Israel Update: August 18 (Day 317)
I wanted to start this update with a shout out to my hometown here in Houston, Texas! Our community, led by the JCC, successfully (and safely!) hosted over 1,500 Jewish teen athletes from around the world for the 2024 Maccabi Games at Rice University. The JCC Maccabi games are widely recognized as the world’s largest Jewish youth sporting event, offering Olympic-style sports competitions, including opening and closing ceremonies; travel; community service; social and cultural events and more. A special thank you to Rice, the JCC, our local security officials, and a massive army of local volunteers for hosting this impactful event.
Situational Update
Barak Ravid from Axios reports: President Biden is aiming to get a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal by the end of next week while also trying to deter Iran and Hezbollah from conducting an attack on Israel that could undermine this effort, U.S. officials say. On Friday at the end of a two-day summit in Doha, the U.S. presented a new proposal to Israel and Hamas in an effort to close the remaining gaps and reach a deal. A U.S. official said the proposal bridges nearly all of the remaining gaps that have been under discussion for the past six weeks.
Among other outstanding issues, the new proposal tries to address the disagreement about the list of hostages to be released, the sequence in which they would be released and the list of Palestinian prisoners who will be released for every hostage. An Israeli official said Israel agreed to decrease the number of Palestinian prisoners whose release they can veto in return for increasing the number of hostages who will be released every week during the first phase of the deal, which would last six weeks.
The US “bridging proposal” designed to enable the finalizing of a hostages-for-ceasefire deal in the coming week does not provide for an ongoing Israeli presence along the Gaza-Egypt border or for a mechanism in central Gaza to prevent the return of armed Hamas forces to the Strip’s north, as demanded by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hebrew media reported Saturday, citing unnamed officials familiar with the talks.
Hamas was likely to turn down the latest proposal, regarding it as broadly mirroring Israel’s positions.
On Sunday, experts from Israel, the U.S. and Egypt will meet in Cairo to try to conclude a deal on the security arrangements along the Philadelphi corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border and the re-opening of the Rafah crossing — two issues that are critical for the implementation of the deal.
Another negotiations summit is expected to convene in Cairo on Wednesday with the aim of finishing it with a deal.
The Israeli Air Force conducted an extensive aerial refueling exercise simulating long-range flight operations deep behind enemy lines. The drill, held on Thursday, involved key aircraft from Israel’s fleet, including the “Adir” (F-35i), “Baz” (F-15), and “Ram” (Boeing 707) refueling aircraft. This exercise, conducted within Israeli airspace, was designed to simulate conditions that the IAF might encounter during a mission requiring extended flight times far from Israeli borders. The ability to perform aerial refueling in short timeframes is critical for maintaining a sustained combat presence in distant operational theaters.
IDF intelligence chiefs never told Israel’s most senior military and political leaders that Unit 8200 had in April 2022 obtained a document setting out Hamas’s plans for what proved to be the October 7 invasion and slaughter in southern Israel, Channel 12 reported on Saturday. According to a Channel 12 report on Saturday night, the Arabic language document, which was written in October 2021, was obtained by Unit 8200 in April 2022 and translated. It was seen by IDF intelligence chief Aharon Haliva, 8200 commander Yossi Sariel, Gaza division commander Avi Rosenfeld, and then IDF Southern Command chief Eliezer Toledano, the report says. The document showed “Hamas was not deterred,” contradicting the prevailing IDF assessment, former IDF intelligence chief Aharon Ze’evi-Farkash told Channel 12. Therefore it should obviously have been followed up rather than dismissed. “It needed to be thoroughly checked.”
The Numbers
Casualties
1,659 Israelis dead (+2 since Wednesday) including 691 IDF soldiers (331 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza: +2 since Wednesday)
In central Gaza, Major (res.) Yotam Itzhak Peled (34) and Sergeant-Major (res.) Mordechai Yosef Ben Shoam (34) were both killed when their vehicle, carrying supplies for soldiers, was hit by an IED
Additional Information (according to the IDF):
2,219 (+17 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 418 (+1 since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.
4,333 (+27 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 643 (+3 since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.
According to journalist Marc Schulman: Today, the Hamas Ministry of Health announced that the number of people killed in Gaza has now passed 40,000. Israel journalist Doron Kadosh published the following report on Telegram to explain the figures, assuming that these numbers are accurate.
The IDF reports that about 17,000 militants have been definitively killed since the start of the war (i.e., militants whose bodies were seen and counted by the forces one by one). The IDF estimates that in addition to these militants whose bodies were counted, there are many others who could not be seen and counted—such as militants killed in airstrikes on buildings, who were buried under the rubble, and militants killed in underground tunnels. Rough estimates suggest there may be several thousand more since the start of the war. Hamas does not officially publish the number of militants killed in its ranks, and the numbers reported by the Gaza Health Ministry include both militants and civilians without distinction.
This suggests that the ratio of killed militants to killed civilians in Gaza is likely close to 1:1 (one civilian killed for every militant killed). This ratio is considered favorable compared to other conflicts and wars around the world in recent decades.
It is common to compare the war in Gaza to other battles where Western armies (or Western-supported forces) fought against terrorist organizations within a civilian and urban environment. According to global data, while about 50% of those killed in the Gaza war are civilians, in the Iraq War, 67% were civilians, and in the Gulf War, 88%. In Mosul, Iraq, between 9,000 and 11,000 civilians were killed, compared to 3,000-5,000 ISIS militants. In Raqqa, Iraq, about 4,100 civilians were killed, compared to about 1,900 ISIS militants.
Assuming none of these figures are highly reliable, one can only estimate generally: the IDF's kill ratio in Gaza is much lower than that of any other army, given the urban nature of the fighting and the enemy embedded within the population. In other wars where the nature of the fighting is entirely different from that of the IDF, there are also better ratios: in the Russia-Ukraine war, for example, the civilian death rate is about 30%, with a similar rate in the war in Afghanistan.
According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 40,005 (+40 since Wednesday) people have been killed in Gaza, and 92,401 (+107 since Wednesday) 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."
Hostages (no change since Wednesday)
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 21 others have been recovered. Tragically, 3 have been mistakenly killed by the IDF, and 1 was killed during an IDF attempt to rescue him.
49 hostages have been confirmed dead.
This leaves an estimated 111-112 hostages still theoretically in Gaza, with somewhere between (assumed) 33-41 deceased. Thus, at most, 82 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
(Sources: JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, and the Times of Israel)
The North
Listen
[PODCAST] Raphael BenLevi, Hanin Ghaddar, and Richard Goldberg on the Looming War in Lebanon with Mosaic
Right now, over 50,000 Israelis from the northern reaches of the country are not living in their homes. The intensity of rocket fire from Hizballah, arrayed across the Lebanese border, is too dangerous. For that reason and several others relating to Hizballah’s patron, Iran, a war to Israel’s north looms. In April of this year, the Israeli security analyst and IDF reserve intelligence officer Raphael BenLevi published an essay in Mosaic that explains the history of Israel’s northern border security, and what Israel can do now to restore it. To discuss that essay and its arguments, Mosaic’s editor and the podcast’s host Jonathan Silver convened a conversation with the Lebanese writer Hanin Ghaddar and the Iran expert Richard Goldberg.
Link: Raphael BenLevi, Hanin Ghaddar, and Richard Goldberg on the Looming War in Lebanon
[PODCAST] Call Me Back with Dan Senor: Holding Pattern(s) – with Jonathan Schanzer
Israelis are stuck in a tense holding pattern, each day waiting for a response from Iran, or Hezbollah, or both - an attack that was expected to occur last week, then later forecasted to occur over Tisha B’Av. And yet, each day… nothing. What is going on — in Tehran? In Jerusalem? And in Washington D.C.?
At the same time, there is a similar pattern in the hostage negotiations. Today, senior officials from Israel, the U.S., Qatar and Egypt met in Doha to resume negotiations for a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal - talks, as we are learning, that will continue into tomorrow.
Israel seems to be on the brink of major developments - and yet, Israelis are left questioning: when will they occur? And against that backdrop: is Israel on offense, or is Israel on defense?
To help us assess all of this from a broader strategic perspective, our guest is Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, who is senior vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Humanitarian Aid
Source: Israel Humanitarian efforts - Swords of Iron (gaza-aid-data.gov.il)
What We Are Reading
Study estimates post-traumatic stress disorder cases from Oct. 7 to cost Israel more than $50 billion over next 5 years, by Judah Ari Gross in eJewishPhilanthropy
The increased levels of post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from the Oct. 7 massacres and the ongoing fighting in Gaza and on Israel’s northern border is estimated to cost the Israeli economy over $50 billion over the next five years, according to a new study, which bases this figure on the impact on productivity, health-care costs and welfare benefits and the associated costs of related issues, such as addiction.
The study was conducted by the Social Finance Israel Group and the psychedelics research group MAPS Israel, as part of the latter’s HealingOct7 initiative, which aims to use psychedelic-assisted therapies for survivors of the Hamas attacks. The economic analysis was based on models used in other countries but has never before been performed in Israel.
The study estimates the total costs associated with a person diagnosed with PTSD to range between NIS 1.8 million-NIS 2.2 million ($485,000-$594,000), depending on the degree to which they are recognized by the state and receive the available benefits.
This amount comes from three main sources, with the most significant being “direct impact on employment and productivity,” which accounts for 74% of the estimated cost. Rising health-care expenditure and additional National Insurance Institute benefits represent 18% of the added cost to the economy and the increased risk of comorbid mental disorders and addictions represent 8%, according to the study.
The burden of these costs is also split between three groups: the individual and their family, who shoulder 30% of them; the state, which also bears 30% from a decrease in tax revenues and an increase in public spending; and the overall economy has the largest share, 40%, for the “decrease in labor productivity at the national level,” according to the researchers.
Even if the number of PTSD cases is on the lower end of the estimate, the cost to the Israeli economy would be in the billions of dollars.
Neudorfer stressed the need for “innovative solutions” to the problem. “The current system cannot hold the pressure of so many new victims, of so many civilians being exposed to trauma,” he said.
Iran: The Next Nuclear Weapons State? published by Andreea Strickler with National Security Journal
An astonishing U.S. intelligence report just revealed a grim truth: The Islamic Republic of Iran may be conducting nuclear weapons activities — yet Washington is doing nothing about it.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) recently provided an overdue report to Congress, omitting from the unclassified version a key phrase ODNI has used in annual threat assessments since 2019: “Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device.” In other words: The U.S. intelligence community can no longer assert Tehran is not working on nuclear weapons. Iran has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so,” the intelligence report concluded.
As Iran inches across the nuclear threshold, America is wasting precious time. The United States, along with its European partners, must urgently mobilize the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to conduct inspections to detect and end the regime’s illicit activities. Washington must also restore a maximum economic pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic and signal a credible military threat to deter and penalize further advances.
According to Axios, the United States and Israel collected intelligence last spring indicating that eager Iranian scientists were carrying out nuclear weaponization work: computer modeling and metallurgy experiments that could hasten Iran’s production of atomic weapons, should the regime order it.
After significant delays, a U.S.-Israel Strategic Consultative Group met in Washington in July to consider the new Iran intelligence and strategize what to do. While the two countries reportedly enlisted the IAEA for consultations, Washington’s main solution was to demand private clarifications from Tehran via diplomatic back channels and ask the regime to halt the activities. Iranian officials reportedly explained and denied the nuclear weapons-work, and the United States was satisfied and dropped the matter.
Due to Tehran's past, known work on nuclear weapons, the United States and Israel estimate Iran’s weaponization timeline to be about a year, if not longer. Yet independent non-governmental experts such as Albright believe the timeline may be less than six months. The obvious problem: no one knows for sure.
Once Tehran makes weapons-grade uranium —potentially at a covert underground site — there could be little warning, time, and ability for foreign powers to act before Tehran could emerge with a crude, yet perfectly functional, nuclear weapon. Iran needs only to conduct a demonstration test to establish nuclear deterrence, creating a protective shield around its atomic sites and military assets across the Middle East.
Iran also refuses to fully cooperate with a more than five-year IAEA investigation into the regime’s nuclear weapons-work at former nuclear weapon sites. Despite this, the IAEA was able to conclude that Iran carried out undeclared nuclear weapons-related work at two sites. The regime is likely concerned that the IAEA would uncover remaining nuclear weapons activities if Tehran obliges.
To stop the regime from breaking out of its nonproliferation commitments at an opportune moment, the United States, alongside Israel, must also continue to prepare and showcase military options and signal a credible willingness to use force to destroy or substantially set back Tehran’s program.
Link: Iran: The Next Nuclear Weapons State?: National Security Journal
The history of Hamas' lifeline: 20 years of broken Egyptian pledges along Philadelphi Corridor, by Lior Ben Ari in Y-Net News
Nearly 20 years ago, a conversation took place between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz that outlined a plan for deploying 750 Egyptian police officers along the Philadelphi Corridor within months to prevent arms smuggling.
The story of the Philadelphi Corridor spans over four decades of smuggling, broken promises, accusations and indirectly, numerous casualties. This has long been a problem for Israel, as the transfer of weapons, terrorists, infiltrators and goods beneath the border between Gaza and Egypt was a known and frustrating issue long before Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007 and even before the disengagement in 2005.
Reports in the media indicated that Israel was investing "efforts" in uncovering smuggling tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor and was considering bombing them from the air. Egypt expressed concern about such actions, which could threaten some 20,000 Gazans living near the border. "There are schools, banks and residential buildings that would be at risk if Israel used bombs against the tunnels," an Egyptian source said at the time.
For months, the Egyptians have said that any Israeli approach to the corridor would be seen as a violation of the peace treaty, but even after the IDF took control of the Rafah crossing in less than a day in early May, Cairo maintained that the peace treaty remained stable. This stance did not change even when the IDF announced in June that it had achieved full operational control along the corridor and had identified 35 tunnels, some crossing into Egypt.
The Secret War Behind the Exchanges of Fire in the North, by Brig. Gen. (res.) Eran Ortal with Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA)
The current war of attrition in Israel’s north is not just a series of reaction equations. It is a race to learn about the enemy and prepare for a battle in which both sides will try to overwhelm the opposing military force. The exchanges of fire are providing Hezbollah with an opportunity to study the Israeli air defense system in detail. This is a serious risk that deserves to be given its due weight.
Hezbollah’s precision strike capabilities, including the killing of two reserve soldiers in Metula, are unfortunately not new. The new information was that the war of attrition in the north, as well as the Iranian attack on the night of April 14, serve another purpose. Those who follow the skirmishes between Hezbollah and the IDF can see patterns that indicate that the enemy is taking advantage of these exchanges of fire to study the performance of our air defense system and find its weaknesses.
Hezbollah’s favorite target is the air control base on Mount Meron, an essential facility and part of Israel’s air defense system. The enemy has attacked it dozens of times and with varied methods. The IDF has focused thus far on the limited scope of the damage and Israel’s relative success at intercepting the rockets and protecting the facility. However, it is quite possible that for the enemy, these attacks are part of a broader ongoing experiment designed to test the performance of Iron Dome. The strikes are also enabling Hezbollah to practice complex attack patterns to overcome our defenses that include coordinated UAVs, rockets, and anti-tank weapons. There is no doubt that the enemy is perfecting this technique and will use it to attack other vital targets.
What can be learned from all this?
First, Hezbollah is building up for an all-out war. In this scenario, the first effort will be to neutralize critical components of Israeli air defenses. Such a neutralization would allow not only a free and effective attack on essential facilities in Israel, but also the paralysis of elements of the command and control system of the ground defense battle on the northern border. The results of such a paralysis, which we saw on October 7, 2023, are well remembered by every Israeli.
What can be done?
First, after the October 7 massacre, it seems that among the general public and even among the decision makers, sensitivity to the strategic and tactical meanings of the threat of fire has decreased. This needs to be fixed.
Second, the assessment of the situation in preparation for the possibility of war in the north must bring to light the erosion of the effectiveness of our defenses under current conditions. One can understand the voices calling for an immediate military solution in the north, but the severe plight of the displaced is only one variable in the assessment.
Third, the ability in principle to mount an attack on the sources of fire must be built. Even under the laboratory conditions afforded by the current exhaustion of the IDF on the northern border, the enemy is mostly succeeding at combining different attack methods into one complex attack barrage without being detected while creating an operational redundancy that ensures that some of its armaments will overcome our defenses.
Link: The Secret War Behind the Exchanges of Fire in the North: Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies
CNN’s optical illusion: Real impact of IDF gains in Gaza vs Hamas’s claimed resurgence: CNN's article on Gaza claims Hamas is recovering, but the IDF's actions have severely weakened the group, reducing its effectiveness. By Yaakov Amidror in the Jerusalem Post
Recently, CNN published an in-depth article on the war in Gaza, claiming that while the IDF dealt a severe blow to Hamas, the organization is reorganizing on the ground.
This claim reflects a fundamental misunderstanding, leading to a significant error. Let me illustrate with a scenario close to reality: Suppose a Hamas battalion consisted of 1,000 fighters divided into five companies. After a fierce battle, the IDF killed, severely wounded, or captured about 700 of them. Additionally, the battalion commander, one of his deputies, and four company commanders were killed.
During the battle, the IDF also eliminated the brigade commander to whom the battalion belonged and destroyed the command centers from which the brigade commander, battalion commander, and company commanders operated.
After the IDF withdrew, 300 young Gazans were recruited into the battalion. On the surface, it appears that Hamas has restored the battalion to its previous strength in the area where it was deployed before the ground maneuver. However, this is an optical illusion. Not only is the battalion now smaller by a third, with only 600 fighters, but it also bears little resemblance to its former self: Half of its members are completely untrained; most of its commanders are new and far less experienced than the previous leadership.
The task of “eliminating Hamas’s organizational ability to govern the Strip” is more complex. This is because it includes seemingly civilian components, as Hamas, being a smart and modern terrorist organization, has embedded its people and proxies within the system that appears to be civilian, through which it controls the Strip. The IDF finds it challenging to eliminate these Hamas operatives who manage Gaza ostensibly as civilians, but it is learning to identify these figures and is succeeding in neutralizing many of them. The more the IDF succeeds in hitting the military side, the easier it will be to target the civilian system that will float to the surface.
The clearing of the area from all Hamas remnants will continue, albeit with lower intensity and far fewer IDF forces remaining permanently in the Strip. This is not an easy task, mainly because the remaining Hamas members will fight fiercely for their lives, but their organized military force will be very weak or nonexistent.
At the end of the process, the Gaza Strip should become a large Area A, meaning there will be no Israeli military presence in the Strip, but the IDF will enter and operate there whenever there is intelligence on any terrorist organization.
Link: IDF weakens Hamas: New analysis challenges CNN’s Gaza recovery claims
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.
One Rule for Frat Boys. Another for Violent Activists. By Francesca Block in The Free Press
On March 1, all 37 fraternities and sororities on campus were told they were put on “social moratorium.” All activities involving alcohol were prohibited and “no contact” would be allowed between some 5,000 current members and new members, known as pledges. “Failure to comply with this cease and desist directive may result in further group or individual sanctions,” James Bond, the school’s director of student conduct, warned in an email to the Greek students on campus.
Soon after hearing the fraternity allegations, Maryland hired a team of lawyers who called in 150 Greek members for questioning. Some students were leaders; others were picked at random for the mandatory hour-long interviews in a campus library. Though students were allowed their own lawyers, those lawyers were permitted only to call in and listen rather than speak up on the students’ behalf, multiple sources told me. Three students said they felt “coerced” into cooperating, and none were told what they had been accused of. Some students were ordered to hand over their phones or their interrogators would note that they “weren’t fully cooperative,” Micah Kamrass, a lawyer for four fraternities and one sorority, told me. (The university denies this happened.)
As Maryland was cracking down on its fraternities last spring, pro-Palestine protests were sweeping through campuses across the country. Students built sprawling encampments that openly violated university rules, and some assaulted and verbally attacked Jewish students. A student at Yale was stabbed in the eye with a flagpole, and another at Columbia was told to “go back to Poland.” At UCLA, violence and hate erupted on both sides, as Jewish students were blocked from walking to class, and a group of pro-Israel protesters attacked the pro-Palestine encampment with fireworks.
In many cases, students got off scot-free despite committing criminal acts. At Princeton, the faculty voted to grant students “legal and disciplinary amnesty” after they were arrested for breaking into and occupying a campus building. At Columbia, protesters who held three janitors hostage after breaking into a campus building saw charges against them dismissed by the Manhattan district attorney, who cited a lack of sufficient evidence—even though multiple photos and videos documented their crimes. (The pro-Palestinian protests at Maryland were mostly confined to sit-ins that dispersed peacefully.)
“Based on rumors, Greek students were targeted, and yet, after everything that the university did, they found none of the initial allegations to have merit, and they took all these students through this process needlessly,” Smiley said. On the other hand, there are protesters who “are not only breaking university rules in many cases but also state laws. And those folks—the university seems to turn the other way and give them permission to just go ahead and do whatever. No punishment issued.”
Link: One Rule for Frat Boys. Another for Violent Activists: The Free Press
The Ideology Behind Campus Protests Is About More Than Israel: The theory of settler colonialism helped to inspire pro-Palestine activists, but its larger goal is to change the way Americans understand the history of their country by Adam Kirsch in the WSJ
The passions on campus are focused on the war in Gaza, with protesters accusing the U.S. (and in many cases their own universities) of complicity in what they call Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. But the charge resonates for many young people, especially the most dedicated activists, for reasons that go beyond the conflict that began with Hamas’s attack last Oct. 7. The ideological basis for the anti-Israel protests is a broader set of ideas about “settler colonialism,” an influential academic concept that understands certain countries as inherently and permanently illegitimate because of the way they were founded.
For the academic discipline of settler colonial studies, the goal of learning about settler colonialism in America and elsewhere is not simply to understand it, as a historian would, but to dismantle it. That process is known as decolonization, and the increasing currency of this term is an index of the rising influence of what might seem a merely academic idea. The command to “decolonize” has become almost faddish; guides have been written on how to decolonize your diet, your bookshelf, your backyard, your corporate board, and much more.
It is no accident that the ideology of settler colonialism is flourishing today at the same time as right-wing populism. Both see our turbulent political moment as an opportunity to permanently change the way Americans think about their country. And as is often the case, the extremes of right and left are united in disparaging the compromises of liberalism, which they see as weakly evasive. In the case of settler colonialism, this means rejecting the understanding of American history that has been mainstream since the mid-20th century—that it is a story of slow progress toward fulfilling the nation’s founding promise of freedom for all.
Link: The Ideology Behind Campus Protests Is About More Than Israel
The AAUP Abandons Academic Freedom, by Cary Nelson in The Chronicle
Last week, the American Association of University Professors set aside its hundred-year defense of academic freedom by opening the door to any number of individually initiated academic boycotts. Individual students and faculty have always had the right to advocate for academic boycotts, and it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise. But an unqualified right “to make their own choices regarding their participation in them” and not face discipline for doing so validates “rights” that have not previously existed.
The AAUP’s position that “academic boycotts should neither involve any political or religious litmus tests nor target individual scholars and teachers engaged in ordinary academic practices, such as publishing scholarship, delivering lectures and conference presentations, or participating in research collaborations” will be honored in the breach. That principle is in tension with the unqualified freedom that the organization grants to individuals to boycott or not to boycott. Expect organized demonstrations against collaborative American and Israeli research programs. Expect more efforts to block study-abroad programs, efforts that compromise student academic freedom.
The AAUP concludes its new policy by parroting the long-discredited Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions claim that it boycotts only institutions, not individuals. In 2014, the BDS campaign based in the West Bank at least had the honesty to admit that common sense dictated that individuals would inevitably be harmed by such “institutional” boycotts. Not so for the AAUP. Moreover, although its last sentence piously declares that “academic boycotts should target only institutions of higher education that themselves violate academic freedom or the fundamental rights upon which academic freedom depends,” there are thousands of faculty in the West who will have no problem, absent proof, claiming that Israeli universities have violated academic freedom for decades.
It supports that consequence by issuing a fundamental concession to anti-Zionism, declaring that “academic boycotts are not in themselves violations of academic freedom; rather, they can be considered legitimate tactical responses to conditions that are fundamentally incompatible with the mission of higher education.” No principles are any longer at stake in academic boycotts. They are mere tactical matters.
Germany’s Friedrich-Alexander University produces an Academic Freedom Index that ranks 179 countries worldwide. The 2024 update places Israeli universities in the upper 20 to 30 percent, substantially higher than those in the United States. The AAUP has made a political decision based not on fact but rather on prejudice. Jewish students and faculty will suffer unjustly as a consequence. Their individual academic freedom and right to be protected from a hostile educational environment will be compromised. We must no longer use AAUP policy as the gold standard for academic freedom.
UCLA can’t let protesters block Jewish students’ access to campus, judge rules by Andrew Lapin in the JTA
The University of California, Los Angeles, must take more decisive action to protect its Jewish students from any obstacles they encounter from pro-Palestinian protesters and encampments, a judge ruled Tuesday.
The temporary injunction, from U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, is one of the most significant legal rulings to follow the spread of pro-Palestinian encampments, which protesters organized on campuses across the country last spring. It comes in response to a handful of Jewish students suing UCLA, alleging that they were briefly barred from entering a campus space that had been occupied this spring by people protesting Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
“This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” he added, with emphasis his.
The judge said the fact that a public university’s staff was aiding any behavior that excluded Jewish students, instead of stopping it, violated the First Amendment.
A spokesperson for UCLA criticized the ruling to the Los Angeles Times, saying it would “improperly hamstring our ability to respond to events on the ground.” They added that the school is “considering all options moving forward”; the university had previously indicated it could appeal. UCLA’s fall semester for law students begins this month.
Link: UCLA can’t let protesters block Jewish students’ access to campus, judge rules
The Left's Hollow Righteousness On Gaza: You Can't Support One Atrocity And Then Oppose Another And Call Yourself Better by Nick Rafter
It struck me how many progressives, who for months were screaming about “genocide” in Gaza and Israel’s brutality, ran to the defense of Maduro. It was hard to hold both the progressive view that Maduro is a force of good against American-led corporate imperialism and the stories my client told me about life in Venezuela. Does her story and those of millions of Venezuelans not matter? Why is Israel bombing Gaza as part of a war to root out Hamas worse than Maduro randomly slaughtering men and women in front of their children simply because they publicly criticized the government’s policies?
I’m older than most of the Free Palestine protestors. My progressivism dates to the George W. Bush era. Back then, progressives believed the only acceptable reason for the US to interfere in international affairs was to stop genocide. In the early 2010s, Bandar-al-Assad, the Syrian dictator, put that to the test. Faced with a domestic uprising, he slaughtered his own people and progressives, who finally had an opportunity to put their words into action, cowardly retreated.
In my lifetime, we sat back and allowed genocides to happen in Rwanda, Darfur, Syria, China, and Myanmar and did nothing. We stepped in to protect Albanians and Kosovo and were lauded as heroes. Progressives today consider that intervention “imperialism.” The crocodile tears from the left about Palestinians ring hollow to me. Suddenly, it’s all too much for you to bear. Suddenly, the “genocide” is too much? Why now?
The excuse, they argue, is that we’re funding Israel. “Well, it only matters because we give Israel bombs.” It seems like a good rationale, but it’s morally depraved. Besides the fact that we only account for less than a fifth of Israel’s military budget, the arguments imply they would have been able to stomach dismembered Palestinian children if it was Russia or China funding Israel and not us. This doesn’t make you look righteous; it makes you look hypocritical. Do Palestinian lives matter, or do they only matter if we have what we perceive directly influences the situation? Is this about Palestinian children, or are you hoping we can starve Israel of support so it dies?
I do not believe many of these activists sincerely care about Palestinians. I think most of these protestors, the same ones who marched out and yelled “kill the pigs” during Black Lives Matter and harassed people for “going to brunch” at the end of the COVID-19 Pandemic, are all either self-obsessed attention whores or antisocial misfits who exploit the pain and suffering of Palestinians to seek revenge on the society they believe rejected them
If they want to do something for the plight of Palestinians, encourage more moderate and cool-headed leadership on both sides to move toward a peaceful resolution.
Palestinians are never going to win this if winning means the destruction of Israel. They’re facing a nuclear power with a solid Western alliance and an Arab world that would rather have a fruitful relationship with Israel than its destruction.