JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER.
1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
JUDGE SCOLDS KNOW IT ALL FANI WILLIS AND LOVERBOY.
JUDGE
SAYS TO FAT FACE WILLIS YOUR TESTIMONY WAS PATHETIC. THE CASE CAN NOT
GO ON AS IS. WILLIS YOU LIBERAL LYING NUTJOB GET RID OF LOVERBOY. OR
ELSE THE CASE IS HISTORY. (AL MY WORDS IN THIS SENTENCE).
Fulton
County DA Fani Willis case against Trump can continue if she or special
prosecutor Wade remove themselves, judge rules-Trump co-defendant
Michael Roman accused Willis of misconduct for her “clandestine”
relationship with Nathan Wade, whom she appointed as special
counsel.Judge says Fani Willis can stay on Trump case — with
conditions-March 15, 2024, 8:50 AM EDT-By Blayne Alexander, Dareh
Gregorian and Charlie Gile.
ATLANTA — A Georgia judge ruled
Friday that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should not be
disqualified from prosecuting the racketeering case against former
President Donald Trump and several co-defendants — with one major
condition.Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee found the
"appearance of impropriety" brought about by Willis' romantic
relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade should result in either
Willis and her office leaving the case — or just Wade, whom she'd
appointed to head the case.The choice is likely to be an easy one: If
Willis were to remove herself, the case would come to a halt, but having
Wade leave will ensure the case continues without further delay.The
judge said the prosecution "cannot proceed" until Willis makes a
decision.Trump attorney Steve Sadow said in a statement that, “While
respecting the Court’s decision, we believe that the Court did not
afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of
Willis and Wade.”“We will use all legal options available as we continue
to fight to end this case, which should never have been brought in the
first place,” he added.Willis's office did not immediately comment on
the ruling.The judge found there was no "actual conflict" brought about
by the relationship, a finding that would have required Willis to be
disqualified. "Without sufficient evidence that the District Attorney
acquired a personal stake in the prosecution, or that her financial
arrangements had any impact on the case, the Defendants’ claims of an
actual conflict must be denied," the judge wrote. “This finding is by no
means an indication that the Court condones this tremendous lapse in
judgment or the unprofessional manner of the District Attorney’s
testimony during the evidentiary hearing. Rather, it is the
undersigned’s opinion that Georgia law does not permit the finding of an
actual conflict for simply making bad choices — even repeatedly — and
it is the trial court’s duty to confine itself to the relevant issues
and applicable law properly brought before it,” he added.The judge did,
however, also find “the prosecution is encumbered by an appearance of
impropriety.”“As the case moves forward, reasonable members of the
public could easily be left to wonder whether the financial exchanges
have continued resulting in some form of benefit to the District
Attorney, or even whether the romantic relationship has resumed,” he
wrote. “As long as Wade remains on the case, this unnecessary perception
will persist.”McAfee also suggested he was skeptical about Willis and
Wade's testimony that they did not start dating until after he was
appointed to the case. He said "reasonable questions about whether the
District Attorney and her hand-selected lead SADA (Special Assistant
District Attorney) testified untruthfully about the timing of their
relationship further underpin the finding of an appearance of
impropriety and the need to make proportional efforts to cure it."The
decision is a partial victory for Willis and leaves open the possibility
the case could be tried before the 2024 presidential election. Had
Willis been disqualified outright, the case would have had to go to a
different prosecutor, who would be tasked with catching up on a case
that Willis spent over two years building.The ruling by McAfee comes
after a lawyer for one of Trump’s co-defendants in the election
interference case, former Trump White House and campaign staffer Michael
Roman, filed a motion for Willis to be disqualified and the criminal
case to be dismissed because of her allegedly “improper” personal
relationship with Wade.That attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, said, “While we
believe the court should have disqualified Willis’ office entirely,
this opinion is a vindication that everything put forth by the defense
was true, accurate and relevant to the issues surrounding our clients'
right to a fair trial. The judge clearly agreed with the defense that
the actions of Willis are a result of her poor judgment and that there
is a risk to the future of this case if she doesn’t quickly work to cure
her conflict."Roman's filing alleged Willis skirted the rules to
appoint Wade, and that she benefited financially from his appointment,
which has earned his office over $600,000 to date. He also claimed they
were romantically before Wade's appointment.Willis and Wade later
acknowledged they’d been in a relationship, but maintained it began
after he was appointed special prosecutor in November 2021.The judge
signed off on an evidentiary hearing on Roman’s claims last month and
warned, “Disqualification can occur if evidence is produced
demonstrating an actual conflict or the appearance of one.”In an
extraordinary hearing that stretched over three days during a two-week
period, Willis and Wade both took the stand and testified that they’d
dated for a little over a year after he was appointed, and that she did
not profit from his work. They both said while Wade would sometimes
charge plane tickets for Willis to his credit card, she’d repay him with
cash or by picking up other bills.In his ruling, McAfee questioned
Willis' judgment."Even if the romantic relationship began after SADA
Wade’s initial contract in November 2021, the District Attorney chose to
continue supervising and paying Wade while maintaining such a
relationship. She further allowed the regular and loose exchange of
money between them without any exact or verifiable measure of
reconciliation. This lack of a confirmed financial split creates the
possibility and appearance that the District Attorney benefited — albeit
non-materially — from a contract whose award lay solely within her
purview and policing," he wrote.He also questioned some of Wade's
testimony about why he had claimed he hadn't been in a romantic
relationship with anyone else in a court filing in his ongoing divorce
case. "Wade’s patently unpersuasive explanation for the inaccurate
interrogatories he submitted in his pending divorce indicates a
willingness on his part to wrongly conceal his relationship with the
District Attorney," McAfee wrote.Lawyers for Roman had brought in two
witnesses to back their claims about the timing of Willis and Wade's
relationship, including a former friend of Willis’ named Robin Yeartie
and Wade's former law partner and divorce lawyer, Terrence Bradley.The
judge found while Yeartie's testimony "raised doubts about the State’s
assertions, it ultimately lacked context and detail." As for Bradley,
who Roman lawyer Ashleigh Merchant has said was the source of their
misconduct claims, the judge said he was "unable to place any stock" in
his testimony."His inconsistencies, demeanor, and generally
non-responsive answers left far too brittle a foundation upon which to
build any conclusions," the judge wrote.Bradley had told Merchant in a
text message that Wade and Willis' relationship had "absolutely" started
before Wade's appointment, but testified on the witness stand he'd just
been speculating.The judge said "neither side was able to conclusively
establish by a preponderance of the evidence when the relationship
evolved into a romantic one," but "an odor of mendacity remains."He also
criticized a speech Willis delivered at Big Bethel AME Church in
mid-January, after Roman had filed his disqualification motion. In the
speech, she criticized an unnamed "they" who were "attacking" the lone
Black special prosecutor she'd appointed to the case — Wade, who she did
not name either.Willis "ascribed the effort as motivated by 'playing
the race card.' She went on to frequently refer to SADA Wade as the
'black man' while her other unchallenged SADAs were labeled 'one white
woman' and 'one white man.' The effect of this speech was to cast racial
aspersions at an indicted Defendant’s decision to file this pretrial
motion," McAfee wrote.Attorneys for Roman and Trump had argued the
comments were made to taint the potential jury pool for the case, and
were also grounds for disqualification.McAfee said he "cannot find that
this speech crossed the line to the point where the Defendants have been
denied the opportunity for a fundamentally fair trial, or that it
requires the District Attorney’s disqualification. But it was still
legally improper. Providing this type of public comment creates
dangerous waters for the District Attorney to wade further into."Both
Trump and Roman have pleaded not guilty in the case, which alleges they
conspired with others to overturn the election results in the
state.Blayne Alexander is an NBC News correspondent, based in Atlanta.
France's
Macron: Europe's security at stake in Ukraine-Reuters-Fri, March 15,
2024 at 12:09 p.m. EDT-Polish PM Tusk and France's President Macron meet
with German Chancellor Scholz in Berlin
PARIS/BERLIN (Reuters) -
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that France and its
allies will continue to support Ukraine as long as it takes."Europe's
security is at stake in Ukraine," Macron said.Macron was speaking ahead
of talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Poland's Prime Minister
Donald Tusk in Berlin on Friday on the issue of supporting
Ukraine.(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Benoit Van
Overstraeten)
Will AI save humanity? US tech fest offers reality check-By Julie JAMMOT-Austin (AFP) Mar 15, 2024
Artificial
intelligence aficionados are betting that the technology will help
solve humanity's biggest problems, from wars to global warming, but in
practice, these may be unrealistic ambitions for now."It's not about
asking AI 'Hey, this is a sticky problem. What would you do?' and AI is
like, 'well, you need to completely restructure this part of the
economy'," said Michael Littman, a Brown University professor of
computer science.Littman was at the South By Southwest (or SXSW) arts
and technology festival in Austin, Texas, where he had just spoken on
one of the many panels on the potential benefits of AI."It's a pipe
dream. It's a little bit science fiction. Mostly what people are doing
is they're trying to bring AI to bear on specific problems that they're
already solving, but just want to be more efficient.""It's not just a
matter of pushing this button and everything's fixed," he said.With
their promising titles ("How to Make AGI Beneficial and Avoid a Robot
Apocalypse"), and the ever presence of tech giants, the panels attract
big crowds, but they often hold more pragmatic objectives, like
promoting a product.At one meeting called "Inside the AI Revolution: How
AI is Empowering the World to Achieve More," Simi Olabisi, a Microsoft
executive, praised the tech's benefits on Azure, the company's cloud
service.When using Azure's AI language feature in call centers, "maybe
when a customer called in, they were angry, and when they ended the
call, they were really appreciative. Azure AI Language can really
capture that sentiment, and tell a business how their customers are
feeling," she explained.- 'Smarter than humans' -The notion of
artificial intelligence, with its algorithms capable of automating tasks
and analyzing mountains of data, has been around for decades.But it
took on a whole new dimension last year with the success of ChatGPT, the
generative AI interface launched by OpenAI, the now iconic AI start-up
mainly funded by Microsoft.OpenAI claims to want to build artificial
"general" intelligence or AGI, which will be "smarter than humans in
general" and will "elevate humanity," according to CEO Sam Altman.That
ethos was very present at SXSW, with talk about "when" AGI will become a
reality, rather than "if."Ben Goertzel, a scientist who heads the
SingularityNET Foundation and the AGI Society, predicted the advent of
general AI by 2029."Once you have a machine that can think as well as a
smart human, you're at most a few years from a machine that can think a
thousand or a million times better than a smart human, because this AI
can modify its own source code," said Goertzel.Wearing a leopard-print
faux-fur cowboy hat, he advocated the development of AGI endowed with
"compassion and empathy," and integrated into robots "that look like
us," to ensure that these "super AIs" get on well with humanity.David
Hanson - founder of Hanson Robotics and who designed Desdemona, a
humanoid robot that functions with generative AI - brainstromed about
the plus and minuses of AI with superpowers.AI's "positive
disruptions...can help to solve global sustainability issues, although
people are probably going to be just creating financial trading
algorithms that are absolutely effective," he said.Hanson fears the
turbulence from AI, but pointed out that humans are doing a "fine job"
already of playing "existential roulette" with nuclear weapons and by
causing "the fastest mass extinction event in human history."But "it may
be that the AI could have seeds of wisdom that blossom and grow into
new forms of wisdom that can help us be better," he said.- 'Not there
yet' -Initially, AI should accelerate the design of new, more
sustainable drugs or materials, said believers in AI.Even if "we're not
there yet... in a dream world, AI could handle the complexity and the
randomness of the real world, and... discover completely new materials
that would enable us to do things that we never even thought were
possible," said Roxanne Tully, an investor at Piva Capital.Today, AI is
already proving its worth in warning systems for tornadoes and forest
fires, for example.But we still need to evacuate populations, or get
people to agree to vaccinate themselves in the event of a pandemic,
stressed Rayid Ghani of Carnegie Mellon University during a panel titled
"Can AI Solve the Extreme Weather Pandemic?""We created this problem.
Inequities weren't caused by AI, they're caused by humans and I think AI
can help a little bit. But only if humans decide they want to use it to
deal with" the issue, Ghani said.juj/arp/tjj
Nasrallah assures
Iranians Hezbollah will fight alone if war with Israel breaks
out-Lebanon’s terror leader assured Quds Force’s Esmail Qani last month
that Iran won’t be drawn into possible full-scale war-By Reuters and ToI
Staff Today, 2:42 pm-MAR 15,24
With ally Hamas under attack in
Gaza, the head of Iran’s Quds Force visited Beirut in February to
discuss the risk posed if Israel next aims at Lebanon’s Hezbollah, an
offensive that could severely hurt Tehran’s main regional partner, seven
sources said.In Beirut, Quds chief Esmail Qaani met Hezbollah leader
Hassan Nasrallah, the sources said, for at least the third time since
Hamas’s deadly October 7 onslaught on southern Israel, which triggered
Israel’s offensive aimed at eliminating the terror group.The
conversation turned to the possibility of a full-scale Israeli offensive
to its north, in Lebanon, the sources said. As well as damaging the
Shiite terror group, such an escalation could pressure Iran to react
more forcefully than it has so far since October 7, three of the
sources, Iranians within the inner circle of power, said.Since October
8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military
posts along the border on a near-daily basis, causing loss of life and
widespread damage with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza
amid the war there.At the previously unreported meeting, Nasrallah
reassured Qaani he didn’t want Iran to get sucked into a war with Israel
or the United States and that Hezbollah would fight on its own, all the
sources said.“This is our fight,” Nasrallah told Qaani, said one
Iranian source with knowledge of the discussions.Calibrated to avoid a
major escalation, the skirmishes in Lebanon have nonetheless pushed tens
of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border.
Hezbollah attacks have resulted in seven civilian deaths on the Israeli
side, as well as the deaths of 10 IDF soldiers and reservists. There
have also been several attacks from Syria, without any
injuries.Hezbollah has named 244 members to have been killed by Israel
during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria.
In Lebanon, another 41 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese
soldier, and at least 30 civilians, three of whom were journalists, have
been killed.In recent days, Israel’s counter-strikes have increased in
intensity and reach, fueling fears the violence could spin out of
control even if negotiators achieve a temporary truce in Gaza.Defense
Minister Yoav Gallant indicated in February that Israel planned to
increase attacks to decisively remove Hezbollah fighters from the border
in the event of a temporary Gaza ceasefire, although he left the door
open for diplomacy.In 2006, Israel fought a short but intense air and
ground war with Hezbollah that was devastating for Lebanon.Israeli
security sources have said previously that Israel does not seek any
spread of hostilities, but added that the country was prepared to fight
on new fronts if needed. An all-out war on its northern border would
stretch Israel’s military resources.Iran and Hezbollah are mindful of
the grave perils of a wider war in Lebanon, two of the sources aligned
with the views of the government in Tehran said, including the danger it
could spread and lead to strikes on Iran’s nuclear installations.The US
lists Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism and has sought for years to
rein in Tehran’s nuclear program. Israel has long considered Iran an
existential threat. Iran denies it is seeking a nuclear weapon.For this
story, Reuters spoke to four Iranian and two regional sources, along
with a Lebanese source who confirmed the thrust of the meeting. Two US
sources and an Israeli source said Iran wanted to avoid blowback from an
Israel-Hezbollah war. All requested anonymity to discuss sensitive
matters.The US State Department, Israeli government, Tehran and
Hezbollah did not respond to requests for comment.The Beirut meeting
highlights strain on Iran’s strategy of avoiding major escalation in the
region while projecting strength and support for Gaza across the Middle
East through allied armed groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, analysts
said.Qaani and Nasrallah “want to further insulate Iran from the
consequences of supporting an array of proxy actors throughout the
Middle East,” said Jon Alterman of Washington’s Center for Strategic and
International Studies think tank, responding to a question about the
meeting.“Probably because they assess that the possibility of military
action in Lebanon is increasing and not decreasing.”Already, Tehran’s
carefully nurtured influence in the region is being curtailed, including
by Israel’s offensive against Hamas along with potential US-Saudi
defense and Israel-Saudi normalization agreements, as well as US
warnings that Iran should not get involved in the Israel-Hamas war.In
Israel’s sights-Qaani and Nasrallah between them hold sway over tens of
thousands of fighters and a vast arsenal of rockets and missiles. They
are the main antagonists in Tehran’s network of allies and proxy
militias, with Qaani’s elite Quds Force acting as the foreign legion of
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.While Hezbollah has publicly indicated it
would halt attacks on Israel when the Israeli offensive in Gaza stops,
US Special Envoy Amos Hochstein said last week a Gaza truce would not
automatically trigger calm in southern Lebanon.Arab and Western
diplomats report that Israel has expressed strong determination to no
longer allow the presence of Hezbollah’s main fighters along the border,
fearing an incursion similar to Hamas’s massacre on October 7, when
terrorists killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 253
hostages.“If there is a ceasefire in (Gaza), there are two schools of
thought in Israel and my impression is that the one that would recommend
continuing the war on the border with Hezbollah is the stronger one,”
said Sima Shine, a former Israeli intelligence official who is currently
head of the Iran program at the Institute for National Security
Studies:A senior Israeli official agreed that Iran was not seeking a
full-blown war, noting Tehran’s restrained response to Israel’s
offensive on Hamas.“It seems that they feel they face a credible
military threat. But that threat may need to become more credible,” the
official said.Washington, via Hochstein, and France have been working on
diplomatic proposals that would move Hezbollah terrorists from the
border area in line with UN Resolution 1701 that helped end the 2006
war, but a deal remains elusive.‘First line of defense’A war in Lebanon
that seriously degrades Hezbollah would be a major blow for Iran, which
relies on the group founded with its support in 1982 as a bulwark
against Israel and to buttress its interests in the broader region, two
regional sources said.“Hezbollah is in fact the first line of defense
for Iran,” said Abdulghani Al-Iryani, a senior researcher at the Sana’a
Center for Strategic Studies, a think tank in Yemen.If Israel were to
launch major military action on Hezbollah, the Iranian sources within
the inner circle of power said, Tehran may find itself compelled to
intensify its proxy war.An Iranian security official acknowledged,
however, that the costs of such an escalation could be prohibitively
high for Iran’s allied groups. Direct involvement by Iran, he added,
could serve Israel’s interests and provide justification for the
continued presence of US troops in the region.Given Tehran’s extensive,
decades-long ties with Hezbollah, it would be difficult, if not
impossible, to put distance between them, one US official said.Since the
Hamas massacre in Israel, Iran has given its blessing to actions in
support of its ally in Gaza: including attacks by Iraqi groups on US
interests. It has also supplied intelligence and weapons for Houthi
operations against shipping in the Red Sea.But it has stopped well short
of an unfettered multi-front war on Israel that, three Palestinian
sources said, Hamas had expected Iran to support after October 7.Before
the Beirut encounter with Nasrallah, Qaani chaired a two-day meeting in
Iran in early February along with militia commanders of operations in
Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, three Hezbollah representatives and a Houthi
delegation, one Iranian official said.Revolutionary Guard’s
Commander-in-Chief Major General Hossein Salami was also present, the
official said. Hamas did not attend.“At the end, all the participants
agreed that Israel wanted to expand the war and falling into that trap
should be avoided as it will justify the presence of more US troops in
the region,” the official said.Shortly after, Qaani engineered a pause
in attacks by the Iraqi groups. So far, Hezbollah has kept its
tit-for-tat responses within what observers have called unwritten rules
of engagement with Israel.Despite decades of proxy conflict since Iran’s
1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic has never directly fought in a
war with Israel, and all four Iranian sources said there was no appetite
for that to change.According to the Iranian insider, Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is not inclined to see a war unfold against Iran,
where domestic discontent with the ruling system last year spilled over
into mass protests.“The Iranians are pragmatists and they are afraid of
the expansion of the war,” said Iryani. “If Israel were alone, they
would fight, but they know that if the war expands, the United States
will be drawn in.”
Suspected attack by Houthis strikes a ship in
Red Sea, crew reportedly safe-Security firm says tanker with armed
guards aboard had a ‘near miss’ Thursday off the coast of Yemen; ship
had been Israel-affiliated but changed owners in February-By Jon
Gambrell Today, 1:16 pm-MAR 15,24
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates
(AP) — A suspected attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck a tanker in
the Red Sea early Friday, causing damage to the vessel while the crew
was reported unharmed, authorities said.The attack off the port city of
Hodeida comes as part of the rebels’ campaign against shipping over
Israel’s ongoing war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.The British military’s
United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said the ship reported
being “struck by a missile.”“The vessel has sustained some damage,” the
UKMTO added. It described the crew as being “safe” and said the ship was
continuing on its way, suggesting the damage wasn’t severe.The private
security firm Ambrey also reported Friday’s attack and said the tanker
with armed guards aboard had a “near miss” on Thursday off the coast of
Yemen in the Gulf of Aden. It said the ship had been Israel-affiliated
but changed owners in February.The Houthis did not immediately claim
responsibility for the attack — it typically takes the rebels hours to
acknowledge their assaults. Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a Houthi military
spokesman, said an “important announcement” would be coming later Friday
afternoon from the rebels.The Houthis have attacked ships since
November, saying they want to force Israel to end its offensive in
Gaza.The ships targeted by the Houthis, however, largely have had little
or no connection to Israel, the US or other nations involved in the
war. The rebels have also fired missiles toward Israel, though they have
largely fallen short or been intercepted.The assaults on shipping have
raised the profile of the Houthis, who are members of Islam’s minority
Shiite Zaydi sect, which ruled Yemen for 1,000 years until 1962.A report
Thursday claimed the Houthis now had a hypersonic missile, potentially
increasing that cachet and putting more pressure on Israel after a truce
deal failed to take hold in Gaza before the Muslim holy month of
Ramadan.Hypersonic missiles also would pose a more serious threat to
American and allied warships in the region.Earlier in March, a Houthi
missile struck a commercial ship in the Gulf of Aden, killing three of
its crew members and forcing survivors to abandon the vessel. It marked
the first fatal attack by the Houthis on shipping.Other recent Houthi
actions include an attack last month on a cargo ship carrying
fertilizer, the Rubymar, which later sank after drifting for several
days.
They are the equivalent of al Qaeda or the Islamic State'
With Iraq on his mind, US ‘savior-general’ points at a way to victory in
Gaza-Hamas must be destroyed, argues ex-general and CIA director David
Petraeus in Tel Aviv, and then Israel must pivot to a
counterinsurgency-By Lazar Berman-Today, 11:32 am-MAR 15,24
As
the campaign to eliminate Hamas stretches into its sixth month, a
storied American general credited with changing the course of the Iraq
War now sees a clear path to victory for Israel in Gaza.Thus far,
though, the approach is one that Israel refuses to countenance. General
David H. Petraeus, who commanded the 2007-8 “surge” of troops in Iraq as
head of the Multi-National Force-Iraq and later directed the CIA, says
Israel must pivot to a counterinsurgency approach if it wants to keep
Hamas from returning to power in Gaza.“This is inescapable,” he told The
Times of Israel on the sidelines of last week’s Institute for National
Security Studies conference in Tel Aviv.Insurgency, which became
especially prominent after World War II, as local forces fought to
overthrow colonial rule against conventional militaries, describes a
campaign by “irregular forces to change an existing political order.
These forces typically mingle with civilians to hide from the forces
defending the political order.”To defeat an insurgency, Petraeus
champions an approach known as counterinsurgency — or COIN.
“Population-centric” rather than “enemy-centric,” the strategy focuses
on winning over the public to separate them from the insurgents.In COIN,
killing the enemy only helps if it increases security for the
population to create space to develop legitimate economic and political
institutions. But if eliminating insurgents breeds more new fighters
than it destroys, then doing so is counterproductive.When Petraeus took
over the Allied effort in Iraq in February 2007, the insurgents seemed
to be well on their way to victory. In Baghdad, sectarian violence was
killing up to 150 people a day. The outgoing commander, General George
Casey, wanted to cut his losses, steadily reducing the US presence and
giving the reins to Iraqi forces.Throughout his 19-month tour, Petraeus
managed to drastically change the trajectory of the war.“You have to get
the big ideas right,” Petraeus said.Moving to a population-centric
approach was his big idea. He surged in more than 20,000 troops, and
moved soldiers off large bases to operate among and provide security for
the population.Before the surge, US Special Forces commander Stanley
McChrystal told Petraeus, “Boss, we’ve been banging away every single
night in Ramadi and Fallujah, two to three operations a night. And the
situation has gotten worse.”“You’re exactly right,” responded Petraeus,
“because you have to clear and hold and build.”“The foundational
concepts of counterinsurgency are that you clear an area, you hold it,
and you hold it in a very significant manner,” Petraeus explained in Tel
Aviv. “You wall it off. You create gated communities, as we call it,12
or 13 of them in Fallujah alone. You use biometric ID cards because
you’re trying to separate the enemy, the extremists, from the people.
That’s the fundamental idea.”The COIN approach produced undeniable
results during Petraeus’s time in Iraq. US deaths dropped from a high of
126 in May 2007 to an average of less than 11 a month after June 2008.
Civilian deaths also plummeted, from 1,700 to 200 a month in the same
time frame.For that effort, historian Victor Davis Hanson included him
in his book, “Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That
Were Lost — From Ancient Greece to Iraq. ”Petraeus wants to see Israel
move toward that strategy in Gaza.But first, he says unequivocally,
Hamas must be defeated.They have to be destroyed, just as we had to
destroy the core al Qaeda.“Hamas is irreconcilable,” he said. “This is a
very, very fundamental idea. Some will debate it. I think it is not
debatable. I think they are the equivalent of al Qaeda or the Islamic
State.”“They have to be destroyed, just as we had to destroy the core al
Qaeda and how we helped the Iraqi security forces and the Syrian
Democratic Forces destroy the Islamic State,” he said.For now, with IDF
troops still involved in heavy fighting in Khan Younis, and yet to
tackle Rafah, Petraeus recognized that the campaign is still a classic
unit-on-unit fight.But Petraeus, like many friends of Israel, is worried
about what will happen in Gaza after Hamas’s military structure is
blasted apart.“When you have destroyed Hamas as a military organization,
there will still be remnants, there’s still individual terrorists,
insurgents, extremists, call them what you will.”Secured, gated
neighborhoods-In February, Hamas began to resurface in areas where
Israel withdrew the bulk of its forces a month before, deploying police
officers and making partial salary payments to some of its civil
servants in Gaza City. Thousands of Hamas terrorists remain in northern
Gaza, and the IDF has had to return to neighborhoods it captured
previously.Petraeus called for secured, gated neighborhoods, where
locals provide basic services: “It’s to keep them from having Hamas
reinfiltrate themselves into their communities, which at this point they
presumably no longer want, especially once they get basic services.”A
Palestinian poll from late November and early December showed Hamas
enjoying 42 percent support in Gaza, up slightly from 38% three months
before.A major drawback of the COIN approach, especially for Israel, is
that it is manpower- and time-intensive.In “The Western Way of War,” a
work that influenced Petraeus’s thinking as a young man, the historian
Hanson argued that because ancient Greek hoplites were also farmers,
they sought short, bloody, and decisive engagements to get back to the
harvest. This shaped, in Hanson’s thinking, how the West approaches
war.It is an apt description of Israel’s classic doctrine, which seeks
to win as decisively and quickly as possible to allow its reservists to
return to their jobs.Israel could theoretically surge back in tens of
thousands of troops by recalling the reservists who fought in the months
after October 7. But they were released for a reason — they have jobs
and studies to get back to, not to mention the strain long reserve
services places on young families.Petraeus recognizes the challenges.“It
takes a very substantial number of forces to do the hold, to conduct
hold operations,” he acknowledged. “But if those aren’t conducted, then
you end up with the enemy reconstituting.”Not all US experts see the
counterinsurgency model as relevant to the current fight in Gaza.“You
don’t fight a counterinsurgency against an enemy army,” argued John
Spencer, chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute in
the prestigious US military academy West Point.“You fight a war against
an enemy army. Yes, Hamas is a designated terrorist organization, but
Hamas was also a political group with a military that owned terrain.
Hamas was a military organization that sent over a brigade force to
invade Israel. Israel declared war.”Earlier in his trip, Petraeus had
been invited by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and ministry
director-general Eyal Zamir for a long conversation on the war. Petraeus
was impressed by the discussion.“They recognize that reconstitution is
the challenge,” he said. “They understand these dynamics.”However, Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been reticent to lay out detailed plans
for the post-Hamas future of Gaza, fearing this could lead to fractures
in his hard-right coalition.In mid-February, he presented to the
cabinet a plan that calls for installing “local officials” unaffiliated
with terrorists to administer services in the Strip instead of Hamas,
for Egyptian cooperation to end smuggling into Gaza, for Arab countries
to fund reconstruction of the Strip, and for the shuttering of UNRWA.It
also calls for Gaza to be demilitarized and for its population to be
“de-radicalized.”The plan was received coolly in Washington.‘Fiendishly
difficult’ While the White House has warned that a major Israeli
operation in Rafah would be a “disaster” and a “red line” — at least
under the current circumstances — Petraeus doesn’t see any option other
than an offensive in the southern Gaza city at some point.“Benny Gantz,
my old comrade and friend, is exactly right when he said that you don’t
send the fire department to extinguish 80% of the blaze,” he quipped,
referring to comments the war cabinet minister made in Washington. “You
have to deal with all of it.”Israel has said it will evacuate the
residents of the city, which lies along the Egyptian border but has yet
to approve the military’s operational plan or publicly announce where
civilians will go.Petraeus called US concerns over the civilians
sheltering around Rafah “legitimate.”At the same time, he shares Israeli
concerns about the opportunity for Hamas to use the movement of
civilians northward as cover to regroup.Despite sharp criticism from
Washington and other capitals over the growing civilian toll in Gaza,
Petraeus recognized “the lengths that the IDF has gone to in order to
try to get civilians out of the way; text messages, leaflets, other
communications, to try to minimize that.”Petraeus added that he was
“reassured” by his conversation with Gallant on Israel’s plans to get
civilians out of harm’s way.Looking at the ongoing ground campaign
against Hamas, Petraeus called it “more difficult and more challenging
than anything that we ever did.”“This is the most fiendishly difficult
context for urban operations since 1945 at least,” he argued. “You have
350 miles of very well-developed tunnels, subterranean infrastructure,
factories, headquarters, all these different facilities underground. You
have high rises that have to be cleared. You’ve got to clear every
building, every floor, every room, every cellar, every tunnel.”The IDF
has lost 249 soldiers in the ground offensive in Gaza.“You have an enemy
who doesn’t wear a uniform in most cases,” Petraeus continued, “who
uses civilians as human shields, still holds over 130 hostages, which
obviously complicates a very complex situation.”It is believed that 130
hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them
alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a
weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior
to that. Three hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the
bodies of 11 hostages have also been recovered, including three
mistakenly killed by the military.Saudi deal back on the table-After
multiple commands in the Middle East — and a post leading the CIA —
Petraeus knows personally many of the players in the region, including
Mohammed Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince.The Biden
administration has been working to secure a landmark deal that will see a
normalization in ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The kingdom and
other Arab countries are seeking steps toward the creation of a
Palestinian state as part of the potential agreement.A normalization
deal is “by no means off the table with the Saudis,” said Petraeus, “but
obviously there is an even greater emphasis now on a commitment to the
two-state solution.”He said that a Palestinian state was “issue number
one, two and three” when he met the Saudi king in the mid-2000s. “And
then it sort of fell off the table.”Since October 7, said Petraeus,
“this has returned very significantly to the public consciousness and
the kind of arrangement that the Saudis would like to reach. I think
that becomes an even more prominent condition than it was before
10/7.”Israel has an opportunity for a game-changing deal with Saudi
Arabia, in Petraeus’s telling.With Hamas in its tunnels, there is also
an opportunity for Israel to replace the terror group on the ground with
a new authority to run Gaza’s affairs.Petraeus believes in grabbing
opportunities with both hands.When he commanded the 101st Airborne
Division in Mosul, Iraq, he recognized that the local economy depended
on the renewal of trade with Syria, but he didn’t have the authority or
time to start trade negotiations between the two countries.Instead, he
took the initiative and ordered his troops to unilaterally open up the
crossing on the Iraqi side, and trade started again on its own.“You have
to jump through windows of opportunity and exploit windows of
opportunity while they’re open,” Petraeus said of his decision, “and not
study them until they start to close, and then you try to wriggle
through and force them back open.”
Hostages' families urge
cabinet to seize moment-Hamas offers exchange of women, children,
elderly hostages for up to 1,000 prisoners-Proposal, which Netanyahu
rejects as ‘ridiculous,’ would include release of female soldiers in
first stage, leading up to permanent deal to end war, see IDF withdraw
from Gaza-By Reuters, Jessica Steinberg-and ToI Staff Today, 10:01
am-MAR 15,24
Hamas has presented a Gaza ceasefire proposal to
mediators and the US that includes the release of Israeli hostages in
exchange for freedom for Palestinian prisoners, 100 of whom are serving
life sentences, according to a proposal seen by Reuters.Hamas said the
initial release of Israelis would include women, children, the elderly,
and ill hostages, in exchange for the release of 700-1000 Palestinian
prisoners, according to the proposal. The release of Israeli “female
recruits” is included.According to the latest proposal, Hamas said it
would agree on a date for a permanent ceasefire after the initial
exchange of hostages and prisoners, and that a deadline for an Israeli
withdrawal from Gaza would be agreed upon after the first stage.The
group said all detainees from both sides would be released in the second
stage of the plan.Ahead of a of the war cabinet on Friday to deliberate
on the possibility of finalizing a hostage deal following Hamas’s
offer, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday night
accused the terror group of continuing to dig its heels in with
“ridiculous demands.”His office said an update on the status of the
indirect negotiations would be presented to both the war cabinet and the
larger security cabinet on Friday.The Hostages and Missing Families
Forum appealed to the war cabinet to agree to a deal.“For the first
time, we can envision embracing them again, please grant us this right,”
the families of the hostages said in a statement.They called on the
prime minister and war cabinet not to postpone the deal and to save all
134 “daughters and sons who were cruelly taken, solely for being
Israelis,” said the families. “For the first time, we can envision
embracing them again. Please grant us this right.”Egypt and Qatar have
been trying to narrow the differences between Israel and Hamas over what
a ceasefire should look like as a deepening humanitarian crisis has
one-quarter of the population in the battered Gaza Strip facing
famine.Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi stressed his aim to seek
such a deal Friday and warned against the danger of an Israeli incursion
into the city of Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 million people have
sought shelter next to Gaza’s border with his country.“We are talking
about reaching a ceasefire in Gaza, meaning a truce, providing the
largest quantity of aid,” he said in a message recorded during a visit
to the police academy.This would include “curbing the impact of this
famine on people, and also allowing for the people in the center and the
south to move towards the north, with a very strong warning against
incursion into Rafah,” he said. “We warned of what is happening, that
aid not entering would lead to famine.”In February, Hamas received a
draft proposal from Gaza truce talks in Paris that included a 40-day
pause in all military operations and the exchange of Palestinian
prisoners for Israeli hostages at a ratio of 10 to one — a similar ratio
to the new ceasefire proposal.Talks appeared to break down late last
week as Hamas demanded that Israel end the war and withdraw all troops
in Gaza, rather than the six-week pause and partial withdrawal Jerusalem
had already agreed to. Israel agreed to hold talks based on the Paris
proposal but has stressed that any break in the fighting would be
temporary, committing to its long-held goal of not ending the war until
it destroys Hamas.Hopes had risen in recent days, though, with a senior
Arab diplomat telling the Times of Israel earlier this week that talks
were advancing after Qatar put heavy pressure on Hamas to soften its
demands, warning that its leaders residing in Doha could be deported if
they didn’t adapt their approach in the negotiations.Late on Thursday,
Hamas said it presented to mediators a comprehensive vision of a truce
based on stopping what it called Israeli aggression against Palestinians
in the Gaza Strip, providing relief and aid, the return of displaced
Gazans to their homes, and withdrawing Israeli forces.A senior Israeli
official told the Walla news site that Hamas’s demands were still too
high, but “there is something to work with.”Representatives of about 20
families were invited for a personal meeting with Netanyahu and his
wife, Sara, on Thursday night, after not meeting with the prime minister
for more than six weeks. The families told the prime minister that the
meetings with him and members of the war cabinet were “vital” and asked
that they take place regularly and frequently, after weeks of asking for
meetings and noting their far more frequent meetings with US
administration officials.The families emphasized that it is the prime
minister’s “responsibility and commitment to secure the release of all
the hostages, both the living and the murdered,” they said in a
statement and told him their sense of feeling invisible in the process
of a hostage deal.Domestic pressure for a deal has ramped up in recent
weeks from both the supporters of hostages’ families and anti-government
activists. On Thursday, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in
separate rallies for a hostage deal and against Netanyahu’s government
in Tel Aviv, with some protesters briefly blocking a main highway.War
erupted on October 7 when Hamas sent thousands of terrorists from Gaza
into southern Israel, where they carried out an unprecedented rampage,
killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 253
others.It is believed that around 100 hostages remain in Gaza, along
with the bodies of 32 people, after 105 of the hostages were freed
during a week-long truce in November.International mediators are
desperate to broker a pause in the fighting after some six months of war
that have left the Strip in ruins, with over 1 million Gazans
displaced, hunger rampant, and vital humanitarian relief slow to reach
civilians for a variety of reasons. Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry
says over 31,000 people have been killed, though it does not
differentiate between civilians and fighters, and the numbers cannot be
independently verified.The UN has warned that at least 576,000 people in
Gaza are on the brink of famine and global pressure has been growing on
Israel to allow more access for aid.Lazar Berman and Jacob Magid
contributed to this report.
What Matters Now to Haviv Rettig Gur:
Hamas starves Gazans as a war tactic-As humanitarian aid efforts are
ramped up via land, air and sea, the IDF must decide how many of its
soldiers to divert to protecting the convoys – while becoming targets
themselves-By Amanda Borschel-Dan and Haviv Rettig Gur-Today, 9:14
am-MAR 15,24
On Tuesday, aid for 25,000 people reached Gaza City
in the northern Gaza Strip for the first time in weeks, according to the
UN World Food Program.“With people in northern Gaza on the brink of
famine, we need deliveries every day and we need entry points directly
into the north,” tweeted the UN agency after the aid’s successful
entry.Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories
(COGAT) confirmed that a convoy of six aid trucks entered the northern
Gaza Strip through a new military road. The route, stretching from the
border near the southern community of Be’eri to the coast of the Strip,
is used by the Israel Defense Forces to carry out operations in northern
and central Gaza.The successful delivery of the aid was “part of an
experimental pilot in order to prevent Hamas from taking over the aid,”
said COGAT.UN World Food Program chief Cindy McCain said on Monday that
WFP had paused aid deliveries for three weeks “for the safety of our
staff and due to the complete breakdown of law and order.”As Gazan
gunmen raid aid trucks and abscond with necessary supplies, what is
Israel’s legal obligation to protect the convoys? This week, as
humanitarian aid is being brought into the Gaza Strip by land, air and
sea, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur — what matters now? What Matters Now
podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube
or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the
Pod-Waves.
Police gird for possible 1st Ramadan Friday violence
as Hamas calls to ‘defend Al-Aqsa’Thousands of officers deployed to Old
City, where worshipers have been urged by Gaza’s terror leaders to
barricade themselves inside flashpoint mosque; 50,000 due for midday
prayers-By ToI Staff Today, 8:59 am-MAR 15,24
Thousands of police
were deployed Friday across the Old City of Jerusalem in case of
disturbances after Hamas called on Palestinian worshipers to barricade
themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque during the first Friday prayers of
the holy month of Ramadan.Police said that in addition to the 3,000
officers and Border Police soldiers, police commissioner Kobi Shabtai,
Jerusalem district commanders, and Shin Bet security officials would
visit the several command posts set up in the Old City, where they would
receive real-time updates on the situation.In a statement Thursday,
Hamas called on followers to “participate urgently in defending Al-Aqsa
Mosque against the aggression that lurks in these critical times.”In
past years during Ramadan, Palestinians have barricaded themselves
inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is situated on the Temple Mount, some
with explosives and rocks. Police operations to clear them out have
often resulted in violence.Last year, two consecutive nights of clashes
between officers and Palestinians at the mosque sparked barrages of
rocket fire from Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.This year’s Ramadan comes
amid tinderbox tensions stemming from the ongoing war against Hamas in
Gaza, triggered by the group’s shock October 7 attack, when thousands of
terrorists rampaged through southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people
and taking 253 hostages.Terror groups have called on Palestinians to
come to the Al-Aqsa Mosque to confront Israel over the war in
Gaza.Police officers scuffled with some attendees at the Temple Mount
entrance on Sunday, the first night of Ramadan, but the holy site has
been relatively peaceful since.On Thursday, police quickly denied claims
on social media that barriers being set up aimed to block entry to the
Temple Mount. Police have warned that terror groups are trying to spread
false information about the site to stir up violence.“In practice,
there is no blocking of the gates of the Temple Mount, which is open for
the entry of worshipers from all gates. This is maintenance work
(replacing old fences with new ones) at the security posts,” police
said.Officials from the Jordanian-backed Islamic trust that administers
the Al Aqsa Mosque compound told Haaretz that evening prayers have
attracted relatively large crowds of worshipers compared to previous
years and that 50,000 were expected to arrive for midday prayers on
Friday.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged last week that the
number of worshipers allowed to pray on the Temple Mount in the first
week of Ramadan would be the same as in previous years and that no
restrictions would be imposed on Arab Israelis, overruling the wishes of
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, an ultranationalist
firebrand who oversees the Israel Police.COGAT, the Israeli defense body
in charge of civilian affairs in the West Bank, has ruled that
Palestinian residents’ access to the site for Friday’s prayers will be
limited to men over 55, women over 50, and children under 10.The Temple
Mount is the holiest place in Judaism, where two biblical Temples once
stood, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third-holiest shrine in Islam,
making the site a central flashpoint of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
