RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2014/09/air-raid-shelters-road-masada/

This essay originally appeared in our September 2014 edition.
It is reprized as a reminder that, for Israel and the Jews,
when things change they get even worse

The road to Masada, my road at any rate, began not in Jerusalem but three weeks earlier in Northcote, that quiet, secure and exquisitely fashionable suburb on the outer edge of inner-city Melbourne, where a dinner invitation saw the table talk soon turn to Israel. The television news that night had led with reports from Gaza—images of rockets heading north interspersed with grim-faced Israelis asserting that enough was enough. “You can’t support Israel, surely not?” marvelled a fellow guest, a chap with some sort of academic sinecure who had begun airing his impeccably righteous views well before the crudités were whisked away.

If you watch ABC television, listen to Radio National or once read Mike Carlton in the Sydney Morning Herald, there will be no need to cite another word or talking point, for it was all there in my fellow guest’s laundry list of the lockstep Left’s latest crusades and grievances. Had it not been for the irregular sprays of spittle that marked his more animated complaints, he might have been a life-size example of those talking dolls with the programmed catchphrases small children expect and enjoy. Just pull the string and out the clichés tumble to their immediate delight.

“Seriously,” he continued, “I’ve got nothing against Jews, except when they act like Nazis.” This observation passed for wit, and the table was ringed with wry smiles at Zionism’s evil being so pithily laid bare. Our hostess was a lovely woman, someone whose passions run hotter for hemlines and health fads, and this being Melbourne, her favourite football team, than international affairs. She had laboured long and hard to prepare the evening’s fare, so rather than ruin her night, to my shame I let the comment pass with nothing more muscular than a meek and muttered, “That’s not really fair.” If there is a book of postmodern etiquette it must surely advise that taking up such a gauntlet is best done over dessert, when harsh words can no longer ruin a fine main course of well-cooked organic beef.

On the way home, modern Melbourne was John Batman’s sleepy village: light traffic, no perils but for unilluminated cyclists and those low-rise roundabouts which town planners have insisted on placing at nearly every intersection. If there was a moment of anxiety it came at the roadblock near the zoo in Royal Park, but it was only a sobriety checkpoint manned by Victoria Police with their blow-in-this demands. It is an ostentatiously safe place, this city on the Yarra, protected from unpleasantness and peril at every round-the-roundabout turn of life’s daily journeys. Safe to live and raise a family, to pursue love if that joy is not already yours. And safe, too, to mount abstraction’s pulpit and sermonise from the great heights of moral clarity, as the blowhard from the ivory tower earlier demonstrated, about the murderous shortcomings of others in a distant and far, far more perilous land.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20033/palestinian-war-on-israel

Less than 48 hours after 20 US Democratic Senators urged President Joe Biden to push for the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Iran’s Palestinian terror proxies launched a massive attack on Israel, killing more than 700 Israeli men, women and children, and wounding thousands more. An unknown number of Israelis (estimated at more than 100), including infants, toddlers and an elderly Holocaust survivor in a wheelchair, have also been kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip.

This war, as noted by the Wall Street Journal, was caused directly by Iran, which funds and directs Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and by the appeasement of the Iranian regime by the Biden administration and its allies.

The two groups [Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad] do not recognize the Oslo Accords that were signed between the PLO and Israel in 1993-1995, and they are opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state only in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The only solution they believe in is one that would see Israel replaced with an Islamic state.

If the Democratic senators have it their way, the future Palestinian state will also be controlled by Hamas and PIJ.

Instead of condemning the Palestinians for transforming the Gaza Strip into a base for Jihad against Israel, the Senators who signed the letter are asking the Biden Administration to give the Palestinians another state in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Like the Gaza Strip, the new Palestinian state will also be quickly transformed into an Iran-backed terror entity and a base for pursuing the Jihad against Israel.

In the past two years, Hamas and PIJ have increased their terror activities in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority (PA), headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, has done nothing to stop terror attacks against Israelis. Abbas knows that the day he orders his security forces to crack down on the terrorists, his people will condemn him as a traitor and collaborator with Israel.

Instead of denouncing the terrorists, Abbas continues to reward them with monthly stipends through what is known as a “Pay-for-Slay” program. In 2021, the Palestinian Authority spent no less than 841 million shekels ($270.75 million) paying rewards to terrorists. 600 million shekels ($193.16 million) were paid to imprisoned terrorists and released terrorists and another 241 million shekels ($77.59 million), at least, were paid to wounded terrorists and the families of dead terrorists. That totals, in just one year, $541.5 million (nearly 1.7 billion shekels).

In their letter, [the Senators] make no mention of the tens of thousands of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel over the past two decades — into a country roughly the size of New Jersey (22,000 km2), or the thousands of rockets that are raining down on Israel since October 7. Imagine thousands of rockets fired into New Jersey.

The Senators also failed to mention the wave of Palestinian terrorism that Israel has been facing over the past two years in the West Bank. Hardly a day passes without Israelis being targeted with shootings, stabbings, and car-rammings.

The Senators further ignore Abbas’s “Pay-for-Slay” program that rewards terrorists and their families, as well as the Palestinians’ ongoing campaign of incitement to violence… The Senators want to give a state to a Palestinian president who pays salaries to terrorists and goads them to murder on a regular basis.

The Senators calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state also ignored the fact that the Palestinians have never abandoned the Palestine Liberation Organization’s 1974 “Ten Point Plan” (also known as the “phased plan”) for the “comprehensive liberation” of all the land stretching “from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea” — a euphemism for the destruction of Israel.

The Palestinians [in 2005] were given, with no conditions, the entire Gaza Strip. They replied by launching tens of thousands of rockets into Israel. These are inconvenient facts that the 20 Democratic Senators, who appear to be shockingly uninformed, do not want to acknowledge.

It now remains to be seen whether the same Senators who are pushing for the establishment of a Palestinian terror state will speak out against this latest grisly massacre of Jews.

Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg Sr. (March 22, 1884 – April 18, 1951)  coined the phrase: “Politics stops at the water’s edge” condemning those who criticize their nation abroad.

Melanie Phillips writing  today: “Jews on the left, including those now wringing their hands over the massacre in Israel, are complicit in this malignant echo chamber.”

Both apply to Israelis Daniel Gordis, Matti Friedman and Yossi Klein Halevi who penned a vicious plea to American supporters of Israel in February 2023 in the middle of leftist protests which fractured the nation, asking them to oppose the legally elected Prime Minister of Israel.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/an-open-letter-to-israels-friends-in-north-america/

An open letter to Israel’s friends in North America: Diaspora Jews have both the right and the responsibility to speak out against a government that is undermining our society’s cohesion and its democratic ethos

He is, according to their diatribe:

” A prime minister currently on trial for corruption, and who has appointed ministers with criminal records, is claiming legitimacy to overturn the legal system. Understandably, many of Israel’s supporters want to believe that Netanyahu is still a cautious conservative loyal to the country’s liberal DNA. In fact, though, he has become a very different kind of leader, one who subverts the national interest to his own. A wise leader encourages unity among his people; Netanyahu is stoking hatred and schism.

And a not so subtle threat:

The North American Jewish community has steadfastly come to the aid of Israel at moments of crisis. Israel belongs first of all to its citizens, and they have the final word. But Israel also matters to the entire Jewish people. When an Israeli government strays beyond what your commitments to liberal democracy can abide, you have both the right and the responsibility to speak up.

Israeli leaders need to hear where you stand. North American Jews and their leaders must make clear to this government that if it continues on the path to transforming Israel into a country of which Diaspora Jews can no longer be proud, there will be no business as usual.

https://www.thejc.com/lets-talk/all/the-hamas-pogrom-is-the-result-of-the-wests-refusal-to-accept-the-idea-of-evil-2HXpjrqVX2QVwC0q3WnTmO

Israel’s heart has been broken. At war once again against genocidal enemies, its people are shattered by shock, grief and horror.

At time of writing, the number of those murdered has risen to 800, with 2,315 wounded and at least 100 being held hostage in Gaza.

The images of what happened will stay with us forever. 

Elderly people and small children were slaughtered; women were raped; bodies taken into Gaza were paraded and desecrated; mothers with children in their arms were abducted and are now being held as hostages in Gaza’s terror tunnels.

This was barbarism and depravity, not seen on such an infernal scale since the Holocaust.

Every one of these attacks on Israeli civilians was a war crime. It is a moral imperative to destroy the forces who committed them and who — as they tell us — are intent upon eradicating Israel and the Jewish people.

And yet the US State Department said after the pogrom: ‘We urged all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.”

All sides? That means the US is telling Israel to “refrain” from defending its people. Should the Americans have refrained from waging war against Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban after 9/11 as a “retaliatory attack”?

Of course not. Such moral equivalence, it seems, applies only to Israel. It is also the default position of the western left.

https://twitter.com/VDHanson/status/1710741034320417027

Why did Hamas stage a long-planned, carefully executed and multifaceted attack on Israeli towns, soldiers, and civilians—one designed to instill terror by executing noncombatants, taking hostages, and desecrating the bodies of the dead?

And how were the killers able to enter Israeli proper in enough numbers to kill what could be hundreds and perhaps eventually wound what could be thousands? a) Ostensibly, radical Palestinians wanted to stop any rumored rapprochement between the Gulf monarchies—the traditional source of much of their cash—and Israel, by forcing the issue of Arab solidarity in times of “war”, especially through waging a gruesome attack aimed at civilians and encompassing executions and hostage taking.

Iran likely was the driving force to prompt the war—given its greatest fear is a Sunni Arab-Israeli rapprochement. b)  Arab forces have had only success against Israel through surprise attacks during Israeli holidays, as in the Yom Kippur War (i.e., was it any accident that the present attack began 50-years almost to the day after the October 6, 1973 beginning of the Yom Kippur War?).

And so they struck again this Saturday during Simchat Torah, coming at the end of a weeklong Jewish celebration of Sukkot—in hopes that others will join in as happened in 1973. (So much for the Arab warnings not for Westerners to conduct war during Ramadan).

c) Hamas may have reckoned that recent Israeli turmoil and mass leftist street protests over proposed reforms of the Israeli Supreme Court had led to permanent internal divisions and thus a climate of domestic distraction if not an erosion of deterrence. But, more importantly, in a larger sense the Biden administration has contributed both to the notion that Hamas was a legitimate Middle East player, and to the perception that the U.S. was backing away from its traditional support for Israel—to the delight of Hamas—based on the following inexplicable policies:

1) In February Secretary of State Blinken had bragged that not only had the Biden administration resumed massive aid to the PLA cancelled by Trump, but cumulatively had transferred $1 billion—even as Palestinian authorities bragged that they would continue to pay bounties to the families of “martyrs” (i.e., those killed while conducting terrorists attacks against Israel). And millions of American dollars also went into Gaza, run by Hamas—despite the Biden administration’s efforts to keep mostly quiet the resumption of such inexplicable support. In this regard, note the current shameful State-Department (“U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs”) website news release that was posted after today’s attack. It ended with this quite embarrassing, morally equivalent admonition: “We urged all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.” “All sides?” “Refrain from retaliatory attacks?” So Israel is the moral equivalent of terrorists executing civilians and brutalizing their corpses? And the IDF then is not supposed to retaliate against these killers? This Biden State Department insanity cannot stand. So expect some apparatchik to take down this Munich-like posting as soon as possible.

2) The Biden administration had recently released some $6 billion to Iran through a prison swap deal that saw South Korea hand over embargoed Iranian money to Qatar—despite Tehran’s  increased anti-Israeli rhetoric and its loud brag about the escalation. We should assume money for rockets (Hamas claims they have launched 5,000, and have received 100,000 of them via the Damascus airport) and weapons in general for Hamas were supplied by Iran, which again is likely the chief catalyst for this surprise attack.

3) Almost immediately, after his inauguration Biden mobilized to resume the bankrupt Iran deal. And in unhinged fashion he appointed the anti-Israeli bigot, pro-Iranian journalist Robert Malley as America’s chief negotiator. Note that Malley is now under FBI investigation for security breaches, involving disclosing classified U.S. documents and also for allegedly helping pro-Iranian activists and propagandists land influential billets inside the U.S. government. In short, there was a general Hamas and Iranian perception that the Biden administration had resumed the discredited Obama madness of empowering Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

This discredited agenda was to “balance” the power of Israel and the moderate Arab Gulf governments to achieve “creative tension”, exacerbated by Biden’s loathing of the government of Benjamín Netanyahu (who has been snubbed by Biden and never invited for an official visit).

Note as well that the Biden administration has siphoned off key weapons and munitions from stockpiles inside Israel to transfer them to Ukraine. The so-called “War Reserve Ammunition—Israel” is all but depleted of just the sorts of weapons needed in the present crisis. In this regard is there not a pattern here? Upon the ascension of Biden and his woke military agendas, we saw the following: the complete humiliation of the U.S. in Kabul in its most shameful flight in 50 years and greatest abandonment of equipment in its history; followed by Vladimir Putin’s opportunistic invasion of Ukraine; followed by China’s new belligerence and escalating threats to Taiwan; followed by Turkey’s new de facto alliance with Russia and recent drone encounter with the U.S. air force in Syria; followed by the Hamas/Iranian inspired attack on Israel—with more to come unfortunately.

And will Biden finally get the message from the attacks on the Ukraine and Israeli borders, that borders matter and we too are being invaded, with the encouragement of the Mexican government and to the advantage of the cartels whose fentanyl exports kills 100,000 Americans a year?

What to expect in Israel? Expect the following: the usual Hamas/terrorist selling and/or execution of Israeli hostages, the use of Israeli hostages as “human shields” in Gaza,  the bargaining/sale of the remains of Israeli dead, occasional killings of Jews inside Israel by Arabs who falsely believe there will be a winning Middle East-wide existential war against Israel. And finally, a devastating Israeli counter-response that will eventually earn a U.S. rebuke. What should the U.S. instead do? It should quit talking to Iran and restore full sanctions against it. It should cut off all aid immediately to all the Palestinians. It should undertake a 1973-like massive arms lift of key munitions to Israel and warn Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and others in the Middle East not to intervene or else, given that Israel will need several weeks to deal with Hamas and Gaza. And if it shows any hesitation or weakness, other terrorist groups will opportunistically jump in.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/israels-counter-offensive/

With the support of the Iranian regime, its terrorist proxy Hamas unleashed horrific attacks on a massive scale against Israeli civilians by land, sea, and air on October 7th. The terrorists launched their savage rampage on the Jewish Sabbath and holiday of Simchat Torah, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity against defenseless Israeli civilians in what is being called Israel’s 9/11.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that “We are at war, not an operation, not rounds, but at war.” He vowed that Hamas will pay an “unprecedented price,” adding, “We will defeat them to death and take revenge for this black day.”

The war could be on the cusp of widening, with Iran’s Lebanese-based terrorist proxy Hezbollah firing missiles into the northern part of Israel. A two-front war would put all of Israel’s population in mortal danger.

Israel has not faced a war of this magnitude since the Yom Kippur War that Egypt and Syria launched against Israel on October 6, 1973.

Israel’s counteroffensive has already begun. Hopefully, this time the Israeli military will finally do whatever it takes to destroy Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad once and for all and that Israel will reject any calls for a ceasefire in the interim.

Hamas fired several thousand rockets into Israel from Gaza in one day. The huge barrage overwhelmed Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, which could not prevent some of the rockets from reaching their targets with devastating results. The terrorists also broke through border fences between the Gaza Strip and Israel to carry out their barbaric ground attacks.

The terrorists so far have murdered at least 700 Israelis and wounded many more. Several Americans were also reportedly killed. The terrorists have taken at least 100 hostages, including dozens of American citizens, and transported them to Gaza. In scenes reminiscent of Nazi Germany, the terrorists shot civilians at point blank range and abducted Israeli women, children and the elderly from their homes and Israeli streets. Some of the hostages have been reportedly taken into the tunnels beneath Gaza where the Palestinian terrorists store their weaponry, effectively turning the hostages into human shields. No doubt, the hostages who remain alive will serve as bargaining chips for the release of terrorists imprisoned in Israeli jails.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/10/09/did-bidens-policy-to-isolate-israel-lead-to-hamas-deadly-attack/

“With our ally Israel at war today, we can only hope the conflict is brief and settled in Israel’s favor with minimal bloodshed. In the meantime, U.S. weakness and overtly anti-Israel policy is a main cause of this nightmare and is yet another reason for Americans to think seriously about how they vote in 2024.”

It’s a tragic fact that Hamas’ attack that killed hundreds last weekend was a deadly salvo against the very existence of the Jewish state of Israel. But it was also an attack on the West’s weaklings who have once again enabled terrorism. And, sadly, that includes the U.S.

It was no accident that Hamas used a “Festival for Peace” concert near Gaza as an offensive on the very existence of the multi-ethnic, democratic state of Israel. Those attending no doubt thought their good intentions and good wishes for peace would be a shield against such atrocities.

Sadly, terrorists saw this as vulnerability, and took advantage. But it wasn’t just the concert that tempted them.

No, it was weakness among the political left in Israel, which seems to believe that calling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “fascist” and craven acquiescence to terrorists will buy peace, and also among leaders in Europe, who somehow imagine that terrorist groups in the West Bank and Gaza are the moral equivalents of Israel.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-is-an-iranian-war-gaza-israel-terrorism-massacre-kidnapping-military-4d6b2137?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

As Jews celebrated a festive holiday on Saturday, the Iranian-backed Palestinian militia Hamas invaded Israel from Gaza. Spreading out through Israeli towns, the terrorists went house to house gunning down innocent civilians, including hundreds of young revelers at an outdoor “peace” rave. They abducted scores of civilians—the precise count is as yet unknown—including women and children, as hostages; and chilling videos have surfaced of them desecrating bodies and parading captives through the streets of Gaza, as large crowds yell “God is great.”

It is a rampage of unspeakable cruelty, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. It is also a security catastrophe of unprecedented proportions for Israel’s military and political class. Much time will be spent figuring out the causes and responsibility. For now, some broader observations:

First, call it the Iran-Gaza War. To be sure, Hamas bears responsibility, and any serious Israeli response will involve its total, unconditional defeat. But Hamas is an ally and instrument of Iran. An operation of such scale and complexity is unlike anything Hamas has previously attempted and strongly suggests significant Iranian involvement. Hamas has publicly thanked Iran for its support, and Iran’s supreme leader applauded the invasion.

In the north, Israel faces Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy that has de facto control over much of Lebanon, with a vast arsenal of missiles aimed at Israeli cities. Iran is reportedly close to nuclear breakout. This is the war with Israel that it wants—on Israeli soil, through once-removed marauding militias. Tehran terrorizes much of the Middle East in this manner.

Any serious response must go through Tehran. If the U.S. and the international community are truly outraged by the scenes of senior citizens gunned down on the street and women and children abducted, they must not only refrain from limiting Israel’s operation in Gaza but resolve to oust the genocidal regime in Tehran. President Biden’s policy has been exactly the opposite. His administration has sought rapprochement with and even allegedly been manipulated by an Iranian influence operation. He has eased sanctions and in recent weeks gave the mullahs $6 billion for the release of American hostages.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-strikes-hamas-and-hezbollah-sites-hunts-intruders-in-the-south-f8f40203

TEL AVIV—Israeli troops engaged in fierce fighting into the early hours of Monday morning to regain control of swaths of the country’s south after Hamas militants flooded in from Gaza, with the military struggling to reseal the border to further incursions.

The last infiltrators from Gaza were being hunted down with the task expected to take at least a few more hours, military spokesman Jonathan Conricus said in a livestream on X, formerly known as Twitter, around 2 a.m. local time Monday.

Throughout Sunday, the Israeli government was still working to evacuate civilians from towns and villages near Gaza, densely populated Palestinian enclaves, and authorities worked to treat hundreds of wounded civilians, recover the bodies of the dead and try to determine how many Israelis were being held hostage.

The Israeli cabinet approved a declaration of war after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Saturday a call-up for hundreds of thousands of military reservists, saying in a televised address: “We are at war and we will win it.”

Iran-backed Hamas said it had been able to send additional men and weapons into Israel on Sunday and it launched a fresh barrage of missiles from Gaza.

Meanwhile, another Iran-backed militant group, Hezbollah, fired mortar shells and a missile at Israeli targets from southern Lebanon. The Hezbollah attacks raised the specter of a second front opening in the conflict as Israel prepared for broader strikes on militant targets in Gaza. Hamas sought to sow more turmoil, calling for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to riot and confront Israeli soldiers there.

Late Sunday, Gaza militants fired another barrage of rockets, while Israel carried out airstrikes in the Palestinian territory. The Israeli military also said that one of its marine commando units had captured a Hamas deputy commander of the militant group’s naval force.

More than 700 Israelis have been confirmed dead, and 2,408 wounded, according to Israel’s Army Radio. At least 413 Palestinians have been killed and around 2,300 injured in Israeli counterstrikes on Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/378095

Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of the British military forces in Afghanistan, spoke to Israel National News – Arutz Sheva on Sunday about the Hamas-launched war on Israel in which over 350 people have been murdered so far and stated that Russia’s hand can be seen in the attack in addition to the hand of Iran.

The attack began with a coordinated breach of the Gaza border fence at multiple locations accompanied by the firing of thousands of rockets into southern Israel, allowing squads of terrorists to penetrate into Israel and attack numerous communities and cities in southern Israel in the early morning. Israel was caught completely off-guard by the assault, representing a massive intelligence failure.

“I have no doubt that questions about this intelligence failure are being addressed now in the Israeli government,” Col. Kemp said of the failure to predict and stop the deadly Hamas onslaught. “I am sure there will be a full inquiry when the current situation is stabilized. Until then we can only speculate. This attack has been called Israel’s 9/11 by some people, or Israel’s Pearl Harbor, both of which were also accompanied by tragic intelligence failure.”

He stated that Iran and Russia were behind the attack which was, according to him, “too complex for Gaza terrorists to pull off on their own.”