If you want a pep talk, keep scrolling. Here is the way it is 337 days into Israel’s longest war

 To pick up where I left off. Since it has been a while, let me recap: 

(1)   I cannot fathom Israel's failure to capture Rafiah and the Philadelphi Corridor during the earliest stages of our land campaign that began on October 28, 2023.

(2)   Whatever his motivations, PM Netanyahu is correct when he says the Philadelphi Corridor can't be abandoned to Hamas because it really is the primary funnel of weapons and wherewithal into the Strip. Just because a man lacks credibility, integrity, and decency does not always make him wrong.  

(3)   Similarly, Israel needs to retain the Netzarim corridor that cuts Gaza in half from east to west. If we are to track down and kill Yehya Sinwar, we need to be inside Gaza.

(4)   Simultaneously, Israel needs to offer an initiative for the day after in Gaza that hinges on finding Arab trustees for the Strip. We want military control over the Strip for the foreseeable future, but a civil, preferably Arab trusteeship, even if drawn from PLO technocratic elements.

(5)   The needs of the many override the needs of the few. The meaning of "bring them home now" is a ceasefire that leaves Hamas in place to rebuild and rearm. Once Israel leaves captured territory – history plainly demonstrates – it can't simply return.

(6)   Any hostage exchange with Hamas is a walk down a blind alley. We do not even know who is alive (what a way to "negotiate!"). Hamas demands a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Strip. It also demands the release of hundreds, perhaps thousands of terrorists from our prisons, from the most infamous to commonplace butcher-rapists. Their release will jeopardize the lives of all Israelis for a long time to come. "Prisoner exchanges" bring immediate gratification followed by enduring torment. I refer you to the Shalit deal.

(7)   Israel's mainstream news outlets uniformly support "bring them home now." So does Yair Lapid and Benny Ganz. That don't make it right. It only shows that Netanyahu is not our only problem.

(8)   Since the Biden-Harris administration has no leverage over Hamas, and it needs to appease the woke elements within the party, it relentlessly pressures Israel to withdraw from Gaza unilaterally and limit its retaliations against Hezbollah.

(9)   Israelis, I know, feel they have to "do something" to show solidarity with our captives. However, an unintended consequence of what they have been doing is bolstering Hamas. Look at it from the enemy's viewpoint: they murder six Israeli hostages, and tens of thousands of us pour into the streets demanding surrender. My advice is don’t just do something. Sit there!

I am a hawk, not a capitulationist. For that reason, the Netanyahu government must go. I will not take part in catch-all demonstrations against it during wartime. But let me be clear: This Likud-Hardal-Haredi government is a proven catastrophe. It is culpable for weakening Israel's domestic body politic before October 7 with Netanyahu's judicial putsch spearheaded by Yariv Levin and Simcha Rothman. This Likud-Hardal-Haredi government is accountable for Israel's lack of preparedness on October 7. It failed in its fiduciary responsibilities to properly administer the IDF General Staff. Nor did it take them seriously when they made an effort to warn that Israel was forfeiting its deterrence because of internal fragmentation.

After October 7, Netanyahu refused to step down. Failing in that elemental decency, he also failed to bring together the heads of all the Zionist parties in the Knesset to serve in a genuine War Cabinet. He has refused to take personal responsibility for his failures. Nor will he now sanction a state commission of inquiry that would investigate October 7 when this war is over.

He has sullied Israel's brand globally.

By empowering messianics prostrating themselves on the Temple Mount, they have united a bickering Islamic world – Sunni, Shi’ite, Turkish, Persian, and Arab – against Israel. Our fanatics have finally managed to make the Israel-Palestinian conflict into a war of Islam against Judaism and, in the process, helped to further fan already red-hot antisemitism flaming through so much of the West.

That’s the way it is 337 days into Israel’s longest war. A multi-front conflagration. We are facing our arch enemy Iran in the east and its Syrian and Iraqi-based militias; in the Jordan Valley and in Judea and Samaria (which need I remind you overlooks Ben-Gurion Airport) Iran is stoking an already smoldering front; in Gaza, the battle to defang Hamas is ongoing; in the north we are in a draining war against the country formerly known as Lebanon now a Hezbollah Zombie, and against the country formerly known as Yemen now a Houthi Frankenstein.

Realistically, we can’t address Hezbollah until Gaza is reasonably pacified.

Internationally, we are facing a lawfare onslaught orchestrated in the first instance by South Africa on behalf of Hamas and the PLO. Britain's new Labour Government is slowly but surely feeding Israel to its Corbyn wing. France is no better.

Meanwhile, the Jewishly-affiliated, genuinely pro-Israel community in the US is in an utterly unenviable position less than 60 days before the American presidential elections. A vote for Trump-Vance brings with it neo-Nazi "demons of influence" into the White House. A vote for Harris-Walz brings with it Islamist and woke "scamps-of-influence" into the White House. MAGA versus intersectional rapscallions. To me, that is no choice at all.

It is good to be back.

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Gone Fishing - Back before the first rains

 

Why I am Not Out Protesting to 'Bring Them Home Now'

 

I’m not protesting today. I am not blocking main traffic arteries.

Before October 7th, I spent months demonstrating against Binyamin Netanyahu’s judicial putsch. Even then, I never blocked traffic because it is illegal. I do not want to get arrested, and I do not want to be responsible for keeping someone from their urgent appointments. Why punish motorists?

Since the war began, I see no justification for stretching police resources by holding protests. 

More to the point, I am not demonstrating because I do not want to meld two distinct causes:  (1) bringing the government down and (2) “Bring Them [the Israelis kidnapped by the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza led by Hamas] Home Now.”

Elections first: Yes, I want elections, but so long as the Netanyahu-led Likud, the Hardal parties of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, and the Haredi parties of Agudat Israel and Shas hang together, I see no path to bringing down this government. If anything, the "Channel 14" la familia crowd will point to “leftists” protesting in wartime and harden the government’s resolve.  

Who in Likud even wants to stand up to Bibi? Anyway, of the handful of Likud MKs who don’t owe their places in the Knesset to Netanyahu, which is going to resist the Magician of Cesearea? Yuli Edelstein? Nir Barkat? Yoav Gallant? All three repeatedly chickened out. Most of the rest are brown nosing Bibi drones.

Like you, I oppose the Netanyahu-Hardal-Haredi government. Under Netanyahu, the Likud is irredeemable; rotten to the core. Hardal is messianic apocalyptic. These parties want Temple Mount sacrifices, Gaza re-settlement, and pop-up nonstrategic settlements in Judea and Samaria. They would like to make believe there are no Palestinian Arabs and that, anyway, we have no obligations to them. As for the Haredi parties, they want us to embrace the sanctity of parochial draft dodging and the blessedness of their insular, cultish mores. 

Blame yourselves if you voted for Likud or one of the “religious Zionist” parties or God-forbid the haredim. This was the axis Netanyahu promised all along: Likud, Hardal, + the haredim.

Now, let’s turn to the matter of the hostages: “Bring them home now!” should be read as capitulate to Hamas at any cost.

Hamas is not offering to release Israeli hostages in return for a ceasefire. Hamas is demanding an end to the war, a complete withdrawal, and, therefore, an IDF pullback from the Philadelphi Corridor. Caving in would renew the free flow of weapons and materials from Sinai into the Strip. Obviously, after disengagement, we should never have given up the Philadelphi Corridor. Plainly, we should have taken the Philadelphi Corridor at the beginning of this war, not long months into it. But we have, presumably, belatedly shut the spigot that made October 7th possible.

Far worse, “Bring them home now” hands Palestinian Islamists precisely what they asked for on Day One, namely the release of hundreds of Arabs justifiably incarcerated in our prisons. Netanyahu released Yihya Sinwar himself in an earlier trade that put the needs of the few over the safety of the many. Repeating Netanyahu's mistake, which had cost us hundreds of lives leading up to October 7th, would be reckless in the extreme.

 “Bring them home Now!” not only hands Hamas a victory, it encourages another October 7th either from Gaza or the West Bank or Lebanon – or, maybe, all three fronts. It encourages the Shi'ite Arab Houties in Yemen and the Shi’ite Arab militias in Iraq.  It will encourage Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is building up in Judea and Samaria. It will embolden Hezbollah to try something like October 7th using its tunnels in South Lebanon. And it would send a clear signal to our arch-enemy Iran.

After 275 days of war, massive dislocation of Israeli civilians – north and south, nearly 1,600 Israelis killed, and God knows how many life-altering wounds suffered by our soldiers, not to mention our collective national trauma, “Bring them home Now!” raises a white flag that says: we are yielding. It is an invitation to kidnap more Israelis later.

And not incidentally, bring who home now? Does Israel even have a list of who is alive and who is dead? What normal country negotiates without knowing what it is bargaining about? 

Ceasefire now? No thanks. Fuck the Hamas. Fuck the Hezbollah.

Netanyahu has failed to tell the families of the hostages the painful truth. He has strung them along. And Israel's anti-government media is committing malpractice by not spelling out precisely what Hamas expects in return for the hostages.

Our prime minister also can’t bring himself to acknowledge that Hamas has to be replaced by some other Arab entity in Gaza, and the only possible alternative is the repulsive PLO. Thus, thanks to this benighted government, we have wasted lives and time with a Biden-like refusal to acknowledge harsh reality. The Gaza vacuum works against us.

Netanyahu told us we should let the PLO collapse in the West Bank as punishment for their lawfare campaign against us. It felt good to do so, I admit. Yet, now, the West Bank is militarily more dangerous than at any time since the Six-Day War. We actually need to use warplanes to pacify West Bank refugee camps. And for all his bluster and all his obsequious groveling to Trump, Iran is closer to a deployable nuclear weapon than ever. 

We need to acknowledge reality – if it is not too late – and work with the “moderate” Arab states to salvage the hideous PLO.

The irrational, ideologically driven policies of this government and Netanyahu’s relentless commitment to putting his personal interests first have brought us to a bad place. Indeed, to October 7^th. That said, falling into the enticing “Bring Them Home Now!” trap only exacerbates our problems. It’s not what you want to hear, it’s not what I want to write, but this is no time for mass-delusion.

 

Propaganda of the Deed - Near Central Park, NYC

It is art depreciation time.

Elements in this picture. 

1. Ultra-Orthodox garbed anti-Zionist cult members, including a child in sunglasses. Check.

2. Yankee fan who is also a Hezbollah campaigner holding up the photo of the terror group manager. Check. 

3. Woke person (presenting as female) unmasked doing a selfie for Instagram. Check.

4. Woke person (presenting as female) in COVID mask wrapped in tourist kaffiyeh. Check.

5. Woke person (presenting as male) in full-face Palestinian Arab kaffiyeh. Check.

The site appears to be Fifth Avenue and 67th Street. Hezbollah is a Shi'ite Arab terror group that has seized control of Lebanon. The group launched an unprovoked attack on Israel in solidarity with Hamas, which invaded Israel on October 7, 2023.

Hezbollah is responsible for the killing of hundreds of US Marines in truck bombings. 

TAGS: #anti-Zionist, #anti-Israel, #quislings #cult #woke #terrorism #Hamas #Hezbollah #woke 

Good Old Fashioned Political Power on Display - Adirei HaTorah

 

Watch some of this nearly five-hour video of a mass assembly that didn't get much coverage in the mainstream media. Yes, it is mainly a religious revival meeting, but if you read between the lines, it is also a powerful display of ultra-Orthodox political power.

Earlier this month, some 25,000 ultra-Orthodox American rabbis, their financial backers, young novices, and full-time adult yeshiva students gathered at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia for the third annual Adirei HaTorah convention.

The participants belong to a stream of American ultra-Orthodoxy that follows the philosophy of Rabbi Aharon Kotler (1892-1962), who was rescued from the clutches of the Holocaust before the US entered WWII. Kotler, from his Lakewood, NJ yeshiva, advocated that adult men should not work for a living but engage in full-time Talmudic and religious studies.

The all-male Adirei HaTorah convention brought together an all-star lineup of mostly Lithuanian-ultra-Orthodox clerics, including a guest appearance by the elderly and frail Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetzky, whose yeshiva operates out of Philadelphia.

I was thinking about what it costs to bring together so many people who do not work for a living. US nursing home czar Eliezer Louis Scheiner apparently bankrolled the gala event. Let's just say that Scheiner and his partner Teddy Lichtschein's modus operandi in running their nursing home network does not serve as a kiddush Hashem. Scheiner has helped organize nursing home industry support for the Trump campaign. He personally donated $750,000. The Trump administration was known for trying to relax federal regulations over how nursing homes are run. You might say there was an implied quid pro quo, but I could not possibly comment.

The Philadelphia gathering heard from prominent religious figures. Among them was US-born Moshe (Milton) Hirsch, 88, an Aharon Kotler protege who traveled from the Holy Land to address the multitude. Hirsch, who is a spiritual adviser to Degel HaTorah, the Lithuanian wing of the Ashkenazi Israeli political party United Torah Judaism, heads an Israel-based charitable outfit HaMeshivim, which supports full-time yeshiva study for adult men and Lev Shomea which provides counseling.

In his homily (pick up around 2:56 in the clip), Hirsch warned that "leftists" in Israel were intensifying their fight against "Yiddishkeit" by cutting money to adult male yeshivot. To make matters worse, these same leftists are demanding that able-bodied ultra-Orthodox youth serve in the army or do some other form of national service. Hirsch did not have to state the obvious: that in Israel, this tumbledown lifestyle is mainly funded by the taxpayers thanks to the disproportionate power of the two ultra-Orthodox political parties, United Torah Judaism and Shas, and the connivance of Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud.