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→ 28 August 2024
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Leighton Smith interview of Iran Expert Behnam Taleblu

Behnam Ben Taleblu

In case you missed our briefing with Iran expert Behnam Ben Taleblu, here is an interview with Leighton Smith on NewsTalk ZB:

Behnam Ben Taleblu is a senior fellow at FDD where he focuses on Iranian security and political issues. Behnam previously served as a research fellow and senior Iran analyst at FDD. Prior to his time at FDD, Behnam worked on non-proliferation issues at an arms control think-tank in Washington. Leveraging his subject-matter expertise and native Farsi skills, Behnam has closely tracked a wide range of Iran-related topics including: nuclear non-proliferation, ballistic missiles, sanctions, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the foreign and security policy of the Islamic Republic, and internal Iranian politics. Frequently called upon to brief journalists, congressional staff, and other Washington-audiences, Behnam has also testified before the U.S. Congress and Canadian Parliament.
 
His analysis has been quoted in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Fox News, The Associated Press, and Agence France-Presse, among others. Additionally, he has contributed to or co-authored articles for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Fox News, The Hill, War on the Rocks, The National Interest, and U.S. News & World Report. Behnam has appeared on a variety of broadcast programs, including BBC News, Fox News, CBS Interactive, C-SPAN, and Defense News. Behnam earned his MA in International Relations from The University of Chicago, and his BA in International Affairs and Middle East Studies from The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.
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→ 30 June 2024
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A deal will embolden more October 7 attacks

John Minto

[NZFOI: Published in the Christchurch Press, June 13]

Dear Sir/Madam

John Minto (11 June 2024) states that loss of life could have been avoided if a negotiated deal had been closed.

A negotiated deal would embolden Hamas and others to repeat October 7 type attacks.  Indeed, Hamas has promised exactly that.

Hamas puts civilians in harm’s way by holding hostages among them.

There are two tangata whenua who cherish the same land.  Both were offered statehood.  One thought let’s give co-existence a shot and accepted.  The other thought, no, and gambled on a winner takes all, fight to the death.  They lost. People have been dying ever since.

Jews have lived continuously in the region for nearly 4,000 years.  To brand Jews as colonialists is to rob an indigenous people of their right to return. 

Misusing the term genocide to mean any mass killing, is attention seeking exaggeration and disrespects the victims of genuine genocides, the Armenians, the Tutsis and the Jews.

Hamas wanted war when they attacked on October 7, they got it. They wanted shahids (martyrs) for their propaganda war, they got that too. They wanted humanitarian aid to store in tunnels and sell. They got that too. They want to destroy Israel, they won’t get that.

Regards

Tony Kan

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→ 27 June 2024
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We Shall Dance Again — A Review

We Shall Dance Again – A Review

Director:            Yariv Mozer
Screened:          DocEdge Festival, Christchurch
Date:                 June 25, 2024.

We Will Dance Again takes you right there into the Nova Festival.  The festival-goers could be your friend, your brother or sister, your son or daughter.  It is visceral, it is raw and heart-rending.  Already, there are those who wish to deny that it happened at all.  For this reason, for those who can steel themselves, it is a must-see.

I approached this documentary with trepidation.  I had already seen footage and imagery that had been captured from the Nova Festival, including much of what had been recorded by Hamas’ attackers on the day.

What this documentary brings is the very personal, raw, and visceral experience of the festival goers. 

We are taken into the lives of several festival goers, we learn of their friendships, their loves, how they came to hear of the festival, how some had not told their parents as the festival began on a Shabbat. 

Upon arriving, one or two noted that they could see the Gaza security fence which unsettled them a little, but quickly put these concerns aside as they either put their faith in the organizers’ threat assessments or hadn’t heard or could recall any breaches of the fence in a long while.

Much has been made of the intelligence available to the authorities that a potential attack was coming.  Rehearsals had been observed for many months.  But the idea of an attack on this scale just seemed a fantasy. 

The producers of Fauda, a popular counter-terrorism drama, even considered an attack like this as a potential scenario for an upcoming season but quickly discarded it for being implausible.

It’s easy to be critical and smug in hindsight.

The first warning of trouble comes when the first rockets are launched at dawn.  Even though, we know what will happen, we agonize with the festival-goers as they try to understand what is going on. 

Just like in the Christchurch Earthquake when everyone was asked to go home rather than stay at school or work, traffic congestion quickly blocked the exit routes off-site. 

Many sat around while they waited for the traffic jam to clear. 

Meanwhile, those who thought they were fortunate to be the first to drive away and avoid the traffic jam back at the festival site, started encountering terrorists both from the north and the south of north-south running highway.  There was now no way to drive out without encountering terrorists.

Terrorists start arriving on the festival site and the sound of automatic gunfire is the first sign that evil had arrived.  And it became clear that they were in deadly danger.

Many began recording on their phones, as if realizing that they may not survive this and wanted to leave something behind.

We are taken inside the migunit or rocket shelters packed with festival-goers.   At first, an Arab farm worker, also sheltering from the rockets, goes out to talk the terrorists around, he is brutally beaten and executed. The festival goers are forced to throw out grenades thrown into the shelter by the terrorists. Horror, there is no where to go!

We are running alongside them as they flee through trees, and shrubbery only to find that they are now faced with vast open spaces where there is no cover, yet the terrorists can be heard pursuing them from behind. Run!

We sense their loss as friends fall beside them as they run, but there is no time to stop and provide assistance.  Run!

We hear a young man, who has taken a woman under his protection and though she feels she cannot run anymore, she stumbles, he supports her, he speaks words of strength and encouragement.  Run!

We follow a mother and her child who have hidden themselves inside a freezer cabinet within one of the food stalls.  She can hear the killing go on around her. Be quiet!  But there is only so much air in the freezer…

Others who have not run far, decide to hide in a rubbish skip.  Unfortunately they are discovered and the terrorists open fire.  She hears her partner struggle to breath, she is hit herself.  She knows she cannot call out. Be quiet!

Some hide under shrubs, bushes, and ditches.  Their calls to emergency services are met with incredulity, their stress makes it hard for them to give the details needed for first responders to locate them.

There is a scene that etches deeply in my mind.  Two girls run as a terrorist pursues them on the road.  They turn the corner but the terrorist catches up with them and one girl falls as she is shot from behind.  The other girl can run no more, is made to kneel and she is executed by the terrorist standing in front of her.  He sharply turns around to find more to kill.

The scene evokes an image of an Eisantzgruppen killer standing in front of a woman, taking aim with his Mauser rifle at a Jewish woman standing before him at point-blank range.  Ugh. 

Hours later emergency responders and security forces reached the festival site and the survivors began to emerge, to discover the enormity and horror of what had happened. 

There is a profound scene where a survivor who was in the rubbish skip, shares about the loss of her partner, though despite her best efforts to maintain her composure tears begin flowing down her cheeks, and then we are shocked as the camera pans out to reveal she is in a wheelchair, unable to walk.

This was the world premier for this documentary, it is an Oscar-qualified film festival and if the documentary wins a prize, it is eligible for consideration for the Academy Awards. 

Because it is the world premiere, we were privileged to meet Yariv Mozer, the award-winning filmmaker who made himself available for questions and answers after each screening.

Mozer is an Israeli film producer, screenwriter, and film director.  He teaches at the Steve Tisch Film School at Tel Aviv University.  He is best known for his documentaries, Ben-Gurion, Epilogue; The Devil’s Confession:  The Lost Eichmann Tapes. 

Mozer approached MGM Television almost the day after and they quickly agreed to support the project.

Other partners soon joined the project including the BBC, SIPUR, Bitachon 365, and Hot Channel 8. 

There had been two documentaries already completed in the eight months about the Nova Festival following October 7, so Mozer chose to take a more personal approach.

However, the project was fraught with difficulty.  The IDF refused to cooperate as some of the information was militarily sensitive.  The footage was also material evidence required for an ongoing criminal investigation and may be required for a future indictment.

Understandably survivors were also suffering from PTSD, and many, understandably, were yet unable to talk about their experiences.  For this reason, Mozer says, there will be many more stories to come out over the next months, if not years.

Professional psychiatric and psychological support had to be provided before, during and after filming.

Various members of the team had to record, examine and select material for the documentary.  These experiences were in themselves traumatizing and all also required professional psychiatric and psychological support.

New material was constantly surfacing, and this had to be reviewed too.

The documentary hardly touches on the sexual assault aspect of the attack.  Though the evidence was there, it was deemed too insensitive to explicitly show. 

The title We Will Dance Again is inspired by Mia Schem’s tattoo, and suggests that there would be a stronger message of hope but the documentary focuses exclusively on the events of October 7, at one of the partners’ request. 

This documentary, is raw, visceral and intense.  Yet it is paced well, and the story it tells is well organized.

As a young New Zealander, going to Gallipoli was a deeply sobering experience.  Visiting Dachau and Auschwitz was even more sobering and unforgettable.  We Will Dance Again took me to a deeper level again, because it takes you right there into the Nova Festival.  You will come to connect with the people sharing their stories.  They could be your friend, your brother or sister, your son or daughter.  It is so real, and your heart should bleed.  The festival goers are not just statistics.  Already, there are those who wish to deny that it happened at all.  For this reason, for those who can steel themselves, it is a must-see.

The documentary will be aired in the UK by the BBC, Hot Channel 8 in Israel and in North America on Paramount+.

DocEdge because of public demand, they have added an extra screening at the Lumiere Cinema in the Christchurch Arts Centre tomorrow on Friday, June 28 at 6pm. 

DocEdge will also be screening We Will Dance Again in Wellington and Auckland in July.

If you can’t make it to the screenings in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland, from July 15-31 you can view it online in the Virtual Cinema. 

Fri 28 Jun, 6 pm               Christchurch, Lumiere Cinemas.

Thu 11 Jul, 6pm               Wellington, The Roxy Cinema

Thu Jul 11, 6pm               Auckland, The Capitol Cinema

July 15-31                        Virtual Cinema, on-demand New Zealand

Tickets for all screenings and online viewing can be found here.

Tony Kan

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→ 14 May 2024
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How do I make sense of the Israeli-Gaza War of 2023?

Background

There are two indigenous peoples who cherish the same land, Jews and Arabs.

Both were offered statehood. The Jews said we’ll give coexistence a shot and accepted. The Arabs said, no way, we want a winner takes all, fight to the death. And there has been death ever since.

October 7 sparks a war

On October 7, Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel that had been years in the planning.

For years, they had been gathering intelligence on Israel’s border and kibbutz security arrangements through Gazans employed by Israelis as agricultural and domestic workers.

By utilizing the latest use of drone warfare techniques learnt from the Russo-Ukrainian War, approximately 3,000 militants largely neutralized Israel’s frontline security and attacked communities up to 15 km within Israel.

The attacks were marked by indiscriminate, mutilations, rape, executions, abductions and acts of spectacular cruelty. Extensive video recordings were taken by the attackers, showing considerable glee and joy as they carried out their crimes against humanity. Up to 1,210 murders were carried out and up to 250 were taken hostage.

Israel’s government faced with the its duty to:

  1. Protect its vulnerable citizens
  2. Punish wrongdoing
  3. Prevent further wrongdoing

Had no choice except to declare war to ensure that a further attack would not occur, to deter other organizations from repeating similar attacks and to reassure its citizenry that they could be safe.

The Israeli-Gaza War 2023

This is primarily a propaganda war with civilian fatalities as its foundation

Hamas lacks Israel’s military resources and infrastructure. It must fight an assymetric conflict knowing it cannot win a conventional war.

Its objectives are therefore to survive and take advantage of Western cultural repugnance toward fatalities among women and children and ignorance of what war involves to undermine world support for Israel.

To expedite this objective, Hamas infiltrates mainstream media outlets with “independent” journalist contractors, controls what can be released to media and actively seeks images, and video footage of wounded, dying or dead children.

Media coverage of this conflict is disproportionately represented by such images and video footage when compared to other conflicts currently underway in Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan, Nigeria and Yemen.

Casualty figures are produced by the Gaza Ministry of Health which itself is controlled by Hamas, yet Western media nearly always publishes these figures without cautionary statements, as if they can be accepted at face value.

Hamas holds strongly to a religious tradition of martyrdom and sees civilian fatalities as a necessary price for victory.

Victim’s bodies and hostages are used as trophies to demonstrate to the Arab world their continuing resistance and to undermine Israeli prestige.

Their propaganda messaging has evolved as the war progresses:

  1. “War on children”
  2. “IDF is committing genocide”
  3. “Israel is withholding humanitarian aid to cause famine”
  4. “Israel will cause a humanitarian disaster if it attacks Rafah”

To the Arabic speaking world the messaging is quite different:

  1. “We are the brave underdog resistance fighters against the hated Jews”
  2. “See the Israelis are beatable and we are superior.”
  3. “We will never give up the good fight entrusted to us by Allah to destroy the Jews, even if it means sacrificing our people as martyrs“

In reality,

Tunnels, human shields and using UN facilities and hospitals are Hamas’ prime tactics

UN Ambassador visits tunnels

For many years, Hamas has built up to 700kms of tunnels beneath Gaza leaving very few city blocks without tunnels underneath them. Each block contains multiple exits.

Hamas’ tactics include

Under the Geneva Convention doing so, relieves these structures from their immunity from violence, and thus the IDF has entered schools, hospitals and UN facilities whenever they have evidence that Hamas has operated from them. The Western public unaware of this dynamic have voiced outrage.

Unfortunately, in war, and in particular urban warfare, civilian fatalities are inevitable. In all conflicts, experts have said up to 10% of civilians will refuse to evacuate.

In 2022, the UN said in recent history, for every combatant killed in urban warfare, 9 civilians die. Israel has taken more steps than any other modern military force to minimize civilian deaths.

They do this by forewarning the civilian population before beginning operations in a particular neighbourhood. This allows civilians to evacuate but it also means Hamas evacuates too as human shields are not effective unless they are in close proximity.

This minimizes civilian deaths but also has the effect of prolonging the conflict.

How will it end?

Even after Hamas has been defeated, its leadership in exile, and all hope of any remaining hostages extinguished; the hatred, prejudice and intolerance is so deeply ingrained among Palestinians and Arabs that it will take at least a whole generation of re-education to dislodge it.

Evidence of how deeply ingrained these beliefs are include:

  • The mass celebrations in the 48 hours after October 7 were widespread, yet they only ended once news that Israel was massing several hundred thousand troops to enter Gaza, and the prospect of widespread devastation became apparent.
  • Children’s drama and education teach antisemitism
  • Reports of Palestinians who have realized that Jews are not demons after all, Hamas’ authoritarianism is the real enemy of the Palestinian people.

There are likely to be several phases before a stable solution can be fashioned.  The war is an opportunity for the civilian population to be freed from Hamas’ tyranny:

  1. A short-term period of Israeli administration while law and order is restored.  The more guerilla attacks from the tunnels etc there are, the longer they will likely stay.
  2. A period of UN administration while Gazan civilian society re-organizes itself and democratic elections can be held.
  3. The re-organization must include an independent police, an independent militia and an independent civil service.  To establish these institutions, the period of UN administration could be lengthy.
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→ 12 May 2024
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Why did October 7 happen?

The Problem: Hamas’ waning support

Hamas has expressed a number of motives for planning and executing the October 7 massacre.

Revitalize Arab support for Hamas: For a number of years their Arab allies had been losing their patience with Palestinian intransigence after repeatedly rejecting offers of statehood multiple times, Over the years, Israel was becoming an economic force in the Middle East and Iran was expanding its regional influence, building a bridge of vassal states toward the Mediterranean. Improving relations with Israel would help these Arab states counter Iran’s influence and provide an opportunity for economic betterment through trade with Israel. The Abrahamic Accords gave tangible evidence that such talk had evolved into action.

Revitalize Western support for Hamas: The Russo-Ukrainian War had not only diverted the West’s attention but also diverted much of their appetite for financially supporting the Palestinians as the need to re-arm grew to meet the Russian threat.

Revitalize domestic support Hamas: Hamas like all authoritarian regimes maintains its control through intimidation and repression. Despite receiving considerable foreign aid, it diverts most of it to the prosecution of its winner-takes all, fight to the death war and into its leader’s private bank accounts. Hamas’ cruelty and deteriorating living standards meant growing public dissastisfaction.

The Solution: To start a war and survive.

To rebuild support it must win hearts and minds.

To win hearts and minds, it must build an effective propaganda campaign from a one-off attack on a scale that makes it impossible for Israel not to ignore it.

In developing an attack to solve these problems, Hamas does not need to win a conventional military victory. A conventional military victory is beyond its reach anyway.

All it needs to do is to survive to win.

Just in case the killings were not sufficient, Hamas instructed its people to record their acts and post them widely on social media.

The extensive 500-700 km of tunnels and its human shields tactic would ensure its survival.

Unlike Hamas’ attack which was over in a day or two, the tunnels would ensure Israel’s campaign would be comparatively long and arduous.

This dynamic leans into the nature of the news cycle where audiences have relatively short memories and great sympathy for underdogs and the downtrodden.

The wokes would then pick up the underdog story and amplify it.

The enduring nature of any Israeli campaign and the inevitable civilian casualties that urban warfare brings would produce more than enough nightly images of wounded, dying and dead children.

These nightly images would serve to spark, fuel and reinforce the horror and anger that Western audiences will inevitably feel over Israel’s perceived cruelty.

Teams of Hamas operatives were charged with taking photographs of wounded, dying and dead children and making them available to “accredited” Gazan photo-journalists contracted to mainstream media outlets such as CNN, BBC and Aljazeera.

Indeed, the greatest risk Hamas faced was the chance that not enough victims would be killed on October 7 to incite a war.

Hamas’ propaganda campaign looks to build the following key idea:

That Israel is callously killing civilians out of homicidal revenge on a scale that minimizes the October 7 attack.

Key ideas to support this base idea includes:

“Israel is fighting a war on children”

“Israel is callously victimizing innocent Gazan civilians through horrendous collateral damage and withholding humanitarian aid causing famine.”

“Israel has stolen our land.”

“All Jews are white settler colonialists.”

Thousands of Western citizens are being convinced that Hamas’ messaging is credible.

That credibility is built on public trust in Western media.

Unfortunately, Western mainstream media often do not inform their audiences that much of the information they present has not been independently verified and quote information supplied by the Gaza Ministry of Health without question.

So far (May 2024), Hamas’ propaganda campaign has been remarkably successful. Thousands have marched in support of Gaza’s “innocent” citizens, and in so doing fall into Hamas’ trap.

In so doing, they knowingly and unknowingly side with and enable perpetrators of tyranny, mutilation, rape, torture and massacres of innocent civilians to prolong their religious mission to destroy all Jews.

Bibliography

Hamas Says Goal of October 7 Attack on Israel Was to ‘Overthrow’ Status Quo (businessinsider.com)

The October 7th Catastrophe. Why Did It Happen? | Hillel Schenker | The Blogs (timesofisrael.com)

Memo to the ‘Experts’: Stop Comparing Israel’s War in Gaza to Anything. It Has No Precedent | Opinion (newsweek.com)

Gaza’s Underground: Hamas’s Entire Politico-Military Strategy Rests on Its Tunnels – Modern War Institute (westpoint.edu)

‘Hamas gambled with our lives’: Gazans dare to speak out – CSMonitor.com

Protests against Hamas reemerge in the streets of Gaza, but will they persist? | The Times of Israel

Proportionality Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means In Gaza (forbes.com)

How genocide is defined—and why it’s so difficult to prove (nationalgeographic.com)

How Hamas is winning the propaganda war against Israel (msn.com)

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→ 8 May 2024
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The Tunnels of Gaza — NY Times

How the subterranean maze below the Gaza Strip works.

The Gaza Strip has all the harrowing pitfalls soldiers have learned to expect from urban warfare: high-rise ambushes, truncated lines of sight and, everywhere, vulnerable civilians with nowhere to hide.

But as Israeli ground forces inch their way forward in Gaza, the bigger danger may prove to be underfoot.

The Hamas militants who launched a bloody attack on Israel last month have built a maze of hidden tunnels some believe extend across most if not all of Gaza, the territory they control.

And they are not mere tunnels.

Snaking beneath dense residential areas, the passageways allow fighters to move around free from the eye of the enemy. There are also bunkers for stockpiling weapons, food and water, and even command centers and tunnels wide enough for vehicles, researchers believe.

Ordinary-looking doors and hatches serve as disguised access points, letting Hamas fighters dart out on missions and then slip back out of sight.

No outsider has an exact map of the network, and few Israelis have seen it firsthand.

But photos and video and reports from people who have been in the tunnels suggest the basic outlines of the system and how it is used. The source material includes photographs taken inside the passageways by journalists, accounts from researchers who study the tunnels, and details of the network that emerged from Israeli forces when they invaded Gaza in 2014.

Tactical tunnels
These concrete-reinforced structures are more than a transit pipeline. They serve as shelters against attacks, planning rooms, ammunition warehouses and spaces for hostages.

Illustration by Marco Hernandez
Dismantling the tunnels is a key part of Israel’s goal of wiping out Hamas’s leadership in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack.

Israel has used the existence of the tunnels as justification for bombing civilian areas, including after a large Israeli airstrike hit a densely populated area in the Jabaliya neighborhood. Hamas has denied its tunnels were under some of the specific sites struck by Israel, and it is often impossible to verify Israel’s claims.

To destroy tunnels on the ground, Israeli troops in Gaza will need to find entrances that are often hidden in the basements of civilian buildings, leading into concrete-lined tunnels, imagery suggests. They are typically just six and a half feet tall and three feet wide, experts said, forcing fighters to move through them single file.

One 85-year-old Israeli woman who was held hostage for 17 days in the tunnels after being kidnapped on Oct. 7 described being marched through a “spider web” of wet and humid tunnels. She eventually reached a large hall where two dozen other hostages were being held, she said.

There are still believed to be more than 200 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas, and many are likely in the very tunnels Israel aims to destroy. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that bringing them home is one of the two main aims of the invasion, the other being to “destroy Hamas.”

The tunnels used for hiding Hamas equipment and fighters are not the only hidden passageways in Gaza.

After Hamas came to power in 2007, and Israel tightened its blockade of the territory, an extensive network of smuggling tunnels grew under the border between Gaza and Egypt. These tunnels are used to circumvent the blockade and allow the import of a wide variety of goods, from weapons and electronic equipment to construction materials and fuel.

The Egyptian authorities have made extensive efforts to destroy these smuggling routes, including pumping seawater to flood the network and collapse many of the tunnels. But some smuggling tunnels are still believed to be in operation.

Smuggling tunnels
These tunnels have been documented in the Rafah area, where they are used to bring all types of goods and products into Gaza from Egypt.

Illustration by Marco Hernandez
Although the Israeli military far surpasses Hamas’s in both size and equipment, fighting an enemy with its own network of tunnels is a high-risk undertaking.

John W. Spencer, who studies urban warfare at the U.S. Military Academy’s Modern War Institute, describes it as more like “fighting under the sea than it is on the surface or inside of a building.”

“Nothing that you use on the surface works,” he said recently on the Modern Warfare Project podcast. “You have to have specialized equipment to breathe, to see, to navigate, to communicate and to deploy lethal means, especially shooting.”

One of the main dangers of going into the tunnels is that Hamas has booby-trapped the entrances with explosives, experts say.

“The moment they realize the Israelis have entered the tunnels, they will just press the button and the entire thing could collapse on the Israelis,” said Ahron Bregman, a senior teaching fellow at King’s College London who specializes in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The challenge of disabling tunnels
The danger does not end after a tunnel is detected.

Illustration by Marco Hernandez
Israeli forces will probably not be able to destroy the entire tunnel network.

“It is just too big, and there’s no point in dismantling all of it,” said Dr. Bregman. Instead, they will focus on blocking the entrances to the tunnels, likely by calling in airstrikes, or having engineers destroy them with explosives.

They are also unlikely to take their fight underground — unless they believe they have no other choice.

Entering the tunnels would strip Israeli forces of their advantages, Dr. Bregman said. At the moment, the Israelis are making headway with a mass of troops, tanks and helicopters.

“The moment you get down to the tunnel, it is one against one,” he said.

Sources: The Israel Defense Forces; testimony before the United Nations by Eado Hecht, a military analyst who teaches at the Israeli military’s Command and General Staff College and at Bar-Ilan and Haifa Universities; video reports from Deutsche Welle News, VICE News and social media; reference photographs from EPA Images, Getty Images and Agence France-Presse.

Adam Goldman, Helene Cooper and Justin Scheck contributed reporting.

Source: M Hernandez, J Holder, NYT, Nov 10, 2023

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→ 6 May 2024
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Conflicted Christians:  How to approach the Israeli-Gaza War 2023

Here we give some ideas on how to reconcile some of the issues that conflict Christians regarding the Israeli-Gaza War of 2023:

1. How do we reconcile scriptures that command us to “love our enemies” and “turn the other cheek” with ideas of justice, self defense and war?

In Romans 12 and 13 we have clues to the answer to this question:

In Romans 12 it says:

“Be patient in tribulation” Romans 12:12
“Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse you” Romans 12:13
“Repay no one evil for evil” Romans 12:17
“If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” Romans 12:18

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will hea burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

These exhortations are right and true at an individual level.

Paul then takes the conversation up to a whole new level when he discusses the role of our governing authorities in Romans 13:1-6:

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.

Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing.”

In these verses, governing authorities bear “the sword” to:

• Protect the vulnerable;
• Punish wrongdoing; and
• Prevent further wrongdoing.

This framework can help you to make sense of Hamas and the Israeli government’s objectives and conduct in this war.

That is, how is Hamas or the Israeli government, protecting the vulnerable, punishing wrongdoing and preventing further wrongdoing?

2. From a biblical perspective, should we take sides?

There are a number of perspectives that can inform the Christian on this question.

We are to do justice: Micah 6:8 requires Christians to “do justice.”

Justice is rightly symbolized by a statue of a woman who is:

• Blindfolded: This is to show that justice is impartial. Christians should not take sides.

• Holds a set of scales: Good justice should be based on good evidence. But not all evidence is good and must be weighted or tested. In war, the first casualty is the truth. Thus we should not jump to conclusions. Information must be tested. Where has it come from? Is it verified?

• Holds a sword: Justice must punish wrongdoers and deter wrongdoers from further wrongdoing.

Christians are connected to Israel, and the future of Israel and Jews are tied up with the future of Christians: There are many Christians who connect Israel to Christianity from a eschatological (or prophetic) perspective. Inevitably these discussions take enquirers into realms of much speculation and conjecture. For this reason, we won’t go into this topic at all.

Paul says:

* Christians should call Abraham their father (Romans 4:16-17).

* Christians are fellow heirs of the Promises (Eph 3:6). And those promises relate directly to the Land of Israel (Gen 15:7).

* Christians are adopted into the family of God (Gal 4:4-7).

* The gifts given to Israel are irrevocable (Romans 11:26ff).

* The dividing wall between those with a Jewish heritage and non-Jewish heritage is broken down, united as one (Eph 2:13ff)

* Christians are in some way grafted in to the Jewish metaphorical tree (Romans 11:11ff).

Taken together, there is sufficient there to suggest that the future of those with a Jewish heritage, Israel and Christians are in some cosmic way tied together.

Though connected, Christians must still “do justice.”

3. OK, I get that we have to do justice, so but it seems unfair and tragic that over 35,000 Gazans have died when only 1,200 died on the Israeli side of the border on October 7?

First, we must weigh the evidence. The 35,000 figure is produced by the Gazan Ministry of Health. This organization is governed by Hamas who administer Gaza at the end of a deadly weapon. The figure doesn’t different differentiate between civilians and combatants, nor natural casualties such as death from old age, car accidents or cancer.

Secondly, we have already said that the Israeli government has a duty to protect the vulnerable, punish wrongdoing and prevent further wrongdoing. It’s the third leg that requires a war. Hamas has already promised that however long it takes, it is committed to carrying out more October 7-like attacks. The Israel government therefore has no choice but to eliminate Hamas otherwise other groups such as Islamic Jihad will be emboldened to copy these attacks too.

The UN has carried out research on urban warfare in recent history throughout the world. They found that for every combatant killed, about 9 civilians are killed too.

The IDF estimate they have killed over 10,000 Hamas combatants. If this and the 35,000 figure is to be believed, then the ratio in Gaza is about 1 to 3.5. A figure much lower than the UN’s historical finding of 1 to 9.

How is it so low? Because Israel is giving away the element of surprise and warning where it will attack in advance so that civilians can evacuate. But of course, this allows Hamas to evacuate too as civilians are no good as human shields if they are not nearby. Unfortunately, that also means that the war will be prolonged.

4. Is Israel targeting children?

War is hell. And civilians, especially in an urban battlefield, are tragically put in harm’s way.
In the first four months of the war it seemed like the majority of news items had a dead, dying or wounded children on display.

Yet there were three other major conflicts under way in the world, in the Ukraine, Myanmar and Yemen. There are children dying in those conflicts too, but they aren’t being covered in the same way.

The pictures and video footage are coming from Gazan photographers and videographers. Many of whom are affiliated or even controlled by Hamas.

Hamas knows that they cannot win a conventional military war, so this is a war to win hearts and minds after the Ukraine sucked the oxygen away from the Palestinian cause and Arab nations were tired of funding them when they were repeatedly rejecting offers of statehood.

Therefore, they are intentionally putting children in front of cameras to undermine support for Israel, promote the underdog story and reinforce their victimhood.

You are being played.

6. But why has Israel destroyed so many civilian structures, and fought in schools, hospitals and UN facilities?

The London Underground has some 160 km of tunnels. The NYC subway has 420 km of tunnels. Gaza is the size of Ashburton. Yet there are 500-700 km of tunnels dug under there. If there are so many tunnels, what percentage of civilian blocks have no tunnels? Very few. Putting tunnels and exit holes in residential buildings turns them into legitimate military targets.

Returning hostages and soldiers have said the tunnels are often some fifty feet deep or more. This is why Israel has used very large bombs to destroy them.

Under international laws of war, if a civilian structure is used for military purposes, it loses its immunity. Hamas believes it is acceptable to fight from residential apartments, and use schools, UN facilities and hospitals for weapons storage and operational command posts.

There are several interviews of captured Hamas operatives who have explained that they do so because Israel by and large, does not bomb schools, hospitals and UN facilities.

6. Has Israel committed genocide?

Nearly all independent commentators have examined this issue and decided that in the context of the October 7 attacks, and Hamas’ public statements that they intend to repeat them, then the measures Israel has taken to prevent further attacks, is justified and not an attempt to commit genocide.

Most people misinterpreted the International Court of Justice’s ruling earlier in the year. In fact, they said that its plausible for South Africa to have the right to bring a case, and that the Gazans had a plausible right to be protected from genocide.

They did not rule that the claim of genocide was plausible.

7. Are the Palestinians victims of colonisation?

At its heart, two tangata whenua cherish the same land. Both were offered statehood. One was willing to give coexistence a shot, and accepted. The other rejected the offer, and opted for a winner takes all, fight to the death. And there has been dying ever since.

Settler colonisation is about foreigners displacing tangata whenua from their homeland, not tangata whenua returning to their homeland.

The land was never stolen from them as the Arabs never had manu whenua over the Land. They gave up their opportunity for much of the land when they gambled on winning their winner takes all, fight to the death, and lost.

The Nakba is the basis for their victimhood, and it is a lie, a falsehood.

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→ 26 April 2024
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Talking to Family, Friends and Loved ones about the Middle East Conflict


The other day, a mother shared with me how her daughter was shocked to think that her parents sided with Israel amidst “the genocidal massacre of Palestinian children.” They have since agreed that this topic is off-limits. This mother talked about how much anxiety it caused her, know that there was this rift be-tween them. How can we talk to our family, friends and loved ones? Here’s a guide to ensure that your conversations will be constructive.

  1. Find out how much they know first. Listen. We’ve noticed that most pro-Palestinian advocates, actually don’t know the facts behind the conflict. For example, when they chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”, often they say the river is the Nile, or the Euphrates. The Sea is the Red Sea or even the Indian Ocean. From experience about two-thirds of people we encounter don’t know and they’ve just jumped on the bandwagon based on propaganda. Listen more talk less.
  2. Don’t get frustrated, angry, or upset.
    If you catch yourself getting grumpy, then you’re starting to try to win them to your way of seeing things. Don’t. They will probably feel threatened or pressured and the discussion will end with neither of you any wiser.
  3. Formulate your answer from what you find out.
    In the above example, if you have the opportunity, show them a simple map and point out the sea and the river, and ask what’s in between. Then you can ask if they intended that Israel should be done away with. 2/3rds say no. Let me rethink this.
  4. Look for common ground.
    When I was confronted by an angry young man, he was quite disarmed when I compli-mented him for his passion for justice. The conversation stopped being combative immediately.
  5. Don’t lecture.
    Keep your answers short. In this day and age, where everything comes in short articles, attention spans can be really short. Think about how to phrase what you want to say effectively and efficiently.
  6. Invite them to read widely and do their own investigations.
    None of this happened under a rock. Finding articles, and books should be easy. But reading widely means reading material that look at both sides of the controversy. Otherwise they are just in an echo chamber.
  7. Don’t try to convince them of your view. Don’t debate. Don’t try to win.
    Let the facts speak for themselves. There are plenty of them. Don’t raise your voice. Don’t make their conclusions for them. Let them make up their own minds.
  8. Be prepared: Read widely yourself
    So much of the pro-Palestinian movement relies on re-writing history and jumping to conclusions without the facts. Do the opposite. Read wisely. Reflect.
  9. Don’t wait until you know everything.
    You don’t have to know everything. Each conversation is an opportunity to learn from the other person. Listen to how they support their argument. If you don’t know about it, you can go and research it and circle back.
  10. Every time you have a conversation with someone, it is an opportunity to learn and refine your messaging.
    That’s right. Don’t wait until you know everything and/or your messaging is perfect. Learning by doing is an essential way to improve.
    —
    NZFOI. This article was first published in the March 2024 issue of our newsletter.
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→ 26 April 2024
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What is Antisemitism — R Lord Jonathan Sacks

Within living memory of the Holocaust, after which the world said it would never happen again, antisemitism has returned.

But what is antisemitism and why should its return be cause for grave concern, not only for Jews but for all of us?

Historically, antisemitism has been hard to define, because it expresses itself in such contradictory ways. Before the Holocaust, Jews were hated because they were poor and because they were rich; because they were communists and because they were capitalists; because they kept to themselves and because they infiltrated everywhere; because they clung to ancient religious beliefs and because they were rootless cosmopolitans who believed nothing.

So what is antisemitism? Let’s be clear – not liking people because they’re different isn’t antisemitism. It’s xenophobia. Criticising Israel isn’t antisemitism: it’s part of the democratic process, and Israel is a democracy.

Antisemitism is something much more dangerous – it means persecuting Jews and denying them the right to exist collectively as Jews with the same rights as everyone else.

It’s a prejudice that like a virus, has survived over time by mutating.

So in the Middle Ages, Jews were persecuted because of their religion. In the 19th and 20th centuries, they were reviled because of their race. Today, Jews are attacked because of the existence of their nation-state, Israel. Denying Israel’s right to exist is the new antisemitism.

And just as antisemitism has mutated, so has its legitimisation. Each time, as the persecution descended into barbarity, the persecutors reached for the highest form of justification available.

In the Middle Ages, it was religion. In post-Enlightenment Europe it was science: the so called scientific study of race. Today it is human rights.

Whenever you hear human rights invoked to deny Israel’s right to exist, you are hearing the new antisemitism.

So, why has it returned? There are many reasons but one root cause is the cognitive failure called scapegoating.

When bad things happen to a group, its members can ask one of two questions: “What did we do wrong?” or “Who did this to us?” The entire fate of the group will depend on which it chooses.

If it asks, “What did we do wrong?” it has begun the process of healing the harm. If instead it asks, “Who did this to us?” it has defined itself as a victim. It will then seek a scapegoat to blame for all its problems.

Classically this has been the Jews, because for a thousand years they were the most conspicuous non-Christian minority in Europe and today because Israel is the most conspicuous non-Muslim country in the Middle East.

The argument is always the same. We are innocent; therefore they are guilty. Therefore if we are to be free, they – the Jews or the state of Israel – must be destroyed. That is how the great evils begin.

Why then should we all care about this? After all, if we’re not Jewish, what has it got to do with us?

The answer is that antisemitism is about the inability of a group to make space for difference.

And because we are all different, the hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.

It wasn’t Jews alone who suffered under Hitler. It wasn’t Jews alone who suffered under Stalin. It isn’t Jews alone who suffer under the radical Islamists and others who deny Israel’s right to exist.

Antisemitism is the world’s most reliable early warning sign of a major threat to freedom, humanity and the dignity of difference.

It matters to all of us. Which is why we must fight it together.

[NZFOI: And today in 2024, with the trending ideas around Settler Colonialism, Critical Race Theory and Neo-Marxism, the destruction of Israel is falsely justified with ideas that Jews are White Settler Colonialists who are Oppressing the Palestinians. The Palestinians lean into this thinking, portraying themselves as underdogs. They are adept at re-spinning the narrative into supporting their victimhood, while conveniently ignoring the amount of foreign aid, they have received, diverting most of it toward righting a winner takes all, fight to the death war, and graft.

It is often argued that anti-Israel and anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism and semantically this should be true. However, NZFOI has observed that whenever the level of conflict flairs up between Israel and the Palestinians, acts of Anti-Semitism also become much more prevalent throughout the rest of the world.]

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→ 22 April 2024
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Why are embassies supposed to be inviolable?

The Economist reviews the diplomatic immunity of Embassies following Ecuador’s raid on a Mexican Embassy to arrest someone who had been granted asylum.

In their discussion they say:

“There are exceptions to inviolability under international law, too. The Vienna Convention only refers to the responsibilities of the host state, but says nothing about a third-party attack. Also, under the laws of armed conflict, embassies lose their protections if they are used for military purposes. That may mean that the recent strike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus was legal; a spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces called the annexe that was destroyed a “military building […] disguised as a civilian building”. Iran may try to claim, falsely, that the same is true of Israeli embassies, and that attacks on them would be similarly justified.”

Source: Why are embassies supposed to be inviolable? (economist.com)

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