Monday, November 25, 2024
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Stop the Mideast Money Fueling Campus Anti-Semitism

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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Combating the anti-Semitism radiating from U.S. college campuses will require work on many fronts. Some of the drivers could take enormous effort to uproot—for example, the DEI culture that has reshaped K–12 and postsecondary institutions. A less frequently discussed factor is easier to address: U.S. universities should stop letting foreign entities shape campus intellectual life.

Centers dedicated to the study of the Middle East, many receiving lavish foreign financial support, do more to promote anti-Zionist and pro-Hamas narratives than virtually any other force on campus. Even a small number of biased faculty can have an outsize influence because the dominant intersectional ideologies leave students primed to embrace anti-Semitic attitudes.

In effect, U.S. campuses have been importing anti-Semitic propaganda for almost 50 years. As the New York Times reported in 1978, “Oil wealth from the Middle East is starting to flow onto college and university campuses throughout the country, bringing a bonanza of endowed chairs and new programs.” That initial flood of money—and specific concerns about gifts to Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies—led to the establishment of foreign gift-reporting requirements in 1986. To this day, Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires universities to report foreign gifts above $250,000.

Unfortunately, weak enforcement by the Department of Education allowed many universities to ignore the requirement. That changed in 2019, when Secretary Betsy DeVos initiated noncompliance investigations at several top schools. In 2023 congressional testimony, Paul Moore, chief investigative council at the Department of Education during the Trump administration, described the sea change that followed: “enhanced enforcement . . . produced dramatic results,” including the “disclosure of more than $6.5 billion in previously undisclosed foreign gifts and contributions.” The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), which analyzed the updated disclosures for 2014–19, found that over $2.7 billion in gifts came from Qatari sources, $1.2 billion from Chinese entities, and over $1 billion originated in Saudi Arabia.

The Biden administration, pressured by the higher-education lobby, closed outstanding Section 117 investigations in August 2022. Later the same year, the Department of Education moved enforcement from the Office of the General Council to the Office of Federal Student Aid. Disclosures have dwindled since.

Foreign entities invest in U.S. universities for many reasons, including to gain access to sensitive technology and to exert influence over cutting-edge researchers. When it comes to shaping the campus marketplace of ideas, gifts to Middle East studies centers have paid off. A 2022 report by the National Association of Scholars, Hijacked, looked at more than 50 such centers and concluded that they produce “biased material that promotes the political interests of the donors.” A 2020 Education Department study noted that Saudi Arabia has advanced “Islamic ideology . . . through multimillion-dollar donations to elite Western institutions” since 9/11.

These centers are ground zero for Jew-hatred in the academy today. An AMCHA Initiative study of anti-Zionist and BDS-supporting faculty found that 70 percent are associated with ethnic, gender, or Middle East studies departments. (These departments sponsor almost 90 percent of events containing anti-Zionist or pro-BDS rhetoric.) Through their research, teaching, and the speakers they host, the centers demonize Israel and make anti-Semitic attitudes seem permissible, even respectable, to impressionable students.

The presence of anti-Zionist faculty, in turn, is associated with significantly higher levels of student-on-student harassment involving Jews, including “incidents that target Jewish students for harm.” The NCRI study reached the same conclusion, finding “a correlation between the existence of undocumented funding and incidents of targeted anti-Semitism.”

What can be done? The recent success in closing Confucius Institutes—funded by the Chinese government to spread propaganda on American campuses—proves that public and political pressure can force colleges to reject foreign money. Universities should refuse all gifts from entities with interests antithetical to this country’s, especially gifts related to academic programs. Programs built on foreign donations should be dismantled unless they are obviously worth supporting from the general fund. State lawmakers can pass legislation to forbid, or at least carefully scrutinize, partnerships and contracts at public institutions with countries of concern.

Federal policymakers can also act. The next administration should aggressively enforce foreign gift-reporting requirements. And Congress should consider new legislation that would lower the reporting threshold for foreign gifts and prohibit certain partnerships with entities of concern.

AJC Statement on the Report on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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Following reports of the involvement of a number of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) employees in the October 7 Hamas attacks against Israel – and sixteen UN member states pulling economic support from the agency – the UN commissioned a report, released this week, on the agency’s management and adherence to UN principles.
While reaffirming the UN’s position that UNRWA is “indispensable,” the Colonna report validates concerns about UNRWA’s governance, politicization, and the hijacking of the agency, its facilities, and its mandate for Hamas-led purposes. It also confirms that stronger safeguarding mechanisms are necessary to ensure neutrality and includes a recommendation for the formation of a governance board (currently there is none, and donors do not play any governing role), and recommends regular reporting on neutrality issues.
UNRWA, like all UN agencies, is called upon to adhere to the humanitarian principle of neutrality. Neutrality dictates that humanitarian actors must not take sides in hostilities or engage in controversies of a political, racial, religious, or ideological nature.
Rare for a UN report on one of its entities, the Colonna report acknowledges problems with how UNRWA operates, including the permissive environment on problematic content in textbooks, supplemental material and teaching content, the politicization of staff unions and the need to better vet and train staff, and the “misuse” of UNRWA facilities – including an allusion to storing weapons, building tunnels, and other activities unrelated to a humanitarian mission. We also await the results of the separate investigation by the UN Office for Internal Oversight Services into the participation of UNRWA staff in the October 7 Hamas-led attacks.
Insufficiently addressed in the report, UNRWA publicly demonstrates clear partiality. In a recent example, on April 20, UNRWA tweeted: “A child is killed every 10 minutes in the Gaza Strip.” This isn’t just a hyperbolic and cynical exploitation, it’s factually absurd. Such misinformation is biased, harmful, and does nothing to advance UNRWA’s mandate.
As the International Crisis Group has deemed UNRWA the “unofficial substitute for the state [of Palestine] in areas where it operates,” its role in both advancing or limiting Palestinian self-governance and resolving or perpetuating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict extends beyond the questions posed by the Colonna report. Sadly, UNRWA continues to act like an entity seemingly conceived to perpetuate rather than resolve the status of 1948 Palestinian refugees.
Despite the challenges with UNRWA, American Jewish Committee (AJC) is keenly aware that currently some two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza depend on aid from UNRWA. Although the serious issues with UNRWA must be further investigated and remedied, continued delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza is essential, and next steps on UNRWA must be conducted in a manner that does not harm Palestinian civilians in need of humanitarian assistance. It is essential that the UN and the international community delineate between the emergency aid that UNRWA has provided since October 7 and the agency’s actual conduct and mandate.
UN Secretary General António Guterres accepted the Colonna report recommendations to improve UNRWA’s capacity to monitor and address neutrality issues. It is essential, for the credibility of the UN and for the future of the Israeli and Palestinian people, that these issues be fully and transparently addressed until a new framework for UN aid to the Palestinian people can be established, with a mandate, like that of other refugee programs, to facilitate the integration of the subject population in the lands in which they have settled.

Israel Tried To Warn Biden Admin About UNRWA. A Top US Official Declined the Meeting, Emails Show.

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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When Israel’s ambassador was denied a meeting with the Biden administration in May 2021, he was looking to raise concerns about American funding to the United Nations’ Palestinian aid agency, whose employees went on to participate in Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror strike last year, internal government emails show.

Samantha Power, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), declined to take a meeting with Gilad Erdan, then the Israeli ambassador to the United States, when the Jewish state was locked in its 2021 conflict with Hamas, the Washington Free Beacon reported in February, citing internal USAID emails.

A new tranche of scheduling memos from that time shows that Power personally declined to meet with Erdan until the war with Hamas was over. The memos also show Power’s staff warned her that the Israeli ambassador would likely raise concerns about the Biden administration’s decision to restart funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The agency has been engulfed in controversy since reports showed that several of its employees helped Hamas kill more than 1,200 Jews.

The memos indicate that Israel was attempting to warn the Biden administration about UNRWA’s links to Hamas and signal concern with the aid group’s employment of individuals affiliated with the terror group. The United States restarted millions of dollars in taxpayer funding for UNRWA just weeks before Erdan requested the meeting with Power and the 2021 conflict with Hamas broke out.

In the previously unreported scheduling memo, Power says she wants to defer the meeting until Israel inks a ceasefire with Hamas, a move that increased pressure on the Jewish state to scale back its military operations in the Gaza Strip. The Biden administration has employed similar tactics in recent months as it again attempts to pressure Israel into ending its war on Hamas and begin pumping millions of aid dollars into the war torn Gaza Strip.

“Let’s revert after Gaza war (not before),” Power wrote in the margins of the memo prepared by her staff, who had recommended she take the meeting.

The memo informed Power that the Israeli ambassador may “voice concerns about [U.S. government] support for UNRWA,” which could have contributed to the USAID leader’s hesitance to discuss the issue.

Power’s staffers eventually informed their colleagues in the region that the meeting would not take place.

“The Administrator [Power] would like to take the meeting with the Ambassador but wants to hold until there is a ceasefire or resolution to the currently [sic] escalation of the conflict,” a scheduler in Power’s office wrote in a May 18 email.

That note, as well as the scheduling memo, was produced through a Freedom and Information Act request and provided to the Free Beacon by the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA), a government watchdog group.

CASA director James Fitzpatrick said the memo indicates the Biden administration did not want to address Israel’s concerns about UNRWA at a time when it was just starting to pour millions into the aid group’s coffers.

“Given that it has since been uncovered that UNWRA employees were involved in the Hamas attack on innocent Israeli citizens, it is extremely disturbing that Ambassador Erdan’s concerns were not addressed in a timely manner by USAID and Power,” Fitzpatrick told the Free Beacon. “The administration’s priority should be meeting and conferring with our allies about their concerns, whenever possible, not putting conditions on meetings when they are responding to terrorist attacks.”

Power played a central role in restarting American funding to UNRWA, which was frozen under the Trump administration because of the aid group’s anti-Israel bias and suspected links to Hamas.

Israel has been a vocal opponent of this funding, publicly and privately pushing the Biden administration to reconsider its financial support for UNRWA, which has totaled millions in recent years.

The United States froze UNRWA funding earlier this year, after it became clear that around a dozen of the aid group’s employees participated in the Oct. 7 attacks. Israel estimates that around 10 percent of UNRWA’s workforce is affiliated with Hamas.

Amid the funding freeze, the State Department has continued to work with UNRWA, saying the U.N. agency serves a “critical role” delivering aid in the Gaza Strip. Power said in February that the Biden administration “will not be abandoning UNRWA.”

USAID’s global funding initiatives have also been plagued by poor oversight.

The agency funneled nearly $1 million “to a terror charity in Gaza involved with the son of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh,” a watchdog group reported earlier this month.

USAID has faced Republican pressure in Congress for awarding taxpayer funds to groups with alleged ties to terrorism. The agency’s inspector general is reportedly investigating claims that at least $110,000 in funds were sent to a charity tied to Pakistani militant groups.

UNRWA – Special Report 2024

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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Plagues – past, present and future

By
Michael Kuttner
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Why was this night different from all other nights?

Instead of a restful and peaceful night’s sleep, we were roused from our slumber at approximately 1.30am by a series of loud explosions. Looking out from our bedroom window, we beheld an eerie sight reminiscent of a Star Wars movie. Streaking across the night sky were innumerable illuminated orange objects which all seemed to disintegrate and explode. I guessed that they were the Iranian drones which had been launched from Iran. There had been reports earlier in the evening of a possible drone strike. 

Within a few minutes, the air raid sirens wailed, and unaware whether missiles were heading in our direction, it was a mad dash for our local communal air raid shelter only about 30 seconds from our home. The sirens ceased almost immediately which indicated that nothing was heading our way. Drones were still flying but obviously posed no lethal threat.

By this time, everyone in the country was up and monitoring the news, and needless to say, mobile phones were being used to check up on family and friends. Getting back to sleep proved to be a difficult exercise especially for those glued to the breaking news developments.

It was only the next day that one had time to think about the unfolding events and draw some conclusions.

I predicted that it would take no more than a couple of hours for all the usual crowd to warn Israel not to retaliate, to show restraint and allow “diplomacy” to deal with the terrorist regime in Iran.

Pesach (Passover) is, therefore, an ideal time to remember how our ancestors dealt with past tyrants whose agenda included ethnic cleansing, murder, enslavement, kidnapping and murder. The exodus from Egyptian bondage only occurred after an escalating series of plagues and diplomatic negotiations with Pharaoh. His attempt to kill all Hebrew male babies at birth failed thanks to the heroic efforts of the midwives who thwarted this pogrom. Moses and Aaron did try to negotiate an exit strategy but this failed in the face of a stubborn refusal to agree on the part of the Egyptian leader.

A series of afflictions still made no impression and it was therefore only after the final plague that the Hebrews were allowed to depart. They had hardly left when Pharaoh regretted his decision and pursued them with his entire army determined to finally wipe them all out. This of course ended in spectacular failure at the sea of reeds.

The lessons we should be able to draw are that negotiating with and appeasing dictators, tyrants and Jew haters is a lost cause and only results in worse disasters. So, it has been proven throughout Jewish history and is especially relevant in our time. Unfortunately, the rest of the world refuses to learn and still stubbornly clings to the illusion that kowtowing to thugs and bullies will buy peace.

The one plague that has survived millennia of mutations is hate for the Jewish People and its promised homeland. The Babylonians and the Romans did their level best to not only destroy Judea and Israel and exile its Jewish inhabitants but also to ensure that the very idea of Jewish sovereignty should be eradicated. Today’s anti-Israel/Zionist haters have the same agenda as recent events and realities have so dramatically demonstrated.

This brings us back to current developments and their potential outcomes.

Without a shadow of a doubt, Iran has been emboldened by the reluctance and refusal of the democracies to make it accountable and pay a heavy price for its headlong rush towards nuclear weapons. Despite a clear and unambiguous message of its intentions to destroy Israel, the international community led by the Biden Administration has engaged in appeasement mode policies.

Much is being made of the fact that the USA and UK joined Israel in helping to repel the drone and missile barrages. However, overlooked is the fact that this apparent act of solidarity carried with it a subsequent caveat. Listening to the frantic chorus of admonitions issuing forth from Western capitals, the unmistakable conclusion is one of terrified appeasers frenetically trying to distance themselves from any remote involvement in taking firm action to punish Iran.

What other conclusion can one reach when almost every leader of the democratic world warns Israel in the sternest language not to retaliate because by doing so world peace will be in peril? The delusion that so-called diplomacy will deter Iran from further terror attacks and halt its stampede to nuclear capabilities is so firmly embedded in foreign policy appeasers’ minds that no amount of proof to the contrary will alter their hallucinations.

Biden insists that the US does not want conflict with Iran and to prove this he showers the mullahs with billions of unfrozen funds. In case Tehran still does not get the message his Government makes it clear that Washington will not back any Israeli response. The Lord Cameron wags his fingers and warns Israel not to respond as do the French and others. For good measure, the UN Secretary General declaimed that “acts of reprisal involving force are barred under international law.” Not to be left out of the international chorus of the Munich appeasers’ chorus is the NZ Foreign Minister who piously declared that he expected both sides to now refrain from fuelling tensions.

The reaction to the Iranian attack by China and Russia is predictable especially as they are long time supporters of the Iranian Mullah regime and its evil intentions. It is nothing short of an amazing and delusionary act of craven moral cowardice that those who should be thwarting Iranian genocidal ambitions are instead running to the UN. This corrupted body has neither the will nor the ability to sanction Iran. Proof of this is the fact that Iran is currently chair of the UN Conference on Disarmament. What more glaring farce can one encounter?

Israel needs to ask Cameron if he would have demanded from Churchill that the UK not retaliate for the German blitz on the UK. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour would those who today demand Israel not retaliate have told Roosevelt the same? When Margaret Thatcher retaliated against the Argentinean invasion of the Falkland Islands did the UN convulse and was the UK dragged in front of the ICJ at The Hague?

In the face of a demand that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be banned the UK Prime Minister reportedly has dismissed this because “it would sever diplomatic ties with Tehran.” Will Australia use this same specious and cowardly excuse instead of actually having a moral backbone?

If all this sounds eerily reminiscent of the years leading up to the Shoah you would be right. Add in the convulsive tsunami of Jew/Israel hate now enveloping all parts of the world and you have a perfect brew for what lies ahead thanks to the craven cowardice of the morally bankrupt.

Every year there is a ceremony in Germany to commemorate the liberation of the Bergen Belsen concentration camp. This year it has been delayed until a later date and Israeli representatives have been uninvited to speak. It is the height of irony but indicative of the way things are headed that Germany, of all countries, should surrender in the face of Nazi-type mobs.

This brings us back to the topic of plagues.

It was only after a series of escalating disasters that our ancestors were let go. The final humiliation for the Egyptians followed at the Reed Sea.

Every Seder, we remember how, in every generation, there are those who rise up to destroy us.

This Pesach, therefore, as our hostages remain captive and we face threats to our very right to live, we need to resolve to do what needs to be done in order to thwart and defeat the nefarious designs of our enemies.

May this year’s celebrations herald the beginning of our redemption and the fulfilment for more Jews of the pledge to be next year in a fully restored and united Jerusalem, our eternal Capital.

Michael Kuttner is a Jewish New Zealander who for many years was actively involved with various communal organisations connected to Judaism and Israel. He now lives in Israel and is J-Wire’s correspondent in the region.

Behind the Scenes with David Bedein The Kenneth Timmerman Interview

By
David Bedein
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incisive VIDEO interview with Iran expert Kenneth Timmerman

Following Senator Warren’s assertion that the term “genocide” should be applied to the current war in Gaza

By
David Bedein
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Photo by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr

Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, recently became the first US politician to declare that it is appropriate to use the term “genocide” when referring to the current war in Gaza.

Having covered Hamas since its founding in 1988, I would venture to agree with Senator Warren’s observation. However, I would stress that the observation rightly pertains to the actions of Hamas – not to those of the Israel Defence Forces.

In this regard, note that the murderous October 7th attack on 22 Jewish communities was — amongst other obvious characterizations — illogical.

No nationalistic, political or military aspiration could be served by the random killing, torture, rape and kidnapping of Jewish men, women, children, babies and old people.
Senator Warren would do well to look at US law (Title 18 of the USC, Part I, chapter 50A), which defines genocide as:

“Whoever, whether in time of peace or in time of war and with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.”
As the Arab attack deliberately targeted Jews of all ages, the Oct. 7 act qualifies as “genocidal” in intent.
The Israeli military operation in Gaza, regardless of the civilian death toll, cannot be defined as genocidal because there is no genocidal intent. The Israeli government’s goals for the war are the following:

1. Release the hostages.
2. Eradicate the Hamas terror organization.

As such, from a legal point of view, the Israeli war in Gaza is not genocide.

Apparently, Senator Warren failed to read the definition of genocide in US law.

The time has come for Senator Warren to learn about real genocide. Perhaps the quarter-million Jews who live in her state will involve themselves in the education of their Senator, to acquaint her with the lesson recited each Passover: “In every generation, an adversary arises to eradicate our people, yet God saves us them from their hands.”

A case in point; on Friday April 12, a 14-year-old unarmed Jewish shepherd, Binyamin Ahimeir went missing. When his sheep came home before Shabbat without Binyamin, his mother appeared on Israel radio and appealed for everyone to pray for her son. A few hours later, Binyamin was found dead, stabbed in all parts of his body. PBC radio, the VOICE OF PALESTINE, announced the execution of a Jew who intruded into Palestinian grazing land. If Binyamin’s kiĺlers are apprehended, PA law provides a salary for life for anyone who kills a Jew. That law was passed by the PA in August, 2015. This is that law:

Incentivizing Terrorism: Palestinian Authority Allocations to Terrorists and their Families

135 nations fund the PA, as does Israel. THERE IS NO RECORD OF ANY NATION THAT DEMANDS THAT THE PA CANCEL THAT UNPRECEDENTED LEGISLATED GENOCIDAL INCENTIVE TO MURDER JEWS.

The Dead Sea at the crossroads of war: Reflecting on Iran’s recent missile strike

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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On April 13 and 14, Iran executed its first direct attack on Israel amid the current conflict, starkly underscoring the fragile security environment that surrounds us. This very date marks a personal and poignant anniversary for me as well; eight years prior, I embarked on my first journey to the Dead Sea, drawn by its haunting beauty and environmental plight, aboard a unique boat excursion at the earth’s lowest point.

In my role as a foreign relations manager at ISRAEL-is, aimed at improving Israel’s global image post-October 7 atrocities, the sight of an intercepted Iranian missile plunging into the Dead Sea reignited my dedication to addressing both environmental and security challenges in our region. This 750 kg. warhead missile, a vivid symbol of aggression, not only opens a new drastic chapter in the Middle East conflict, but also strikes a body of water that symbolizes both natural wonder and ecological fragility.

Following the tumultuous aftermath of the Gaza war, the October 7 atrocities and Iran’s latest provocation, the security challenges facing Israel and its neighbors have only deepened. A significant display of regional dynamics unfolded as Jordan decisively intercepted several missiles from Iran aimed at Israel and Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, and provided intelligence on the Iranian attack. This act of cooperation amidst conflict underscores the complex interplay of antagonism and alliance that characterizes our regional relations.

We need a dual strategy: environmental preservation and coexistence

Recalling the days leading up to October 7, there was a fleeting optimism about regional partnerships underpinning a brighter future. During this period, I walked the corridors of Capitol Hill with a delegation from the Middle East and North Africa, championing the third year of the Abraham Accords. My role then as the director of the Dead Sea Revival Project involved advocating for water diplomacy and the development of environmental tourism—a dual strategy aimed at environmental preservation and fostering coexistence and unity among the peoples connected by shared ecological and cultural narratives, particularly focusing on water sustainability in one of the world’s driest regions.

Today, as the shadow of escalating conflicts looms larger, the necessity for a regional security alliance against Iran becomes increasingly imperative. Yet, within these brewing tensions lies a critical opportunity for cooperation centered around our mutual environmental concerns. The declining waters of the Dead Sea serve as a stark reminder of the broader environmental challenges that defy political borders and demand collaborative action.

Looking ahead, our focus must evolve from mere survival and tactical maneuvers to fostering sustainable cooperation. We are reminded that our shared water resources and environmental challenges could be the cornerstone of a robust regional alliance. Such cooperation does not merely address immediate ecological needs but also establishes the groundwork for a more stable and secure future.

As we navigate these complex times, our unwavering commitment to environmental diplomacy and regional cooperation continues to strengthen. The stories of resilience from the Dead Sea to the diplomatic corridors illuminate the pressing need for a unified approach to both security and sustainability. These narratives reinforce the importance of leveraging shared environmental interests to bridge divides and forge lasting peace in the region.

The success of diplomatic efforts like the Abraham Accords highlights the potent impact of cooperative strategies and underscores the critical need to engage communities and nations in dialogues about mutual interests and shared destinies. This comprehensive approach will not only counter the destructive ideologies of Iran and its proxies but also pave the way for a sustainable and peaceful future for all involved.

The writer is foreign affairs manager for ISRAEL-is, and formerly served as director of the Dead Sea Revival Project.

Did Iran attack Israel with assurances from Biden?

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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Normally I don’t cover breaking news, but this is too important.

I was wrong.

I believed the Iranians would not attack Israel directly as they had been threatening, because such an attack would green-light an Israeli response on the Iranian homeland that would be devastating for the Islamic regime.

I reasoned that the extraordinary coordination among U.S. and Israeli officials late last week signaled a potential joint U.S.-Israeli counterstrike should Iran’s leaders be so reckless as to attack Israel.

I said that publicly in my regular newsletter on April 5. A few days later, Israeli minister without portfolio, Benny Ganz, said it on Israeli TV. (In case you missed it, Benny Ganz is the “moderate” Israeli politician Biden & Co. are trying to maneuver into position to replace Bibi.)

Both of us were wrong.

I believed that Israel would strike back against Iran with such devastating force – potentially, in a joint counter-strike with the U.S. against Iranian nuclear facilities – that it would reveal the regime’s weakness.

Iranian air defenses would show themselves incapable of shooting down a single U.S. or Israeli plane, a fact that would become immediately obvious. An Israeli counterstrike would make the regime appear weak in the eyes of the Iranian people.

And that is something regime leaders cannot allow to happen. They cannot appear weak, because then they will fall.

On Sunday morning, I woke up in the south of France to the extraordinary news that Iran had defied all expectations and launched 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles, and more than 100 ballistic missiles against Israel.

Even more extraordinary were the results: Israel announced that along with its allies, it had knocked out all 170 drones and 30 cruise missiles before they even reached Israeli airspace, and intercepted 99% of the ballistic missiles, many of them in exo-atmospheric kills that showered shrapnel across the Negev desert, severely wounding a 7-year Bedouin girl who lived near the Netarim Air Force base, where Israel’s fleet of F-35 fighters is based.

But here is the key: Israel alone did not thwart the Iranian attack. The United States, the UK, Jordan, and even France sent their pilots aloft to intercept incoming drones and cruise missiles before they reached Israel, with the U.S. Central Command coordinating that response.

And that international assistance appears to have a come at a price: President Biden publicly warned Prime Minister Netanyahu on Sunday that the thwarted Iranian attack on Israel was it. The U.S. would not support an Israeli strike against Iran in response.

Israel took out Iranian military commanders illicitly using a diplomatic facility in Damascus on April 1; Iran retaliated against Israeli territory in a strike that killed no Israeli two weeks later. Strike, counter-strike. Game over.

As the former U.S. National Intelligence Officer for Iran, Norman Roule, told CNN on Sunday, the Iranian attack on Israel “erased all the red lines.”

Extraordinary.

I have many questions. We know Biden’s sympathies for the Iranian regime. As soon as he took office, he quietly removed sanctions on Iranian oil sales, allowing them to go from exporting 400,000 barrels/day during the final days of the Trump administration to nearly 2,000,000 b/d today, most of it to China.

We know that he paid a $6b billion ransom for five U.S.-Iranian dual-nationals held hostage by the Tehran regime.

We know that until late last year, Biden was seeking to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which Trump for good reason called “the worst deal ever negotiated.” Trump withdrew US participation in the deal in 2018.

There is much more we don’t know, at least not publicly. For example, what back-channel discussions did the Biden White House conduct with Iranian officials over the past two weeks, in Turkey, Iraq, or elsewhere? Did the White House provide assurances to Iran that the U.S. would intervene to prevent an Israeli counterstrike, thereby green-lighting the Iranian strike on Israel, which the Ayatollah needed to placate his own hardline supporters?

I can find no other explanation for the otherwise irrational behavior of the Islamic state of Iran’s leaders. Above all else, they value regime survival. Without a green light from Biden for their attack on Israel, they risked regime extinction – by Israel, and by their own people.

But with assurances from Biden, they felt secure.

I think we will know the answer soon.

Biden ‘knowingly and unlawfully’ gave $1.5B that helped fund Hamas, other terror groups: suit

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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The Biden administration has “knowingly and unlawfully” provided more than $1.5 billion in aid to Gaza and the West Bank, allowing US tax dollars to “subsidize” Palestinian terror groups like Hamas, according to a lawsuit brought by Rep. Ronny Jackson and victims of past terror attacks in Israel.

President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have “known for years” that the US aid is providing “material support” for Hamas’ “tunnels, rockets, weapon procurement, and command and control infrastructure,” among other terror structures, an amended complaint filed March 25 states.

But since taking office, Biden and his officials have still pushed for the funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and other groups in the West Bank and Gaza — despite internal warnings about the “high risk” of the cash falling into the hands of terror groups in direct violation of the Taylor Force Act, signed into law in 2018 by President Donald Trump.

The aid for meant social services, education and infrastructure allowed the Palestinian Authority — which is barred by the Taylor Force Act from receiving US funding — to funnel its own assets to terrorism, the complaint argues.

The complaint, first filed last year by the conservative group America First Legal, was amended to include new emails obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that also reveal the administration’s attempts to undermine Israel.

“It’s pretty clear that they came in with an intent and a policy to overturn what the Trump [administration] had done with respect to Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem,” Reed Rubinstein, a lawyer for America First and a former US Deputy Associate Attorney General during the Trump administration, told The Post Monday.

“They knew that by increasing the money, we were going to see increased terror attacks. … And they did it anyway,” he said. “These folks came in with an absolute agenda to empower the Palestinians [and] flood money into Gaza and the West Bank.”

One March 1, 2021, email cited in the filing was sent by Hady Amr, the special representative for Palestinian Affairs, to George Noll, the chief of the US Office of Palestinian Affairs, and discusses the “progress” they had been making ahead of Israel’s parliamentary elections later that month

“Got the memo on elections,” Amr told Noll, in a heavily redacted message. “We are making progress. This is great.”

Another exchange, on May 24, 2021, following Hamas’ 11-day conflict with Israel, discusses “humanitarian response and reconstruction” efforts in the Gaza Strip, which Rubinstein said would have provided cement and other materials that could have been “diverted” to the terror group’s more than 350-mile-long tunnel system.

“The idea that they didn’t know that they were subsidizing these activities is fantasy,” Rubinstein added, saying that the complaint will dig up the extent to which US government funding was “subsidizing Hamas’ tunnels” soon after the May 2021 fighting.

“You can see from these emails, it gives you a real sense of where senior decision-makers were at … the policy tools of the US government [and] how they should be used,” he said. “I don’t know how you get anything other than then a sense that there was very deep hostility to the Jewish state.”

The Biden administration moved to dismiss the case last year, but a federal judge denied the motion on Oct. 9, two days after Hamas terrorists rampaged across southern Israel, killing an estimated 1,200 people — including 33 Americans.

The suit is meant to stop any further funding of Palestinian terror operations that lead to killings, such as the 2016 stabbing of Taylor Force, a US Army veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, in Tel Aviv — and the near-death of New Jersey native Sarri Singer in a 2003 suicide bombing attack in Jerusalem.

The Biden administration contributed more than $1 billion to the Palestinian refugee organization UNRWA before cutting off the money following reports that its employees participated in the Oct. 7 terror attack.

A March 2021 waiver that the State Department obtained from the US Treasury had admitted that American aid funding was at “high risk” of being obtained by Hamas, as well as other terror groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Washington Free Beacon first reported.

That waiver is included in the lawsuit’s exhibits, along with a State Department Office of Inspector General report in November 2023 that also confirmed the same “high risk” of aid funding being diverted to terrorism.

The Palestinian Authority is also slated to contribute at least $97 million to more than 13,000 Hamas terrorists that participated in the Oct. 7 attacks, according to a Free Beacon report also cited in last month’s filing.

“We are currently witnessing the devastating effects of the Biden administration knowingly breaking the Taylor Force Act, which President Trump signed into law,” Jackson (R-Texas) told The Post. “There is no doubt that the world is less safe now under the failed leadership of Biden and Secretary Blinken compared to four years ago under President Trump.

“Biden and Blinken have blood on their hands, and sending millions of fungible American taxpayer dollars to UNRWA has directly led to Palestinian terror against Israel. The Middle East is getting less stable by the minute due to the foolishness and weakness of the Biden administration, and I will not stand by while things continue to deteriorate!”

Rubinstein said the plaintiffs, who filed their complaint in US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, are expecting a response from the government next month.

“As a general matter, we do not comment on ongoing or pending litigation,” a State Department spokesperson told The Post.

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