Attention to the Unseen

Michelle Goldberg writes: On Tuesday evening, I was drinking on the porch of my friend and neighbor Misha Shulman, the Israel-born rabbi of a progressive New York synagogue called the New Shul. All day, he’d been on the phone with congregants deeply distraught over the massacres and mass kidnappings in Israel. Of all the people he spoke to, he said, those most devastated were either people who had lost close friends or family, or young Jews “completely shattered by the…

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Reuters reports: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Wednesday, in the first telephone call between the two leaders since a China-brokered deal between Tehran and Riyadh to resume ties. The two leaders’ call came as Israel carried out air strikes in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for a deadly attack by Palestinian Hamas militants in Israel. Raisi and the Saudi crown prince discussed the “need to end war crimes against…

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Gidi Weitz writes: It’s impossible to close your eyes to the reality. There’s a clear connection between the corruption trial [of Benjamin Netanyahu], the government’s judicial overhaul, and the greatest failure since the Yom Kippur War of 1973, perhaps even since the establishment of the state. Admittedly, the intelligence agencies failed inconceivably at foreseeing the actual attack. But they warned Netanyahu time and again in recent months that Israel’s enemies had identified a historic weakness, making the likelihood of war…

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The Forward reports: Israeli cabinet ministers faced the wrath of anguished citizens and doctors during visits to local hospitals on Thursday. Israel is in mourning after a surprise attack by Hamas on Saturday, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people. But the country, before the attacks, had been convulsed for months over a judicial reform package pushed by the right-wing government, which has led hundreds of thousands of Israelis to protest in the streets. “You’ve ruined…

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Kenneth Roth writes: Hamas’s appalling attack on Israeli civilians has been widely described as the country’s “9/11 moment”. It is an appropriate description of such wanton cruelty. But the analogy carries a cautionary note as well. The US government lost the world’s sympathy, and the moral high ground, when its response to 9/11 degenerated into a highly abusive war in Iraq, systematic torture, and endless detention without trial in Guantánamo. The Israeli government should be careful not to replicate this…

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CNN reports: The United States has collected specific intelligence that suggests senior Iranian government officials were caught by surprise by Saturday’s bloody attack on Israel by Hamas, according to multiple sources familiar with the intelligence. The existence of the intelligence has cast doubt on the idea that Iran was directly involved in the planning, resourcing or approving of the operation, sources said. The sources stressed that the US intelligence community is not ready to reach a full conclusion about whether…

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Nicholas Grossman writes: No American president caused Hamas’ surprise assault across the Gaza border that killed over 900 Israelis—mostly in deliberate, brutal attacks on civilians, including 260 at a music festival—and kidnapping about 150 more. But U.S. policy, especially the Trump administration’s, contributed to the unsustainable situation that made an outbreak of violence more likely. Claims that “Trump brought peace to the Middle East” are almost an inversion of reality. He shifted U.S. policy fully in Israel’s favor—reducing support for the Palestinians and treating their quest for statehood…

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Reuters reports: A careful campaign of deception ensured Israel was caught off guard when the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas launched its devastating attack, enabling a force using bulldozers, hang gliders and motorbikes to take on the Middle East’s most powerful army. Saturday’s assault, the worst breach in Israel’s defences since Arab armies waged war in 1973, followed two years of subterfuge by Hamas that involved keeping its military plans under wraps and convincing Israel it did not want a fight….

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The Washington Post reports: The surprise attack started around 6 a.m., with a barrage of rocket fire followed by cross-border attacks. Yet it wasn’t until late afternoon that buses and trains were mobilized to ferry soldiers south. It took some 10 hours for the first troops to arrive in towns overrun by militants. Miri Regev, Israel’s transportation minister and a longtime Netanyahu ally, was in Mexico. Private citizens donated food, flashlights and other basic supplies to the reservists as they…

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Politico reports: The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America is facing a political firestorm after the organization promoted a pro-Palestine rally in the wake of Hamas militants’ attacks on Israeli communities. The group did not organize Sunday’s rally, its leadership said Monday. But several lawmakers with DSA ties are distancing themselves from what was said at the event. “It should not be hard to shut down hatred and antisemitism where we see it. That is a…

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The New York Times reports: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has long cast himself as a friend of Israel and the Jewish people. He helped establish visa-free travel between Russia and Israel in 2008, presided over the construction of a sprawling Moscow Jewish Museum in 2012 and, side by side with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem in 2020, unveiled a memorial to the victims of Nazi Germany’s siege of Leningrad. But amid the worst attack on Israel in…

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