RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/what-is-the-proportionate-response-to-terrorism/

On October 7th, 2023 – a date that will live in infamy – an army of bloodthirsty Hamas jihadists swarmed into Israel and laid waste to a reported 1400 innocent, unarmed civilians including women, children, the disabled, and old people, committing war crimes of a sickening nature that historian Victor Davis Hanson has labeled “pre-civilizational.”

In response to the terror assault, the Jewish state justifiably declared war on Hamas, with Israeli leader Bibi Netanyahu vowing that every single member of the terror organization is now a dead man walking. And right on cue, the mainstream (read: left-wing) media, left-wing politicians, and globalist institutions like the farcical United Nations Security Council that are packed with enemies of the Western world, demanded that Israel exhibit “restraint” in its response and refrain from “disproportionate violence.”

This curious notion of “proportionate response” comes up every single time Israel is hit with a terror attack. Has a single one of the aforementioned talking heads or politicos or global entities ever called for Hamas terrorists to show “restraint”?

What retaliation is “proportionate” to the burning alive of families, the gang rape of female prisoners, the beheading of babies and toddlers, the torture of old people, and the kidnapping of hundreds more who live in terror that their beheading will be live-streamed on the internet? What would the anti-Israel Left consider an acceptably “proportionate” response to those atrocities? Would they be satisfied if the Israeli Defense Force limited itself to a surprise invasion of Gaza, burning Palestinian families alive, raping Palestinian women, beheading Palestinian infants, torturing Palestinian grandmothers, and kidnapping hundreds of Palestinians? Because technically, that would be proportionate.

Of course not. The same Western leftists who celebrated the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th would have apoplectic fits of outrage if Israel ever perpetrated a single one of these war crimes. The revulsion and shock these hypocrites should have felt over Israel’s victims are reserved only for the “oppressed” so-called Palestinians. Let’s be real: the only response to Hamas terrorism which the Left considers appropriate for Israel is for the Jewish state to sit on its hands and submit to its own extermination.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hamas-defenders-wield-words-as-weapons-91713cee?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

John F. Kennedy said of Winston Churchill that he “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.” From Pericles to Abraham Lincoln, words have often been as effective as armaments in shoring up a people’s defenses, reinforcing an army’s resolve, or inspiring a unit’s bravery.

But in war, as in peace, words can also be used to demoralize and disorient. They can be used—and have been—more deviously by the enemy, and its quill-, microphone- and laptop-carrying enablers and propagandists, to obfuscate and confuse, to seed doubt in a just cause.

The war in the Middle East is a month old but it is producing plenty of the latter. From the streets of American and European cities, television studios, newspaper columns and legislatures, we are being bombarded with rhetoric that seeks to persuade us not to believe what we see, to convince us that right is wrong, justice is tyranny, terrorism is heroism.

I’ve lost count of the number of words that are being manipulated in this way. All kinds of cunning efforts have been used to get us to see that the country whose citizens were wantonly slaughtered on Oct. 7 by an enemy that has sworn to wipe it from the planet is in fact the wicked oppressor. But here are a few of the highlights:

• Cease-fire. This is the most frequently used and superficially persuasive misuse of terminology. “Cease-fire” sounds straightforwardly decent. Who could object to the cessation of hostilities that are killing and wounding thousands?

Nine days after the attack, 13 Democrats in Congress submitted a resolution urging that the Biden administration “immediately call for and facilitate de-escalation and a cease-fire to urgently end the current violence.”

But we know what that would mean: victory for Hamas. It would mean that the terrorist group should be allowed to continue to run a statelet only a few weeks after it has made good on its commitment to attack its neighbor and done so with complete disregard for international law or common decency.

Even after Hamas’s leader helpfully spelled out that, in the event of a cease-fire, the terror group would reinitiate hostilities again and again until it had killed every Jew.

• Genocide. “Joe Biden supported the genocide of the Palestinian people,” says a video posted by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), in one of many such claims by opponents of Israel. There is something especially malignant about this term to describe Israel’s operation—and those propagating it know that full well. They know its resonance in the history of the Jewish people, and they use it deliberately to equate what happened to the Jews at the hands of the Nazis with a military action today that is justified in self-defense, but which inevitably, tragically results in large numbers of civilian casualties—often because Hamas itself deliberately exposes civilians to harm.

To use this term is a form of Holocaust denial. If you can suggest that what Israel is doing in Gaza is equivalent to what happened in the gas chambers, then you are explicitly reducing the Holocaust to the level of a regrettable byproduct of a legitimate military campaign. That apparently so many of our young people—and a disturbing number of elected Democratic officials—seem to believe this is shaming.

• Decolonization. This is a favorite term of the obfuscators and apologists for terror, partially because it neatly ties up the whole intersectional, Black Lives Matter, critical race theory baloney with what is supposedly happening in the Middle East.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/hamass-fateful-errors

Hamas seems to have made two fundamental miscalculations in staging its barbaric October 7 attack on Israel.

First, its leadership clearly assumed that the United States would not continue to support Israel if it killed enough of the Palestinians whom Hamas has been using as human shields to protect its command centers and underground tunnel networks in Gaza.

Second, Hamas apparently assumed that if enough Palestinians in Gaza died in Israeli bombing, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and its patron Iran would escalate the conflict by opening a second front in the war, a scenario that has clearly worried both Israel and Washington.

Both calculations might still prove valid if Palestinian deaths and suffering in Gaza continue to command the world’s attention and spark increasing outrage, but Hamas’s hope that Iran and Hezbollah, which has de facto control of Lebanon, would escalate the conflict to defend Hamas and the Palestinians of Gaza seems to be misplaced.

Last Friday, in his first public comments since the October 7 attack, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that an expanded war remains a “realistic possibility,” but he did not declare an official intervention in the conflict.

Speaking in a sermon broadcast after Muslim prayers Friday to thousands of supporters in Dahieh, Hezbollah’s main stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs and elsewhere in Lebanon, Nasrallah denied that his militant Shiite Muslim “Party of God” played any role in Hamas’s attack on Israel. Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, he said, was “100 percent Palestinian in terms of decision and execution.” Hamas, he added, had kept it secret not only from fellow militant groups in Gaza, but also from “other resistance factions across the resistance axis”—that is, from Iran.

https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-4-point-plan-for-toppling-hamas

The goal of the war as defined by the political echelon is “toppling Hamas.” We must not settle for such vague wording. Clear and measurable benchmarks need to be adopted to clarify the meaning of “toppling.” Otherwise, we will find ourselves in another aggressive cycle with the attempt to create within the Israeli consciousness, not the Palestinian one, the narrative as if this was an overwhelming Israeli victory.

“Toppling of Hamas” has a clear and specific meaning. Israel needs to announce a four-part plan that will make it clear to our enemies and friends that we are committed to the goal we set for ourselves on October 8. Namely, a strategic change in the region. Here are the four points.

1. Hamas’s military wing comprises roughly 30,000 people. Those who survive will leave Gaza permanently, following a similar model to the expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organization from Lebanon in the 1980s. This should be Israel’s clear and unequivocal position from the beginning of the conflict. The sooner Hamas surrenders, the more of its people’s lives can be spared. This is also the only deal that is feasible in relation to the Israeli captives. When Yahya Sinwar understands that he can leave the Strip “alive or dead,” he and his colleagues in leadership will choose to save their lives and be willing to exchange the captives. The IDF in Gaza in 2023 is more lethal and powerful than the IDF in Beirut in 1982. Israel needs to make sure the region knows this. Around 11,000 PLO members left Lebanon after more than a month of siege in Beirut. The military wing members of Hamas in Gaza cannot stay either, even if it requires a three-month siege. This is also a necessary condition for the return of the people of Sderot and Netivot to their homes. Just like the PLO went to Qatar, so too will Hamas members go to Qatar or Turkey.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20125/gaza-humanitarian-pause

A pause or a ceasefire would allow Hamas to regroup and prepare new attacks against Israelis.

On November 4, Hamas took advantage of a humanitarian window of opportunity… and carried out attacks with mortar fire and anti-tank missiles against Israelis.

On November 4, however, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, to his credit and that of the Biden administration, rebuffed calls for a ceasefire, as “such a halt right now would only allow Palestinian militant group Hamas to regroup and attack Israel again.” The next day, however, Blinken continued his calls for “humanitarian pauses” — which Hamas would also use to prepare new attacks.

The Biden administration should be denouncing Hamas for forcing Palestinians — about whom it cares so deeply that it shoots at them to prevent them from fleeing to safety — to die as human shields in its genocidal war to slaughter Israelis and destroy Israel.

The Israeli victims of Hamas’s October 7 massacre were not given a chance to flee through a safe corridor. No one called on Hamas to accept a “humanitarian pause” as its terrorists were committing atrocities against Israelis that day in cities and towns near the Gaza Strip. The terrorists invaded Israel for one purpose: to murder, rape and behead as many Jews as possible.

Hamas and its patrons in Iran would be delighted to see a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip so that they can say that international pressure forced Israel to halt its war. Any “humanitarian pause” should start only after all the hostages have been released…

The Biden Administration has been pressuring Israel to agree to “humanitarian pauses” in the war against the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group, whose members carried out the October 7 massacre in which 1,400 Israelis were murdered and thousands more wounded. Hamas has also kidnapped more than 240 Israelis into the Gaza Strip, including toddlers, women and the elderly.

By calling for “humanitarian pauses” in the war, the Biden Administration is throwing a lifeline to Hamas. A pause or a ceasefire would allow Hamas to regroup and prepare new attacks against Israelis.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/11/05/this-time-all-signs-are-that-israel-will-finish-the-job/

There are many reasons for any sane person to regret the existence of Hamas, the savage Sunni Muslim militia that controls the Gaza Strip in Southern Israel. Founded in 1987, the group has specialized in terror attacks against Israelis while maintaining vigorous side-concessions fomenting anti-Western sentiment and keeping their own populace in a state of wretched poverty.

Such are the convoluted workings of providence, however, that the world may eventually find itself grimly grateful for what one percipient observer called “the Sabbath Massacres”: the barbaric slaughter perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023, which left some 1,400 dead, thousands wounded, and more than 200 kidnapped and held hostage in Gaza.

The main reason to be grateful for this horrific carnage follows from the revelation it afforded. In the first place, by acting with such savage and sanguinary abandon—deliberately targeting the young and helpless, the old and infirm, raping, mutilating, beheading—Hamas in effect signed its own death warrant.

We’ve seen all the usual suspects fulminating against Israel, “the Zionists,” “the Jews.” A prominent Hamas spokesman called Ghazi Hamad said in an interview that the Sabbath Massacre of October 7 was only the start, that there would be many more and similar attacks “until Israel is annihilated.”

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/flashes/618788

The Swords of Iron war has extracted a terrible price in Israelis dead and wounded,mostly on the day of Hamas’ surprise attack on southern Israel. But it accomplished what was not possible in any other way.

Until Hamas’s declaration of war, most people, including many Israelis, believed that PLO and Hamas terrorists could be bought off with economic, diplomatic, and territorial incentives, concessions and rewards. The world poured $billions into their coffers, no questions asked, despite constant terrorist attacks. Except for Arab and Muslim countries which support them (e.g. Iran, Qatar, Malaysia, Pakistan, etc), that delusional thinking has not stopped, but the world understands what Hamas is.

Until the war, many people believed that Palestinian Arabs were entitled to a state by international humanitarian laws, such as the right of self-determination, and promoted as “the two-state solution” (2SS). This was the basis of the Oslo Accords, the creation of the Palestinian Authority, and it became enshrined as a moral principle, regardless of the leadership and purpose of such a state.

Then-Israeli PM Ehud Barak used it to offer Yasser Arafat a state; then-PM Ariel Sharon used it to justify the expulsion of Jews from the Gaza Strip (the “Disengagement”); and then-PM Ehud Olmert used it to make even more generous offers to Mahmoud Abbas. They were rejected, as usual, since it required accepting Israel’s right to exist. Nevertheless, until the war, the 2SS was supported by the international community, the media, and many Israeli leaders.

That is no longer the case. No one who cares about Israel is talking about the 2SS.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

Israel fights for survival on the battlefield and for humanity and against its ills-famine, drought, disease, and epidemics in the myriad laboratories, hospitals, research and eleemosynary institutions. Michael Ordman details these amazing contributions which continue even during war.

rsk

POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR
 
Civilians raise money for IDF. Our People is a new volunteer NGO of 100 people, primarily immigrants from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and South Africa. It has raised $3.7 million to purchase and deliver ceramic inserts for the standard combat vest that IDF frontline soldiers use.
https://www.jns.org/startup-on-steroids-civilians-raise-3-7m-to-equip-idf-troops/
 
Vegan meals for soldiers. The Israeli startups joining Israel’s Redefine Meat (see last week) to provide plant-based meats and dairy alternatives to the IDF include Green Butcher, More Foods, YoEgg! Foods and Creative Pea. JO-MO Chocolate also provided sweet treats.   https://www.jomo-chocolate.com/
 
Feeding preemies.  Magen David Adom National Human Milk Bank announces that since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct 7, hundreds of liters of Israeli breast milk has been donated to feed premature babies and babies whose mothers have been killed, abducted, or injured, or who have been called up to military duty.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/magen-david-adom-says-over-600-liters-of-breastmilk-provided-since-start-of-war/  https://www.israel21c.org/israeli-milk-bank-overflows-in-response-to-victims-babies/
 
Sew important. 400 volunteer fashion designers, design students, lecturers, and graduates, at Tel Aviv’s Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, work in shifts to help complete IDF gear for reservist soldiers. They stitch pockets and straps that attach to the ceramic bulletproof vests worn by combat soldiers.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/designers-sew-for-combat-soldiers-pivoting-from-fashion-to-function/  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z42AUAKValY
 
A hotline for non-Hebrew speakers. The Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies at Bar-Ilan University has recruited dozens of volunteers to help non-Hebrew speakers contact emergency responders and aid organizations. It aims to help callers with immediate medical, emotional and logistical needs.
https://www.israel21c.org/hotline-providing-interpreting-services-during-wartime/
 
Israeli Arab reservists fight fake news. Arab-Israelis who volunteered to serve in the IDF and are now in the reserves, are informing the Arab world of Israel’s case. Their main message is “Everyone was shocked by Hamas, which is against Islam.”  https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bkzwfzgg6
 
UK Ambassador volunteers. (TY Hazel) British Ambassador to Israel Simon Walters volunteered at Asif – Culinary Institute of Israel, that since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 has been functioning as a center for cooking, packing, and shipping food to families evacuated from their homes, hospitals, and more.
https://www.israelhayom.com/2023/10/31/916291/
 
Female fighters save lives. (TY Hazel) Israel’s Caracal Battalion, led by Lt.-Col. Or Ben-Yehuda and comprised mostly of female IDF combat troops, eliminated approximately 100 terrorists on Oct 7. Also, orthodox border police Superintendent Shifra Buchris, plus 3 from her unit, rescued many at the rave party.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-769134
https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/sj00o9xgp
 
All my sons. The story of Ruti, a mother of 12, who has 6 sons (5 married) and 4 sons-in-law serving in the IDF reserves. She also has 3 grandchildren in the IDF.  https://www.timesofisrael.com/mother-of-12-has-six-sons-4-sons-in-law-3-grandchildren-and-1-nephew-in-the-idf/  
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
The premier of Surgical Theater’s AR spine surgery.  (TY OurCrowd) Stanford Medicine performed the first spine surgery using the augmented reality technology from Israel’s Surgical Theater (see here previously). The successful tumor resection operation employed Surgical Theater’s SyncAR Spine platform.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/surgical-theater-announces-first-augmented-reality-spine-surgery-at-stanford-medicine-successfully-executed-with-syncar-spine-301962538.html
 
Great results in heart monitoring trials. (TY Atid-EDI) The SmartHeart monitoring system from Israel’s SHL Telemedicine (see here previously) is undergoing trials at Imperial College London. It has reduced ER visits by 27.5% and hospital readmission rates by 55%, surpassing expectations.
https://www.shl-telemedicine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/20230926_Mayo-Imperial-initial-results-Final.pdf
 
US approval for dialysis artery connector. The US FDA has approved the VasQ External Vascular Support from Israel’s Laminate Medical Technologies (see here previously). It follows a US 144-patients study. VasQ safely connects a patient’s arteries and veins to dialysis machines, by creating arteriovenous fistulas or AVFs.
https://vascularnews.com/laminate-medical-announces-fda-clearance-for-vasq-avf-creation-device/
http://www.laminatemedical.com/news-events/
 
US funds Israeli virus versus bacteria trial. (TY OurCrowd) Israel’s MeMed (see here previously) has been awarded nearly $727,800 from the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to support a trial of its 15-minute MeMed BV test that distinguishes between bacterial and viral infections.
https://www.me-med.com/press_release/memed-awarded-us-barda-contract/
 
Devices to relieve stress. Israeli startups XRHealth (see here previously) and CalmiGo (see here previously) are donating their anxiety-relieving devices to hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities and mental health centers throughout Israel. XRHealth’s headsets and CalmiGo’s inhalers help relax worried citizens.
https://www.israel21c.org/israeli-firms-donate-anxiety-relieving-devices-to-citizens/

https://www.thefp.com/p/the-untold-stories-of-gazans?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Watch this video of a grieving woman in Gaza cry out. She says: “All this is because of the dogs of Hamas.” She’s immediately—literally—silenced.

Why?

Since taking power in a 2007 coup, Hamas has violently repressed all opposition to its rule. There is much to repress: recent Palestinian survey data shows most Gazans distrust Hamas, want an alternative government, and prefer economic development over war. But their individual voices are rarely heard. Those who speak out face prison and torture.

In the first episode, a resident of Gaza City shares widespread Palestinian anxiety that international humanitarian aid for Gaza will not reach the people who need it. In Gazans’ experience, he says, “When Hamas distributes the aid, only Hamas members get the aid.” The same applies to Gaza’s healthcare system, where “Hamas families get preferential treatment” and even the most urgent needs of others “could be delayed for a long time so that Hamas loyalists are treated first.”

Some foreign journalists try to cover these voices but face deportation for doing so, while others show little interest in Palestinian grievances unrelated to the conflict with Israel.

My organization, the Center for Peace Communications, has been helping the population breach this communications blackout by interviewing Palestinians across the Strip, from all walks of life, about their travails and aspirations. A mother who dreams of her children getting a proper education. A photojournalist punished for taking pictures. A young couple who hopes to start a family, outside of Gaza. 

Earlier this year, we released their testimony in a series called Whispered in Gaza: 25 short segments, using video animation to protect their identities, accompanied by Gazan polling, rights reports, and reportage.

Following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, we reconnected with these and other Gazans to gather new testimony. We sought to understand their reaction to the Hamas assault and their views of the developing war, and to document their struggle to survive amid cascading tragedies. 

We are partnering with The Free Press to showcase their voices in a new series called Voices from Gaza, which you can watch below.