Sunday 15 October - Gaza War - Aggregation & Commentary (live)

 

For the Medical Community -

Update from Israel: One Doctors Perspective | Prof Mark Clarfield MD FRCPC

Israel at War: Special Online Medical Webinar | Monday 16 October | 7pm BST

Speaker: Prof Mark Clarfield MD FRCPC

Emeritus Professor, Ben-Gurion University; Chair, Israel National Council on Geriatrics

Prof Clarfield will be giving an update from Israel with his perspective as a doctor.

Please click here to register for the event. Sponsored by the Jewish Medical Association of the UK

Sunday's New York Post front page

Thank God for all the anti-regime change “anarchists” and “traitors.”   Reserve generals and pilots and ordinary volunteers on the home front. 

GPS צה"ל הגביר דרמטית את שיבושי ה-GPS לסיכול מתקפת מל"טים של חיזבאללה

השיבוש מכוון גם נגד רחפנים של חמאס וטילי שיוט של איראן. חוקרים אמריקאים איתרו לאחרונה משבש עוצמתי במירון. החסימות מפריעות לתעופה האזרחית ומסכנות מטוסים בנתב"ג

President Herzog met a bipartisan delegation of US Senators this morning (Sunday) in Tel Aviv led by Senate Majority, Senator Chuck Schumer. With Schumer were Republican Senators Mitt Romney and Bill Cassidy, and Democratic Senators Mark Kelly and Jacky Rosen. They expressed their solidarity with the State of Israel. (GPO)

Sderot to be Evacuated. Residents will be evacuated from Sderot, at 11:00 today, Sunday, 15 October. (GPO) 

Who is responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza? I mean, who needs to worry about the civilian population in Gaza? Not Israel. Israel is at war with the regime in Gaza. The war aims to remove the regime's capacity to govern and pose a military threat to Israel. So, Israel's first responsibility is to its citizens: crushing Hamas. 

Gazans have been urged to move south of the city of Gaza located in the north of the strip. 

As Aaron Lerner (IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis) points out:

Gazans are not being told by the IDF to travel hundreds of kilometers to reach safety outside of the war zone delineated at this time by Wadi Gaza. Not scores of kilometers. We are talking single digits! Distances which could have been traversed at a snail's pace within the 24-hour warning period. The distance between the northernmost section of Gaza City and Wadi Gaza is no more than 5 kilometers (about 3.1 miles). The northernmost point in the Gaza Strip is only 7 kilometers from Wadi Gaza. UNWRA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) could cooperate in moving civilians this short distance or cynically contribute to encouraging human shields for Hamas to remain in place.

Foremost, Hamas is responsible for the people of Gaza. The Palestinian Authority and UNWRA could play a constructive humanitarian role if they'd set aside their animus toward the Jewish state. The oil-rich Arab world can help, too. But just as you don't ask Ukraine to take responsibility for Russian civilians while it strikes at Russian military targets, don't ask Israel to take responsibility for the Gazans. Hundreds of Afgan civilians were inadvertently killed by the British military in Afganistan. The number of Iraqi civilians killed inadvertently by the US numbers in the hundreds of thousands. 

The aims of Hamas are genocidal. It is us or them. If Hamas hides behind civilians, the onus for their deaths is on Hamas, not on Israel. If you don't get that, your moral compass is askew.

I have been channel-hopping in watching coverage of the war. Channel 14 is “all-Bibi-all-the-time” and devotes disproportionate air time to defending their hero. Mainly, this involves panels of pundits blaming Israel’s unpreparedness on someone other than Bibi, on the amorphous “left.” Haim Ramon (a has-been politician from Labor and later the defunct Kadima) is a frequent punching bag. Not sure why.

Channel 11 consistently provides solid non-showy coverage, though I switch to 12 when Ayala Hasson comes on. The veteran journalist was brought over to 11 to try to win over some of the Channel 14 crowd. It has not worked, as ratings for 11 are the lowest of all the channels. My go-to channel is 12. They have the best line-up of talent, even if (former) boy genius Amit Segal gets on my nerves sometimes. I don’t see much of 13 just because I can do only so much clicking with my arthritic fingers. 

For all the channels, my policy is when panel members start shouting and talking over each other, I mute the sound.

Speaking of muting, Netanyahu has received justified criticism for going on TV Friday night. The last time a prime minister went on TV Friday (Shabbat) night was Yitzhak Rabin in 1994 during the kidnapping (eventual murder) of Israeli soldier Nachshon Wachsman by Hamas in Oslo days.

When an anchor tells frazzled Israelis the prime minister has asked to address the nation on a Friday night, the assumption is the news is big and bad. But when Bibi went on TV this past Friday night, it was to blow off hot air. Many people say that the channels should not immediately go live when he is on until they can establish he’s saying something of substance. But in a time of war, that’s not a good idea. 

Things are getting weird when friends and family are sending around a pro-Israel op-ed that ran in the vitriolically anti-Zionist Guardian. But one of their Jewish in-house writers (who’s never been on the fringe left anyway) wrote a column people find worthwhile. So here it is. I prefer Al Jazeera to the Guardian. But that’s a matter of personal taste.

Catching up on the weekend papers...

The Secrets Hamas Knew About Israel’s Military  (NYT)

The Erev in the Trafalgar Square area must be back up. Neturei Karta is my favorite anti-Zionist group.  The secular anti-Zionists are so vanilla, but these characters ... thank you, Woody Allen. And by the time they got home, the chulent was burned. (Daily Mail)

Friday 13 October - Gaza War - Aggregation & Commentary

BEFORE SIGNING OFF FOR SHABBAT... 

HAMAS MUST SURRENDER

 UNCONDITIONALLY

Remorseless anti-Zionists such as Lara Friedman, Kenneth Roth, Peter Beinart, and Gideon Levy are working overtime to save Hamas so it can fight another day. Naturally, they don't quite put it that way.

But they are lobbying against evacuating civilians from the northern Gaza Strip. 

What these self-styled human rights campaigners should be telling Hamas is "SURRENDER UNCONDITIONALLY!" 

And if they can't bring themselves to say that, they should, at the very least, not rouse Hamas to continue using human shields. They should at least tell Hamas leaders in bunkers below Gaza's hospitals to get out from behind the wounded.

Tell Palestinian civilians to move south. If the anti-Zionists value human life, they need to tell Palestinians to move south.

The IDF is coming for Hamas.

How do you deal with a morally relativist Sky Newsreader? 

Who's asking why Israel is letting Palestinian babies die in the incubators?

Watch how Naftali Bennett handles it. 

Alumim coming home with your help.  Kibbutz Alumim, located on the border of the Gaza Strip, was founded in 1966. For the 57 years of its existence, it has flourished, producing prime agriculture, and generations of children and youth.

But all came to a standstill during a long day of battle.  On the morning of 7th October 2023, on the joyous festival of Simchat Torah, Dozens of terrorists infiltrated the kibbutz.

They attacked and murdered foreign farm workers, burnt agriculture infrastructure and kibbutz institutions, and then a grand battle ensued, led by the kibbutz security squad, who drove them away. We are raising funds to rebuild and restore Kibbutz Alumim, and we appeal to all of you to assist us as much as you can. Alumim has not fallen and never will With your help, we can restore Alumim to its magnificent glory and bring her home.

Link: https://pe4ch.com/ref/sBtgV2pH2cen

With heartfelt gratitude - The Members of Kibbutz Alumim.

I can vouch for this appeal. It is being conducted by our friends on the Kibbutz. We know the kibbutz well - Elliot.

Journalist Amir Bar-Shalom says he heard Persian (Farsi) spoken during the Hamas attack and again in Gaza - I am not sure what to make of this, but it deserves dissemination and professional analysis. 

This is a screenshot.  

Here is the link.      (h/t IM)

Hard as it is to believe, if Israeli elections were held now, plenty of patsies would still vote for Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, and Netanyahu. Watching Bibi address the Knesset last night, I can understand why. He's a wizard bedeviling the masses. It's like he's just arrived on the scene to clear up the mess that Bennett, Lapid, Rabin, Golda, and Ben-Gurion left for him in Gaza. He's so dazzlingly manipulative I almost felt sorry that it had all been thrust on his shoulders! I almost forgot he was shtuping Hamas with suitcases of money and insisting on maintaining the Islamists in power to counter the PLO. I almost forgot that he had no time to talk to the generals, that he fired his defense minister, then took him back but would not talk to him...I almost forgot. But I didn't.

סקר "מעריב": הקואליציה מתרסקת, הליכוד 19 בלבד; גנץ נוסק | כל הפרטים

Opposition leader Yair Lapid explains why he has not joined Netanyahu's government:

בעקבות המלחמה: רכבת ישראל תפעל במהלך השבת, הנסיעת יהיו חינם

The Economist (a superior weekly not known for its Philo-Zionism) offers this podcast with Hamas politburo member Moussa Abu Marzouk. The editor is discomfited by dead Jews, so it is a contentious interview. By next week, I'd expect the Economist to be back to form.

Daniel Gordis has been doing exceptional blogging on the war. My friend Gary brought it to my attention, and I am sharing it with you. 

Islamists have declared today in the Land of Israel and in the Diaspora a "Day of Rage." Their "rage" is understandable. Hamas tried to slaughter us - we resisted - and now we are coming after them - so they are enraged.

Sanhedrin 72a-b

Ha-ba le-horgekha, hashkem le-horgo  – if someone comes to slay you, you should hurry to slay them first.

Having been a graduate student at NYU and an adjunct instructor of political science there for many years, I was curious to "meet" the head of the New York University Law School Student Bar Association whose first reaction to the slaughter of Jews on Israel's side of the Gaza border was, "I will not condemn Palestinian resistance.” 

You can read all about her here. Oh, did I say "her?" Sorry. She's actually Non-Binary. Neither moral nor sapient.  

If you give money to NYU, Columbia, or Harvard, consider the dividends your investment is paying.

For a semi-amusing antidote to such stupidity, have a look at this eight-minute video.