COMMENTARY / OPINION
Hezbollah Plot to MASSACRE Northern Israel UNDERCUT [14:33] By Yair Pinto
Oct 19, 2024 TBN Israel – TBN Israel’s Yair Pinto travels to the Israel-Lebanon border to report on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. Avraham Levine of the Alma Research Center gives an updated assessment of Hezbollah’s military strength following intense IDF strikes eliminating its command structure and operations to dismantle its infrastructure. Could Iran enter into the conflict directly? Watch now on TBN Israel.
Please join us in praying for the peace of Israel and Jerusalem.
“Grave Mistake!” Bibi warns Iran after assassination attempt [46:25]
October 20, 2024 JNS TV | JLMinute – Is yesterday’s assassination attempt on Prime Minister Netanyahu really that much of a game changer? And what happens now that Israel’s attack plans seem to have been leaked to Iran?
Join Josh Hasten and JNS CEO Alex Traiman in our Jerusalem studio for insight and analysis!
We’ll also cover Israel’s elimination of Yahya Sinwar and reactions; continued rocket attacks from Hezbollah; progress in Gaza; and stern warnings from the US administration.
00:00 The Assassination of Yahya Sinwar
04:51 Implications for Hamas and Hostages
09:48 The Future of Governance in Gaza
14:50 International Reactions and Humanitarian Concerns
20:07 The Attempted Assassination of Netanyahu
25:01 Iran’s Role and Future Attacks
30:07 The Broader Regional Conflict
35:05 Conclusion and Future Prospects
Leak of Sensitive Intelligence to Iran Shakes Israel’s Plan to Hit Iran and More STEPHEN BRYEN
OCT 20, 2024 WEAPONS AND STRATEGY – “Middle East Spectator,” is a pro-regime Telegram outlet based in Tehran, as all media channels based in Tehran are – by law. Last week, Middle East Spectator leaked two sensitive intelligence documents The documents originated in the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and the information pertained to Israel’s preparation to retaliate for Iranian missile attacks.
I have not re-published the documents leaked on Telegram. Interested readers can go to the link provided above.
Middle East Spectator claims it is an independent operation in Tehran. It says it got the documents from an “informed source in the US intelligence community.” If we take this at face value, then a source in the intelligence community contacted the Spectator and shared the two documents. To further clarify, in a subsequent post Spectator says the source was in the US Defense Department.
Because “news” and information in Iran is very tightly controlled, Spectator could only publish these documents with permission from the regime.
It is extraordinarily valuable material that Iran can, and likely will, use to prepare its defenses.
One of the two leaked documents is classified above top secret. That document is headlined as NOFORN which means that the document cannot be shared with foreign governments. Assuming that the documents were not shared with allies (such as the Five Eyes group that have extraordinary access to US intelligence information), that information strengthens the claim made by the Spectator, that the leak came from United States persons or organizations.
The documents describe an Israeli “large force employment exercise” on the 15th and 16th of October. The document was published on Telegraph by the Spectator on the 18th.
Whoever leaked it to Tehran was warning that an Israeli strike was imminent. It also told the Iranians the type of weapons that would be used and probable targets, the latter being mainly Iranian air defense sites and long range radars.
How do we know? The two documents provide highly detailed information on Israeli Air Force preparations for a strike and describes in detail activities at three Israeli air bases subject to massive US surveillance. It carefully identifies the types of cruise missiles Israel was preparing, namely a system called ROCKS (which otherwise may be Israel’s long range Crystal Maze or Crystal Maze II air launched cruise missile) and Golden Dawn, another type of cruise missile that could be a derivative of the Sparrow series that originated as a target system emulating Iranian long range missiles. The report also said that the platform carrying these missiles would be the F-15I, not Israel’s F-35 “Adir” jets. It also indicates the refueling tankers and surveillance platforms Israel would use.
There is more. The lesser classified document (secret level) discussed Israel’s Jericho II medium range ballistic missiles, which are believed to be a critical part of Israel’s nuclear deterrent. The missile is solid fueled and can be silo or TEL-based. The document’s context means that the US accepts Israel has nuclear weapons, although the US has never officially acknowledged that before. The document reveals that Israel may have dispersed the Jericho missiles to prevent them being targeted by Iran. It also says that the US has not detected any preparations by Israel of its Jericho II missiles and concludes any nuclear strike by Israel is unlikely.
There can be no doubt that the leak of geospatial-origin intelligence has brought significant harm to Israel. It is also likely much more sensitive intelligence was leaked to the Iranians, which Iran may be protecting from public disclosure. Some releases on the Spectator channel admit as much.
Why would the Iranian government (either via Spectator or by giving permission to Spectator) leak ANY of the information?
Some speculate it was to convince Israel that the retaliation plan was known to Iran – thus deterring Israel from an attack that the Iranian government REALLY didn’t want to face. Second, perhaps, it was to warn (boast?) that Iran was being supplied with secret information by the United States, making Israel worry about what else had been compromised.
Consider this.
The Iranian leak was published on October 18th. On the 19th, an alleged Hezbollah-origin drone attacked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private home in Caesarea near the coast. Accurately targeting Netanyahu’s home required “scene matching,” as any drone from Lebanon, Syria or Iraq would likely have been outside of radio control communication. “Scene matching” would require significant intelligence preparation.
Was there confidence Netanyahu would be at home during the attack? Or confidence that he wouldn’t be – striking the house knowing he wasn’t there would be another way of telling Israel what Iran knows without facing the retaliation that would surely follow an actual assassination.
Were US assets complicit? In other words was the leak a violation of law or was it an act by the administration or some in the administration with political motives? No one can say, yet.
All of this is likely to cause a significant reassessment in Israel. At minimum, the Israelis will have the opinion that US intelligence is unreliable and penetrated. Beyond that, some will understand the US to be overtly hostile and acting against Israel. (After the drone attack, the Prime Minister received phone calls from heads of state and from former President Trump and US House Speaker Mike Johnson. Neither President Biden nor Vice President Harris called.)
In the real world this is a very sad development. Israel has some of the best human intelligence (HUMINT) in the world and has significant access to Iran’s nuclear programs. Israel has, on many occasions, warned friendly (and not so friendly) countries about threats, including foreign leaders, the Mossad and other intelligence centers in Israel have detected. Leaks like this put a severe chill on intelligence cooperation and directly harms the US.
The US has apparently launched an investigation, according to House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson. Documents of this type are often sent via secure internet to security-cleared personnel. There could be hundreds, perhaps even more, with access. It might be possible to review time stamps on those who accessed or copied the documents, which would potentially help narrow the search. It may also be possible to track documents sent outside the US using NSA’s massive capabilities. Much depends on whether the investigation undertaken is serious.
One suggestion being floated is that maybe the documents were hacked. But such sensitive information is not only carried on classified channels, but it is also encrypted, making hacking less likely to yield useful results. For the record, there are no public reports of any hacks of US security information.
It isn’t clear what Israel will do. It would be reckless to retaliate now that at least some of Israel’s plans and preparations have been leaked – which was the whole idea. Israel had already reportedly agreed with the US not to strike either Iran’s oil and nuclear facilities. Will that agreement hold now, or will Israel consider the agreement void?
Beyond that, Israel has to be concerned that its other operations – against Iranian proxies from the Red Sea to Gaza, Lebanon and Syria also are at risk because of US intelligence leaks.
No, Prime Minister Macron: The UN did not create Israel Dr. Alex Grobman
If it were within the power of the UN to create states, an Arab state would have arisen in 1948 alongside Israel, whether or not the Arabs agreed. Op-ed.
Oct 20, 2024, 8:06 PM (GMT+3) Israel National News – A number of Western leaders seem to think they know what is best for the State of Israel, and frequently admonish and attempt to bully the Israeli government to follow their dictates.
The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal reminds us that President Biden harassed Netanyahu about stopping the war in Gaza, strongly advised him against launching a military attack against Hamas, and even after the IDF’s obvious military success, sought to intimidate him from advancing to the city of Rafah, where Yahya Sinwar was believed to be hiding. The paper concluded that “if Israel had taken Mr. Biden’s advice, Sinwar, Nasrallah, and the rest of the Hamas-Hezbollah leadership would still be alive.” Arutz Sheva writer Gary Willig wrote of the next war that would have ensued.
Now French President Emmanuel Macron allegedly asserted, that “Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN. Therefore, he should not liberate himself from the decisions of the UN,” Apparently, he was referring to UN Resolution 181 adopted on November 29, 1947.
Perhaps if Macron understood how Israel came into being, he would not be so callous in demanding Israel adhere to UN resolutions, when they are consistently prejudicial to the security of the Jewish state. As Abba Eban, Israel’s first permanent representative to the UN, once pointed out, the UN is “the world center for antisemitism.”
Did the UN Create the State of Israel?
The Balfour Declaration
The Balfour Declaration, sent by British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour in a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild on November 2,1917 read: “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object….”
In a speech in Parliament on November 17, 1919, Lord Balfour, who held no ill will toward the Arabs, believed that the Jewish claim to Palestine was more compelling: “Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.”
In April 1931, David Lloyd George, who had been Prime Minister of England when the Imperial Cabinet formulated the idea of a national home, explained the justification for the Balfour Declaration: “The Jews surely have a special claim on Canaan. They are the only people who have made a success of it during the past 3,000 years. They are the only people who have made its name immortal, and as a race, they have no other home. This was their first; this has been their only home…. Since their long exile… this is the time and opportunity for enabling them once more to recreate their lives as a separate people in their old home and to make their contribution to humanity as a separate people, having a habitation in the land which inspired their forefathers.”
The San Remo Conference
At the San Remo Conference in San Remo, Italy in April 1920, the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan met to define the precise boundaries of the lands they had conquered at the end of WWI. As part of a peace agreement, Turkey yielded jurisdiction over the land which it had ruled from 1517 to 1917, including the Holy Land. Israel and two dozen other countries were created from the states of the former Ottoman Caliphate.
Former Israeli ambassador Dore Gold observed that in the last century, Israel is the only state established whose legitimacy was officially acknowledged by the League of Nations and the UN.
The League of Nations Mandate did not grant the Jewish people the rights to establish a national home in Palestine, it simply recognized the pre-existing right that had never been surrendered or forgotten. The Jewish people had been sovereign in their own land for a thousand years before many were forced into exile. The establishment of the State of Israel did not represent a creation ex nihilo. Israel was admitted to the United Nations as a full member on May 11, 1949.
These rights were upheld by the UN under Article 80 of the UN Charter after the UN replaced the League of Nations. International law expert Nathan Feinberg, added, On July 24, 1922, the Council of the League of Nations recognized the existence of the Jewish people, its historical link to the land of Israel and its right to reestablish its ancestral home there.
When the Muslims invaded Palestine in 634, ending four centuries of conflict between Persia and Rome, Israeli diplomat Yaakov Herzog noted, they found direct descendants of Jews who had lived in the country since the time of Joshua bin Nun, the man who led the Israelites into the Land of Canaan. This means that for 2,000 years, Jews and Christians constituted the majority of the indigenous population of Palestine, while the Bedouins were the ruling class under the Damascene caliphate.
Israel’s formal acceptance as the 59th UN Member State on May 11, 1949 was consistent with the UN’s original core beliefs. The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in Paris on December 10, 1948 by the UN General Assembly, was issued in response to the “disregard and contempt for human rights” that resulted in the “barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind” called the Holocaust—the attempt to annihilate the Jews of Europe by the Nazis.
Does this suggest that Israel was “created” by the UN asks historian Martin Kramer. No he says, because “ if it were within the power of the UN to create states, an Arab state would have arisen in 1948 alongside Israel….”
Dr. Alex Grobman is the senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society, a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and on the advisory board of The National Christian Leadership Conference of Israel (NCLCI). He lives in Jerusalem.
The Biden-Harris Administration Owes Israel’s Netanyahu An Apology by Bassam Tawil
October 20, 2024 at 5:00 am
- “Again and again we see that Israel absolutely made the right call in not heeding the Biden administration and the rest of the world’s insistence that the IDF not invade Rafah.” — Lahav Harkov, Israeli journalist, X, October 17, 2024.
- “Pretty rich after a year of undermining Netanyahu, saying he MUST go to a ceasefire, MUST deescalate, trying to stop Israel from going into Rafah WHERE SINWAR WAS KILLED, and Kamala boycotting his joint address to Congress – now Biden & Harris have the nerve to congratulate him for setting the path to peace. I’m sure the phone call sounds something like ‘You were right Bibi [Netanyahu], we apologize,'” — US Rep. Mike Waltz, X, October 18, 2024
- Israel’s killing Sinwar and destroying Hamas’s military infrastructure in Rafah sadly show how steadfastly the Biden-Harris administration was trying to prevent Israel from achieving victory over the Iran-backed Islamist murderers and rapists responsible for the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust.
- Netanyahu deserves credit for ignoring the warnings and threats by Biden and his senior officials. Thanks to Netanyahu, Hamas has been significantly debilitated and Sinwar has been eliminated, making the Middle East a safer place. It now remains to be seen whether the Biden-Harris administration will reconsider its failed foreign policies and apologize to the Israeli prime minister for attempting to undermine his efforts to combat terrorism and bring more security and stability not only to Israel, but the entire Middle East as well.
Earlier this year, the Biden-Harris administration spent weeks warning Israel not to enter the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where many of the leaders of the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas were believed to be hiding. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had prepared to enter the city as part of a counterterrorism offensive to destroy Hamas’s military capabilities and rescue some of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by the terrorist group on October 7, 2023.
The October 17 killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the Rafah area proved that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did the right thing in ignoring the warnings of the Biden-Harris administration. The IDF eventually entered Rafah, where it succeeded in killing hundreds of Hamas terrorists and recovering the bodies of some of the hostages. In addition, the IDF managed to rescue one of the hostages held in a Hamas tunnel in the Rafah area.
[Ed.:
Have You Been Censored, Blacklisted, or Banned on Social Media for Sharing a Gateway Pundit Article?… We Want to Hear from You – Please Let Us Know Below By Jim Hoft
Oct. 20, 2024 7:30 am – As many of your know The Gateway Pundit has been one of the most censored, targeted, smeared, and blacklisted websites on the internet today.
We shared a bit of our story last weekend.
Many of our readers also know that we are involved in ongoing lawsuits against government censorship and government sponsored censorship of conservatives and independent media outlets.
Today I am asking you if you could help us out in our investigations.
If you have evidence that you have been censored on Facebook, X, Google, or other social media platforms for sharing our content, will you please send a note to katieo@thegatewaypundit.com?
Please include a date, a time, the article in question, and any screengrabs if you have them.
You can also post your story in the comments section below.
Thank you!
This is very important for ongoing lawsuits on government censorship in America and the future of freedom of speech in this country.
Our readers mean so much to us.
Thank you!
Jim Hoft
Jim Hoft Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.
You can email Jim Hoft here, and read more of Jim Hoft’s articles here.
News Flash: Trump is Uncle Sam! CHERIE ZASLAWSKY
OCT 19, 2024 – To understand what’s unfolding in this election year, we need to view Trump not only as a candidate, and not merely as a man, but as a symbol—as if he were the personification of Uncle Sam brought to life in an attempt to save America from a passel of formidable enemies, both foreign and domestic, that seek to destroy her.
Simply put: this election is between a return to the America we loved and lost in the Color Revolution of 2020, and the last phase of a Communist takeover of our nation, as predicted by Khrushchev back in the 1950’s: “We will take America without firing a shot… we will destroy you from within.”
That’s the only way to begin to comprehend the Progressive Left’s myriad strategies to either keep Trump off the ballot, send him to prison, or worse—disenfranchising We the People in our attempt to elect the man who best represents the American Republic—the leader of the MAGA movement.
In fact, it is not Trump per se, but the MAGA movement—the awakened Sleeping Giant—that the Dems and their globalist pals really fear. Their attacks on Trump are attacks on We the People. Their lawfare against him is their corruption of our justice system, depriving us of any hope of justice as well. That’s also their message regarding the illegal detaining of patriots for “trespassing” on January 6th.
They’re in control—they’ve already hijacked the Constitution.
We’re not in Kansas anymore.
ELECTION THEFT
Remember when Hillary advised Biden in 2020 to refuse to concede “no matter what”? That was her “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” way of saying: Steal the election! Perhaps by using truckloads of fake ballots, fake vote counts, no holds barred, to cheat one’s way into office—elections be damned.
The Dems’ definition of “democracy”? They win.
They’re hellbent on getting their way. And their way is to get Obama at least virtually back into the White House to finish the job he started of “fundamentally changing America,” through the fatal combination of empty vessel Kameleon Harris, she of the meaningless word salad to hide her stunning ignorance of…well…nearly everything—as well as her total inability to think on her feet—and her low IQ but radically Leftist support person, Tim Walz.
TRUMP’S SOARING POPULARITY TERRIFIES THE LEFT
You have only to watch a replay of President Trump’s rally last May in the Bronx, smack dab in true blue New York, to see why the Dems fear him. After almost four years of Doddering Dementia Joe obediently following Obama’s Marxist playbook, with inflation skyrocketing, gas prices and food prices hammering the middle and working classes, people have caught on.
They remember they were better off under Trump!
It seems everything the Desperadoes do backfires against them, including the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13th. The colossal failure of the O’Biden/Harris administration to provide adequate security for a former president and likely winner of the current election is a national disgrace.
Not only that, but the failed assassination attempt only made Trump stronger and more popular than ever! He even had the chutzpah to hold a second rally in Butler Pennsylvania. The man is fearless!
And at his recent rally in California—a state not even considered in play—he drew a crowd of 50,000 people!
The Dems are panicking at Trump’s continued rise in popularity. Their lawsuits against him are crumbling—people can see the charges are both phony and pathetic. The Dems do nothing but cheat, and deep down, Americans hate cheaters.
This may also be why Kamala is widely considered the most unlikeable candidate in American presidential politics—even besting the Hildebeast in that regard—and why it’s no surprise that she plagiarized whole segments of her grossly mistitled book, Smart on Crime, but I digress….
It’s obvious by now the Dems have figured out that even the alleged mail-in ballot scam, including truckloads full of fake ballots and alleged rigged vote-counting algorithms may not be enough to steal this election. So, deep in the bowels of the Leftist enclave of Georgetown University, they’ve been busily hatching another strategy: Plan B.
Tucker Carlson’s guest—author, veteran and expert analyst J. Michael Waller unveiled it on TCN several months ago. It turns out a group of renegade lawyers and retired Generals war-gamed this election, the way the participants of Event 201 war-gamed the Covid lockdown response. Says Waller: “… according to their latest war games, if Donald Trump wins a free and fair election, he still has to be removed.”
Let that sink in!
They’re planning to use lawfare to keep him out of the White House even after he wins the election! And if that doesn’t work, a military coup!
This is Seven Days in May. This is what a real insurrection looks like. It is shocking, dangerous, and treasonous. This is why Maine’s change to “popular vote” matters.
SOME MUCH NEEDED GOOD NEWS
The good news is that a stalwart member of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Pete Sessions, is investigating the nefarious Georgetown plotting that apparently went on in 2020 and 2022, and has ramped up all the more for this make-or-break election.
Says Sessions, “As our nation prepares for the 2024 presidential election, the work of TIP has been brought to my attention as an intensely partisan exercise intended to sew [sow] dissension and subversion regarding the American election system and the institution of the president of the United States.”
And according to The New York Sun:
Mr. Sessions also spotlights another Georgetown affiliate, the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protections, known as “ICAP.” That is led by Professor Mary McCord.
Says McCord: “We’re already starting to put together a team to think through the most damaging types of things that he [Trump] might do so that we’re ready to bring lawsuits if we have to.”
Ready with lawsuits against a duly elected President? What country do they think this is? Ah, I forgot we’ve been living in their Marxist “utopia” ever since their successful Color Revolutionary coup d’état against Trump in 2020. And now they must be stopped from perpetrating their second—and final—coup against America, or it’s game over for the We the People.
A vote for Donald Trump is far more than a vote for a man. In the face of the myriad assaults against our people, our liberty and our sovereignty—seemingly courtesy of the Leftist globalist elites’ final push for their totalitarian “One World Government”—it is a vote for America!
