Wednesday 31 January 2024

Western Media’s Blackout of Israel’s “Hannibal Directive”

by Brad Pearce | Jan 30, 2024

Editor’s note: The Libertarian Institute’s Executive Director Scott Horton recently spoke with Brad Pearce about the subject of this article and Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. Their interview can be found here.

In the time since the October 7 invasion of Israel there have been suggestions both from within Israel and from alternative media elsewhere that Israel used a version of a military protocol known as “The Hannibal Directive” that day, and perhaps has continued to operate upon that protocol since.

The “Hannibal Directive” is a military order which was created in 1986 in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli Defense Forces soldier in Lebanon. The premise of the original order is that in this circumstance, the IDF can prioritize stopping the kidnappers even if it endangers the hostage. The example that those within the Israeli government like to give is sniping the tires of the escape car knowing it may cause an accident which endangers the hostage, while ruling out an airstrike on the car. This highly controversial protocol was repealed in 2016 and replaced with an order whose text has remained secret. However, there is a growing body of evidence that on October 7 Israel issued a sort of “mass Hannibal Directive on steroids,” where an unknown number of Israeli civilians were killed by the IDF to prevent their becoming hostages. While there has been much discussion of this topic within Israel media, there is a near-total blackout on the topic in corporate media in the United States and United Kingdom.

Many who were already aware of the Hannibal Directive became suspicious of Israel’s actions quickly, most of all because of one particularly egregious instance which brought friendly fire casualties to light. At the Kibbutz Be’eri in what is known as “Pesi’s House,” after the owner, Hamas had taken fifteen Israelis hostage. One Hamas member ran out of the house releasing a hostage, who informed them that there were fourteen Israelis remaining in the house. A commander made the decision to fire two “light” tank shells at the house regardless, killing all but one of the hostages. The released hostage and the survivor both confirmed the same story, so it came out rapidly that Israel had knowingly shelled the house. This got a lot of press within Israel because it is such a horrible story, and people immediately referenced the Hannibal Directive. More recently, Israel’s leading news website Ynet released a large investigation which alleges that an IDF-wide Hannibal Directive-like order went out, and that Israel destroyed seventy cars returning to Gaza without regard to whether there may be hostages inside.

Some of Israel’s most prominent voices want to know if Benjamin Netanyahu’s government implemented a Hannibal Directive on October 7. The lead author of the IDF’s Code of Ethics, Asa Kasher, explained in Haaretz, Israel’s newspaper of record, that the incident at Kibbutz Be’eri needs to be investigated immediately. The Haaretz editorial board demanded an immediate investigation in an editorial published on January 8. These are among many other references to the issue within Israeli media. The Ynet investigation is extremely thorough and damning. The Hannibal Directive has also been mentioned by media sources throughout the Muslim world. However, despite the importance of this issue, and that discussion of the topic is readily available in Haaretz, there has not been any mention in any context in several major U.S. news sources since this new round of conflict began.

We are all used to the media lying and shaping narratives, but this is the most thorough campaign of ignoring news I have seen since the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was broken by the New York Post, so at least one “mainstream” source in American media was trying to talk about it. I checked several major, diverse news sources for mentions of the Hannibal Directive and did not find any which presented the question of if Israel had used this protocol. The New York Times last mentioned it in 2016 when the original order was repealed. There has been no discussion of it in The Washington Post, USA Today, or the magazine Foreign Policy. The Guardian has a single reference from October 11, where a woman says the hostility of politicians to recovering the hostages reminds her of the Hannibal Directive, but it is a random opinion, not a suggestion they used it on October 7. Tablet Magazine, a prominent American Jewish periodical, shows no search results on its website, though by using Google’s advanced search functions one can find a single mention since October 7. A Google News search finds many foreign sources, but the only American reference is from Briahna Joy Gray at The Hill, a far-left host who has been constantly attacked as an anti-Semite and is far out of the mainstream, though she happens to work for a mainstream publication. I wrote a Twitter thread documenting my attempt to find references to the Hannibal Directive in American and British media.

Those who happen to have learned about the Hannibal Directive, either from reading Israeli media or from alternative media or social media in the West, can and will draw many conclusions about what happened on October 7. But the suppression of this topic is a story in and of itself. I doubt it is any sort of explicit conspiracy. Instead, people who come to be in prominent positions in corporate media get to where they are because they know which way the wind blows and have a good instinct for what they should or shouldn’t print. The culture within American media is one where no one wants to cover this story, and if asked they would probably tell you they fear it will “empower extremists” or “promote conspiracy theories.” Most Haaretz articles which mention it seem to spend as long hemming and hawing about that concern as they do discussing the issue, but they still cover the story (even if carefully framed). These revelations greatly change how a person understand the events of October 7, and since the American government continues to support Israel, Americans deserve to know—but they certainly won’t learn about it from the corporate media.

About Brad Pearce

Brad Pearce writes The Wayward Rabbler on Substack. He lives in eastern Washington with his wife and daughter. Brad's main interest is the way government and media narratives shape the public's understanding of the world and generate support for insane and destructive policies.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/western-medias-blackout-of-israelis-hannibal-directive/

Bring US troops home from Iraq and Syria now

ANALYSIS | MIDDLE EAST

Paul R. Pillar

The drone attack on Sunday that killed three U.S. service members at an outpost in Jordan near the Syria border is more likely to increase rather than decrease U.S. military involvement in the region.

This is unfortunate, and doubly so coming at a time when the Biden administration was showing signs of considering a withdrawal of the 900 U.S. troops in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq. Just last week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin intimated that a joint U.S.-Iraqi review might lead to a drawdown of at least some of the troops in Iraq. Other reporting points to discussions within the administration about possibly removing the troops now in Syria.

It is unclear why the administration chose this time to consider what was already a long-overdue withdrawal of these troops. The answer probably involves the upsurge in regional violence stemming from Israel’s devastating assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and associated anger against the United States for its backing of Israel. Since the Israeli assault began, U.S. military installations in Iraq have been attacked more than 60 times and those in Syria more than 90 times.

The attacks underscore how much these residual U.S. deployments have entailed costs and risks far out of proportion to any positive gains they can achieve. They have been sitting-duck targets within easy reach of militias and other elements wishing to make a violent anti-U.S. statement. Even without deaths, U.S. service members have paid a price, such as in the form of traumatic brain injuries from missile attacks.

The now-familiar tit-for-tat sequence in which American airstrikes against militias in Iraq or Syria alternate with more militia attacks on the U.S. installations illustrates a perverse form of mission creep. Whatever was the original mission of the U.S. troop presence gets sidelined as protection of the troop presence itself becomes the main concern. The tit-for-tats also carry the risk of escalation into a larger conflict.

This weekend’s attack just across the border in Jordan is likely to become part of the same risk-laden sequence. A White House statement promised to “hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner our choosing.”

This will lead the administration to shelve for the time being any ideas it had about bringing home the troops — out of fear of showing weakness amid the inevitable criticism from domestic political opponents. The better course would be to interpret the attack as one more demonstration of how the troop presence in Syria and Iraq represents a needless vulnerability that ought to be ended sooner rather than later.

The official rationale for the presence on both those countries is to prevent a rise of the group known as Islamic State or ISIS. But the motivations have always involved more than that. The presence in Iraq is in some respects a legacy of the U.S. war begun there in 2003, which has imparted the sense of ownership that often follows a large-scale military intervention. The fixation with Iran and a desire to match Iranian presence and influence in these countries have constituted another motivation.

As for ISIS, although it has shown resilience, it is nowhere near what it was in 2014 when it ruled a de facto mini-state across much of western Iraq and northeastern Syria. If the group ever were to begin approaching that status again, much more than the small U.S. contingents in Syria and Iraq would be needed to counter it. To those who might argue that ISIS already is resurgent, one is entitled to ask exactly what good the presence of those contingents is doing in keeping ISIS down.

With regard to any terrorist group, the foremost U.S. concern ought to be not how the group plays in some local conflict but rather the risk of it striking U.S. interests, either at home or abroad. In that regard, the most relevant fact, repeatedly demonstrated with other terrorist groups in other places, is that anger at a foreign military presence is one of the chief motivations for terrorist attacks.

To the extent that ISIS has been kept down, this is partly due to popular opposition in Iraq and Syria to the group’s brutal methods that it displayed when it had its mini-state. It is partly due to the efforts of security forces in those two countries. And it is partly due to the efforts of the foreign state most extensively involved in those countries — Iran.

Iran is very much an enemy of ISIS. It has been a victim of highly lethal ISIS attacks within Iran, including bombings in the heart of Tehran in 2017 and, earlier this month, an attack on a memorial ceremony in the city of Kerman that killed nearly 100 Iranians. Iran was a major player in the earlier efforts to undo the ISIS mini-state.

Combating ISIS is a shared interest of Iran and the United States, as illustrated by the United States reportedly sharing — quite properly, in conformity with the duty to warn — information about the planned ISIS attack in Kerman. It would be in U.S. interests to have Iran continue to do the heavy lifting in holding down ISIS — and to have Iran, not the United States, risk any resulting terrorist reprisals.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-troops-iraq-syria-jordan/

UN chief must resign – Israeli foreign minister

Antonio Guterres is responsible for the actions of refugee agency workers whom Israel accuses of aiding Hamas, Israel Katz said

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres must resign from the post that he has held since 2017, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has said.

The demand follows allegations made by the Jewish state earlier this month that 12 employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) were involved in the incursion into Israel by Hamas on October 7.

”Of course [Guterres] is responsible as UN secretary-general” for the actions of UNRWA staff, Katz said in an interview with Politico’s parent company Axel Springer on Tuesday. “Guterres must resign” or “the UN must replace him,” he added.

The UN chief “ignored many complaints and information regarding the behavior of the aid organization, as well as indications of cooperation with Hamas,” the foreign minister claimed. Israel believes that UNRWA is “almost fully cooperating with Hamas,” he said.

According to Katz, UNRWA – which runs schools, hospitals and aid programs in refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan – “is not part of the solution, it is part of the problem.” It must be replaced with a new agency, “in which the Arab states should be more involved than before,” he said.

UN workers helped Hamas kidnap Israelis – NYT

Israel hasn’t yet provided evidence for its allegations against UN staff to the public, but the foreign minister said details would be sent to “countries such as the US and Germany.”

On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Israeli allegations were “highly credible,” but acknowledged that Washington had not been able to investigate them independently.

The New York Times reported on Sunday, citing a secret Israeli government report, that the UNRWA workers helped Hamas to kidnap Israelis, and armed Palestinian fighters on October 7.

In a statement on Sunday, Guterres said “the abhorrent alleged acts of these staff members must have consequences,” including criminal prosecution. However, he urged countries not to follow in the footsteps of the US, Germany and Italy, who cut funding of UNRWA. Some 2 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza depend on the aid provided by the agency to survive, the UN chief noted.

According to the UN, it fired nine UNRWA employees in connection with the allegations. One is believed to have died, while two others have yet to be identified.

Israel also demanded Guterres’ resignation in October after he said the attack on the country “did not happen in a vacuum” as it followed “56 years of suffocating occupation” of Palestinian lands.

https://www.rt.com/news/591581-un-israel-guterres-hamas/

Nuland issues ultimatum to Türkiye

US officials have accused Ankara of threatening NATO’s security with its purchase of a Russian air defense platform

The US will only allow Türkiye to return to the F-35 fighter jet program if it agrees to ditch Russia’s S-400 missile defense system, Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has said. The American official also suggested that Washington may even lift sanctions on its NATO ally if Ankara is more amenable.

Speaking with CNNTurk television on Monday, Nuland said Ankara could be brought in from the cold on the F-35 project if it resolved the spat, after Türkiye was booted from the program in 2019 over its acquisition of the S-400 from Russia.

“If we could get through this S-400 issue, which we would like to do, the US would be delighted to welcome Türkiye back into the F-35 family,” she stated. “If we can get through this issue, then the CAATSA issue will go away, and we can get back into an F-35 conversation,” Nuland added, referring to US sanctions which target Türkiye’s arms industry.

In announcing the CAATSA penalties in 2020, Washington said it had informed Ankara that the S-400 purchase would “endanger the security of US military technology and personnel and provide substantial funds to Russia’s defense sector,” going on to remind its ally of “the availability of alternative, NATO-interoperable systems to meet its defense requirements.” It urged Türkiye to “resolve the S-400 problem immediately.”

While it remains unclear whether Ankara will accept Nuland’s offer to walk away from the Russian air defense system, officials have previously rejected the idea, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisting the purchase was a “done deal.” Turkish defense industry chief Haluk Gorgun later added that his country was “making air defense systems” of its own, saying “we don’t need S-300s [or] S-400s.”

In addition to being kicked out of the F-35 program, under which Ankara produced hundreds of aircraft parts, the White House had also declined to authorize a sale of F-16 upgrades for the Turkish air force. However, US officials greenlit a deal for 79 modernization kits last week, though it remains to be seen whether the move spells any broader change to US policy toward its NATO ally.

US to sanction companies in NATO state – Reuters

“The 15-day period started on Friday night. After 15 days, this notification period will end and then we will proceed with the implementation,” Nuland continued. “As I understand it, modernization begins immediately. Frankly, I do not know by heart when the new jets will be ready, but it is obvious that it is a priority for the USA for Turkey to obtain these jets as soon as possible.”

The senior US diplomat went on to suggest that Ankara’s recent vote in favor of Swedish NATO membership had sealed the deal, stating: “We are very pleased that Türkiye joined us in saying yes to Sweden.”

https://www.rt.com/news/591571-turkiye-f35-sanctions-nuland/

EU Plans to Sabotage Hungary’s Economy If Orban Blocks Ukraine Aid

According to a leaked plan, the EU aims to hurt 'jobs and growth' in Hungary if Budapest doesn't lift its veto

by Dave DeCamp January 30, 2024 at 3:56 pm ET

The EU is planning to sabotage Hungary’s economy if Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban blocks a 50 billion euro aid package to Ukraine at a summit of EU leaders that will happen on Thursday, Financial Times reported on Monday.

The plan that has been outlined by EU officials in a document obtained by FT looks to exploit Hungary’s economic weaknesses, hurt its currency, and scare off investors to hurt “jobs and growth” in the country.

If Orban doesn’t lift his veto of the Ukraine aid, the EU plans to cut off all funding to Hungary. Without that funding, the document says, “financial markets and European and international companies might be less interested in investing in Hungary,” and that could “quickly trigger a further increase of the cost of funding of the public deficit and a drop in the currency.”

An EU diplomat speaking to FT admitted that the plan to pressure Hungary is “blackmail.”

In response to the report, Hungary’s envoy to the EU, Janos Boka, said Budapest doesn’t “give in to pressure” and would continue to negotiate on the issue. “Hungary does not establish a connection between support for Ukraine and access to EU funds, and rejects other parties doing so,” he said.

Hungary has come under heavy criticism from other EU states and the US for its stance on the proxy war in Ukraine. US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman slammed Orban last week for what he called a “fantasy foreign policy.”

The EU has been trying for months to pass the 50 billion euro aid package that’s meant to be disbursed over four years to fund the Ukrainian government. President Biden is also struggling to get new spending for Ukraine. Kyiv has said Ukrainian government workers could face delays in the payment of their salaries or pensions if the US and the EU do not approve new aid packages soon.

https://news.antiwar.com/2024/01/30/eu-plans-to-sabotage-hungarys-economy-if-orban-blocks-ukraine-aid/

SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.