‘An Act of Sheer Evil’

Happy Wednesday. It took four days and multiple attempts, but Harvard University’s leadership on Tuesday finally condemned Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel after dozens of student groups issued an open letter that held “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Veritas, indeed.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• The Israeli death toll from the Hamas attack climbed to at least 1,200 people on Tuesday as the Israeli military continued its aerial campaign against Hamas—in which more than 900 Gazans have reportedly been killed. Hamas continued its rocket fire into a fourth straight day, targeting cities and towns across southern and central Israel from Gaza. Missiles and mortars were launched into northern Israel from Lebanon and Syria yesterday, but no damage or casualties were reported from the strikes. President Joe Biden confirmed Tuesday that United States citizens are among the hostages held in Gaza by Hamas, and that at least 14 Americans have been killed in the attack. The president went on to describe the onslaught as an “act of sheer evil” in a speech reiterating U.S. support for Israel.
• House Republicans held a closed-door candidate forum on Tuesday evening to consider bids for speaker from Reps. Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise. Allies of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reportedly discussed the prospect of renominating him going into the meeting, but after teasing another bid for two days, McCarthy took himself out of the process, telling reporters that he’d support whichever candidate is selected. A conference vote on the speaker nominee is scheduled for 10 a.m. today.
• The United States on Tuesday formally designated Niger’s military takeover in July a “coup.” While other nations with military deployments in the country, namely France, were quick to label the new military junta coupists, the U.S. held off on the designation as it holds legal consequences for American economic and military aid. With the designation, the State Department will halt most assistance to Niger, excluding humanitarian relief. Approximately 1,000 American military personnel will remain stationed in Niger at two bases. 
• The United Nations General Assembly voted on Tuesday against Russia’s attempt to rejoin the UN’s Human Rights Council. Russia was competing against Albania and Bulgaria for two Eastern European seats on the panel, but lost out on both available slots. The General Assembly ousted Russia from the body in April 2022 after its invasion of Ukraine. Still, 83 countries voted in a secret ballot for Russia to rejoin. 
• Prosecutors in the federal election interference case against former President Donald Trump asked the judge in their case to take measures to protect jurors’ identity, requesting “certain limited restrictions” on how parties in the case can research and use information on jurors during jury selection and the trial. “Given that the defendant—after apparently reviewing opposition research on court staff—chose to use social media to publicly attack a court staffer, there is cause for concern about what he may do with social media research on potential jurors in this case,” the prosecutors wrote in a filing on Tuesday, referencing Trump’s targeting of a clerk to the judge in his New York civil fraud case. Trump suggested, without evidence, that the staffer in question was romantically involved with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and was issued a partial gag order in response to the falsehood.
• Former Rep. Thomas Suozzi announced on Tuesday a bid to unseat Republican Rep. George Santos in 2024. Suozzi, a Long Island Democrat, previously held the seat for three terms before Santos flipped it in 2022—he resigned from the seat last year to run unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for New York governor last year. The Justice Department filed a superseding indictment against Santos yesterday, charging the congressman with 23 counts of fraud, conspiracy, and identity theft. “As alleged, Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign,” said Breon Peace, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Santos was originally indicted in May, and yesterday’s indictment included all 13 of the original charges plus 10 additional charges.
• Steve Garvey, the former Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres first baseman, announced Tuesday he is running to fill the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s seat in the upper chamber. “It’s time to get off the bench,” Garvey said in his announcement video. “It’s time to put the uniform on. It’s time to get back in the game.” Garvey, running as a Republican, will compete against the three Democratic lawmakers currently in the race: Reps. Adam Schiff, Barbara Lee, and Katie Porter. Democratic Sen. Laphonza Butler, whom Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed to fill Feinstein’s seat, has not said whether she will run for a full term.*

Steadfast Western Support, So Far 

Shortly before 2:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, President Joe Biden ambled to a lectern in the White House’s State Dining Room and delivered what even many harsh critics of his administration would later praise as one of the strongest statements of support for Israel to ever come from the building. “You know, there are moments in this life—and I mean this literally—when the pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world,” he said in his televised speech yesterday afternoon, joined by Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend. The bloody hands of the terrorist organization Hamas—a group whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews. This was an act of sheer evil.”

He then confirmed that at least 14 American citizens had been killed in the attacks, and that Americans rank among the dozens of hostages taken by Hamas.

The president’s remarks came on the fourth day of the Israel-Hamas war, as the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) continued to position troops at the Gaza border and carry out airstrikes on Hamas positions while rocket fire from Gaza rained down on Israeli territory. Biden’s rhetoric is thus far indicative of Western leaders’ steadfast and united backing for Israel in this time of crisis, but as the IDF prepares for a long and brutal war, how long such support lasts is an open question.

On Monday, President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the United Kingdom, and Biden released a joint statement underscoring their commitment to the State of Israel. “Our countries will support Israel in its efforts to defend itself and its people against such atrocities,” it read. “We further emphasize that this is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks to seek advantage.”

In his speech Tuesday, Biden took this warning one step further. “To any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word: Don’t,” he said. “Don’t.”

While the individual leaders of many European nations have been vocal in their support for Israel, disagreements remain over what this support should look like. The starkest example came when a European Union official prematurely announced the suspension of financial aid to Palestinians in Gaza, only for the EU to roll back the claim hours later and ultimately decide in an emergency meeting on Tuesday not to suspend payments to the Palestinian Authority. The EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell remarked after the meeting that the “overwhelming majority” of EU members favored continuing financial aid—though Denmark and Sweden decided to suspend their national development aid contributions.

In addition to resuming Palestinian aid funding, Borrell offered the strongest EU criticism yet of Israel’s action so far in Gaza. “Some of the actions [by Israel]—and the United Nations has already said it—cutting water, cutting electricity, cutting food to a mass of civilian people is against international law,” he said yesterday. “So yes, there are some actions that are not in accordance with international law.”

Across the Atlantic, Biden cautioned in a phone call with the Israeli prime minister that “democracies like Israel and the United States are stronger and more secure when we act according to the rule of law.” Still, the president offered full-throated support for Israel’s plan to defend itself in Gaza: “Like every nation in the world, Israel has the right to respond—indeed has a duty to respond—to these vicious attacks.”

The U.S. Congress, fractured though it may be, also largely presented a united, pro-Israel front. Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee after Sen. Bob Menendez stepped down from the post, vowed to propose legislation to help Israel replenish its Iron Dome defense capabilities, and Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia—two moderate Democrats—have called on the Biden administration to halt the $6 billion in Iranian funds set to be unfrozen as part of a prisoner exchange.

Congressional Republicans largely agree: Support for Israel is needed, fast. “The world is watching, they’re seeing a dysfunctional democracy,” said Foreign Relations Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas after a closed-door Republican meeting Tuesday. “We need to get a speaker by Wednesday. The first bill on the floor will be by resolution condemning Hamas for these terrorist attacks in Israel.”

This solidarity isn’t all that unexpected. “I think it’s hard to exaggerate the level of support that Israel enjoys on a bipartisan basis in Congress,” Gregory Brew, an analyst at Eurasia Group, told TMD. “It has very strong support from this White House. Biden’s remarks indicated a very, very strong level of support for Israel, a very, very high degree of empathy for the atrocities suffered by the Israeli people. I think that support will be maintained for some time.”

In an aircraft-carrier-sized show of support, the president announced that he would mobilize American fighter jets and ships—including the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group—to send a message to potential enemies in the region looking to capitalize on any perceived Israeli weakness. But that might not be the only reason.

“I don’t think the United States ever sends a carrier battle group to any location just to park it offshore,” Bruce Hoffman, senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations, told TMD. “It’s there, as the president has said, to reassure Israel, as he’s also said to send the message to other countries, particularly Iran, about the dangers of intervening. But I think it’s also there, if needed, to provide very specific technical expertise that perhaps you know, the United States is the only place that rivals Israel in elite Special Operations Forces in hostage rescue. I don’t necessarily think would be publicized or broadcast, but when your own nationals are involved, I mean, you’ve got a stake in this.”

These kinds of covert actions, experts believe, might be a critical part of the behind-the-scenes conversations between the U.S. and Israel. “While the support from the United States, the public support is significant, behind-the-scenes, the Biden administration is likely going to try to keep this crisis from escalating,” Brew said. “It’s going to try to keep the Israeli government on the path towards resolving the crisis rather than letting it continue forever, or continue for a protracted period of time.”

A protracted conflict could present challenges for Israel. For Hamas, this may well be the point. “The 2014 Gaza War was started with the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers—not 150 and not 1000 people dead—and Israel went to war,” said Hoffman. “Support and sympathy for Israel eroded the longer the fighting went on and the deeper the suffering of innocent Palestinians. That’s going to be inevitable again.”

Opposition to Israel is already on display in pockets of Western society. Student groups across the United States have issued statements and proclamations blaming Israel for the attacks it suffered, and a National Day of Resistance is planned for many college campuses this Thursday. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations have cropped up elsewhere—including Australia, New York, and England—and have devolved into rallies of antisemitic hate speech. Jewish communities across the world are now bracing for the prospect of more antisemitic violence at home.

But there’s reason to believe the West’s most virulently anti-Israel voices may be marginal. Harvard finally issued its own statement condemning “the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas,” and even reliably progressive politicians—including Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York—have begun denouncing the failure of other leftist voices to condemn the brutal terrorist attacks. As Hamas’ atrocities against Jews over the weekend become clearer, the political costs of silence—or worse, justification—have increased.

But as Israel’s efforts to defend itself from Hamas ramp up and stories of innocent Palestinians caught in the crossfire begin trickling out, that resolve will be tested. “There have been a large number of Palestinian casualties as a result of the retaliatory strikes that Israel is making into Gaza, and there are sure to be more,” Brew told TMD. “The longer it goes on, the harder it will be for Israel to retain any kind of goodwill in the international community. Once images of dead and injured Palestinians replace images of dead and injured Israelis in the international media, the focus on public attention is going to shift and it is going to shift on the situation in Gaza as opposed to the situation in Israel.” 

He added a critical caveat, though: “Support from the United States is likely to continue to be strong.”

Worth Your Time

• A more detailed picture has begun to emerge of one of the early sites of brutal killing during Saturday’s terrorist attack on Israel: the Tribe of Nova music festival. Approximately 3,500 people attended the all-night festival, dancing through the break of dawn on Saturday. By the end of the following day, at least 260 bodies would be recovered from the site. Isabel Debre and Michael Biesecker reviewed video footage of the attack and interviewed survivors for the Associated Press to reconstruct what happened. “While rockets rained down, revelers said, militants converged on the festival site while others waited near bomb shelters, gunning down people who were seeking refuge,” Debre and Beisecker write. “[Maya] Alper, 25, jumped into her car and raced to the main road. … As the carnage unfolded before her, Alper pulled a few disoriented-looking revelers into her car from the street and accelerated in the opposite direction. One of them said he had lost his wife in the chaos and Alper had to stop him from breaking out of the car to find her. Another said she had just seen Hamas gunmen shoot and kill her best friend. Another rocked in his seat, murmuring over and over, ‘We are going to die.’ In the rear-view mirror, Alper watched the dance floor where she had spent the past ecstatic hours transform into a giant cloud of black smoke.” Stuck in a line of traffic attempting to leave the festival, Alper and her companions had to abandon the car and run for cover as terrorists approached their vehicle. “Aware the gunmen would outrun her, she plunged into a tangle of shrubs,” they write. “Peering through thorns, she said she saw one of her passengers, the girl who had lost her friend, shriek and collapse as a gunman stood over her limp body, grinning.” Alper waited in the thorns for over six hours before the Israeli army arrived. 

Presented Without Comment

Washington Post: George Will’s latest column, “Tim Scott, please drop out, urge others to follow and unite behind Haley,” included the following note:

“Disclosure: The columnist’s wife, Mari Will, an adviser to Republican presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), disagrees with this column.” 

Toeing the Company Line

• The aftermath of Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel. What it means for Israeli politics. The implications for the region as Israel considers a ground invasion of Gaza. Kevin was joined by Adaam, Steve, Drucker, and Declan to discuss all that and more on last night’s Dispatch Live (🔒). Members who missed the conversation can catch a rerun—either video or audio-only—by clicking here.
• In the newsletters: Nick discusses (🔒) why MAGA Republicans are backing Israel but not Ukraine and Haley reports on Capitol Hill’s support for Israel amid the uncertainty of the speakership contest.
• On the podcasts: Jonah is joined by Jay Cost on the Remnant to discuss whether America is a republic or a democracy.
• On the site today: Kevin explains how Israel’s critics abuse cliches about proportionality and escalation to hamper Israel’s response to terror, Jason Brodsky explores the ties between Hamas and Iran’s Quds Force, and Jonah argues against presentations of Hamas as lacking agency.

Let Us Know

What do you think of the Biden administration’s response to the attack on Israel thus far? 

Correction, Wednesday, October 11: California does not hold partisan primaries as this newsletter previously indicated, holding instead a nonpartisan blanket primary.