The U.S. and British governments on Monday announced sanctions against a company and two people linked to the Chinese government over a string of malicious cyberactivity targeting the U.K.’s election watchdog and lawmakers in both countries.

Officials said those sanctioned are responsible for a hack that may have gained access to information on tens of millions of U.K. voters held by the Electoral Commission, as well as for cyberespionage targeting lawmakers who have been outspoken about the China threat.

The Foreign Office said the hack of the election registers “has not had an impact on electoral processes, has not affected the rights or access to the democratic process of any individual, nor has it affected electoral registration.”

The Electoral Commission said in August that it identified a breach of its system in October 2022, though it added that “hostile actors” had first been able to access its servers since 2021.

At the time, the watchdog said the data included the names and addresses of registered voters. But it said that much of the information was already in the public domain.

In Washington, the Treasury Department said it sanctioned Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology Company Ltd., which it calls a Chinese Ministry of State Security front company that has “served as cover for multiple malicious cyberoperations.”

It named two Chinese nationals, Zhao Guangzong and Ni Gaobin, affiliated with the Wuhan company, for cyberoperations that targeted U.S. critical infrastructure sectors, “directly endangering U.S. national security.”

Zhao, Ni and five other Chinese nationals were hit with federal charges Monday. An indictment brought by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn alleges that the seven men were Chinese intelligence officers who engaged in a yearslong campaign targeting top White House officials, U.S. senators and the spouses of high-ranking members of the Justice Department, among others. 

The suspects are accused of sending tracking emails purported to be from prominent U.S. journalists, which contained legitimate news articles from publications like CNN and VOX. The emails also contained embedded hyperlinks that, when opened, would transmit information about the recipients to a server controlled by the suspects, the indictment says.

One of the group’s alleged campaigns took place from June to September 2018 when they sent more than 10,000 messages to a wide range of targets including Democratic and Republican senators from more than 10 states and the spouses of various government administrators including a high-ranking Department of Justice official, high-ranking White House officials and multiple United States senators.

“These allegations pull back the curtain on China’s vast illegal hacking operation that targeted sensitive data from U.S. elected and government officials, journalists and academics; valuable information from American companies; and political dissidents in America and abroad,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.

Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said her government “firmly opposes and cracks down on all forms of cyberattacks in accordance with law.”

“Without valid evidence, the U.S. jumped to an unwarranted conclusion and made groundless accusations against China,” Liu added. “It is extremely irresponsible and is a complete distortion of facts.”

Separately, British cybersecurity officials said that Chinese government-affiliated hackers “conducted reconnaissance activity” against British parliamentarians who are critical of Beijing in 2021. They said no parliamentary accounts were successfully compromised.

Three lawmakers, including former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith, told reporters Monday they have been “subjected to harassment, impersonation and attempted hacking from China for some time.” Duncan Smith said in one example, hackers impersonating him used fake email addresses to write to his contacts.

The politicians are members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an international pressure group focused on countering Beijing’s growing influence and calling out alleged rights abuses by the Chinese government.

Ahead of that announcement, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reiterated that China is “behaving in an increasingly assertive way abroad” and is “the greatest state-based threat to our economic security.”

“It’s right that we take measures to protect ourselves, which is what we are doing,” he said, without providing details.

China critics including Duncan Smith have long called for Sunak to take a tougher stance on China and label the country a threat — rather than a “challenge” — to the U.K., but the government has refrained from using such critical language.

Responding to the reports, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said countries should base their claims on evidence rather than “smear” others without factual basis.

“Cybersecurity issues should not be politicized,” ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said. “We hope all parties will stop spreading false information, take a responsible attitude, and work together to maintain peace and security in cyberspace.”

Source: NBC News

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In an interview with news channel CNN, Woz was asked about Apple’s so-called “walled garden” approach to protecting users, and in response he said he was glad for the protection that he gets, and that Apple does a better job in this respect than other companies.

“And tracking you – tracking you is questionable. But my gosh, look at what we’re accusing TikTok of, and then go look at Facebook and Google and that’s how they make their businesses,” he added. “I mean, Facebook was a great idea. But then they make all their money just by tracking you and advertising, and Apple doesn’t really do that so much.”

Earlier this month, the US Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which aims to force TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance to either sell off its US-based biz or face being banned from operating in the country.

“I don’t understand it, I don’t see why,” commented Woz. “What are we saying? We’re saying ‘Oh, you might be tracked by the Chinese.’ Well, they learned it from us.”

Similar points are made in an article in Nikkei Asia, which states that US social media apps have formed a key part of Washington’s global influence operations for many years, and have provided “unparalleled intelligence collection opportunities” and “helped to project certain American political and cultural values into foreign societies.”

Woz continued by saying that “If you have a principle [that] a person should not be tracked without them knowing it, you apply it the same to every company, or every country. You don’t say, ‘Here’s one case where we’re going to outlaw an app, but we’re not gonna do it in these other cases.’ So I don’t like the hypocrisy, and that’s obviously coming from a political realm.”

The engineering brains behind Apple’s early products such as the Apple I and II personal computers, Woz also became an early member of digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

He revealed in the interview that he largely avoids “the social web,” but gets a lot of fun out of watching TikTok “even if it’s just for rescuing dog videos and stuff.”

The Apple co-founder was also reported to have been hospitalized in Mexico City last November with a suspected stroke following a speech at the World Business Forum, but has apparently made a full recovery.

Source: The Register

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“Today, the Commission has opened non-compliance investigations under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) into Alphabet’s rules on steering in Google Play and self-preferencing on Google Search, Apple’s rules on steering in the App Store and the choice screen for Safari and Meta’s ‘pay or consent model,’” the European Commission said in a statement.

The first two probes focus on Alphabet and Apple and relate to so-called anti-steering rules. Under the DMA, tech firms are not allowed to block businesses from telling their users about cheaper options for their products or about subscriptions outside of an app store.

“The way that Apple and Alphabet’s implemented the DMA rules on anti-steering seems to be at odds with the letter of the law. Apple and Alphabet will still charge various recurring fees, and still limit steering,” the E.U.’s competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, said Monday at a news conference.

Apple has already fallen foul of the E.U.’s rules. This month, the company was fined 1.8 billion euros ($1.95 billion) after the European Commission said it found that Apple had applied restrictions on app developers that prevented them from informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside of the app.

In a third inquiry, the commission said it is investigating whether Apple has complied with its DMA obligations to ensure that users can easily uninstall apps on iOS and change default settings. The probe also focuses on whether Apple is actively prompting users with choices to allow them to change default services on iOS, such as for the web browser or search engine.

The commission said that it is “concerned that Apple’s measures, including the design of the web browser choice screen, may be preventing users from truly exercising their choice of services within the Apple ecosystem.”

Apple said it believes it is in compliance with the DMA.

“We’re confident our plan complies with the DMA, and we’ll continue to constructively engage with the European Commission as they conduct their investigations. Teams across Apple have created a wide range of new developer capabilities, features, and tools to comply with the regulation,” an Apple spokesperson told CNBC on Monday.

The fourth probe targets Alphabet, as the European Commission looks into whether the firm’s display of Google search results “may lead to self-preferencing in relation to Google’s,” other services such as Google Shopping, over similar rival offerings.

“To comply with the Digital Markets Act, we have made significant changes to the way our services operate in Europe,” Oliver Bethell, director of competition at Alphabet, said in a statement.

“We have engaged with the European Commission, stakeholders and third parties in dozens of events over the past year to receive and respond to feedback, and to balance conflicting needs within the ecosystem. We will continue to defend our approach in the coming months.”

Alphabet pointed to a blog post from earlier this month, wherein the company outlined some of those changes — including giving Android phone users the option to easily change their default search engine and browser, as well as making it easier for people to see comparison sites in areas like shopping or flights in Google searches.

Meta investigation

The fifth and final investigation focuses on Meta and its so-called pay and consent model. Last year, Meta introduced an ad-free subscription model for Facebook and Instagram in Europe. The commission is looking into whether offering the subscription model without ads or making users consent to terms and conditions for the free service is in violation of the DMA.

“The Commission is concerned that the binary choice imposed by Meta’s ‘pay or consent’ model may not provide a real alternative in case users do not consent, thereby not achieving the objective of preventing the accumulation of personal data by gatekeepers.”

Thierry Breton, the E.U.’s internal market commissioner, said during the news conference that there should be “free alternative options” offered by Meta for its services that are “less personalized.”

“Gatekeepers” is a label for large tech firms that are required to comply with the DMA in the E.U.

“We will continue to use all available tools, should any gatekeeper try to circumvent or undermine the obligations of the DMA,” Vestager said.

Meta said subscriptions are a common business model across various industries.

“Subscriptions as an alternative to advertising are a well-established business model across many industries, and we designed Subscription for No Ads to address several overlapping regulatory obligations, including the DMA. We will continue to engage constructively with the Commission,” a Meta spokesperson told CNBC on Monday.

Tech giants at risk of fines

The commission said it intends to conclude its probes within 12 months, but Vestager and Breton during the Monday briefing stressed that the DMA does not dictate a hard deadline for the timeline of the inquiry. The regulators will inform the companies of their preliminary findings and explain measures they are taking or the gatekeepers should take in order to address the commission’s concerns.

If any company is found to have infringed the DMA, the commission can impose fines of up to 10% of the tech firms’ total worldwide turnover. These penalties can increase to 20% in case of repeated infringement.

The commission said it is also looking for facts and information to clarify whether Amazon may be preferencing its own brand products on its e-commerce platform over rivals. The commission is further studying Apple’s new fee structure and other terms and conditions for alternative app stores.

This month, the tech giant announced that users in the E.U. would be able to download apps from websites rather than through its proprietary App Store — a change that Apple has resisted for years.

The E.U.’s research into Apple and Amazon does not comprise official investigations.

Source: NBC News

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Some McGill students say their right to express support for Palestinians is being suppressed, after a Quebec court temporarily put a stop to a student plan to adopt a pro-Palestinian policy at the university.

Quebec Superior Court issued a safeguard order Tuesday, preventing the student union from moving forward until the court can hear arguments from both sides on March 25, 2024.

A McGill student — who remains anonymous and is represented by a lawyer working for Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada — filed an injunction to stop the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) from adopting a “policy against genocide in Palestine” that was approved in a referendum this week.

The policy calls on McGill University to cut ties with people, corporations and institutions that are “complicit in genocide, settler-colonialism, apartheid, or ethnic cleansing against Palestinians.”  

About 35 per cent of eligible students voted in the referendum Monday. Of the 8,401 students who voted, 78.7 per cent (5,974 students) were in favour of the policy, 1,620 voted against it and 807 abstained.

Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights McGill (SPHR), a student group, said in a statement to CBC News that the court order sets a “dangerous precedent for student democracy and undermines the supposedly democratic structure of Canadian institutions.”

In a response for a request for comment, a member of the SSMU executive committee forwarded an email to CBC alleging that B’nai Brith and the Israeli consulate have publicly identified some McGill students involved in the pro-Palestinian movement, putting them in danger.

The member asked not to be named because they were concerned about their personal safety.

B’nai Brith’s Quebec regional director, Henry Topas, denies the accusation and says that it has never intimidated or harassed a member of the SSMU or another student group such as the SPHR.

“We are here only simply to protect the rights and ensure the safety of the Jewish students at McGill University who we believe are being constantly harassed and intimidated, physically and verbally,” said Topas.

The organization has an app where people can self-report hate incidents which are then tabulated into its annual audit of antisemitic incidents. Topas says the information gathered is not shared with third parties. 

The email said that exposing students is unfair since they “do not have the same resources for legal representation.”

The move, states the email, has caused “great and unnecessary distress” to students and the union.

Human rights lawyer Pearl Eliadis says that in court cases, power imbalances are often disproportionate, but there is a mechanism in place to prevent parties from abusing their status.

She also says the court order is just a way of pressing pause.

“This is simply a safeguard order where the parties have both agreed and particularly the Students’ Society of McGill University has agreed to hold off on the ratification of the vote until the court hears the injunction,” she said. “There has been no decision on the merits of the case.”

Still, SPHR cited the use of the court as a strategy for intimidating Palestinian organizers and anti-Zionist Jews and suppressing the Palestinian movement.

B’nai Brith Canada pleased

Topas says B’nai Brith Canada welcomed the court order and he described the student referendum question as “continuity of singling out the state of Israel.”  

“Year after year, there is some form of referendum or question that they [SSMU] have people vote on to basically condemn Israel where they would not condemn other countries,” said Topas. 

Topas added that while B’nai Brith acknowledges “collateral civilian suffering” in Gaza, Israel must defend itself following the murders of 1,200 Jews. 

“To turn it around and say there is genocide being committed in Gaza is nonsense,” he said. 

Gaza’s Hamas-run government has said at least 13,300 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 5,500 children, by unrelenting Israeli bombardment. 

In the 2022 winter semester, the SPHR submitted the “Palestine solidarity policy,” which also called on the university to boycott and divest from “all corporations complicit in settler-colonial apartheid against Palestinians.” It passed with 71.1 per cent approval from students but was not ratified. 

At the time, McGill administration said the “Palestine solidarity policy” was inconsistent with the students’ society’s constitution. Ultimately, the SSMU board of governors agreed, saying the policy did not follow the SSMU constitution and could not be adopted. 

Last year, McGill warned the SSMU off adopting “contentious” policies about Palestinians and threatened to cut funding and even ban it from using the school name.

A spokesperson for the university said in a statement Wednesday that McGill administration maintains that the latest policy, if adopted, will “sharpen divisions in our community at a time when many students are already distressed.”

Source : CBC

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Dubai, United Arab Emirates – Even before he took office last January, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sought to position his country as a world leader in the battle against climate change.

He arrived at the United Nations Climate Change Conference last year to cheers and supporters chanting his name. “Brazil is back,” he told enthusiastic audiences, declaring the fight against climate change “the highest profile” issue of his administration.

One year later, Lula is returning on Friday to the annual climate conference, known in its latest edition as COP28. But critics question whether he has lived up to the sweeping promises he made on the world stage, particularly as Brazil continues to grow its oil and natural gas sectors.

“Lula da Silva’s Brazil can’t be at once a climate leader and the world’s fourth oil exporter,” Suely Araújo, a public policy specialist at the environmental NGO Observatório do Clima, told Al Jazeera.

Still, with world leaders like United States President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping notably absent from COP28, Lula aims to send the message that Brazil can marshal efforts to tackle climate policy — and fill the leadership vacuum.

“We arrive at COP28 with our heads held high,” Ana Toni, the climate change secretary at the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, said during a November 8 news conference.

A show of strength

Brazil’s government has already announced that the country plans to send the largest delegation in its history to the event, composed of an estimated 2,400 registered participants.

Most hail from civil society or business organisations, but at least 400 are expected to be government officials, including high-level cabinet ministers.

The show of strength at COP28 strikes a contrast with the more sparse attendance under Lula’s predecessor, former President Jair Bolsonaro.

The right-wing leader, a climate sceptic, was a repeated no-show at the annual climate conferences, and upon taking office, he revoked Brazil’s offer to host one of the events.

Bolsonaro also drew criticism for overseeing record levels of deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, where destruction hit a 12-year high in 2020. Approximately 218.4sq kilometres (84.3sq miles) of forest cover were razed in his final month in office alone.

Deforestation has slowed under Lula, dropping 20 percent since his inauguration, according to government statistics. Earlier this year, he announced an “ecological transition plan” that would invest in green energy goals, and he has set 2030 as the deadline for ending Amazon deforestation.

“Lula da Silva’s government has already achieved important advances in terms of rebuilding Brazil’s environmental policies,” Araújo said. “The climate agenda has had a central place [in his administration] since his presidential campaign.”

A need for domestic support

But critics have blasted Lula for not going far enough — and for failing to bring key stakeholders into his climate change agenda.

“We’re still living in the country of promises, not of effectiveness,” said Dinamam Tuxá, executive coordinator for the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), an Indigenous rights coalition.

Lula is expected to use the COP28 conference to push world leaders for greater commitments to protecting rainforests like the Amazon, which are pivotal for moderating climate change.

But Tuxá fears Lula’s proposals are empty words without more political support at home.

Brazil’s Congress skews conservative, with Bolsonaro’s party holding the most seats of any single group in the lower chamber. This, Tuxá explained, has stymied Lula’s goals of bolstering Brazil’s economic policies and advancing Indigenous rights.

“We are seeing a beautiful discourse and maybe even political will, but there’s no governability,” Tuxá said.

More than half of Brazil’s 1.7 million Indigenous people live in the Amazon, making them key partners in the fight for environmental protection.

But earlier this year, Brazil’s Congress voted to restrict the powers of federal agencies dedicated to Indigenous peoples and the environment. And in October, Lula partially vetoed legislation to limit what would qualify as Indigenous land, sparking criticism for not having rejected the entire bill.

“We understand this is a coalition government, but unfortunately, this has made it hard to approve public policies for Indigenous people,” Tuxá explained.

Other groups likewise decried a feeling of marginalisation in Lula’s climate policy.

Tâmara Terso, a member of the Black Voices for Climate network, said her group would attend COP28 to speak out against environmental racism in Brazil, a term used to describe how communities of colour face disproportionate impacts from climate change.

She criticised Lula’s government for failing to include a race-conscious perspective in its environmental plans.

“Even though we have reached a point of dialogue, there are still obstacles in taking part in the decision-making process,” she said. “This is the message we’re bringing to COP28.”

‘Greenwashing’ at COP28

Other advocates, meanwhile, have questioned the messages that powerful interest groups are broadcasting at COP28. Cinthia Leone, a press officer for the Brazilian nonprofit ClimaInfo, noted the increasing presence of businesses at the conference.

She fears the climate change events could turn into public relations platforms for industries with little interest in lowering their carbon output.

“Companies have learned from civil society that they have to be present at COPs,” Leone said.

“When they arrive, they come on strong, with a lot of money and robust marketing strategies. That ends up turning the event into a big fair where companies set their stands to sell their greenwashing and false solutions.”

The accusation of “greenwashing” — or peddling a misleading environmental track record — is one that Lula himself faces in advance of COP28.

Nicole Oliveira, executive director of the Arayara International Institute, an NGO, pointed to what she considered contradictions in Lula’s rhetoric and his administration’s actions.

The day after COP28 closes, on December 13, Oliveira said Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency is slated to auction off hundreds of “blocks” of territory for oil exploration.

“The blocks up for auction coincide with preserved areas, including some on top of the Noronha seamounts, recognised worldwide for their role in marine biodiversity maintenance,” Oliveira said. “We never expected such an auction to take place under this government.”

She also criticised an announcement from the Ministry of Mines and Energy that indicated Lula’s administration aimed to make Brazil the fourth-largest oil exporter in the world.

“At this point in the climate crisis, we should be walking through a different path, not burning more fossil fuels,” Oliveira said.

Source : Al Jazeera

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Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umierov has signed an order approving the Military Personnel Policy Concept through to 2028, which focuses on meeting the human resources needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).

Quote: “The document defines a strategic vision for developing military personnel policy in defence over the next five years, both during martial law and peacetime.

The main emphasis of the concept is to ensure that the needs of the AFU in personnel are met during a full-scale war, integration into the Euro-Atlantic security space, and interoperability of the AFU with the armed forces of NATO member states.”

Details: The Ukrainian Defence Ministry expects the following effects:

The AFU will switch to contract military service. Conscript military service will be replaced by intensive military training for citizens of draft age;

Ukraine will have an effective system of recruiting professional and motivated personnel for the AFU;

A human-centred approach to career management of military personnel, taking into account their education;

Professional development, and gender equality. Equal opportunities for men and women in the AFU;

Improved electronic military registration system;

Automated and digitalised personnel management processes;

Expanded cooperation between Ukrainian higher education institutions and those of NATO and EU member states;

An effective and transparent system of financial support for servicemen and women and provision of housing;

Improved psychological support;

A new style of relations between commanders and subordinates;

Proper conditions for transitioning from military career to civilian life for service members subject to discharge from military service.

Source : Yahoo

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Israel was not founded by religious Jews. The early Zionists were secular, rational, and uniquely unsentimental about the Jewish condition in late 19^th-century Europe and beyond. They believed that if Jews were to end their tragic two-thousand-year exile, their reliance on God and the fatalism it bred needed to be expunged.

The early Zionists’ focus on secularism seems to have been vindicated by recent events. 

How could the catastrophe on 7 October, which claimed the lives of at least 1,400 Israelis and has left 220 as hostages of Hamas, have happened? How could Israel lose control, over the course of a few hours, of an entire swath of its sovereign territory, including twenty-two kibbutzim and other villages? Beyond the obvious intelligence failure, one reason is that a good portion of the troops in the enlarged division that was meant to be guarding the Gaza border had been redeployed to keep order and protect an ever-expanding archipelago of tiny, often unauthorized West Bank settlements and roads leading to them. The sole purpose of these outposts was to establish a de facto Jewish presence in the West Bank and hence restrict the actions available to future Israeli governments. Objections and warnings by the defence establishment that the military and security services were overstretched, that the army no longer had the requisite forces or the time to train soldiers properly, were dismissed as the defeatism of an old and tired secular elite, by a growing chorus of hyper-patriotic, right-wing zealots, people often with little or no practical military experience. 

For more than a generation, defence policy and much else has been increasingly determined by the dictates of Israel’s religious settler lobby and its Messianic visions. Though not numerous, parties representing the settlers exploited Israel’s system of proportional representation, which magnifies the influence of small, well-organized pressure groups, to effectively capture an entire state. A careful programme of entryism allowed the Likud, too, to become heavily influenced by MKs and party members from the settlements that in no way reflected the party’s broader voter base. 

It is not just the tactical decision-making power of this group over troop deployments that has now collapsed, but their larger strategic vision. This was a belief that by dispersing a population of Jews around the West Bank we could gradually annex it, all the while pretending that we could ignore the presence of three million hostile Palestinians, and the demographic consequences their incorporation would entail. It is in this context that the settlers, and their secular avatar Benyamin Netanyahu, came to view Hamas as a strategic asset, because its radicalism made any efforts to find a compromise, or even merely to contain the conflict, impossible. Suitcases of cash, supplied by Hamas’ Qatari allies no less, could be relied upon to keep Hamas in power but restrained. What better proof was needed that God was on our side?

Yet beyond the failure of both tactics and strategy, it is the cultural effects of this way of thinking—which bred arrogance, complacency, and above all wishful thinking—that has created the greatest threat to Israel in at least fifty years. Religious obscurantists with government portfolios declared that Yeshiva study was as important as military service in protecting Israel from its enemies. Study Torah and God would not forsake us.

God did not intervene to save families like mine in 1939; and in 1973, the small number of surviving tank crews who ultimately stopped the columns of Syrian armour on the Golan Heights knew that only their heroism and sacrifice would protect their families from a similar fate. The kibbutzniks who fought and died trying to protect their communities against the Hamas terrorists on 7 October understood the same thing. One hopeful sign of change is that hundreds of ultraorthodox men, in defiance of their Rabbis and politicians, have now contacted the IDF and asked to be inducted into the reserves.

Netanyahu and his cabinet of Twitter warriors, sycophants and fixers need to go. Now. It is hard to see any of them being able to offer effective leadership during what may be a lengthy conflict, all the while knowing what future official inquiries are likely to reveal about their behaviour these last few months. Even if we exclude the ministers who were serving in the cabinet on the morning of the attack, there are enough people in the Knesset from both the coalition and opposition with serious defence credentials to form an emergency government, including two lieutenant generals (former chiefs of staff), a major general, two brigadier generals, two former chiefs of police, and the former deputy head of the Mossad. There are also people with executive experience in the civilian realm, particularly several former mayors.

And that is just the beginning. Long term, Israel is too vulnerable to be governed by feckless people in the grip of childish fantasies. For nine months, the government has been fixated on replacing Israel’s ill-designed, highly centralised democracy with a new model that would magnify its worst flaws, and passing a series of laws that would exempt it from judicial oversight. 

In the days that followed the attack, survivors and the families of the hostages were left to their own devices. Israelis discovered just how hollowed out and incompetent state institutions had become—hobbled by years of corruption and patronage, proving how badly we need more, not less, accountability and external scrutiny. What did prove robust and filled the vacuum were Israel’s civil society organisations and volunteer networks—precisely the types of institutions that are incompatible with the overbearing system of centralized power the government wished to impose. Indeed, among the most effective have been the movements that brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets in recent months to protest the government’s constitutional machinations. And no one more than the military reservists and retirees of Brothers and Sisters in Arms, who have been at the forefront of the protests to preserve Israel’s liberal democracy from the beginning. 

It was through this network that several retired senior military officers were alerted that morning that Hamas’ terrorists had crossed the first line of defence and were killing people in communities close to the border and the music festival nearby. Men of this type, aged sixty and over, whose first instinct was to grab a gun and drive toward the slaughter to kill terrorists and save random strangers, are not produced in societies governed by strongmen. In Israel, as in Ukraine, democracies foster initiative, improvisation, courage, and resilience rather than conformity and passivity.

The goal of eradicating Hamas as an organisation may prove infeasible. Ensuring it never again governs the Gaza Strip may prove difficult as well, particularly given that the Palestinian Authority that governs much of the West Bank will not wish to be seen to be collaborating with Israel. They will be reluctant to resume control of the territory from which its officials were chased out or killed by Hamas thirteen years ago. Nonetheless, eliminating the physical infrastructure Hamas uses to manufacture rockets that target Israeli cities is achievable. So is killing or capturing some part of Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s terror armies, which together constitute 40,000 individuals. 

The Western press these days is full of warnings about the dangers of any such operation and is essentially lobbying Israel to stand down and agree to an unconditional ceasefire. One hears one commentator after another solemnly affirming Israel’s right to defend itself before asserting that any possible offensive action it might take will constitute a war crime. Though Israel uses precision guided bombs, Gaza’s packed population means that civilians will indeed inevitably be hurt, particularly if Hamas does not let them leave their homes. Cutting off food, water, or even just the electricity Hamas uses to manufacture fresh rockets to launch at Israel, will create a humanitarian disaster. Even the targeting of Hamas officials is deemed to be illegal extra-judicial killing. Needless to say, a ground invasion is treated as out of the question, as civilians will again be in the way. Yet even more nuanced commentators do, rightly, raise valid questions about how much that option will achieve.

Historically, fighting a guerrilla army in a densely populated urban setting exacts a heavy toll on regular troops. Hamas has spent years planning for this type of war. Every house along the plausible invasion routes will be filled with booby traps. Beneath the surface of every road, they will have buried special mines designed to take out tanks and other armoured vehicles. These will be stacked to increase their lethality and make removing them difficult. If all else fails, some fighters can escape capture by changing into civilian clothes and blending in with the civilian population. Warnings that Hamas may be deliberately luring the IDF into a long, bloody, and ultimately unwinnable campaign cannot be completely dismissed. The fate of the hostages and the possibility that Hezbollah, a far more powerful force, might open a second front makes all this more difficult still. Yet the successful fight by the US against Al Qaeda in Fallujah, and the combined efforts by the West and its local allies against ISIS in Mosul and Rakah, teach us that it is possible to defeat the Jihadis.

Furthermore, while many commentators have carefully elaborated the dangers of a ground invasion, they have generally failed to consider the broader implications for Israel should it choose not to invade. First, if Hamas emerges with its forces largely intact, there is nothing to stop it from launching further attacks in the years to come at a moment of its choosing. Others, too, will be emboldened by this Hamas victory. Far from garnering the world’s respect, restraint will be interpreted as weakness. Allies, including the United States, will gradually abandon Israel—no one needs a weak ally. The Arab states may publicly denounce Israel’s aggression, but privately they have much to fear from a Hamas victory and the resurgence of its ideology around the region. Yet Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE have no reason to cooperate with an Israeli state that is unable or unwilling to protect itself, and that has lost the confidence of its own citizens. 

There are also wider implications for the core nations of the West in Europe and North America. In the last two years, Russia and now Iran—through its proxies in Gaza and Lebanon—have each gone to war against members of the West’s democratic alliance. With stocks of ammunition and arms running short, how soon before China and North Korea each do the same against Taiwan and South Korea? Who is to say which parts of the core Western alliance will come under pressure after that? 

In the West, some people on the left complain bitterly about the hyper-individualism and social atomization of modern market-driven societies. But when such people talk about “community” and the “collective good,” some of them seem to mean only such things as safe bike lanes and free yoga classes—not protection from an invading army coming to kill your family. Because we wish to believe that we live in a world where such atrocities can never, ever happen. That blind spot reflects a different sort of religious dogma, equally unmoored from reality. 

As for Israel, the drift towards religious nationalism and the magical thinking it encourages led us to underestimate our enemies and overextend our forces. In 2015 a previous hard-right government led by Netanyahu reduced the period of required military service for men from 36 to 32 months and announced plans to lower it to 30 in the future. The military was forced to condense training schedules to accommodate these changes. In retrospect, militaristic rhetoric was no substitute for more and better trained soldiers. Because despite all our hopes and prayers, there is so far no sign the Messiah is on his way. We are on our own.

Source : Quillette

The post A Generation of Misguided Policy in Israel appeared first on Policy Print.

An award-winning New York Times Magazine writer resigned from the publication Friday after signing a letter criticizing Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

Jazmine Hughes, who had also previously worked as an editor for the magazine, signed the “Writers Against the War on Gaza” petition, which labels Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza a “genocide.”

Jake Silverstein, the magazine’s editor, announced Hughes’ resignation in a staff message Friday, the Times reported.

“While I respect that she has strong convictions, this was a clear violation of The Times’s policy on public protest,” Silverstein wrote. “This policy, which I fully support, is an important part of our commitment to independence.”

Hughes previously signed another letter, along with other Times staffers, protesting the publication’s coverage of trans issues. The letter was criticized by Times leadership.

“She and I discussed that her desire to stake out this kind of public position and join in public protests isn’t compatible with being a journalist at The Times, and we both came to the conclusion that she should resign,” Silverstein continued.

Hughes declined a request for comment from the Times.

New York Times Magazine contributing writer Jamie Lauren Keiles, who also signed the petition, announced Friday that he would no longer be contributing to the publication. He said being affiliated with the Times harmed his writing.

“Sources were increasingly asking me to answer for what they understood to be shoddy coverage of BLM, trans stuff, israel,” Keiles, who noted that he is Jewish, said on X, formerly Twitter. “Though i love my editors and have always felt supported, i ultimately decided the institution was taking more from me than giving to me.”

“Nobody asked me to leave. [It] was a personal decision about what kind of work i want to be able to do. all this said, i standby my choice to sign the [Writers Against the War on Gaza] letter and pray for a free palestine soon.”

Source : The Hill

The post NYT Magazine Writer Resigns After Signing Anti-Israel Letter Violating Company Policy appeared first on Policy Print.

His pathway to the presidency looks more forbidding than ever, but tanking poll numbers and a stalled campaign have not dissuaded Ron DeSantis from running foreign policy as if he was the incumbent in the White House.

Florida’s Republican governor has raised eyebrows and hackles by using state resources for a series of actions and operations since the Israel-Hamas war began that come under the purview of the federal government.

They include “evacuating” hundreds of US citizens from Israel on charter flights; exporting humanitarian aid and claiming to have procured weapons; as well as activating Florida’s militarized state guard “as needed, to respond” to an overseas conflict.

Additionally, he has summoned Florida’s legislature for an emergency session next week that will, among other issues, seek to impose more state sanctions on Iran, a key ally of Hamas, replicating measures already in place at federal level for decades.

Democrats in Florida, who have become used to their absentee governor campaigning in other states as he pursues his flailing White House run, say DeSantis has crossed a line.

“President Biden is the commander in chief of our military, not Ron DeSantis,” Nikki Fried, chair of the state’s Democratic party, said in a statement to the Miami Herald, commenting on the governor’s claim that he helped source weapons, ammunition and other military equipment for Israel, an assertion that later unraveled.

“This is a gross breach of norms and a potential violation of federal laws governing the shipment of weapons.”

In a statement to the Guardian, a state department spokesperson confirmed it “did not collaborate with the state of Florida on humanitarian and evacuation flights to and from Israel [and] the department was not notified in advance of these flights”.

Independent analysts see the behavior of DeSantis, a staunch supporter of Israel, as troublesome.

“Any time a governor tries to push a foreign policy agenda, or an agenda related to international affairs, including immigration policy, on their own, it typically infringes on the powers of the executive of the federal government,” said Matthew Dallek, professor of political management at George Washington University.

“We’ve seen this with [Governor Greg] Abbott in Texas. If the DeSantis flights to Israel were coordinated with the state department and US military, that’s one thing. If they were not, that’s much more problematic, much more of a line crossing.

“He’s a guy who gets off on crossing boundaries, being pugnacious and in your face, and in that sense there’s kind of an ugly streak to him and Trump. They both enjoy, and their political identities are wrapped up in crossing boundaries.”

DeSantis employed a familiar argument to justify Florida wading into the Middle East conflict, insisting that the administration of Joe Biden was “not doing what it takes to stand by Israel”. It echoed his citing of the president’s perceived “failures” over immigration to rationalize his sending of state law enforcement personnel to the US southern border, the preserve of the Department of Homeland Security.

Contrary to DeSantis’s statement, the federal government has been heavily involved in humanitarian operations in Israel and has run a continuous charter flight operation to repatriate US citizens since the conflict began.

The state department spokesperson said more than 6,700 seats on US government chartered transportation were made available to augment commercial flight capacity, and more than 13,500 US citizens had safely departed Israel and the West Bank.

The state department flights, which ended on Tuesday through decreased demand, have also run more smoothly than the DeSantis operation, which left 23 Americans stranded in Cyprus for several days at the start of the war.

Dallek sees some rationale for DeSantis’s stance.

“By virtue of his position as governor he has been involved in some pretty weighty issues, issues that matter to a lot of voters and a lot of Republican primary voters, in particular immigration and the Middle East,” he said.

“But this doesn’t seem like an argument that has legs for DeSantis. The many months of his campaign flailing is going to outweigh whatever he says on Israel, and most of the other GOP candidates are vying for that same space of being tough on terrorism, anti-Hamas, pro-Israel. I just don’t think there’s all that much oxygen left for him to take up on this issue.”

Transparency advocates in Florida are also critical of DeSantis over the Israel flights, questioning how $50m of taxpayers’ money reportedly handed to a contractor for open-ended charter flights has been used.

The recipient is the same contractor that ran the governor’s infamous migrant flights of mostly Venezuelan asylum seekers around the US last year, which led to a criminal investigation in Texas and was criticized by opponents as an inhumane political stunt.

The DeSantis administration withheld public records about the migrant flights for months before a judge ordered it to hand them over. The state budgeted more than $1.5m in attorneys’ fees to defend the lawsuit and Bobby Block, executive director of the Florida First Amendment Foundation, fears a similar lack of transparency will cloak the Israel flights.

“They talked about $50m, it’s not based on actual records from the state where we know exactly what’s playing out. It’s based on a budget item in emergency management,” he said.

“We don’t have absolute clarity on it because of the secrecy of the DeSantis administration. There’s a lot of people, not just journalists, who want to know what it is costing taxpayers in Florida.”

DeSantis’s press team and the Florida emergency management department point to a press release issued last week that said more than 700 Americans arrived in Florida on four flights from Israel and received resources from “several state agencies and volunteer organizations”.

Block said there seemed to be little interest is ensuring value for taxpayer dollars, noting that uncoordinated state and federal government entities competing for the same limited resources, including chartered flights, tended to push up prices.

“The way it’s being managed and promoted, it seems more political and geared towards the governor’s political aspirations than it does to a real emergency response with a state and governor working with the federal government,” he said.

Source : The Guardian

The post DeSantis Plays at Being President With His Own Israel-Hamas Foreign Policy appeared first on Policy Print.

The significant attack on Israel launched by Hamas on Saturday—dubbed “Al-Aqsa Storm” by the Palestinian militant group—is an indictment of the policies pursued by both the governments of Israel and the United States. Unrest caused by the domestic debate over judicial reform in Israel may have compromised the country’s deterrence. And US policies aimed at de-escalating tensions with Iran did nothing to halt Tehran’s coordination with Hamas, likely including support for its attack against Israel.

The drivers of the attack and the failure to deter it are manifold. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s proxy and partner network—comprised of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)—perhaps perceived Israel as weakening from within. Unrest over Israeli judicial reforms this summer—during which reservists threatened to refuse to serve—likely reinforced Tehran’s impression that the Jewish state is collapsing. This may have in part prompted all these groups to push the envelope in recent months—in Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza—to realize the Iranian supreme leader’s ambition to surround Israel in a “ring of fire.”

Coordination among Iran and its allies

There was significant coordination among Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, and PIJ throughout September 2023. Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah hosted Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy head of the Hamas politburo, and Ziyad al-Nakhalah, the secretary-general of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, on September 2. This meeting coincided with a visit from Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian to Lebanon. The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force, Esmail Ghaani, also reportedly visited Lebanon in September. Late last month, al-Arouri, Nikhalah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Deputy Secretary General Jamil Mazhar also met, announcing their intention to escalate conflict with Israel. They issued a statement dubbing Israeli settlers’ demands a “declaration of war against the Palestinian people.” They also criticized the normalization process that has been underway between Israel and Saudi Arabia, calling it “a clear betrayal of the blood of the martyrs and the Arab people.”

This dialogue continued in Tehran, which hosted representatives of its Axis of Resistance factions during an International Islamic Unity Conference held October 1–3. Osama Hamdan, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon and a member of its politburo, was in Iran for the conference, as was Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general. The Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke at the conference, prophesying that Israel is dying; that the Palestinian cause “is the main issue of the Islamic world”; and warning those countries considering establishing diplomatic relations with the Jewish state that “they are betting on a losing horse.” 

Iran has been seeking to create a mutual defense pact among its proxies and partners. On Sunday, Hezbollah already shelled and rocketed Israeli positions in a show of support for Hamas and a nod to the IRGC’s ambition to establish a NATO-like formation among the Axis of Resistance. Whether this expands into a more significant northern front as Israel prepares to crush Hamas in Gaza in the coming days and weeks will be important to watch and a test of the IRGC’s eagerness to escalate. Hamas has also been moving closer to the orbit of Iran and Hezbollah. In September, Iran International TV, a Persian-language news channel headquartered in London, exposed a network led by Saeed Izadi, the head of the IRGC’s Quds Force’s Palestinian Division, which smuggled arms from Iran to Lebanon for Hamas. 

Failures of deterrence

US policy has also played a role in the current escalation. The Biden administration has been engaged in implementing a series of understandings with Tehran to keep the Iran file off the president’s desk ahead of his campaign for reelection. The publicly reported components of these informal agreements include Iran refraining from targeting US forces in Iraq and Syria, as well as steps for Tehran to slow down its accumulation of 60 percent enriched uranium and refrain from advancing its nuclear program above that level. This is apparently in exchange for Washington turning a blind eye to Iran’s illicit exports of oil to customers such as China in contravention of US sanctions.

US officials, such as National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, have been championing this record, saying on September 29 that the White House hoped to “depressurize, deescalate, and ultimately integrate the region.” He went on to state that “the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades now.” Given this weekend’s attack on Israel, such assessments appear fanciful. Tehran and its partners are demonstrating they can simultaneously escalate in theaters which are not covered by its informal understandings with the United States even as it deescalates in others. These are adjustments in tactics, not changes in fundamental strategy by the IRGC and its militia network. Washington’s refusal to more strictly enforce sanctions against Iran misses an opportunity to further curtail Iran’s funding for its regional allies such as Hamas.

Since Hamas attacked Israel on Saturday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the administration has “not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack.” But Iranian involvement is not binary. Tehran, through its patronage of Hamas, has created the conditions for this moment and at the very least likely had foreknowledge of and endorsed the attack. In fact, Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad told the BBC that the group had direct backing from the Islamic Republic. The US government should not shy away from holding both the attacker and its patron responsible. It will be the only way to alter the calculus in Tehran to make the costs of such support outweigh the benefits. Piecemeal sanctions alone will not do the job.

The intelligence failures leading to what many Israelis are calling their 9/11 will be examined in the weeks ahead. Local grievances in Israel and the Palestinian territories have certainly brought about the current moment and should not be understated. But both Israel and the United States should also engage in deep introspection at the policy level over their failure to deter Hamas’s brutal attack. 

Source : Atlantic Council

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