2024

Q. What is your take on Israel’s fortunes during the outgoing year?

A. Seen from a distance of barely a week, 2024 represents yet more descent down the slippery slope toward a conflicted, non-democratic, immoral, isolated, messianic and binational entity between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. That is one end of the scale. Yet at the other end there had emerged by the end of the year one very significant and positive exception to this dynamic.

Q. Start with the exception. It makes for more encouraging reading...

A. In recent months, Israel’s security community registered dramatic victories over Iran, Hezbollah and almost the entire Axis of Resistance or Shiite Crescent. In a fascinating domino dynamic, the pro-Iran Assad regime in Syria fell and Iraq’s Shiite militias ceased attacking Israel. 

Only Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen, neither a strategic threat, continue to attack Israel. In September, a dramatic IDF commando operation targeting an Iranian missile factory deep in Syrian territory sent yet another message to Iran about the vulnerability of its nuclear project.

Note that Israel’s Sunni Arab neighbors, from Egypt to Bahrain via Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, actively assisted it in combating Iran. This means that for the first time in its modern history, Israel was allied with major actors among its neighbors, while those few neighbors that remain openly hostile have been beaten into retreat. Even countries critical of Israel in the West have allied with it in combating Iran and the Houthis.

This is very good news for Israel’s overall security, and it happened in 2024. 

Q. Now back to the bad news from 2024: Slippery slope? Immoral? Isolated?

A. In 2024 Israel lost a great deal of international support at the moral level due to the IDF’s behavior in the Gaza Strip. What began as a legitimate war of retaliation for the brutal Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, deteriorated over the past year into death and destruction in Gaza on a horrific scale. 

While much of the Gaza destruction can theoretically be justified in terms of the cost of eliminating Hamas, by the dawn of 2025 the IDF had not eliminated Hamas, could not declare victory in Gaza, and must contemplate what looks like the loss of its moral compass.

Worse, while the world recognizes this, the majority of Israelis apparently do not. The IDF continues to force hundreds of thousands of Gazans out of the northern Strip while the messianists in the government lay plans to settle that territory. Israel had every right and obligation to defeat Hamas by conquering the Strip. But everything it did beyond that in 2024 is a moral stain on the army and the country.

Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent NJN's views and policy positions.

1. Bills, Resolutions
2. Letters
3. Hearings
4. Selected Members on the Record
5. Selected Media & Press releases/Statements

1. Bills & Resolutions

(TARGETING THE ICC) Today (1/3/25) at noon ET, the 119th Congress opens for business. In terms of legislation, one of the first items of business in the House (following the swearing in of members and election of the Speaker – the latter task looking, as of this writing, as if it may involve some drama and some time), the House will vote on a resolution, H. Res. XXX, “Adopting the Rules of the House of Representatives for the One Hundred Nineteenth Congress, and for other purposes.” sponsored by House Majority Leader Scalise (R-LA). Notably, H. Res. XXX includes a list of resolutions and bills [all of which were previously introduced in the 118th Congress that will be immediately brought to the House floor for a vote, with no amendments permitted and allowing only one hour for debate (note: H. Res. XXX leaves the bill numbers unspecified, since they cannot be re-introduced until the 119th Congress is formally opened). That list includes, “The bill (H.R. ___) to impose sanctions with respect to the International Criminal Court engaged in any effort to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies.” Also see:

• Massie (R-KY) 1/1/25: X-post – “The United States is a sovereign country, so I don’t assign any credibility to decisions of the International Criminal Court. But how did a bill to protect Netanyahu make it into the House rules package to be voted on immediately after the Speaker vote? Where are our priorities?!“

• Common Dreams 1/1/25: House GOP Tries to Protect Netanyahu From ICC With Rules Package

• Haaretz 1/2/25: What Do Netanyahu and the ICC Have to Do With the Vote on U.S. House Speaker? [“The latest GOP clashes portend just how divisive foreign policy will be among the Republican Party, as isolationists and neoconservatives battle to define the incoming Trump administration’s goals“]

• Jewish Insider 1/3/25: Excerpt from Daily Kickoff – “Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has led the Senate effort to sanction the court, would be supportive of either congressional or executive action on the issue, a source familiar with the matter told JI. Still, he plans to move ahead with reintroducing the legislation again.”