It’s all about the Palestinians and the Mullahs.

By Joseph Puder, Front Page Magazine

Both the Obama and Biden administrations have had two obsessions that have proven to be erroneous but continue to persist.

One is the belief that the Palestinians are the key to Arab Israeli peace.

Former President Barack Obama had spent eight years pursuing efforts to push Israel to make unilateral concessions to the Palestinians, including freezing settlement expansion for almost a full year.

At the same time, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas climbed on a high tree and refused to come down and negotiate. President Joe Biden has been less preoccupied with the Palestinians since other priorities emerged that made the two-state solution less relevant.

The second obsession both Obama and Biden have been committed to is their unwillingness to clearly present a credible military option in dealing with Iran. Although President Biden has declared repeatedly that he will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear bomb, and opined in July 2022, that, “The only thing worse than the Iran that exists now is an Iran with nuclear weapons.” The State Department, however, had this to say… “We continue to believe that diplomacy is the best way to verifiably, effectively, and sustainably prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.”

Palestinian statehood and Iran’s nuclear ambitions

In the meantime, the Ayatollahs have advanced their uranium enrichment to 84%. Israeli daily Haaretz reported (February 19, 2023) that, “International atomic monitors detected last week that Iran has enriched uranium to levels just below that needed for a nuclear weapon. Bloomberg News reported that according to two senior diplomats, inspectors need to determine whether Iran intentionally produced the material – uranium enriched to 84% purity – or whether it was the result of an unintended accumulation within the centrifuges.”

Unlike the Obama policy of focusing exclusively on Israeli concessions, Biden’s policy is far more realistic vis-a-vis the Palestinians. During his confirmation hearing in January 2021, Antony Blinken, while expressing US support for a two-state solution, pointed out that realistically, it is hard to envision a near-term prospect for moving forward on a two-state solution.

Mahmoud Abbas has proven time and again that he is incapable of settling for peace deal with Israel. Making a deal that might require compromises in which he might not get all he wants, including the unacceptable idea (for Israel) of the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel. He was tested in 2008, when then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered Abbas the most extensive concessions on territory, Jerusalem, and even a small number of Palestinian refugees to be allowed into Israel. He declined to end the conflict, most likely because he feared assassination or harm to his family. Years later, Abbas conceded that he regretted not accepting Olmert’s offer, and that it was the most serious one presented. His excuse was that Olmert didn’t “show him the map.”

Perhaps one of the few things that Israelis and Palestinians could agree on is that in the eight years of Obama’s presidency, he let them down. In the US, both Democrats and Republicans criticized Obama for leaning too hard on Israel, and “leading from behind.” James Jay Carafano pointed out in a Heritage Foundation piece (February 6, 2015) that, “(The Obama) ) White House has nothing to show for years of shuttle diplomacy trying to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace. In fact, the two sides seem farther apart than ever.” It should be added that “nothing to show” came after unrelenting pressure Obama placed on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to make concessions to the Palestinians.

No military option against Iran

The second obsession the Obama-Biden administrations have is the unwillingness to use the military option, or to make it clear to the theocratic, and fanatical Iranian regime, that there will be a red line to their quest for a nuclear bomb.

The Obama administration was particularly protective of the Iranian regime and kept cautioning the Netanyahu government against preemptive action to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat. In his recently published book, “Bibi, My Story,” Netanyahu revealed to what extent Washington sought to prevent Israel from acting against Iran.

He wrote (page 484): “On August 20, 2012, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went further, saying, ‘The US will not be complicit in any Israeli action.’” Netanyahu added, “His (Dempsey’s) choice of words outraged me. It imputed an illegitimate, even criminal nature to a potential Israeli action and signaled to Iran that the US did not support Israel. This was putting blinding daylight between the US and Israel. What better way to reassure Iran that it was not in any danger if it continued to pursue its nuclear program?”

On September 11, 2012, Netanyahu said in a Bloomberg TV interview, (Bibi, My Story, page 485) “Iran will not stop (its drive to an atomic bomb, JP) unless it sees a clear determination by the democratic countries and a clear red line. They don’t see a clear red line and I think the sooner we establish one, the greater the chances that there won’t be a need for other types of action.”

The only way the Ayatollahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be deterred from reaching their target of acquiring a nuclear bomb is to face a serious American military threat. Libya’s dictator Gaddafi abandoned his nuclear ambitions in 2003, after President George W. Bush threatened to destroy his weapons of mass destruction. The impact of the US lightening victory against Saddam Hussein’s forces in the Gulf War convinced Gaddafi to give up his nuclear ambitions, not diplomacy.

In November 2011, Michael Eisenstadt, a Kahn Fellow and Director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy wrote: “For nuclear diplomacy to succeed, Tehran must believe that the US will take military action against any effort (by Iran, JP) to build a bomb.” History abounds with examples of diplomacy without the threat of a military action being a failure. Perhaps the best example is the Munich conference of 1938, when Britain’s Neville Chamberlain brought his empty “diplomatic peace of our time” only to have Hitler trample over Czechoslovakia, and then Poland. The old Latin dictum says, “If you want peace, prepare for war.”

The Abraham Accords

President Donald J. Trump proved the erroneous assumptions of Obama and Biden about the centrality of the Palestinian issue. His administration engineered the peace between Israel and the Arab states of Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan. It took away the veto powers the Palestinians held over Arab states. Peace between Israel and the Arab and Muslim world no longer depends on Palestinian approval. The longer the Palestinians reject compromise with Israel and are unwilling to recognize the permanency of the Jewish state, Arab states vital interest will prevail over Palestinian rejectionism. Iran and its proxies alone will continue to encourage Palestinian hopes to replace Israel.

It is time for Washington to overcome its obsessions and realize with clarity that the Middle East has changed. Iran threatens not only Israel’s existence but that of the Arab Gulf states, and ultimately the US. The Palestinians will soon be led by Hamas, and the Ayatollahs will likely get a bomb, unless the US replaces words with credible military threat of action.

Joseph Puder, a freelance journalist, is the Founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Taskforce for America and Israel (ITAI). He is a regular contributor to Frontpage.

The post The two American obsessions in the Middle East – analysis appeared first on World Israel News.

Biden’s policy-makers contend that Islamic terrorism is generally driven by despair and that the Muslim Brotherhood and its multitude of Islamic organizations are non-violent, political in nature and seeking justice, human rights and freedom.

By Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, The Ettinger Report

U.S. President Joe Biden is about to reembrace the Muslim Brotherhood – in the mold of the Obama/Biden Administration – in defiance of all pro-U.S. Arab countries, which consider the Muslim Brotherhood a clear and present, existential terrorist threat.

President Biden may benefit from the following advice, provided by Sir John Jenkins, a top British specialist on the Muslim Brotherhood, political Islamism and the Middle East, and former executive director of the British International Institute for Strategic Studies – Middle East branch:

“[The West] should resist the temptation to seek to understand the Muslim Brotherhood through our own cultural or epistemological [knowledge] categories…. [Jenkins cautions against] viewing the world through lenses ground by an exclusivist Western modernity, shaped in the distorting crucible of European nationalism….

“Islamism – to which the Muslim Brotherhood is central – like other totalizing, anti-rational and authoritarian ideologies is a profound ideological challenge to the modern Western conception of the rational state and its foundational principles….”

Engaging or confronting the Muslim Brotherhood?

Will Biden’s foreign policy and national security team – led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, CIA Director William Burns and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines – heed Sir Jenkins’ counsel?

Moreover, will they recognize the centrality of the Muslim Brotherhood’s track record and its core ideology, which highlight the grand design of establishing a universal, non-corrupt Islamic society; replacing Western global domination and submitting itself to Allah and the Quran, while rejecting/toppling all national (Muslim and non-Muslim) regimes via politics, violence and martyrdom?

Hence, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political and terroristic efforts to topple the regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Morocco, Jordan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, etc.

However, the Muslim Brotherhood has been very skillful in obfuscating the West through its two-pronged operation: the political screensaver and the operational (subversive and terroristic) engine. The latter determines the strategic vision and its execution, while the former facilitates diplomacy, politics and fundraising.

Yet, President Biden’s policy-makers contend that Islamic terrorism is generally driven by despair, and that the Muslim Brotherhood and its multitude of Islamic organizations are non-violent, political in nature and seeking justice, human rights and freedom.

This policy is articulated in a document, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which reflects the State Department worldview, and was headed until recently by CIA Director William Burns.

Biden team’s track record

The 2021 policy towards the Muslim Brotherhood is consistent with President Carter’s 1978/79 policy towards the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, who was perceived as a peaceful political dissident, oppressed by the Shah of Iran. This facilitated the Ayatollahs’ rise to power, stabbed the pro-U.S. Shah in the back, and transformed Iran into a global epicenter of anti-Western and anti-Sunni terrorism and a proliferator of non-conventional military technologies.

This worldview has led the Biden team to assume that Iran’s Ayatollahs – irrespective of their consistently ruthless track record – are credible negotiators; potential partners for peaceful-coexistence and influence-sharing with their Sunni Arab neighbors; amenable to ending domestic repression and disavowing their fanatical, megalomaniacal, religious vision. Furthermore, the Biden team assumes that waiving the U.S. military option constitutes a prerequisite to constructive negotiation with the rogue Ayatollahs.

President Biden’s team played a key role in the initiation and formulation of the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran (JCPOA). In 2021, it aspires to rejoin the accord with some modifications.

The same team co-led the 2009 embrace of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, while abandoning the pro-U.S. Mubarak on the grounds of the latter’s poor record in the areas of human rights and democracy.  This provided a tailwind to the Muslim Brotherhood’s subversion throughout the region – supported mostly by Turkey’s Erdogan and Qatar – and eroded US credibility and its posture of deterrence among all pro-US Arab regimes.

In 2021, the Biden team seems to adhere to the same policy, serving Egyptian President Sisi notice because of human rights violations, while courting the Muslim Brotherhood.

The human rights-driven policy towards the Muslim Brotherhood was at the core of the 2011 U.S.-led military offensive against Libya’s Qadhafi, which was actively supported by the current Biden team. It led to the disintegration of Libya, and dramatically worse violations of human rights, along with the transformation of Libya into a platform of civil wars and global Islamic terrorism.

Middle East reality revisited

According to Sir John Jenkins, “[The Muslim Brotherhood] continues to threaten the constitutive basis of most contemporary Muslim majority states…. Islamists are revolutionary in a fundamental sense of the word. And the history of the modern Middle East tells us that revolutions destroy. Some may still be tempted to hope that when a malign or otherwise unsatisfactory regime is overthrown the subsequent trajectory must be progressive. [Middle East] experience suggests the reverse. As Hannah Arendt said nearly 50 years ago, “The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world.” Authoritarianism is not weakened in such circumstances: it recurs….

“The Muslim Brotherhood, the first and foundational mass movement of mobilized Islamism, launched by Hassan Al Banna in the Egyptian provincial city of Ismailiyya in March 1928…. Al Banna may initially have conceived of Jihad as primarily one of social transformation through preaching and persuasion. But, he soon came to promote ‘fann al mawt’ – ‘the art of death.’

“He urged his followers to scorn life; claimed that ultimate martyrdom could only be attained through death in the service of the divine; articulated a doctrine of armed physical force; contemplated a frontal attack on power; and allowed the creation of a paramilitary force and violent attacks – including assassinations – against the Egyptian government…. On top of this, the writings of Sayyid Qutb – its most significant and protean ideologue – remain central to Brotherhood thinking everywhere and continue to be used to justify multiple forms of Islamist violence.

“More generally, [the Muslim Brotherhood’s] Political Islamism… rejects most existing political systems as un-Islamic. It seeks to replace the secular with a new Islamized order nationally and internationally. The Brotherhood… gives little space to the tolerance, choice and individual freedoms we claim to value. It has no commitment to democratic choice as the fundamental expression of a political community. It rejects what we consider to be the self-evident legal equality of individuals regardless of gender or religion. It is constitutively anti-Semitic and homophobic; its approach to education and societal cohesion is unlikely to promote inclusivity; it seeks power first….”

Will President Biden and his national security and foreign policy team leverage – or disregard – Sir Jenkins’ unique analysis of the Middle East, in general, and the Muslim Brotherhood, in particular?

Will they persist in their attempt to subordinate the intrinsically perfidious, despotic, intolerant, violent and unpredictable Middle East to noble core Western values?

The post Opinion: Biden and the Muslim Brotherhood trap appeared first on World Israel News.

The U.S. secretary of state is reportedly to deliver an address that repudiates the Middle East vision of former President Barack Obama.

By David Jablinowitz, World Israel News

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is setting out Tuesday for a Middle East tour that is to take him to eight capitals.  The announcement of the trip was made on Friday by the State Department, which said that the talks are due to focus on the security situations relating to Yemen, Syria, and Iran.

The U.S. secretary’s stops will be in Amman, Cairo, Manama, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Riyadh, Muscat, and Kuwait City. He is expected to try to reassure these Arab allies that the U.S. remains committed to them.

While in Cairo, Pompeo is scheduled to deliver an address on the American “commitment to peace, prosperity, stability, and security in the Middle East,” said the State Department.

In the speech,  he will “repudiate the Middle East vision of former President Barack Obama,” says Politico. The U.S.-based political news outlet refers to the address of Obama, also in Cairo, in 2009, when the president’s aim was to reach out to the broader Muslim world beyond just American allies.

Politico quotes sources as saying that “Pompeo will slam Obama’s engagement with Iran, while asserting that President Donald Trump has the region’s best interests at heart.”

Obama’s speech at Cairo University was viewed by Israel’s government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the launching pad towards the sour relationship which evolved between the president and prime minister during the eight years of Obama’s two terms in the White House.

The problems started with Obama’s decision to make his trip to the Middle East early in his presidency without including Israel on the agenda. Then, in the address, he skimped over the Jewish people’s right to their land, stressing the Holocaust as an argument that the Jews needed a refuge as opposed to citing their biblical and historical rights.

The emphasis on the broader Muslim world, including the engagement with Iran which led to the six-nation nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, was at the core of the strained Obama-Netanyahu ties.

Trump announced last May that the U.S. was pulling out of the nuclear accord.

However, there have been concerns in Jerusalem recently over U.S. policy in Syria after the president announced an American withdrawal from that country. Pompeo met Netanyahu last week when both men were in Brazil. A senior Israeli official later expressed satisfaction over the results of the discussion.

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton tried to further reassure the Israeli prime minister about Washington’s policy regarding Syria when they met Sunday in Jerusalem.

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In a worrisome move, the administration is siding with the PLO in a lawsuit that aims to bring justice to American victims of Palestinian terror.

By: Jonathan S. Tobin, editor-in-chief, JNS

It turns out that in some cases, the Trump administration can behave just like its predecessors.

President Donald Trump has been rightly accused of smashing precedents as the commander-in-chief, and many of his subordinates have behaved, spoken and tweeted in ways unlike anything we’ve seen before.

Some of this unorthodox behavior is indeed troubling. But other decisions, including  his willingness to buck the foreign-policy establishment on issues like the status of Jerusalem and trying to hold the Palestinian Authority responsible for its support of terrorism, have been a long overdue breath of fresh air.

On one significant legal issue, however, it appears that Trump has gone establishment. Yet rather than cheer it as a rare sign of maturity or stability, this decision is a regrettable reversion to the same sort of failed policies of the past that Trump has rejected in other instances.

The issue is the decision of the U.S. Solicitor General to side with the Palestine Liberation Organization in a dispute with those seeking to hold it accountable for its crimes as required by U.S. law. American victims of Palestinian terror attacks, as well as the family members of those who were killed in such attacks, originally filed the case of Sokolow v. Palestine Liberation Organization in 2004. They sued under the Anti-Terrorism Act passed by Congress in 1992, which allows U.S. nationals to sue international terror groups for damages in U.S. federal district courts.

Voluminous evidence of gruesome crimes

The Sokolow case stems from six specific shootings and bombings carried out by Palestinians in Jerusalem from 2002 to 2004 during the second intifada terrorist war of attrition orchestrated by the Palestinian Authority—the political arm of the PLO. A jury in a federal district court heard voluminous evidence of the gruesome crimes carried out by the Palestinians, as well as the clear proof that these acts were committed at the behest of their leaders.

The jury ruled for the survivors and their families in a 2015 decision that awarded them $656 million in damages.

But a year later, an appeals court overturned that decision when it ruled that U.S. courts didn’t have jurisdiction in the case and claimed that the Palestinians hadn’t specifically targeted Americans. That caused the terrorists to cheer, and it brought great relief to the Obama administration, which had opposed any effort to punish the PLO. It felt that anything that undermined the P.A. was, by definition, a blow to the cause of peace.

Like all previous administrations, Obama and his team regarded the Anti-Terrorism Act to be an attempt by Congress to interfere with the executive branch’s ability to conduct foreign policy.

That stand, in addition to the appellate ruling, contradicts the plain intent of the law, which was crafted specifically to deal with instances of international terror.

Given Trump’s tough talk on terror—reportedly, he yelled at and pounded the table when he demanded that P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas stop paying salaries and pensions to terrorists and their families—you would think he would reject the Obama position. But that’s not what happened.

The Solicitor General is asking, along with the PLO’s lawyers, that the U.S. Supreme Court not hear the terror victims’ appeal. The government’s arguments are highly technical in that they are asking the court to consider the PLO a “person,” and arguing that the two PLO offices in the United States don’t constitute enough of a reason to allow the victims to sue.

If the high court heeds the Solicitor General’s plea, then not only will the PLO be off the hook for the damages, but it will effectively render the terrorism act null and void.

That has raised a storm of protest from some pro-Israel activists, including the Zionist Organization of America, which has vociferously protested the stand of the Justice Department.

Why is Trump betraying his principles?

It’s hard to give a definitive answer for any decision made by the Trump administration. It’s entirely possible that Trump—an absentee president who is allergic to deep dives into procedure, details and the nuts-and-bolts of government decision-making—had no idea that his administration was going to side with the PLO.

That may also be true of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who when pressed about the issue during the course of an interview with Breitbart.com’s Joel Pollack seemed not to be familiar with the case.

The ominous silence of the State Department, which has always been opposed to efforts to hold the Palestinians accountable, on the case may also indicate that its influence—and those within the executive branch that always oppose allowing Americans to sue foreign governments—may be at work.

Then again, Trump’s lingering desire to broker the “ultimate deal” of a Middle East peace agreement—a task he has delegated to son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner—may also be behind a decision that will help keep the P.A. happy and not threaten its finances.

But whether you want to blame this on Trump’s massive ego, his son-in-law’s vain hopes for negotiations (which every sensible person knows are already doomed because of the P.A.’s intransigent refusal to end and admit defeat in their century-old war on Zionism) or the loyalty of the permanent bureaucracy in the Justice and the State departments to the failed policies of the past, the fact remains that this is a terrible mistake.

The Solicitor General’s stand is contradicted by the efforts of many members of both parties in the House and the Senate to stand up for the Anti-Terrorism Act. The critics are pointing out that if the PLO prevails, then it will reinforce exactly the same violent policies that make peace impossible.

That isn’t acceptable and shouldn’t be allowed.

Trump and Sessions need to wake up to the implications of this decision and reverse it. If they don’t—or if the high court allows the reversal of the jury’s decision to stand—it will ring the death knell for any accountability of terror in the courts.

The post Opinion: Trump is betraying American victims of Palestinian terror appeared first on World Israel News.

Analysts: Russia has not condemned the Israeli air strike in Syria, as Moscow has its own concerns about Iran’s ‘permanent’ military presence in Syria; Washington strongly on Israel’s side, but only marginally engaged on the issue.

By Steve Leibowitz, World Israel News

There was scrambling in Moscow and Washington this weekend, as the world superpowers viewed a potentially explosive conflict emerging between Israel and Iran that was playing out on the Syrian border. The US State Department blasted Tehran for provoking the confrontation, while Russia told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to avoid triggering a ‘new spiral’ of clashes.

The United States voiced unequivocal support for Israel’s right to defend itself, following the interception of an Iranian drone in Israeli airspace, and blamed Iran for the escalation of violence. Washington broadened its criticism to include Iranian aggression throughout the Middle East, saying its behavior “threatens peace and stability.” The Pentagon weighed in, saying, “Israel is our closest security partner in the region and we fully support Israel’s inherent right to defend itself against threats to its territory and its people.”

Netanyahu has made several recent trips to Russia to urge President Vladimir Putin to rein in Iranian moves in Syria. Just last month the Israeli leader appealed to Putin, warning that Israel will not allow Iran to create permanent bases inside Syria.

Following the altercation this past weekend between the two regional powers, Israel appealed to Russia to intervene in order to prevent further escalation. Israel reportedly initiated contact with officials in Moscow, asking the Kremlin to convey a message to Syria and Iran that Jerusalem is not interested in further violence. The message also stressed that Saturday’s events are proof that Israel’s warnings of Iranian entrenchment and growing boldness in Syria were merited.

Moscow issued a statement calling for “restraint” of all parties in Syria, adding that it considers risking the lives of Russian soldiers in Syria absolutely unacceptable. “We strongly call on all sides involved to show restraint and avoid all acts that could lead to complicating the situation further,” the Russian foreign ministry said.

US role ‘the biggest enigma’

Middle East analyst Amotz Asa-El told World Israel News (WIN), “There is a broad agreement that the Russians were not part of this altercation and it happened in spite of them. Russia wants a stable Syria and it wants to keep its air force and naval bases inside Syria. The Russians also want to be the exclusive foreign power in Syria and they are not happy about Iranian expansion. On that point they are on the same page as Israel. At the same time they do want to continue selling arms to Iran.”

“The American role is the biggest enigma.  The Obama administration’s policy was to stay away, and it backfired. Nobody yet can understand the grand design of the Trump White House. The US is clearly on our side, but we don’t know what kind of Syria they are aiming for,” said Asa-El.

“To the best of my knowledge the only party that could influence Iranian behavior is Putin,” Iranian Affairs expert Eran Lehrman told WIN. “This is all playing out in Syria, and [President Bashar] Assad is beholden to the Russian leader and to Iran for keeping him in power. Iran thinks that it caused Syria to win the civil war, but Russia and Assad himself also have a stake in what emerges in Syria. Russia has a vested interest in ensuring that it maintains its gains as a regional player in the Middle East with both naval and air force bases on the ground. Israel has no choice other than to drive home the point to the Russians and others that we have red lines and mean what we say.”

Strong Russian Interests in Iran and Assad

Dr. Martin Sherman says Israel is fooling itself if it thinks Russia will force the Iranians from backing off. Sherman told WIN, “They may have some sentimental feelings for Israel because of the Russian Jews living here, but what guides the Kremlin is interests and not sentiment. They have a strong investment in both Iran and Assad. The Americans will not meaningfully insert themselves because they are still stuck with the ruinous results of Obama’s policy of restraint.”

According to several analysts, Russian diplomacy would have to address both Israeli and Iranian demands. Israel wants assurances that Russia will prevent massive Iranian construction of offensive weapons systems in Lebanon and Syria. Israel also insists that Iranian bases, if any, would have to be as far as possible from the Golan Heights. Iran, for its part, wants legitimacy for its presence in Syria and to be taken into account in a future accommodation.

The main question is whether Russia has the patience to work for a diplomatic solution that would find an acceptable formula on the Iranian presence in Syria. Optimistic analysts say that Russia does not, in the long term, want to be too closely aligned with Iran and that they have their own concerns about Iran becoming too powerful in Syria.

Can Russia be an effective arbiter of the conflict? It’s not certain, but Israel’s intensive bombardments Saturday would not have been possible without Russian acquiescence, and the Russian Foreign Ministry’s statement on Saturday’s escalation did not condemn Israel.

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