The mainstream news media are focused now on the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza. So am I. And yet we are focused on two different universes. I am focused on the humanitarian tragedy that sees 240 people snatched from Israel being held as hostages by Hamas. Remember that the people of Gaza freely elected Hamas to lead them. They keep electing them. Polls show that they support them almost unanimously. When Hamas murders Jews, the "poor innocent civilians" in Gaza dance in the streets, celebrate, and distribute candies.
Daniel Greenfield has written eloquently about the innocent "Palestinian" Gaza "civilians." They are not innocents. See, e.g., here https://www.jns.org/most-
Israel abandoned its presence in Gaza 18 years ago in 2005. She left behind an infrastructure. The Arabs destroyed what Israel left them. In 18 years they never have built their own electricity infrastructure or water infrastructure. Rather, they have designated all steel and concrete to building an underground tunnel network for the purpose of destroying Israel. Reliable estimates are that 40,000 Hamas terrorists are based in the tunnels. That is no typo: Forty Thousand Hamas terrorists are based in the tunnels. Like rats underground, it is an entire country population living and hiding in tunnels. They get their food and water, and the electric power to provide lights and ventilation, by seizing food, water, and fuel from hospitals that receive them as "humanitarian assistance" from America and the European Union. Citation below.
It now is reliably accepted by even hostile media that Hamas's main headquarters are based in a tunnel deliberately built under Gaza City's Shifa Hospital. The only way (presently) to destroy Hamas headquarters is to destroy the hospital by aerial bomb. So far Israel has not touched the Hamas HQ because they don't want the bad press.
Israel has released telephone recordings its intelligence operations picked up that confirm how Hamas maintains the fuel needed for rocket launching, as well as the food and water its 40,000 terrorists need: they seize those resources from the hospitals that are given "humanitarian" fuel, food, and water by European Union and American taxpayers. Again: Israel is trying to blockade Gaza, except for "humanitarian assistance." Then that humanitarian assistance gets seized by Hamas from its recipients. Israel has released the phone conversations and proof. https://www.
The war is in its second phase. A methodical ground invasion has begun. The strategy has been that the northern part of Gaza gets aerial bombed to destroy as many of its tunnels, IEDs, land mines, Koronet anti-tank missiles, rocket launchers, military drones, etc., as possible. Then Israeli ground troops come in by armored personnel carriers, tanks, and on foot. They inch forward and clean up what the aerial bombing could not get, and they identify the next forward area of tunnels, IEDs, etc. The air force then bombs that, and the ground forces inch forward to clean up that next area. And so on. It is slow, methodical, and perilous. So far, 331 IDF boys have been killed.
The "world" is calling for a "humanitarian ceasefire." In each of her past 6 "mowing the lawn" wars with Hamas in the past 18 years, Israel has agreed to ceasefires prematurely. This time is different. There are several reasons. Obviously, the October 7 attack was different from anything ever before. Hamas was revealed as ISIS. The first 270 who were murdered, raped, beheaded, and kidnaped were peace activists at a Trance Rave all-night dance festival and drug orgy. Those were the first slaughtered by the paragliders. More Jews died on October 7 than died on any other single day since the Holocaust.
But the main reason that Israel will reject all calls for ceasefire, no matter how intense those calls get and how badly the mass media attack Israel, I believe, is that voter polls in Israel show that Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has been unbeatable for two decades, now has been abandoned by the entire electorate from left to right, including his brother-in-law. Many blame him for the entire mess, accusing him of following a failed strategy of "mowing the grass" for 18 years that made the October 7 catastrophe possible. That strategy of 18 years is known widely in Israel as "The Concept" (הַקּוֹנְסֶפְּצִיָּה): the "Concept" that, (i) if Israel allowed Qatar to supply Hamas with hundreds of millions of dollars annually, (ii) and if Israel allowed into Gaza endless shipments of concrete and steel, (iii) and if Israel allowed into southern Israel 17,000 "innocent Gazan civilians" every day to work at wages higher than possible in Gaza, then Hamas would be motivated to be responsible and abandon its stated goal of destroying Israel. The Concept.
This was "The Concept" that gained popularity on the Israeli Left, the Center, and the moderate Right. From Labor and Meretz to Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz and Netanyahu's Likud, this became the dominant "Concept."
As people are wont to do, everyone in Israel now says "Hey, it wasn't my concept." So they all are blaming Netanyahu for October 7. The latest polls show his opponent, Benny Gantz, is favored over him by 48-28 percent, and that Likud's coalition, which now has 64 of 120 Knesset seats, would fall to 43 seats if elections were held today. That would be a political catastrophe for Likud and would leave Netanyahu's legacy in tatters. Just as Israelis (unlike American Jews, who have no idea what goes on) now look upon Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan as colossal historical failures because of their blunders pertaining to the Yom Kippur War (and Dayan's nervous breakdown), Netanyahu now faces the same harsh judgment of history. Overnight, he has fallen from the acclaimed longest-ever-serving Prime Minister, the beloved and adored electoral Wiz and Magician who could not be beaten, the visionary who changed Israel from failed socialism to booming capitalism and built Israel as "The Start-Up Nation" -- all while securing the peace for a generation . . . to a failed loser.
Bibi always has lived with an outsized focus on his place in the public mind and in history. He has been beyond-great in many ways, but he always has been known universally as a narcissist and hedonist, as revealed for example by his efforts to have a friend gift him with enormous amounts of expensive champagne and cigars. It just is. I actually have backed him, pretty-much consistently over the years, as the best leader Israel reasonably could hope for. His narcissism and hedonism just are. My unhappy reason for recounting these less sterling traits here is to explain why I believe, contrary to many "expert" and "experienced" Israeli observers, that Netanyahu will not agree to a ceasefire until he crushes Hamas. This time, for the first time, he will not agree to a real extended pause. He of course will not want to harm bystanders, but nothing will stop him until he can go back to the voters of Israel and say "Don't compare me to Golda and Dayan. They lost the Yom Kippur War , cost 3,000 sacrifices, and lost the peace. Not me. OK, maybe I blew it a little and did oversee tactical mistakes, but I blame my advisors for misleading me. And once I saw how wrong they were, after October 7, I took over and made things right and crushed Hamas. Gaza is quiet, and it will remain quiet for the rest of your lives."
And then it will be up to the voters and historians to decide his legacy. But I don;t believe he will stop before then.
So I expect this war to continue for at least six months, probably 8-12 months. That means the IDF soon will be fighting in the middle of the winter when the region gets frosty cold and rainy.
So what is the latest news you have not been hearing? Here goes:
1. As noted, there are 40,000 Hamas terrorists living underground like rats in the tunnels. They get their food, water, and ventilation by seizing it from the "humanitarian aid" given to Gaza hospitals. The IDF, as of today, has killed 9,525 Hamas terrorists. They have bombed and otherwise attacked 22,016 structures during the course of 11,008 attacks in Gaza. They have wounded 21,543.
2. The Biden Administration is reportedly calling for a "humanitarian pause." I do not believe Israel will agree, as I discussed above. The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly voted for a "humanitarian pause." Israel has ignored it. Israel's UN ambassador, Gil Erdan, responded to the UN vote by wearing a Holocaust yellow star:
https://twitter.com/i/status/
Some Israelis got that he was conveying that the world once again was consigning Jews to the ovens. Other Israelis were offended, seeing that as a nationwide image of weakness. See above for why I don't believe Netanyahu will dare pause until Israel crushes Hamas. Any pause simply gives them time to regroup, plan new strategies, build new weapons, fix bombed tunnels, and reassign terrorists.
3. Israel has shown the entire Middle Eastern press corps a 43-minute film of all the things Hamas did on October 7. The film contains 43 minutes no one else has seen. All reports are that it is so shocking that many of the foreign press had to leave at certain points because they could not watch any more of it. Some vomited. The film was shown today to Knesset members. Several had to leave. Two had to be medicated for panic attacks by doctors on call for that purpose. Descriptions are what we have heard about, but have not actually seen: They cut open pregnant women while still alive, tore out the fetuses, stabbed or set the fetuses on fire, and then stabbed or burned the mothers. They raped women on the bodies of other women. They likewise raped dead women. They filmed all this. They beheaded people. In one case, an Arab without a knife or sword used a shovel for many minutes to behead a dead worker from the Philippines. Other heavy equipment was used to cut off heads when they had no knives. It was a conscious thing to cut off as many heads as possible and to film it. They are ISIS. They are not humans but animals. There is no basis ever for coming to terms with them.
4. So far, 331 Israeli soldiers have fallen in battle. Together with the 1400 civilians murdered by the 3,000 Arabs who entered on October 7, more than 1,700 Israelis have died so far. The number will exceed 2,000 and this becomes the biggest catastrophe since 3,000 fell in the Yom Kippur war.
5. Unlike in America and other countries, Israel is unique in that each and every person who falls generates national mourning and a nationwide grieving experience. This link reflects how the Israeli media devote space to each who has fallen: https://w.ynet.co.il/
6. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has supplied 4,100 flak jackets, 500 first-responder kits, and 30 mobile shelters. These are mostly American Christian donors.
7. I was at DMV yesterday to renew my driver's license. (I passed the written test!) While waiting on line for them to take an awful photo of me -- a requirement of DMV cinematography -- a woman behind me saw my kipah and said to me: "G-d bless you and G-d bless Israel. I pray for your people every day, and our entire church is praying for Israel." And, yes, Israel are my people. Anyone who says he is "only" an "anti-Zionist" but not an anti-Semite can -- and eventually will -- go to Hell.
8. Israel has killed dozens of leading Hamas commanders. Today they killed an Arab named Muhammad A'sar, the head of Hamas Anti-Tank operations. They have killed several high-value targets. In some cases, to kill them while they were hiding out in high-rise residential apartment buildings, Israel has taken down the whole buildings. There was much news from the Left and mainstream media about how Israel just bombed the living daylights out of a "Palestinian" "refugee" camp in Gaza. There are photos of a huge crater reminiscent of Petersburg during the American civil war. The reports never mention that leading Hamas commanders were hiding out there, basing operations there, and that the bombings were as targeted as possible to harm as few as possible Hamas human shields.
9. Some of you may recall that the Mossad set up a special team that successfully killed each and every impossible-to-reach Arab who was behind the Munich Olympic Games massacre of eleven Israeli athletes in 1972. Reports today are that the Mossad now is setting up a similar team that will hunt down and kill every Hamas leader, no matter where in the world he now is hiding, no matter how many years it takes to neutralize him.
10. Israel's newspapers regularly are publishing the 240 faces, names, and stories of each person kidnaped by Hamas. https://www.ynet.co.il/
11. Yesterday (Tuesday), IAF jets eliminated Ibrahim Biari, the Commander of Hamas's Central Jabaliya Battalion. Biari was one of the leaders responsible for sending terrorist operatives from the "Nukhba" force to Israel to carry out the murderous terror attack on October 7th. Many other Hamas terrorists were caught in the strike.
12. In England, tomorrow morning's issue of The Sun will have a front page of 32 children kidnaped by Hamas, and the paper will feature their stories. https://www.
For more, see here: https://www.thesun.co.
13. In Europe, anti-Semitism in the wake of the war now has gotten so bad that a guy invented a cover for front-door mezuzahs that looks like it's an electronic device, like a high-tech front-door security camera with a flashing red light, so people won't know that the people living in the house are Jewish. https://www.timesofisrael.
14. We have been donating to United Hatzalah, who are on the front line of attacks, racing to the scene as Israel's premier medical emergency ambulance service. Here are two minutes of Eli Be'er, the founder of United Hatzalah, describing what his people have been encountering at the scenes. https://twitter.com/
15. The entire Jewish student community of Cornell University went into hiding when a single tweet showed up on X (Twitter) with someone saying he would come to slit Jewish throats, rape Jewish women, etc. The Cornell kosher dining facility closed down. Today the police announced they arrested some mental case, who had been contemplating suicide and also hates Jews. End of story.
I wish, instead of their hiding, the Jews had announced they would be coming to that cafeteria, 100-strong, with bicycle chains, sink pipes, baseball bats, and -- if legal in Ithaca, with legally registered firearms -- inviting the social-media posting person to come to the cafeteria for a good old-fashioned campus dialogue. (1) He would not have shown up. (2) The University President would have taken action. (3) No threat ever again would be made to Jews at Cornell.
(I love being rav at a shul where I can speak truths safely.)
16. The prayer for the IDF:
Ross Nichols (English): https://www.
Chazan Chaim Freund: https://www.youtube.
