The Netanyahu era isn’t over. If anything, his popularity is on the rise By Matthew Knott October 6, 2024 https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle...opularity-is-on-the-rise-20241006-p5kg6i.html On the ground in Tel Aviv Matthew Knott & Kate Geraghty Tel Aviv: In the past year, Benjamin Netanyahu has presided over the worst security failure in Israel’s history and the biggest trauma for the Jewish people since the Holocaust: the October 7 attacks. The International Criminal Court has requested an arrest warrant to charge him for crimes against humanity over the way Israel has conducted the war in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Credit: AP That war grinds on after almost 12 months of fighting, with estimates from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry of nearly 42,000 Palestinian deaths. The mastermind of the October 7 attacks, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, remains on the loose. Many Israelis – including the relatives of many hostages – are furious with Netanyahu for failing to strike a deal to bring the remaining 101 hostages in Gaza home (97 were abducted on October 7 and the other four were captured earlier). The belief he has not done so for cynical political calculations and a desire to hold onto power at all costs is widespread in Israel. Its international reputation has plummeted, and its ties with its most important security partner, the United States, have frayed. Despite the momentous recent events in the Middle East, Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden have not spoken in two months, reflecting the leaders’ increasingly disdainful relationship. A sticker depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left), with the words “Demolisher of Israel”, in Kibbutz Be’eri, where 101 civilians and 31 security personnel were killed by Hamas on October 7.Credit: Kate Geraghty Yet Netanyahu – who first came to power in 1996 and has been the dominant force in Israeli politics for the past three decades – remains ensconced in the prime minister’s office. And not just that: his political stocks are on the rise. It’s a dramatic turnaround from the weeks after October 7, 2023, when polls showed Netanyahu’s popularity plummeting and even friendly Israeli newspapers were demanding his resignation. “This is the very tragic end to the Netanyahu era,” Netanyahu’s biographer, Anshel Pfeffer, told The New Yorker last October. Since then, as Israeli polling analyst Dahlia Scheidlin recently wrote in Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the polls have shown an “incremental but steady rise” in support for Netanyahu’s government. Netanyahu’s recovery, Scheidlin argues, began in April when Israel and its security partners successfully repelled a blizzard of rocket and missile attacks launched by Iran. Then came the audacious assassination of Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, the shock pager and rocket attacks against Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon and the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. These operations have helped restore Israelis’ sense of pride and Netanyahu’s reputation as “Mr Security”: the only person capable of protecting the nation from the hostile forces surrounding it. The escalation of hostilities in the Middle East that is alarming global leaders (including Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese) is working in Netanyahu’s political favour at home. His decision to intensify the fight against Hezbollah in a bid to secure Israel’s northern border is broadly popular among Israelis, as is his decision to hit back at Iran for last week’s missile strikes. Meanwhile, the war in Gaza and the plight of the hostages are receiving less attention here – again, to Netanyahu’s benefit. The promised reckoning over the failures that led to October 7 – with those responsible to be held accountable – is nowhere to be seen. As a result, Netanyahu’s Likud party is once again the most popular in Israel and his personal ratings have risen. A poll by Channel 14 released at the end of September found that, for the first time since October 7, Netanyahu’s governing coalition (the most right-wing in Israeli history) would be re-elected if an election were held today. In Kibbutz Be’eri, Israeli flags fly next to a banner of an hourglass representing the fact that time is running out for the hostages in Gaza.Credit: Kate Geraghty A Channel 12 poll released at the end of September, after the assassination of Nasrallah, found that 43 per cent of Israelis believed Netanyahu had done a good job in the war – up from 35 per cent 10 days earlier. He now easily outpolls his more centrist leadership rivals, Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, and has dramatically narrowed the gap with former prime minister Naftali Bennett to just three points behind. (Bennett, it is important to note, is in many ways more hawkish and conservative than Netanyahu.) The next Israeli elections are due in October 2026, and Netanyahu looks increasingly likely to hold onto power until then. Since October 7 last year, Netanyahu’s coalition government has often appeared on the verge of collapse. At the end of September this year, he won breathing room when another small conservative party joined the government, expanding the size of his coalition and diluting the power of far-right cabinet members Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. Many things can be true at once. At 74, Netanyahu is a divisive and widely distrusted figure in Israel, as well as its great political survivor. The Netanyahu era will eventually end, as all eras end. For now, though, we’re still living in it.
And why wouldn't it? Netanyahu has a gift for extracting whatever he wants, whenever he wants from 'merica. Biden is Bibis lapdog. Praise jesus the jewish con artist.
US explains why it is not shooting down missiles over Ukraine as it does over Israel Ulyana Krychkovska — Wednesday, 16 October 2024 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/10/16/7479892/ Deputy Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh. Stock photo: Getty Images The United States will not deploy the THAAD medium-range missile interceptor system near Ukraine to shoot down Russian missiles and drones, as it does for Israel, because the Russian-Ukrainian war and the war in the Middle East are different. Source: Deputy Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh, as reported by European Pravda Details: Singh stressed that the US Department of Defense and the US government continue to support Israel and Ukraine in meeting their defence needs. At the same time, answering why the United States is deploying the THAAD system in Israel to protect against Iranian ballistic missiles but not in NATO countries to protect western Ukraine from Russian missile attacks, the US Defense Department spokesperson noted that these are two different situations. "Okay, so different capabilities, different wars, different regions. The commitments also to Israel and Ukraine are different," Singh said. Background: On 1 October, Iran launched about 200 ballistic missiles towards Israel in response to the assassination of Tehran-backed militant leaders in Lebanon. Afterwards, the White House said that Tehran would face serious consequences for a large-scale missile attack on Israel. On 15 October, The Washington Post reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told US President Joe Biden’s administration that he was ready to strike military facilities instead of oil or nuclear facilities in Iran.
Ukraine bridles at no-holds-barred US support for Israel Kyiv wants the US to down Russian rockets, but the “tough answer” for Ukraine is that Russia has nuclear weapons, while Iran does not. Kyiv wants Poland and Romania to actively intervene both in their own airspace and also over western Ukraine. | Carsten Koall/Getty Images October 16, 2024 4:15 am CET By Veronika Melkozerova, Robbie Gramer and Paul McLeary https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-bridle-no-holds-barred-us-support-israel/ KYIV — The U.S. this week deployed an advanced air defense system and dozens of troops to protect Israel from Iranian ballistic missiles, but there is nothing like that level of help for Ukraine even though it daily faces Russian drone, missile and bomb attacks. In Kyiv, that’s being called out as a double standard. “If the allies shoot down missiles together in the sky of the Middle East, why is there still no decision to shoot down drones and missiles over Ukraine?” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked last month. When U.S. and British air defense systems and fighter planes helped knock down hundreds of Iranian missiles Oct. 1., Ukraine’s foreign ministry said: “We call on Ukraine’s allies to defend Ukrainian airspace with the same determination and without hesitation from Russian missile and drone attacks, recognizing that human life is equally precious in any part of the world.” The allies also intervened in April. The reason why the U.S. acts boldly in Israel and cautiously in Ukraine is clear: Russia is armed with nuclear weapons and Iran isn’t. “The tough answer that Ukrainians may not like to hear but is unfortunately true is that we can take the risk of shooting down Iranian missiles over Israel without triggering direct war with Tehran that could lead to nuclear war,” a senior U.S. Senate aide who works on Ukraine policy told POLITICO. “There’s a lot more risk in trying that with Russia.” Two Biden administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter candidly, made the same point. Sending U.S. forces over Ukraine to shoot down Russian missiles could trigger a direct military showdown between the world’s two top nuclear powers amid the largest war in Europe since World War II — with potentially apocalyptic consequences. Whereas in the Middle East, the U.S. can shoot down missiles over Israel without triggering war with a nuclear-armed adversary. Iran has refined nuclear material to near-weapons-grade levels but has not tried to build an atomic bomb. “It is sad to look at all this as an ordinary citizen of Ukraine — when in an agreement to prevent escalation on the part of Moscow, your country and citizens are being sacrificed,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at the Ukrainian National Institute for Strategic Studies. What Kyiv wants There is already active — but long-distance — allied involvement whenever Russia attacks Ukraine. Ukraine’s pilots also step up in case of very large attacks. | Aris Messinis/Getty Images “Partners usually signal us about movements of Russian bombers to the firing positions. They let us know when and where Russians are preparing an attack,” said Yuriy Ihnat, acting spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force. Once warned, thousands of soldiers from reconnaissance, communications and mobile air-defense units move into action. Ukraine’s pilots also step up in case of very large attacks. One of them, F-16 pilot Oleksiy Mes, known as “Moonfish,” died in a crash Aug. 26 when Russia fired more than 230 missiles at Ukraine’s energy facilities. Russian drones have also strayed over Poland and Romania. The two countries — members of both the EU and NATO — have scrambled jets in response, but so far have only observed the Russian weapons without shooting them down. Kyiv wants Poland and Romania to intervene actively, both in their own airspace and also over western Ukraine. Kyiv and Warsaw agreed to discuss the possibility in a recent mutual security deal, but so far Poland is not changing policy. Warsaw has made clear it won’t act without the full backing of the entire NATO alliance, and Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz has said such support is lacking. He added that Washington has also indicated it doesn’t want to escalate the conflict with Russia. Kyiv hopes that shooting down missiles and drones over Ukraine will eventually be agreed, just as Western artillery, tanks, missiles and fighter jets were ultimately handed over despite earlier fears that doing so would cross Russian President Vladimir Putin’s red lines. “There is a lively discussion, both in Poland and in NATO about this,” Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski told POLITICO in a recent interview. “The NATO border is in a sort of in-between state, between peacetime rules and crisis,” he said, adding that the Kremlin’s intent is unclear. “Some of these things pose a danger to our citizens [and] some people speculate that the Russians are testing our procedures, [but] I suspect that with these numbers of drones and missiles, they just lose control of them.” While Kyiv wants its allies to act as they do with Israel, two Ukrainian air defense officers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said doing so is easier over Israel than over Ukraine. Israel is a small country, meaning the U.S. can use its ship-mounted air defense systems. Ukraine, meanwhile, is vast, and inaccessible to Western navies: Its allies would need to station air defenses on the country’s western border, from which they could only protect nearby territory. Israel is a small country and the U.S. can use its ship-mounted air defense systems. | Jack Guez/Getty Images “NATO members entering into the aerial defense of Ukraine would need to bring a much larger contribution, over a broader area, with a greater risk of ‘entering the war’ for uncertain gains,” said Matthew Savill, military sciences director with London's Royal United Services Institute. “The cost would also be greater, as the frequency of Russian attacks is far greater than the significant but reactive Iranian attempts to strike Israel directly.” NATO countries might also have to fly jet fighters over Ukraine, which could lead to direct clashes with Russia — exactly what the White House is trying to avoid. “To maximize the effectiveness of such an effort, Western forces would probably want to directly strike Russian aircraft launching strikes, and/or suppress Russian long-range air defense radars and missiles,” Cavill said. “That therefore associates defending against missiles with a more direct involvement, even if only in the air.” America's best friend It also comes down to emotion and history. While many countries claim to be America's best friend or crucial ally, Israel occupies a unique position in U.S. politics and defense strategy. U.S. officials point to a relationship built over decades — one that has left Washington willing to deploy its military directly to protect Israel. Still, accusations of a perceived double standard reflect a broader frustration in Ukraine that the Biden administration isn’t doing enough to help Kyiv stop Russian attacks. That includes slow-walking larger weapons sales and preventing Ukraine from using long-range U.S. munitions to strike Russian territory. “There is still more the U.S. could do to help Ukraine in their fight against Russia,” said Shelby Magid, a deputy director at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank. “Unfortunately, it is a distinction the administration has chosen to make time and time again, to a point where we are getting in the way of our national security interests of helping Ukraine defeat Russia,” Magid said. “There is a nearly crippling fear of not wanting to strike Russian-fired weapons directly as the administration sees it as directly fighting Russia.” U.S. officials conceded they are aware of the mounting frustrations in Ukraine, but said they were working on new weapons shipments that they hope will allay these concerns. "Why is there still no decision to shoot down drones and missiles over Ukraine?” Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked last month. | Pool Photo by Stefan Rousseau/Getty Images “We’ve really been focused on getting Ukraine everything we can to help them defend themselves,” one of the administration officials said. “Our top priority has been helping to strengthen their air defenses.” Proliferation danger But treating Russia with kid gloves does send an international message that nuclear powers are granted a deference that is denied to normal countries, warned Bielieskov, the Ukrainian analyst. That heightens the risk that countries like Iran will decide to go nuclear, destroying the non-proliferation regime that aims to limit the number of atomic powers. “The conclusion we make from the different approach toward Israel and Ukraine is that it is better to have a nuclear weapon than not to have one,” Bielieskov said.
Why is Hamas still fighting when Gaza is completely destroyed. Even the Empire of Japan knew when to quit
Sinwar already stated that he does not care if every single resident of Gaza dies -- that is just a sacrifice they will need to make to support the Hamas vision of wiping out every Jew in the region.
How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah An invisible detonator and wafer-thin plastic explosives turned batteries into bombs By Maya Gebeily, James Pearson and David Gauthier-Villars Published Oct. 16, 2024 BEIRUT, Oct 16 (Reuters) - The batteries inside the weaponised pagers that arrived in Lebanon at the start of the year, part of an Israeli plot to decimate Hezbollah, had powerfully deceptive features and an Achilles' heel. The agents who built the pagers designed a battery that concealed a small but potent charge of plastic explosive and a novel detonator that was invisible to X-ray, according to a Lebanese source with first-hand knowledge of the pagers, and teardown photos of the battery pack seen by Reuters. To overcome the weakness - the absence of a plausible backstory for the bulky new product- they created fake online stores, pages and posts that could deceive Hezbollah due diligence, a Reuters review of web archives shows. The stealthy design of the pager bomb and the battery’s carefully constructed cover story, both described here for the first time, shed light on the execution of a years-long operation which has struck unprecedented blows against Israel's Iran-backed Lebanese foe and pushed the Middle East closer to a regional war. Battery pack internals Two lithium-ion cells sandwich a sheet of plastic explosive and a strip of highly flammable material Battery pack casing Battery cell PETN explosives Plastic sleeve Metal shell Detonation material Diagram illustrating the internal parts of the pager's battery pack, including two lithium-ion cells sandwiching a sheet of plastic explosive and a strip of highly flammable material. A thin, square sheet with six grams of white pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) plastic explosive was squeezed between two rectangular battery cells, according to the Lebanese source and photos. The remaining space between the battery cells could not be seen in the photos but was occupied by a strip of highly flammable material that acted as the detonator, the source said. This three-layer sandwich was inserted in a black plastic sleeve, and encapsulated in a metal casing roughly the size of a match box, the photos showed. The assembly was unusual because it did not rely on a standard miniaturised detonator, typically a metallic cylinder, the source and two bomb experts said. All three spoke on conditions of anonymity. Without any metal components, the material used to trigger detonation had an edge: like the plastic explosives, it was not detected by X-ray. Upon receiving the pagers in February, Hezbollah looked for the presence of explosives, two people familiar with the matter said, putting them through airport security scanners to see if they triggered alarms. Nothing suspicious was reported. The devices were likely set up to generate a spark within the battery pack, enough to light the detonating material, and trigger the sheet of PETN to explode, said the two bomb experts, to whom Reuters showed the pager-bomb design. Since explosives and wrapping took about a third of the volume, the battery pack carried a fraction of the power consistent with its 35 gram weight, two battery experts said. "There is a significant amount of unaccounted for mass," said Paul Christensen, an expert in lithium batteries at Britain’s Newcastle University. A battery with a similar mass of 35g would have an expected energy capacity of around 8.75Wh, not 2.22Wh. Note: Reuters has no indication the battery packs were actually made in China. Diagram showing the dimensions and weight of the pager's lithium-ion battery pack. At some point, Hezbollah noticed the battery was draining faster than expected, the Lebanese source said. However, the issue did not appear to raise major security concerns - the group was still handing its members the pagers hours before the attack. On Sept. 17, thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded in the southern suburbs of Beirut and other Hezbollah strongholds, in most cases after the devices beeped, indicating an incoming message. Among the victims rushed to hospital, many had eye injuries, missing fingers or gaping holes in their abdomens, Reuters witnesses saw, indicating their proximity to the devices at the time of detonation. In total, the pager attack, and a second on the following day that activated weaponised walkie-talkies, killed 39 people and wounded more than 3,400. Two Western security sources said Israeli intelligence agency Mossad spearheaded the pager and walkie-talkie attacks. Reuters could not establish where the devices were manufactured. The office of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has authority over Mossad, did not respond to a request for comment. Lebanon’s Information Ministry and a spokesperson for Hezbollah declined to comment for this article. Israel has neither denied nor confirmed a role. The day after the attacks Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant praised Mossad's "very impressive" results in comments that were widely interpreted in Israel as a tacit acknowledgement of the agency's participation. U.S. officials have said they were not informed of the operation in advance. A man who was wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah detonated across Lebanon last month receives treatment at Sidon Governmental Hospital in Sidon, Lebanon on September 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ali Hankir The weak link From the outside, the pager’s power source looked like a standard lithium-ion battery pack used in thousands of consumer electronics goods. And yet, the battery, labelled LI-BT783, had a problem: Like the pager, it did not exist on the market. So Israel's agents created a backstory from scratch. Hezbollah has serious procurement procedures to check what they buy, a former Israeli intelligence officer, who was not involved in the pager operation, told Reuters. "You want to make sure that if they look, they find something," the former spy said, requesting not to be named. "Not finding anything is not good.” Creating backstories, or “legends”, for undercover agents has long been a core skill of spy agencies. What made the pager plot unusual is that those skills appear to have been applied to ubiquitous consumer electronics products. For the pagers, the agents deceived Hezbollah by selling the custom-created model, AR-924, under an existing, renowned Taiwanese brand, Gold Apollo. Teresa Wu (top) and Hsu Ching-kuang (bottom) in Taipei, Taiwan after the pager attacks. REUTERS/Ann Wang Gold Apollo’s chairman, Hsu Ching-kuang, told reporters a day after the pager attack that he was approached about three years ago by a former employee, Teresa Wu, and her “big boss, called Tom” to discuss a licence agreement. Hsu said he had scant information about Wu’s superior, but he granted them the right to design their own products and market them under the widely distributed Gold Apollo brand. Reuters could not establish the identity of the manager, nor whether the person or Wu knowingly worked with Israeli intelligence. The chairman said he was not impressed by the AR-924 when he saw it, but still added photos and a description of the product to his company’s website, helping give it both visibility and credibility. There was no way to directly buy the AR-924 from his website. Hsu said he knew nothing about the pagers’ lethal capabilities or the broader operation to attack Hezbollah. He described his company as a victim of the plot. Gold Apollo declined to provide further comment. Calls and messages sent to Wu went unanswered. She has not given a statement to the media since the attacks. ‘I know this product’ In September 2023, webpages and images featuring the AR-924 and its battery were added to apollosystemshk.com, a website that said it had a licence to distribute Gold Apollo products, as well as the rugged pager and its bulky power source, according to a Reuters review of internet records and metadata. The website gave an address in Hong Kong for a company called Apollo Systems HK. No company by that name exists at the address or in Hong Kong Corporate records. However, the website was listed by Wu, the Taiwanese businesswoman, on her Facebook page as well as in public incorporation records when she registered a company called Apollo Systems in Taipei earlier this year. A screenshot of the LI-BT783 battery displayed on the Apollo Systems HK website before it was removed from the internet. A section of the apollosystemshk.com site devoted to the LI-BT783 put emphasis on the battery’s outstanding performance. Unlike the disposable batteries that powered older generation pagers, it boasted 85 days of autonomy and could be recharged via a USB cable, according to the website and a 90-second promotional video on YouTube. In late 2023, two battery stores came online with the LI-BT783 listed in their catalogues, Reuters found. And in two online forums devoted to batteries, participants discussed the power source, despite its lack of commercial availability: "I know this product," a user with the handle Mikevog wrote in April 2023. "It’s got a great datasheet and a great performance. Reuters could not establish the identity of Mikevog. The website, the online stores, and the forum discussions bear the hallmark of a deception effort, the former Israeli intelligence officer and two Western security officers told Reuters. The websites have been scrubbed from the web since the pager bombs wreaked havoc in Lebanon, but archived and cached copies are still viewable. A video promoting the AR-924 pager uploaded to the Apollo Systems HK YouTube account YouTube account on December 13, 2022. A video promoting the AR-924 pager posted to the Apollo Systems HK YouTube account on December 13, 2022. Ruing the day they bought the pagers, Hezbollah leaders said they had launched internal investigations to understand how the security breach could happen and identify possible moles. The group had shifted to pagers at the start of the year after realising that cellphone communications were compromised by Israeli eavesdropping, Reuters previously reported. Hezbollah's investigations have helped uncover how Israeli agents used an aggressive sales tactic to make sure Hezbollah’s procurement manager chose the AR-924, one of the people familiar with the matter said. The salesperson who conveyed the offer made a very inexpensive proposition for the pagers, “and kept bringing the price down until he was pulled in,” the person said. Lebanese authorities have condemned the attacks as a serious violation of Lebanon's sovereignty. On Sept. 19, in his last public speech before he was killed by Israel, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the device blasts could amount to a "declaration of war" and vowed to punish Israel. Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire since Oct. 8, 2023, when the militant group began launching rockets at Israeli military positions in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas. In the wake of the device attacks, Israel has launched a full-on war on Hezbollah, including a ground invasion of southern Lebanon and airstrikes that have killed most of its top leadership. The internal investigation, still under way, suffered a setback on Sept. 28: Eleven days after the pager attack, the senior Hezbollah official tasked with leading the procurement probe, Nabil Kaouk, was himself killed by an Israeli airstrike. Reporting by Maya Gebeily in Beirut, James Pearson in London and David Gauthier-Villars in Istanbul Additional reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut, Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam, Ben Blanchard in Taipei and James Mackenzie in Jerusalem Graphics and development by Simon Scarr and Han Huang Edited by Frank Jack Daniel
If you read the above article, you'll notice how Israel went to great lengths to use the media to create deception about the pager. In other words, Israel admits using the media to lie and manipulate the public's impression. Notice the common theme? In the media, Israel keep spreading this (exaggerated) message in order to justify their violence.