Top U.S. general: Israel ‘went to extraordinary lengths’ to limit Gaza casualties
(JNS.org) Gen. Martin Dempsey, America’s highest-ranking military officer as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that Israel “went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties” during its summer war with the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza.
Dempsey’s assessment presents a stark contrast to that of Amnesty International, whose newly released report on the Gaza war accuses Israel of displaying “callous indifference” to civilian deaths.
“In this kind of conflict, where you are held to a standard that your enemy is not held to, you’re going to be criticized for civilian casualties,” Dempsey said during an appearance in New York at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, Reuters reported.
Dempsey said Hamas’s network of terror tunnels running under the Gaza border into Israel was “very nearly a subterranean society.” Israel said it destroyed more than 30 such tunnels during its operation.
“[The tunnels] caused the IDF some significant challenges. But they did some extraordinary things to try and limit civilian casualties… making it known that they were going to destroy a particular structure,” Dempsey said, referring to the Israeli army’s practice of dropping leaflets that warned Gaza residents of impending strikes.
17-year-old student dies from injuries sustained in Jerusalem terror attack
(JNS.org) Yeshiva student Shalom Aharon Baadani, 17, died Friday of injuries he sustained in Wednesday’s vehicular terror attack in Jerusalem, becoming the second victim in the incident.
Baadani was riding his bicycle to the Western Wall when he was hit by a terrorist’s car near the Shimon Hatzadik light rail station. Israeli Border Police Superintendent Jadan Assad was also killed in the attack, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attributed to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s incitement against Israel.
“This attack was the direct result of the incitement of Abbas and his Hamas partners,” Netanyahu said. “This front of hate wants to run over all of us. Peace will come when Abbas stops calling Jews ‘defilers’ and he stops embracing murderers.”
Report: Obama sent letter on Islamic State to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
(JNS.org) U.S. President Barack Obama reportedly sent a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in mid-October expressing their shared interest in the fight against Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the letter—which left Israel and America’s Arab allies out of the loop—was aimed at strengthening the campaign against Islamic State and urging Iran to sign a nuclear deal.
In the letter, Obama stressed to Khamenei that any cooperation on combating Islamic State terror would be contingent on Iran reaching a comprehensive nuclear deal with the P5+1 powers (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China, and Germany) by the Nov. 24 deadline for an agreement.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the White House did not tell Israel or Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—the latter two of whom joined the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State—about the letter. All three countries have expressed deep concern over recent reports that the U.S. may be softening its deal with Iran to allow it to retain some portions of its nuclear program such as uranium enrichment. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that any deal with Iran must include a complete dismantling of its nuclear program.
Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) expressed concern over Obama’s letter to Khamenei.
“I don’t trust the Iranians, I don’t think we need to bring them into this,” he said.
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