More Commentary. Dov Not Dovish. Egg On Their Faces.

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I reached out to a dear Israeli friend and his response:

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Hi Dick, thanks for reaching out. So far we are well. A sad joke I hope you will appreciate - what is common between President Biden and the Israeli people. Both don't trust our government to run the situation right...

Thank God he is sending an aircraft carrier

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Now Israel begins it decimation of Hamas. In time, Iran will rue the day they trained Hamas to attack Israel.

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Israeli forces retake control of Gaza border region

 

IDF calls up 300,000 reservists in 48 hours • "Operation Swords of Iron" to go from defensive to offensive, says IDF spokesman.

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Not sure I agree with everything Liel writes and/or concludes. However,  Israel must dis-believe the entire world is ever going to be their friend or supporter because the entire world, at varying times, always needs a scapegoat. That includes America because Obama chose to let Islamist fascists into our nation, settle them where they could be elected to Congress and you know the rest.  Not only have they attacked Israel but have destroyed the Democrat Party.

That said, for the time being Iran overplayed its hand through their trained surrogate, Hamas. What Israel has said about Hamas has hit the world squarely between the eyes for all to see but the Jimmy Carter's and AOC's etc. of the world will never relent. They have aligned themselves with the fascist Islamists. 

They enjoy having egg on their collective faces.

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America’s Betrayal of Israel

A decade of perverse U.S. policy sets the stage for mass murder

BY LIEL LEIBOVITZ

This article is part of Hamas’  War on Israel.

See the full collection →︎

I am writing this on Saturday, as news outlets report hundreds of Israeli dead, and dozens, if not hundreds, of soldiers and civilians kidnapped by Hamas terrorists and taken into Gaza.

It is never a good idea to write anything as events are still rapidly unfolding, especially as neither I nor anyone else can answer the only question that ultimately matters—namely, “what happens now?” But we can answer another, much more rudimentary and no less urgent question: Who’s at fault?

There will be plenty of time to pore over how a cataclysmic disaster of this magnitude could happen, and who—from Bibi down to the IDF chief of staff, head of intelligence, et al.—failed to protect the lives of Israelis. A lot of it will have to do with people who should have known better—including former prime ministers and former and current high-level security officials—abandoning the core commitment of defending Israel and instead entertaining themselves by cosplaying some game of Demokratia, complete with donning handmaid outfits and ululating about fascism. Hysterics about your political opponents being the enemies of democracy may be fun in Kalorama; in Sderot and Ofakim, and even in Tel Aviv, there’s a price to pay for abandoning the real world and indulging in fetish play.

But the bigger mistake on the part of the Israelis is that over the past few years they have gotten the power equation that governs their lives backward: Instead of understanding themselves to be citizens of a strong but beleaguered country whose first responsibility is to protect itself, they luxuriated in the fantasy that the United States was and always would be their protector—when in fact the ruling party in America has decided that Israel is a liability.

Watch this video. That’s a Hamas drone taking down an Israeli Merkava tank. A drone operated by an organization sponsored and trained by Iran applying both Iranian tactics and, most likely, Iranian hardware to attack Israel. This happened weeks after America sent Iran $6 billion, and one week after we learned that the American government had over the past years ceded whole parts of its own intelligence units to Iranian spies.

The stage for this attack was not set in or by Israel. It was set by the United States.

For the better part of the past decade, the United States has pursued a foreign policy designed to strengthen Iran and enable it to form a strong sphere of influence in the region. This is the idea behind what Tony Badran and Michael Doran called “the realignment,” a vision of a new world order in which America partners with Iran in order to “find a more stable balance of power that would make [the Middle East] less dependent on direct U.S. interference or protection.” Those words aren’t Badran and Doran’s; they’re Robert Malley’s, Barack Obama’s lead negotiator on the Iran deal who, as Semafor reported this week, helped to infiltrate an Iranian agent of influence into some of the most sensitive positions in the U.S. government—first at the State Department and now the Pentagon, where she has been serving as chief of staff for the assistant secretary of defense for special operations. Biden himself, in an op-ed in The Washington Post, spoke of “an integrated Middle East,” using the phrase no less than three times to make clear that his administration was intent on pursuing his predecessor’s commitment to seeing Iran not as a U.S. foe but as our collaborator.

And the Biden administration wasn’t just talking the talk. It was also walking the walk, from unfreezing billions in assets to make it easier for Tehran to support its proxy Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon to sending huge cash infusions used primarily to pay the salaries of tens of thousands of unvetted “security personnel.” And while the previous administration halted all aid to the Palestinians—directly because of the “pay for slay” policies that support the families of those who slaughter Israelis—the Biden administration was quick to reverse the decision.

Lots of people argued that this was simply clear-minded realpolitik after decades of disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bullshit. Here’s how you know this policy was, and is, motivated not by what’s best for America but by what would kneecap the Jewish state: Because it extended to inside Israel’s borders.

COLLECTION

Ending U.S. Aid to Israel

The publication on July 16, 2023, of an article by Jacob Siegel and Liel Leibovitz calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel opened a fresh debate over a topic dominated by outdated assumptions and emotional entreaties. To deepen the conversation, Tablet invited a group that includes a retired IDF general, U.S. senators and members of Congress, former Middle East diplomats, and writers from various political persuasions to offer their thoughts on the issue. Their articles, and more from Tablet's archive, are collected here.

See the full collection →︎

News section icon

The Pro-America Case for Ending Aid

A new salvo in Tablet’s ongoing series on the U.S.-Israel ‘special relationship’ focuses on America’s need to confront China

BYDANIEL J. SAMET AND RAPHAEL BENLEVI

News section icon

Dead Wrong

Biden’s White House is stabbing Israel in the back. Ending military aid will be the final twist of the knife.

BY TED CRUZ

News section icon

Israeli Dependence Day

The moment Israel accepted foreign aid from the U.S.

BYRUDY ROCHMAN

In addition to creating the external circumstances for terror, the Biden administration did everything in its power to derail Israel’s democratically elected government and prevent it from being able to see an attack like today’s coming. That the Israelis let themselves fall for this was stupidity of criminal order. But the invisible hand here was America’s. Biden himself took to CNN to call Netanyahu’s government “the most extreme” he’s ever seen, and lost no opportunity to lecture his Israeli counterpart about democratic values. The former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, took the unprecedented step of intervening in the country’s domestic affairs, announcing ominously that he “think[s] most Israelis want the United States to be in their business.” And if words weren’t enough, the administration also sent American dollars to support the anti-Netanyahu NGOs organizing the protests that brought Israel to a halt for months. Netanyahu was famously denied an invite to the White House; his key opponent, opposition leader Benny Gantz, had no such problem.

One idea floating around my inbox this afternoon is that part of Israel’s complete military collapse today was caused by a massive Iranian cyber attack that hacked its systems and prevented it from seeing what ought to have been obvious. That this could not only be true but related to the U.S. having recently given a team of Iranian agents high-level access to U.S. intelligence, which could very well have included information about Israeli systems, is not nearly as far-fetched a scenario as many would like it to be. And to the extent that we ever find out the truth about any of this, it will be because of Elon Musk, without whom we’d only have access to state-approved propaganda.

It doesn’t matter what words Biden says today. When you champion Iran; when you send it and its proxies money; when you reward Palestinian violence; when you go out of your way to portray Bibi as a dangerous fascist; when you finance and champion his opponents, contributing to further instability and unrest; when you hand over U.S. intelligence keys to Iranian agents; when you have your spokespeople declare it “disinformation” for people to connect obvious dots; when you do all of this, you know what is going to happen. You mean for it to happen.

Here today, then, is the challenge for Israel’s leadership: Can you accept that this is what’s happening? Can you imagine a future for the Jewish state decoupled from America? Because you must.

For at least a decade now, we’ve been told that part of what makes Israel so mighty and so safe is its superior technology, developed in partnership with America. Who, went this line of argument, needs to worry about missiles when we have Iron Dome and F-35 stealth fighter planes as part of a $3 billion military aid package? Who cares about guns and grenades when we’ve developed high-level cybersecurity systems that can strike at will? The war of the future, we’ve been promised, will be waged on computer terminals, in cyberspace—not in dusty border towns.

And then came a gaggle of Gazans with Kevlar vests and pickup trucks and small arms that brought Israel to its knees. “Startup nation” has been ravaged by reality. It is clear that the dream Israel’s elites have entertained for the past decade—to become part of the global set of people who make all the money and all the decisions and have all the right opinions and fashionable friends—has soured into a nightmare.

And now it’s time to wake up. Stop prattling about the “cycle of violence,” about faults on both sides, about “the occupation,” about Bibi’s cabinet appointments, or any other distraction.

Reroot yourself in what you should never have forgotten—which is that we have enemies not because of what we did or didn’t do here or there, or on this day or that one, or because our hasbara isn’t good enough or because it is too good, or any other pointless argument. It is because we have vicious enemies, and they hate us. Instead of trying pathetically to curry favor with American overlords by scrubbing Judaism from your streets, pray to HaShem to fulfill the promise made to Isaiah and deliver vengeance. Reject, with great force and wrath, the death cult that has gripped so much of American political, public, and intellectual life and that sees virtue in propping up benighted regimes in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We don’t need an integrated Middle East, because we don’t wish to integrate with the murderous mullahs and their packs of wild animals. We have our own interests, and if we’re smart—and if we wish to survive—we’ll never forget it again.

Liel Leibovitz is Editor at Large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast Unorthodox and daily Talmud podcast Take One. He is the editor of Zionism: The Tablet Guide.

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The Single Most Important Reality About Israel's War Against The Savages

By Guy Benson

Abject evil was visited upon innocent Israeli civilians this weekend, as the savages of Iran-backed Hamas launched a stunning surprise attack against defenseless men, women, and children.  As of late Sunday, the death toll in Israel had surpassed 700, marking the single largest slaughter of Jews in decades.   Relative to population, this is the equivalent of approximately 25,000 Americans being murdered in a single day.  The Israeli government said more than 100 people had been kidnapped by the terrorists and taken as hostages, including an unconfirmed number of US citizens.  For the first time since 1973's Yom Kippur War, Israel's government formally declared a state of war, vowing an exceptionally harsh response.  Iran-sponsored Hezbollah opened a second front of the war from the north, triggering Israeli reprisals.  "The enemy will pay an unprecedented price," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised in on-camera remarks, later adding, "we will destroy them and we will forcefully avenge this dark day that they have forced on the State of Israel and its citizens.”

The scope of the evil perpetrated by the terrorists is almost too much to contemplate, but the conflict -- and Israel's intensive countermeasures -- cannot be described or discussed accurately without acknowledging this reality.  This partial and incomplete series of videos and images that emerged over the weekend is unbearably horrific.  Take a breath, then scroll through.  Alternatively, here is a searing and gut-wrenching summary that captures the barbarity, part of an important column contextualizing how and why 10/7/23 is Israel's 9/11/01 (content warning):

When Hamas invaded Israel this morning, terrorists streamed across the border in pickup trucks, by motorcycle, on foot, and even on paragliders. Once inside Israel, they abducted and murdered Israelis. They shot people in cars and at bus stops, they rounded up women and children into rooms like Einsatzgruppen—yes, the comparison is appropriate—and machine-gunned them. They went house to house to find and murder civilians hiding in their closets, and they dragged the bloody, dead bodies of Israelis back into Gaza where they are now being paraded, beaten, and mutilated in front of exultant crowds. One young woman was murdered and stripped to her underwear, and her corpse was thrown in the back of a pickup truck so it could be paraded around Gaza while young Hamas men beat and mutilated her body. Hamas terrorists attacked a music festival in the desert. Dozens were killed and injured, and many more are missing. Footage shows young Israelis running for their lives...These images and videos are repulsive. But they must be seen and understood to comprehend what is coming next.

Harrowing and horrifying examples of savagery and depravity keep pouring in.  Don't ignore them.  Don't euphemize them.  Don't look away.  There are many observations and truths that must be told -- and must continue to be told as the usual suspects inevitably turn their rhetorical guns against the Israeli response.  I don't pretend to be an expert on every detail of this complex and long-running conflict, though I'm relatively well-informed about it.  I strongly support Israel, which I view as the only moral and ethical stance to hold. I don't make that assertion flippantly. Most issues and controversies are complicated, with good people and points on both or all sides. On the question of Israel's existence as the world's lone Jewish state, versus the genocidal bloodlust of Hamas, there is good, and there is evil.  There is civilization, and there are barbarians. Those who attempt to cloud this clarity, or to invert it altogether, are deeply morally compromised and adrift.  Or worse.  This observation is hardly original to me, and has almost become a cliche among Israel supporters.  It bears repeating, however, as it's both freshly and tragically relevant and enduringly, inarguably accurate:

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Democrats Are The True Threat To Democracy 

By Derek Hunter

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Iran Makes It Clear They're Behind Hamas' Barbaric Terrorism

By Katie Pavlich

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As Hamas Holds American Hostages, Biden Hosts a BBQ

By Katie Pavlich

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Dov has never been dovish for justifiable reasons.

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A Ruthless Response Is Absolutely Legitimate

I can only add my voice of responsibility to confer legitimacy to as ruthless a military response as Israel can muster. Op-ed.

By DOV  FISCHER

My heart is in the East, and I am in the utmost corner of the West.

I feel inadequate as my heart beats elsewhere. My readers know my compromised health situation. I am an Orthodox Jew who believes deeply in the G-d of Israel, and I simply cannot find it in myself to argue with Him over my health situation that — meantime — confines me in America.

I cannot argue with Him over tragedies of far greater consequence than mine: the destruction of the Holy Temples, the Crusades and Blood Libel Massacres, the Black Death massacres and the Inquisition, the Pogroms and the Holocaust. They each were of far greater consequence than my own personal tragedies.

I cannot argue with Him for my righteous Dad z"l dying of leukemia at his age 45, my 14; or my beloved Ellen z"l dying of glioblastoma at her age 64, or my incapacitating interstitial lung disease that resulted in my reduced capacity and enhanced vulnerability after a life-saving lung transplant that — in the meantime — once again set back my Aliyah plans.

So I at least have the humility to acknowledge that I am now not on the front lines of the Jewish people’s latest war for survival. Part of me commands not to write but to remain quiet. I have no right.

But for Zion’s sake I cannot hold my peace, and for Jerusalem I cannot remain quiet. You in Israel have every right not to read a word of this if you believe my voice should be still. But I must speak nonetheless.

Here is what I can add to the struggle: A voice that a great many people deem honorable and respectable. I am national Vice President of Coalition for Jewish Values, an association that speaks for 2,500 Anglophonic traditional rabbis, primarily in the United States but also throughout the world. I served six years on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America and have chaired and served on several RCA committees. For the past twenty years, I have been a member of the National Council of Young Israel rabbinic council, and major Young Israel national publications have carried my Torah writings. I have been a law professor for twenty years, was Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review, and have been awarded major awards for legal ethics. I am a Senior Contributing Editor of The American Spectator.

I can go on. This list already is too much, but my point is that I am not a tummler but speak with authority, responsibility, and am recognized as an expert in legal ethics, winner of the American Jurisprudence Award in Legal Ethics.

Therefore I submit my voice, as the Holy Season of Judaism has come to a conclusion in Exile, to validate ethically as ruthless a military response as Israel can muster:

1. It is imperative, if Israel is capable of doing so, that it exterminate Hamas. Again: exterminate. Leave nothing behind of Hamas.

2. It is imperative, if Israel is capable of doing so, that it exterminate Islamic Jihad. Again: exterminate. Leave nothing behind of Islamic Jihad.

3. It is imperative, if Israel is capable of doing so, that it target all Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders for extermination and exterminate them.

4. Any such leaders who are in hiding must be exterminated as soon as they are found, even twenty years from now.

5. Stop the hagzamah (exaggeration). This was not “Israel’s 9/11.” The Yom Kippur War was Israel’s 9/11. That was an attack on Yom Kippur. It resulted in 3,000 deaths. Other than for Israeli governmental incompetence, it was not the fault of the Israeli Knesset.

6. This happened because Ariel Sharon handed over Gaza to the Arabs, and the entire Labor Party and all the moral predecessors of Meretz and Labor and Yesh Atid voted for it, and others from Likud joined with Ariel Sharon in breaking from the Likud’s official platform. This is what the Left and the spineless “Moderates” did to Israel when they acceded to Sharon handing over Gaza to the Arabs. That day, decided on Tisha B’Av 2005 and then symbolically delayed a day, birthed this attack and war — and all the prior Hamas attacks and wars.

7. This would never have happened if Netanyahu and Israel had fought a previous Hamas War to victory instead of just “mowing the lawn.” And if America did not stop Israel repeatedly as well.

8. Israel should not and must not go out of its way to kill even one single Arab civilian “innocent” as an act of revenge, but Israel must not hesitate to kill and exterminate every single terrorist and terror objective, even if it will mean the collateral loss of thousands of civilians. The terrorists base themselves in apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, mosques, ambulances, and other profoundly civilian non-combatant locations. Each such site must be deemed fair game for utter elimination, and no civilian’s presence can justify refraining from exterminating every terror site in Gaza.

Moreover, let it never be forgotten that Hamas came to power in Gaza by means of democratic elections. The population of Gaza have voted for them repeatedly. They are no more innocent than German voters in Dresden who elected Hitler.

9. This must not be a “mowing the lawn” operation but an utter extermination, not the intentional extermination of the civilian population of Gaza, but the utter extermination of Gaza terror, come what may.

10. Israel will win this war handily because it is not an attack on the country alone but an attack on the G-d of Israel, launching deliberately on Sh’mini Atzeret. This was Sadat’s great mistake: he launched his war not only against Israel the country but against the G-d of Israel by striking on Yom Kippur. That is why he never had a chance to win, despite the incompetent Israeli leadership then of Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan. Tellingly, Sadat struck on the secular calendar day of October 6, and G-d left His thumbprint on Sadat’s demise by snuffing him out on October 6 (1981).

11. Avigdor Liberman has offered to join an emergency national unity government if the Israeli government will commit to wipe out Hamas and its leadership. This offer should be warmly accepted. First, it will signal that this indeed will not merely be a “mowing” operation but a war of extinction. Secondly, it will add meaningful legitimacy to the coalition’s actions. Thirdly, it will strike a terrible morale blow to the Left and their 27 Million Shekel demonstrations to see the biggest Bibi Hater of them all sitting in coalition with him. Fourth, it will open a door for Liberman’s later finding a way back in to join an impregnable right-wing coalition, even alongside the religious parties he presently hates, once Netanyahu departs from the political coalition, perhaps three years hence or sooner.

Liberman cannot stand sitting in a coalition that depends for its majority on “The Religious.” But he also cannot stand sitting in a coalition that depends for its majority on “The Arabs.” He hates both. But he lives in Judea-Samaria, not in Rahat or Umm al-Fahm. Bring him in. Also, only by bringing him in can he later be kicked out.

12. Things happen for reasons. And those reasons are part of G-d’s mighty hand and outstretched arm. The minute that nine months of leftist civil disruption escalated to physically attacking public Yom Kippur prayers in the center of Israel’s most populous city, this war became inevitable as G-d’s horrible, terrible punishment that also will begin the process of healing tensions flaming toward civil war.

I have been a rav for more than forty years. Horrible tragedies bring torn families together. Those who read me regularly know I have been predicting something along these lines would be bringing all the boycotting pilots back to their planes and releasing the pent-up steam inflamed by the G-dless Shiksa Bresslers and Ehud Baraks. Barak wanted dead Jewish bodies and now he has them — but he will not hear his imagined wistful voices begging him to return to leadership. They will continue urging him to go back to Jeffrey Epstein Island where he belongs.

13. It is very, very hard that 100 or more Jewish hostages have been taken. I do not write in euphemisms but in truths: It will be impossible to recover Jewish hostages from Arab terrorists without paying prices that guarantee even more mass killings of many more innocent Jews than are freed by releasing hundreds of Arab murderers. This is why Hamas and Islamic Jihad — this time — must be utterly exterminated, and the bombings must not stop until all hostages are returned.

Endless bombings are no more “disproportional” than the hostage exchanges. Moreover, electricity must not be restored until all hostages are returned. Biblical Egypt was dark for three days. Gaza should remain dark for three years or decades if needed to recover the hostages. No electricity, no fuel, nothing but basic food and medical supplies forever until all hostages are returned.

14. And The Day After: How did this all happen, a terror project this well coordinated from so many vantage points? So many towns attacked at once, with missiles launched simultaneously? So: What of the vaunted Shin Bet? The Defense establishment?

They can torture Amiram Ben Uliel to get a confession. They can devote years to squeezing testimony to hurt Binyamin Netanyahu, even publicly exposing marital infidelities to shame state witnesses to get testimony against Bibi. But they cannot keep Jewish women prison guards from sexually entertaining Arab mass murderers? And they could not anticipate this massively coordinated assault? When the exterminating ends, those heads must roll.

The weak and politically correct Defense Minister and Chief of Staff who devote more effort to tearing down new Jewish communities in Juda and Samaria than to tearing down illegal Arab structures in Area C. There must be a reckoning.

15. American public opinion? It does not matter what any other country thinks when Israel is fighting for its life. Nevertheless, understand: America now is in full “Election 2024” mode. There already have been two Republican presidential debates. The election will be between Biden and Trump. Everyone in America knows it, and no one in America can believe it or swallow it.

Politicians on both sides now are covering up everything they have done so as to clean their records for the voters. It is like how Bibi promises before every election to annex the Jordan Valley, and Bennett promised before his election never to sit with Yair Lapid. They all lie, especially during Election Season.

For the next 13 months, almost all American politicians will be firmly with Israel. The anti-Israel wing among America’s Democrats does not yet influence policy making. Ocasio, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar make headlines but only represent, respectively, one small district of Bronx Puerto Ricans, one of Dearborn Arabs, and one of Minneapolis Somalians. They comprise less than one percent of the 435 Senators and Congressional representatives who make policy. Even with their cohort of lesser-public Zionist-Jew haters like Betty McCollum, Cori Bush, and Jaaal Bowman, they comprise three or four percent total. Biden is behind in many polls right now and cannot afford to criticize Israel.

America’s Christian voters read our Bible and will stand by Israel against Arab Muslims. Jews should, too. Know where to put faith: Only put faith in G-d. He guided Truman and Stalin to recognize Israel in 1948. He guided DeGaulle in 1956, Johnson in 1967, Nixon in 1973, and Trump. He will guide whom He will guide, and He will destroy whom he will destroy.

16.Finally: Netanyahu. He has been the mastermind of “Mowing the Grass.” Really, if not for (i) all the anti-Bibi protests outside Balfour when he last was prime minister, and (ii) the 40 weeks and 27 Million Shekels of disgusting civil insurrection and treasonous military refusals to report, and (iii) the despicably anti-democratic Supreme Court, and (iv) the viciously venomous years-long kangaroo charges aimed at forcing him out of office simply because he got cigars and champagne from a friend to feed his and his wife’s hedonistic side, and (v) all the Jew-hating Arabs and leftist Jews in Israel and American who hate Bibi, this should be his “Boris Johnson Moment.”

He deserves to be pressured right after the war to step down. He deserves it, but the thing is: his opponents do not deserve it. So he stays. For now.

To receive Rav Fischer’s Weekly Extensive Torah Commentaries or to attend any or all of Rav Fischer’s weekly 60-minute live Zoom classes on the Weekly Torah Portion, the Biblical Prophets, the Mishnah, Rambam Mishneh Torah, or Advanced Judaic Texts, send an email to: shulstuff@yioc.org

Rav Fischer’s recent hour-long interview on a range of pressing contemporary Jewish issues, ranging from the “Palestine” Fraud to incorrigible Jewish leftists and their like-minded reform rabbis to the weakness of pro-Israel campus Jews who root their advocacy in Victimology instead of Jewish strength, can be found here

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Finley says allow Israel to do what it must do.  

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Finley: What it means to stand with Israel

By Nolan Finley

No equivalency. No equivocation. No excusing evil. Not this time.

There's no room for a "both sides" take on the horror that rained down on Israel on Saturday. This is not just one more incident in a never-ending conflict.

The Hamas terrorists killed hundreds of Israelis, wounded thousands and carried dozens of Jewish hostages into the Gaza Strip. Most of the victims are civilians, many are children and old folks. Estimates are that at least 3,000 rockets were fired.

Put that in an American context, weighed against Israel's much smaller size and it exceeds 10 times the destruction carried out by al-Qaida on our soil on 9/11.

There's no room for a "both sides" take on the horror that rained down on Israel Saturday. This is not just one more incident in a never-ending conflict, Finley writes.

The surprise offensive is the largest against Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when its Arab neighbors tried to drive it into the sea. No coincidence this invasion occurred on the 50th anniversary of that war.

For Jews, it is impossible to see the Hamas assault as anything less than a modern-day pogrom. Hamas invaders dragged Jewish families from their homes, slaughtering some and herding others across the border to face a dark fate

Remember those photos of bloody bodies lying in the streets, the video of the young Jewish boy being tormented by children goaded on by his Hamas captors, of accounts from teens who begged for their lives as madmen rampaged through a late-night concert.

Keep them fresh as Israel gears up a counter offensive that will test the world's resolve to "Stand with Israel." Because this won't be easy to watch.

A massive ground invasion of Gaza will certainly follow the airstrikes that have already begun. The density of the territory and the reality that Hamas is deeply embedded in the civilian population assures the next phase will be brutal.

Standing with Israel requires an understanding that Israel will never be safe until Hamas is destroyed, along with its rockets and leadership. That's what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meant when he pledged an "unprecedented response" in his declaration of war on Hamas.

Hamas has invited unimaginable suffering on the Palestinians in the weeks ahead. Innocent people will die and their homes will be destroyed. Extracting Hamas from Gaza, as painful as it will be, is necessary not only for the safety of Israelis, but also for that of the Palestinians. As long as Hamas exists, Palestinians have no hope for a secure and healthy future.

Standing with Israel will also mean containing Iran. In his strong warning to other forces against joining Hamas, President Joe Biden did not mention Iran by name.

But Iran is the Great Evil behind this attack. No smoking gun is needed to prove that — Hamas publicly thanked Iran for providing the money and material that enabled this nightmare.

Less than a month ago, the Biden administration unfroze $6 billion in Iranian assets in exchange for the freedom of five American hostages. The White House insists the money was for humanitarian aid and didn't finance this weekend's terrorism.

That is offensively naive. Money is fungible. Dollars directed toward food and medicine free up other dollars for missiles and bullets.

.S. must go the United Nation's Security Council and demand the full sanctions regime be resumed against Iran, including reimposing the arms embargo forbidding it from purchasing weapons.

Iran is a terrorist state that won't be contained with diplomacy alone. Pretending its aim is anything less than the obliteration of the Jewish state is dangerous and ignores both the Iranians' words and deeds. Iran must not be allowed to achieve nuclear capability.

As for Israel, the divisions that have developed among its people since the return of Netanyahu as its leader will be quickly closed by its resolve to defend itself.

That resolve must be shared and sustained by the rest of the civilized world, and particularly by Americans. The inevitable cries of a disproportionate response must not be heeded.

Israel must not be forced to turn back from the mission of destroying Hamas.

Sign up for the Nolan Out Loud morning report at detroitnews.com/newsletters

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OOPS!

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Title IX: When a Good Law Turns Bad | PragerU

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Israel’s 3rd Day of War

By Sherwin Pomerantz

Sixty hours after the start of hostilities last Saturday, Israel is not exactly where it wanted to be, but serious progress has been made, albeit at great cost.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) now report they have secured all of the areas around the Gaza strip that were taken by the terrorists in last weekend’s operation and are now prepared to look at the next phase of the operation. 300,000 reservists have been mobilized over the last 24 hours

During the cleanup phase the Israel Air Force ran 1,149 bombing sorties over Gaza in an effort to take out the infrastructure that has permitted Hamas to fire over 5,000 rockets at Israel since the beginning of the operation. While many have been neutralized there has also been serious damage.  The Iron Dome protective system is 95% effective but the other 5% of missiles can be destructive.

He Who blessed our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -- may He bless the fighters of the Israel Defense Forces, who stand guard over our land and the cities of our God, from the border of the Lebanon to the desert of Egypt, and from the Great Sea unto the approach of the Aravah, on the land, in the air, and on the sea

The cost so far is higher than first reported.  More than 700 Israelis have been killed, 2,382 have been wounded and the numbers are expected to increase further. In addition to the incursions from the south, today a small number of Hezbollah fighters crossed into northern Israel from Lebanon raising increased concerns about potential activity on that border as well.   Rumor has it that Hezbollah has advised that they have no intention of escalating tensions there so, let’s hope that is true. 

May the Almighty cause the enemies who rise up against us to be struck down before them.

The Israel defense establishment has decided to put a choke hold on Gaza and has laid siege to the enclave. Israel has stopped providing electricity, gas and water to Gaza and has sealed all the borders so nothing can move in or out.   The aim is to make life miserable enough for the local population that they will demand a stop to the continued shelling from Gaza into Israel.  Today rockets continued to be sent into Israel with some getting as far as the Jerusalem area and Petach Tikvah.

May the Holy One, Blessed is He, preserve and rescue our fighters from every trouble and distress and from every plague and illness, and may He send blessing and success in their every endeavor.

There is still very little information available about the reputed 100 or more hostages that were taken into Gaza during the incursion.  The parents, siblings and children of those who are now held hostage have formed a united group to press the government to provide them with information about the status of their loved ones but that information has been slow in forthcoming.  They have reason to worry, of course, as within the communities attacked by Hamas, many Israelis were murdered in cold blood.  A family living in the community of Nir Oz near the border were found murdered in their home…..the father, mother and two young children all shot to death by Hamas.

May He lead our enemies under our soldiers’ sway and may He grant them salvation and crown them with victory.

The population is still befuddled as to how all of this could have transpired with Israel’s security apparatus unaware and unprepared.  Many are saying that Iran provided the technology to make the computer systems at the border inoperable, although Iran denies their involvement.   No doubt there will be a commission of inquiry after Israel has prevailed and they will attempt to find out how this could have happened in the most secure country in the world?

And may there be fulfilled for them the verse: For it is the Lord your God, Who goes with you to battle your enemies for you to save you

What no one is speaking about yet, is that over the next month thousands of us living here will be burying relatives, observing shiva, the seven-day mourning period after burial and then dealing with internalizing the unbearable loss that so many will have suffered.

The inserts above are from the traditional prayer for the armed forces of Israel.  Let us hope that the God who, according to tradition, has promised us this land, will indeed protect the dedicated young men and women who have put their lives on the line for our safety.  And for those who have already perished, may their memory be for a blessing.

Sherwin Pomerantz has lived in Israel for 40 years, is CEO of Atid EDI Ltd., an international business development consultancy, Chair of the American State Offices Association in Israel, former Board Chair of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, and past National President of the Association of Americans & Canadians in Israel.

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