April 12, 2021

Austin-East Magnet School Shooting: Police Responding to Reports of 'Multiple Gunshot Victims'

Source: Newsweek

Knoxville, Tennessee, police officers are responding to an Austin-East Magnet High School shooting after it was reported that "multiple" people had been wounded.

The Knoxville Police Department confirmed on Twitter that it received reports there were multiple gunshot victims at the school. One of those victims is a police officer, and an investigation is ongoing. For the time being, the police department is asking that people avoid the area.

[Looks like they caught the shooter alive.]

Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/austin-east-magnet-school-shooting-police-responding-reports-multiple-gunshot-victims-1583050

September 10, 2020

The 'Woke' Indifference to Jew Hatred

Note: The linked website is very much on the Republican side. But this is a useful issue that is seldom meaningfully addressed on our side, so it's worth a read. Just slog through the occasional bias.

The 'Woke' Indifference to Jew Hatred
Gatestone Institute International Policy Council
by Judith Bergman
September 9, 2010

Jew hatred in the United States has grown more prevalent in recent years.. In 2019, there were 2,107 anti-Semitic incidents, according to a May report by the Anti-Defamation League. It was the highest number in 40 years. The incidents included 61 physical assault cases, 1,127 instances of harassment and 919 acts of vandalism.

Antisemitism is also peaking in several European countries: In 2019, Germany, with 2,032 incidents, saw the highest number of anti-Semitic crimes in nearly two decades. The United Kingdom registered "a record number" of anti-Semitic incidents in 2019 for the fourth year in a row with 1,805 incidents -- "the highest number ever logged in a calendar year and a 7% increase on 2018", according to a report in The Guardian. In France, anti-Semitic attacks surged by 74% in 2018 compared to the previous year and an additional 27% in 2019. One violent attack in 2018 was the brutal murder of Mireille Knoll, an 85-year-old French Jewish Holocaust survivor, who was murdered in her Paris apartment by two men, who shouted "Allahu Akbar" as they stabbed her 11 times and set her apartment on fire.

The growth in anti-Semitism comes a mere 80 years after millions of Jews were rounded up in Europe and subjected to enslavement, mass shootings, "medical experiments", and industrial mass murder in Nazi concentration camps, for no other reason than being Jewish.

In our hypersensitive, hyper-racialized "woke" culture, where speaking obvious truths such as "all lives matter" will get you immediately cancelled, terminated from your job and classified as racist, one would assume that the rise in anti-Semitism would prompt maximum outrage. Promoting anti-Semitism, however, rarely gets anyone -- apart from the occasional white supremacist -- cancelled. This double-standard continues despite hate speech being generally considered completely unacceptable and dangerous, as reflected in the policies against hate speech of the social media and tech giants.

Excerpted. Remainder at:

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16311/woke-jew-hatred

August 14, 2020

The UAE's peace deal with Israel is a 'win-win solution,' says UAE minister

Source: CNBC

The UAE's peace deal with Israel is a 'win-win solution,' says UAE minister
By: Abigail Ng
14 August 2020
CNBC via MSN

The United Arab Emirates' peace deal with Israel is a "win-win solution" that takes away the "looming threat" of annexation in the West Bank, according to the Gulf country's minister of state for foreign affairs. "We were in Arab League meetings ... and the whole idea was, what do we do to stop this annexation? Somehow, annexation seemed as a looming threat that will undermine any prospects of a two-state solution," Anwar Gargash told CNBC's Dan Murphy on Thursday. His comments were made shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump announced yesterday that both countries agreed to normalize relations, making the UAE the first Persian Gulf state and the third Arab nation to have open diplomatic ties with Israel.

"The UAE was quite active diplomatically and we took an unprecedented step of our ambassador ... saying basically that annexation will just wreck the whole prospect of negotiations and peace, and will affect Israel's prospects of establishing relations with the Arab world," Gargash said. "I can't really pinpoint a certain moment, but the idea developed that why don't we actually create a win-win solution," he added.

Thomas Warrick, non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, agreed with the sentiment. "It's a good day for Israel and for the UAE, they both get something out of this that they very much want," he said. "The UAE shows its value as a strategic partner to both U.S. political parties. Israel gets out of their being stuck over the settlements issue ... This gives them a valuable prize, normalization of relations with the UAE."

Gargash described the deal as a way of "defusing a real threat" to a two-state solution and "hopefully" allowing negotiations to restart, but not a "roadmap for peace" between Israel and Palestine. "This is really up to the Palestinians, up to the Israelis, up to other traditional brokers such as the Americans," he said.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/the-uaes-peace-deal-with-israel-is-a-win-win-solution-says-uae-minister/ar-BB17XnZy

---

Probably the most important news of 2020, outside of Covid. It's a remarkable achievement, and a clear signal to Iran and Turkey, neither of which has the best interest of the region in mind.

August 12, 2020

Five-year-old boy is shot dead at point blank range by neighbour, 25

Daily Mail (UK)
11 August 2020
By: Frances Mulraney

North Carolina police have charged a neighbor with the murder of a five-year-old boy who was riding a bike in his own yard when he was shot at point blank range on Sunday evening. Darius Sessoms, 25, was taken into custody by Wilson police around 24 hours after he allegedly approached Cannon Hinnant in front of the young boy's father's house at 5:30pm and shot him in the head. Hinnant's seven-year-old and eight-year-old sisters witnessed the killing, their mother told WRAL.

Sessoms lived next door to the family, and the killing is not believed to be random. Neighbors claim he had dinner with Hinnant's father Austin on Friday and had been over at the house earlier on Sunday. The motive for the killing is still under investigation, but a GoFundMe established by a family member says that the young boy rode into Sessoms' yard. 'Sunday, August 9, 2020 a sweet soul named Cannon Hinnant was taken from this world over a senseless act,' it reads. 'A beautiful 5 year old baby boy riding his bicycle was shot by his neighbor point blank in Wilson NC. One minute he is enjoying his life, the next it all ends because he rode into his neighbors yard.'

The young boy was set to start Kindergarten on Monday and had just learned to write his name. 'He was just a loving kid,' his mother Bonny Waddell told the Wilson Times. 'He had the biggest heart.' 'It’s devastating. No one should ever have to bury their child. No mother should have to go through this.'

Hinnant's family said they have known the suspect for years and did not believe he could be capable of murder. 'We used to play together and I never thought he’d kill someone. A mother now has to lay her son to rest at 5 years old which she should never have to do. He’ll never be forgotten,' Rachel Pipkin, a cousin of Cannon’s mother told CBS. Police were called to the scene on Archers Road at around 5.30pm Sunday where Hinnant was found with a gunshot wound.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8615711/Five-year-old-boy-riding-bike-shot-dead-neighbor-25-two-sisters.html
Excerpted. More at link above.

May 12, 2020

'The Mayor Says You Jews Are Getting Us All Sick': NYC Couple Cite de Blasio During Violent Assault

The Algemeiner
May 11, 2020 4:28 pm/18 Iyyar 5780
By: Ben Cohen

A married couple who were arrested in Brooklyn after they attacked a group of Hasidic Jews in a bid to rip off their coronavirus protection masks reportedly cited New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio as justification during the assault. The attack occurred on Sunday night in the Williamsburg section of the borough. Paulo Pinho, 35, and wife, Clelia Pinho, 46, jumped out of their vehicle at Bedford Ave. and Ross St. where they confronted the three male victims, police said.

“You Jews are getting us all sick,” the couple yelled at a trio of men, according to police sources quoted by the New York Daily News on Monday, before adding: “The mayor says you Jews are the reason we’re getting sick.” New York Mayor de Blasio sparked anger among Jewish leaders at the end of April for singling out “the Jewish community” in a tweet condemning the alleged violation of coronavirus distancing restrictions at the public funeral of the late Rabbi Chaim Mertz.

Jonathan Greenblatt — head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) — responded to the mayor by telling him that “generalizing against the whole population is outrageous especially when so many are scapegoating Jews.” The Pinho couple combined their verbal abuse with a physical assault against the three men, with Clelia Pinho falling down and breaking her arm as she attempted to rip off their masks. The couple were held at the scene by members of the Shomrim communal security agency until police arrived to take them into custody.

Excerpted. more here: https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/05/11/the-mayor-says-you-jews-are-getting-us-all-sick-nyc-couple-cite-de-blasio-during-violent-assault-on-brooklyn-hasidim/?fbclid=IwAR1RUGzQUS3Z-6jGNpLi2aTh-nON8q0Y4WzM8MH3pH_3_jwCa2TmjfM6sa0

April 29, 2020

De Blasio is stoking anti-Semitism. He's not alone.

The Forward
April 29, 2020
By: Batya Ungar-Sargon

https://forward.com/opinion/445132/enraged-at-deblasios-bigotry-against-jews-hes-not-the-only-one-blaming/

On Tuesday night, Mayor Bill de Blasio declared war on New York’s Jewish community. The very same mayor who went to the gym the day after closing New York City’s schools, restaurants, and bars and who took a stroll in Prospect Park on Saturday, as news was breaking that 28 New York City schoolteachers had died from the virus, has ventured out yet again into a crowd. This time, he went to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where a large number of Satmar Hasidim had gathered. The mayor went to personally “ensure the crowd was dispersed,” the mayor explained in a tweet.

And then, he took things one step further: “My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed,” the Mayor tweeted. “I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period.”

The tweets would have been outrageous coming from any elected official. Certainly, the city has the right to police people breaking its stay-at-home ordinances. Protecting first responders and flattening the curve are absolute values in the public interest. But the mayor painted a whole community with the brush of its offenders – portraying the entire “Jewish community” as diseased malefactors requiring police intervention to stop the spread of the virus.It was grossly anti-Semitic, casting New York City’s 1 million Jews with the brush of a few hundred. And it was doubly offensive given the mayor’s failure to protect Orthodox Jews last year as they suffered daily physical attacks on the streets of New York City. Unsurprisingly, de Blasio had no opprobrium for the thousands of New Yorkers who, like himself, were tempted by the weekend’s warm weather to enjoy the city’s parks. Couple all that with the fact that Satmar Headquarters is claiming that the mayor’s office initially approved the funeral and coordinated it with the NYPD, and you have a truly shameful debacle.

The mayor is being roundly denounced, and rightfully so. But de Blasio’s ugly sentiments do not stand alone. From the beginning of the outbreak, Orthodox Jews have been uniquely cast by the media as the villainous spreaders of the coronavirus, despite there being little evidence to substantiate that claim. Indeed, while being beaten up on the streets of New York for a year, Orthodox Jews couldn’t get anyone to pay attention to them. Now that they can be cast as villains rather than victims, the media can’t seem to get enough of them.

(Excerpted. More at link above)

April 14, 2020

State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses

Source: Washington post

By: Josh Rogin
14 April 2020


Two years before the novel coronavirus pandemic upended the world, U.S. Embassy officials visited a Chinese research facility in the city of Wuhan several times and sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats. The cables have fueled discussions inside the U.S. government about whether this or another Wuhan lab was the source of the virus — even though conclusive proof has yet to emerge.

In January 2018, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing took the unusual step of repeatedly sending U.S. science diplomats to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which had in 2015 become China’s first laboratory to achieve the highest level of international bioresearch safety (known as BSL-4). WIV issued a news release in English about the last of these visits, which occurred on March 27, 2018. The U.S. delegation was led by Jamison Fouss, the consul general in Wuhan, and Rick Switzer, the embassy’s counselor of environment, science, technology and health. Last week, WIV erased that statement from its website, though it remains archived on the Internet.

What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified back to Washington. The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help. The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.

The Chinese researchers at WIV were receiving assistance from the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch and other U.S. organizations, but the Chinese requested additional help. The cables argued that the United States should give the Wuhan lab further support, mainly because its research on bat coronaviruses was important but also dangerous.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/

---

Note, there is a big difference from "created in a lab" vs. "escaped from a lab".

The current thinking of the British government is this "escaped from a lab", for reasons independent of this article. To summarize the British thinking, the bat vector of CV19 is a wood bat not native to the area. The closest habitat is 800 miles away. Wet markets are essentially really gross farmers' markets -- where local people sell local flora and fauna, generally as a part time gig/hobby. It is possible that a wood bat entered into the chain of commerce and ended up there, but that's not the normal course of operation.

March 4, 2020

Polish lawmaker: Natural selection at Auschwitz made Jews powerful

Arutz Sheva
March 4, 2020
By: Cnaan Lipshitz/JTA

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/276828

A far-right lawmaker in Poland said that natural selection in pogroms have made Jews powerful, and that “there are theories” that rabbis provoked violence to achieve this. Janusz Korwin-Mikke made the comment in an interview for the Polsat channel last week about the coronavirus, the Do Rzeczy newspaper reported Wednesday. “Jews are now powerful because they had pogroms,” he said. “As a result of pogroms, the strongest and the most gifted survived. This is a warning to anti-Semites: That is why Jews are powerful, because they had pogroms. There are even theories that rabbis deliberately provoke pogroms precisely so that Jews survive and then there is natural selection.”

Korwin-Mikke, a former lawmaker in the European Parliament and a leader of the Confederation Liberty and Independence party, has a history of making anti-Semitic statements and stunts. Last year, he slipped a kippah on the head of a state secretary while she was speaking at a televised debate that Korwin-Mikke also attended. Also in 2019, he aired a conspiracy theory about Jews while commenting on reports in the Israeli media on a custom in which residents of the town of Pruchnik beat with sticks an effigy of an Orthodox Jew representing Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus.

Korwin-Mikke’s party has 11 seats out of 466 in the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament.

December 13, 2019

Cory Booker's Statement on Jersey City Attack

The text of it is here:

https://www.insidernj.com/booker-statement-jersey-city-slayings/

Curiously missing from the statement about the slaughter of Jewish people is any mention of Jewish people, Judaism, antisemitism, or anything else.

A more cynical person than myself would call this a silent dog whistle to a more-important-voting-block than mere Jews that happens to be overwhelmingly antisemitic. I'm not ready to go there yet. But I'm darn close.

This is the kind of crap that started the JDL (for those of you old enough to remember). Those were not great days.

June 27, 2019

How to steal a Navy, by Israel

Ever hear of the "Cherbourg Project" or "Operation Noa"?

No? It was the most amazing legal (OK, kind of legal) heist of a Navy in 1969 -- right from France.

It was an Israeli military operation that took place on 24 December 1969 and involved the escape of five armed Sa'ar 3 class boats from the French port of Cherbourg. The boats had been paid for by the Israeli government but had not been delivered due to the French arms embargo in 1969.

The Israeli naval command had reached the conclusion by the early 1960s that their old Second World War-era destroyers, frigates and corvettes were obsolete and new ships and vessels were needed. A survey was undertaken and the German shipyard of Lürssen was recommended. The shipyard was asked to design a new generation of small missile boat platforms and to modify the suggested wooden Jaguar-class torpedo boats according to Israeli Navy requirements. Due to Arab League pressure on the German government, this plan was not continued and a new builder was sought. The Israeli Navy survey recommended that the Cherbourg-based CMN shipyard owned by Félix Amiot would build the boats, based upon the Israeli demands. The boats were constructed by the French and the MTU engines were German-designed. The project received the codename "Autumn".

Crews were sent to France in early 1965. The technical team was headed by Commander Haim Schachal. The administrative and operational side was headed by then-Captain Binyamin (Bini) Telem, who later became the Israeli Navy's commander in chief during the Yom Kippur war. This was during the "Golden Age" of relations between Israel and France. After the Six-Day War, relations began to worsen. The French president — Charles de Gaulle — stopped the export of weapons to Israel.

In 1968, Israeli paratroopers commanded by then-Colonel Raphael Eitan (who later became IDF chief of staff), carried out a raid on Beirut airport during operations against the Palestine Liberation Organization. As a result, President de Gaulle ordered a full arms embargo on Israel. The resignation of de Gaulle and the election of Georges Pompidou to be the president of France inspired hope among the Israelis. The Israeli government assumed that Pompidou would lift the embargo, but Pompidou maintained it.

While the French government ordered an arms embargo on Israel, construction of the boats continued according to the original plan; and while the Israeli naval mission was in Cherbourg, controlling the project, Israeli crews were aboard the completed boats and the whole project was fully paid for by Israel.

The plan to take the boats was formulated by retired Rear Admiral Mordechai "Mokka" Limon, formerly the Israeli Navy's commander in chief, who was the head of the Israel Defense Forces mission in Paris. Limon's affiliation with the Rothschild family provided him with important connections in France with the French government, and more widely in Europe as well.

During that period, several events worked in favor of the Israelis. In 1967, the seventh boat of the twelve boats ordered, INS Mivtach (Reliance), was completed and launched. A telecom from Israeli Navy command informed the Israelis in Cherbourg that the embargo was expected to escalate, and the boats would have to sail immediately to Haifa during sea trials, ignoring the French protocols for leaving port. This angered the French, and they ordered the Israeli Navy and the other boats to leave the French harbour, and dock instead at the commercial port, which was unguarded.

The boats were transferred to a front company called Starboat, registered in Panama, allegedly a Norwegian company for oil drills. The front company was Limon's idea, aided by his connections with Mila Brenner, a retired naval officer with a rank of commander and the owner of the Israel-based "Maritime Fruit Carriers", a company that operated cargo ships transporting fruit. Milla Brenner knew the Norwegian businessman Martin Siem, who was able to provide assistance. The front company people were Mossad members led by Benyamin Vered, one of the highest ranking commanders of Mossad.

The front company feigned interest in the boats as potential survey ships for searching for oil, and declared that the boats' specifications met their needs. To add to the deception Limon pretended to have "tough negotiations" with Starboat. The terms agreed were that the boats would be transferred to Starboat and would be crewed by members of the Israeli Navy due to their experience with the boats. The boats were sold and transferred legally by the government of Israel to the front company with the approval of Michel Debré, the French Defense Minister. This was the first part of the deception.

The next stage of the operation was to build a day-to-day routine with the aim of ultimately misleading the French at Cherbourg. Israeli skeleton crews took over the boats and maintained a routine of short voyages, heading north into the Atlantic. The skeleton crews were secretly reinforced by 80 Israeli officers, ratings and sailors in civilian clothes who arrived in groups of two at different destinations throughout Europe as tourists, and then travelled to Cherbourg. It was feared that sending them all to Cherbourg at once would alert French intelligence. They were ordered to keep moving between hotels, and not to stay in any one hotel for more than one night. The crews traveled on Israeli passports so that in the event they were caught, they could not be charged with passport fraud. By 23 December, all crews had arrived, and were scattered around the city. Mossad director-general Meir Amit considered the risk to the operation to be very high, recalling "it just needed one suspicious French policeman to ask why so many Jews were coming to Cherbourg for Christmas and the whole operation could be blown.”

Prior to the escape, the boats had to be fuelled with large amount of diesel and stocked with enough food to sustain an eight-day voyage. Stocking and fueling this amount all at once could have alerted observers to the fact that a long voyage was planned. Commander Rinat, the head of operations, instead ordered the boats to be gradually fuelled using a small 5-ton tank truck. A quarter of a million litres of fuel was smuggled in drums and hidden below decks. By 24 December, the boats had been fully fuelled and stored. The supply officer bought fresh and dry food from local grocery stores to stock on the boats. To prevent arousing suspicion, the supplies were purchased in small quantities each time.

Since sudden engine noise during the night of the escape would alert the French, the operation's commander, Captain Hadar Kimhi, ordered the boats' engines to be regularly started at nights, causing the inhabitants of Cherbourg to become accustomed to the noise. The local police visited the boats in response to inhabitants' complaints, and received the explanations that the electrical supply from the shore was not enough to warm the boats during the cold days of December. The boats received an authorization from the electrical company and police to operate their engines at night. The noise was loud with twenty Maybach main engines running.

Meanwhile, the ZIM navigation company Europe Lines were approached to help in providing fuel, once the boats had left Cherbourg. Assistance was provided by Edmond Wilhelm Brillant, a retired navy officer and a naval architect. He designated MV Lea to provide fuel at Gibraltar and MV Nahariya as a backup in the Bay of Biscay (both general cargo ships that were available at that time). The main difficulty at this stage of the plan was the conversion of MV Lea into a fuelling ship carrying 200,000 litres of light diesel fuel. This was solved by conversion of the ballast tank in the ship's bow and bottom into a fuel tank. The pump system was converted to operate as both a fire fighting and fueling pump. Special high pressure hoses were used and a fueling drill was developed prior sailing to the rendezvous point near Gibraltar.

According to international maritime regulations, MV Lea could not sail since safety regulations banned ships from carrying fuel in the bow as fuel vapour may cause an explosion. This issue was solved by Brillant with the aid of Kirstine shipyards and a Lloyd's Register surveyor. Additionally, a special filter was needed to make sure no dirt from tanks would contaminate the boat's tanks and engines. This filter was improvised by Brillant. It was capable of fuelling five boats, but only two at a time were fueled at the ship's stern. The overall conversion and drill took twelve hours. Other Zim divisions provided the Dan, a Ro-Ro ship sister of MV Nili, which would provide fuel near Lampedusa. Captain of MV Dan was Yosef Dror, a retired Navy officer (Commander) and Shayetet 13 commando frogman. In this case, tanker trailers were loaded in the ship's garage. These Zim ships sailed with additional crew made up of members of the Israeli Navy.

The boats were to escape on Christmas Eve. On the eve of the escape, the skeleton crews continued to maintain the boats, while the 80 crews who came to reinforce them hid belowdecks. The Israelis feared that the boats could sink while sailing through the Bay of Biscay in severe winter conditions. The group had a meteorologist assigned to them, who monitored all British, French and Spanish weather forecasts. Despite a forecast predicting rain from the south-west, the crews were ordered to sail out at 20:30. By 19:30, all crews were aboard. There was a force 9 storm on the night of the escape, and after the weather worsened, the departure time was extended to 22:30, but the escape was again delayed by worsening weather. Captain Hadar Kimhi received urgent coded messages from Israel ordering him to set sail despite the weather, but he decided to wait. At midnight, the meteorologist picked up a BBC report indicating that the storm would die down in two hours. At 02:30, the boats left Cherbourg and headed slowly out to sea.

The French were initially unaware that the Israeli boats had left port, and their absence was noticed by a reporter who visited the port and saw that all the boats were missing. He immediately reported it to the BBC almost 12 hours after the escape, and so the French authorities learned of the boats' disappearance from the BBC. The empty berths and an absence of any announcement of the embargo's termination caused speculation that Israel had taken the boats. A television news team flew out over the North Sea to see if the boats were heading towards Norway, to where they had ostensibly been sold, while other news crews headed out over the Mediterranean. The boats crossed the Bay of Biscay before turning south and crossing into the Mediterranean, meeting Israeli support ships along the way. During fuelling by MV Lea at Gibraltar, one of the Israeli navy crew members mistakenly allowed water into the fuel tanks of INS Hetz (Arrow). It was not initially known whether the water was seawater; if it was, it could not be drained and may damage the engines. Commander Rinat asked the crew to taste the fuel and to indicate if it was salty or not. Having determined that it was not seawater, the tanks were drained.

As the boats passed Gibraltar into the Mediterranean, the British monitoring station flashed a signal, asking the boats to identify themselves. The boats gave no reply, and a Lloyd's helicopter circling over them detected no flags or identity numbers. The British personnel, who had heard the media reports of the disappearance of the Israeli boats from Cherbourg, correctly guessed the boat's nationalities and true destination, then flashed the signal "bon voyage". The Israelis took it as a signal that the British understood who they were. The boats were finally spotted by television crews in the Mediterranean as they travelled fast towards Israel, hugging the coast of North Africa. Near Crete, Israeli Air Force F-4 Phantom fighters met up with the boats and flew low overhead in escort.

French Defence Minister Michel Debré ordered an air strike to sink the boats. The French Chief of Staff refused to obey and replied he would resign rather than obey the order. The order was countermanded by Prime Minister Jacques Chaban-Delmas, who prevented any further escalation. Although the French government was furious, it realized that there was little that could be done, since the boats were already on the high seas when the ruse was uncovered. French Foreign Minister Maurice Schumann warned that if the boats appeared in Israel, "the consequences will be very grave indeed".

The Israeli boats sailed a total of 3,145 nmi (5,825 km; 3,619 mi), beginning in the English Channel, and arriving at the Kishon Shipyard port in Haifa bay on 31 December. The boats were met with public jubilation when they arrived in Israel.

The French government expelled Mordechai Limon from France. It was said that the French president stated "I do not like tea with Lemon and Mokka coffee". Generals Louis Bonte and Bernard Cazelles were suspended by the government. Instead Israel turned to American supplies of weapons and support. The Israeli Air Force began to be equipped by American aircraft, while the United States Navy started to train the Israeli Navy's high command and increased the level of naval cooperation.

According to British intelligence writer Gordon Thomas, following the affair, Mossad agents were watched "as closely as any terrorist" when they were deployed to France to track down and kill Middle Eastern terrorists. Many times, terrorists would escape after being tipped off by a pro-Arab French intelligence officer.