We started this update for a small group of family and friends, as we felt it was critical to arm our greater friends, allies, and skeptics, with the most accurate information and analysis we can find. While some of you signed up for this, and others did not, we hope you find it helpful. Our e-mail list expanded so much so that sending this out via e-mail was no longer possible. You may now unsubscribe below should you choose, or…you can share with your own network and they can now sign up to receive these directly. We are not journalists, nor do we pretend to be. Our reports are not perfect, and we always welcome your feedback. We are just trying to play a small part in this fight.
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Am Israel Chai!!
Situational Update
Per Israeli journalist Marc Schulman, Prime Minister Netanyahu gave an extensive interview to Israel’s Channel 14 (comparable to a cross between Fox News and NewsMax). In the interview, Netanyahu reiterated many of his standard positions, asserting that Israel will achieve total victory and blaming the reservists who expressed reluctance to continue volunteering to serve due to the judicial reform for October 7th. Netanyahu also said that he would agree only to a partial deal to bring back some of the hostages, after which Israel would resume the war to achieve total victory. This stance walks back the offer that was the essence of Biden’s speech, as well as central to the UN resolution. The families of the hostages immediately claimed Netanyahu had destroyed any chance of securing a deal. Notably, Netanyahu reaffirmed that Israel resettling Gaza was not realistic. National Security Minister Ben-Gvir immediately responded, insisting that Israeli resettlement of Gaza was not only realistic but should be done.
[EXCLUSIVE] Experts: ICC and UN blamed Israel for a famine that never happened in Gaza
‘We found that the food supply entering Gaza is more than sufficient to feed all 2.2 million Gazans according to what is considered a normal diet in North America"
“In fact, the mainstream media keep vacillating between (false) allegations that Israel is causing famine, is perpetrating genocide, and is sabotaging hostage deals with Hamas. Such a defamatory narrative is intended to end the Israel-Hamas war at all costs, including a Hamas victory, a bleak future for Gazans and Israel, and an endless cruel captivity for the hostages and their families. The false famine narrative has also been exploited by the ICC, ICJ, and UN to support their unjustified rulings and actions against Israel.”
Several United Nations (UN)-appointed special rapporteurs issued a statement on June 20 calling on weapons manufacturers to immediately halt arms transfers to Israel. The group — including Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for Palestinian human rights who is known for her inflammatory statements against Israel — also called on financial institutions like Bank of America and BlackRock to curtail their relationships with weapons manufacturers that do business with Israel. “Arms initiate, sustain, exacerbate, and prolong armed conflicts, as well as other forms of oppression,” the group said. “The imperative for an arms embargo on Israel and for investors to take decisive action is more urgent than ever.”
The UN group cited allegations from the International Criminal Court (ICC) of supposed Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity. “By sending weapons, parts, components, and ammunition to Israeli forces,” companies “risk being complicit in serious violations of international human rights and international humanitarian laws,” the UN group asserted. Many of the ICC’s accusations against Israel, which include false claims of enforced famine and deliberate targeting of civilians, were rebutted in a May 10 State Department report submitted to the U.S. Congress.
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The Numbers
Casualties
1,610 Israelis dead, including 665 IDF soldiers (313 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza) – an increase of 3 from our last update
Sgt. First Class (res.) Omer Smadga (25) and Sgt. First Class (res.) Saadia Yaakov Deri (27) were killed when a mortar shell struck them in the Northern Gaza Strip corridor, currently held by the IDF
Sergeant First Class (res.) Malkia Gross (25) was killed in Southern Gaza on Friday.
Additional Information (according to the IDF):
1,977 IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 384 who have been severely injured.
3,895 IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 588 who have been severely injured.
Note: we have always included the number of casualties in Gaza, as reported by the Gaza Health Ministry. We feel it is important to include this information with the caveat that this reporting ministry is not a trusted source of data by many. Most recently, The United Nations has begun citing a much lower death toll for women and children in Gaza, acknowledging that it has incomplete information about many of the people killed during Israel’s military offensive in the territory.
According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 37,589 people have been killed in Gaza, and 86,032 have been injured during the war.
We also encourage you to read this well documented piece from Tablet published in March: How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers
The Associated Press, an outlet with a demonstrated anti-Israel bias, conducted an analysis of alleged Gaza death tolls released by the Hamas-controlled "Gaza Health Ministry." The analysis found that "9,940 of the dead – 29% of its April 30 total – were not listed in the data" and that "an additional 1,699 records in the ministry’s April data were incomplete and 22 were duplicates."
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Hostages (No change since Wednesday’s update)
On October 7th, a total of 261 Israelis were taken hostage.
During the ceasefire deal in November, 112 hostages were released.
A total of 7 hostages have been rescued and the remains of 19 others have been recovered. Tragically, 3 have been mistakenly killed by the IDF, and 1 was killed during an IDF attempt to rescue him.
This leaves an estimated 120 hostages still theoretically in Gaza, with somewhere between (assumed) 35-43 deceased. Thus, at most, 85 living hostages could still be in Gaza.
According to an article published in the WSJ, “Of the approximately 250 hostages taken in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack, 116 continue to be held captive, including many believed to be dead. Mediators in the hostage talks and a U.S. official familiar with the latest U.S. intelligence said the number of those hostages still alive could be as low as 50.”
That assessment, based in part on Israeli intelligence, would mean 66 of those still held hostage could be dead, 25 more than Israel has publicly acknowledged.
Link: Families of Hostages in Gaza Are Desperate for News but Dread a Phone Call | WSJ
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Humanitarian Aid
For more detail, please visit COGAT’s website: Israel Humanitarian efforts - Swords of Iron (govextra.gov.il)
Since the start of the war, more than 24,440 tons of medical supplies have entered the Gaza Strip to support the medical response for Gaza civilians.
So far, 3,204 sick and wounded along with 725 escorts have exited the Gaza Strip for treatment in Egypt, the UAE, Turkey, Qatar and Jordan.
(Sources: JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, and the Times of Israel)
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Clarity with Michael Oren
Israel’s Double-Edged Sword (Part I): The Almost Impenetrable Dome
Impressed by Iron Dome’s ability to take out not only short-range rockets but also mortar and artillery shells, the United States earmarked a remarkable $2.6 billion in the system over the next ten years. Such support was bipartisan, uniting successive administrations and Congresses, and came on top of America’s already-steep commitment to developing joint US-Israel missile defense systems—David’s Sling (interim range, anti-cruise missile), Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 (high altitude, anti-intercontinental missile). As Israel’s ambassador in Washington during much of this time, I was deeply engaged in procuring this aid. “Behind the Iron Dome stands a marble dome,” I told a Congressional committee, “the dome of the U.S. Capitol.”
American backing was not, however, entirely altruistic. Fearing the large numbers of Palestinian civilian casualties certain to be inflicted if Israel were forced to invade Gaza as well as regional conflicts into which the United States might be drawn, the Obama administration preferred to bolster Israel’s defensive, rather than offensive, capabilities. Nor was the U.S. support string-free. Washington demanded access to Iron Dome’s secret technology and insisted on opening production lines for interceptors within the United States. Such concessions seemed a small price to pay, though, for the batteries, each with a price tag of $55 million and for interceptors that cost $60,000-$100,000 per round. Yet even those expenses paled beside those of the countless Israeli casualties liable to be inflicted by the unimpeded rockets and the even greater number of Palestinians who would be killed if Israel were forced to invade Gaza. Iron Dome, I wrote in Politico, was a direct investment in peace.
The “D word,” as I came to call it, would predictably resurface with every round of fighting with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. By May 2021, Operation Guardian of the Walls, saw 4,200 rockets fired at Israel by Hamas and PIJ, and a ninety-five percent success rate for Iron Dome. But the ratio of Israeli to Palestinian civilian deaths stood at fourteen to two hundred. As always, Israel took extraordinary measures to minimize collateral suffering—indeed, most of the Palestinian casualties were terrorists—but its efforts were largely discounted by the world. The “D word” became commonplace in public discussions about the operation, even in the TV commentary of John Oliver and Trevor Noah.
Why, when the Israelis were so well protected by Iron Dome, did they have to devastate Gaza? That was the question posed by so many leaders, journalists, and much of world opinion. When Israelis had access to bomb shelters and early warning systems, why then exact vengeance on the innocent Palestinians who had neither? Interviewing on CNN during the operation, I was asked—twice, without irony—why doesn’t Israel provide Iron Dome to Gaza?
Welcome to the other side of Iron Dome—its soft underbelly. The system surely saves lives and prevents larger wars, but it also serves some the terrorists’ most fundamental and long-term interests. The “D Word,” I’ll explain in Part II, is only the beginning.
Israel’s Double-Edged Sword (Part II): Military Tactic, Media Strategy
Between Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the terrorists are estimated to have about 250,000 rockets, missiles, and drones of various payloads and ranges. Hezbollah is also assumed to possess at least one hundred cruise missiles. In contrast to the stand-off Qassams, Grads, and Fajrs fired by the terrorists in Gaza—rockets that go up and down in a static trajectory—cruise missiles are guided by joysticks and can be directed to hit vital Israeli installations. They are far more difficult to intercept, though the United States and Israel have developed an anti-cruise missile system, David’s Sling (Hebrew: Sharvit Q’sammim, Magic Wand), which destroyed two rockets during the May 2023 fighting with PIJ and, during the current war, downed missiles as well. Now, however, with a vastly larger conflict looming with Hezbollah, no system or combination of systems can be expected to withstand what the IDF estimates would be as many as six thousand projectiles daily.
That firepower can cause Israel extensive if not strategic damage. It can shutter our airport, ignite the Haifa refineries, and perhaps even hit the nuclear reactor in Dimona. But what all the rockets, missiles, and mortars at the terrorists’ disposal can’t do is destroy the Jewish State. Israel will survive even the heaviest barrages—broken, perhaps, traumatized, and bankrupt—but unvanquished. The terrorists know this and do not particularly care. They know they cannot annihilate Israel even with twice as many projectiles. What they can do, however, is potentially even more destructive.
Rockets and missiles serve several functions—to gain prestige among the Palestinian and broader Arab and Muslim publics, to deter an Israeli preemptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities—but their long-term goal is more sophisticated. It is to kill as many Israelis as possible, sowing demoralization and weakening resilience, but, more importantly still, to provoke Israel into killing a great many Palestinian and Lebanese civilians. This is the military tactic: to win both with the launching of rockets as well as Israel’s reaction to them.
The international press never protests the terrorists’ restrictions and rarely questions their “news.” Generally predisposed to believe the worst about Israel, they will take at face value casualty figures published by, for example, the Hamas Health Ministry, though these are almost always inflated. My own experiences include the IDF’s purported mortaring of an UNRWA school in 2008 in which, according to Hamas and repeated by the European media, fifty-one civilians were killed, most of them children. In reality, the mortar shells fell outside the school; twelve people were killed, ten of them Hamas terrorists, none of them children. In 2012, the Washington Post devoted its front page to a photo of a Palestinian man wailing over a shrouded objected. Mourners gathered in a half-circle around him. The caption was: Palestinian father cries over the body his infant son killed in an Israeli airstrike. When I protested to the Washington Post editor that the image seemed too symmetrical, he responded that the photo was acquired by the Associated Press which vouched for its veracity. Three weeks later, the UN—the UN!—determined that the photograph had been staged.
The Gaza War, Israel’s Operation Iron Swords, has produced a slightly different paradigm. Hamas, itself, has posted videos of terrorists firing at Israeli troops inside the Gaza Strip—i.e., in defense of their homes. The gruesome footage of evisceration, immolation, and rapine captured by the GoPro cameras worn by the barbarians of October 7 was designed for Middle Eastern and Muslim audiences, not Fox and CNN. Still, throughout eight months of war, the only images of Hamas rockets being launched at Israel were posted by the IDF Spokesman’s Office. Videos of Israeli soldiers in combat, destroying Palestinian houses, sometimes even with glee, proliferated.
The result has been not only a replication of the previous iterations of the D Word but their incalculable, devastating, magnification. A nation ruthlessly attacked by an avowedly genocidal organization has, in defending itself, been almost globally accused of committing genocide. The unprecedented efforts of its troops, often at their own risk, to reduce the combatant-to-civilian fatality rate to the lowest in modern military history, have been transformed into a deliberate campaign of civilian annihilation. A racist, misogynist, homophobic organization that shoots from behind and under its countrymen has been widely hailed as the valorous champion of equal rights and human freedoms.
Enter Iron Dome. The images of the suffering and destruction purportedly wrought by Israel are sufficiently horrific. But then those pictures are contrasted with those of an Israeli public which, with relatively few exceptions, is weathering the war unharmed. The fact that Israel cannot play by the same rules as Hamas and Hezbollah, it cannot cherry-pick journalists’ dispatches, fabricate the news, or post photos of military and civilian casualties, only accentuates the contrast. The terrorists’ media strategy has met its goals; now on to the diplomatic strategy.
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What We Are Reading
Iran Set to Dramatically Increase Uranium Enrichment, Jewish National Syndicate warns. According to reports, new equipment was to be installed within four weeks.
An expansion underway at Iran’s Fordow enrichment plant could allow the regime to accumulate several bombs’ worth of nuclear fuel every month, The Washington Post reported Wednesday, citing confidential documents.
According to the report, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency of its plan to install some 1,400 new centrifuges at the heavily guarded underground facility, which would triple the production of enriched uranium at Fordow alone.
The new equipment was to be installed within four weeks, as similar expansion plans were underway at the main enrichment plant near the central Iranian city of Natanz, according to the report, which cited IAEA documents and European diplomats.
After a leaked draft of Iran’s plans was initially reported by Reuters on June 13, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller charged the Islamic Republic with “expanding its nuclear program in ways that have no credible peaceful purpose” and vowed to “respond accordingly.”
Iran has recently threatened a push towards the bomb. On May 9, an adviser to Khamenei warned that Tehran would weaponize its nuclear program if Israel “threatens its existence.”
Also last month, a lawmaker close to the regime suggested that the country might already possess an atomic bomb, saying: “In my opinion, we have achieved nuclear weapons, but we do not announce it.”
Link: Iran Set to Dramatically Increase Uranium Enrichment | Jewish National Syndicate
New from Prime Minister Netanyahu: What Netanyahu thinks about Gaza and Biden’s response to the war. Jake Sherman with Punchbowl News reveals Netanyahu’s thoughts on the Biden administration ahead of his visit to Washington in July.
“I deeply appreciate the support given by President Biden and the United States administration for our war effort from the beginning. President Biden came here, he sent two carrier groups and he gave us valuable assistance and ammunition and weapons from the beginning of the war. I appreciate that and I remain appreciative.
“We began to see that we had some significant problems emerging a few months ago. And in fact, we tried, in many, many quiet conversations between our officials and American officials, in between me and the president to try to iron out … And we haven’t been able to solve it. Now this is crucial. It’s crucial for our common war aims, to defeat Hamas and to prevent an escalation in Lebanon to a full-fledged war to have this supply.
“I raised this issue with Secretary Blinken. And I said that we are being told by our Defense Department officials that barely a trickle is coming in. He said, ‘Well, everything is in process. We’re doing everything to untangle it and to clear up the bottlenecks.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s what I expect to happen. Let’s make sure that it does happen.’ It must happen. …
“I felt that airing it was absolutely necessary after months of quiet conversations that did not solve the problem.”
Link: See the full transcript of the Netanyahu interview here
Link: Politicizing the victims of sexual assault means they suffer twice – Jewish Chronicle
New Israeli paradigm needed to prevent a nuclear Iran, an analysis by Professor Jacob Nagel in Y-net News: The biggest threat to Israel’s existence remains Iran's nuclear program and Israel must prevent the Islamic Republic from reaching its goal of achieving an atomic weapon of mass destruction
Israel continues the war in Gaza and Lebanon to dismantle and eliminate Hamas' military, governmental, and organizational capabilities, kill its leaders, bring back the hostages, and confront Hezbollah to allow the evacuated citizens to return home. At the same time, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei continues his ultimate strategy to achieve an atomic weapon of mass destruction.
Unfortunately, many in Israel, the West, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are falling again and again into the clerical regime's sophisticated trap. The Israeli leadership, hopefully together with the U.S. (but it will probably happen only after elections in November) should make a substantial switch in their working priorities to prevent Iran from reaching its goal.
Link: New Israeli paradigm needed to prevent a nuclear Iran | Y-net News
The Hezbollah Time Bomb Is Ticking, David Daoud and Jonathan Schanzer with The Dispatch write. Downplaying the Lebanese terrorist group puts Israel in peril.
The Israeli Defense Forces began with proportional responses to Hezbollah’s unprovoked attacks. But when that failed to deter the Lebanese terror group, the IDF steadily stepped up its retaliatory strikes. This, too, has done little. Hezbollah has lost more than 300 of its senior Radwan Forces along the border. An estimated 91,000 Lebanese citizens have been forced to evacuate from southern Lebanon. Yet, Hezbollah continues to fire at Israel.
Meanwhile, the international community’s fixation on futile deals has only whetted Hezbollah’s appetite for violence. The group sees the desperation to prevent a wider war. Its leaders note with glee how Israel has been restrained by the Biden administration. Their belief—mistaken and dangerous—is that Israel’s hands are tied by the White House. Nasrallah believes that “America controls Israel,” that the country is merely an American “forward military base. ” Indeed, the Hezbollah leader said in March, “When the Americans put their foot down, threatening to halt funds, Israel quakes in fear. When the Americans halt weapons shipments, the Israeli Chief of Staff quickly takes stock of his remaining ammunition.”
The Biden administration’s baseless signals of public displeasure with Jerusalem are undeniably seen by Hezbollah as a constraint on Israeli freedom of action. They are also treated as a green light for Hezbollah’s provocations. Washington’s decision to pause weapons shipments to Israel surely encouraged Hezbollah’s latest and most dangerous escalation. The group’s attacks suddenly became more destructive, reaching deeper into Israel.
For now, Israelis are weighing two terrible options. They can succumb to growing international pressure to accept a bad ceasefire deal. That would restore a deceptive quiet to their northern border, but it would also leave Hezbollah intact and able to harm Israel in ways that the country has vowed to prevent after the 10/7 attack.
Alternatively, Israel could hit back, initiating a conflict themselves to eliminate Hezbollah. The so-called “Dahiyeh Doctrine” adopted by the Israeli military promises to eviscerate the group’s bases of operations throughout Lebanon.
However, the Israelis are keenly aware of the price of such a war. Hezbollah’s destructive forces—with perhaps help from Iran and other surrounding proxies—could force Israel to fight a war that yields tens of thousands of Israeli deaths, and billions of dollars in destruction.
Israeli Defense Tech is About to Have a Moment from our dear friend Simone Ledeen, Venture Partner at Texas Venture Partners and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East.
The announcement from France that Eurosatory 2024 in Paris, one of the world's largest defense and security exhibitions was banning Israeli companies and Israeli nationals from participating has sent shock waves through the defense industry.
The ban affected over 70 Israeli defense firms, including major companies which were scheduled to showcase their latest technologies and weaponry at the event, as well as innovative startups with recently battle tested solutions needed to advance the cause of western civilization on battlefields across the globe.
If these firms are not permitted to sell their products legitimately to friendly partner nations, the less scrupulous among them will turn elsewhere.
At the same time, and because of these ongoing and expanding conflicts, there is a global munitions shortage. This shortage affects a wide range of munitions, particularly artillery shells, precision-guided munitions, and anti-tank missiles. Here is the stark reality staring us in the face: when it comes to military power, there is no capability without capacity. No country can expect to prevail in war without a robust defense industrial and manufacturing base that can produce weapons and munitions at speed and scale.
All these challenges demand a collaborative and decisive response if we are to emerge victorious. And it is “we,” not “they,” as this is a global conflict. Israel must continue to adapt and quickly. Integrating their air and space domains is essential for maintaining its regional military superiority. Israel’s reliance on US-supplied aircraft further highlights the need for such integration. Long-endurance logistics and maintenance will pose challenges in Lebanon, straining Israel’s resources in a protracted conflict.
Link: Israeli Defense Tech is About to Have a Moment | RealClearDefense
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From Sapir’s quarterly publication (the topic of this quarterly publication is Resiliency):
Dispatches from the Gaza Envelope: Trauma and agency in Israel’s south by Pamela Paresky and Maayan Hoffman
Resilience, the ability to bounce back after adverse events, relies on a sense of agency, taking responsibility for one’s own emotional experience, and a commitment to keep moving forward even when times are hard. Liberal democracy, whether in Israel or the United States, relies on a civic impulse with similar elements.
To prevent a response to traumatic stress from becoming PTSD, trauma survivors must put the events in the past, reduce feelings of helplessness, and increase a sense of agency. For survivors of October 7, rebuilding their communities is an integral part of rebuilding themselves.
One lesson for Jews in the United States is to harness a similar civic energy in behalf of our local and global Jewish family. To support one another. To refuse to be cowed by forces trying to break us apart. And to take ownership of our Jewishness.
If “never again” is to mean anything, it must include never again having to hide.
Can Israel’s Intelligence Services Be Saved? The concept of intelligence is in need of revision by Chuck Freilich
Like all great strategic fiascos, October 7 was the result of many factors, first and foremost a failure of imagination. Before October 7, the leaders of Israel’s intelligence establishment did not think that Hamas had anything near the capabilities required to pull off such a well-executed attack. Conversely, Israel correctly assessed that Hamas would not start a war without first gaining a commitment by Iran and Hezbollah to join them in the effort. What Israel did not know is that Hamas believed — mistakenly — that it had such a commitment.
A second factor was the overabundance of data, or what has been called the “noise-to-signal ratio,” in which the false signals, or “noise,” of raw information drown out the accurate signals that convey meaningful intelligence. To an extent, the system did work. A low-level analyst in Unit 8200, Israel’s primary agency for collecting signals and cyber intelligence, succeeded in bringing her contrary assessment of Hamas’s intentions directly to the head of the unit and even to the head of Military Intelligence (MI). Unit 8200 got its hands on Hamas’s plan of attack more than a year before the war. Somehow, the chiefs were unaware of some of the information and blithely dismissed other parts. It simply did not fit with the overall assessment.
Then there was wishful thinking. In the years and months prior to October 7, Israeli intelligence had bought into Hamas’s intentionally misleading messaging, which indicated that it was increasingly focused on domestic affairs and economic reconstruction rather than its fundamental jihadi objective of Israel’s destruction. Not that anyone thought Hamas had given up on this long-term objective, but the dire economic straits in Gaza suggested that its priorities had changed. In the meantime, the IDF was focused on the growing terrorism in the West Bank during the previous months, at least some of which was part of Hamas’s overall deception plan. That deception fed into the so-called conceptzia, Netanyahu’s specious conviction that the Palestinian issue could be sidelined for the long term by maintaining an ongoing separation between the West Bank and Gaza and strengthening Hamas’s rule in the latter. He also believed that Israel could enjoy peaceful relations with ever more Arab countries irrespective of the Palestinians, and he discounted evidence to the contrary.
A fourth factor was distraction. In the months before October 7, the entire national leadership, political as well as military, was consumed by the domestic battle over Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul. Opposition to the plan erupted in the IDF’s most elite units, primarily among reservists, but also among conscripts and the professional military.
Another element in the failure is Israel’s long-standing decision-making pathologies, including an understandable predilection for micro-tactics, for dealing atomistically with the immediate issue, and for politicization.
On a more mundane level, the IDF is constantly overextended, forced to cope with the entire gamut of possible military threats, from primitive but at times lethal rock-throwing, to sophisticated cyber attacks and nuclear programs. It thus has no choice but to conserve resources and take risks that might otherwise appear foolhardy.
All of this raises a final question, which really amounts to an unsolvable dilemma: Should intelligence assessments be based primarily on enemy capabilities or enemy intentions?
There is no foolproof solution to intelligence failure, and Israel needs far more than intelligence reform. It must rethink its overall national-security strategy and policies and elect a new national leadership with the ability to think afresh about all of Israel’s proliferating problems. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once wryly put it, “Intelligence is not to be confused with intelligence.”
Link: Can Israel’s Intelligence Services Be Saved? – SAPIR Journal
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Antisemitism
The Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS) publishes weekly information from over 300 million online data sources including public social media, traditional media, websites, blogs, forums, and more. The bigger the phrase on the above image, the more total mentions it had in the time period.
For more detail, please visit FCAS’s website here.
FCAS also published an impressive deep dive on AI and its impact on Holocaust education and antisemitism. A collection of articles can be found below:
Neo-Nazis Are All-In on AI: Extremists are developing their own hateful AIs to supercharge radicalization and fundraising—and are now using the tech to make weapon blueprints and bombs. And it’s going to get worse writes David Gilbert for Wired Magazine
The report found that AI-generated content is now a mainstay of extremists’ output: They are developing their own extremist-infused AI models, and are already experimenting with novel ways to leverage the technology, including producing blueprints for 3D weapons and recipes for making bombs.
“This technology is being utilized in two primary ways,” Adam Hadley, the executive director of Tech Against Terrorism, tells WIRED. “Firstly, generative AI is used to create and manage bots that operate fake accounts, and secondly, just as generative AI is revolutionizing productivity, it is also being used to generate text, images, and videos through open-source tools. Both these uses illustrate the significant risk that terrorist and violent content can be produced and disseminated on a large scale.”
These extremist groups are also becoming much more nimble in their use of AI tools, quickly pushing out large quantities of hateful content in response to breaking news, as seen after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 last year, and following the discovery of the underground tunnels near the Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights. When these stories broke, extremists produced huge numbers of AI-generated memes and content, shared primarily on X.
Neo-Nazis And White Supremacists Globally Look To Artificial Intelligence To Promote Their Message, Spread Misinformation, And Aide Their Cause, January 2023-May 2024. A comprehensive report from Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), an American non-profit press monitoring organization.
An area of particular concern in recent months has been the wholesale adoption of AI technology by extremist groups and individuals from across the ideological spectrum, and their use of generative AI for disseminating propaganda and misinformation as well as for hatemongering. For neo-Nazis and white supremacists in particular, it is a key weapon in their online arsenal, and they have very effectively deployed AI-generated content as a disruptor in both mainstream online spaces and on their own channels.
Link to Summary: MEMRI Summary on AI
Generative AI threatens memory of the Holocaust, report warns. A new Unesco report warns that AI could distort the historical record of the Holocaust and fuel antisemitism.
The report said the Holocaust was particularly susceptible to this risk because of the prevalence of misinformation about the event that circulates online.
It also warned that where there was a lack of data or detail about certain events related to the Holocaust, generative AI tools were prone to inventing events – known as hallucinations – which can further undermine established facts and trust in experts.
Link: Generative AI threatens memory of the Holocaust, report warns | The Independent
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Watch
[EXCLUSIVE]: Ido Aharoni & Dan Schueftan: The Real Story Of 10/7, by Tel Aviv University
Since the mid-1970s Dr. Schueftan has been briefing Members and staffers of the US Congress, as well as top professionals and key political appointees in the executive branch. In Europe he has been briefing ministers, parliamentarians, political leaders, senior officers, defense and intelligence officials and government advisors. He regularly lectures at leading universities, research centers and think-tanks in the United States, Europe and East Asia and is a regular source and interviewee on the Middle East for the major media in Israel, the Arab world, Europe, and North America.
In Schueftan's view, Israel's unilateral disengagement from Gaza is a first step in a wider historical process.
In this episode he shares his vision for the future of Gaza and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.