Israel is a country on edge. We are
waiting for an Iranian retaliatory attack. Our northern and southern
communities continued to come under enemy fire over the weekend. Tens of thousands
of Israelis have been dislocated from their homes for the past 184 days. A barbaric
enemy is holding some 130 of our men, women, and children hostage in Gaza. We
have suffered 1,490 confirmed killed soldiers and civilians since October 7,
2023. Many wounded soldiers have life-changing injuries, from burns to lost
limbs.
The historically bloody month of Ramadan
is not over. Eid-al-Fitr, which marks its conclusion, will be on Tuesday
evening, April 10. Last night, Arab youths slept in tents near the Aksa mosque
atop the Temple Mount, hoping to instigate a violent response from Israeli
police.
In synagogues of almost all hues throughout the country, the liturgy of daily and Shabbat prayer services have been amended to include High Holy Day-like pleas for salvation.
Today's morning news brought more
heartbreak. Four IDF commandos were ambushed by Hamas guerrillas overnight in
Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Terror attacks up and down the land of
Israel incited by influencers on Palestinian social media continue unabated.
We seem to be treading water in Gaza
with no implementable strategy on how to defang Hamas. An assault on Rafiah, where Hamas has
its last major stronghold, has been kicked down the road.
We irrationally acquiesced to Gaza's humanitarian and public health crisis, which has so demonstrably sabotaged our overall mission. What did we think would
happen if we allowed anarchy, hunger, and pestilence to reign? Pointing out correctly
that the fault lies with Hamas does not offset images of ruin and suffering beamed
across the globe and reverberated on social media – pictures that practically
shout, "Blame Israel!"
Yes, the world is hypocritical. We knew that. In conducting the war, Israel is being held to standards imposed on no other country. The US might accidentally blow up a wedding party in Afghanistan. UK soldiers may have executed unarmed detainees. France may have committed war crimes in the Central African Republic. Russia has demonstrated a complete disregard for the rules of war in Ukraine. Chinese crimes against human rights are undisputed. All these render some brief chagrin, and then the pages are turned.
Not so with Israel. Granted, the IDF has made mistakes that
have cost innocent lives, sometimes out of reckless disregard. Yet only Israel
has been so unanimously pilloried and held in collective opprobrium as if our
crimes were one of a kind in 21st-century warfare. We, of all people, are charged with genocide when Hamas is explicitly committed in writing to genocide against us.
***
"Together we will Win" public
transportation announcements notwithstanding, Israelis are fragmenting back to
our October 6 lines. Last night, we witnessed big rallies against the Netanyahu
government, the largest in Tel Aviv, insisting that he meet whatever demands
Hamas is making to bring home our captives. In effect, such self-inflicted pressure
calls for our unconditional surrender. Why would Hamas negotiate when all it
needs to do is sit back and watch Israelis join the "international
community" in demanding the Islamists get their way?
My desire to see Netanyahu go is
second to none, but not at any price. Last night, an enraged Tel Aviv driver (a Bibi supporter?) apparently
caught up in the anti-Netanyahu protest plowed into some of the demonstrators,
leaving several people injured and at least one requiring hospitalization. Like, we need to start killing each other now...
Netanyahu has always been a master
at the illusion of momentum, sometimes by talking tough (on Iran and Hamas, for
example) while procrastinating on hard decisions.
He took the country to the brink
before October 7 with a judicial putsch mainly designed to keep him out of
prison and deconstruct the system that first put him at legal risk. So, yes, he
can conflate his interests with Israel's. Likewise, regrettably, the world also
thinks of Bibi and Israel as one.
His management of the war has been
ham-fisted. Neither his bloated cabinet nor inner war cabinet seems to be operating
systematically. From the outside, it looks like he and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant
are making all critical decisions. And that Benny Ganz gets to know about them
at some stage. I imagine Ron Dermer probably plays the role of Netanyahu's Freudian
peripheral id). The fact that Netanyahu, Gallant, and Ganz struggle to
be civil with each other does not instill confidence in the essence of their decision-making process.
Plainly, we need a new government
led by a different prime minister. But Netanyahu won't go, and his ruling Likud
Party (the only mechanism for getting rid of him without new elections) is a
hollow shell with no one left to stand up to him and certainly no one of a
caliber capable of replacing him.
We do need elections even in wartime –
America held elections, including for president, during WWII.
However, raucous rallies against Netanyahu in wartime have melded disparate issues: opposition to Haredi draft-dodging, support for caving into Hamas on a terrorists-for-hostages exchange and demanding new elections. All this while the country is literally under enemy fire. It is confusing, divisive, and counter-productive.
If Benny Ganz wants new elections, he should withdraw from the government.
For now, disorderly anti-Netanyahu rallies have only solidified support for him, maybe because they are transparently not spontaneous. Granted, neither were the anti-putsch rallies before October 7, but then I figured the ends justified the means.
Not coincidentally, the New Israel
Fund is spending heavily (including on a booklet distributed in the weekend
papers by its latest front group, "The Israeli Initiative") to use this war to push for a
Palestinian state. The problem is that polls show that the Palestinian Arabs
have no interest in a demilitarized state alongside Israel and no desire to
recognize the right of the Jewish people for a national homeland.
Haaretz, the post-Zionist newspaper that punches way above the weight of its minuscule
circulation, carried a valuable
article this weekend by Shlomi Eldar. The piece was full of color and
insights into the Palestinian mindset. He traveled to Cairo to interview Gazan
elites who found refuge in Egypt's capital after October 7. About a week before
the war broke out, rumors were circulating in Gaza that something big was
afoot. Israeli intelligence would have picked these up, too, but likely
discounted their import since they ran contrary to the accepted idea that Hamas
did not want war. A few Hamas-connected Palestinians got out of harm's way just
in time. Those who had no advance warning (mainly Fatah people who maintained a transactional relationship with Sinwar) but still made their way to Cairo (a
costly and challenging feat) are understandably embittered at Israel. But what
is revelatory is what they told Eldar about Yahya Sinwar: If he emerges from
this war in a position to fight again – he will organize another October 7 because
a messianic apocalyptic vision drives Sinwar. In other words, if a stake is not
driven through this devil's heart, many more will yet die.
If you are marching for a unilateral
and unconditional Israeli ceasefire, your interests and his are strangely aligned.
***
Israel is basically alone, divided,
and at war. Our fair-weather allies have deserted us. Lord Cameron, the British
Foreign Minister, let it be known that UK support for Israel is not
unconditional, a risible statement coming from Whitehall, which, if I'm not mistaken, has not voted
with Israel at the UN in the Securiy Council since the war began.
The Biden administration is
struggling with itself. Its "progressive" elements, backed by Democratic Party leftists, are chomping at the
bit to throw Israel under the bus. I sense that the president and Secretary of
State Anthony Blinkin understand that America will be the big loser on the international stage if Israel
can't defend itself – if Iran and Hamas can reasonably claim victory in the war
that began October 7. Still, this is an election year. It is easier to jump on the
Hamas pickup truck and make "Netanyahu's Israel" your scapegoat than do
some soul-searching about your own policies. I am thinking about the open
border with Mexico.
Also in Washington, "Pro-peace and Pro-Israel"
(LOL) J Street, which consistently toes the PLO
line, has helped to orchestrate Jewish support for an arms embargo on Israel. The
New York Times and Washington Post are serving as J Street's
enablers with breathless revelations presenting America's arms "pipeline"
to Israel.
In the face of all this, much of the
pro-Israel American Jewish community, save for the modern Orthodox vanguard, is
hunkering down. US Jews seem bewildered by what they read in the media outlets they trust (foremost the NYT) and bedeviled by the tsunami of anti-Israelism and antisemitism that has swept through American cities and campuses. It is easy to blame Netanyahu, everyone's bogeyman. While he may be blameworthy for vandalizing Israel's image, his essential decision to take away Hamas's capability to attack us again enjoys broad support in Israel.
So, after half a year of war and with a fateful week ahead of us, Israel is on edge. As ominous as the week ahead looks,
this much I grasp: No Israeli wants it to end with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran seen
to have won the war.
One of my oldest and dearest friends from NY has been having a go at Israel, and I am disappointed that he is piling on.
ReplyDeleteHe took exception to the billions the US gives Israel in military aid though these are mainly spent in the US, not here. We improve the weapons we buy and share our innovations with the US.
The 23 Arab states, plus Islamist Turkey and Iran, have no trouble buying weapons from the US and/or Russia, China, and even North Korea.
Israel’s options are mostly limited to the US.
My old NY friend accused the IDF of intentionally murdering aid workers. As in, we knew they were unarmed and doing humanitarian work and deliberately killed them. However, as the IDF explained,
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/05/world/middleeast/israel-military-world-central-kitchen-strike.html
that was not the case. IDF friendly fire has taken the lives of Israeli hostages and soldiers. Generally, friendly fire can cost up to 25 percent of a combatant's casualties.
The actual number of Palestinian Arab non-combatants killed is unknown. All the figures bandied about come (in the final analysis) from Hamas.
In all modern conflicts, the proportion of civilians killed is very high. See Civilian casualty ratio - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio
That is the terrible nature of warfare.
Hamas complicates matters by shooting from hospitals and schools, then operating from below ground in its massive subway system with hundreds of secreted entrances. It takes no civil defense measures whatsoever. It wants dead Palestinians.
Maybe I am kidding myself, but I would like to think my old NY friend doesn't want Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah to defeat us. How would the world be a better place if the only Jewish state (as imperfect as we are) was overrun so the 58th Islamic state could take our place?
Has he commented with such passion on the armed conflicts raging around the world
https://geneva-academy.ch/galleries/today-s-armed-conflicts
Has he seen any campus rallies that are not about Palestine lately? Peculiar, no?