Israel Update: November 17 (day 408)
Situational Update
Israel’s airstrikes in Iran last month destroyed an active nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, the Axios news site reported Friday, citing three US officials, one current Israeli official and one former Israeli official
Axios’s Barak Ravid reports: The Israeli strike on Iran's Parchin military complex in late October will make it much harder for Iran to develop a nuclear explosive device if it chooses to do so, two Israeli officials told Axios. The sophisticated equipment that was destroyed is needed to design and test plastic explosives that surround uranium in a nuclear device and are needed to detonate it. It dates back to before Iran ended its military nuclear program in 2003.
President Biden asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to attack the Iranian nuclear facilities in order not to trigger a war with Iran, U.S. officials said. But Taleghan 2 was not part of Iran's declared nuclear program so the Iranians wouldn't be able to acknowledge the significance of the attack without admitting they violated the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. "The strike was a not so subtle message that the Israelis have significant insight into the Iranian system even when it comes to things that were kept top secret and known to a very small group of people in the Iranian government," a U.S. official said.
"This is equipment the Iranians would need in the future if they want to make progress towards a nuclear bomb. Now they don't have it anymore and it is not trivial. They will need to find another solution and we will see it," an Israeli official said
According to FDD: A senior Iranian official said on November 15 that the Islamic Republic “backs any decision taken by Lebanon in talks to secure a ceasefire with Israel.” The statement comes as Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said that ceasefire negotiations are closer than they’ve been since Hezbollah commenced attacking Israel one day after Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack on October 7, 2023. This comes as Israel conducts some of its most intense strikes to date, targeting “terrorist headquarters, weapons warehouses, and other terrorist infrastructure” in the southern Beirut suburb, marking the fifth consecutive day of the Israeli offensive.
From the Jerusalem Post: UNRWA schools in Gaza: Principals, staff identified as members in terror units: a detailed investigation by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) has identified twelve UNRWA school principals and deputy principals as active members of terrorist organizations, with many holding commanding positions in the terror units. “This discovery directly contradicts UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini’s recent assurances to the UN General Assembly about his agency’s commitment to tolerant and anti-extremist education,” an institute spokesperson told The Jerusalem Post.
One of the most alarming findings was the discovery of Hamas tunnels beneath two of these educational institutions – Al-Maghazi B and Al-Zaytun A. “This physical evidence of militant infrastructure directly beneath classrooms raises serious questions about the exploitation of educational facilities for military purposes by Hamas,” the spokesperson said.
The Numbers
Casualties
1,784 Israelis have been killed including 796 IDF soldiers since October 7th (+8 since Wednesday)
Credit: Times of Israel Sgt. Ori Nisanovich, 21 (above), of the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion, from Jerusalem, was killed fighting on Friday in southern Lebanon
March Schulman reports: A platoon from the Golani Brigade entered a building in a seemingly deserted village, only to be ambushed: Cpt. Itay Marcovich (22), Staff Sgt. Sraya Elboim (21), Staff Sgt. Dror Hen (20), Staff Sgt. Nir Gofer (20), Sgt. Shalev Itzhak Sagron (21), and Sgt Yoav Daniel (21)
Ivri Dickshtein (21) (below) was killed when his Golani unit was ambushed inside a house in a village in southern Lebanon
374 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza have been killed
118 Israelis (75 IDF soldiers) have been killed during the war in Northern Israel
Additional Information (according to the IDF):
2,433 (+8 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 460 (no change since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.
5,631 (+300 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 781 (+2 since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.
According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 43,736 (+71 since Wednesday) people have been killed in Gaza, and 103,370 (no change in reporting since Wednesday) have been injured during the war.
On October 7th, Ohad Hemo with Channel 12 Israel News – the country’s largest news network, a leading expert on Palestinian and Arab affairs, mentioned an estimate from Hamas: around 80% of those killed in Gaza are members of the organization and their families.”
The article goes on to say: “In an N12 article that came out this morning, Hemo also pointed out that since the elimination of key leader Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s top echelon has gone underground and fled Iran and Lebanon, with some relocating to Turkey and Qatar – with the hope that Israel will not strike them there.
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."
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes official details on every civilian and IDF casualty.
Hostages (no change)
Palestinian Islamic Jihad has released a third propaganda video of Israeli hostage Sasha Trufanov, 29.
According to the Jerusalem Post: This is the third such video of Troufanov, and other hostages have been filmed as well. The videos cannot be corroborated by a third party. There is also no way to verify precisely when and where they were filmed, or what the conditions of the hostages were during filming and afterward. Israel widely considers these videos – which PIJ and Hamas have released before – to be a form of psychological warfare.
In the video, Troufanov said that he and the other hostages are running out of food and basic hygiene products. He called on the Israeli public to continue to push for a deal to bring the hostages home.
Troufanov was kidnapped on October 7, along with his parents, Yelena and Vitali, his grandmother, Irena Tati, and his partner, Sapir Cohen. His father was murdered, and his mother, grandmother, and partner were released in a hostage deal last year.
There are currently 97 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza
7 hostages are Americans: Meet the Seven American Hostages Still Held By Hamas
On October 7th, a total of 261 Israelis were taken hostage.
During the ceasefire deal in November, 112 hostages were released.
146 hostages in total have been released or rescued
The bodies of 37 hostages have been recovered, including 3 mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
8 hostages have been rescued by troops alive
This leaves 101 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
30-50 hostages are assumed to be dead and held in captivity
Thus, at most, 50-70 living hostages could still be in Gaza.
Hamas is also holding 2 Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of 2 IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
Listen
[PODCAST] Call Me Back with Dan Senor: The Future of Gaza - with Haviv Rettig Gur
In recent weeks, with the IDF focusing most of its attention on the Northern front, the media has been paying less attention to what’s actually happening in Gaza. What would constitute the Gaza War being over? Is there any progress on a Day After Plan for Gaza? What is the status of hostage negotiations and other efforts to free the hostages? What would the future (medium-term/long-term) Israeli presence in Gaza look like?
Watch
The Dispatch: Trump's Foreign Policy 2.0 | Rich Goldberg interviewed by Jamie Weinstein
Jamie welcomes Rich Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former National Security Council staffer during the Trump administration, to discuss the future of U.S. foreign policy under President-Elect Donald Trump. Together, they explore key strategies, potential challenges, and the incoming administration’s approach to global diplomacy
[WARNING: GRAPHIC TESTIMONY] Former hostage Maya Regev explains how she was tortured by Hamas
"He used to take chlorine and pour it inside the wound and press it. One day he took a knife and started to cut around it. I begged him to stop because I'm in pain, and I'm not allowed to scream. He didn't stop."
Rocket Alerts
Yesterday, there were 57 red alerts, and a total of 1,194 in the past week
+772 rocket alerts since last Wednesday
+157 UAV alerts since last Wednesday
Source: Rocket Alerts in Israel
Humanitarian Aid
Source: Israel Humanitarian efforts - Swords of Iron
Book Recommendation
The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel's Borderlands by Amir Tibon
On the morning of October 7, Amir Tibon and his wife were awakened by mortar rounds exploding near their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a progressive Israeli community less than a mile from Gaza City. Soon, they were holding their two young daughters in the family’s reinforced safe room, urging them not to cry as gunfire echoed just outside the door. With his cell phone battery running low, Amir texted his father: “The girls are behaving really well, but I’m worried they’ll lose patience soon and Hamas will hear us.”
Some 45 miles north, Amir’s parents had just cut short an early morning swim along the shores of Tel Aviv. Now, they jumped in their Jeep and sped toward Nahal Oz, armed only with a pistol but intent on saving their family at all costs.
In The Gates of Gaza, Amir Tibon tells this harrowing story in full for the first time. He describes his family's ordeal—and the bravery that ultimately led to their rescue—alongside the histories of the place they call home and the systems of power that have kept them and their neighbors in Gaza in harm’s way for decades.
Link: The Gates of Gaza
Listen to Amir on Dan Senor’s Call Me Back podcast
X Post of the Day
Eyal Yakoby posts: Pro-Hamas students and faculty at the University of Washington have posted photos of what they did to the president of the university's home. That UW president gave in to every demand of the encampment last semester. Appeasement never works.
What We Are Reading
Israel Is Fighting a Different War Now: The Israeli high command now sees all of its conflicts as elements of a single, multifront war with Iran. By Eliot A. Cohen in The Atlantic
On a recent trip to Israel, I found that Israel’s military and intelligence leaders—who in December were still stunned, guilt-ridden, and infuriated—were in a different place. They are still racked by their collective failure on October 7, 2023, but have recovered their balance.
The Israeli high command now sees all of these conflicts as elements of a single, multifront war with Iran. It believes that the preparation for the Hamas attack was intimately tied to Hezbollah, which is, in turn, an Iranian proxy. It believes, moreover, that the purpose of these attacks, over the next few years, was not to inflict damage upon Israel, but to destroy it.
Why Sinwar launched his attack before Hezbollah felt ready is unclear: He may simply have grown impatient. But the links, some of which were known to Israel before the war, were far deeper than the Israelis had realized. Saleh al-Arouri, one of Hamas’s most senior military leaders, had been living in the vicinity of the Hezbollah high command in Lebanon when an Israeli bomb killed him in January. He and Israel’s other enemies are and have always been absolutely clear about their intention to destroy the country no matter the price paid by civilians. Most Palestinians “would settle in a moment for peace, some deal that will let them get on with their lives,” he told a British interviewer in 2007. “We need to keep them angry.”
Israel is girding itself for the daunting prospect of a long war against Iran, even as its immediate conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah cannot be swiftly and decisively wrapped up, no matter what American and European leaders might wish.
Israel does not wish to put Gaza under military government during its reconstruction—but it has also failed to devise any plausible alternative, despite floating ideas such as an international police force or a return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza. Lots of humanitarian aid goes into Gaza—I saw the long lines of trucks—but much of it is immediately hijacked by Hamas gunmen, who control the distribution of relief, and with it the population. Hezbollah is still reeling from its hammering over the past two months, but it survives in the shape of small cells.
The Israelis will persevere, and things may break their way—if, for example, Iran’s internal politics are shaken up by the passing of the supreme leader, by ferocious American sanctions, or by overt and covert punishment for the attempted assassination of President-elect Donald Trump. In any event, the Israelis grimly believe, and with reason, that they have no choice but to continue fighting.
Yet the changes in Israeli society are noticeable. The reserve army that has fought these wars is tired. Many soldiers and airmen have spent most of the past year in battle, and their families have felt the strain. The national-religious component of Israeli society—what would translate in American terms into modern Orthodox Jews—has particularly borne the load. Because of Israel’s reserve system, many of the fallen are middle-aged men, and many leave behind fatherless children.
As ever, Israel is a complicated and changing place. Yossi Klein Halevi, one of Israel’s shrewdest observers, once said, “Everything you can say about Israel is true. So is the opposite.” And thus it remains. Israel includes alienated secularists and patriotic Arab citizens (increasing numbers of whom quietly join the military); it has liberals and reactionaries, men and women of all skin colors, gay-pride marches and obscurantist religious seminaries. But one thing is certain: It is engaged in an existential war of a kind that most of us in the West cannot appreciate unless we go there, observe, and listen.
Link: Israel's Changing War
The IDF’s Gamble in Lebanon, by Brig. Gen. (res.) Eran Ortal with the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA)
Summary: Israel’s move in the north signals a clear strategy – the return of the residents of the north to their homes based on a narrow security strip and a political demilitarization agreement in the form of UN Resolution 1701. This strategy involves operational and strategic risks. On the operational level, there is a risk to the fighting forces who are exposed to enemy units deployed to their north. Hezbollah units in southern Lebanon were less severely harmed than were the higher ranks of command, and they are relatively free to regain their footing and act. On the strategic level, allowing the enemy’s ground power in the south to remain intact almost guarantees the future rehabilitation of the organization. If the current strategy succeeds and the enemy agrees to end the war, the parties will embark on yet another race to prepare for the next one. This strategy illustrates that even at the height of a success like the current campaign against Hezbollah, tactics of the war on terror – however successful they may be – are no substitute for decisive military capability. This understanding should be the basis of Israel’s approach to defeating Hezbollah.
Precisely in light of the enemy’s disequilibrium, the modest goals of the “Northern Arrows” operation stand out. From everything that has been said and published, the operation is intended to return the residents of the north to their homes through the cleansing of the first line of Lebanese villages from Radwan Force attack-supporting infrastructure.
This relatively modest plan suits the Israeli government’s political goals as well as the Americans’ desire to limit the war. A limited plan may entail limited risks in principle, but from a narrow military point of view, this particular plan is based on simplistic work assumptions and entails great operational risks. A clear definition of the work assumptions implicit in the plan will make it possible to critically assess whether the situation has changed and whether the plan should accordingly be changed.
Although Hezbollah’s top command level was neutralized and a significant part of its rocket and missile arrays destroyed, the organization’s ground army in southern Lebanon was only slightly damaged. The IDF’s announcements about the operation’s limited objectives were intended for Israeli and American ears, but also signaled the enemy.
The deployment of the IDF on a very thin strip, in the face of a Hezbollah army that maintains significant military strength, including anti-tank and mortar capabilities, raids and ambushes, exposes the brigades to dangerous enemy initiatives. The IDF is trying to overcome this weakness by securing the forces with concentrated air effort and firepower. But from a military standpoint, it would have been more correct to capture the Hezbollah army in southern Lebanon through rapid divisional moves deep into the south and encircle the enemy based on the river lines (the Litani, Zaharni or Avali).
…the strategy of clearing a narrow buffer strip and ending the war in the north with an agreement is a legitimate choice. Hezbollah’s southern army is a significant military threat capable of exacting a heavy price from the IDF. Hezbollah knows full well that after a year of fighting in Gaza, the IDF is not the fresh, capable army, armed to the teeth and furious, that it was at the beginning of the war. It is very possible that the enemy will cooperate with the plan and take the chance of preserving its power over an attempt to restore its lost dignity.
We must define the situation clearly:
The IDF went into Lebanon to fight the enemy’s infrastructure, not the enemy itself.
Under these circumstances, combat contact will usually be initiated by the enemy.
The current move is not optimal in terms of securing IDF forces. Israel is allowing Hezbollah’s defense and attack units, which are mostly complete, to watch the IDF’s moves and initiate action accordingly.
De-equilibrium is, by definition, a temporary matter. As time passes, the impact of the inflicted blows weakens and operational cohesion returns. Restoring self-respect in the face of operational opportunities in the field may turn out to be a growing logic among the enemy forces in the south.
Choosing a strategy that does not seek Hezbollah’s military defeat will inevitably leave the organization a military force in Lebanon
The current strategy strives to shorten the long war we have fallen into. The thinking underlying this strategy is that the current Lebanon war will not be the last. As ever, Hezbollah will prepare for the next war while learning from its failures in the current round. In the future, Israel will not be able to assume that a series of secret operations will provide it with the same benefits. It is also possible that the bank of targets will not be replenished at the same rate in light of information security lessons the enemy is now learning.
The current war marks, therefore, the opening of the race between the parties to prepare for the next war. This may be the decisive conflict not only in the north, but also for the future of the axis. The IDF must develop a clear and distinct military decision-making capacity – a military capacity, not just another list of methods of fighting terrorism.
U.S. Transition Makes Iran Especially Dangerous by Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., in the WSJ
Israel countered Iran’s October ballistic-missile attack on its population centers with a precise strike on strategic military locations. Any further escalation will be met by an Israeli response that is more rapid and painful. Yet Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shows no interest in peace. Concerned with a second Trump term, he sent Iranian agents to assassinate the former president on the campaign trail. Last month, federal prosecutors charged an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps official with plotting to kill Iranian-American journalist and activist Masih Alinejad in her Brooklyn home.
The free world should be willing to confront the evil of the Islamic Republic both economically and militarily. This threat can’t be appeased as past American administrations have tried to do.
To create a more peaceful Middle East, the West must take six steps against the continuing threats from the Islamic Republic:
First, enforce current sanctions while continuing to target IRGC entities and hostile actors active in important sectors of Iran’s economy.
Second, expand sanctions on individuals and groups supporting the Islamic Republic’s missile- and nuclear-development programs. These penalties should apply to those providing support for terrorist groups that threaten the U.S., Israel and their regional partners.
Third, increase the number of IRGC terrorist designations to cripple the regime further.
Fourth, pursue “snapbacks,” or revive U.N. sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic before the 2015 nuclear deal. Doing so would resurrect resolutions designed to prohibit countries from supplying or selling arms to Iran while also banning Iran from exporting weapons abroad.
Fifth, seize commercial vessels illegally transporting Iran’s sanctioned oil to buyers worldwide.
Finally, crack down on Tehran’s illicit supply of weapons in different warzones such as Ukraine.
Each of these measures will require broad international cooperation, which is always hard to engineer. But success will help bring about a more peaceful, safe and thriving Middle East.
Can We All Agree That Pogroms Are Bad? by Michael Koplow in Israel Policy Forum
Had this been a confrontation between a group of badly behaved racist Israeli fans and a group of Dutch fans, then this interpretation might be correct, and the episode would have been sadly unremarkable and unworthy of commentary. The problem is that this is not what actually happened. There were badly behaved racist Israeli fans, and the way to deal with them would have been arrests or fines by the Dutch police. But when groups of men with knives and bats instead went looking for anyone whom they could identify as Israeli or anyone who looked Jewish because they were angry about something done by a specific group of Israeli Jews, it immediately became something other than self defense or two groups of idiots brawling. When there is a group text thread on the first night declaring that the next night will bring a resumption of the “Jew hunt,” it isn’t an example of rowdy thugs getting what they deserved. Jews getting stalked and ambushed at their hotels and beaten up by roving mobs in a European country because they are Jewish or citizens of the Jewish state, while passersby walk along averting their eyes and the police are nowhere to be found, is a pogrom. The tortured justifications that add up to “the Israelis had it coming”—often with the mendacious preamble that of course decries any violence—are nothing but thinly disguised arguments that all Israelis are responsible for the sins of their country or their countrymen. If chanting ugly and vile slogans was truly worthy of being met with unfettered violence, then I must have somehow missed the wellspring of support for armed mobs to go after the denizens of last spring’s campus encampments, their array of Hamas and Hezbollah swag, and their embrace of rhyming genocidal couplets. Targeting defenseless minorities, whether it is over alleged bad behavior or over their nationality, as law enforcement looks the other way is out of bounds, full stop. Those who try to justify it or wave it away show their true colors.
“Jews getting stalked and ambushed at their hotels and beaten up by roving mobs in a European country because they are Jewish or citizens of the Jewish state, while passersby walk along averting their eyes and the police are nowhere to be found, is a pogrom.”
When Yigal and Hillel Yaniv were murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in the West Bank town of Huwara, hundreds of Israelis descended on Huwara demanding blood, smashing cars and burning homes and beating Palestinians. It took hours for the army to show up, and ministers such as Bezalel Smotrich declared that the entire town of Huwara should be erased from the face of the earth. A large group of stateless Palestinians was subjected to a mob rampage over the sins of a different Palestinian while the authorities did nothing to prevent it, and some members of the government cheered and encouraged it. It makes no difference that it was a response to a terrorist attack, just as it makes no difference that Israelis in Amsterdam were targeted in response to anti-Palestinian vandalism, just as it made no difference in centuries past when European Jews were targeted by Christian mobs who believed in fictitious blood libels. A pogrom is a pogrom.
“It makes no difference that it was a response to a terrorist attack, just as it makes no difference that Israelis in Amsterdam were targeted in response to anti-Palestinian vandalism, just as it made no difference in centuries past when European Jews were targeted by Christian mobs who believed in fictitious blood libels. A pogrom is a pogrom.”
Huwara is the most visible example, but it is not the only one. Spend two minutes searching, and you will find footage of Israelis assaulting Palestinians in the West Bank while the soldiers or police stand off to the side—or in the most egregious cases, participate—in quantities orders of magnitude greater than what you will find searching for footage of Israelis being beaten in Amsterdam. But the key difference is not the number of incidents, but how they are dealt with. In Amsterdam, the police made an initial round of arrests, are continuing to make more arrests, instigated an immediate investigation, and have already issued a preliminary report. Compare that to the aftermath of pogroms by Israelis against Palestinians in the West Bank, where investigations almost never happen, arrests are rarely made, and consequences are largely non-existent. The attack on Israelis was an international incident that resulted in Israel sending planes to rescue its citizens and brought condemnations from President Joe Biden and members of Congress. Attacks on Palestinians are routinely dismissed as non-existent, missing context that the facts and footage don’t capture, not really a problem, not representative of Israeli policy, a negligible level of violence, and on and on.
“Attacks on Palestinians are routinely dismissed as non-existent, missing context that the facts and footage don’t capture, not really a problem, not representative of Israeli policy, a negligible level of violence, and on and on.”
Houthis’ Strategic Detention of Aid Workers in Yemen by Fatima Abo Alasrar with Future Center for Advanced Research and Studies
Houthi authorities have detained at least 13 humanitarian workers across major governorates, including Amran, Hodeidah, and Sana'a, on charges of "espionage" since June 2024. This crackdown on aid workers employed by the United Nations (UN) and other non-governmental organizations aligns with the Houthis' broader strategy: consolidating control at the expense of international humanitarian assistance to the Yemeni population.
The UN and the Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), known as the P5, continue to demand the "unconditional release" of these detained workers. However, the Houthis' persistent refusal to heed the broadening consensus of the international community underscores a critical point: the current strategy for delivering aid to Yemen requires a significant reassessment.
On October 12, a coalition of UN agencies, including UNESCO and the World Food Programme (WFP), issued a joint statement denouncing the arrests and calling for "unimpeded humanitarian access." In response, the European Union (E.U.) supported the UN declaration, which in turn increased pressure on American and European allies to boost humanitarian assistance and reconsider collective efforts to secure unhindered aid delivery into Yemen.
Earlier, in September, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Joyce Msuya, briefed the UNSC, emphasizing the worsening humanitarian conditions and the "unprecedented" scale of detentions targeting aid workers and civil society. Citing security concerns, Msuya announced that the UN would scale back its activities, focusing primarily on essential services in Houthi-controlled areas until the safety of its personnel could be assured.
UN reporting consistently reveals the Houthi militia's systematic diversion of humanitarian assistance. This repurposing of aid serves a dual purpose: rewarding loyalists while imposing 'taxes' that deepen civilian dependence on Houthi rule. The resulting patronage-based system consolidates support for the current regime while simultaneously targeting those who offer alternative perspectives on politics, economy, and society—effectively exposing the indoctrination inherent in Houthi governance.
The brutal tactics employed are exemplified by the tragic cases of Mohammed Naj Khamash, who succumbed to alleged torture last month, and Dr. Mohammed Hatim Al-Mikhlafi, currently detained. These incidents reveal a calculated strategy aimed at purging Yemen's educational elite. Furthermore, the abduction of Mohammed Abdullah Shammakh, a former US embassy employee, on October 31 serves as a stark reminder that even individuals with loose associations to America remain in the Houthis' crosshairs, nearly a decade after the US Embassy in Sana'a ceased operations.
In a grotesque spectacle designed to justify their so-called "reform" of Yemen's education system, the Houthis parade these educators on controlled media platforms, presenting them as "spies" through coerced confessions. The aim of this campaign is crystal clear: to silence dissent, dismantle knowledge, and ultimately weaponize education in service of the Houthis' hardline ideology.
The Houthis have strategically weaponized aid, turning it into a powerful tool for control. Humanitarian monitors report that up to 70% of imported food and resources are either diverted to Houthi loyalists, heavily taxed, or siphoned off entirely. By imposing tolls on essential supplies, the Houthis have created an alternative revenue stream at the expense of civilians, rendering food, medicine, and clean water inaccessible to many. This manipulation has led to a surge in shipping costs and skyrocketing inflation, with Yemenis in non-Houthi areas bearing the brunt of these economic tactics.
The Houthis' ultimate goal is to be recognized as an indispensable power broker, one that regional actors will inevitably have to engage with during any future peace talks concerning the reunification of Yemeni communities. Their control over strategic ports, particularly Hodeidah, grants them a carte blanche for dominion across the Red Sea. Meanwhile, Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen have devolved into zones of repression and isolation, where the systematic dismantling of civil society goes hand in hand with the strangulation of humanitarian access.
The financial pipeline created through these various means has become the backbone of Houthi dominance. It reinforces their control over Yemen's north while simultaneously pushing the country's civilians to the brink of desperation. Through a sophisticated network of smuggling and arms deals, underwritten by Iranian support, the Houthis have fortified their rule, exploiting Yemen's resources even as millions of civilians face dire shortages. This steady influx of cash and weaponry has not only cemented their grip on power but has also enabled them to remain an unyielding disruptor in an already volatile region.
These calculated moves by the Houthis are designed to cement their position as a critical factor in both regional stability and Yemen's future, whether achieved through negotiation or force. Furthermore, their alignment with Iran elevates the militia from a mere domestic insurgency to a geopolitical disruptor, significantly complicating the efforts of Gulf states to maintain security and facilitate ongoing normalization between regional actors in an area of vital economic and strategic importance.
The choice lies between two distinct paths: one that seeks to alleviate the humanitarian crisis, support political negotiations, and eliminate Iranian influence; or another that allows the status quo to persist. The latter option risks a worsening humanitarian situation, continued political deadlock, and further consolidation of Iranian influence.
Antisemitism
A Worldwide ‘Jew Hunt’ by Bret Stephens in New York Times
If any doubts remained about the motives of the Amsterdam thugs who last week terrorized and assaulted Israeli soccer fans in droves, an investigation in The Wall Street Journal should settle the questions.
It wasn’t merely a reaction to provocative behavior by some of those fans. It wasn’t just overflowing anger over the war in Gaza. It was something altogether darker.
Jew hunt: Grotesque as the phrase is, it can no longer surprise.
It is what the graffiti on a wall in an Oslo metro station promises: “Hitler started it. We finis[h]ed it.”
It is a wave of antisemitic hate crimes in Chicago, including “anti-Semitic flyers with rat-poison like pellets” found in Lincoln Park in April, a Jewish man shot while walking to his synagogue in West Rogers Park in October and two Jewish students at DePaul University assaulted by masked men last Wednesday.
It is a long succession of assaults — sometimes with sucker punches, other times with cars, more recently with an attempted child abduction — against Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn.
It is the alleged gang rape near Paris in June of a 12-year-old Jewish girl by teenage boys “uttering death threats and antisemitic remarks,” according to a report from Agence France-Presse.
It is what a Hamas terrorist was doing on Oct. 7, 2023: “Dad, I’m calling you from the phone of a Jew. I just killed her and her husband, with my own hands I killed 10.”
Notice what these attackers aren’t saying. They aren’t expressing themselves in the faddish language of anti-Zionism. They aren’t denouncing Israeli policy or speaking up for Palestinian rights. They aren’t trying to make careful distinctions between Jews and Israelis. They are, like generations of pogromists before them, simply out to get the Jews — a reminder, if one was needed, of the truth often attributed to Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
The media are rarely shy about calling out certain kinds of hate crimes as racist. Yet for days the word “antisemitic” was either put inside quotation marks or attributed to Dutch officials when talking about the violence. The identity of the attackers has been treated as a mystery, or a secret, beyond delicate references to people with “a migration background,” in the words of Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof.
Yet so many supposedly decent people are quick to try to account for the evil that is done to Jews through reference to the evil (as they see it) that Jews do to others. As Leon Wieseltier pointed out years ago, this type of reasoning is not an explanation for antisemitism. It’s the essence of antisemitism.
Americans (and not just Jews) should beware: If we stay on this path, the Jew hunt of Amsterdam may be upon us, too, and sooner than we think.
Link: A Worldwide ‘Jew Hunt’
Could a Trump Presidency Cost Columbia University $3.5 Billion? by Frannie Block with The Free Press
A group of alumni and former professors of Columbia University warn in a new report that the university could stand to lose up to $3.5 billion a year—or up to 55 percent of the university’s annual operating budget—if Columbia doesn’t start cracking down on campus rule-breaking.
The report, published by Stand Columbia Society, a “politically neutral” collective working to restore Columbia’s “rightful pre-eminence in American—and global—higher education,” states the potential financial risks to the university are rooted in Trump and other Republican officials’ “enmity for elite institutions in general, and our alma mater in particular.”
The report estimates what might happen if the incoming Trump administration were to accuse universities like Columbia of violating Title VI, the section of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits discrimination on the basis of “race, color, or national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance,” which would allow the administration to withhold federal funding.
At present, Columbia has at least three active Title VI investigations into antisemitism and anti-Muslim sentiment on campus. Since October 7, 2023, Columbia’s campus has been embroiled in chaotic demonstrations against the State of Israel, prompting the House Committee on Education and the Workforce to conclude in a recent report that the university was “the site of some of the most disturbing and extreme antisemitic conduct violations in the country.”
Put another way, Stand Columbia Society predicts that Republicans may force “an uncomfortable reckoning that we can no longer wish away.” That reckoning—which Stand Columbia believes is possible, if not probable—could potentially cost the university up to $1.33 billion in government grants and contracts that it currently receives, including around $800 million dedicated solely for research.
And it’s not only federal grants that the university could lose if it is found in violation of Title VI.
Link: Could a Trump Presidency Cost Columbia University $3.5 Billion?
What American Jews Gave After October 7: An Accounting, by Jack Wertheimer in Mosaic Magazine
For many American Jews, unfolding events around the country became highly personal. Institutions they long had regarded as their own proved viciously hostile to Israel and indifferent to the concerns of American Jews. Their beloved New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, and many other media outlets presented Hamas’s claims as factual; and when reports about the intentional Israeli bombing of Gaza hospitals and mass graves of victims turned out to be false, the media, at best, soft-pedaled their corrections and failed again and again to treat claims about Israeli atrocities for what they were—lies.
Their universities and colleges, so highly valued and generously supported by Jews, neglected to protect Jewish students from abusive faculty and pro-Hamas classmates. In large and small locales across the country, city councils, school boards, and politicians spent weeks or months hammering out anti-Israel resolutions while ignoring local needs. By May 2024, 100 city governments had issued such resolutions and. In the process, “hateful, divisive, ugly stuff gets said,” noted a Jewish observer who has closely monitored these travesties.
“Jews feel betrayed on every level,” was how one federation professional from a highly progressive area put it to me, adding that “they may feel disillusioned but haven’t stopped fighting.” And they have ample reason to feel this way.
Within their closest social circles, American Jews lost friends, an experience reported by significant numbers of respondents to several surveys. Jews in online discussion groups and other social media have described breakups with intimate partners who disagreed with them about the war; some have decided to swear off dating non-Jews as a result. For many Jews, the defamation of Israel quickly became personal; they found themselves smeared as supporters of genocide. It also became painfully evident that contrary to Dara Horn’s memorable observation, lots of people do not love dead Jews—especially not slaughtered Israeli Jews—any more than they like living ones.
Surveys of Jewish adults found considerably lower percentages (between 15 and 20 percent) personally encountered anti-Semitism, though over three-quarters were exposed to anti-Semitic content online. With over two-thirds of adult respondents to a national survey admitting they do not publicly share their views about the Israel-Hamas war for fear “of being targeted by anti-Semitism,” it is evident that many American Jews came to feel unmoored over the past year. The security they had long felt in America has been replaced with anxiety—and anger. Many American Jews would resonate with the words of Andres Spokoiny, CEO of the Jewish Funders Network, when he noted how events since October 7 profoundly altered “our sense of belonging and existential safety.”
Tens of thousands of parents and grandparents became deeply anxious for the safety of children and grandchildren in lower, middle, and high schools where anti-Israel propaganda was force-fed to students, and even more explicitly on university campuses, where “Zionists”—Jews—were expelled from clubs, blocked from entering classes, intimidated, spat on, and harassed. (The pressing question of how children and college students have fared over the past year deserves separate treatment.) For family members of these students, protecting their offspring from new kinds of threats impelled them to act.
Across the country, large numbers of donors seemingly came out of the woodwork to contribute. Some federations received checks from hundreds of new or lapsed donors; and in the larger communities those numbers rose into the thousands. The UJA-Federation of Greater New York and its counterparts in Washington, DC and San Diego saw their donor rolls nearly double. In San Francisco one-third of donors to the Israel emergency campaign had never given before. And then there was the spike in sums donated. It was not unusual for donors who previously gave $10,000 to increase their gifts to $100,000 or for a $35,000 donor to write a check for one-million dollars. Givers of smaller sums also increased their gifts five- or ten-fold. The same story was replicated all around the country, in large Jewish population centers and smaller ones.
Generally operating on the local rather than national level, start-ups tend to serve subgroups within the Jewish population. They have faced challenges of their own, for instance: self-styled “queer Jews” have found it difficult to navigate their Jewish identities in non-sectarian LGBTQ organizations, many of which threw their support behind pro-Hamas demonstrators; organizations serving LGBTQ Jews were thus increasingly in demand. Jewish progressives also have felt “isolated” among their erstwhile allies and have “sought a Progressive Zionist place to feel comfortable and take actions,” as one such startup reported.
What are we to make of the large gap between Jewish college students and the adult population? And why do so many Jews fail to identify as Zionists, that is, as supporters of the right of Jews to sovereignty in their own state? It’s possible that many of the latter may not know what Zionism means. The same JFNA survey found high percentages of Jews eager to learn more about Zionism and Israel because they had never been educated about either. Some have attributed the gap between college students and older adults to their different stages of life, claiming that as the former mature, they will come around to valuing the Jewish state.
Link: What American Jews Gave After October 7: An Accounting
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, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Institute for the Study of War, and the Times of Israel