Hamas is attempting to counter Israel’s war goal of wiping it out as a military and governing force in Gaza by instructing two battalions to stay out of the fighting, Kan News reported on Tuesday. Sources in the Strip told the Israeli public broadcaster that the terror group was strategizing for its own “day after” scenario that would see these forces pave the path towards re-establishing control over the coastal enclave. One battalion in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and another one in Khan Yunis in the south were reportedly given orders not to participate in fighting as much as possible during the war, which entered its 256th day on Tuesday. Per the report, the Khan Yunis battalion moved south to Rafah under civilian cover during the Israeli incursion there with terror operatives assimilating into the local populace.READ MORE
The Biden Administration has canceled a meeting on Iran between Israeli and American high-ranking officials over a video message by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, exposing a quiet arms embargo against Israel imposed by the White House over IDF military operations in Rafah. Netanyahu released the video message on Tuesday, saying the White House has been withholding deliveries of arms and ammunition needed to fight Hamas terrorists in Gaza and Hezbollah’s terror army in Lebanon — both of which are Iranian proxies. Top advisers to President Joe Biden were apparently enraged over the video. “The Americans are fuming. Bibi’s video did a lot of damage,” an Israeli official told Axios. READ MORE
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) believes that Israel has been working to modernize its nuclear weapons systems in recent months and has upgraded production facilities in southern Israel amid a worldwide trend of weakening nuclear diplomacy. Israel has never publicly acknowledged that it possesses nuclear weapons, but is widely believed to have around 90 in its arsenal, SIPRI assessed Tuesday in its annual report on the state of global armament and security, which examined developments throughout 2023 and until January 2024…In addition to reportedly modernizing its nuclear arsenal, SIPRI claimed that there was evidence Israel was in the process of upgrading its nuclear reactor in the southern town of Dimona. READ MORE
AXIOS Barak Ravid: U.S. and Israel assessing new intelligence about Iran nuclear modelsU.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies are looking into new information about computer modeling by Iranian scientists that could be used for research and development of nuclear weapons, two U.S. officials plus one current and one former Israeli official told Axios. The purpose of the modeling is unclear. Some U.S. and Israeli officials said the intelligence is a worrying signal about Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions, but other officials on both sides said it as a “blip” that doesn’t represent a shift in Iran’s policy and strategy towards weaponization. Iran has repeatedly denied wanting nuclear weapons. Senior U.S. and Israeli officials will meet at the White House on Thursday for the U.S.-Israel strategic consultative group (SCG) to discuss the state of the Iranian nuclear program and other issues [which seems to have been canceled due the just-released Netanyahu video].
Wikipedia’s editors have voted to declare the Anti-Defamation League “generally unreliable” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, adding it to a list of banned and partially banned sources. An overwhelming majority of editors involved in the debate about the ADL also voted to deem the organization unreliable on the topic of antisemitism, its core focus. A formal declaration on that count is expected next…Moreover, in a near consensus, dozens of Wikipedia editors involved in the discussion said they believe the ADL should not be cited for factual information on antisemitism as well because it acts primarily as a pro-Israel organization and tends to label legitimate criticism of Israel as antisemitism.READ MORE
An anti-Israel protest encampment at McGill University in Montreal is set to host a revolution summer camp for youth starting Monday, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights McGill has announced. Posted on Instagram with a promotional image of keffiyeh-garbed men reading while armed with light machine guns and rifles, the summer camp doesn’t clarify the age of campers, but promises to “educate the youth of Montreal and redefine McGill’s ‘elite’ institutional legacy by transforming its space into one of revolutionary legacy.” “The daily schedule will include physical activity, Arabic language instruction, cultural crafts, political discussions, historical and revolutionary lessons,” said SPHR McGill, which organized the program in coordination with SPHR Concordia University. READ MORE
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who masterminded Hamas’s October 7 atrocities, portrayed the deaths of Palestinian civilians as a welcome sacrifice in his personal correspondence, The Wall Street Journal revealed on June 10. The Journal reviewed dozens of messages authored by Sinwar in which the terror leader hailed the carnage in Gaza. In one letter sent to Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh on April 11, Sinwar wrote that the Palestinian death toll would “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to its glory and honor.” In another message to Hamas leaders in Qatar, Sinwar maintained that thousands of civilian casualties “are necessary sacrifices.” The messages also suggest that Sinwar is banking on the idea that further fighting will “work to his advantage,” the Journal reported. READ MORE
The city Department of Education has inexplicably tapped a group headed by the notorious former “Intifada High” principal to lead school-staff workshops on handling the Israel-Hamas war in the classroom, infuriated teachers told The Post. Debbie Almontaser now pulls in hundreds of thousands of dollars in city contracts with her consulting firm Bridging Cultures Group, which on June 6 led professional development training sessions at at least 10 city public schools, teachers said. In a workshop titled “Facilitating Courageous Conversations,” a pair of Jewish and Muslim facilitators discussed lesson plans for how to teach and guide students on discussing the ongoing war, but Jewish teachers seethed that the training material was slanted against Israel. READ MORE
…As Sheryl watched the horrors of October 7 unfold, she was sure that everyone would rally against these unspeakable atrocities—particularly after the reports of sexual violence and rape committed by Hamas started coming in. When she saw that people did not, in fact, rise against it—and worse, when people began to deny that it even happened—she was stunned. Sheryl was particularly shocked that many of her would-be allies—prominent feminists and progressives in this country and around the world—stayed silent. This led her to make a documentary about the sexual violence of October 7 called Screams Before Silence…READ MORE
NEWSWEEK Barbra Streisand’s Israel-Hamas war hostages comment takes off online Barbra Streisand’s message about Israeli hostages held captive by Hamas in Gaza has deeply divided people. The Jewish singer spoke out as she shared a New York Times article from March about a former hostage who said she was sexually assaulted while in captivity…Responses to Streisand’s post were mixed. Some people accused her for not speaking up sooner in favor of Israel and its hostages, while others tried to discredit her claims.
When I was a cub reporter working at the Washington Post a half-century ago, being a journalist was first and foremost a craft. I once tried to slip my opinion into an article, but my editor wrote on the copy that ‘nobody gives a shit what you think’.It was harsh, but good training. Our primary job as journalists was not to indoctrinate but to inform. Even when writing an opinion piece, you would try backing up assertions with facts and leave room for the possibility that your point of view may not be the only permissible one. All this may seem quaint today, as the news media – television, print, magazines and online blogs – now serve increasingly as ideological provocateurs.READ MORE
On 12 May, Israel received intelligence about the location of four hostages in the Nuseirat refugee camp area in the Gaza Strip. From that day on, every branch of Israeli intelligence was focused on the area 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to locate the exact location….At the beginning of June, this information was brought to the War Cabinet, and the Chief of Staff of the IDF and head of the Shin Bet were asked to present a rescue plan. The intelligence was kept top secret. Even the other forces in Gaza, including senior commanders, were not informed about it. As the War Cabinet discussed options, the preparations and training for the operation began. In order to finally verify the information and to prepare the ground for the operation, another team of undercover soldiers (including several women dressed in hijabs and long black dresses) was sent into the Nuseirat refugee camp. Pretending to be two Gazan families looking for a large house in Nuseirat, they arrived in two cheap-looking old cars loaded with domestic items characteristic of those families displaced in the Strip, such as mattresses and clothing identical to those of the locals. READ MORE
TIMES OF ISRAEL Hamas operatives said to have standing orders to kill hostages if IDF approachesHamas terrorist leaders have given standing orders to operatives who are holding hostages saying “that if they think Israeli forces are coming, the first thing they should do is shoot the captives,” according to Israeli officials quoted by The New York Times on Monday. Two days after the Israel Defense Forces’ rescue of four hostages from Nuseirat in central Gaza, the newspaper reported that if other hostages were killed on Saturday, as Hamas has claimed, “it might have been at the hand of the [terrorists], not because of an Israeli airstrike.”
ArchitectGuy on Israel 