Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 1 November 2023. © Richard Kemp

As Israel launched a major ground offensive against Hamas last week, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly passed an Arab-initiated resolution to deny Israel’s right to self-defence following the horrific assault on October 7. While refusing to name Hamas as the aggressor, the UN called for an immediate ‘humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities’.

That is nothing less than a policy of appeasement which both Israel and the US have rightly rejected. What does a cessation of hostilities actually mean? Does it mean negotiation, dialogue and compromise? Of course not. Hamas is a jihadist organisation, dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel and, like ISIS, the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in which Jews are either killed, expelled or subjugated. Does it mean Hamas laying down its arms? Absolutely not. Hamas fanatics can only fight to win, die fighting or escape to fight another day.

No, a cessation of hostilities can only mean Israel withdrawing back behind its borders, leaving Hamas to rebuild the military capability it used to such inhuman and devastating effect three weeks ago, and to replenish the 7,500+ missiles that have been fired at Israel’s civilian population over the last three weeks. In other words, exactly what happened after Jerusalem agreed to a ceasefire following each of the previous four rounds of fighting in Gaza since Hamas took control in 2006.

After October 7, Israel can no longer tolerate that. No country could. The only option is to fight Hamas and its fellow Gaza terrorists until it destroys their ability to attack its people again. There is no doubt about how hard and bloody that will be: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described it as Israel’s second war of independence. It is an existential fight and if there is any compromise now, Israel will cease to exist in its current form: a country that can defend its people and its territory.

Israel must defend itself not only against Hamas but also its paymasters and military quartermasters in Tehran. Time and again the Iranian ayatollahs have made clear their intention to annihilate Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Express, 28 October 2023. © Richard Kemp

After three weeks of air strikes to destroy the Hamas terrorists and infrastructure in Gaza, the IDF has now moved the war into a new phase.

On Friday the IDF bombardment of terrorist targets intensified and internet and mobile communications were cut off. That night a significant armoured force attacked into the Gaza Strip.

In Gaza, the IDF has two conflicting objectives. The first is to annihilate all groups of armed terrorists in the Strip.

The second is to locate and rescue the hostages Hamas kidnapped three weeks ago.

The presence of the hostages constrains the IDF from applying the full extent of its military power. Equally, Israel’s ground and air operations are constrained by the presence of civilians in northern Gaza.

The IDF has warned them to leave but many remain and the IDF will do all it can to avoid killing or wounding them. But given Hamas’s tactic of fighting from among the population, such deaths are sadly inevitable.

As civilian casualties mount, Israel will come under growing pressure to halt its ground operations. Calls for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid will also increase.

Israeli leaders put a high priority on protecting innocent lives and will do all they can to stop civilian suffering. But it is essential the IDF doesn’t allow its mission to defeat Hamas and rescue the hostages to be impeded. The lives and security of the Israeli population is at stake.

Challenging though this operation in Gaza is, it is far from the only immediate threat Israel faces. In the north, Lebanese Hezbollah has 150,000 missiles pointing at Israel’s civilian population.

Over the last couple of weeks there have been intense attacks by these Iranian-controlled terrorists, to which Israel has replied with air strikes. Continue reading →

Article published by Ynetnews.com,  25 October 2023. © Richard Kemp

Secretary General Antonio Guterres has dragged the UN down to a new low with his disgraceful justification of the Hamas slaughter, rape and torture of innocent Israelis. Before all of the bodies have even been identified, so vicious was the violence against them, and while 220 distressed and abused hostages remain imprisoned in the Gaza Strip, Guterres was blaming Israel in front of the UN Security Council. Not only is this deeply unworthy of a body that is dedicated to peace and truth, it also follows Hamas’s own agenda.

Guterres told the council that Hamas’s attacks did not happen in a vacuum. He is right. It happened against the backdrop of decades of justification and encouragement of Palestinian terrorism by the UN, western media, human rights groups, politicians and universities that consistently condemned Israel for resisting violence against its citizens. Led by the UN Human Rights Council a narrative of anti-Israel hate was built up that tied Israel’s hands and emboldened Hamas and other terrorist groups.

But according to Guterres’s false account, ‘the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation’. In the face of the worst assault on Jewish people since the Nazi death camps, his remarks are akin to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas attributing blame for the Holocaust to the conduct of the Jews themselves.

Guterres’s ‘suffocating occupation’ dates back to 1967 when, as a result of a war of aggression by Arab countries, Israel regained territory that it had lost in an earlier war of aggression in 1948. Under the uti possidetis juris principle of customary international law, the State of Israel inherited the boundaries of the previous sovereign, which was Great Britain. While the territories have been disputed, no state other than Israel has lawful sovereignty and so Israel cannot be an ‘occupier’ in its own land which includes Judea and Samaria and Gaza. That remains the case unless and until Israel agrees to relinquish sovereignty following negotiations.

Furthermore, the vast majority of the territory that Guterres wrongly claims to be occupied has been repeatedly offered by Israel Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 24 October 2023. © Richard Kemp

As IDF troops are poised to move into Gaza, rumours abound of dissent within Israel’s war cabinet over when the operation should be launched. Rumours of these disagreements have forced Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Chief of Staff General Herzi Halevi to issue a joint statement affirming their unity. But the reality is that there should be lively debate among those responsible for such momentous decisions: groupthink is the enemy of military success.

I have spoken to commanders and soldiers on the Gaza border in the last few days; they are clearly ready to attack when the orders are given. But despite impatience in the media and among the Israeli population, there are many more factors beyond just the readiness of the troops. Not least the prospect of fighting a multi-front war.

If the worst comes to the worst, Israel – given its military hardware, its determination, and knowledge it has acquired from historic invasions of its territory – would be able to deal with threats from multiple borders. Especially because in the time they have now, they will be prioritising intelligence gathering on these multiple threats.

Since 7 October, for instance, there have been intense missile and artillery duels between Iranian proxy Hizballah and the IDF across the Lebanese border. Hizballah is estimated to have 150,000 rockets in southern Lebanon and a highly effective terrorist army, tens of thousands strong. Israeli decision-makers will want to have as good a handle as possible on the terrorist group’s intentions before committing ground forces into the Gaza Strip.

Violence in the West Bank has also been on the rise, involving terrorist gangs armed and funded by Iran, as with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizballah. Ground operations in Gaza will further inflame that territory, thrusting the IDF into a third concurrent fighting front. Bloodshed could also spread into Israel proper, where in 2021 Hamas orchestrated an uprising by Israeli Arabs against their Jewish neighbours as well as security forces. Continue reading →

Article published by Ynetnews.com,  22 October 2023. © Richard Kemp

Much of Western media has blood on its hands. Following the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, many news outlets have been acting as willing tools of the genocidal terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip that perpetrated it. This is neither new nor unpredictable. An anti-Zionist narrative has for many years displaced media objectivity in every conflict involving Israel.

The strategic objective of Hamas’s attacks is to incite international condemnation of Israel by compelling it to take military action in which Gaza civilians will inevitably be killed despite unparalleled IDF measures to prevent it. Whenever this happens, like Pavlov’s dogs a chorus of reporters, tame analysts and newscasters immediately appear on the airwaves to accuse Israel of war crimes. Such accusations are loudly echoed in universities, human rights groups and international bodies. Exactly as Hamas intended.

That in turn encourages Hamas to do the same thing again and again and is the real ‘cycle of violence’ that many journalists love to accuse others of but are in fact themselves active participants in.

One of the worst offenders was the BBC, by far the most influential media organization in the UK, and with one of the largest audiences internationally. It is regarded by many as the most authoritative and impartial news organization in the world and has been seen as a beacon of truth going back to the Second World War.

‘Hundreds killed in Israeli strike on Gaza hospital — Palestinian officials,’ was the BBC headline. The next day, the British Financial Times splashed with: ‘Gaza Health Ministry says hundreds killed in Israeli air strike on hospital’. Across the Atlantic, the New York Times, among others, reported the Al-Ahli incident in similarly false terms.

BBC reporter John Donnison told viewers: ‘It is hard to see what else this could be really given the size of the explosion other than an Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Express, 20 October 2023. © Richard Kemp

Tactical surprise against Gaza is hard to achieve, but expect to see an IDF (Israel Defense Forces) attack unfolding in a way that no-one is predicting.

Strategic surprise is also possible. Everyone is braced for a ground offensive in Gaza.

Don’t be surprised if before that, the IDF launches a major offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon or even Iranian proxies in Syria.

Tactical surprise against Gaza is hard to achieve, but expect to see an IDF (Israel Defense Forces) attack unfolding in a way that no-one is predicting.

Strategic surprise is also possible. Everyone is braced for a ground offensive in Gaza.

Don’t be surprised if before that, the IDF launches a major offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon or even Iranian proxies in Syria.

Intelligence is also critical: knowing where the enemy is and what he is doing.

Don’t be misled by the intelligence failures before the Hamas massacre two weeks ago: Israel has hugely capable combat intelligence assets on Gaza, including agents on the ground, communications intercept and unrivalled aerial surveillance.

When the IDF goes into Gaza it will attack with overwhelming force. Air strikes using combat planes, precision missiles and drones will continue and intensify. The greater the destruction of Hamas from the air, the lesser the opposition ground forces will face and the fewer casualties they will take.

Special forces, perhaps including frogmen on the coast, will go in first and are already operating inside Gaza. Their job is to gain intelligence for the main forces and attack key targets, for example using long-range snipers.

Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 18 October 2023. © Richard Kemp

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Putin is seeking to exploit the war between Israel and Hamas. This week alone he has been on the telephone to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, and the leaders of Egypt, Syria and Iran, claiming he wants to negotiate a ceasefire. The man responsible for spilling vast quantities of blood around the world, and especially in Ukraine, now says: ‘What matters now is to stop the bloodshed.’

If the Russian president thinks his intervention will make any difference, however, he is deluding himself. The idea that Moscow could any longer hold significant sway in the Middle East is farcical. Whatever reputation it had as a world power has been shattered in Ukraine. We’ve seen yet more reasons why this week.

On Tuesday, Kyiv’s surprise ATACMS long-range missile strike against Russian airfields in occupied Berdyansk and Luhansk sent Russian forces reeling – some are calling it the most significant strike by the Ukrainians in months. The Russians reportedly suffered significant losses and will be forced to move aircraft further away from the front line – operationally damaging as well as publicly humiliating. In the area of Kupyansk, meanwhile, Ukrainian forces appear to have blunted a significant Russian offensive – a miniature blitzkrieg – that had been building for weeks.

Although Putin’s forces have adapted and expanded from their lowest point last autumn, it bears repeating that his army remains in dire straits 18 months on from the three-week campaign planned for February last year. Russia is still heavily constrained, both economically and militarily, and has limited freedom of action beyond its all-consuming war.

As such, Middle Eastern countries, once impressed by Russian prowess – or at least the illusion of it – have seen Moscow’s failure to subjugate a markedly less powerful state and its accompanying debasement on the battlefield as a sign that it is a declining power. In Syria, for example, where Putin once held great sway following his support of the monstrous dictator Bashar al-Assad, Russia is losing traction, not least because it has had to redeploy some of its forces to Ukraine.

Continue reading →