli security officials and medical experts who reviewed Hamas's starvation claims in Gaza found "an orchestrated campaign as part of a broader effort to discredit the State of Israel and achieve political gains."
        "The thorough review found a significant gap between the number of deaths attributed to malnutrition as reported by Hamas's health ministry and the cases documented and published with full identifying details in the media and on social media," COGAT said. "The documented cases do not represent the condition of the general population in Gaza but rather selectively present extreme cases involving preexisting illnesses."
        COGAT said that "by analyzing broader photographic evidence and other available intelligence, [it] concluded that there are no signs of a widespread malnutrition phenomenon among the population in Gaza. The Hamas terrorist organization cynically exploits tragic images and misuses them for a false and timed propaganda campaign aimed at generating pressure and creating negative public opinion against the State of Israel."  (Times of Israel)
  • Israel, U.S. Oppose UNIFIL Renewal, Citing Failure to Prevent Hizbullah Infiltration in South Lebanon - Amichai Stein
    Ahead of the UN Security Council discussion later this month on extending the mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Israel and the U.S. have informed Council members that they oppose an automatic renewal of the mandate and are demanding a reassessment of the force's necessity. A diplomat said this comes "in light of its prolonged failure to prevent Hizbullah's infiltration into southern Lebanon, and to enforce the Lebanese government's sovereignty in the area."
        The Israeli and American position is based on the fact that UNIFIL, established nearly five decades ago as a temporary force, has failed to achieve its core objectives. Instead of acting as a buffer and preventing Hizbullah's militarization south of the Litani River, the force is a passive actor, submitting partial reports that do not reflect the reality on the ground. Since being tasked with preventing Hizbullah's rearmament during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, UNIFIL has done nothing to confront Hizbullah over its weapons.
        Israel and the U.S. have presented two alternatives: A full termination of UNIFIL's mandate and gradual withdrawal from the area, or a limited extension of a year, with the orderly dismantling of UNIFIL positions and the transfer of full security responsibility to the Lebanese government. Israeli officials see a rare strategic opportunity that could create conditions for the Lebanese government to reassert sovereignty in the south.
        Israel believes that there is no longer a need for an international intermediary force on the ground, and that UN resources would be better invested in supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces. (Jerusalem Post)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:

    The Gaza War

  • When Is a Journalist a Military Target? - Maj. (ret.) Andrew Fox
    The outraged commentators seem to have overlooked the substantial evidence that Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif was an active member of Hamas's Al-Qassam Brigades, and therefore an entirely legitimate target. However, I would make the case that he was a legitimate target because he was an Al Jazeera journalist.
        There is a dangerous myth in modern conflict that unless you are pulling a trigger, you are somehow outside the fight. In Afghanistan, it referred to unarmed insurgent spotters on hilltops radioing in troop movements. Today, I contend that it also means information warriors. Modern militaries treat the information environment as a domain where decisive effects can be attained.
        We are all too well aware that in Gaza, the battle is also fought in newsrooms, on satellite feeds, and across social media. No single outlet has played a more pivotal role in shaping the global perception of the battlefield narrative than Al Jazeera. This is not independent journalism. It is state-directed strategic communication, explicitly designed to influence the conduct of hostilities.
        Oh boy, has it worked. The role of Al Jazeera's coverage has been decisive. They have had a critical role in bringing international pressure by saturating global audiences with emotive, selective imagery. By shaping global perception, Al Jazeera has increased the political cost of decisive action by the IDF, giving Hamas operational breathing space and prolonging the conflict. If that is not "direct participation in hostilities" under the Law of Armed Conflict, then nothing is.
        The writer, who served in the British Army in 2005-21, is a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society and a lecturer at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.  (Substack)
  • Who Is Really to Blame for Gazans Going Hungry? - Maj. (ret.) Andrew Fox interviewed by Brendan O'Neill
    Andrew Fox says that the reality on the ground in Gaza bears little resemblance to the Western media narrative. Gazans are indeed going hungry - not thanks to Israel, but mostly due to Hamas's theft of aid and the UN's complicity in this racket.
        O'Neill: What was your sense of the condition people were in?
    Fox: The people I saw were okay, in the sense that they're trying to survive in a warzone. There wasn't anywhere near the sort of Biafran levels of famine that we've been hearing about. Unquestionably, there are pockets of Gaza where people are going genuinely hungry, but the bulk of the people appear to be getting by.
        At the aid-distribution sites managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, "the vast majority of people there are younger males, and they have...a Lord of the Flies kind of situation. There was certainly a free-for-all at the aid site, lots of knives."
        "The women and children came afterwards, in a second wave. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation crew kept back around 5% of the aid, which they released once they'd cleared out all the men. It was really orderly, actually. Very chilled. Everyone knew they were going to get something. Lots of smiles, lots of people really delighted to be getting free food for the first time during the war."
        "There is enough food in Gaza for everyone. There are 3,000 calories per person a day that have gone into Gaza throughout the war, on average. That's more than you or I would need to eat a day to stay healthy. The question then is why are people going hungry? Well, if you look at UN figures, 85% of its trucks transporting aid have been intercepted and didn't make it to their destination. This is a staggering failure on the UN's part....The UN's one job is to distribute this aid in Gaza, and it has catastrophically failed to do so for the past year."
        "What you can't do is create a society in Gaza where there will be no militant groups hostile to Israel....You can keep killing the fighters, you can keep destroying their infrastructure, you can keep taking out their leadership. But as long as there are people in Gaza who hate Israel, there will be militias that are hostile to it."  (Spiked-UK)
  • Hunger in Gaza Has Many Authors, but Israel Isn't One of Them - Marc A. Thiessen
    The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation reports that it has distributed 108 million meals in Gaza since May 26. According to the Israel Defense Forces' Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Israel has facilitated the delivery of 1.9 million tons of international humanitarian aid to Gaza since the start of the war. Far from deliberate starvation in Gaza, Israel is doing something no nation has ever done, or even been expected to do: Feed the population of the aggressor force that attacked it while the war is still going on.
        The normal way to get humanitarian relief to civilians in wartime is allow them to leave the conflict zone as refugees. During the civil war in Syria, more than 4.2 million civilians fled that conflict. But Gaza's neighbors Egypt and Jordan refuse to allow its civilian population to flee. The real reason is that they do not want to import Gaza's problems.
        Of course there is a policy of deliberate starvation in Gaza. It is being carried out by Hamas, which last week released photos of two emaciated Israeli hostages. In Hamas's tunnels, the terrorists have plenty of food. The only ones starving are the hostages. To lay the blame for the situation in Gaza at Israel's feet, rather than on Hamas, requires a stunning level of moral blindness. (Washington Post)
  • Hamas Is Winning the Culture War - Liel Leibovitz
    For weeks, Hamas passed off photographs of people suffering from genetic disorders as evidence of Israeli cruelty; at the same time, it prevented ample aid supplies from reaching those very people by hijacking more than 90% of UN aid trucks, selling family aid packages - which enter Gaza for free - at insane markups. What's new is how avidly European presidents, editors, intellectuals, and activists are going along for the ride, parroting the Hamas propaganda line like toddlers.
        In pictures from actual famines, you see skeletal mothers along with skeletal babies. Not in Gaza, though. That's because the point of the photographs was to provide onlookers with a fig leaf of an excuse to embrace the narrative of a terrorist organization whose aims are, in fact, openly genocidal.
        How is a terror group that livestreamed hundreds of gruesome snuff films and posted them on YouTube ascendant, supported by the leaders of Europe, the Pope, and the editors and writers of nearly every newspaper and magazine and broadcast network on the planet?
        Israel is not fighting against Hamas, a small and malicious terror group tyrannically oppressing its own population. Israel is at war with the Palestinian people, who have adopted the political program of replacing the Jewish nation-state of Israel.
        We know this from the accounts of hostages who were held by civilians as slaves, while small children and elderly women alike mocked them. We know this from the accounts of Oct. 7, showing that the ghouls who entered Israel to pillage, murder, and rape included ordinary Gazans who relished the opportunity to afflict pain and suffering on the Jews next door. (Tablet)


    • Recognizing a Palestinian State

  • What Will the "State of Palestine" Look Like? - Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch
    As the French, British, Canadians, and Australians rush to recognize the "State of Palestine," what would it look like? Based on the experience to date, the "State of Palestine" would most likely be another dictatorship.
        In the Oslo Accords, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) committed to establishing a liberal democracy. In practice, in thirty years, the PA has only ever held two elections for the position of chairman (1996 and 2005) and two elections for the parliament (1996 and 2006). The 2006 parliamentary elections ended with a landslide victory for Hamas, the genocidal terrorist organization that executed the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.
        Over the last 30 years, the international community has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to promote human rights in the PA, yet it is unclear what exactly has been achieved. Between 2007 and 2023, the EU donated 1.81 billion euros to promote "gender equality" - yet women in the PA still face institutionalized discrimination. Perpetrators of "honor killings," in which a male kills his female relative based on a suspicion of impropriety, are still prevalent.
        The "State of Palestine" will also inevitably become an economic train wreck. For the last 30 years, the PA has existed on handouts from the international community. Domestic tax revenue accounted for only 22% of the PA's total revenue. The Palestinian economy is almost entirely dependent on trade with Israel; 85-90% of PA exports are sold to Israel. The PA never developed its domestic economy, and the Palestinian workforce was heavily dependent on working in Israel.
        The writer, former director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria, is director of the Palestinian Authority Accountability Initiative at the Jerusalem Center. (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)


    • Israel and the West

  • Israelis Refuse to Show Remorse for Enemies Who Slaughtered Them - Josh Feldman
    The New Yorker recently published a 10,000-word tour of Israeli indifference to Palestinian suffering. David Remnick tells us that Israelis are mourning their own dead but showing little interest in those dying just over the fence. His premise is that Israelis aren't morally serious. Israelis can't empathize with the other. Israelis are in denial. But what's actually grotesque is that Remnick never pauses to ask why, in this moment, might Israelis be so indifferent to the suffering of Gazan civilians?
        So let me offer the answer Remnick won't: Israelis are "indifferent" to Gazan suffering because Gazans kidnapped their children and dragged them into tunnels. Gazans murdered families in their pajamas. Gazans raped women, mowed down party-goers, and live-streamed it. Gazans celebrated it. Then Gazans held a gun to the heads of 250 hostages and dared Israel to come get them. Israelis refuse to show remorse for enemies who slaughtered them.
        The bulk of prestigious Western media outlets are framing this war as: Israelis are doing it wrong. They're too right-wing. Too militarized. Too Jewish. According to the logic of the New York Times and the Guardian, it's only fair to expect, even demand, that Israelis show the same care for children in Gaza that they have for their own. But do Palestinians owe Israelis anything in return? Don't be absurd.
        Remnick never actually talks to the people he's pathologizing: average Israelis who have sons fighting in Gaza, daughters mourning their dead husbands, and 21-year-olds who spent months in captivity in Gaza's terror dungeons. Remnick isn't trying to understand Israeli society. He's trying to shame it. He's writing for the New Yorker reader who believes that all suffering is created equal, except when it's Jewish. Noticing Palestinian pain is a sign of moral refinement, yet noticing Jewish trauma is provincial.
        It's a denial of the deeply rational fear driving Israeli behavior today. For many Israelis, it's about surviving a genocidal enemy while the world asks you to apologize for fighting back. (Jewish Chronicle-UK)
  • Palestine Action Activists Are Nothing Like the Suffragettes - Brendan O'Neill
    Palestine Action and its cheerleaders always look so smugly satisfied with themselves - they think they're the new Suffragettes - the women who rose up for the right to vote. They really think their violent, childish rage against the Jewish state puts them on a par with those valiant ladies who fought for the voting franchise for their sex.
        They are drunk on self-delusion. Someone needs to tell them - where those women were the great expanders of democracy, you are its enemies. Everyone needs to stop with this nonsense. It is a grotesque insult to all the women who helped to make Britain a freer, fairer nation to liken them with the irritants and narcissists of Palestine Action.
        The difference between these two movements is glaring. The Suffragettes took direct action because they were brutally locked out of the democratic realm. In contrast, Palestine Action and their noisy cheerleaders enjoy every democratic right - the right to vote, to speak, to march. And yet still they choose, to the vexation of decent Brits, to carry out their dumb stunts.
        Palestine Action is so consumed by disdain for the democratic process that they prefer wrecking RAF planes or splashing red paint on "evil" businesses to the far harder task of free, civil engagement. Their activism is profoundly anti-democratic.
        The Suffragettes hit the streets to make their own country a better place. Palestine Action obsesses like crazy over a tiny country 3,000 miles away which they are convinced is the embodiment of evil. Their every waking moment is consumed by hateful thoughts for the world's only Jewish state. (Telegraph-UK)
  • Anti-Israel Sentiments Soften when Confronted with Facts - Irwin J. Mansdorf
    Is every anti-Israel slogan an expression of antisemitism? Recent attitudinal research has found that a sizable slice of anti-Israel sentiment softens once reliable information is introduced. Another slice does not budge. The difference between those two groups tells us much about prejudice, persuasion, and the power of peer culture.
        A significant minority of Americans (especially younger ones) express anti-Israel positions and support for a Palestinian state. In today's social climate, identity and solidarity often drive political expression; online networks reward conformity; and many respondents admit they have "no opinion" until a survey forces a choice. In other words, some people aren't hostile; they're unprepared.
        In multiple surveys, when respondents were given concrete information - about incentives for terror, about the denial of Jewish history and rights, about the real-world implications of slogans - stated support for maximalist anti-Israel positions dropped, sometimes by double digits.
        One study saw support for a Palestinian state fall by 24 percentage points after clarifying what kind of state was being imagined. Another found that 67.8% of students shifted their view of "from the river to the sea" once they learned what the phrase means in practice.
        Roughly 1/5 of respondents remain committed even after factual correction. They tend to display confirmation bias: when evidence contradicts their prior views, they double down. We are no longer in the realm of idealism. We are staring at ideological antisemitism.
        If a third of respondents are "don't know" and another large tranche is swayed by clear information, then the public square isn't a battlefield of entrenched enemies - it's a noisy classroom with too few teachers. The antidote is not more shouting; it's structured exposure to facts that make evasions uncomfortable.
        The writer is a clinical psychologist and a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs specializing in political psychology.  (Times of Israel)
  • Western Media Is Helping Hamas Win the Information War - Catherine Perez-Shakdam
    In Gaza, truth was methodically suffocated by a terror regime that understood the power of images and the vanity of Western press culture. For nearly two years, much of the global media served as the willing mouthpiece of Hamas's grotesque narrative. Hamas waged an information war - and Western media helped it win.
        While Hamas rocketed Israeli civilians from schoolyards and hospitals, while its foot soldiers hoarded aid and filmed hostages as trophies of war, foreign journalists turned their cameras toward outright manufactured imagery. They almost universally reported casualty numbers sourced exclusively from Hamas's Gaza Health Ministry with no interest in truth and every interest in manipulation. When every casualty figure is taken at face value but every Israeli claim is treated as suspect, the scales of journalistic ethics are not merely unbalanced; they are weaponized.
        The press prides itself on being the watchdog of power. But in Gaza, it became the lapdog of tyranny. Journalists too often chose the narrative that would secure them praise on social media, not the truth that would cost them access. The consequence has not only been the distortion of public understanding - it has been the legitimization of Hamas's genocidal agenda. The press has created a theater of victimhood in which Hamas plays the hero and Israel the villain. This war has revealed that the free press, when faced with Islamist authoritarianism, is not free at all.
        The writer, executive director at the Forum for Foreign Relations, is an associate scholar at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.  (Daily Express-UK)
Observations:

Netanyahu: Israel Has No Choice but to Finish the Job and Complete the Defeat of Hamas (Prime Minister's Office)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a press conference for the foreign press on Sunday:
  • "Hamas still has thousands of armed terrorists in Gaza. It vows to repeat the Oct. 7 massacre and to do so again and again. It openly professes its goal to destroy the State of Israel....It's instructive that now, many Gazans are fighting back. They are begging us, and they're begging the world: 'Free us and free Gaza from Hamas.'"
  • "No nation can accept a genocidal terrorist organization committed to its annihilation [to remain] a stone's throw [away] from its citizens....Gaza will be demilitarized. Israel will have overriding security responsibility. A security zone will be established on Gaza's border with Israel to prevent future terrorist incursions. A civilian administration will be established in Gaza that will seek to live in peace with Israel."
  • "Given Hamas's refusal to lay down its arms, Israel has no choice but to finish the job and complete the defeat of Hamas....We have about 70-75% of Gaza under Israeli military control....Israel's Security Cabinet instructed the IDF to dismantle the two remaining Hamas strongholds in Gaza City and the Central Camps....This is the best way to end the war, and the best way to end it speedily."
  • " We will do so by first enabling the civilian population to safely leave the combat areas to designated safe zones. In these safe zones they will be given ample food, water and medical care, as we have done before."
    See also Netanyahu: "I Am Determined to End the War with Our Victory, as Quickly as Possible" - Itamar Eichner (Ynet News)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a press conference for the Israeli press on Sunday:
  • "We cannot look our children in the eyes and leave the perpetrators of the [Oct. 7] massacre beyond the fence, just meters from our communities. The test is decisive - our willpower to destroy those who seek our lives versus their willpower to destroy us. I am determined to end the war with our victory, as quickly as possible, and therefore I instructed the IDF to shorten the timetable for taking control of Gaza City."
  • "I hear the talk in the [TV] studios aimed at weakening our resolve. They say there is no choice and we must surrender to Hamas, and I say: we must defeat Hamas."
  • Netanyahu read a note from the wife of a reservist soldier, written on behalf of his battalion: "We are very strong in order to win. There is no weakness; we have motivation and we have capability - give us the numbers, the reserves, to achieve victory."
Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs
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