Why did the hostage deals end?

The New Neo Posted on by

I can only guess at an answer to that question, but I think it’s not just as simple as “Hamas broke the agreement and Israel got fed up.” Those things are true, but I’ve noticed a few more that might be playing into the decision.

One is the Hamas announcement – perhaps true, perhaps false – that the two Bibas children and their mother died while in captivity. One of those children was the youngest hostage of all, a ten-month-old baby, and the other was (is?) all of four. Israel has also confirmed the deaths of four other hostages while in captivity:

The kibbutz named them as Aryeh Zalmanovich, 85, the oldest of the 240 people kidnapped by Hamas, Maya Goren, 56, a legendary kindergarten teacher in the community, and Ronen Engel, 54, whose wife and two daughters were returned to Israel earlier this week after being abducted alongside him.

The Israel Defense Forces later confirmed their deaths, along with that of fellow Nir Oz resident Eliyahu Margalit, 75, whose daughter was released from Hamas captivity on Thursday.

Another death in captivity was this one. And a suspected hostage death is also this. Israel is mum so far on how these deaths have been “confirmed.” It could be through intelligence obtained from Gazan sources, or it could be through reports from the released hostages. We simply don’t know. Nor do we know how they died – although Hamas will of course claim Israeli airstrikes, their all-purpose excuse.

There was also this curious statement from a Hamas leader:

They don’t know the number; the number is not important, according to this vile person. That can be interpreted in quite a few ways, but one that occurs to me is that more of the hostages have died in captivity and Hamas doesn’t want to disclose that fact, or how many, because it would harden Israel’s resolve still further, and might even cause Biden/Blinken to support that hardening. Dead hostages are still worth something to Hamas – Israel and the families want the remains in order to properly bury them, and Hamas can keep trying to claim that the hostages were actually killed by Israel. But there is no question in my mind that living hostages are much more valuable to Hamas.

However, if a significant number of hostages have already died, that could be one of the reasons Hamas violated the terms of the deal: they may have wanted the deal to end, rather than explain they couldn’t hand over these particular living hostages because they are actually no longer alive. Hamas may have decided they’ve milked what they can from the deals. And Israel may know more about this than it’s letting on – although the additional deaths can’t be confirmed, they may be suspected, in part based on the testimony of the returned hostages.

NOTE: One thing that’s been clear for quite some time, though, is that the hostages are not being kept in a centralized place, and that they’re not even all being held by Hamas. The numbers do matter, but they are Israeli guesswork to a certain extent.

Soros and Israel

The New Neo Posted on by

By Dershowitz:

Musk has been falsely accused of antisemitism because of his criticism and mockery of George Soros. …

Soros is Jewish by heritage. Musk is not. But their religious backgrounds should play no role in evaluating the charges and counter-charges. The facts and history of both men should be evaluated. …

No single person has done more to damage Israel’s standing in the world, and especially among so-called progressives, than George Soros. Without his support, the two major organizations that have done the most to shift the left-wing paradigm against Israel, would not have the pernicious influence they currently possess.

Human Rights Watch was founded by publisher and human rights advocate Robert Bernstein. For years it critiqued the denial of human rights by all countries based on two criteria: the seriousness of the human rights violations in any particular nation; and the inability of the citizens of that nation to protest and remedy such violations. Then a Soros-funded radical anti-Israel zealot named Kenneth Roth took over the organization and turned it into an organization that specialized in demonizing Israel without regard to the previously outlined criteria. The Israel bashing became so one-sided and extreme that Bernstein wrote:

“As the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.”

Soros gave the organization a hundred million dollars as well.

The other organization is J Street; Dershowitz also describes Soros’ contribution there.

The idea that any criticism of Soros is anti-Semitic is absurd – but useful to the left – and it’s an old topic that I discussed at some length in a two-parter back in 2018. Part I is here and Part II is here.

I wrote in Part I:

Remember when every type of criticism of Obama was called racist? Of course it wasn’t actually racist if you were criticizing his behavior. You were criticizing the man and the president, Barack Obama, not his race.

Same with Soros and being a Jew. With Soros there’s also the fact that, that although he was born a Jew by the Nazis’ definition — in other words, he was born in Hungary to parents of Jewish ancestry — he was never given any instruction in Judaism and his parents had actually repudiated Judaism. They weren’t just non-practicing Jews (although they were indeed that), they were actually anti-Jewish, according to Soros himself, who said that he “grew up in a Jewish, anti-Semitic home,” and called his parents “uncomfortable with their religious roots.”

So Soros’ heritage could more properly be called anti-Semitism. It is absolutely possible for people of Jewish heritage to be anti-Jewish. In fact, given the prevalence and longevity of anti-Semitism, being of Jewish origin and yet trying to give out the message “I’m not one of those Jews, and I’ll prove it by hating them and working against them” is actually not all that unusual.

However, Soros was not a Nazi collaborator, although that’s a favorite accusation against him on the right (see this post of mine on that).

I’m very much in agreement with Dershowitz on Soros.

NOTE: In addition, in 2022 I wrote this post entitled, “It occurs to me that Elon Musk is somewhat the anti-Soros.” This was prior to any dust-up between them.

Fetterman has been something of a loose cannon for the Democrats lately

The New Neo Posted on by

Interesting:

Fetterman has found himself on the opposite side of the Democratic Party numerous times over the last few months. Most controversial has been his outspoken support of Israel, and that has included trolling pro-Hamas protesters, a move that enraged the far-left.

It’s not just his support for Israel that’s causing waves, though. Recently, Fetterman has slammed Gavin Newsom, spoken against Joe Biden’s policy toward Iran, and called for Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez to resign following his indictment for bribery. …

“We have a colleague in the Senate that’s actually done much more sinister kinds of things [than Santos]. He needs to go. If you are going to expel Santos, how can you allow Menendez to remain in the Senate? Menendez is really a Senator for Egypt, not New Jersey.”

I wonder whether any of this will translate into Senate votes that go against the dictates of his own party.

I’m not surprised that Fetterman is at least somewhat of an individualistic rebel who goes his own way, and I’m not surprised that he’s being fairly blunt about it, either. I’m just surprised at the direction “his own way” has taken so far. I’m going to assume the Democrats’ leadership is somewhat surprised, too.

More shocking details on Israel’s intelligence failures prior to October 7

The New Neo Posted on by

I wrote a post about the topic yesterday. That post described a situation that was bad enough and shocking enough in terms of the Israeli failure to heed detailed and fact-based warnings of the imminence of a large-scale Hamas attack, warnings which were dismissed as “fantasy” by the higher-ups.

But this Caroline Glick article reveals that the situation was even worse than that:

The Field Observers unit at Nahal Oz base suffered the greatest losses there during Hamas’s assault. The unit, comprising female soldiers, is responsible for monitoring the footage from security cameras along the Gaza border around the clock and alerting forces on the ground and in the intelligence community to anything suspicious.

Seventeen observers were killed on Oct. 7. Seven were taken hostage. One, Naama Levy, was videoed barefoot, being dragged from the trunk of a vehicle by her hair and pushed into the back seat. Her hands were zip-tied behind her back. The seat of her sweatpants was stained with blood, indicating she had been raped violently. …

Days after their friends were slaughtered, raped and kidnapped, the two surviving members of the unit and a number of former members started coming forward to tell their story. In interviews with Channel 11, two women related that in the months before the invasion, they were warning it was in the works. The women saw Hamas terrorists training to take over kibbutzim and IDF bases. They watched terrorists practicing taking hostages and blowing up tanks. They saw terror commanders watching the drills. They saw spies probing the fence for weaknesses. They saw it all and reported it all.

So it was the same group who had reported the terrorist buildup and been ignored, that bore the brunt of Hamas violence.

More:

Rather than giving them medals, unnamed top-level officers in the intelligence corps ordered them to stop. When they continued reporting, the observers were warned that they would be disciplined and removed from the unit if they kept raising their concerns.

There’s also more in the Glick article on the information provided by the NCO mentioned in yesterday’s post of mine [emphasis mine]:

In a series of three, increasingly detailed and urgent reports over succeeding months, the NCO set out in granular detail how Hamas was preparing a broad invasion of Israel that included the invasion of IDF bases, border towns and kibbutzim. Her reports included all aspects of the invasion that took place on Oct. 7, including Hamas’s use of paragliders, pick-up trucks and motorcycles. She detailed Hamas’s plans to massacre and kidnap civilians and soldiers. She warned that their intention was to use provocations along the security fence in the weeks leading up to the operation

Some of this was relayed to Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Directorate Chief Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, who dismissed it.

This is incompetence on a massive scale. And “incompetence” is really too mild a word for it.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Hamas once again demonstrates that it is evil. As though any more demonstration were necessary.

(2) Expelling Santos would only benefit Democrats. So why are Republicans about to do it?

(3) Yes, the stabber of several children and adults in Ireland was ineed someone of Algerian ethnicity who came to Ireland twenty years ago, was almost deported initially in 2003, and has been on welfare the entire time. But shhhh! You’re not supposed to say it in Ireland, because people might end up “connecting crime with migration” – even if it’s the truth. Maybe especially if it’s the truth.

(4) Hamas commits a terrorist shooting that kills three at a bus top near Jerusalem. This was during the supposed “pause” in violence between Israel and Hamas. Not only that, but Hamas also fired some rockets into Israel and failed to provide a hostage list for the day as promised. So it’s war on again, according to Israel.

(5) Blinken tried to tell the Israelis that they don’t “have the credit” to continue the war until Hamas is dismantled. Netanyahu replied, “We have sworn, I have sworn, to eliminate Hamas. Nothing will stop us.”

(6) DeSantis and Newsom had a debate. I didn’t watch. Did you?

(7) “Decolonization” studies have taken hold at Georgetown’s influential Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS), with predictable results for foreign policy.

Why have so many people lost their moral compass?

The New Neo Posted on by

Victor Davis Hanson wonders:

Why then would millions ally themselves with this odious reincarnation of the SS?

Are they ignorant of the history of the Middle East?

Are they arrogant since few challenge their hate and threats?

Are they opportunists who feel mouthing anti-Western shibboleths gains them career traction in leftist-run media, academia and popular culture?

Are they bullies who count on the Western silent majority remaining quiet as they disrupt lives, trash Western tolerant culture and commit violence?

Like Hamas that they support, do they despise Jews? Why else do they express an existential hatred toward Israelis that they never display to any other group?

My answers:

Yes, to all. And as far as history goes, they are especially ignorant of the history of the Middle East, but it doesn’t stop there. They are not merely ignorant of the history; what information they do have is untrue, the gaps having been filled in by Hamas and leftist propaganda, as well as their “progressive” teachers. Many also get their history from Israel-haters at TikTok.

And why limit their ignorance of history to the history of the Middle East? They are ignorant of much of history; probably most of history.

But they are very sure about a few things that they have been taught, often for years and in many ways: that first-world nations such as the US and Israel are exploitative colonializers who deserve anything they get at the hands of the third-world people they’ve wronged. For this purpose, history hardly even matters. It’s a question of haves (Israel) and have-nots (Palestinians). Forget why some countries might be doing better than others – and anyway, meritocracies are bad white-privilege sorts of things that must be eradicated as well.

Once you accept the definitions, the rest follows. Just as black people cannot be guilty of racism because “powerless” people cannot be racists, and just as crimes committed by black people are explained as a reaction to being exploited, Palestinians by definition cannot be guilty. Everything they do is a result of exploitation by others more “privileged.” And even if the privileged end up looking like victims – murdered, raped, tortured – they are not, because they cannot be. They can only be oppressors.

This is the new morality. These things have been taught young people (and even middle-aged people) for years, and then spread around through word of mouth and social media. Thinking otherwise makes one a pariah. If you’re a caring individual, you side with Hamas and “understand the desperation that drove them to it,” as someone I know recently said to me. The extremity of the barbaric violence is a mark of the intensity of their desperation, not the sign of a bankrupt and amoral culture steeped in hatred. And the depth of the young peoples’ understanding of this third-world desperation is the mark of their own virtue.

A personal note: yes, all of this depresses me and is destructive, nonsensical madness.

The Israeli intelligence failure prior to October 7

The New Neo Posted on by

We already know that one reason for Israel’s intelligence failure on October 7th was its over-reliance on technological intelligence and its abandonment of old-fashioned human intelligence. Another reason was that for at least two years, Hamas successfully pretended to be less interested in terrorism and more interested in economic advancement. This was something the Israelis wished to believe, and Hamas capitalized on it while secretly using intelligence gathered by the Gazan workers to whom Israel gave permits.

But there was also this on Israel’s part:

According to assessments based on the intelligence gathered prior to October 7 and indications of Hamas exercises near the border, the most severe scenario likely to occur was the infiltration of Hamas operatives for a lone attack on the border – yet this was defined as having a low probability. Military Intelligence estimated that most likely these were routine exercises by the terrorist organization’s military wing, similar to the months preceding the attack.

Security officials privy to the details of the intelligence emphasized that in no way was there mention of a strategic alert for war, a widespread offensive on multiple fronts, or an intention to penetrate multiple settlements simultaneously.

Others, however, beg to differ:

In the weeks following October 7, several reports have attested that senior IDF officials, including those from 8200, ignored warnings from subordinates regarding suspicious activity along the Gaza border.

A report published by Channel 12 last Thursday alleged that soldiers in the unit warned that Hamas was preparing a highly organized and meticulously planned mass invasion of Israel. In response, the soldiers were told that their concerns were a “fantasy.”

A non-commissioned officer in Unit 8200 put together a report from an array of raw intelligence data detailing a scenario that essentially predicted the October 7 invasion, Channel 12 said.

She, together with a junior officer, also pointed to a Hamas drill a month before the Hamas attack, noting that it included preparations for a mass invasion with multiple entry points into Israel.

The two presented their concerns to a senior IDF officer — although not one from 8200 — who dismissed their warnings as “fantasies” and failed to act on the information, Channel 12 said.

Backing up the claims published by Channel 12, Kan added that the non-commissioned officer warned that the Hamas drill included the use of vehicles to carry out the attack and that the terrorists practiced taking over Israeli towns.

The NCO also warned that the assault Hamas was planning was on such a large scale that it could spark an all-out war in the region …

Sounds pretty massive to me, and pretty accurate. But when people have a certain mindset and want to believe something – in this case, that Hamas had softened its hatred of Israel and its desire to obliterate Israel – it’s hard to let in contrary information, especially of such an alarmist nature. This turned out to be a very fatal error.

More:

Multiple reports in recent days reveal that Israel was aware that Hamas had built mock Israeli communities to train for a major assault, even ending one massive drill with the words “We have completed the killing of everyone on the kibbutz,” but intelligence warnings were largely dismissed as “fantasy.”

A BBC investigation published Tuesday found that Hamas had been training for the mission for nearly three years and had published multiple explicit images and videos on social media.

More at the link, but the most telling quote is this, which I think illustrates the mindset of the higher-ups:

“This scenario of the exercise described by the NCO is a complete fantasy. We need to differentiate between what [Hamas] is doing for bravado and show, and what is real,” he wrote.

The woman responded that it was not a fantasy, and that Hamas had the capability:

“They are preparing, with great forces, for a large event. This isn’t just a demonstration of abilities, this is a preparation for the real thing,” she concluded.

If she hadn’t been a woman, would her warning have been taken more seriously? I don’t know, but I think it’s at least a possibility.

I cannot even imagine the anger she – and the others who gave the warnings – must feel today.

NOTE: Here’s an in-depth discussion of the intelligence challenges and failures:

Jack Smith went fishing

The New Neo Posted on by

And cast a very wide net:

Special Counsel Jack Smith hunted information on X users who liked or retweeted posts published by former President Donald Trump, according to redacted search warrants and other documents released Monday. …

it wasn’t just Trump’s Twitter account that Smith and his cronies were targeting. The special counsel’s warrant also sought data on Twitter users who interacted with the former president’s account. Among the information Smith sought was a list of every user Trump “followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked, or unblocked” during the aforementioned timeframe. Smith similarly demanded that Twitter, which has since rebranded as X, fork over a list of users who took any of the same actions with Trump’s account.

Smith and his team went even further, seeking to acquire data on Twitter users who engaged with Trump’s tweets in the months leading up to Jan. 6, 2021. This included “all lists of Twitter users who have favorited or retweeted tweets posted by [Trump], as well as all tweets that include the username associated with [Trump’s account] (i.e. ‘mentions’ or ‘replies’).”

Out of control. And half the country probably approves.

Henry Kissinger dead at 100: RIP

The New Neo Posted on by

What can you say about Henry Kissinger? A ton.

I won’t attempt to do that. Most readers here probably know quite a bit about the policies he advocated and implemented: detente, Realpolitik, rapprochement with China. He was a titanic figure in the middle part of the 20th Century, and his influence has been enormous. He was also more well-known than most people who have occupied his position, hated by many and admired by some.

Here are some interesting facts I hadn’t known before about Kissinger:

(1) His undergraduate thesis at Harvard was so long – over 400 pages – that it caused the school to set a length limit in the future.

(2) He originally thought very little of Nixon, but later they became quite close.

(3) After the fall of Saigon, he tried to return the Nobel Peace Prize he’d been given.

(4) At the age of 58 he had bypass surgery. And yet he lived to 100. The latter fact probably was related to his parents’ longevity: his mother lived to around 97 and his father to 95.

(5) Many people think Kissinger was the model for Dr. Strangelove, but he was not:

The [Dr. Strangelove] character is an amalgamation of RAND Corporation strategist Herman Kahn, rocket scientist Wernher von Braun (a central figure in Nazi Germany’s rocket development program recruited to the US after the war), and Edward Teller, the “father of the hydrogen bomb”. It is frequently claimed the character was based on Henry Kissinger, but Kubrick and Sellers denied this; Sellers said: “Strangelove was never modeled after Kissinger — that’s a popular misconception. It was always Wernher von Braun.” Furthermore, Henry Kissinger points out in his memoirs that at the time of the writing of Dr. Strangelove, he was a little-known academic.

(6) Kissinger seems to have been alert and in possession of his mental faculties to the end. For example:

In response to the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel and outbreak of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, Kissinger said that the goals of Hamas “can only be to mobilize the Arab world against Israel and to get off the track of peaceful negotiations,” and issued a statement denouncing Muslim immigration into Germany in response to celebrations of the attack by some Arabs in Germany. “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that,” Kissinger declared.

As for my own opinion on Kissinger, I think I take a middle position that pretty much agrees with this:

Ferguson states that accusing Kissinger alone of war crimes “requires a double standard” because “nearly all the secretaries of state … and nearly all the presidents” have taken similar actions. … He made life-­and-death decisions that affected millions, entailing many messy moral compromises. Had it not been for the tough decisions Nixon, Ford, and Kissinger made, the United States might not have withstood the damage caused by [Jimmy] Carter’s bouts of moralistic ineptitude; nor would Ronald Reagan have had the luxury of his successfully executed Wilsonianism. Henry Kissinger’s classical realism — as expressed in both his books and his statecraft — is emotionally unsatisfying but analytically timeless.”

RIP.