President Isaac Herzog: History Will Judge Those Who Fail to Stand Against Hamas
Not since the Holocaust have more Jews been murdered on one day. Not since the Holocaust have we seen such images of innocent Jewish mothers and children, teenagers and old women loaded into trucks and taken away into captivity. Hamas has imported, adopted, and replicated the savagery of ISIS.Israel Agrees to Unity Government To Wage War on Hamas
Whole families have been wiped out. Mothers and fathers, with babes in arms, murdered in cold blood. Massacred. A young couple, Tamar and Yonatan, murdered in their home along with their 6-year-old twin daughters Shachar and Arbel, and 4-year-old son Omer. A wheelchair-bound Holocaust survivor in her 80s who was taken into captivity by Hamas terrorists. Israel will act firmly and with full force to defend its people and eliminate this threat. This is our solemn duty. However, the international community also has a duty to fulfill here.
For too long, when Israel has faced incursions or rockets from Gaza, elements of the international community have sought to justify Hamas' actions, swallowing their lies. Over the next days and weeks, Israel will be doing all it can to secure its borders, to remove the threat posed by Hamas, and to return its captive civilians and soldiers. It will demand the support of the international community.
History will judge Hamas for its crimes against humanity, along with all those who fail to stand against them.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense chief and centrist opposition party leader Benny Gantz have agreed to form an emergency government, a joint statement from Gantz's National Unity party said on Wednesday.John Podhoretz: President Biden’s Magnificent Statement
Terrorists from Islamist group Hamas invaded Israel from the Gaza Strip on Saturday in a surprise assault that killed at least 1,200 people, the deadliest Palestinian militant attack in Israeli history.
Israel has responded with a massive bombardment of Gaza that has killed 1,055, and deployed thousands of troops around the enclave amid growing expectations it will launch a ground invasion to destroy Hamas.
The sides agreed to form a war cabinet comprising Netanyahu, Gantz, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the statement said, and during the fighting with Hamas in Gaza will not promote any unrelated policy or laws.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid was not expected to join the emergency government at this stage.
Give credit where credit is due: This afternoon, Joe Biden gave what might be the most powerful statement in support of Israel ever delivered by any president. There were no qualifications. There was no evocation of root causes. No effort was made to hold out an olive branch or to suggest to Hamas, or to its fellow Iranian vassal Hezbollah, or their paymaster in Tehran that their future cooperation might lead to better days. The president said Hamas exists to destroy Israel and to kill Jews, and pledged this country’s full support in Israel’s effort against its enemy. He did not shy away from mentioning the atrocities that have made all people whose moral sense has not withered into a bilious pool (i.e., Rep. Rashida Tlaib, hanging a Hamas flag in your office in tribute to monsters who beheaded babies, may history spit your name from its lips as a curse) rear in horror and revulsion. He did not even begin with the customary “good afternoon.” He simply said, “There are moments in this life when pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on the world. The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend.” And the words that followed never wavered.Biden: Israel "Has a Duty to Respond" to Hamas Massacre
Thank you, Mr. President.
President Joe Biden said Tuesday: "There are moments in this life - and I mean this literally - when pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world. 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. More than 1,000 civilians slaughtered - not just killed, slaughtered - in Israel. Among them, at least 14 American citizens killed."
"Parents butchered using their bodies to try to protect their children. Stomach-turning reports of babies being killed. Entire families slain. Young people massacred while attending a musical festival to celebrate peace. Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies. Families hid in fear for hours and hours, desperately trying to keep their children quiet to avoid drawing attention. And thousands of wounded, alive but carrying with them the bullet holes and the shrapnel wounds and the memory of what they endured. You all know these traumas never go away."
"The brutality of Hamas - this bloodthirstiness - brings to mind the worst rampages of ISIS....So, in this moment, we must be crystal clear: We stand with Israel....Like every nation in the world, Israel has the right to respond - indeed has a duty to respond - to these vicious attacks.... Our hearts may be broken, but our resolve is clear....Let there be no doubt: The United States has Israel's back."