RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://benjaminkerstein.substack.com/p/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and

“I used to care,” Bob Dylan once sang, “but things have changed.”

I’m afraid that I’m feeling much the same these days regarding the prospect of Palestinian statehood. Up until Oct. 6, I felt that while a Palestinian state would be problematic in many ways, we still had an obligation to adhere to the same right we demand for ourselves—self-determination. I also believed that demographic issues and the corrosive effect of continuous occupation left Israel no option but the two-state solution.

As a result, I supported the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza because I felt those arguments still held despite multiple Palestinian refusals of peace and their continuing embrace and promotion of terrorism.

I must admit that I was wrong. Things have changed. A generational trauma will do that sort of thing. At the moment, “the day after” this war is a matter of complete indifference to me. I do not know what the political future of the Palestinians will be. I also don’t care. I care solely about preventing another Oct. 7 or worse. If that means a Palestinian state must never be established, then so be it.

I believe this for two reasons. The first is a matter of principle, the second is wholly practical in nature

First, though I still believe that all peoples have a right to self-determination, I do not believe that the Palestinians have the right to determine themselves upon the destruction of Israel. Oct. 7 made it clear that this is precisely what they have done and intend to keep doing. Statehood would only further this ambition, and this cannot be morally justified under any circumstances. In fact, to do anything that would further such an ambition would be, by definition, not only immoral but anti-moral.

In practical terms, it is now very clear what the nature of a Palestinian state would be. The Gaza withdrawal was often described at the time as an experiment. On Oct. 7, we received the results. They have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that a Palestinian state would be a genocidal terrorist entity, likely of a theocratic nature, with the ultimate intention of aiding in the establishment of a global Islamic tyranny. The world already has several states of this kind—most notably Hamas’ ally Iran—and certainly does not need another one.

https://www.nysun.com/article/four-months-into-the-war-against-hamas-the-idf-is-far-outperforming-american-expectations-report-says

Did President Biden try in October to throw Israel off a ground operation in Gaza? If so, Israeli pluck and knowhow are — at least so far — carrying the day.

What is for some a slow go and daunting political landmine is for others a bigger success story than has been publicly acknowledged — namely, Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, and the American outlook on it could be about to change. 

It is no secret that the relationship between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu is about as warm as the month of February. What is lost in the miasma of increasingly strained relations between Washington and Jerusalem is that irrespective of attempts by the White House to micromanage the conflict and despite comments by Mr. Biden himself that Israel’s military response has been “over the top,” the truth is that some bumps in the road notwithstanding, it has mostly been spot on. 

For proof of that, one can look at how all of Hamas’s terrorist battalions in the northern Gaza Strip have been decimated or how the Hamas mastermind, Yahya Sinwar, is said to be cowering like a rat in a dark tunnel somewhere underneath Khan Younis. 

One can also look at an underreported meeting that took place in Israel about a week after Hamas attacked on October 7. As journalist Amit Segal reports in this weekend’s edition of the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, at that time Mr. Biden dispatched a three-star Marine heavyweight, Lieutenant General James Glynn, to Israel as well as two senior officers with a view to advising Israel on what to do — and what not to do — in  its operation to rout Hamas in the Gaza Strip. 

According to the Yedioth report, the Americans sought, at the president’s behest, to “help the commanders of the IDF think about the difficult questions before them.” That thinking hinged mainly on trying to dissuade Israel’s military leaders from launching a ground operation in Gaza. 

It was done by playing the Jewish guilt card: to wit, by prognosticating 20 daily IDF casualties if Israel went forward with a ground invasion, which by Mr. Glynn’s estimation, Mr. Segal writes, would be “time-consuming and bloody.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/14/david-camerons-patronising-advice-would-doom-israel/

David Cameron has virtually called on Israel to surrender to Hamas as it prepares to destroy the terrorist group in Rafah. For that is surely the meaning of his words on Monday: “What we want is an immediate pause in the fighting and we want that pause to lead to a ceasefire”. That’s also exactly what Hamas want, and has demanded from Israel — an end to the war that it is catastrophically losing. 

Would Cameron have called for a ceasefire as Allied troops were poised to cross the Rhine in March 1945? By that time millions of German civilians had been killed in the fighting and it was a certainty that many more would die as the war proceeded towards unconditional German surrender. 

Of course Israel cannot halt its offensive now any more than the Allies could then, and Cameron must know that – just as Blinken knows it. In reality their words of caution to Israel amount to virtue signalling aimed at the Israel-sceptical elements of their electorates. Like a schoolmaster lecturing a recalcitrant schoolboy, Cameron has told Israel to “stop and think very seriously before it takes any further action”. 

Who does he think he’s talking down to? Does he seriously believe the Israeli war cabinet and general staff have not been working round the clock for months, “thinking seriously” about every action they take in this war? Meanwhile Blinken has told Israel to come up with a plan to minimise civilian casualties before they launch the campaign against Hamas in Rafah. In other words, exactly what they are already doing and have been doing with considerable success since this war began. 

So far the IDF has wreaked devastation on Hamas. It appears the terror army is no longer able to function as a coherent entity, with reports that senior leaders are unable to communicate with their combat units. The IDF says the Hamas fighters that remain in Rafah must now be dealt with, along with the terrorist leadership there. 

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

In 1922 the infamous British White Paper bowing to Arab pressure ceded 76 percent of the Palestine Mandate- all the land east of the Jordan River to the Hashemites who forbid Jewish settlement.

The British justified their betrayal with the statement: “England…does not want Palestine to become ‘as Jewish as England is English’, but, rather, should become ‘a center in which Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride.’ 

Well Michael Ordman’s weekly catalog does indeed inspire interest and pride and current demographics show that Israel is far more Jewish than England is England. rsk

POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR
 
Dramatic rescue of two Israeli hostages. (TY WIN) All of Israel celebrated the news that IDF special forces had rescued two Israeli-Argentinian hostages in a daring overnight operation in Rafah. The President of Argentina had just completed his historic visit to Israel and was also delighted with the outcome.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel-at-war/1707714683-idf-rescues-2-hostages-during-op-in-rafah
 
Rescue app saves lives.  The app Digital 101 is one of the technical innovations that has vastly improved survival rates of wounded IDF personnel during the current war. The app, developed by Israel’s K Health (see here previously) and two army reservists, transfers medical data about the wounded from battlefield to hospital.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/ryc9a00yia
 
Critical gear for female IDF soldiers. Operation Israel is a group of over 100 volunteer professionals and experts. They have shipped millions of dollars’ worth of critical gear to the IDF. They are now responding to urgent requests from female IDF soldiers for properly fitting shoes, helmets, vests, uniforms, and backpacks.
https://www.jns.org/wire/operation-israel-launches-girl-power-to-equip-women-idf-soldiers-with-critical-gear/
https://www.operationisrael.org/   https://www.operationisrael.org/girlpower
 
‘Falafel King’ donates 25,000 portions to IDF. Shimon Biton, owner of Falafel Biton in Be’er Ya’akov, south of Tel Aviv, has been dubbed the “King of Falafel.” He has donated 25,000 portions of Israel’s national snack to IDF soldiers fighting in Khan Yunis in Gaza. In addition, security personnel always eat free at his restaurant.
https://www.jns.org/falafel-restaurant-donates-25000-portions-to-israeli-soldiers/
 
The biggest homecoming yet. 80% of southern moshav Shokeda’s 132 families have returned to their national-religious community, 4 miles from Gaza. The homecoming was the largest single movement of people into the Tekuma Region near Gaza since its evacuation following Oct 7. Some immediately began mowing their lawns.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/4-miles-from-war-in-biggest-homecoming-yet-hundreds-of-evacuees-return-to-shokeda/
 
Malawi kibbutz workers sing for hostages. In recent months, agricultural workers from Malawi in Africa have been working at Kibbutz Zikim. The issue of the kidnapped Israelis touches their hearts and prompted an acapella band to make a new arrangement of the song; “Home” and a music video filmed in Malawi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzJpEwpYsLA
 
Gaza mystery (TY UWI) While the IDF was fighting Hamas in the Bani Suheila neighborhood of Khan Yunis, they discovered a desk in one of the houses. On it was an inscription which read: “The table of the late Levi Eshkol.” Donation of Dubek Ltd. 1981.” How did the desk of Israel’s ex-Prime Minister (1963-69) get there?
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/385142
 
Oct 7 Heroes medal. (TY UWI) “The President’s Medal for Civilian Heroism,” is to be awarded to civilians who showed outstanding heroism on October 7. The announcement said it is to honor ordinary citizens, who risked their lives, “out of a sense of unity of fate and mutual Israeli guarantee, with the aim of saving lives.”
https://www.algemeiner.com/2024/02/13/israels-president-announces-new-civilian-heroism-medal-for-heroes-of-october-7/
 
Bedouin Oct 7 heroes honored. Military service for members of the Bedouin tribes is not mandatory, yet more than 1,500 are presently serving in the IDF. Public figures came to the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem as a tribute to 13 civilian Bedouin who saved men, women, and small children while being fired at by Hamas.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-786571  
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Another breakthrough in dementia research. Tel Aviv University researchers found a method of preventing memory deterioration in the animal model of Alzheimer’s disease. They detected physiological changes that appear 10 to 20 years prior to cognitive decline. They also hope to prevent cognitive issues from anesthesia.
https://www.jns.org/israeli-team-prevents-memory-deterioration-in-alzheimers-animal-model/
 
A gut feeling. (TY UWI) Researchers from Israel’s Bar-Ilan University have uncovered a potential link between Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and the composition of the gut microbiome. Certain bacteria were more prevalent and diverse in those with ASD. It could lead to the development of possible treatments.
https://tps.co.il/articles/israeli-research-points-to-gut-microbiomes-role-in-autism-spectrum-disorder/
 
Neurofeedback device effective for treating PTSD. (TY Dr Salem) In a recent trial, the Prism neurofeedback device from Israel’s GrayMatters Health (see here previously) significantly improved the condition of 67% of the chronic PTSD patients in its recent trial. Almost one third achieved remission after three months of therapy.
https://nocamels.com/2024/02/brain-activity-monitor-proves-efficacy-in-ptsd-therapy-study-finds/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165178123006613
https://www.graymatters-health.com/clinical-publications
 
Doctors removed 3lb tumor from 4-year-old. (TY UWI) Surgeons at Israel’s Emek Medical Center in Afula successfully removed a huge Wilms tumor (see here previously) weighing 1.3 kg from a four-year-old child. The tumor, in the right kidney, measured 16 cm by 12 cm and constituted over 7% of the girl’s body weight.
https://tps.co.il/articles/israeli-doctors-remove-1-3-kilo-tumor-from-toddler/  
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/wilms-tumor/symptoms-causes/syc-20352655#
 
Hadassah’s new rehab center. Wounded IDF soldiers from Gaza are being treated at the new Gandel Rehabilitation Center in Jerusalem, part of the Hadassah Medical Organization, which opened in January 2024. Construction sped up after Oct 7, thanks to $29 million from the government plus $5.5 million donations.
https://www.jns.org/wounded-warriors-find-multiple-ways-to-heal-at-hadassahs-new-rehab-center/
 
Egyptian girl treated in Israel. The daughter of an Egyptian official was injured in a traffic accident and hospitalized in Cairo. She was then transferred to Hadassah Hospital, where there is a dedicated ward for complex trauma in children. Israel approved the transfer as a humanitarian gesture.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/384823

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20396/gaza-october-7-regionally-globally

Israel’s cause is the cause of the Free World as is Ukraine’s and Taiwan’s.

Domestic supporters of Hamas, trying to constrain Israel by “lawfare” and by noisy street and media politics, are therefore a fifth column for our enemies and should be treated as such.

Unsuccessful “lawfare” at the International Court of Justice served to narrow and make harder the road out of Gaza for all local parties. The biggest losers are those Arabs who are neither Islamists nor anti-Semites: for their territorial hopes have been written out of history at present by Hamas and Iran. Prosperity and tranquillity for them will only return with resumption of the Abraham Accords…. Netanyahu is surely correct in stating that any attempt to push for a two-state solution at this moment would endanger Israel.

Globally, in the context of a developing worldwide multi-theatre and multi modal contest between the Free World and the dictatorships, the most humane and swiftest route to peace is controlled escalation on our terms which reaches out and helps Iranians to end the shaky and bloodstained regime of the Iranian ayatollahs.

The right sort of war – meaning war on Western terms, in which we and not our enemies have escalation dominance — is sometimes the most peace-friendly option….

There are always dire consequences when the two strands of the double helix of “history as facts” and “history as beliefs” are torn too far apart. Chaos ensues. Dark forces are liberated.

Just this has happened for Israel and its neighbourhood since Hamas perpetrated the pogrom of 7/10. In the hundred days until the world turned upside down with the South African led attempt to weaponise the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) to tar the victim of a transparently genocidal attack with charges of genocide — an attempt which failed, but only just — all routes out of the dark chaos have steadily narrowed. After the ICJ’s vexatious ruling which tried but was unable to declare Israel to have committed genocide, even moreso.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/u-n-aid-chief-calls-hamas-a-political-movement-denies-that-it-is-a-terrorist-group/

During a television interview yesterday, the United Nations’ top humanitarian-aid official denied that Hamas is a terrorist organization. “I’ve worked with many, many, many different terrorist and insurgent groups. Hamas is not a terrorist group for us,” he said, opting to describe it as a “political movement” instead.

The official, Martin Griffiths, oversees the coordination of the U.N.’s humanitarian aid in his capacity as undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs. He made the comments during an interview on Sky News yesterday after an anchor asked him about the difficulties of negotiating with terrorist groups. Griffiths also said that it’s “very difficult to dislodge these groups without a negotiated solution which includes their aspirations.”

This sparked a controversy, with the Israeli government’s official social-media account calling the U.N. an “abomination.” Although the U.N. officially does not consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization, the U.S., the EU, and numerous other governments have designated it as such. Griffiths could have certainly referred to Hamas as a terrorist organization despite the perplexing lack of its official designation by the U.N.

He later tried to walk back his statement, referring to Hamas’s “acts of terror on 7 October” and writing that he merely meant to say that it is not on the U.N. Security Council’s list of terrorist organizations.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20395/israel-enemies-judicial-reform

[T]he reports about military reservists threatening not to report for duty created the impression among Iran’s mullahs and their terror proxies that the Israeli security establishment had been seriously undermined and was on the verge of collapse.

“Their [Israel’s] own officials continuously warn that their collapse is nearing. Their president says this, their former prime minister says this, their [military] chief says this and their defense minister says this. They all say it.” — Iranian Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei, April 5, 2023.

Iran and its terror proxies were reportedly happy to see… threats by reserve soldiers and pilots to refrain from participating in military service.

As Netanyahu’s political rivals were busy protesting against him, Israel’s enemies were making preparations to invade Israel. Convinced that Israel had been weakened to the point of being unable to defend itself, Hamas chose October 7 as the date to launch the assault. In the Middle East, weakness invites violence, and when your enemy smells blood, you can bet it will go for your throat.

The controversy over the judicial reform proposed by the government of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year was what likely encouraged Iran’s terror proxies Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis to attack Israel. The mullahs in Tehran and the three Iran-backed Palestinian, Lebanese and Yemeni terror groups viewed the dispute over the reform as proof of Israel’s perceived weakness, disunity and a sign of its imminent demise.

Israel’s enemies have always shown great interest in political, security, economic and social events in Israel. They closely follow these events and devote huge efforts to analyzing them as part of the “know thy enemy” doctrine.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israel-winning-gaza

Anyone who has ever been in combat knows that the enemy is almost always invisible, because to remain alive one must remain behind good cover: The one and only time I saw live enemies walking toward me, I was so astonished that I hesitated before opening fire (ill-trained, they were walking into a blinding sun).

It is the same in urban combat, but much worse because the invisible enemy can be a sniper behind a window—and any one of the countless apartment houses in Gaza has dozens of windows—or he can wait with an RPG at ground level to pop out and launch his rocket, whose short range makes it of little use in open country but is amply sufficient across the width of a street. Mortars, which launch their bombs parabolically in an inverted U, are exceptionally valuable in urban combat because they can attack forces moving up one street from three streets away, beyond the reach of immediate counterfire.

Finally, there are mega-mines: not the standard land mines with five to 10 kilos of explosives placed on the ground or just under, but wired demolition charges with 10 times as much explosive covered over with asphalt, to be exploded when a tank, troop carrier, or truckload of soldiers is above them.

That is why, from the start of Israel’s counteroffensive into Gaza, almost all the media military experts, including colonels and generals festooned with campaign ribbons (though few if any had ever seen actual combat) immediately warned that Israel’s invasion of Gaza could not possibly defeat Hamas, but would certainly result in a horrifying number of Israeli casualties, before resulting in a bloody and strategically pointless stalemate.

Israel has effected massive cost savings while reducing its reliance on U.S. resupply—and taking the steam out of propaganda claims about bombing and artillery massacres.

And that was before it was realized that there were hundreds of miles of tunnels beneath Gaza, from which fighters could emerge from invisibility to attack advancing soldiers from the rear, or to set up instant ambushes in apparently cleared terrain, and through which encircled fighters under attack could safely escape. In the special case of Gaza, moreover, the crowded urban battlefield offers endless opportunities for the easiest of tactics, because contrary to accusations that only expensively educated U.S. college students could possibly believe, Israeli soldiers do not deliberately kill innocent civilians going about their business. Therefore Hamas fighters can be perfect civilians walking alongside women and children right up until the moment they duck into the right doorway to take up prepared weapons and come out shooting

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/insight/

Staffan Tillander, a retired Swedish diplomat, wrote an assessment of terrorist-stronghold territories published by the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune.

XX is only estimated to have perhaps 4 to 5000 fighters, but it thrives on rifts and conflicts in society … threatening (the people) into obedience and forcing them to supply the group with support and people. It extorts “taxes” from businesses and individuals and kidnaps children and forces them to become fighters. As long as XX controls land in YY, peace and development will remain an uphill battle, with constant setbacks …

If XX teaches us anything, it is the danger posed by an entrenched terrorist group. It is urgent to stop jihadist terrorist groups, wherever they appear, to block their advance and to roll back their control. In YY, they have been able to infiltrate and permeate society and its institutions, use banks and companies to launder money, control trade and harbors, and to prevent peace and state-building efforts.

No, it is not Hamas in Gaza.

Tillander was writing about Al Shabab in Somalia.

But the principle is the principle. It is impossible to create a safe, prosperous civil society when the levers of power are in the hands of terrorists. This is the conclusion Israel has reached—not only regarding Hamas in Gaza but with the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria.

Yet, American diplomacy is still wedded to the “two-state solution,” suggesting—no, insisting—that there cannot be peace in the Middle East until the Palestinians have an independent state, but without consideration of what happens if you give more power to terror organizations. And the P.A. is no less a terror organization than Hamas.