![Israel must continue to be able to deter Hezbollah, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar stressed on Wednesday, speaking amid efforts to reach a ceasefire with Iran's Lebanese terrorist proxy. "We need to keep the freedom to act if there will be violations. And we will have to act in time, before the problem will grow," the minister told a gathering of nearly 100 foreign ambassadors in Jerusalem, the Times of Israel reported. A deal to end more than a year of fighting on the northern border must be durable, Sa'ar said, saying Jerusalem “would like to reach an agreement that will stand the test of time." He added that a ceasefire would be an "opportunity" for Lebanon to regain its sovereignty after the Israeli military severely degraded the Iranian-backed group in recent months. He called for the Lebanese Armed Forces to be strengthened and urged the international community to invest more in the economically devastated country, which is drowning in debt following years of mismanagement and corruption. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also emphasized on Wednesday the necessity for Jerusalem to be able to act against any Hezbollah threats that may arise after a ceasefire deal is implemented. “The condition for any political settlement in Lebanon is the preservation of the intelligence capability and the preservation of the [IDF’s] right to act and protect the citizens of Israel from Hezbollah,” Katz said. Meanwhile, U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein remained in Beirut for a second day on Wednesday to discuss "technical details" of an American ceasefire proposal with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who heads the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement. President Joe Biden's point man in the Land of the Cedars announced he would travel to Israel on Wednesday night, speaking after he made "additional progress" in a second meeting with Berri. Hochstein was scheduled to meet with Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer shortly after his arrival, followed by a tête-à-tête with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the following day. “The meeting today built on the meeting yesterday, and made additional progress,” Hochstein said. “So I will travel from here in a couple hours to Israel to try to bring this to a close if we can.” The Biden envoy added that he will work with the incoming Trump administration on ceasefire efforts, saying that he has kept the president-elect's transition team informed of progress. Hochstein described as "very productive" his meetings with Lebanese officials on Tuesday. “We have a real opportunity to end the conflict, and now is the moment to decide. We are committed to doing everything we can to work with Lebanon and Israel to end this conflict,” Hochstein said at a press conference on Tuesday. Hochstein also met on Tuesday with Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, and he was scheduled to meet with Lebanese Armed Forces commander Gen. Joseph Aoun. Mikati emphasized that Lebanon’s primary objectives are achieving a ceasefire and safeguarding its sovereignty. He highlighted the need to implement international resolutions and bolster the Lebanese Armed Forces in the southern part of the country. Lebanon delivered its written response to the latest U.S. proposal on Monday. According to Ali Hassan Khalil, an aide to Berri, the response included “comments” that were “presented in a positive atmosphere.” He did not provide details on the nature of the comments, saying only that they “affirm the precise adherence to [U.N. Security Council] Resolution 1701 with all its provisions,” according to Reuters. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem said in a speech on Wednesday that the terrorist group had "read the ceasefire proposal. "We have our comments, and Nabih Berri has comments, and ours and the Lebanese government's comments are, Inshallah ['God willing'], identical," Qassem said. "We have decided not to discuss these ceasefire proposals or our comments in the media. All I will say is that Israeli is trying to obtain through negotiations what it couldn't through war." The terrorist leader vowed to “continue our efforts on the ground, whether the negotiations succeed or not. “We are confronting a savage enemy, and we will remain on the ground, no matter the cost, as we will also increase the cost for the enemy. We are facing Israeli human monsters supported by American human monsters,” threatened Qassem. Disarm and retreat Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, stipulated that Hezbollah must disarm and retreat north of the Litani River, but was never enforced. The Litani lies some 20 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border. Its enforcement, along with Israeli freedom of operation in Lebanon should Hezbollah violate the terms of a ceasefire agreement, are the key sticking points in the current negotiations. Netanyahu emphasized during a speech in the Knesset plenum on Monday that Israel will not allow Hezbollah to “return to the state it was in on Oct. 6, 2023. “We will be required, in order to ensure our security in the north, to systematically carry out operations—not only against Hezbollah’s attacks, which could come. Even if there is a ceasefire, nobody can guarantee it will hold. So it’s not only our reaction, a preventive reaction, a reaction in the wake of attack but also the capacity to prevent Hezbollah from strengthening,” he said. Hezbollah has launched some 16,000 rockets, missiles and drones from Lebanon at Israel since joining the war in support of Hamas on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after the Gaza-based terrorist group’s massacre in southern Israel. More than 60,000 residents of northern Israel remain internally displaced due to the ongoing rocket and drone attacks from Lebanon. Seventy-six people in northern Israel have been killed by Hezbollah cross-border rocket, missile and drone attacks since the start of the war, including 31 soldiers and six foreign citizens, according to the latest data provided by the Prime Minister’s Office, updated on Sunday. In addition, 729 people have been wounded, including 497 civilians and 232 soldiers. Of these, 29 civilians and 37 soldiers were severely injured; 63 civilians and 38 soldiers were moderately injured and 405 civilians and 157 soldiers were lightly injured. Hezbollah’s leadership has been left in tatters following a series of targeted killings by Israel, including that of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on Sept. 27. This was preceded by Israeli sabotage of Hezbollah communication devices that killed 39 people and wounded more than 3,400 members of the terrorist group. Israel has been waging a devastating aerial campaign against Hezbollah throughout Lebanon, including its stronghold of Dahieh south of Beirut. According to Israeli estimates, the terrorist group has lost most of its arsenal to the ongoing strikes. Then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in late October that Hezbollah had lost an estimated 80%-plus of its long-range rockets since the start of the war. Israel also continues to battle Hamas terrorists in Gaza. The terrorist group still holds 101 hostages in the Strip, 97 of whom were kidnapped on Oct. 7. Many of the captives are believed to be dead. Brazil summit Meanwhile, G20 leaders gathered in Rio de Janeiro for a summit put out a joint statement on Monday calling for “comprehensive” ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon. The leaders of the world’s biggest economies called for U.S. proposals to end fighting in Gaza and free the hostages, and one for Lebanon “that enables citizens to return safely to their homes on both sides of the Blue Line.” The 13-point U.S. proposal presented to Lebanese officials on Nov. 14 includes a 60-day truce, during which Lebanon would redeploy its troops along the border. The proposal also calls for Moscow to prevent Hezbollah from resupplying itself via Syrian land routes. Hezbollah would retreat north of the Litani River, with the border area then being under control of the Lebanese Armed Forces, overseen by the United States and Britain. Israeli officials are emphasizing, however, that the Israel Defense Forces must retain freedom of operation in Lebanon to thwart attempts by Hezbollah to violate the agreement and rearm and reestablish itself. A senior Israeli diplomatic official told Israel Hayom on Saturday that the IDF will retain operational freedom to respond to any security threats from across the northern border, regardless of any diplomatic arrangements. However, a source close to Hezbollah told The Washington Post that the group’s “condition for progress remains clear: Israel must be prohibited from conducting operations within Lebanese territory.” Berri emphasized at the time that any ceasefire agreement must not include the ability for Israel to attack by land, sea or air, Channel 12 reported. “Otherwise, what’s the purpose of an agreement?” he remarked. Another sticking point is Lebanon’s objection to the United Kingdom and Germany monitoring the implementation of U.N. Resolution 1701. Beirut reportedly favors the United States and France. If the ceasefire efforts fail, there are plans in the works to expand ground operations in Lebanon, an Israeli military official told the Post. Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer discussed the proposal with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump during a visit to his Florida estate earlier this month, as well as with senior Biden administration officials in Washington. Dermer also traveled to Russia to discuss the ceasefire proposal. Tehran is telling its Lebanese terrorist proxy Hezbollah that it supports ending the war against Israel, The New York Times reported over the weekend. Ali Larijani, senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, met with senior Lebanese officials in Beirut on Nov. 15 to discuss the matter. Two Iranians affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps told the Times that Larijani conveyed messages to Hezbollah from Khamenei that he supported the end of the war and that the regime would assist with rebuilding the terrorist group’s forces and recovering from the war.](https://jewishwebsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Gideon-Saar-1320x880-2-218x150.jpg "Sa’ar: Israel must be free to act against Hezbollah truce violations")
The Columbia Faculty Letter, signed with what may look like an impressive long list of faculty personnel, also uses other forms of validation: the claim that many other ‘governments and non- governmental institutions’ would be signatories of their letter, because they think alike. This is to suggest that there is no need to re-think their arguments. It has all been done and cleared by many ‘great minds’.
They hold back in asking openly for universal recognition because in a University, one needs to imagine at least as possible some counter arguments or at the very least, different arguments of other ‘great minds’ around. Still, they present words that imply their position to be truthful, historical, humane and by implication, moral. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yet they shamelessly do ‘demand’ — hoping no one will realize it– that the space that allowed them to produce their thinking be denied to others, as they argue in a coda for reversing the decision to create curricular programs in Israel. What has that got to do with the current issues here? Nothing. The calls for openness and balance, for different points of views, do not seem to apply to anyone else but themselves.
Unfortunately for the signatories whose names will get automatic recognition now, their letter is full of incorrect factual statements, incorrect thinking that distorts from the premises to their conclusions. The way the arguments are presented is not only incorrect but misleading and deliberately aimed to deceive. For a university environment- this is poison.
Before addressing all other of their points, let’s eliminate one issue upfront: future employment.
They protest what employers do or want to do when deciding whom to employ. The topic is not material for this forum. There are rules and decisions that each enterprise has on its side regarding its workforce. If the signatories have a problem with this, then the forum to argue it is elsewhere. Columbia is not the employer being addressed here.
Getting to the issues:
1.
This letter, supporting a previous Student Letter, states that ” The loss of human life is a deeply painful and a heartbreaking experience for “loved ones’ regardless of one’s affiliation. ……affected by tragic losses by both Palestinians and Israelis”.
Suddenly all is murky: the painful and heartbreaking experience is only for ”loved ones” regardless of affiliation? – would they care to explain the dichotomy created here and define who it applies to ?
Who are the loved ones here? could it be Hamas itself? and if October 7th is the trigger for the letter, are not Israelis the first to be identified as affected by tragic loss?
However, the letter skips that logic, and goes to identify Palestinians’ loss first, and so Israelis are a footnote to the issues here. That is why this letter is not a letter about empathy or sorrow, and certainly not about outrage for what was done to Israelis and other foreigners on a simple regular day, with no provocation: Oct. 7th. The date is just a useful entry to present ideological justifications for the current politics of Hamas and terror, and, to confuse.
October 7th is the day when ISRAELIS were murdered, maimed, and savagely burnt alive, cut open, violated, and decapitated, 1400 of them, plus more than 3000 injured, and 250 hostages were taken by the terror groups that entered Israel.
But in their letter, Hamas’s actions are not Hamas’s, but Palestinians’ actions justified for their grievances. Hamas are now called ‘militant soldiers’ for all Palestinians. Not a mention of them as terrorists that have denigrated Palestinians and devastated them with their own agenda. Once melded as groups, are we to see Palestinians as separate from Hamas or not? Are they all civilians now? So, is Israel alone in separating the two groups trying not to harm civilians? When the world is saying that Hamas uses ‘human shields’ to cover for themselves and confuse— here is the best example of how this gets articulated in words. They acted as Palestinians, they did not act as terrorists– they go back to Gaza, so there we find only Palestinian civil population. The lack of civility and the brutality they displayed with their aggression, is now to be eliminated from all thinking, and we should only see and think of the regular population. Where have the terrorists gone - disappeared?
This letter, and the students letter it supports and defends, aim at confusing and eliminating all traces of the murderous actions undertaken. Oct. 7th, was, according to these professors, just another day for justice and moral resolution.
2.
“Peace will remain elusive unless and until the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory ends and is accounted for…. “ What is wrong with this part of their statement? Inaccuracy and falseness.
a. Israeli occupation was the result of a war that was started by the enemies of Israel. That is how, when the war was lost by them, Israel had taken over territory. Israel never initiated the occupation of this territory.
b. After the war — there has never been any acceptance by losers of a path for a negotiated resolution that would, recognizing Israel’s legitimacy as a State, find a way to return the territory, and settle a peace between all parts. So to account for the occupation of this territory, you need to look at the other entities that lost it in the first place, and ask oneself, why have they never accepted a peace, a la Egypt or Jordan.?
c. Gaza, which is a part of a territory that was absorbed by Israel after that war, was eventually returned– even without a peace agreement. Hamas took over its governance.
To bring as a support of their reading of history (which ignores the above always) the UN, the UN General Assembly and Human rights organizations, is disingenuous. Many western solid democracies have been protesting and vetoing these statements for years. No one in the western world– no one– governments, individuals, and thousands of professors, has ever accepted this misleading reading of history, that conveniently cuts out history to build its case.
3.
Apartheid as a term to describe the situation of Palestinian and Israeli Arabs, is again trying to square the circle. How and where is the term to be used? Why not substitute apartheid, for instance, to describe American slavery here? Why not use it to describe the gender treatment in Iran? Israel may have many issues in its midst but apartheid is not one of them. The situation of having to manage a population of different political and civic qualifications, is much more complex and flexible than you would like us to believe. There are political Arab parties in Israel, education and higher education is available to all Arabs in Israel, there are permits to work for other foreigners and for Arabs, there are many joint ventures between Palestinian and Israelis. None of this fits — despite imperfections– the appellate apartheid.
If Desmond Tutu did not understand it, it must have been for lack of information and knowledge, and did he, we may ask, entertain any prejudice by any chance?.
If President Carter said that Israeli society was ‘worse than South Africa’ then he was so ignorant of Israel despite being president. We have had many such cases here where a buffoon or an ignoramus manages to bewitch masses. Further, just look at the situation of South Africa and Israel today and conclude if the term is a useful form of description of that society. What Carter may have said, from a president of a country that has not managed to accept its faults with American Racism and black slavery, suggests his preaching seems thin.
4.
The Student Letter and the current support letter by the undersigning professors, argue then for another shameless and misleading point: that one needs to “contextualize Oct 7th” to understand it. It echoes the old arguments over rapes: the context is that she was the cause of the aberration. So what do they mean when they say that? They have the deliberate audacity to define the barbaric massacres of the Hamas group on October 7th, as a “military operation and a state violence that did not start that day’, … a ‘military response by a people who had endured … state violence from an occupying power”.
Well, a few points here:
a. The world has been privy to see what vicious degenerate terrorists decided to do to avenge ” the occupation”. The violence they have inflicted forces other — Israelis– to use force as well. The violence is constant because that is the method they use all the time. It is not appalling to hear Professors of a distinguished university who claim to be solidly ’empathizing in their sentiments with others, to claim, to be feeling ‘deeply’ the pain of loved ones of different affiliation’ and arrive at this conclusion? So the love they feel– as they ‘clear’ their name– is not for Israelis murdered, but for Hamas’s soldiers that the world over has designated as monstrous executioners.
The attacks of Oct 7th, treated this way are seen as acceptable and legitimate attacks on the occupier Israel. What a barbaric conclusion from those that claim to be defending “communication,’ “freedom of speech”, but most important, ‘higher forms of critical thinking’…! What an absurdity and shameful disengaging from reality, civic values and moral parameters– in another word, of decency.
It is shocking to see how many fools are following the chanting of these deceitful sentences.
b..Now, to topple all devious artistry, they claim in this letter, that ‘all forms of resistance must conform to the laws of war, prohibiting against the targeting of civilians”. They can ask from others to conform to the laws of war? Prohibiting the targeting of civilians, does not apply to them? Is October 7th… an exception?
So, terrorists do not exist, there are only all Palestinians; then the Palestinians, are fighters that are legitimized by what Hamas is doing on their behalf; terrorists and civilians are one. Indistinguishable….. how absolutely terrible for decent Palestinians to have these mouths speaking for them. Further, Israel should uphold the prohibition to not harm civilians — which it does to the degree they can in a war — so where are the murderers? The savagery is justified for these freedom fighters? Can anyone in their right mind, legal experts included, ignore these mental gymnastics and distortions and sign such a letter?
So which one will it be: terrorists and Palestinians are one, or they are separate? Does one protect civilians, or are they protecting terrorists? Israelis should uphold laws of war, but these fighters have different rules to go by? October 7th, a holy day for some already, has become the platform to argue a legitimate form for the massacre of Jews.
If this is not classic antisemitic language, it is difficult to find better examples. The language of decency that the signatories claim to uphold is just a rubric with no relation to the content of the letter they wrote and signed. Not once was the word PEACE used here, not a single word expressed for the articulation of a path for future resolution… …You know why? because they need to hide here the fact that almost no one on the Palestinian side it seems — and certainly not the signatories of the letter and their students they are defending, — the hundreds of Hamas-praising students on campus — none care for peace, resolution, civility and coexistence. The higher critical thinking they claim to uphold seems to have eliminated these words and ideas from their vocabulary.
5.
Last, the ongoing demands that Columbia University reverse the decisions to create curricular and research programs in Israel and with Israel.... and this is a reaction they say with a distorted logic that is ghastly — to the fact that they see that the university favors ‘suffering of Jews over suffering Palestinians.’. As anyone thinking critically would notice, the premise perfectly follows the conclusion, right?
So here is your challenge: It would be great to have an opportunity to select from among many Arab universities and research institutes, to forge study centers. You can dismiss Israel because surely others offer fantastic courses and research in agriculture; water technology; food alternatives, sustainability; medicine, nuclear medicine, medicinal innovations; eye and sight innovative technology; as well as high tech advancements, with so many formats that are today indispensable from cellular phones to computers apps. etc. etc. Yes, drop Israel. Who needs any of what they offer. There are much better programs that we need to find out about; for that, we would appreciate it from the undersigned professors to present to us a survey of these substitutes. These thinkers must surely be up to date in research, analysis of all kinds, and they certainly must know where the coveted ‘critical thinking’ programs are best taught, to propose the alternatives or at least the competing possibilities so that the University administration should be able to review them. We can then copy the models or sign up with the centers of higher education of Iraq, Syria or Lebanon. Perhaps, just an Iranian type of university