Last night I gave a Yom HaAtzmaut lecture in Kew Gardens Synagogue in Queens.
Titled "Bazman Hazeh - Miracles of Modern Israel," I discuss various improbable things that have happened since the mid-1800s that led to the rebirth of Israel as well as things that have happened since then.
I wante to make ure that my readers could get to hear it while it is still the holiday.
Sorry, no slides, only audio.
Enjoy!
1753 British book on restoring the Jews to Israel
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Earlier this week I wrote a long article explaining why dealing with Gaza is such a difficult task, and describing a solution in general terms (short answer: a massive blow to force Hamas to disarm, followed by a “light” military occupation).
I thought that this time – after all, for once we have an American administration in our corner – it would be different, this time the IDF would follow through, and do more than just “mow the grass.” Bibi was talking tough, armored forces were poised at the border, and, after all we had just absorbed some 690 rockets, $14 million in damage, and four dead Israelis.
But I was wrong. We barely trimmed the weeds, with the IDF ordered to end the fighting before the Memorial Day and Independence Day celebrations this week, and the Eurovision song contest which will begin next Tuesday in Tel Aviv. In particular it is being reported that the IDF was forced to “give up on striking Hamas' long range missile storage facilities,” which seems to me remarkably counter-productive if one wants to prevent disruption of events in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Some kind of ceasefire deal was reached, which probably means that Israel must facilitate the transfer of millions of dollars to Hamas from Qatar, and who knows what other concessions.
Government officials insisted that nothing was less important to their decisions than Eurovision. But of course, nothing was more important.
Bibi and the others are absolutely aching to present Israel as an advanced European or North American style country, a country where (perhaps unlike the Europe or America of today) the chance of terrorism or war is minuscule, and where we put on massively excessive spectacles like Eurovision as a matter of course.
This isn’t true. We are a small country that has been at war since 1948, where successive negligent governments have allowed dangerous terrorist proxies of our enemies to flourish on our borders, and where terrorism and flare-ups of violence happen on a regular basis. We are not quite the first-world country we aspire to be, either (you can see this in the poorer neighborhoods of our cites or the so-called “periphery”).
Do you get the feeling I think we have our priorities wrong? You’re right.
Hamas and the Islamic Jihad organization understand the reasons for our reluctance to engage with them: because we fear a wider multi-front war, because we don’t appear to have a satisfactory plan for Gaza if Hamas collapses, and because we don’t want to be embarrassed by terrorism during – or even aimed at – Eurovision. So they made their demands and we gave in. Call it extortion or call it jizya, but they got what they wanted.
The residents of Sderot and other communities near Gaza have been remarkably patient as this happens over and over. It has been going on for decades: the first rockets were launched at Sderot in 2001, and the attacks increased in frequency after Israel abandoned the Strip in 2005, and still more after the Hamas coup in 2007. Every few months the residents’ lives are massively disrupted. Their children – who have been insecure since birth – are suffering from PTSD. It’s remarkable that so few families have fled. How long can we expect them to be patient? Of course it is hard to get a fair price for a home in the region, so maybe many of them not only feel anxious, they feel trapped.
And the zone of conflict is growing as Hamas and Islamic Jihad improve their rockets and increase their range. It used to be only Sderot and the local kibbutzim and moshavim, and now it is as often Ashkelon, where two of the four deaths – murders – occurred this week. They have rockets that can reach Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, although there are fewer of them. Today.
The government tells us that yes, it’s terrible, especially for those who have lost family members, but it’s not existential. And look at how many people are killed every year in traffic accidents. Meanwhile there are so many reasons that nothing can be done now; but we have a plan and it will be implemented real soon.
No. Enough. The most basic obligation of a government under the social contract is to protect its citizens, and they aren’t doing it. Don’t tell me that it is impossible. Why are the barbarians of Hamas and Islamic Jihad able to outthink us, to put us in a trap that we can’t escape? Do we have the wrong generals? The wrong government? Are all the smart people in high-tech? Is the problem, as some say, that every commander must have a lawyer by his side? We are stronger, we have an air force that is qualitatively the best in the world, we have a fleet of drones, tanks, the best weapons in the world. Why can’t we fix this?
Tuesday night will begin Israel’s Memorial Day for 23,741 fallen soldiers and terror victims with a ceremony in Jerusalem. This is a deeply moving event for Israelis, since there are few families that have not lost a friend or family member to war or terrorism.
An organization called “Combatants for Peace” (CFP) organized an “Alternative Memorial Day” event in which both Israelis and Palestinians from the territories who lost relatives in the conflict will mourn them together. CFP is funded almost entirely by foreign contributions, from the American New Israel Fund, and German and Swiss groups.
The implication is that there’s no moral difference. Someone who is shot to death trying to stab a random Jew in the street is a victim of the conflict, just like the Jew he stabs. The Palestinian who is killed when he plows into people waiting at a bus stop deserves the same respect as the ones he murders.
Unsurprisingly, many Israelis find it obscene to equate fallen soldiers, police officers, and terror victims with the Palestinian terrorists that murdered them. PM Netanyahu rejected a request for entry permits to allow Palestinians to enter the country for the ceremony. He cited security reasons, but I suspect that he felt that national self-respect required it.
The Supreme Court, in response to a petition from CFP, overruled the PM and ordered the government to grant 100 permits.
The members of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad want to win. They want to kill Jews and eliminate the Jewish state. They want this with all their hearts.
Do we want to survive as much as they want to destroy us?
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
After the defeat of Nazism in World War II, the Soviet Union and its satellites became the main European incubators of anti-Semitism, a doctrine they soon repackaged, with great success, as anti-Zionism. Asael Abelman tells this story in a sweeping and penetrating essay that can be read in its original Hebrew here or in a rough English translation at the link below:
After 1945, and even more so after 1948, the war against the Jews ceased to be one against a people scattered and dispersed among the nations but instead against a people who had returned to their land. The banner of this war against the Jews was now borne by the Arab peoples as well as Muslims throughout the world, and even though a wide chasm separated most of them from the European left, all parties found in this struggle a common denominator. . . .
Take Poland, for example, in the late 1960s. During this period, Polish students were expressing their resentment of the Communist regime in their country. When the regime sought a way to rally its ranks and divert attention from its critics, it found it in anti-Semitism. By then, most of the Jews of Poland had been exterminated [in World War II]; many others had left for Israel and other countries; and many of the remaining Jews in Poland did not see themselves as Jews, were themselves unaware that they were Jews, or were completely indifferent to their Jewish identity. But none of this prevented the leader of Poland, Wladyslaw Gomulka, from looking for a way to use anti-Semitism to serve his political needs.
His opportunity arrived with Israel’s victory over the Arab states in the Six-Day War. Immediately thereafter, Gomulka publicly announced that “Polish citizens of the Jewish nation are not prevented from returning to Israel if they wish. Our position is that every Polish citizen should have one state: the Polish People’s Republic; . . . we do not want a fifth column.” Thus, parallel to the Arab desire to destroy the state of Israel, anti-Semitism came out of the mouth of the leader of the Polish Communist regime, a man who no doubt considered racist Nazism to be the absolute evil, [who was himself married to a Jewish woman], and who subscribed to an ideological doctrine strongly opposed to national hatred.
The Muslim Association of America, designated by the United Arab Emirates as one of 84 terrorist groups with Muslim Brotherhood ties, was caught red-faced after posting a video on Facebook of Muslim children conducting a musical performance in the Philadelphia Islamic center glorifying Islamic jihad, suicide martyrdom, and jihad on Israel.
Martyrdom songs and indoctrination of youth are a hallmark of Islamist organizations. It’s commonplace in Gaza, but shocking when found in the home of the Declaration of Independence. The songs romanticize both martyrdom and the destruction of Israel — classic Muslim Brotherhood Islamists tenets.
Such indoctrination of Muslim children in Islamist ideology leads directly to violence, such as the assault on Israel over the last weekend. More than 700 rockets were fired on sovereign Israeli territory by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — both extremist Islamist terror groups.
For the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad movements to remain alive, in addition to generous funding from both Iran and Qatar, these Islamist groups require support from youth, including those here in America.
The children in Philadelphia sang songs demonizing Israel while claiming to be the “Army of Allah,” yet disregard that the Quran documents the Israelites as the chosen people to whom God promised the Holy Land. Muslims must accept their legitimacy, their prophets and their Holy Book.
These children in Philadelphia are being indoctrinated in Islamist anti-Semitism — a cosmic, not mortal, form pursued as a divine mission to combat a cosmic, not mortal, enemy. This anti-Semitism is among the most virulent and rapidly growing forms today.
Long before the Mossad became known as one of the world’s greatest intelligence agencies; before the capture of Eichmann and the raid of Iran’s nuclear archive; before Eli Cohen and Rafi Eitan; before Fauda captured audiences around the world, Israel’s first spies were dispatched to Beirut without so much as a radio to contact home. In the spring of 1948, before the State of Israel had even been declared, a handful of young Mizrahi Jews were recruited to serve in the Palmach’s Arab Section and charged with going undercover among the Arab population of Palestine and neighboring countries. Sent back into the Arab lands they had left behind, these brave Jews risked their lives to become spies for a country that was yet to be born.
In Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel, journalist and author Matti Friedman tells the story of these mista’aravim, Jews who went uncover as Arabs. Focusing on the lives of four of these men, Friedman transports us back to a world without a State of Israel or an IDF, where the fate of Palestine’s Jews remained uncertain and the project of Jewish statehood hung in the balance. This was the world of Israel’s first spies, the unsung heroes of the nation’s founding.
In this podcast, Matti Friedman joins Jonathan Silver to talk about his new book. They discuss the challenges and risks the spies faced while undercover, the complex identities of these Mizrahi Jews who had to pose as Arabs, and the importance of telling the stories of these Jewish heroes from Middle Eastern lands.
“Shakked was really scared,” my
son said, when asked how he and his young family had managed during the rocket
attacks on Shabbos and Saturday night.
That was more than it would be
usual for my quiet son to volunteer. Which is how I knew that what he’d written
on the family Whatsapp group was an understatement. But since I am a writer and
my mind runs wild, I could picture how it was that night, in a small room in Southern
Israel. Two young parents, a sleepy three-year-old, and an exhausted one-year-old,
with sirens and explosions going off all night long, one siren interrupting the
next, explosions upon explosions, some farther away, some much too close,
making the people in the room, jump. I imagined my granddaughter crying--perhaps
screaming in fear--and her parents trying so hard to comfort her while being
helpless to reassure her in any real way, or to do anything about the endless
sirens and explosions: to do anything to stop the night.
My mind kept going back to that
picture though they were safe now, the next day, having gone to stay with my
daughter-in-law’s family in the center of the country, until things were calmer.
That bothered me, too. What
kind of life is it really, if you have to leave your home to get a break from
danger? What kind of home sweet home can you really have when living there puts
you and your children in mortal danger? And here were my brave children,
building a home in Netivot, in the Gaza Envelope. How should I feel about that?
Proud, of course, even as my
mind wrestled with competing narratives: Is it right to raise children in a
dangerous part of Israel? Is it right to build a home in a place that suffers
from near constant rocket attacks, sirens, and Molotov balloons? Is it right to
live in a place where kindergartens suffer direct hits and oncology wards are a
target?
This kindergarten in Sderot suffered a direct rocket hit on Shabbat. The writing on the blackboard says: "My Eretz Israel."
What happens, on the other
hand, if they leave? If many leave? Will we lose our hold on the land? Which
begs the question: shouldn’t more of us move south to strengthen the area, and
live under fire, too?
I called my mother in
Pittsburgh. I didn’t say a lot. I didn’t need to. She has long wrestled with
the same concerns. This is how she felt when I moved to Gilo, and she couldn’t
figure out if it was over the Green Line. It's how she felt when I moved to
Gush Etzion, which is indisputably over the Green Line. She worried that it was
dangerous. That I and my children were in danger.
And yet she came to visit us
many times, staying in our home or nearby. Her friends worried about her. During the Second Intifada, when
they voiced their concerns on the eve of yet another one of her trips, this
time for my daughter’s wedding, Mom dismissed their worries with a wave of the
hand, saying, “What’s the difference if a 75-year-old-woman blows up?”
Just the idea of this makes me
laugh. My mom is such a Litvak, possessed of such a dry sensibility and humor. She
deals with things by making light of them, by minimizing their impact. It’s not
that she’s unaware of the danger. It’s that she sees the bigger picture.
And the bigger picture for her
was being there for a granddaughter’s wedding.
The bigger picture for me is
the mitzvah of living in Eretz Yisroel. I believe in this mitzvah with all of my heart and soul.
And if someone said to me: “we need you to move to the South” I would totally
go there, in spite of the missiles, the need to be near a shelter at all times,
heart racing whenever there is a siren, living to the accompaniment of
explosions, lack of sleep, interrupted sleep, interrupted business, interrupted
education, interrupted showers, interrupted love,
for crying out loud—yes. I would do it.
My daughter in-law said to me, “Every
place here in Israel has its own risks. We choose to live here for many other
reasons and we shouldn't let anyone stop us from doing that.”
This is also true. My friend
Ari was murdered for being Jewish while talking on his phone, next to our local
supermarket. And his family didn’t leave. None of us did. Efrat is a beautiful
place, with great neighbors and every convenience. We doubled down. Our
community had more children and named them after Ari. Ari’s daughter got
married.
You can’t extinguish us. Not
with your sirens, your rockets, your knives, balloons, petrol bombs, stones, kidnappings,
decapitations, rapes, terror tunnels, and car-rammings. Not in Auschwitz with gas. And certainly not
in Israel, no matter what you do.
We won’t go. And we will keep
getting married and having children. Our children will have children, too.
Couples, on the other hand, should not be getting married in bomb shelters, but in beautifully appointed wedding halls. My granddaughter, not yet four, should not be losing sleep, afraid in a bomb shelter to the tune of sirens
and explosions. She should not have to take shelter, to
cower and fear. It is not 1948.
Scout leaders should lead. Children should not have to, with their own bodies, shield other children
But mistakes have been made. There
was the Gaza Disengagement, perpetuated against the will of the people, by a former hero
of the right, under suspicious circumstances. A deed not so different from an earlier one, hailing back to 1967: What Ariel Sharon did was not so
different from what Moshe Dayan did.
Back in 1967, Moshe Dayan gave away the
Temple Mount. We’d just wrested it from the enemy after centuries of longing.
No one gave Dayan permission to do that. He just did it. And we are left to
deal with the aftermath.
Many years later, it was Ariel Sharon, expelling thousands of his own people from Gaza, after promising he would not
do so. Sharon’s actions have brought us here, to a small room in Netivot where my
granddaughter can’t be lulled to sleep with a lullaby of sirens and explosions.
Disengagement means there is no
easy solution. No matter the good intent we sense in the naming of this latest military
operation, there will be no “enduring silence” in the South. Not as long as we
continue this pattern of letting Hamas build up its arsenal, shoot up the
South, and then agree to a ceasefire after one or two operatives are killed and a bunch of empty buildings are taken out.
Can we go on like this for
endless years?
The answer is yes. We can, and
if we must, we will. In spite of feeling exhausted and blue at this endless
battle.
Because that is what it is to
be a Jew. To be an Israeli.
It’s why we have stiff necks. And
we also hope. We hope that if we do not know what to do about this state of
affairs in the South, someone else will, and if not, we still hope that God
will preserve us.
To live in this country one has
to have hope. And this is what the children of the South will be hearing
tonight, on the occasion of Israel’s 71st birthday. They’ll be hearing
the sound of hope, sung louder than ever before. It is a sound that is louder
than sirens or explosions or even a little girl’s fear. They will hear no
voices faltering, as our anthem is sung, Hatikva.
It’s a song of hope, of two
thousand years and counting. And this is the lesson our children are learning tonight.
That to be alive and in Israel
is to hope.
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Damascus, May 8 - Few living things remain on Earth, but the small number of protozoa, bacteria, and other microscopic life forms inhabiting an area best-known for a sprawling Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of the Syrian capital continue to follow the age-old practices that long characterized the locale by engaging in deadly violence.
A loose, shifting coalition of single-cell organisms calling itself the Eukaryotic State in the Levant has besieged Yarmouk for years, as rival factions within the camp fight micron-by-micron to gain or regain control of territory they held at some point during the age-old conflict. Humans abandoned Yarmouk eighty thousand years ago, but the remaining creatures maintained the ancient fight, whose origins remain shrouded in mystery but whose continuation gives the area the only character and identity it has ever known.
"We're hoping to defeat the infidel enemy by the end of Ramadan," stated General Staphylo Coccus of the Al-Staphylococcus Front, which now controls about two thirds of Yarmouk, but faces supply shortages amid the siege. "I have no idea what Ramadan is, but that's the term we've inherited, and it would be kind of shame to relinquish that piece of our heritage."
"Victory will be ours and the kufar will die or flee in everlasting shame," countered Colonel Cyano Monera of the Petri Mujaheddin. "We will liberate the Dar-al-Islam from the Zionist usurper once and for all. I hope you're writing this down and can look it up later, because in my 36-hour lifespan I don't really have time to learn what all those things mean. I have infidels to kill."
The last multicellular organism in Yarmouk succumbed to the fighting ten thousand years ago, leaving only the microbes and a slew of viruses to keep going at one another. "The so-called higher life forms despaired of living - or even dying - here a long time ago," observer Proka Ryota recalled. "Earth became unable to sustain complex life about fifty thousand years ago, possibly because of something called climate change but also possibly something called nuclear holocaust. We're not sure, because all records were destroyed in the fighting, and who cares, anyway?"
Representatives of the warring microbial colonies vowed to bring glory to Allah and their ancestors one ruptured enemy cell wall at a time, and to hoist the flag of their movement over Al Aqsa in triumph, though none of those involved could say for certain where or what Al Aqsa is or was.
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Israelis stood in silence on Tuesday night as a one-minute siren sounded nationwide to mark the start of the annual Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism.
A total of 23,741 soldiers have died defending Israel, while 3,150 civilians have lost their lives in terrorist attacks throughout the country’s history.
Another siren — two minutes in length — will be heard in the morning on Wednesday, when many Israelis will visit military cemeteries to pay respects to departed family members and friends.
At an official state ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said in remarks addressed to the bereaved, “Our wellbeing is bound up in yours. I know that you think and believe that we do not understand. That we will never understand. But today, we ask you, despite everything, to tell us.”
“Tell us about her, about him, tell us about the person,” he continued. “Take us to that space which is so full, crammed full, that they left behind in your hearts. Allow us to remember them.”
At the same event, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi said, “This is a unique moment that makes it possible to feel the heart’s screams and the storm of emotions.”
“There is no consolation, but there is meaning,” Kochavi noted. “We have a state, an army that defends it and, therefore, the [bereaved] families have an eternal right to exist.”
Tonight marks the beginning of Israel's National Memorial Day. Together, we remember the fallen, the courageous, and the brave. The IDF soldiers that fell while defending their homeland. pic.twitter.com/IzrgTr3FMN
With the red alert sirens triggered by Gaza rocket fire over the weekend still fresh in their ears, bereaved families in Ashkelon slowly filed into the southern coastal city’s military cemetery Wednesday morning to visit the graves of their lost loved ones on Memorial Day.
The official ceremony would not start for two hours, so the grieving parents, siblings and children had some private time with their fallen relatives before the cemetery would fill with over a thousand members of the general public.
Dozens of young soldiers dispatched to the burial ground in order to participate in the municipality’s official ceremony sat at benches near the entrance, talking among themselves.
Just days earlier, two more people in the city had been added to the rolls of those killed in war or terror attacks. By Memorial Day, calm had returned to the city, the wisps of smoke in the sky from rockets and interceptors replaced by downy clouds, but anger over the deadly round of violence still bubbled.
“At least these bereaved families can be comforted by the fact that their sons’ deaths stood for something. Think about that man killed Sunday when his home was hit by a rocket. What did he die for?” one fresh recruit asked in reference to 58-year-old Ashkelon resident Moshe Agadi, one of four Israeli civilians killed in attacks from the Gaza Strip over the weekend.
Last week on Holocaust Memorial Day, we remembered the cost of not having a state.
Today, on Memorial Day for our Fallen Soldiers, we remember the price we pay to have one. pic.twitter.com/dWZV2Clnbu
When wars -- and even battles -- are over, we naturally ask: who won?
Normally, victory brings with it the acquisition of advantages like increased power and land, while losing brings not only a certain degree of humiliation, but also surrendering land and control.
And stalemates -- those often bring recriminations and political headaches, especially when you are more powerful and are expected to win.
o Operation Summer Rains / Operation Autumn Clouds (2006) o Operation Cast Lead (2008–2009) o Operation Pillar of Defense (2012) o Operation Protective Edge (2014)
And now, another clash -- one that wasn't even given a name.
At The Jerusalem Post, Anna Ahronheim describes it as A Deadly Weekend Which Wasn't Even A War. She describes it as a case of terrorism and retribution where "both sides upped the ante to a deadly level not seen since 2014’s Operation Protective Edge." After snipers wounded an IDF officer and a female soldier, Israel responded with an Air Force to strike on a Hamas target in Gaza, killing two terrorists.
But matters did not end there.
Hamas responded with almost 700 rockets, during which 4 Israeli civilians were killed:
Moshe Agadi, the first Israeli civilian killed since 2014, was killed outside his Ashkelon home by shrapnel to his stomach and chest; Moshe Feder, 68, from Kfar Saba, was killed after a Kornet anti-tank guided missile struck a car near the Gaza border between Yad Mordechai and Sderot; Ziad Alhamamda was critically injured in his chest by shrapnel from a direct strike on an Ashkelon factory; and Pinchas Menachem Prezuasman was killed after he suffered severe shrapnel injuries to his chest while running to a shelter in Ashdod.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad tried new tactics:
o Overwhelming Iron Dome with massive, simultaneous firings. (They claim they were successful. Israel denies this.) o Aiming an explosive-laden drone at an Iron Dome battery. o Launching a Kornet anti-tank missile into a civilian van (Hamas tried this last year, but fired on the bus only after IDF troops had gotten off.)
For its part, Israel did something different too. It renewed the practice of targeted assassinations, killing Hamed al-Khoudary, the money man who brought funds from Iran to Gaza. This was the first such assassination since 2014, and it was carried out despite the possibility of leading to all-out war. Instead, Israel warned that the policy would continue -- and another Hamas terrorist was later killed while riding his motorcycle and the IDF also targeted the homes of other senior terrorists.
Apparently, Hamas tried to get a ceasefire early on, and Israel refused, wanting to make sure that this time around the ceasefire would be on Israel's terms.
Israel stood strong in the face of Hamas pressure, and resisted a ceasefire, under adverse conditions; a lesson Hamas will remember before renewing fire the next time its demands are not immediately met
He contends that Israel accomplished its objectives, and that "Hamas begged for a ceasefire, for a full 24 hours, before Israel agreed to one."
According to Yishai:
o It was Hamas that needed a ceasefire before Ramadan, more than Israel needed it in order to be able to hold the Eurovision song festival o By targeting military targets, even when those were the homes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders, Israel was able to defend the legitimacy of their operations in Gaza o Unlike in other operations against Hamas in Gaza, leaks to the media were prevented
A key to Israel's response to the Hamas rocket barrage was preparation, which gave the IDF "the upper hand in dictating events":
In this round of fighting, the IDF came prepared with a list of high-quality targets. It also had a planned schedule of escalation, to respond to the militants' actions, including attacking their cyber capabilities and hitting their attack drones. Some of IDF's actions are still under wraps.
This time around, the IDF was not limited to bombing empty buildings and bases.
But Yishai does have a major criticism. Lives could have been saved if Israel had evacuated residents from the border and if more Iron Dome batteries had been deployed.
And of course, the ultimate goal must be to remove Hamas.
Finally, there is retired general Amos Yadlin, who wrote on Twitter that "the balance sheet...with Hamas is mixed" because Israel still follows the strategic goal of "quiet for quiet" instead of actually restoring deterrence.
On the positive side:
o The IDF was more aggressive o The policy of targeted killings was restored o Weapons production and storage facilities in Gaza were struck o Rocket launching terrorists were hit o Key military buildings were brought down o The international community blamed Hamas for firing heavily at civilians o Criticism of Israel was minimal.
But Yadlin's list of negatives is longer:
o 4 Israelis were killed and dozens were wounded o Daily life was disrupted in a significant portion of Israel o Hamas determined the start and -- according to Yadlin -- the end of the fighting, making Israel hostage to Hamas demands o Israelis don't know the contents of the previous ceasefire agreement, nor of this one o Israel may still have deterrence against all-out war, but not against these sporadic conflicts o Israel is still allowing payments to the terrorist groups, while not speaking with more moderate groups of Palestinian Arabs o The issue of disarming the Palestinian-controlled territory has apparently been forgotten o There seems to be no effort to deal with Hamas' military build up o These battles send the message that using terror is more successful than preventing it in achieving goals
Yadlin's conclusion is that the strategy of "quiet for quiet" has outlived its usefulness and instead deterrence must be restored by hitting Hamas hard and sending the message that using terrorism carries with it a heavy price and does not get results.
Most of his negative criticism is not focused on the conduct of the battle, but rather Israel's overall policy towards Hamas. And unlike Yishai, Yadlin does not think deterrence has been restored at all.
Also, Yadlin believes that Hamas in fact, did dictate when the fighting ended.
Just 10 years ago, during Operation Cast Lead, Netanyahu was in the opposition, and clear in his criticism of how the government was conducting the war with Hamas.
o Hamas was controlled by Iran and it should “ultimately be removed” o "Hamas is at the service of Iran and militant Islam...Israel cannot tolerate an Iranian base next to its cities." o “If Iran has nuclear weapons then a forward base like 'Hamastan’ in Gaza becomes 10 times more dangerous." o Toppling Hamas from power should be a long-term goal, and “if the government also decides to adopt this goal, we will back it.”
Yet even then, Netanyahu at the time did not insist that removing Hamas had to be the goal during that particular operation.
And putting aside who would replace them, removing Hamas once and for all will require more than just sending in the airforce and using targeted attacks. It will mean sending in troops -- and incurring loss of life.
Netanyahu has tried that before, in Operation Protective Edge.
Is he willing to do it again?
Yaacov Lozowick wrote in 2014, when he was the state archivist, about bringing Netanyahu a commemorative volume of documents dedicated to Menachem Begin. Professor Arye Naor, Begin’s Cabinet Secretary, came too and discussed with Netanyahu how Begin managed the war in Lebanon compared with Netanyahu's own methods in Protective Edge.
The discussion turned to Begin’s agony at the deaths of IDF soldiers, and Netanyahu's own difficulties in sending men to die.
It proved harder than he had expected. “I thought a lot about Begin this summer, and I understood him better”
“I spoke to each of the parents [of fallen soldiers]. If they were divorced, I spoke to each of them separately. It was very hard”.
There is a profound difference between hearing about bereaved families, and actually being in one: he knows about that difference, and understands it from personal experience. But to his surprise – this was my impression – sending soldiers to their death turned out also to be hard to a degree that one cannot appreciate in advance.
We had expected to spend ten minutes in his office. The ten minutes became fifteen, then twenty; the twenty minutes became thirty, and the prime minister spoke of the horrible price of war, and of the difficulty in deciding to pay it.
“The soldiers fear death. They try to strengthen each other, and try together to be strong as a group, but they are afraid.” He knows they are afraid, and that some of them will be killed, and he sends them. A ground operation, he knows what awaits them, what preparations the enemy has made: “Some of them will die. It is inevitable.”
“They must be sent only when there is no other choice left. They must be brought back at the very first possible moment, as soon as the immediate goal has been achieved. Later, once they’re out, we’ll see what happens, but first, get them out, out, out.”
“And every night I’d get home in the wee hours, and my wife would be awake, waiting for me. She spent the days visiting the bereaved families. I only spoke to them on the phone, with each and every one of them, but she sat at their side, and at night she would tell me about them. We must send them, and we must bring them back, and I didn’t appreciate how hard it would be. A leader who loses the understanding of how difficult it is, ought to lose his job.”
We say that one of the reasons for the existence of Israel is that it serves as a refuge and defense for Jews. We say that if only Israel existed during WWII, Jewish lives would have been saved. The pressure now on Netanyahu must be enormous for him to show that he and IDF are up to their task.
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Venerable Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram has an article about Ramadan that reminds readers that Ramadan is not only a time for worship - but a great time for war, too.
"The holy month of Ramadan was not only a month of rest and worship, but history shows it has been a month of great victories and conquests, which have been an important part of Islamic history throughout the ages," the article begins.
It then goes on to describe major battles that occurred during Ramadan, from the Battle of Badr during Mohammed's time, through the conquest of Andalusia, the Battle of Tours, France where the Muslims were defeated by Charles Martel, a war against the Mongols and the Yom Kippur War.
Al Ahram was founded in 1875 and is Egypt's most popular newspaper.
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Iran’s president declared on Wednesday that the country would stop complying with two of its commitments under the Iranian nuclear deal, pushing the growing confrontation between Washington and Tehran into new and potentially dangerous territory.
The announcement by President Hassan Rouhani came exactly a year after President Trump withdrew entirely from the 2015 agreement, which limited Iran’s capacity to produce nuclear fuel for 15 years.
But Mr. Rouhani did not follow Mr. Trump’s path and renounce the entire agreement. Instead, he notified European nations that he was taking some carefully calibrated steps, and that he would give Europe 60 days to choose between following Mr. Trump or saving the deal by engaging in oil trade with Iran in violation of American unilateral sanctions.
“The path we have chosen today is not the path of war, it is the path of diplomacy,” he said in a nationally broadcast speech. “But diplomacy with a new language and a new logic.”
Starting on Wednesday, he said, Iran would begin to build up its stockpiles of low enriched uranium and of heavy water, which is used in nuclear reactors — including a reactor that could give Iran a source of bomb-grade plutonium. If the Europeans fail to compensate for the unilateral American sanctions, he said, Iran will resume construction of the Arak nuclear reactor, a facility that was shut down, and its key components dismantled, under the deal.
Mr. Rouhani then threatened a potentially more severe step. If the Europeans do not find a way to help Iran “reap our benefits,” especially in petroleum exports and banking transactions, in 60 days Iran will end the limits on the enrichment of uranium, he said. Currently, it is enriching small amounts, and only to a level of 3.67 percent, which is suitable for nuclear power plants — but not for nuclear weapons.
Without economic progress, he said, “we will not consider any limit” on enrichment, suggesting that it could rise to levels closer to something that could be used in weapons.
Iran always insisted that it had only a peaceful nuclear program, and wouldn't need to enrich beyond the amount needed for nuclear power plants. This threat makes no sense - unless Iran still seeks to build the bomb.
The key question is whether Britain, France and Germany will take a hard line against Iran - or cave to their threats. Hopefully we will get some clarity soon.
A French source indicated that Europe would reimpose their own sanctions if Iran violates the JCPOA:
Europe would have to reimpose sanctions on Iran if Tehran reneged on parts of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, a French presidency source said on Tuesday.
Iran's state-run IRIB news agency reported on Monday that Tehran would restart part of its halted nuclear program in response to the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, but added Tehran does not plan to pull out of the agreement. Iran's president is due to speak on Wednesday.
"We do not want Tehran to announce tomorrow actions that would violate the nuclear agreement, because in this case we Europeans would be obliged to reimpose sanctions as per the terms of the agreement," the source said. "We don't want that and we hope that the Iranians will not make this decision."
France, Germany and Britain, the European signatories to the agreement that lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on Iran's atomic activities, have scrambled to save the deal amid U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran since it announced its withdrawal a year ago.
However, the three have repeatedly warned Iran that it must comply with all aspects of the deal and most importantly the elements related to nuclear activity.
Let's hope so.
Meanwhile, the Iranian nuclear archives seized by Israel keep proving, over and over, that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program and hid it successfully for years.
Recently, it was revealed that the Fordow Enrichment Plant was built originally as early as 2002 to make weapon- grade uranium for 1-2 nuclear weapons per year.
An important discovery in the Nuclear Archive seized by Israel was substantial evidence that Iran was building an underground nuclear test site that was expected to be finished by 2004. Iran’s nuclear weapons program, code-named the “Amad Plan,” was developing and building five nuclear weapons, and this program wanted to be ready to test one, if a decision was made to do so. Starting in late 2000, Project Midan, the test program’s code name, created an extensive program to develop and construct an underground test site and instrument it so that the nuclear explosive yield could be determined.
The Iranian Nuclear Archive reveals that under its early 2000s nuclear weapons program known as the “Amad Plan,” Iran was developing and manufacturing a key nuclear weapon subcomponent called a “shock wave generator.” The shock wave generator is a multi-point initiation (MPI) system, which has the purpose of uniformly initiating a spherical shell of high explosives, or the “main charge,” which in turn compresses the nuclear core made from weapon-grade uranium to achieve a supercritical mass for a nuclear explosion.
All of this shows without a doubt that Iran was hiding its nuclear weapons program, and the West's ignorance of that program did not allow it enough information to see what Iran was still hiding at the time of the nuclear agreement.
The NYT said, as fact, that "Iran scrupulously followed the deal" so far. It is important to note that the IAEA does not have the ability to fully certify that Iran is complying to the JCPOA even today.
Note to many journalists and arms control pundits: Even JCPOA supporter and respected NTI senior director, Richard Johnson, does not believe the IAEA makes a compliance determination for the JCPOA. https://t.co/9ClE5P7RV1
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Israelis paid tribute Tuesday evening to the country’s fallen soldiers and terror victims, bowing their heads at 8 p.m. for a minute of silence as sirens sounded around the country, marking Memorial Day.
In all, 95 new names were added over the past year to the roster of 23,741 soldiers who died defending the country. They include 40 disabled veterans who passed away due to complications from injuries sustained during their service. Sixteen names were also added to the list of terror victims who perished in attacks, bringing the total to 3,150.
The main national ceremony, which takes place at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, was attended by President Reuven Rivlin, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi, IDF Chief Rabbi Eyal Karim, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion and others.
In his speech, Rivlin referred to that fact that this is the first Memorial Day since Israel secured the return of the remains of Zachary Baumel, a Brooklyn-born IDF soldier who had been missing since a 1982 battle in Lebanon in which he was presumably killed. Reports have pointed to intensive efforts to find and repatriate the bodies of other Israelis thought to be in Syria for decades.
“Dear families, citizens of Israel. A month ago, we brought Sergeant First Class Zachary Baumel to eternal rest, 37 years after he fell in the battle of Sultan Yacoub,” Rivlin said in his speech. “In this way, the State of Israel kept its promise to every mother and father in Israel, the obligation to bring home the men and women who did not return from battle. This is a commitment that we continue to make to the families of every one of the missing soldiers of the IDF and those fallen soldiers whose place of burial is unknown. We will not cease until they have all been brought back.”
Since Israel declared its independence 3,150 civilians have been killed in acts of war, according to a statement from Israel's National Insurance organization (Bituach Leumi).
The number includes the four Israelis killed in rocket attacks over the past weekend, in a flare-up of violence between Israel and the terror groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
13 civilians have been killed since last year's Independence Day on May 7, 2018.
In addition, there are currently 3,196 citizens alive today who have lost immediate family in acts of hostility directed toward civilians, among them 897 bereaved parents and 119 children who lost both parents.
Beginning this evening Israel will mark its Memorial Day for fallen soldiers.
This is the tenth year that the Israeli Knesset will hold a ceremony in honor of civilians killed in acts of hostility. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF Chief-of-Staff Aviv Kochavi are scheduled to participate.
A terror attack occurs within minutes, but it changes your life forever.
A bomb explosion, a stabbing, a firebomb attack, a rocket attack, a shooting attack, a kidnapping — all leave a trail of death and destruction. Lives are turned upside down, what was, is no longer, and people are left to bear the physical and emotional scars for the rest of their lives.
You can never fully fathom the devastation it causes to families who lose loved ones or are injured in attacks. Their lives are plunged into chaos and despair. You may no longer read about them in the newspapers, they no longer make headlines, but their lives changed forever.
A person driving home, enjoying a walk, shopping or just sitting at home and suddenly an attack occurs, and their entire world is turned upside down, without warning or preparation. The trauma they experience can cause feelings of helplessness, inability to function and extreme mental and physical anguish. The situation impacts the entire family and friends.
Many of those injured in terror attacks also suffer severe emotional problems. The organization has created a unique program for those ailing from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is designed to help sufferers and their spouses develop skills to cope with their trauma, improve their relationship with each other and their children.
As Yom HaAtzmaut enters, I will be speaking at a synagogue in Queens, between mincha and maariv, Wednesday evening.
It will be a different talk than those I usually give.
I usually stay very factual and practical. This talk, however, will concentrate on the miracles that preceded and continue to help modern Israel. Yes, everything can be explained in a rational manner, but when one looks at the whole picture, the many dominoes that fell into place perfectly that helped the renewed Jewish state seem to be more than just coincidence.
This is not to take away from the amazing political groundwork and military genius that Israel has benefited from, but just to highlight some of the many things that have happened over the past 150 years that cannot easily be explained rationally.
It will be only about 30-35 minutes but it will hopefully be fun.
If you are interested in attending, email me (elder @ elderofziyon,com) and I can forward the details.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
I saw an article in Al Watan Voice that claimed that in 1948, as American Jews were fundraising to save the nascent Jewish state being attacked by combined Arab armies, they shouted the slogan "Pay a dollar to kill an Arab" through loudspeakers.
Of course there is no record of this happening.
There is an apparently popular book in the Arab world with that exact name, though (it can be downloaded here.)
The book is so popular in the Arab world that a tweet from Lebanon Archives looking for the provenance of the book starts off saying "I think most of you have read this book."
It is a translation of a book by Lawrence Griswold from 1952 called "This Sword for Allah!", a "History of Palestine inspired by the author's career as a correspondent during the Palestine War at the end of the 1940s."
Griswold was an inveterate hater of Israel and an antisemite. He is mentioned in the American Jewish Yearbook of 1957: "Lawrence Griswold published a newsletter, Background for Tomorrow, which in its October 31, 1955, issue, referred to "the selfish aggressiveness of privileged Jews, both in this country and abroad. . . . Thoughtful Americans should consider well, if they wish to avoid the demoralization of society which follows pogroms, whether they should employ enlightened self-interest now and write off the ugliness of Israel."
Apparently, Griswold made up the libel of Jews saying "Pay a dollar to kill an Arab" and Arab antisemites loved his work so much they translated his book where he apparently made that claim. Now it is considered common knowledge in the Arab world.
(h/t Ibn Boutros)
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On Monday, another ceasefire went into effect after a massive round of hostilities from Gaza. Since Saturday, some 700 rockets have been launched by Hamas and Islamic Jihad at Israel. Four Israelis were killed and more than 200 wounded, including those suffering from shock. Neither the offensive itself nor the way it ended were a surprise. Even the timing was not unexpected. Israeli officials had predicted for a long time that the Palestinian terrorist movements in Gaza would exploit this particular, sensitive period to try to gain extra benefits – ahead of Israel’s Independence Day, the first anniversary of the US relocation of the embassy to Jerusalem and, significantly, the Eurovision Song Contest being hosted by Israel in Tel Aviv next week.
Although officials denied that the timing of the Eurovision had anything to do with the efforts to quickly end this round of hostilities, it was clearly on people’s minds. Instead of being able to showcase the country to boost tourism (as every host country wants to do) there would have been a danger that Israel would be seared even more in international minds as a no-go war zone.
Similarly, that the end of the hostilities coincided with the start of Ramadan is also no coincidence. It is doubtful that either Hamas or Islamic Jihad wanted Gaza to be under war conditions during the month when Muslims fast during the day but have festive meals and gatherings every night. Ultimately, even the terrorist regime that controls the Gaza Strip knows that it has to answer to the people who live there. Despite Gazans’ public joy at every Israeli fatality and at perceived PR victories, the ordinary residents of the Strip are not eager to suffer another devastating war.
Exact details of what the ceasefire entails are not yet clear. Indeed, the government has done everything to avoid calling it a ceasefire at all, because it wants to prevent a situation in which it could be interpreted that Israel is officially recognizing Hamas, a terrorist organization.
However, we can make some assumptions based on previous ceasefires, and sadly there are ever shorter periods between the rounds of hostilities.
While Hamas and Islamic Jihad attempted to overwhelm Israel's Iron Dome by firing numerous rockets at a specific location, comparatively few rockets actually succeeded in penetrating the system, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
In one case, over the course of one hour on Sunday evening, at least 117 rockets were fired at the city of Ashdod, but only one made it past Israel's air defenses.
Maj. Tom Scott, a commander at an Iron Dome battery in southern Israel, said the missile defense system is capable of intercepting "many different threats," including "large barrages or short-range rockets or rockets fired at high altitude or at low altitude."
While Iron Dome is not impenetrable, in the latest round the system had an 86% success rate - similar to previous rounds of intensive rocket fire.
Scott noted that the Iron Dome's radars successfully spotted every rocket and mortar launch, which ensured that Israelis were warned of incoming projectiles ahead of time by sirens.
Following two days in which Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired around 700 rockets at Israel, Hamas’ official TV channel warned that if Israel does not honor the understandings to Hamas’ satisfaction, the terrorist organization can disrupt the Eurovision contest as it is being held in Israel.
After praising the performance of the joint war room of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Mu’min Meqdad, the “Hebrew Affairs Editor and Expert” for Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV, warned that Hamas can disrupt the Eurovision Song Contest in Israel:
Al-Aqsa TV “Hebrew Affairs Editor and Expert” Mu’min Meqdad: “There is no doubt that the resistance [Hamas] or the negotiator gave the occupation very little time to implement these understandings. I think that the coming days will be a test for the occupation. If the occupation evades [its responsibilities], I believe that the resistance [Hamas] can deprive the occupation the pleasure of a number of the coming opportunities, such as the European Song Contest. There is still room to maneuver in the coming days.” [Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), May 6, 2019]
Later in the broadcast, the Al-Aqsa TV editor assured the viewers that Hamas “will have the last word”:
Host: “Clearly there is a decision regarding the siege that it needs to be eased or changed in a clear manner in which the civilians will feel it, because the situation here in Gaza is very difficult.”
Mu’min Meqdad: “[Hamas] will monitor... the implementation of the understandings... If the occupation changes its mind or evades these things, there is no doubt that the resistance will have the last word."
Following 2 days in which Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired around 700 rockets at Israel, Hamas’ official TV channel warned that if Israel does not honor the understandings to Hamas’ satisfaction, Hamas can disrupt the Eurovision contest.
A record number of visitors from Muslim countries came to Israel last year, including nearly 55,000 from countries that have no diplomatic relations with Jerusalem.
According to figures provided by the Population and Immigration Authority on Monday, 72,109 citizens of Egypt and Jordan (the only Arab countries with which Israel has full diplomatic ties), Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Qatar, Malaysia, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia visited Israel in 2018.
These numbers mark an increase of 15 percent from the previous year, when 62,658 tourists from the aforementioned countries traveled to the Jewish state.
This will come as news to NYU's Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, which released a statement last week that said it will boycott Israel in part because of "Israel’s long-standing discriminatory policies (as acknowledged by the State Department) of barring entry to Palestinians or persons of Arab descent and Muslim heritage."
As I noted last week, the State Department said no such thing - because it does not lie the way NYU academics do.
Andrew Ross, Director of American Studies at andrew.ross@nyu.edu
Dean Saranillio, Director of Undergraduate Studies at ds3859@nyu.edu
Benjamin Zinevich, SCA senior, JVP, SJP at bz697@nyu.edu
Rose Asaf, SCA senior, JVP, SJP at roseasaf@nyu.edu
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Badr was the site of Mohammed's first major victory against the much larger Mecca army.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards are prioritizing the design of missiles that can be built locally in areas that Iran wants to expand its influence. If Islamic Jihad can build the latest Houthi weapons, it would be a major advance and a worrying development.
Iranian media also heavily covered the Badr-3 launches.
The not-very-reliable Debka claims that the Badr 3 has a warhead that weighs 250 kg and a range of 150 km. It also claims that it explodes above the ground to maximize the area of shrapnel. Islamic Jihad is reporting but not confirming Debka's claims.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
Avishai Raviv and the Israel Media, 1997-98
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Thursday, May 09, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
