RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.city-journal.org/article/365-days-of-october-7

How do you commemorate something still unfolding? That question looms large, on the 365th day since October 7, as we grapple with the brutal reality of a world irrevocably changed. How do we honor the lives lost on that terrible day and in the ensuing war for Israel’s survival, while also committing to build a future defined not by tragedy but by strength and resilience? We might never find a satisfactory answer. But to begin our search for one, we must recognize that the struggle spans both physical and ideological battlefields.

First is the literal battlefield. The horrific attack by Hamas on October 7 was not just a terrorist assault; it was an attempt to break the spirit of a nation, to humiliate and destroy it. That day will be forever etched into our collective memory, a deep national wound. But out of that darkness, and perhaps because of it, Israel has risen with a fierce resolve, fighting an existential war that has now spread far beyond its original borders, as the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies besiege the Jewish state from all sides.

And yet, the tragedy of October 7 has been followed by victories that nobody could have imagined. Hamas, whose brutality knows no bounds, is now on its knees. Hezbollah, until last week viewed as an existential threat to Israel, has been defeated in what will inevitably be viewed as the most jaw-dropping counterterrorism campaign in history. The targeted killings of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran serve as a stark warning to the Grand Ayatollah that nowhere, not even within the heart of Iran, is safe.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20998/palestinians-celebrate-death-of-jews

Palestinians have a custom of celebrating in the streets every time Israel is attacked or a Jew is murdered by terrorists.

It is hard, if not impossible, to find one senior Palestinian official who is willing to criticize his own people for celebrating terrorist attacks. It is also hard, if not impossible, to find one senior Palestinian official who is willing to condemn the October 7 atrocities and massacres against Israelis. Palestinian leaders have good reason not to speak out: they are afraid of being killed by their own people.

Last month, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, ignored the Hamas attack and instead accused Israel of committing “massacres,” “crimes,” and “genocide” against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Needless to say, Abbas also ignored the fact that a large number of Palestinians expressed support for the Hamas-led October 7 attack and took to the streets to celebrate the brutal mass-murder of Israeli women, children and the elderly.

Palestinian leaders who do not have the courage, or are unwilling, to denounce terrorism will never be able to call on their people to recognize Israel’s right to exist, let alone make peace with it. Palestinians who celebrate the murder of their neighbors are not ready for a state, which will undoubtedly be used as a springboard to slaughter more Jews and to try to destroy Israel.

There is no excuse for celebrating murder. A society that celebrates murder will never be a partner for peace. True peace will only come when Palestinian leaders values their people’s lives more than celebrating the murder of Jews.

Palestinians have a custom of celebrating in the streets every time Israel is attacked or a Jew is murdered by terrorists.

The latest Palestinian celebrations took place on October 1, 2024, when Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel. The celebrations occurred even though some of the missiles fell in Palestinian areas in the West Bank and the only person killed was, ironically, a Palestinian man in the city of Jericho.

In one West Bank village, Palestinians erected a monument from the tail of an Iranian missile to celebrate Iran’s attack on Israel.

Similar celebrations took place in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and in many countries when Iran launched its first direct missile and drone attack against Israel in April. According to a report by Iran’s Tehran Times:

“It was also a sleepless night in Ramallah and other cities in the occupied West Bank, that saw excited crowds of Palestinians gathering in the streets and pointing to the skies amid the visible trails of Iranian missiles flying, with a celebratory mood until the early hours of Sunday morning.”

The largest celebrations occurred a year ago, on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Iran-backed Hamas terrorists and “ordinary” Palestinians invaded Israel from the Gaza Strip and murdered 1,200 Israelis. During the attack, thousands of Israelis were raped, tortured, and burned alive, while more than 240 others were kidnapped into the Gaza Strip. A year later, 101 Israeli hostages are still being held by Hamas terrorists.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-oct-7-war-one-year-later/

On Oct 7, 2023, thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded Israel. Their mission was to wipe out the Jewish population in the nearby towns, secure them and use them as forward operating bases for the next phase of the war. While the atrocities they committed in that initial assault, entire families burned alive in their homes, women raped and kidnapped, and babies killed, made it look like a terrorist attack on a large scale, Oct 7 had not been meant as a hit and run operation.

Hamas had risked too much and put too many men in the field for it to be anything other than an invasion. Its plans to continue advancing into Israel appear unrealistic only out of context.

The thousands of terrorists from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah had been meant as the tip of a larger spear. Thousands of Hezbollah and allied terrorists had been in position on Oct 7. Had Hamas been able to hang on to Israeli territory, they would have invaded the Galilee, but after the initial shock and long delays throughout that first day, the Israeli military regrouped.

The Hezbollah invasion was postponed until it was briefly revived by the Islamic terror group around the time of the pager attacks and then shut down by targeted Israeli strikes.

Oct 7 had been Hezbollah’s plan before it was executed by Hamas. Hezbollah had even spent years boasting about using its network of tunnels to invade and conquer the Galilee, but the funding and plans had come out of Tehran. Yet when push came to shove, Hezbollah hesitated.

Iran had planned for an Oct 7 that would have dealt a catastrophic blow to Israel. The original plot would have seen coordinated Hamas and Hezbollah invasions backed by heavy rocket campaigns not only by Hezbollah, but by the Houthis in Yemen and Iran’s militias in Iraq targeting Israeli bases, military assets and infrastructure. Terror groups in the West Bank would have launched their own assaults creating a multi-front guerrilla war deep inside Israel. Even if Israel had beaten back the attacks, many of the Jewish communities would have been in ashes.

https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/let-israel-decide-how-to-respond-to-irans-missile-attack/

President Biden pushes Israel not to respond to Iran’s ballistic missile attack by targeting its nuclear or oil sites, while former President Trump blasts Biden and suggests that, in fact, Israel should hit Iran’s nuclear sites.

Their public disagreement over Israel’s proper course reminds us that, notwithstanding Senator Arthur Vandenberg’s dictum of the early Cold War years that politics should stop “at the water’s edge,” it rarely has.

Presidents have long shaped their foreign policy with domestic politics in mind. FDR promised the nation just days before his re-election in 1940 that “your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars,” though he knew that America’s entry into World War II was both necessary and inevitable. JFK planned to withdraw U.S. forces from Vietnam but not until his second term, fearing an earlier withdrawal would ignite a “who lost Vietnam” backlash that threatened his re-election in 1964.

Now, a month before our Election Day, Israel is battling Iran and its terror proxies on multiple fronts, civilian lives are at risk in multiple nations, global leaders are pushing for ceasefires and “de-escalation,” and Vice President Kamala Harris is battling Trump for Jewish and Muslim votes in a razor-close contest.

But, however understandable in political terms, Biden and Trump’s comments are nevertheless badly misguided in geopolitical terms because they undercut our closest regional ally at an ominous moment.

Consider, by way of historical example, the absurdity of such public counsel to any nation under siege.

“We shall carry the attack against the enemy,” FDR told Congress a month after Pearl Harbor, with nearly 2,500 service members and civilians dead and the United States now at war with both Japan and Germany. “We shall hit him and hit him again wherever and whenever we can reach him.”