THE PROPORTIONALITY DEBATE: As Israel urges around one million Palestinians to evacuate Gaza City and the northern part of Gaza Strip ahead of an expected ground assault in the next day or so, journalists and human rights groups are questioning the proportionality of Israel’s response to the horrific Hamas terrorist attack described as the worst since the Holocaust.
“I also expect that, of course, when we see Israeli responses, it will be proportionate, and it is important as this conflict continues to do whatever is possible to prevent the loss of innocent civilian lives,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said during this week’s meeting of allied defense ministers in Brussels.
Israel has dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza over six days, destroying entire neighborhoods while cutting electricity, fuel, and water to the narrow 25-mile-long strip, which is about half the size of New York City and home to more than 2.2 million people. That’s resulted in about 1,500 deaths and has overwhelmed Gaza’s hospitals, which are dealing with thousands of civilian casualties.
“We’ve not placed any conditions on the provision of this equipment,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at NATO yesterday, referring to the munitions the U.S. has rushed to Israel. “This is a professional military led by professional leadership. And we would hope and expect that they would do the right things in the prosecution of their campaign.”
ISRAEL WAR: OVER 1 MILLION PEOPLE ORDERED TO EVACUATE FROM NORTHERN GAZA, UN SAYS
WHAT IS PROPORTIONALITY WHEN FACING ‘PURE EVIL’? Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas and eliminate its capability to ever again launch another murderous attack on innocent Israeli citizens. It has said the people of Gaza are not its enemy, which is why it is urging them to flee the north.
“For democracies like the United States, like Israel, it’s vitally important that we respect and follow international law, humanitarian law, the law of war,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said as he wrapped up his visit to Israel. “It’s a standard that we hold ourselves to, and it’s a standard that we look to, including if and when we fall short of it.”
But it’s hard to talk about proportionality when faced with evidence of the cruel butchery Hamas terrorists inflicted on Israel Jews. “We had an opportunity to see some of the photographs and videos. Unfortunately, there are many, many, many others, and every day, the world is seeing new evidence of the depravity and the inhumanity of Hamas,” Blinken said. “It’s hard to find the right words. It’s beyond what anyone would ever want to imagine, much less actually see, and God forbid, experience. A baby, an infant riddled with bullets. Soldiers beheaded. Young people burned alive in their cars or in their hideaway rooms.”
“This is pure evil,” Blinken said.
ISRAEL WAR: BLINKEN URGES NETANYAHU TO ‘TAKE EVERY POSSIBLE PRECAUTION TO AVOID HARMING CIVILIANS’
ISRAEL: ‘WE’RE NOT AT WAR WITH THE CIVILIANS’: Israel is making no apologies for its “complete siege” of Gaza or for the distribution of graphic, stomach-turning images of its citizens murdered by Hamas.
“I think that as hard and as gruesome and as vile it is to see these pictures, and they’re so disturbing, and you cannot unsee them,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, on CNN. “We in the IDF spokesperson unit have shared pictures as well. It is the first time that we do it because I think we feel that if we don’t, we will be failing the people who were murdered, and the fact that people in the world won’t understand what this is all about.”
Israel rejects the argument that the cutoff of vital services amounts to “collective punishment,” defined as a war crime by international law. “We’re not at war with the civilians, but we are at war with Hamas, and we will not allow anything into the Gaza Strip that supports the fighting ability of Hamas. If it comes at the price of inconvenience and even worse than that for the population, so be it; we are at war,” Conricus said.
“We shouldn’t be expected to provide sustenance and the ability for our enemy to fight. I think the expectation is unfair, and I think that the focus is unfair,” he said. “No other country, not in the history of wars and not in the history of fighting terrorism, has ever been told, ‘Listen, it’s your obligation to provide the fighting capability that your enemy needs.’”
ISRAEL WAR: NETANYAHU’S OFFICE PUBLISHES GRAPHIC PHOTOS OF ‘BABIES MURDERED’ BY HAMAS
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HAPPENING TODAY: AUSTIN IN ISRAEL, BLINKEN’S ITINERARY EXPANDS: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin added Israel to his travel plans yesterday and arrived in the Israeli capital this morning. “Just landed in Tel Aviv,” Austin posted on X at about 4 a.m. EDT. “Today, I’ll meet w/ Prime Minister @netanyahu, Minister @YoavGallant & other senior leaders to demonstrate that America’s support for Israel’s security is ironclad & talk to them face-to-face about their defense needs.”
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, after spending Thursday in Israel, has arrived in Jordan for consultations with King Abdullah II and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Blinken’s itinerary has expanded to include stops in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt through Sunday. “Across each of these engagements, we’ll continue pressing countries to help prevent the conflict from spreading and to use their leverage with Hamas to immediately and unconditionally release the hostages,” Blinken said yesterday.
In his Egypt stop, Blinken is expected to press for a way for Palestinian refugees to cross the southern border into Egypt.
THE IRAN CONNECTION: The Biden administration continues to insist its intelligence does not support the widespread belief that Iran was directly responsible for the Hamas attack, taking part in the planning, and “greenlighting” the operation to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
“We’ve not seen any indication that Iran was involved in the planning or the execution of this attack,” Austin said in Brussels. “We also know that Iran has a long track record of supporting Hamas, and so there’s a relationship there that extends over the years. But in terms of their active participation in the planning and the execution of this attack, we’ve not seen any indications of that yet.”
“You know the administration wants to sweep Iran under the rug in that they had nothing to do with this while their fingerprints are all over this operation,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) said on Fox.
“I think that Iran has been very much involved in supporting, arming, and training Hamas for this,” former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a separate interview on Fox. “I think Iran’s strategic interest in this is reversing the trend toward reconciliation between Israel and the Arab states, in particular, the U.S.-brokered attempt at reconciliation between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”
On CNN, former Trump national security adviser John Bolton scoffed at the administration’s assertions it could find no evidence directly linking Iran. “Israeli and American intelligence missed the attack. So, why should anybody be surprised that they missed the piece of information about Iranian approval? They missed the entire haystack. Why should they be surprised, anybody be surprised, they missed the needle?”
“You know, how exactly it was done, was there a written execute order delivered by the Iranians, we don’t know that. But if anybody thinks that Hamas acted on their own, or without approval from Iran, I think they misunderstand why Iran has given them all these weapons over the years,” Bolton said.
“In the interest of national security, I would be prepared to buy a copy of the Wall Street Journal for the White House that will show them their story from Sunday quoting sources in Hezbollah and Hamas,” he said. “Iran did not provide all that material, billions of dollars’ worth, over the years so that Hamas or Hezbollah could deploy it when they saw fit. They gave them those weapons so that they would be deployed when Iran saw fit.”
HAMAS OFFICIAL SAYS GOVERNING GAZA WAS PLOY TO HIDE ATTACK
THE $6 BILLION TALKING POINT: In any successful negotiation, the idea is to get the other side to believe they won. In negotiating with Iran for the release of five Americans who had been imprisoned in Tehran for years, the Biden administration offered to free up Iranian oil assets that had been inaccessible for years.
The $6 billion was in an account in South Korea, which bought Iranian oil under a sanctions waiver program designed under the Trump administration for allies, including India and Japan, to buy oil from Tehran.
But there was a catch. Iran would not actually get the money. The U.S. Treasury Department would control the funds and use them as it saw fit to provide humanitarian aid directly to the Iranian people, bypassing the mullahs.
“None of the funds that have now gone to Qatar have actually been spent or accessed in any way by Iran,” Blinken said. “Indeed, funds from that account are overseen by the Treasury Department, can only be dispensed for humanitarian goods, food, medicine, medical equipment, and never touch Iranian hands. We have strict oversight of the funds, and we retain the right to freeze them.”
The U.S. hasn’t actually frozen the account as much as refused to defrost it. Asked if there was a “quiet agreement” not to disburse the funds, NSC spokesman John Kirby acknowledged he couldn’t talk about the change in policy regarding the money. “Bingo,” he said.
“I’m one of those who believes money is fungible,” said Gates, the former defense secretary, in his Fox interview. “And $6 billion spent on humanitarian and medical assistance is $6 billion they don’t have to spend, that they can allocate to military and other kinds of activities. So, I certainly would put a freeze on that, at least for the time being.”
The fungibility argument hinges on two questionable premises, that Iran had a $6 billion budget for humanitarian aid that it can now shift to funding terrorism, or that without the promise of future access to the money, it would have had to scale back its support of Hamas and other proxy groups. Neither seems plausible.
GOP BACKS BILL TO REFREEZE $6B ‘AVAILABLE TO IRAN’ UNFROZEN BY BIDEN
THE SAME OLD NUCLEAR DEBATE: It’s an age-old question that dates back to the beginning of the Cold War. If a single U.S. ballistic missile submarine can carry enough nuclear weapons to essentially destroy the planet, and if the only rational utility of nuclear weapons is to prevent major war by deterrence, how many nukes does the U.S. need?
According to a just-released report by the 12-member bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, the answer is a lot more.
“A number of commissioners believe it is inevitable that the size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile and the number of delivery systems should increase,” the report said. “We all agreed, however, on the findings and recommendations in this report and the need for actions now to better position the United States for the future and ensure a safe, secure, reliable, and credible deterrent.”
“For the first time in history, the United States must deter two near-peer nuclear adversaries at the same time,” said Mike Rogers (R-AL), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, in response to the report. “The results of their report detailed the gravity of the situation we face and emphasized that the current trajectory of the U.S. nuclear deterrent is insufficient to deter the looming Chinese and Russian threat … The details of this report should serve as a wakeup call for our strategic posture. We need to rapidly make changes now if we want to deter tomorrow.”
Arms control advocates were predictably horrified. “The experience of the Cold War teaches us that an unconstrained arms race has no winners, only losers,” the Arms Control Association said in a media backgrounder. “A large-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia would kill and injure more than 90 million people in the first few hours.”
“Any decision to increase the number of deployed U.S. strategic nuclear weapons above New START levels could trigger a dangerous action-reaction cycle,” the group argued. “Despite reckless behavior on the part of Russia and China in pursuing a more diverse array of nuclear weapons, the scale and diversity of the current U.S. nuclear arsenal still exceeds what is necessary to hold a sufficient number of adversary targets at risk so as to deter enemy nuclear attack.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The Rundown
Washington Examiner: Israel war: Over 1 million people ordered to evacuate from northern Gaza, UN says
Washington Examiner: Hamas official says governing Gaza was ploy to hide attack
Washington Examiner: ‘Squad’ Democrats among those briefed on security after Israel comments
Washington Examiner: Capitol Police ‘enhancing security’ for Congress amid Hamas calls to action
Washington Examiner: GOP backs bill to refreeze $6B ‘available to Iran’ unfrozen by Biden
Washington Examiner: Israel war: Netanyahu’s office publishes graphic photos of ‘babies murdered’ by Hamas
Washington Examiner: Israel war: Iran seeks to rally ‘all Arab and Islamic countries’ to back Palestinian terrorists
Washington Examiner: Israel war: Antony Blinken insists US has a right to freeze $6 billion earmarked for Iran
Washington Examiner: Israel war: Blinken urges Netanyahu to ‘take every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians’
Washington Examiner: Israel war: Blinken promises US will back Israel as Netanyahu vows to destroy Hamas
Washington Examiner: Russia accuses Israel and US of risking war in Syria
Washington Examiner: Steve Scalise drops out of House speaker race
Washington Examiner: Bob Menendez accused of acting as a foreign agent for Egypt in new indictment
Washington Examiner: Opinion: Hamas’s latest attacks on Israel are due to a disastrous failure of American and Israeli intelligence
Times of Israel: Hamas claims 13 hostages killed in airstrikes, including foreigners
Military Times: Recovery Of American Hostages To Be Led By Israelis, U.S. To Advise
AP: Israel’s military issues unprecedented orders to evacuate Gaza City ahead of feared ground offensive
Washington Post: Wider Hezbollah Clash Deemed ‘Unlikely’ Months Ago
Wall Street Journal: Israeli Air Force Says It Has Dropped 6,000 Bombs on Gaza
Bloomberg: US Gives First Iron Dome Interceptors to Israel
Business Insider: British Warships, Aircraft, And A Force Of Royal Marines Are Joining A US Navy Carrier Strike Group In Waters Near Israel
Defense One: Hamas Attack Shows Space-Based Sensing Can’t See Everything
Washington Times: Call for ‘Day of Jihad’ prompts greater vigilance by FBI, Jewish groups
Air & Space Forces Magazine: A-10s Arrive in CENTCOM After Hamas Attacks on Israel
AP: Pentagon’s ‘FrankenSAM’ Program Cobbles Together Air Defense Weapons for Ukraine
Defense News: Congressional Commission Calls for More Nuclear Arsenal Expansion
Defense One: Top Marine Outlines Priorities for Next Four Years
Air & Space Forces Magazine: Air Force Testing Chief: We’re Boosting Hypersonic Test Capacity
DefenseScoop: Upcoming Air Force Demos Aim to Connect Commercial SATCOM with Military Platforms
Defense News: Shield AI Unveils V-Bat Teams Drone Swarm Tech, with Eye to Replicator
Air & Space Forces Magazine: F-35 Has ‘Changed Completely the Mindset,’ Says Italy’s Air Chief
Air & Space Forces Magazine: Why Air Force OTS Is Undergoing Its ‘Most Transformational Change’ Ever
Forbes: Record-Fast Victus Nox Mission Demonstrates U.S. Space Force Will Be Able To Turn On A Dime In Future Conflicts
Calendar
FRIDAY | OCTOBER 13
12:15 p.m. 14th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. NW — The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington and The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington stage a “Stand with Israel Rally,” in Washington’s Freedom Plaza. Speakers include foreign ambassadors, state and federal elected officials, interfaith representatives and Jewish community leaders Contacts: Alan Brody at [email protected] and Adina Pollak at [email protected]
4 p.m. South Bend, Indiana — Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gives a lecture at the University of Notre Dame titled “Religious Liberty, Courage and the Necessity of Leadership.” Livestream at https://www.youtube.com/@NotreDameCCCG
MONDAY | OCTOBER 16
POSTPONED: 9:30 a.m. 1400 K St. NW — Center for Nonproliferation Studies in-person and virtual panel discussion: “The Nonproliferation Implications of a U.S.-Saudi Arabia-Israel Deal,” with Aziz Alghashian, researcher and fellow, SPD Project; Eric Brewer, deputy vice president, NTI; Chen Zak Kane, Middle East nonproliferation program director, CNS; Barak Ravid, political reporter, Axios; and moderator Ellen Knickmeyer of the Associated Press https://middlebury.zoom.us/webinar/register
12:30 p.m. 1789 Massachusetts Ave. NW — American Enterprise Institute in-person and virtual event: “Discussing the Trajectory of the War in Israel,” with Brian Katulis, senior fellow, Middle East Institute; Danielle Pletka, distinguished senior fellow, AEI; Kenneth Pollack, senior fellow, AEI https://www.aei.org/events/discussing-the-trajectory-of-the-war-in-israel
TUESDAY | OCTOBER 17
12:30 p.m. 1201 Pennsylvania Ave. NW — Hudson Institute and Gamziri in-person event on “Georgia’s Heritage of Freedom,” with Luke Coffey, Hudson senior fellow; and Giorgi Khvedeliani, founder and director-general, Gamziri https://www.hudson.org/events/georgia-europe-heritage-freedom
WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 18
10 a.m. 310 Cannon — House Homeland Security Committee hearing: “An Examination of the Iranian Regime’s Threats to Homeland Security” http://homeland.house.gov
10 a.m. G-50 Dirksen — Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee joint hearing: “Military to Civilian Transition: Ensuring Success After Service” http://www.armed-services.senate.gov and http://veterans.senate.gov
10 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW — Brookings Institution in-person and virtual discussion: “2023 Department of Defense strategy for countering weapons of mass destruction,” with Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb https://www.brookings.edu/events/2023-department-of-defense-strategy
10:30 a.m. 419 Dirksen — Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the nomination of Jacob Lew to be U.S. ambassador to Israel http://foreign.senate.gov
10:30 a.m. 1201 Pennsylvania Ave., NW — Hudson Institute event, “The Arab Oil Embargo 50 Years Later: Lessons Learned and Missed Opportunities,” with Mike Sommers, president and CEO, American Petroleum Institute; Arthur Herman, Hudson senior fellow; Michael Doran, Hudson senior fellow and director, Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East; Robert Heyat, former director-general, National Iranian Oil Company; Brigham McCown, senior fellow and director, Initiative on American Energy Security; Lucian Pugliarese, president, Energy Policy Research Foundation Inc.; and Jack Spencer, senior research fellow for energy and environmental policy, Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment, Heritage Foundation https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-arab-oil-embargo-50-years-later
THURSDAY | OCTOBER 19
9 a.m. 2118 Rayburn — House Armed Services Cyber, Information Technology, and Innovation Subcommittee hearing: “Can it work? Outside Perspectives on DOD’s Replicator Program,” with testimony from Bryan Clark, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute; and William Greenwalt, nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings
MONDAY | OCTOBER 23
4:30 p.m. 1789 Massachusetts Ave. NW — American Enterprise Institute book discussion: Riding the Tiger: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the Uses of War, with author Leon Aron, AEI senior fellow; and Kori Schake, director of foreign and defense policy studies, AEI https://www.aei.org/events/vladimir-putins-russia
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Israeli and American intelligence missed the attack. So, why should anybody be surprised that they missed the piece of information about Iranian approval? They missed the entire haystack. Why should they be surprised – anybody be surprised they missed the needle?”
John Bolton, former national security adviser, arguing that Iran used Hamas as a surrogate to attack Israel.
