To all Lynn's well wishers, she is truly doing well. Amy, our daughter, was a big help. Now I take over as the "impatient" nurse.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++All Israeli's want is to live in peace with their Arab neighbors, raise and educate their children and help other nations come into the 21st century through commerce.
Sadly, they are forced to go to war to achieve peace.
Decorations in Haifa square.
And:
Israeli victory far more important than international approval - opinion.
Bernie s a Marxist turncoat and a disgrace.
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While public perception is important, Israel isn’t going to sacrifice its soldiers’ lives, or future civilian lives to appease people marching against its existence in the streets of Europe.
Bernie Sanders: ‘Israel is at war with Hamas, not innocent Palestinian men, women, and children. Israel cannot bomb an entire neighborhood to take out one Hamas target,’ he argues.
Zionism is one of the more popular movements Judaism has ever experienced. There are over six million Jews living in Israel and while not every one of them would describe themselves as such, the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews would call themselves Zionists.
The Zionist movement wasn’t always as popular as it is today. In its inception and for its first 50-75 years, most Jews and non-Jews around the world objected to the Zionist movement. In the face of overwhelming rejection, Zionist leaders were convinced their goals were correct and they kept fighting to secure a Jewish State in the land of Israel.
A recent PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll showed that six out of 10 Americans feel that Israel should receive more funding from the United States. Americans are more likely to sympathize with the Israelis (61%) than the Palestinians (30%). Republicans (79%) and independents (67%) express greater sympathy toward Israel than toward Palestinians. Democrats are divided, with 45% saying they have greater sympathy for Israelis, and the same proportion (45%) saying that their sympathies are more with the Palestinians.
While those poll results are encouraging, they don’t tell the entire story. Thirty-eight percent of Americans say Israel’s military response to Hamas has been too much. This is up from 26% in the week following the October attack. Seventeen percent say the response has been too little, a decline from 27% – and 38% think the attack has been appropriate. This is down from 44% previously. It seems that Americans feel Israel has a right to defend itself but disagree about how Israel is defending itself.
Legitimate questions about how Israel is conducting the war against Palestinian terrorists, including Hamas, are being asked. US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont wrote, “Israel is at war with Hamas, not innocent Palestinian men, women, and children. Israel cannot bomb an entire neighborhood to take out one Hamas target. We don’t know if this campaign has been effective in degrading Hamas’s military capabilities. But we do know that a reported 70 percent of the casualties are women and children, and that 104 UN aid workers and 53 journalists have been killed. That’s not acceptable.”
Risk of driving Gaza’s population into the arms of Hamas
The American military leaders have a different concern. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin claimed that Israel’s counteroffensive was risking driving Gaza’s population into the arms of the enemy. Secretary Austin warned that Israel’s defeat of Gaza combined with thousands of civilian casualties risked turning a tactical victory into a strategic defeat.
Asked whether he is concerned that the rapidly climbing non-combatant death toll in Israel’s war against Hamas will lead Palestinian civilians to turn to terror, US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown responded, “Yes, very much so. I think that’s something we must pay attention to. That’s why when we talk about time – the faster you can get to a point where you stop the hostilities, you have less strife for the civilian population that turns into someone who now wants to be the next member of Hamas.”
There are two wars being fought in Gaza and Israel today. The first is the war on the streets of Gaza. This is a battle Hamas and other Palestinians started with their attack on Simchat Torah – October 7. This is a brutal war with many far-reaching ramifications. The deaths of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians are a tragic result of this war. The second war being fought is in courtrooms of public opinion. The war of words is fought in mainstream media, social media, and in college classrooms. Israel is winning the first war, and it seems the Palestinians and their Iranian backers are winning the second war.
These two wars aren’t as separate as they might seem. Israel is being judged on the world stage and will be severely sanctioned if it continues waging war without global support. How much should Israel concern itself with the second war, the one of public opinion?
Early Zionists showed modern Israel, their descendants, that public perception should only be taken into account until it begins making your values impossible to uphold, and your objectives impossible to achieve. They learned this lesson from the Maccabees in the Hanukkah story. Instead of bending to the opinion of the majority of the world, and to Jews who had assimilated into Greeks, they stood up and fought off their enemy.
Of the two wars Israel is currently fighting, the priority must be the war in the streets of Gaza against Hamas terrorists. The Palestinian terrorists pose a threat to Israel’s way of life. If they are allowed to continue and live on past this war, Israel will be opening itself up to further attacks like the one it saw on Simchat Torah. To quote Senator Sanders when he discussed Israeli battle practices, “That’s not acceptable.”
Israel has a responsibility to its own citizens and soldiers to use airstrikes that cause more damage to the streets and homes of the enemy than to send in ground forces to wipe out the enemy. While ground forces limit the number of civilian casualties on the enemy side, they increase the number of casualties among Israeli soldiers. While there are those who argue that Israel has a responsibility to put its own soldiers at risk to limit civilian casualties, those arguments aren’t widely accepted, especially not in Israel.
While public perception is important, Israel isn’t going to sacrifice its soldiers’ lives, or future civilian lives to appease people marching against its existence in the streets of Europe or to gain more Facebook or Instagram likes or reposted Tweets. War isn’t a numbers game. War is fought to win safety for your people.
The self-interest and safety of the Jewish people is where Israel’s Zionist founders set an example of where the Jewish state should focus.
The writer, a rabbi, is CEO of Israel Educational Supply.
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I love watching PBS,' "Antique Road Show." The program started in London and a friend, who served with me on St John's Board, brought it to Boston.
If you have not watched, I urge you to do so.
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Israel’s 80th Day of War
By Sherwin Pomerantz
Day 80 of the war with Hamas and the casualty rate of soldiers who have fallen in action now stands at 156. Heavy fighting continues in Gaza with Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterating last night that Israel will continue to advance until it achieves the goal of eliminating the threat of Hamas on our southern border.
Rocket fire from the south began again this afternoon after a 16-hour lull with the launching of three rockets from Gaza into Israel. On the northern border with Lebanon, cross-border activity continues with some shelling of northern Israel’s communities which, of course, had been previously evacuated.
Roads and towns near the Lebanese-Israeli border were closed to civilian traffic this morning until further notice, due to escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. Several roads in the area were also closed to civilian traffic until further notice, according to the Upper Galilee Regional Council.
The hostage release initiative put forth by Egypt and reported here yesterday is being given consideration by Israel. No indication yet whether it will find favor with the War Cabinet here. Nevertheless, there seems to be a general consensus that Egypt is a better potential go-between than Qatar which stands squarely on the side of Hamas.
Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, has communicated to the organization's international leaders his refusal to accept Israel's terms for ending the war, according to a report by Qatar’s Al Jazeera earlier today. The refusal comes amidst discussions about the Egypt-mediated ceasefire proposal, which involves releasing some hostages, establishing an expert-led government in the Strip, and an Israeli withdrawal. Notably, Al Jazeera later removed this news article from their website after a few hours.
The report from the Qatari network, known for its connections with Hamas, indicates that Sinwar has sent messages asserting the readiness of Hamas' military wing to prolong the conflict with the IDF. This statement comes nearly three months into the war. Sinwar also mentioned figures regarding IDF losses in personnel and equipment, but these claims are reportedly exaggerated and inconsistent with the IDF's published data.
Sinwar, a primary target in this war, has been out of public sight and unheard of since the offensive began on October 7. It is speculated that he might be hiding in Khan Yunis, located in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
Maersk Shipping Lines has begun to traverse the Red Sea once again now that the US-backed Prosperity Guardian initiative to protect shipping lanes there seems to be in place and functioning. Time will tell how effective it will be in stopping the Houti pirates in their tracks.
Late this afternoon there was a report that an attack on a neighborhood in Damascus has killed a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) commander who was headquartered there. Israel has not taken responsibility for this action.
As always, much information is less than clear. What is clear is that the fighting rages on, the rockets from Gaza and Lebanon continue and our young people continue to get killed. May all of this end sooner rather than later.
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Progressive Democrats have become the party of lunatics.
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Most liberals never learn because they are so self-righteous.
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"The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews"
with Dr. Ruth R. Wisse
As anti-Semitism skyrockets in the West, join Dr. Ruth R. Wisse to explore how and why liberals struggle to confront new forms of Jew-hatred, and what this means for the Jewish and Western future.
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Friends,
These last few months have been some of the most painful in living memory for the Jewish people. After Hamas terrorists perpetrated a deadly massacre against the Jews of southern Israel, one might have expected that the civilized world would stand with the Jewish state and uniformly condemn Hamas.
But that hasn't happened in many places. In America and Europe, pro-Hamas protests erupted immediately after the attacks; university administrators issued tepid and morally confused statements; and far too often, major Western media outlets have acted as mouthpieces for Hamas propaganda rather than as unbiased arbiters seeking truth amid the fog of war.
All of this has prompted many liberal and progressive Jews to ask themselves, what happened? How did a terrorist massacre of Jews prompt furious outrage against Jews, even in the most enlightened Western countries?
Dr. Ruth R. Wisse has been thinking and writing for decades about how the liberal faith has failed the Jewish people. And in this special Tikvah video series (drawn from lectures originally delivered in 2020), "The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews," she explains how liberal politics has come to turn on the very Jews who have been such fervent advocates of it. On subjects like Israel, Holocaust education, equality, and particularism, Professor Wisse examines why progressivism has become such fertile ground for anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, and what Jews must do to respond.
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When you sign up for this video series, you'll receive immediate access to four fascinating lectures:
Can Liberals Confront Anti-Semitism?
The Dark Side of Holocaust Education
Equality and Excellence: Can They Coexist?
The Meaning of Jewish Exceptionalism
Each lecture provides a different lens to understand how and why liberalism has failed to protect the Jewish people and its interests.
As anti-Semitism pervades Western liberal culture more openly than it has in generations, it's imperative for Americans and all who cherish Western civilization to understand what has gone wrong, and figure out how to rectify it. Click here to register for this important series today.
All the best,
John Minster
Associate Director of Tikvah Ideas
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