Blinken Defends Bypassing Congress to Sell Weapons to Israel and Urges Lawmakers to Help Ukraine

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday defended the emergency sale to Israel of nearly 13,000+ rounds of tank ammunition and also called for quick congressional approval of more than $100 billion in aid for Israel, Ukraine and other national security priorities.

Blinken said the needs of Israel’s military operations in Gaza justify the rare decision to bypass Congress. “Israel is in combat right now with Hamas,” he said during television interviews. “And we want to make sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself against Hamas.”

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The tank ammunition and related support constitute only a small portion of military sales to Israel, Blinken said, and that the rest remains subject to congressional review. “It’s very important that Congress‘ voice be heard in this,” he said.

The decision to proceed with the sale of more than $106 million for tank shells came as the Biden administration’s larger aid package is caught up in a debate over U.S. immigration policy and border security.

Blinken noted that President Joe Biden has said he is willing to make significant compromises to get the aid package moving. “It’s something the president is fully prepared to engage on,” Blinken said.

"When it comes to the weapons that we transfer, there are rules that go along with them. Those rules apply to Israel…including the way they’re used and the need, the imperative of respecting international humanitarian law," Secretary Antony Blinken says. https://t.co/wyPiN7dTK6 pic.twitter.com/Ha6DFfrU7X

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) December 10, 2023

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said there is bipartisan agreement that something has to be done to address record numbers of migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico.

“We want to solve that, to secure the border. I just saw the president of the United States say that we’ve got to secure the border. He’s right. So, any effort that doesn’t do that will be rejected by Republicans,” Romney said.

The stakes are especially high for Ukraine, Blinken said, given that “ we are running out of funding ” for the Ukrainians.

“This is a time to really step up because if we don’t, we know what happens. (Russian President Vladimir) Putin will be able to move forward with impunity and we know he won’t stop in Ukraine.”

Congress already has allocated $111 billion to assist Ukraine, and Biden’s budget director, Shalanda Young, said in a letter this past week to House and Senate leaders that the U.S. will run out of funding to send weapons and assistance to Ukraine by the end of the year, which would “kneecap” Ukraine on the battlefield.

But Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, said the administration has yet to justify additional aid to Ukraine. “So what we’re saying to the president and really to the entire world is, you need to articulate what the ambition is. What is $61 billion going to accomplish that $100 billion hasn’t?” Vance said.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said the money would make a difference because Russia is struggling to fund its war effort. “It can change the outcome of this war,” Murphy said. “Because at the very same time that we are making a renewed commitment to Ukraine, Russia’s ability to continue to fight this war is in jeopardy.”

Romney said he also supports the aid to Ukraine. “My own view is that it’s very much in America’s interest to see Ukraine successful and to provide the weapons that Ukraine needs to defend itself. Anything other than that would be a huge dereliction of our responsibility, I believe, to the world of democracy but also to our own national interest,” he said.

Blinken appeared on ABC’s This Week and CNN’s State of the Union. Romney and Murphy were on NBC’s Meet the Press. Vance was on CNN.

source https://time.com/6344552/blinken-congress-israel-weapons-deal-ukraine-aid/

Fighting Rages On Across Gaza as Israel Moves Ahead With Renewed U.S. Support

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Heavy fighting raged Sunday across Gaza, including in the devastated north, as Israel pressed ahead with its offensive after the U.S. blocked the latest international push for a cease-fire and rushed more munitions to its close ally.

Israel has faced rising international outrage and calls for a permanent cease-fire after the killing of thousands of Palestinian civilians. About 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced within the besieged territory, where U.N. agencies say there is no safe place to flee.

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The United States has lent vital support to the offensive once again in recent days, by vetoing United Nations Security Council efforts to end the fighting that enjoyed wide international support, and by pushing through an emergency sale of over $100 million worth of tank ammunition to Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked U.S. President Joe Biden for the “important ammunition for the continuation of the war.”

The U.S. has pledged unwavering support for Israel’s goal of crushing Hamas’ military and governing abilities, and returning all the hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war. Hamas and other Palestinian militants stormed into southern Israel that day, killing some 1,200 people and capturing around 240, over 100 of whom were released during a weeklong cease-fire late last month.

Israel’s air and ground war in response has killed thousands of Palestinians, mostly civilians, and forced some 1.9 million people to flee their homes. With a trickle of aid allowed in, and delivery impossible in much of the territory, Palestinians face severe shortages of food, water and other basic goods.

“Expect public order to completely break down soon, and an even worse situation could unfold including epidemic diseases and increased pressure for mass displacement into Egypt,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a forum in Qatar, a key intermediary.

Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, told the forum that mediation efforts will continue to stop the war and have all hostages released, but “unfortunately, we are not seeing the same willingness that we had seen in the weeks before.”

Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, told Israel’s Channel 12 TV that the U.S. has set no deadline for Israel to achieve its goals of dismantling Hamas and returning all hostages.

“The evaluation that this can’t be measured in weeks is correct, and I’m not sure it can be measured in months,” he said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN that “we have these discussions with Israel including about the duration as well as how it’s prosecuting this campaign against Hamas. These are decisions for Israel to make.”

This is a war that cannot be won, Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, asserted to the Qatar forum, and warned that “Israel has created an amount of hatred that will haunt this region that will define generations to come.”FIGHTING AND ARRESTS IN THE NORTH

Israeli forces face heavy resistance, even in northern Gaza, where neighborhoods have been flattened by air strikes and where ground troops have operated for over six weeks.

Israel’s Channel 13 TV broadcast footage showing dozens of detainees stripped to their underwear, hands in the air. Several held assault rifles above their heads, and one man walked forward and placed a gun on the ground.

Other videos have shown groups of unarmed men held in similar conditions, without clothes, bound and blindfolded. Detainees from a group who were released Saturday told The Associated Press they had been beaten and denied food and water.

Israel has not commented on the latest video or the allegations of mistreatment, but government spokesman Eylon Levy said “increasing numbers” of Hamas fighters were surrendering.

Residents said there was still heavy fighting in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shijaiyah and the Jabaliya refugee camp, a dense urban area housing Palestinian families who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation.

“They are attacking anything that moves,” said Hamza Abu Fatouh, a Shijaiyah resident. He said the dead and wounded were left in the streets as ambulances could no longer reach the area, where Israeli snipers and tanks positioned themselves among abandoned buildings.

“The resistance also fights back,” he added.

Israel ordered the evacuation of the northern third of the territory, including Gaza City, early in the war, but tens of thousands of people have remained, fearing that the south would be no safer or that they would never be allowed to return to their homes.

Heavy fighting was also underway in and around the southern city of Khan Younis.WAITING DAYS FOR FOOD

The price of food has soared as much of Gaza faces severe shortages. Abdulsalam al-Majdalawi said he had come every day for nearly two weeks to a U.N. distribution center, hoping to get food for his family of seven.

“Every day, we spend five or six hours here and return home (empty handed),” he said. “Thank God, today they drew our name.”

With the war in its third month, the Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 17,700, the majority women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, saying the militants put civilians in danger by fighting in dense, residential neighborhoods. The military says 97 Israeli soldiers have died in the ground offensive. Palestinian militants have continued firing rockets into Israel.

Netanyahu’s office said Hamas still has 117 hostages, as well as the remains of 20 people killed in captivity or during the Oct. 7 attack. The militants hope to exchange them for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Israel says it has provided detailed instructions for civilians to evacuate to safer areas, even as it strikes what it says are militant targets in all parts of the territory. Thousands have fled to the southern town of Rafah and other areas along the border with Egypt — one of the last areas where aid agencies are able to deliver food and water.

The war has raised tensions across the region, with Lebanon’s Hezbollah trading fire with Israel along the border and other Iran-backed militant groups targeting the U.S. in Syria and Iraq.

France said one of its warships in the Red Sea shot down two drones that approached it from Yemen, where Iran-backed Houthi rebels have vowed to halt Israeli shipping through the key waterway.

Israel’s national security adviser said Israel would give Western allies “some time” to organize a response but if the threats persist, “we will act to remove this blockade.”

source https://time.com/6344541/gaza-fighting-rages-israel-renewed-us-support/

Tennessee Tornadoes Kill at Least Six. Here’s What to Know

Severe storms and tornadoes that swept across Tennessee killed six people and injured at least two dozen more on Saturday.

The extreme weather destroyed homes, cut off power and closed roads, leading one mayor to issue a nighttime curfew of 9 p.m. for Saturday and Sunday.

“This is a sad day for our community,” Montgomery County Mayor Wes Golden said in a statement about the three people, including one child, who died in the area bordering Kentucky. “We are praying for those who are injured, lost loved ones, and lost their homes. This community pulls together like no other and we will be here until the end.”

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Here’s what to know. 

What happened and what is the extent of the damage?

The National Weather Service issued severe weather watches and reported two dozen hail storms, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes across several counties in central and northern Tennessee on Saturday. The first touched down just before 1:30 p.m. in Cumberland City in Stewart County, northwest of Nashville. 

At approximately 2 p.m., a tornado touched down in the area of Hand Estates, a neighborhood in the vicinity of Garrettsburg Road in Montgomery County, the Sheriff’s Office said. Clarksville Fire and Rescue shared photos on Facebook of ripped-up houses and a flipped semi-truck.

Three people—two adults and one child—were killed and 23 people treated at the hospital for injuries, Montgomery County said in a Facebook post. TIME reached out to the county for more information on the victims.

“This is devastating news and our hearts are broken for the families of those who lost loved ones,” City of Clarksville Mayor Joe Pitts said in a statement. “The City stands ready to help them in their time of grief.”

Further south in Nashville, at least three people died and others were injured along Nesbitt Lane north of downtown, Metro Nashville PD said via social media. Meanwhile, Nashville’s Emergency Operations Ctr. shared pictures of mangled homes and jumbled debris crashed on top of a car in the area.

The Nesbitt Lane area has severe damage. Our Personnel along with @NashvilleFD are on scene. Avoid this area. Remember do not approach downed power lines. pic.twitter.com/0eaShIa8VJ

— Nashville EOC/OEM (@NashvilleEOC) December 10, 2023

The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department said Joseph Dalton, 37, was inside his mobile home and died when the storm threw it on top of another residence, killing Floridema Gabriel Perez, 31, and her son, Anthony Elmer Mendez, 2, the Associated Press reported. Two other children, one in each home, were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, per the AP.

TIME reached out to the police department for more information. 

Also in Davidson County, where Nashville is located, another tornado around 4:45 p.m. flipped a car on the interstate, the National Weather Service said. As of 10 p.m., the severe weather threat ended for all of Middle Tennessee, the agency reported.

TIME has reached out to other counties to find out impacts. 

How have the storms disrupted life?

Sumner County, northeast of Nashville, declared a state of emergency on Saturday. In Montgomery County, Clarksville, Mayor Joe Pitts also declared a state of emergency and placed the city under a curfew for Saturday and Sunday night, starting at 9 p.m.

As of Saturday, multiple roads in Montgomery County were closed because of downed trees, power lines and an overturned semi-truck, the county said on Facebook. 

The storms knocked out power to around 19,000 customers, Cumberland Electric Membership Corporation reported. As of Sunday morning, around 13,000 customers around Clarksville were still without power, the company’s website showed. 

On Saturday evening, about 39,000 customers in Nashville were without electricity after two substations were damaged, the city’s emergency operations center said. The agency said that it was working to restore as much power as quickly as possible, “but the damage is severe and it will take our crews time as the assessments continue until the morning.”  

Nashville Electric Service reported that nearly 28,500 customers were still in the dark Sunday morning. 

There was no information readily available on Sunday morning as to whether schools would be in session on Monday in Montgomery, Davidson or Sumner counties. TIME reached out to school districts for more information. 

Where can people get assistance and how can others help?

The American Red Cross said on Saturday it was running three shelter locations in Tennessee: Northeast High School at 3701 Trenton Road in Clarksville, Beech High School at 3126 Long Hollow Pike in Hendersonville, and Isaac Litton Middle School at 4601 Hedgewood Drive in Nashville. If you are displaced, the relief organization said to call them at 1-800-RED CROSS for assistance. 

Local nonprofit organizations were also taking donations Saturday to help those who evacuated. 

Nonprofit YAIPak issued an urgent request for cots, blankets, portable lights, ready to eat food, water, generators, household cleaning supplies, flashlights, batteries, plywood, large tarps, totes with lids, baby care items and small children’s toys. Those in the area can deliver donations to 1255 Paradise Hill Road in Clarksville. Others can donate to the Red Cross and its Tennessee local chapter to support.

source https://time.com/6344521/tennessee-tornadoes-death-toll-injuries-power-cuts/

As the Israel-Hamas War Governs the World’s Attention, Iran Is Quietly Marching Towards Nuclear Breakout

When Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad invaded Israel on Oct.7, they didn’t just perpetrate the most deadly attack on Jews since the Holocaust. The Iran-trained and supported terrorists also helped divert the world’s attention away from how Iran is quietly, but quickly, marching towards nuclear breakout. In February, top Biden Administration official Colin Kahl, the then-Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, admitted that Iran could soon assemble a crude nuclear device in days.

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Understandably, the U.S. and its allies are now focused on urgent, immediate regional crises—namely the IDF’s military operation to eliminate Hamas from Gaza and dealing with the ever-growing threat of militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon. But a nuclear Iran remains the gravest long-term regional security threat facing Israel, the Middle East, and the United States, and it is not too late to stop Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

The diplomatic backdrop has already changed considerably for Iran’s nuclear aspirations. In the weeks and months before the Oct. 7 attack, Israel and Saudi Arabia were close to completing a normalization agreement, building off the Abraham Accords, which were originally conceived by its architect Jared Kushner and which both of us were involved in advising and negotiating.

The imminent addition of Saudi Arabia—home of Mecca, the spiritual center of Islam—to the Abraham Accords likely motivated Hamas’ attacks on Israel. Saudi-Israel normalization would have been disastrous for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s terrorist proxies, and the Iranian regime’s stated goal of destroying Israel. The more that the people of the region accept Israel’s existence, the harder it becomes for Tehran to obliterate the Jewish state and assert dominance over the Middle East.

We remain confident Saudi Arabia will eventually recognize Israel’s existence, but not right now. The scenes of Israeli fighters marching through Gaza broadcast throughout the Middle East threaten to inflame a pre-existing hatred of Israel that makes normalization politically untenable at this time, even for Gulf monarchies not beholden to voting publics.

We firmly judge this derailment of the next phase of the Abraham Accords as the great geopolitical casualty of the Oct. 7 attack. Even more importantly, the Ayatollah seems to believe the West is now further distracted and perhaps more deterred from confronting Iran over its nuclear program, as full-fledged nuclear weapons creep ever closer to fruition.

The strides Iran has made in its nuclear program over the last few years have flown under the radar. Today, Tehran has enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon in only 12 days according to data collected from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Iran is essentially a nuclear threshold state given their stockpile of uranium, with estimated enrichment levels as high as 84%. For context, 90% is the benchmark for full breakout capability. International sanctions on the regime’s ballistic missile program have also been allowed to expire, giving the regime carte blanche to further develop and proliferate the delivery vehicles necessary for a potential strike with the ability to reach Tel Aviv, Haifa, or even a European capital.

The potential destructive power of an Iranian nuclear weapon is obvious, but even the mere threat of a nuclear Iran is a potent weapon for the Ayatollah right now. He has surely seen how Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats seemingly deterred the U.S. from fully supporting Ukraine, according to experts including former American diplomat John E. Herbst. The Ayatollah may feel emboldened to run the same playbook now, especially if Israel reoccupies Gaza for the long-term or Hezbollah aggression compels the Israeli military to enter Lebanon in the months ahead.

The U.S. has repeatedly backed down from even minor confrontation with Iran in the interests of avoiding a wider regional war, including responding rather timidly to attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq by Iran-backed militias in recent weeks. As 60 Minutes detailed in November, the regime’s assassination campaigns on U.S. soil against U.S. officials and dissidents also continue apace.

It seems conceivable that the Ayatollah may continue to scale the escalation ladder with increasingly potent nuclear threats. U.S. and Israeli officials have messaged resolve not to let Iran obtain a nuclear weapon, but whether Israel and the U.S. actually have the political will to destroy the Iranian bomb-making program remains to be seen.

Even with Iran entrenched as a nuclear threshold state, it is not too late to stop the West Asia country  from obtaining nuclear weapons. The U.S. should be galvanized by the current conflict to restore deterrence against Iran—beginning with stronger enforcement of sanctions designed to cut off the regime’s number one source of income: oil revenues. The money generated from its petroleum exports funds Iran’s nuclear program and terrorist proxies alike, with windfall profits from increased oil exports, as we’ve discussed previously. 

As Secretary of State in 2016, John Kerry proudly proclaimed that the world was safer thanks to the nuclear deal he engineered, which released $150 billion in sanctions relief to Iran. In hindsight, Kerry’s sheepish admission that some of that money might go towards terrorism has proven sadly prescient, and we should hit pause on this spigot immediately.

Additionally, the U.S. must continue to pressure the IAEA to conduct rigorous inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities and hold the regime accountable when it does not abide by its commitments. An IAEA report released on Sept. 4 stated: “Iran’s decision to remove all of the agency’s equipment previously installed in Iran for JCPOA-related surveillance and monitoring activities has also had detrimental implications for the agency’s ability to provide assurance of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.”

To deter nuclear escalation, the world must impose new, tougher costs on Iran when it skirts IAEA regulations, stopping the country in its tracks before it progresses any further towards an actual nuclear weapon. Failure to do so makes it increasingly likely that Iran asserts control on the escalation ladder through nuclear threats, whether in the crisis in Israel or with increasing support for its terrorist proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and beyond.

American policy makers are rightly seized with the urgent and important work of supporting Israel’s counter-offensive efforts against terrorists in Gaza. We should not, however, lose sight of the fact that the current crisis is inextricably tied to the strategic imperative of stopping Iran’s march to the bomb.

Should we fail to urgently address and counter Iran’s nuclear program, today’s conflicts in the Middle East will likely become far worse.

With research assistance by Steven Tian.

source https://time.com/6344430/israel-hamas-war-iran-nuclear-breakout/

Finding Common Ground Between Israelis and Palestinians

The fog of war currently shrouding Hamas and Israel is not the only fog obscuring a path forward in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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While each side’s worst trauma has been triggered by Hamas’s depraved mass slaughter and Israel’s scorched-earth counter-attack—for Jews the Holocaust, for Palestinians, the Nakba—the fighting has also exposed a fundamental divide between two sets of grievances: what I call 1948—when the modern state of Israel was established; and 1967—when the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip began.

1948 challenges Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign state; 1967 challenges the Palestinians right to self-determination.

Both rights are legitimate—Israel has a right to statehood and Palestinians have a right to self-determination—but only one can be negotiated.

You can’t ask Israel to commit national suicide, though you can demand it recognize Palestinian rights.

By conflating two sets of grievances represented by 1948 and 1967, Israelis and Palestinians have been able to valorize their own victimization and deny the other’s legitimacy. But once we disentangle the two claims, we can separate extremists who won’t be satisfied until one side is eradicated from moderates who understand both sides must find a way to coexist peacefully.

This sorting allows us to see the need for dismantling both the murderous Jihadist-Islamist Hamas (and its ilk) and the disastrous government and policies of Benjamin Netanyahu.

There’s zero equivalence between a democratically elected leader and a genocidal terror group—even if each has benefitted from, and indirectly abetted, the other—but both Hamas and Netanyahu have relentlessly crushed moderates to forestall any compromise over the past 30 years.

Both must go to break a vicious and tragic cycle.

Those who think the problem is 1948.

Opponents who denounce the founding of the Jewish state in 1948 are trying to subvert history and claim that all Palestine is occupied “from the river to the sea,” and Israel has no right to exist.

This is an annihilationist position and has no basis in fact or law. It ignores Israel’s 140 years of nation building in Palestine, its 75 years of national sovereignty, and all the norms of international law. It also denies the Jewish people’s origins—the word “Jew” means “from the kingdom of Judah”—and the inconvenient fact that Jews have maintained an unbroken presence in Palestine for 3000 years.

Read More: The Israelis and Palestinians Who Stepped Up After Oct. 7

In the 1880s, desperate European Jews seeking refuge from pogroms and rising anti-Semitism chose to return to their ancestral homeland where they had reigned across a millennium but since dwindled to a minority.

Zionists began immigrating in large numbers to Palestine, where they bought land and farmed, periodically clashing with native Arabs.

In 1947, when the United Nations approved a Partition Plan for a Jewish state and an Arab state, 1.1 million Arabs and 600,000 Jews lived in Palestine. Although each felt shortchanged, the Jews accepted the Partition Plan and the Palestinians rejected it, joining five Arab nations to attack the nascent Jewish state.

The Arabs unexpectedly lost the war while Israel expanded its U.N.-allotted territory.

This defeat and the flight or expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians is called al-Nakba, “The Catastrophe,” by Palestinians. After the 1949 Armistice, Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt occupied Gaza and the new State of Israel was admitted to the United Nations.

Israel has been a sovereign nation since.

Recognizing the historical Jewish connection to Palestine and Israel’s lawful statehood does not mean negating Palestinian claims to indigeneity or justice. This is their homeland too, they have a long, rich, and undeniable history and a deep attachment to the land from which many were uprooted. The Nakba is a national wound that the Jewish state must acknowledge.

Jewish fundamentalists who insist Arabs are an intrusion on Biblical land God promised Jews are denying Palestinian history and practicing the same ugly eliminationism as Islamic fundamentalists. Arguing that Israel absorbed 700,000 Jews expelled from Arab lands or that 22 Arab states numbering 475 million Arabs surround one Jewish state with seven million Jews is not exculpatory.

Israel cannot deny 1948, the way no nation can ignore its own bloody birth and the injustices created in its wake; but Israel can only acknowledge this within the context of its own historic claims,  its hard-fought sovereignty and future survival.

Those who think the problem is 1967.

This position centers on the Six Day War when Israel captured the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. 1967 brought over five million Palestinians under Israeli military control and has led to a stifling 56-year occupation and international censure. 

The term “occupied territories,” and Israel’s obligation to withdraw from them, was first used in U.N. Resolution 242 after the 1967 war. It refers to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. While Israel calls these “disputed territories,” its policies have indisputably led to dispossession, settler violence, creeping annexation, and charges of apartheid in the West Bank.

Read More: How Shabbat Brings Israel Together

Israel’s overwhelming victory in the Six Day War also unleashed a messianic movement for Greater Israel.

The 1967 occupation can only end with Israeli relinquishing control of the West Bank and Gaza in exchange for security and resolving all outstanding issues. But it’s a high-stakes risk that Israelis under Netanyahu—a territorial maximalist who rose to power as Yitzhak Rabin’s fierce anti-Oslo opponent—have deliberately undermined.

As I’ve written elsewhere, Netanyahu is the only Israeli prime minister since the 1970’s who never pursued a peace agreement or any accommodation with the Palestinians. He bolstered Hamas, a terrorist organization committed to Israel’s destruction, so he wouldn’t have to negotiate with the more moderate if flawed Palestinian Authority and so he could ignore Palestinian aspirations. 

Netanyahu has long led Israel down a self-deluding path, well before his current ultra-nationalist and ultra-religious government and disastrous security failure of 10/7. But just when Israelis were awakening to his authoritarian, jail-avoidant dismantling of the liberal secular state, the horrific Hamas attacks unified the nation.

One cannot exaggerate the murderous scale and shocking depravity of the 10/7 massacre for Israelis. In U.S. terms, it’s as if 110,000 armed Islamic terrorists—not the 19 unarmed terrorists of 9/11—had poured across the southern U.S. border and brutally murdered 44,000 Americans, wounded 200,000 more and kidnapped 9,000 hostages in one day. And not just gunned down innocent American civilians, but sadistically tortured, raped, mutilated, burned, and beheaded babies, children, young girls and old people in their homes.

How would the U.S., or any civilized nation, respond?

Hamas not only filmed its atrocities, it promised to repeat them until all Jews were obliterated from the land. This is the textbook definition of genocide, the 1948 annihilationism that informs Hamas’s Islamist charter.

Israel has no alternative but to destroy the fanatical jihadist enemy on its border before Hamas mounts another murderous rampage and invites other armed Islamists and Iranian proxies that encircle Israel and smell blood to join in.

Inarguably, Israel’s retaliation must be as measured as possible while achieving its war aims. Even if the evidence is now clear that Hamas stored weapons and terrorists under Al Shifra Hospital and that an errant Islamic Jihad rocket, not Israel, killed hundreds at Al Ahli Hospital.

Yet whose heart does not weep at the devastation and human suffering in Gaza? It is sickening to behold.

But why won’t the world admit Gaza is now hostage to Hamas, which started this war and could end it instantly by surrendering and releasing all hostages?

Israel must do more to minimize civilian casualties and maximize humanitarian aid, despite pursuing terrorists who cravenly hide in infrastructure and use civilians as human shields, a war crime.

Once Hamas is vanquished, Israel needs to replace Netanyahu and honor its overdue obligation to the Palestinian people and to its own people and their long-term security.

Israel must find a new leader brave and forceful enough to end the occupation of 1967 and enable the Palestinians to rule themselves. And Palestinians must find a new leader brave and forceful enough to accept Israel’s 1948 statehood and enforce a lasting peace.

Maybe the indescribable pain and fathomless suffering of both societies will jolt them into a new paradigm, so that together, they can find a way to share the land between the river and the sea and recognize each other’s common humanity, if not their kinship.

source https://time.com/6343572/common-ground-between-israelis-palestinians/

With the Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Over, Agony Continues for Hostage Families

Efrat Machikawa is convinced every day that passes with her 79-year-old uncle in Hamas captivity is threatening his life.

Her uncle is hard of hearing and suffers from high blood pressure and other conditions that depend on life-prolonging medication, she says, similar to other elderly hostages still in Gaza. After hearing about conditions of captivity from the testimonies of freed hostages—of surviving in dark tunnels with only rice and bread to eat—she fears that those who remain are dying.

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“This is why we have to make sure they come back tomorrow,” Machikawa tells TIME in a video call from southern Israel on Saturday evening. “If these people, the last vulnerable people inside and the innocent ones are not out, that will be hell, and we went through hell already.” 

“I’m ashamed we as the world haven’t brought them back yet. They should be back.” 

Her uncle, Gadi Moses, was kidnapped by Hamas from his home in the kibbutz of Nir Oz on Oct. 7 after trying to calm down the militants, his family reported. His partner, Efrat Katz, was one of 1,200 people killed that day. His ex-wife and his partner’s daughter and two granddaughters were among the estimated 247 people abducted, but the four were released during a weeklong ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

During the truce, the families of 110 hostages celebrated the return of their loved ones, as did the families of 240 Palestinian prisoners released from Israel’s prisons in exchange. But fighting resumed on Dec. 1, with Israel continuing a bombing campaign that the Hamas-run health ministry says has killed more than 17,000 people in Gaza.

Amid the revived fighting, an estimated 136 hostages remain in Gaza, the Israeli government told the Associated Press on Dec. 1. Among them is Machikawa’s uncle, who is a father-of-three and grandfather to 10. Moses is a “happy, beautiful, kind and smart man,” she says, a multilingual “plant genius” and potato specialist who has helped communities all over the world grow food.

Machikawa tells TIME “we should cease again” to release more hostages and believes it is the responsibility of Israel and governments all over the world to do everything they can to free them. Governments should be “very, very creative,” she says, trusting that leaders will unite and consult to achieve their common goal. “I’m sure governments have the power to do so,” she said. 

Israel had previously said under the negotiated ceasefire that they would stop fighting for a day for every 10 additional hostages Hamas freed. But on Dec. 2, Israel pulled out of negotiation talks with Qatari mediators in Doha, with Hamas responding that there would be no further prisoner swap until the war ends and Palestinian prisoners are released, Al Jazeera reported.

During the ceasefire, Hamas released 110 hostages—86 Israelis, some with dual citizenships, and 24 foreign nationals. The militant group previously freed four captives in October. Israel also said it rescued another hostage, a female Israeli soldier, during a Gaza ground operation.

Of those who remain in captivity, it’s not known who is alive. 

Israel announced on Dec. 1 that four hostages—56-year old Maya Goren, 86-year old Arye Zalmanovich, 54-year-old Ronan Engel, and 75-year-old Eliyahu Margalit—had died, the AP reported. The Israel Defense Forces also announced on Nov. 29 that it brought the body of 27-year-old Ofir Tzarfati back to Israel. Two other hostages have died in captivity since Oct. 7, the AP reported.

A list of the remaining hostages still included the youngest, 10-month-old Kfir Bibas, his 4-year-old brother Ariel and their mother Shiri, despite unverified reports from Hamas that they had died.

On Nov. 29, Hamas’ military arm posted on Telegram that the three family members had been killed in an Israeli bombing. The IDF told TIME in an email that day that it was assessing the accuracy of the information. The IDF noted that the family members were kidnapped alive into Gaza and said “Hamas is wholly responsible for the security of all hostages in the Gaza Strip.” On Dec. 3, the IDF said in an email it had no update regarding Hamas’ report.

It’s also unknown who is holding all the hostages, complicating their release. Qatar’s government told The Financial Times that there are roughly 40 hostages in Gaza not being held by Hamas, but instead by other militant groups. For families of the hostages, the weeklong ceasefire brought both hope and heartache.

Machikawa said her family received a phone call on Nov. 24 that her aunt Margalit Moses, 78, who is Gadi’s ex-wife, was among the first round of hostages to be released. When they finally reunited at Wolfson Medical Center, “we all cried, one side was crying of joy and the other of worry and the rest of grief” thinking of her uncle and others still in captivity, Machikawa says.

Her aunt has since been released from the hospital and is “slowly adjusting” to life after captivity with the help of “wonderful professionals.”

“Her release is the hope,” Machikawa says, that if “they could do it for a few times, that means they can do it again, and again, and again until everybody comes back.” 

Two months after her uncle was kidnapped, time has lost its meaning for Machikawa. She’s exhausted from not resting and still haunted by the traumas of Oct. 7, where around one in four people in Nir Oz, the community her parents helped start, were killed or kidnapped. Others across the country have reported rapes.

“I wish I could erase it from my memory,” Machikawa says of the reports, drawing in her breath as she wipes a tear from her eye. “What kind of a world lets monsters go away with that and not try to save them?”

“It’s not complete until they’re all back,” she continues. “We will manage the grief of those who were murdered, we will manage to overcome the catastrophe, the atrocity we witnessed, we will manage, but it will be very difficult to really rise up unless everybody is back home.”   

Still though, she believes the remaining hostages can come home. 

“I’m talking from great grief and sorrow and disappointment,” she says. “And though my voice is coming out of these deep, dark surroundings, I still see hope. We can still save them, so we have to save them tomorrow.” 

source https://time.com/6342114/israel-hamas-war-ceasefire-hostages-families/

The U.K. Government Is Facing Pushback to Its Rwanda Migrant Plan. Here’s What to Know

The U.K. has paid a further £100 ($126 million) and is set to pay more in 2024 to secure its controversial Rwanda asylum scheme.

Sir Matthew Rycroft, a civil servant in the Home Office, wrote a letter to MPs on Thursday confirming the total payment made to Rwanda in 2023, as part of the Economic Transformation and Integration Fund. Rycroft’s letter said this figure is in addition to £140 million ($176 million) paid last year, and that a further £50 million ($63 million) would be paid to the African nation in 2024.

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“I fully recognise the public interest in transparency and accountability of public authorities for expenditure and the broad public interest in furthering public understanding of the issues with which public authorities deal,” Rycroft’s letter read. He added that the government will only publish details of these payments annually.

“This was entirely separate to the Treaty—The Government of Rwanda did not ask for any payment in order for a Treaty to be signed, nor was any offered,” the letter clarified.

Here’s what you need to know about the Rwanda migrant plan and the pushback it has faced.

What is the Rwanda Migrant plan?

The deal—which was first introduced by former Prime Minister and ex-leader of the Conservative party Boris Johnson in April 2022—proposes the deportation of people seeking asylum in the U.K. to Rwanda, for processing and possible resettlement.

The scheme aims to mitigate migration rates and deter people from crossing the English Channel in small boats.

The Safety of Rwanda Bill is an effort to block legal challenges that have historically been enacted to prevent deportation flights from taking off. The bill compels judges to accept Rwanda as a safe country for asylum seekers. 

It also means that compelling evidence will be expected to escape deportation, and it will only be granted in cases where there is a “real and imminent risk of serious and irreversible harm,” Sunak told reporters, according to Al Jazeera.

What has been the reaction to the U.K. government’s proposition?

The plan has so far seen no success after repeated setbacks and legal challenges from experts who say it is unlawful. Last month the U.K. Supreme Court ruled that the scheme was not legal, as Rwanda is not a safe country for refugees.

Concerns have also been raised about the sheer cost of the policy, which has overseen zero deportation so far. In September, the U.K. observed the highest daily number of Channel crossings with 800 people making the journey in small boats, as the annual figure surpassed 21,000 at the time.  

Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has called the costs “unbelievable” on X (formerly Twitter), writing: “Tory Ministers repeatedly refused to come clean while they kept writing more cheques. Britain can’t afford more of this costly Tory chaos and farce.”

Meanwhile Tom Pursglove, the Minister of State for Legal Migration and Delivery, has defended the payments to Sky News, insisting that they ensure the Rwanda policy is “robust.” He added that the scheme aims to cut the amount the government spends on hotels and accommodation for migrants, which amounts to £8 million ($10 million) each day, according to Home Office figures.

The asylum bill has caused heightened tension in Westminster, most notably after the firing of former Home Secretary Suella Braverman in November. Braverman’s dismissal came after she wrote an unauthorized column for the Times of London criticizing the police. In her resignation letter, Braverman took the opportunity to call Sunak’s approach to the Rwanda bill a “betrayal” of their deal.

“I was clear from day one that if you did not wish to leave the ECHR (the European Convention on Human Rights), the way to securely and swiftly deliver our Rwanda partnership would be to block off the ECHR, the HRA (Human Rights Act) and any other obligations which inhibit our ability to remove those with no right to be in the U.K.,” she wrote. “Our deal expressly referenced ‘notwithstanding clauses’ to that effect.” 

What is Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s plan regarding the failing Rwanda migrant deal?

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak held a Downing Street press conference on Thursday, urging his party to back a revision to the Rwanda bill. 

Sunak outlined emergency legislation to put an end to the legal challenges that emerge whenever deportations to Rwanda are set to take place. The Tory leader said these measures will “finish the job.” 

The bill empowers ministers to sidestep sections of the Human Rights Act 1998, without entirely withdrawing from the ECHR.

Ahead of Sunak’s conference, Minister of State for Immigration Robert Jenrick resigned from his post on Wednesday, saying the proposed new legislation “does not go far enough” for him and other hardline Tory figures. 

Sunak has since expressed his disappointment over Jenrick’s resignation, according to the BBC, but added: “If we were to oust the courts entirely, we would collapse the entire scheme.” 

He said: “The Rwandan government has been clear that they would not accept the U.K. basing this scheme on legislation that could be considered in breach of our international law obligations.”

MPs are set to vote on the legislation in the House of Commons next week. Sunak can likely expect to see a lot of rebellion from his party on the matter, and the prospect of a no confidence vote is not entirely off the table.   

source https://time.com/6344094/uk-rwanda-migrant-plan-backlash/