Protesters Regret ‘From the River to the Sea’ Chant Upon Learning Meaning – Newsweek

A new survey found many potential protesters couldn’t explain the meaning behind the controversial phrase. UC Berkeley professor Ron Hassner hired a survey firm to poll 250 college students from across the country, and a majority, or roughly 86 percent, said they supported the phrase, a common protest chant to express support for Palestinians in the ongoing conflict against Israel.

Still, only 47 percent could name the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, which historically encompassed Palestine and today includes both Israel and Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

And even more surprising, once students learned more about the region, 67.8 percent of those surveyed no longer agreed with the sentiment.

Read more: Protesters Regret ‘From the River to the Sea’ Chant Upon Learning Meaning (newsweek.com)

Why Iran is the common link in conflicts from Gaza to Pakistan — NYT

By Cassandra Vinograd

Published Jan. 18, 2024

Updated Jan. 19, 2024, 9:33 a.m. ET

Israel and Gaza. Yemen and the Red Sea. Lebanon, Syria, Iraq — and now Pakistan, too.

At every flashpoint in a set of conflicts spanning 1,800 miles and involving a hodgepodge of unpredictable armed actors and interests, there’s been a common thread: Iran. Tehran has left its imprint with its behind-the-scenes backing of combatants in places like Lebanon and Yemen, and with this week’s direct missile strikes on targets in Iraq, Syria and Pakistan.

The Iran connection stems partly from Iran’s decades-long efforts to deter threats and undermine foes by building up like-minded militias across the Middle East.

In addition, Iran itself, like neighboring countries, faces armed separatist movements and terrorist groups in conflicts that readily spill over borders.

But what does Pakistan have to do with Gaza? Here’s a look at how Iran ties together recent tensions.

What’s the back story here?

Ever since the 1979 revolution that made Iran a Shiite Muslim theocracy, it has been isolated and has seen itself as besieged.

Iran considers the United States and Israel to be its biggest enemies — for more than four decades its leaders have vowed to destroy Israel. It also wants to establish itself as the most powerful nation in the Persian Gulf region, where its chief rival is Saudi Arabia, an American ally, and has often had hostile relations with the Saudis and some other predominantly Sunni Muslim Arab neighbors.

With few other allies, Iran has long armed, trained, financed, advised and even directed several movements that share Iran’s enemies. Though Iranian forces have been involved directly in wars in Syria and Iraq, Tehran has mostly fought its enemies abroad by proxy.

Iran, which calls itself and these militias the “Axis of Resistance” to American and Israeli power, sees it all as “part of a single struggle,” said Hasan Alhasan, a senior fellow for Middle East Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a policy analysis group.

Iranian leaders call their approach a forward defense strategy, saying that to defend itself, the country must take action outside its borders.

“If they are to avoid fighting the Americans and Israelis on Iran’s soil, they’ll have to do it elsewhere,” Mr. Alhasan said. “And that’s in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Afghanistan.”

How well the strategy works is open to question. Terrorist groups have attacked recently on Iranian soil. And for years Israel has carried out targeted attacks on Iran’s nuclear program, killing some of its key figures and destroying facilities.

Why does Iran outsource its conflicts?

While Iran wants to project its power and influence, it is reluctant to directly engage the United States or its allies, courting major retaliation or all-out war.

How secure Iran’s leaders feel in their grip on power is unclear. But they know that decades of sanctions and embargoes have degraded Iran’s military forces and its economy, and that their repressive government faces intense domestic opposition.

Iran has hoped to compensate for its vulnerabilities by raising the prospect that it could develop nuclear weapons — which would put it on par with Pakistan and Israel, and ahead of Saudi Arabia.

Iran maintains that its nuclear program has only peaceful purposes, and Tehran has carefully kept the uranium it produces just below the threshold for bomb-grade fuel, which is considered the red line that could trigger military action against its underground nuclear complexes.

Investing in proxy forces — fellow Shiites in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, and the Sunni Hamas in the Gaza Strip — allows Iran to cause trouble for its enemies, and to raise the prospect of causing more if attacked.

“Proxy forces have allowed Iran to maintain some level of plausible deniability, while asymmetrically supplying Tehran with a means to effectively strike Israel or apply pressure to it,” the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point wrote in a December report.

Iranian officials have publicly denied being involved in or ordering Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people. But they also praised the assault as a momentous achievement, and warned that their regional network would open multiple fronts against Israel if the country kept up its retaliatory war against Hamas in Gaza.

Some of those proxies have, in fact, stepped up attacks on Israel, but have avoided full-fledged warfare.

People waving yellow-and-green Hezbollah banners watch the group’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, deliver a speech on a giant video screen.

Who are these proxies for Iran?

Hezbollah in Lebanon, widely considered to be the most powerful and sophisticated of the Iran-allied forces, was founded in the 1980s with Iranian assistance, specifically to fight the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. The group, which is also a political party in Lebanon, has fought multiple wars and border skirmishes with Israel.

Hezbollah has been trading fire across the border with Israel’s military almost daily since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks, but it has thus far refrained from fully joining the fight.

The Houthi movement in Yemen launched an insurgency against the government two decades ago. What was once a ragtag rebel force gained power thanks at least in part to covert military aid from Iran, according to American and Middle Eastern officials and analysts.

The Houthis seized much of the country in 2014 and 2015, and a Saudi-led coalition stepped into the civil war on the side of the Yemeni government. A de facto cease-fire has held since 2022, with the Houthis still in control of Yemen’s northwest and its capital, Sana.

Since the war in Gaza began, the Houthis have waged what they call a campaign in solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli bombardment. They have launched missiles and drones at Israel, and have disrupted a significant part of the world’s shipping by attacking dozens of vessels heading to or from the Suez Canal.

That has transformed the Houthis into a force with a global impact, and prompted the United States and Britain, with help from allies, to carry out missile strikes on Houthi targets inside Yemen.

Hamas, in the Palestinian territories, has also received weapons and training from Iran, and has fought repeated wars with Israel.

Why did Iran strike directly, not through allies, in Iraq, Syria and Pakistan?

It has a lot to do with the government’s problems at home.

As tensions rise across the region, Tehran has increasingly become a target.

Last month, a separatist group attacked a police station in southeastern Iran, killing 11 people. Two senior Iranian commanders were assassinated in Syria, and Iran blamed Israel.

Then this month, suicide bombings in Kerman, Iran, killed almost 100 people — the deadliest terrorist attacks since the Islamic Republic was founded. The Islamic State claimed responsibility.

Iran analysts, and Iranians close to the military, say the government wanted to make a show of force with an eye to the hard-liners who make up its base of support, and were already incensed at Israeli attacks. Iran went on the offensive.

It said this week that it had fired missiles at the Islamic State in Syria, and at what it said was an Israeli base for intelligence gathering in northern Iraq. (The Iraqi government denied that the building struck was tied to Israel.) It also fired into Pakistan.

“Iran has signalled clearly that it is not willing to deploy those capabilities for anything less than the defence of their homeland,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, a policy group.

What does Pakistan have to do with this? It’s not even in the Middle East.

The separatist group Jaish al-Adl wants to create a homeland for the Baluch ethnic group out of parts of Iran and Pakistan, and it operates on both sides of the border. It also took responsibility for the deadly attack last month on an Iranian police station.

The two countries have accused each other of not doing enough to prevent militants from crossing the border.

Iran said its strikes in Pakistan targeted bases for Jaish al-Adl, but Pakistan pushed back against Iran’s reasoning, citing what it said were civilian casualties. On Thursday, Pakistan responded by bombing what it said were terrorist hide-outs inside Iran.

Pakistan and Iran have had mostly cordial relations, and the frictions between them have little to do with Iran’s other regional conflicts. But Iran’s decision to strike inside Pakistan has the potential to damage its relationship with Pakistan. At a time when the region is already on edge, a miscalculation could be especially dangerous.

Vivian Nereim, Salman Masood and Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.

A correction was made on Jan. 19, 2024: An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to Iran’s nuclear program. Iran has raised the prospect that it could develop nuclear weapons, maintaining that its nuclear program has only peaceful purposes, but it has not developed them.

How we handle corrections

A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 19, 2024, Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Why Iran Is the Common Link in a String of Conflicts, From Gaza to Pakistan. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

The Palestinians hide their true agenda from us: and it’s murderous.

Western civilizations are fooled by the Palestinians because they know if we really understood their true agenda, we would recoil in revulsion. But they are not so cautious when speaking on Arabic media. Lucky for us.

New Rule: From the River to the Sea | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

NZFOI: Modus vivendi

Thanks to Rex Adhar for the referral.

Israel admits shooting three hostages dead in clash with Hamas – Stuff

From left Alon Shamriz, Samer El-Talaqa and Yotam Haim.

NZFOI: Tragic news, indeed.

Israel’s army has said it accidentally shot three hostages dead after “mistakenly” identifying them as a threat.

“During combat in Shejaiya, the IDF mistakenly identified three Israeli hostages as a threat and as a result, fired toward them, and the hostages were killed,” Israel Defence Forces said in a statement.

The victims include Yotam Haim, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, and Samer Talalka, who was taken from Kibbutz Nir Am on October 7. [NZFOI: Jerusalem Post names the third hostage victim as Alon Shamriz].

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More plain speaking: Segregation is not OK

Some really profound statements in his introductory remarks.

My Meeting with Young Progressive Jews – Aish

We have failed to properly educate the next generation about Jewish history, Jewish values, and the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel.

[NZFOI: Thought-provoking. The same could be said by most of us in the Western world! We haven’t taught the next generation about our history, values and what made the freedoms we cherish today, possible.
Where did we get the idea that all people are equal? We didn’t get it from the Greeks or Romans! Where did we get the idea that there should be a rest day in every seven? Where did we get the idea of freedom of speech? Where did we get the idea that slavery was wrong?]

I recently spent an evening conversing with a group of left-wing progressive Jews in Brooklyn who are deeply bothered by what is happening in Gaza. They blame the conflict squarely on Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians. They were open to meeting a rabbi and having a heated exchange of ideas.

They all identify as politically progressive, and as one person told me, “Everyone I know is anti-Zionist.” I gained a number of valuable insights from our encounter which I am still mulling over. Here are a few of the key takeaways.

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Bring them back – Get in behind the Billboard Campaign

A Billboard campaign has been put together to highlight the plight of the hostages.

Politicians instead of exercising leadership, often follow voter sentiment. The Billboard campaign is therefore also a tangible way for our politicians to see that there is a constituency that supports Israel.

Above is an example of what has been put up in Wellington.

Please support this worthy campaign:

If you’re in New Zealand donate to

NZFOI’s BNZ account 02 0820 0569411 00 and put “Billboards” in the “code” field and your initials and surname in the “particulars” field.

If you’re outside NZ make your donation via Paypal below.



If you’d like a tax receipt, please send us your contact details and we’ll match it up to the donation deposit. Once matched, we’ll send you a tax receipt.

NZ Friends of Israel is a registered charity: CC 43880.

Photos of other sites with Billboards in Auckland below:

and

Sheryl Sandberg on accusations against Hamas: ‘Rape should never be used as an act of war’

Accounts of Sexual Violence by Hamas Are Aired Amid Criticism of U.N.

A meeting at the U.N., organized in part by Sheryl Sandberg, accused the body of ignoring the rape and mutilation of women in the Oct. 7 assault on Israel, and heard gruesome details from witnesses.

Sheryl Sandberg, the former Meta executive who, along with Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, was among the event’s primary organizers.Credit…Dave Sanders for The New York Times

Katherine RosmanLisa Lerer
By Katherine Rosman and Lisa Lerer
Published Dec. 4, 2023
Updated Dec. 5, 2023, 12:10 a.m. ET

The body of one woman had “nails and different objects in her female organs.” In another house, a person’s genitals were so mutilated that “we couldn’t identify if it was a man or a woman.”

Simcha Greinman, a volunteer who helped collect the remains of victims of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault on Israel, took long pauses as he spoke those words on Monday at an event at the United Nations.

“Horrific things I saw with my own eyes,” he said, “and I felt with my own hands.”

Shari Mendes, a member of an Israeli military reserve unit tasked with preparing the bodies of fallen female soldiers for burial, said her team saw several who were killed on Oct. 7 “who were shot in the crotch, intimate parts, vagina, or were shot in the breast.” Others had mutilated faces, or multiple gunshots to their heads.

Since the Oct. 7 attack, during which more than 1,200 people were killed and some 240 people were kidnapped, Israeli officials have accused the terrorists of also committing widespread sexual violence — rape and sexual mutilation — particularly against women.

Yet those atrocities have received little scrutiny from human rights groups, or the news media, amid the larger war between Israel and Hamas — and until a few days ago, they had not been specifically mentioned or condemned by UN Women, the United Nations’ women’s rights agency, which has regularly spoken out about the plight of Palestinian women and girls.

Israelis and many Jews around the world say they feel abandoned by an international social justice community — women’s groups, human rights groups, liberal celebrities, among others — whose causes they have supported in crises around the world.

On Monday, some 800 people, including women’s activists and diplomats representing about 40 countries, crowded into a chamber at U.N. headquarters in New York for a presentation laying out the evidence of large-scale sexual violence, with testimony from witnesses like Ms. Mendes and Mr. Greinman.

“Silence is complicity,” Sheryl Sandberg, the former Meta executive, told those assembled. She, along with Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, was among the event’s primary organizers. “On Oct. 7, Hamas brutally murdered 1,200 souls and in some cases, they first raped their victims,” Ms. Sandberg added. “We know this from eyewitnesses, we know this from combat paramedics, we would know this from some victims if more had been allowed to live.”

Hamas has denied that its fighters committed sex crimes, which it said would violate Islamic principles.

But ample evidence has been collected, like the bodies of women found partially or fully naked, women with their pelvic bones broken, the accounts of medical examiners and first responders, videos taken by Hamas fighters themselves, and even a few firsthand witnesses like a woman, in a video made public last month by police officials, who said she had watched Hamas terrorists take turns raping a young woman they had captured at a music festival, mutilate her and then shoot her in the head.

Meni Binyamin, the head of the International Crime Investigations Unit of the Israeli police, said in an interview that it had documented “violent rape incidents, the most extreme sexual abuses we have seen,” on Oct. 7, against women and some men. “I am talking about dozens.”

Israeli officials have not estimated how many women were sexually assaulted or mutilated. They say that overwhelmed forensic scientists had to focus at first on identifying bodies, rather than collecting perishable evidence of rape. Few victims or eyewitnesses survived, and fewer have spoken publicly.

At the United Nations on Monday, Yael Richert, a superintendent with the Israeli police, presented video of witness interviews, including with a paramedic who said, “Shooting was targeted at sexual organs, we saw that a lot.”

Outside, hundreds of protesters accused the United Nations of a double standard when it comes to sexual violence; some chanted, “Me too, unless you are a Jew.”

The United Nations, and UN Women in particular, have become a primary focus — though hardly the only one — of mounting anger for their silence. Secretary General António Guterres immediately condemned the Hamas massacre, but not until late November did he issue a statement that the related sex crimes specifically must be “vigorously investigated and prosecuted.”

Dr. Cochav Elkayam Levy, an Israeli law professor and founder of a commission on Oct. 7 crimes against women and children, said that on Nov. 1, she sent a letter to UN Women, signed by dozens of scholars, calling for an “urgent and unequivocal condemnation of the massacre committed by Hamas,” including the use of rape as a tool of war. “They didn’t even respond,” she said.

Mr. Erdan, the Israeli ambassador, said he sent two letters about the use of rape by Hamas militants, appended with photographs of victims’ bodies, to Sima Sami Bahous, the executive director of UN Women. “I got no response whatsoever,” said Mr. Erdan, “not even, ‘We received your letter.’”

On Nov. 25, UN Women first addressed the issue on social media, saying it was “alarmed by reports of gender-based violence on 7 October,” but the post did not mention Hamas.

In a statement on Monday, UN Women condemned “the abhorrent attacks by Hamas against Israel” and said it had been “closely following reports of brutal acts of gender-based violence against women in Israel since they first came to light.”

The agency added, “We believe a full investigation is essential, so that perpetrators at all sides can be held accountable and justice can be served.”

Last week, a bipartisan group of more than 80 members of Congress released a letter calling the agency’s response “woefully unsatisfactory and consistent with the UN’s longstanding bias against Israel.”

Since the start of the war, UN Women has focused its advocacy on bringing attention and humanitarian relief to girls and women in Gaza, and to push for a cease-fire as Israeli airstrikes resulted in thousands of Palestinian casualties.

Several supporters of Israel in Congress expressed outrage at the silence from international and domestic organizations.

“I’ve been internally raging for about two months,” said Representative Lois Frankel of Florida, who heads the Democratic Women’s Caucus. “There is antisemitism involved and there are some folks who are more interested in portraying the loss of life in Gaza than highlighting the complete inhumanity and viciousness and brutality of Hamas.”

Ms. Frankel plans to introduce a House resolution later this week condemning the use of sexual violence in war and has been pushing for congressional hearings on the topic.

Senator Jacky Rosen, a Democrat from Nevada, called out UN Women for its “failure to immediately and unequivocally stand up for Israeli women.” She said that international organizations “including several on the far left, have chosen to dismiss, downplay or outright deny Hamas’s widespread use of sexual violence and rape against Israeli women on Oct. 7.”

At the United Nations Monday, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, gave an emotional address, speaking of “raw footage” she had been shown that “takes your breath away with the sheer level of evil it depicts.”

“When I saw the list of women’s rights organizations that said nothing, I nearly choked,” Ms. Gillibrand said. “Where is the solidarity for women in this country and in this world to stand up for our mothers, our sisters and our daughters?”

After the event, in the U.N.’s Flag Hall, Ms. Sandberg stood in front of Israel’s white and blue banner, and as she talked about the devastating realization that most of the victims had been killed, her voice began to crack.

“I don’t know how to talk about this and not,” — she paused, taking a deep breath before apologizing. She never finished her sentence.

Reporting was contributed by Jeffrey Gettleman, Adam Sella and Anat Schwartz.

A correction was made on Dec. 4, 2023: An earlier version of this article misstated the home state of Representative Lois Frankel. She represents Florida, not California.

When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at
nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more

Katie Rosman is a reporter for the Metro desk, contributing narratives and profiles about people, events and dynamics in New York City and its outer reaches. More about Katherine Rosman

Lisa Lerer is a national political correspondent, covering campaigns, elections and political power. More about Lisa Lerer

A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 5, 2023, Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Amid Criticism of U.N., Reports of Sexual Violence By Hamas Are Presented.

Three-quarters of Palestinians Support Hamas’ Attack on October 7, Says New Poll. Why? – Haaretz

Since October 7, it has been impossible to truly understand Hamas’ motives and intentions. It can be just as hard to understand Palestinian public opinion right now. After the first few weeks of chaos, two Palestinian polls became available last week – and there is no good way to spin the results.

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