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| www.dailyalert.org SubscribeLarger Print/Mobile Search Back Issues | Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign AffairsDAILY ALERT | Tuesday, February 25, 2025 | |
| In-Depth Issues: Israel Performs Fighter Jet Flyover of Hizbullah Leader's Funeral - Tyler Rogoway (War Zone) On Monday, two Israel Air Force F-35s and two F-15s performed a dramatic flyover of deceased Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah's funeral in Beirut, meant to send an intimidating reminder to the group's tens of thousands of supporters down below. Iran's Growing Energy Crisis - Israel Shamay (Makor Rishon-Israel Hayom) As of Monday, public services in 22 of Iran's 31 provinces had been completely shut down, including government offices, courts, banks, and educational institutions, due to winter energy shortages, effectively reducing Iran's workweek. Intelligence sources say blackouts in Iran's major cities have reached unprecedented levels, and the situation is even worse in smaller cities and rural areas where the majority of the population resides. Authorities in greater Tehran have ordered the shutdown of all heating systems to conserve fuel. How the U.S. Department of Justice Can Disrupt Hamas - Lorenzo Vidino (Wall Street Journal) The Trump administration established the Joint Task Force October 7, a unit within the Justice Department devoted to investigating Ham as activities in and outside the U.S. The unit now has the painstaking task of bringing to justice Hamas leaders and all those involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and to dismantle Hamas activities in the U.S., where supporters have established extensive fundraising and propaganda networks. Last September, the House Ways and Means Committee accused several U.S.-based organizations of spreading antisemitism and being financially linked to Hamas, including American Muslims for Palestine and Students for Justice in Palestine. The writer is the director of the Program on Extremism at the George Washington University. Life in Gaza since the Ceasefire - Sheren Falah Saab (Ha'aretz) One month into the ceasefire in Gaza, Maha, 37, a mother of two from Deir al-Balah, says, "Life is not back to normal." She points out that many of the houses in Gaza are in ruins, schools are not functioning, and the residents have no routine. Asma, 40, says that unlike in central Gaza, where one can still find buildings that are not entirely destroyed, in northern Gaza - in Gaza City, Jabalya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia - "life looks like it's in the Stone Age." "People don't want to risk going back north because there are no houses there, and the rubble everywhere makes it difficult to pitch tents." "We still have to stand in line to fill water cans; there's a constant shortage of electricity; and people who live in tents have to face the rain and the cold nig hts." Some of her friends prefer to remain in Gaza and hold on at all costs, while some say that if they have a decent opportunity to leave to a country that gives them rights, they will do so. Gazans claim that in recent days, the IDF has been operating drones in northern Gaza that play a recording in Arabic saying: "Hamas and Al-Qassam [Hamas's military wing] have brought a Nakba [catastrophe] on you, and if you don't wake up from your apathy, they will bring a second and third Nakba on you." Hamas Must Meet Its End - Dr. Qanta A. Ahmed (Times of Israel) Though I am not Israeli, and I am not Jewish, the anguish of the Bibas family is mine. This unforgivable crime, perpetrated on infant Je ws and their mother, clarifies to the world the depravity of Hamas and the Palestinian civilians who abducted them. Palestinians appeal for the world's mercy, aid, intervention, humanity, yet you gather around the tiny Bibas coffins in a ghoulish display. You cheer and gawk and parade, defiling even corpses of babies. Your hatred dehumanizes you. Hamas was not alone. Countless survivors and eyewitnesses have testified to me that Palestinian civilians joyously participated in this atrocity. And because you are Muslim, you stain me. We have tolerated the intolerable. The violence, debasement, and gratuitous mutilation of the Jewish person in life and even after death, the sexual violation of women, the taking of civilians as hostages and their maltreatment in captivity, all are profound violations of all Islamic values and a stain upon all Islam. Those Muslims who support Hamas are accomplices. The ti me for Hamas to meet its Maker has arrived. The writer, a British-American Muslim, is Associate Professor of Medicine at the State University of New York and an Honorary Fellow at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Anti-Israel Bias at the CBC - Jesse Kline (National Post-Canada) The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and HonestReporting Canada (HRC) have filed a complaint with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) that the CBC, Canada's public broadcaster, is operating in violation of its broadcasting license by failing to adher e to its "journalistic standards and practices" in its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. The complaint provides a detailed account of the CBC's "pattern of inaccurate, unfair and unbalanced news coverage of Israel" following the Oct. 7 massacre, and the "lack of impartiality on the part of (its) journalists." The CBC's "director of journalistic standards" sent a memo to employees just days after Oct. 7 admonishing them not to refer to Hamas as "terrorists" even though Hamas has been listed as a terrorist organization by the Canadian government since 2002, and not to note that Israel ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005. Since then, the CBC has blindly repeated much of Hamas's propaganda and downplayed Israel's version of events, while anti-Israel voices have been featured "with such regularity and consistency th at to see it as a coincidence would be difficult and defies credulity." Support Daily Alert RSS Feed Key Links Archives Portal Fair Use/Privacy | News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:U.S. Imposes Additional Sanctions on Iran's Shadow Oil Fleet On Monday, the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the U.S. Department of State imposed sanctions on over 30 persons and vessels in multiple jurisdictions for their role in brokering the sale and transportation of Iranian petroleum-related products. The vessels sanctioned are responsible for shipping tens of millions of barrels of crude oil valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said, "The United States will use all our available tools to target all aspects of Iran's oil supply chain, and anyone who deals in Iranian oil exposes themselves to significant sanctions risk."&n bsp; (U.S. Treasury Department)White House Backs Israel's Decision to Delay Releasing Palestinian Prisoners The White House said Sunday that it supports Israel's decision to delay releasing 600 Palestinian prisoners, citing the "barbaric treatment" of Israeli hostages by Hamas. Delaying the prisoner release is an "appropriate response" to Hamas's treatment of the hostages, National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said. President Donald Trump is prepared to support Israel in "whatever course of action it chooses regarding Hamas," he added. (Reuters) See also Israel Halts Release of Palestinian Prisoners over "Humiliating" Hostage Handovers Prime Minister Netanyahu's office said Sunday, "In light of the repeated violations by Hamas - including the ceremonies that demean our hostages' dignity and the cynical use of our hostages for propaganda purposes - it has been decided to delay the release of terrorists planned for yesterday until the next release of hostages is guaranteed, and without the humiliating ceremonies." (Times of Israel)Father of Freed Gaza Hostage Says Fellow Arabs Should Be Outraged by Hamas The father of Hisham al-Sayed, a Bedouin Muslim returned to Israel a fter nearly a decade in Gaza captivity, on Sunday urged the Arab world to speak out against abuses by Hamas. Sayed, 37, who was released on Saturday, is schizophrenic, according to his family. He entered Gaza in 2015 and was held hostage there since. "I thought that Hamas members would keep him safe," said Shaaban al-Sayed. But after Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, attack, "I saw that Bedouins and Arabs were killed, working people who weren't soldiers or fighters." "When we got Hisham back, we were relieved to see him walking on his legs, but as I held him in my arms, I realized I was hugging a body...not a human being. He doesn't talk. He doesn't have a voice. He can't remember anything. It's like he hadn't been with other human beings. This makes us angry." (AFP)News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:Netanyahu: Israel Demands "Full Demilitarization" of Southern Syria - Lazar Berman Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israeli troops will stay on the Syrian side of Mt. Hermon and the buffer zone in the Golan Heights for "an unlimited period of time....We will not allow [Hayat Tahrir al-Shams] forces or the new Syrian army to move into territory south of Damascus. We demand full demilitarization of southern Syria from troops of the new Syrian regime in the Quneitra, Daraa and Suweyda provinces," adding that Israel will not accept any threats to Druze in southern Syria. He also said, "Hamas won't rule Gaza. Gaza will be demilitarized, and its fighting force will be dismantled." H e added that "We support President Trump's groundbreaking plan to enable the freedom to leave for Gazans and the creation of a different Gaza." (Times of Israel) See also Israel: Hamas, Islamic Jihad Creating a New Front Against Israel in Syria (Jerusalem Post) See also below Commentary: Behind Israel's Demand for the Demilitarization of Syria South of Damascus - Ariel Kahana (Israel Hayom)Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis: Gaza What Gazans Want - Scott Atran and Angel Gomez A survey we conducted in Gaza in January before the ceasefire, carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), found that 47% preferred the dissolution of Israel. A March 2024 PSR poll found that more than 50% of Gazans supported Hamas's control, as most Gazans believed that Hamas was winning the war against Israel. By January 2025, only a fifth supported Hamas rule. Yet support for other political factions, including the PLO, was even lower. Moreover, most Gazans do not believe that Hamas has won the war. Yet, a majority of the population continues to be committed to Hamas's political ideals, such as sharia as the law of the land, the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendant s to return to the homes they lost in 1948, and the quest for national sovereignty for Palestinians. Gazans show a marked tendency to view the conflict with Israel in religious rather than political terms. In January, barely 1% considered themselves "not religious," whereas 67% identified themselves as "somewhat religious" and 31% as "truly religious." The "truly religious" and "somewhat religious" alike judged Israelis to be significantly less human than Palestinians. Scott Atran is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Changing Character of War Centre at Oxford University. Angel Gomez is Professor of Psychology at the University in Madrid. (Foreign Affairs)Israeli Security Control of G aza Is an Existential Necessity - Yaakov Lappin The murder of 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, stands as an unbearable reminder of the consequences of allowing a genocidal, jihadist army to entrench itself on Israel's border. Israel can never again allow Gaza to be a staging ground for an Iranian-backed terrorist army. No one on Israel's borders can be allowed to build an ability to send death squads and invasion brigades over the border in an organized manner. Ensuring Israeli security control over Gaza is the only way to achieve this. This work cannot be outsourced to anyone; the idea that a foreign force or paid mercenaries would have the ability to deal with Hamas is absurd. Israeli security control of Gaza is an existential imperative. The idea that Israel could stay back behind the border was fueled by deluded concepts of Hamas being deterred, that it was a rational actor, an d that it sought economic prosperity. These delusions stemmed from an inability to grasp the jihadist mindset of a fundamentalist Islamic death cult, and from a tendency to project Western thinking onto our enemies. No international diplomacy or security guarantees can obviate the necessity of full Israeli freedom of operation in Gaza for the foreseeable future. The writer is a research associate at the Alma Research and Education Center and the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. (JNS) Hamas Their Time Is Up - Liel Leibovitz Many of the Israeli hostages who return tell of being held captive by ordinary families, abused and tormented not by bearded zealots with guns but by mothers and fathers and daughters and sons. Such gleeful cruelty has no parallel in the civilized world. The assertion that most, or even many, Gazans are innocents hijacked by their tyrannical leaders is a polite fiction. Support for Hamas grew the more adept they proved at slaughtering the Jews. Enough with the sophistry about international laws and human rights. We've seen the UN, the International Court of Justice, and the Red Cross. To take any of these decrepit and callous concubines of evildoers seriously is not an option any morally or intellectually serious person should ever entertain. Enough also with the insufferable ululations about Jewish morality which has mercy on the monsters who devour our children. The very next holiday on the Jewish calendar, Purim, i s a celebration of the time when Jews realized that justice meant not only reversing Haman's evil decree but forced all those who were only too eager to partake in the slaughter to face the consequences of their actions. Like them, we, too, are fighting millions of little Hamans, murderous marauders who will grow emboldened the more we offer them mercy. Gazans aren't long-suffering innocents who had the misfortune of living through decades of Hamas indoctrination. They're faithful adherents of a stern interpretation of a religion who believe there is glory in putting the enemies of God to the sword. We must insist that their hands be nowhere near our necks. (Tablet)The Crumbling Legitimacy of "Palestine" - Hussein Aboubakr Mansour A year ago , I allowed myself the optimistic thought that perhaps a different Palestinian identity might yet emerge: one divorced from antisemitic vitriol, revolutionary Third-Worldist fanaticism, and nihilistic death-cult threads. I tried to imagine a future in which Palestinians could somehow find a new identity built on pragmatic coexistence. But by now, it should be clear to all that when your primary currency is kidnapping civilians and parading their remains to public cheers, you forfeit whatever moral capital a national struggle might once have enjoyed. The Palestinians never grasped a viable political path. Instead, an identity was cultivated on an endless cycle of grievance, victimhood, and terror as a method of expression. The repeated wars, the refusal to disentangle themselves from regional power struggles or global revolutions, the refusal to accept peace deals, and the cultural glorification of martyrdom have created a toxic personality structure that has a flag. The events we just witnessed - children paraded around corpses - are not an isolated atrocity but reflect a deeper moral and cultural collapse: no meaningful leadership capable of guiding Palestinians toward a humane, tolerant society appears to exist. The formal structure called "Palestine" has, in practice, become a source of destruction for themselves and for the region. Palestinian leadership and outside advocates keep stoking the fires of "resistance" while funded and cheered by narcissistic Western liberal elites and Qatari conspirators, forever condemning Palestinian children to a cycle of violence and perennial displacement. The writer is an Egyptian-American author and researcher at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) in Washington. (Substack) Syria Behind Israel's Demand for the Demilitarization of Syria South of Damascus - Ariel Kahana It is possible that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader al-Julani truly does not intend to attack Israel, as he claims. However, it remains unclear whether he will be able to maintain firm, long-term rule over Syria. If anti-Israel militias emerge to challenge Israel along the border, it is uncertain whether he would act against them. Another concern is Turkey. Syria has effectively become a client state of Turkish President Erdogan, whose hostility toward Jews is well known. During the war, he even stated that one day his forces would confront Israel. In order to preempt such a development, Israel s eeks to demilitarize the area where such a conflict could take place. There is also the potential threat posed by a militia operating under Turkish patronage. Moreover, Israel maintains healthy civil relations with various communities in southern Syria, particularly the Druze, and Netanyahu is seeking to extend his protection over them. (Israel Hayom)Syria's Sunni Sharia State Solidifying Control in Damascus but Challenged Elsewhere - JCFA Syria Desk Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the terrorist derivative of al-Qaeda/al-Nusra, may have seized control of Damascus and Syria's major cities but is being challenged by other centers of power both inside and outside the country. Syria's regional neighbors who want a piece of Sy rian territory include its erstwhile ally Turkey, which has occupied portions of northern Syria. Domestic opposition to the new regime includes several small Islamist groups, Kurdish democratic elements, and ethnic Druze minorities, as well as former Assad regime Alawite clusters mostly in western Syria. (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Hizbullah Hizbullah Struggling to Meet Its Financial Commitments - Adam Chamseddine Three months after Hizbullah agreed to a ceasefire, the damage inflicted by Israel's armed forces is becoming clear: Its military has be en severely degraded and it is struggling to meet its commitments to followers. Some residents say Hizbullah's primary financial institution, Al-Qard Al-Hassan, in recent weeks has frozen payments for compensation checks that had already been issued. In addition, Lebanon's new U.S.-backed government has been making efforts to stem the flow of cash to the group from Iran. "Hizbullah no longer has the cash to compensate its constituents," said Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at the Chatham House think tank. Loyalty to the group "is likely to wane in the long term when Hizbullah's constituents realize that it can no longer offer them financial, political, or security benefits." Costs for the wounded who need medical treatment are also spiraling. A person familiar with Hizbullah said the group lost 5,000 fighters, with more than 1,000 severely wounded. A person close to Hizbullah said an internal memo was distributed to its combat units, ordering milit ants who weren't originally from areas south of the Litani river in southern Lebanon to vacate their positions and allow Lebanese army troops to take control of the area in accordance with the ceasefire. He said Hizbullah has partially replenished its ranks with fighters who had been stationed in Syria, and that some restructured units were ready for any resumption of fighting. (Wall Street Journal) Egypt What Lies Behind Egypt's Violations of the Peace Agreement with Israel? - Yoni Ben Menachem Egypt's violations of the peace agreement with Israel are causing significant alarm within both political and security circles in Israel. Egypt has ex panded military airfields in Sinai, constructed new bunkers and anti-tank obstacles, and established new ammunition and fuel depots. Additionally, seven tunnels have been built under the Suez Canal. While Israel permitted some of these violations to assist the Egyptian military's fight against ISIS affiliates in Sinai, which have now been eliminated, security officials emphasize that Israel always granted such approvals retroactively to avoid diplomatic confrontations with Egypt. Nevertheless, according to their assessments, Egypt maintains four times more military forces in Sinai than permitted under the peace treaty. Since assuming power in 2014, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been modernizing Egypt's military forces - investing heavily with the assistance of U.S. military aid, which amounts to $1.5 billion annually. The Egyptian military continues to conduct exercises simulating combat scenarios against Israel. Nevertheless, senior Israeli security officials assess that el-Sisi currently has no interest in waging war against Israel or violating the peace treaty. However, they do not rule out the possibility that, in an extreme scenario, el-Sisi could deploy large military forces into Sinai to threaten Israel. Egypt has accustomed Israel in recent years to treaty violations in Sinai, and this must stop. (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)Observations: The Unavoidable Necessity to Draw Conclusions about Palestinian Arab Society - Jonathan S. Tobin (JNS)During the past few decades, the Palestinian education system, media and popular culture have been drenched in intransigent and virulent hatred for Jews and Israel. It has valorized brutal terrorism and a cult of death.There are times when evidence demands that we stop pretending that there aren't some clear differences between national cultures. Hateful collective behavior in which large numbers of people participate and are sanctioned by their leaders and institutions is the sort of thing that cannot be ignored.Rather than work with the returning Jews to share the country in a way that would have benefited both peoples, the Palestinians preferred to reject compromise. They have found it impossible to move beyond their futile quest to destroy Israel. They created a culture in which spilling Jewish blood has been the only way for political organizations to gain credibility.The lates t Palestinian celebration of terror and hate should force members of the civilized world to stop giving them a pass for their behavior. There may well be many Palestinian individuals who are appalled by what their society is doing, including to their own people. It's also true that resisting Hamas and the other terror organizations would be difficult and extremely dangerous.When it comes to the Palestinians, all of the well-meaning rhetoric about common humanity was defeated by a collective mindset that demonized Jews. This obliges us to be honest about their national culture and demand that it be changed before they are allowed to have any power to inflict further harm on others or themselves.The Palestinians will never change until the civilized world stops coddling them and making excuses for their culture of death, hate and intransigent dedication to perpetual war on the Jews.Daily Alert is published on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Unsubscribe from Daily Alert. | ||
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