BOOK BLOG: Yair Ettinger's Frayed: The Disputes Unraveling Religious Zionists

 

It is all connected. Mizrachi (merkaz rehani) was founded in 1902 in Vilnius, Lithuania, as a religious faction in the World Zionist Organization. In Palestine, the movement spearheaded the establishment of a Rabbinate under Rabbi Abraham Issac Kook. In 1952, after dissolving its relationship with the non-Zionist Orthodox parties, Mizrachi and Ha-Po'el ha-Mizrachi created the National Religious Party and a daily newspaper, Hazofeh. Ha-Kibbutz ha-Dati is Mizrachi's kibbutz movement. Mekor Rishon subsumed the newspaper, and the NRP went defunct in 2003. Followers of Religious Zionism are known as Dati Leumi, though many have turned haredi-leumi or Hardal.

Religious Zionism is a stream of Orthodoxy with a pronounced political ideology. How is it connected to Modern Orthodoxy in the Diaspora? That is one of the questions I was thinking about as I read journalist Yair Ettinger's Frayed: The Disputes Unraveling Religious Zionists (278 pages, Toby Press, $29.95). Ettinger, a kipa-sruga wearer, has perceptively covered the religion beat in Israel for Haaretz and Kan (Israel Broadcasting Authority), so he is well-positioned to launch readers into exploring the various shades of Religious Zionism.

Religious Zionism is rooted in a triad: the Land of Israel, the People of Israel, and the Torah of Israel, as Ettinger explains. For literate Jews, regardless of religiosity and ideology, the Covenant that anchors Jewish civilization is the connection between the land and the people as described in the Torah – Ettinger's triad. Whether you take this literally as Religious Zionists do or as a sacred foundational myth, Jewish civilization is rooted in the land. The attachment to the land manifested by other ancient civilizations, such as the American Indian tribes, the Aboriginals of Australia, Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and the South American Incas, is also an attribute of our civilization.

All that Theodor Herzl and his modern political Zionism did was revive this element of our civilization. A short while later, the teachings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook gave Orthodox Judaism its roadmap into political Zionism. After 1967, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook provided Gush Emunim's settlement movement with its messianic marching orders, and its energy consumed religious Zionism.

Ettinger's book identifies disputes that divide Israel's Dati Leumi world. These no longer involve settlements over the Green Line. Gush Emunim's triumph resolved the issue, making settling Judea, Samaria, and Gaza the First Imperative. Nowadays, to my knowledge, no national religious figure who can draw a crowd opposes the primacy of the settlement enterprise.

What's left to unravel? Plenty. For instance, the role of women in the synagogue and the IDF, the reception of male homosexuals in the synagogue, and whether to shake off the influence of the patronage-laden state-funded Rabbinate (which today has only a thin Zionist veneer), including over marriage and kashrut. Should Religious Zionists commit to building the Third Temple? 75% of them support Temple Mount pilgrimages, though the Kooks (father and son) were opposed. And how should Religious Zionists relate to the non-Jewish world?

Take the issue of women in the IDF. Rabbis Zvi Yehuda Kook and Shlomo Goren were not thrilled with the idea, Ettinger tells us. Yet Zionist Religious girls did go into the army in numbers. Today's Hardal position, as enunciated by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, is uncompromising. "A girl who enlists in the IDF claiming that she wants to contribute is indeed contributing – she is contributing to the destruction of the state." Other rabbis add that women who go into the army are potentially compromising their "modesty" and are likely to emerge "damaged." The rabbis also do not want their boys distracted and, therefore, oppose gender integration in combat units. Only the Religious Kibbutz movement representing the non-Hardal remains of the Mizrachi stream takes pride in sending its girls to the army, according to Ettinger. My impression is that only a minority of national religious women now do IDF service. Some girls do other forms of national service, but since the goal is to maintain "modesty," the alternatives can be pretty parve. 

In a parallel universe, a minority camp within Religious Zionism is pushing the envelope on egalitarianism for women. Some have pressed for partnership minyans, which give women a role in conducting the services. Should women give homilies during davening from the women's side of the partition dividing all Orthodox synagogues? Should they serve in top synagogical leadership roles? Since many women are Torah scholars, and some qualify as Yoetzet Halacha (essentially unordained rabbis), what weight should their legal rulings have?

Women can push the envelope only so far, partly for cultural and aesthetic reasons but primarily because of Halacha and the stare decisis approach male Orthodox rabbis take toward interpreting Jewish religious law.

Going back to politics. The ill-fated 1993 Oslo Accords with the PLO and Israel's 2005 unilateral disengagement from Gaza solidified the Hardal political ascendency within Religious Zionism. Hardal is ultra-Orthodox in religion and hyper-nationalist in politics. Under its influence, young men are sporting knee-length tzitzit, extra large skullcaps, and payot. Women are dressing more and more in the hyper-modest ultra-Orthodox fashion, albeit with color. Those who identify as Hardal would also lean conservative regarding women's participation in the synagogue. Further, Hardal folks desire to rebuild the Temple on Mount Moriah where the Dome of the Rock now stands, disregarding the prospect of an apocalyptic confrontation with the Muslim world, which also considers the site holy. Ettinger offers a rosier scenario in the "exceptionalism" of Yehuda Glick, who thinks rebuilding the Temple while leaving the present Al-Aksa Mosque in place would be possible and pave the way for a "religious utopia."

The role of the clergy is another point of contention within the Religious Zionist stream. In the non-Zionist Haredi world, which is ultra-Orthodox and insular from non-Jewish society, grand rabbis are held to be oracles, and their guidance is sought on matters ranging from medical procedures to voting in elections. Hardal Religious Zionists also relate to their clerics as sainted. When Naftali Bennett challenged this attitude, Ettinger writes, things did not end well for him.

Ettinger chooses not to use the term Hardal in his book. He does refer to today's leading Hardal politicians, Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the Kahane-lite Otzma Yehudit Party, and Bezalel Smotrich, the National Union/Tkuma Party leader. Before the most recent elections held in November 2022, Likud Party chief and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was adamant that Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and Avi Maoz of the Noam Party run under a single rubric to unite the entire Hardal and dati leumi camp. It worked. The bloc won 14 Knesset seats, briefly becoming the third-largest faction. Once sworn in, Ben-Gvir and Maoz broke away from Smotrich (though they have no fundamental differences) and returned to their respective parties. At the same time, Smotrich rebranded his as the National Religious Party.

About 22 percent of Israelis identify as Religious Zionists of all hues, according to  Ettinger. He says he can't predict whether a politically and theologically moderate NRP/Mafdal-like religious Zionist party will rise again. Its agenda was heavily weighed on education and social issues. As far as I know, today, national religious Israelis who are not Hardal must seek political expression through one of the non-parochial parties such as Benny Ganz's National Unity. There are not enough of them to form their own religious party. The last attempt was made in 1988 by rabbis Yehuda Amital and Michael Melchior.

Ettinger writes that the Mizrachi Party dominated dati leumi politics back in the day. The NRP was the dominant political institution alongside just a few religious-cultural gatekeepers, such as Mercaz Harav. His thesis is that today, there are no gatekeepers or controlling agenda-setters. Along with the ascendency of the settlement movement and political Hardalism, many contending yeshivot, rabbis, and powerbrokers have emerged. So, Religious Zionists can revel in not having a magisterium and in decentralized decision-making. Ettinger terms this state of play "privatization." Non-Hardal Religious Zionists mostly follow their consciences. Those in the Hardal camp are pressed to "listen to their rabbis." Lots of different rabbis.

Especially since October 7, 2023, the already complicated attitude of Religious Zionists toward non-Zionist Haredim who refuse to do any form of national service or send their sons to the army has only become more fraught. The two share an Orthodox theology; their prayer services are practically interchangeable. Yet, Religious Zionists have made disproportionate sacrifices for Israeli security. Meantime, haredi youth are now on their pre-Passover recess, fumfing around as if the country had not just buried over 600 soldiers. The Haredi alibi of insularity is wearing a wee thin.

Yet the dominant Hardal wing of Religious Zionism is well-disposed toward Haredi society. They share an aesthetic for close-mindedness. To the chagrin of haredi rabbis – twitchy haredi adolescents or shababnikim feel drawn to Ben-Gvir's religious chauvinism tinged with political extremism. If I am right that for some of their constituents, Haredi draft-dodging is becoming intolerable, Ben Gvir and Smotsrich will have to "do a Netanyahu" to maintain the alliance. They will need to obfuscate the haredi refusal to serve or, at the very least, kick the issue down the road. The best way to change the subject would be to channel the wrath of their electorate at the "leftists" who have, undeniably, been calling for ending the October 7 War at any price.

How does all this look from 6,000 miles away? A difference between Diaspora Modern Orthodoxy and Israeli Religious Zionism is the latter's ongoing commitment to the Land and IDF service (including nowadays relentless stints of reserve duty). At the same time, non-Hardal Religious Zionists and Modern Orthodox Diaspora Jews may be drawing inspiration from one another on the role of women and other social issues. Non-Hardal Religious Zionists are finding workarounds to the Haredi-dominated Rabbinate when they want to marry. Against the wishes of Hardal clerics like Dov Lior and Zvi Thau, they are turning to national religious Tzohar rabbis who are of a tolerant bent. They are also looking to bypass the Rabbinate on conversion and kashrut. America's Modern Orthodox manage to marry and eat kosher without a tax-payer-funded Rabbinate, so why shouldn't dati leumi Israelis enjoy the same privilege?

The two communities are not identical. A difference between the Diaspora and Israel is that Religious Zionists are more willing to think independently about the place of religion in society. They are keen to explore artistic, literary, and cultural expression and to stake out religious boundaries. Whereas in the Diaspora, centrist-leaning Modern Orthodox feel constrained to live within normative parameters, or so say academic observers such as sociologist Shlomo Fischer, who is cited in Yehuda Mirsky's introduction to the Ettinger book.

I confess to finding the nomenclature of Modern Orthodoxy misleading. The "modern" in Modern Orthodoxy should not connote leading anything less than a Halachic lifestyle. One of the characteristics of Orthodoxy is perforce insularity from the non-Jewish world – in terms of food, culture, friendships, and other non-utilitarian relations. Each sub-group within Orthodoxy finds its place along the insularity continuum from fully acculturated to completely inward-looking.

Whatever their intramural differences, Religious Zionists of all stripes and Modern Orthodox in the Diaspora appear united in opposing concessions to non-Orthodox streams of Judaism, including at the Western Wall Plaza, according to Ettinger.

I sense that Ettinger is not downhearted about any unraveling within religious Zionism, seeing the disputes as a sign of vibrancy. He assesses liberal Religious Zionism as alive and well, perhaps because he identifies with this more moderate wing. Maybe there is a dichotomy in Religious Zionism: politically monochromatic while synagogically kaleidoscopic.

Based on years of field reporting, Ettinger's strength in this book is his mastery of the subject. With Shmuel Rosner and, more lately, Yair Cherki, Ettinger helps render the multifaceted Orthodox world to Israel's non-Orthodox majority. Here, I feel he shies away from taking positions that could lead him into controversial territory, except when he blames Bennett for fragmenting Religious Zionism's Big Tent. Yet by the time Bennett reinvented himself to appeal beyond the Religious Zionist world and, in May 2021, as head of the Yamina Party, joined a unity government with Yair Lapid, the bulk of Religious Zionists were already in the Hardal Camp. Benett was simply giving the camp's non-Hardal remnant a soft landing.  

Frayed: The Disputes Unraveling Religious Zionists has been expertly translated by Eylon Levy and Mitch Ginsburg, making it a smooth and accessible read. There are not a lot of sparks here, and no new analytical ground is unearthed, but this is a solid primer on the struggles and place of Religious Zionism in Israel.

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A Half a Year of War and a Fateful Week to Come

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 21^st-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.

 

 

 

 

Casualties of War

Until a few hours ago I had not heard of World Central Kitchen. From what little I now know about WCK, it seems its staffers are genuine humanitarians, not pretenders hiding behind a charitable label. And they have played an essential role in distributing aid to Gazans.

Last night, seven of its workers who were part of an aid convoy leaving a Deir el-Balah warehouse located in the center of Gaza were killed in an unintentional airstrike carried out by the Israel Defense Forces. It is early hours in the investigation. The IDF has expressed regret and said it was committed to discovering what happened and how.

Understandably, WCK has suspended its work. Other aid groups may follow suit.

The “international community” is tripping over itself to condemn Israel. As if the IDF, which gave its (plainly uncoordinated) support to the WCK, would have purposely killed the aid workers, as if horrible mistakes don’t happen in the fog of war.

The nighttime attack on the logoed car carrying the aid workers caused not only a dreadful loss of life but also a blow to Israeli morale – or at least the morale of this Israeli. On the one hand, we can pinpoint and take out a lot of bad guys in a military compound in the heart of Damascus, but we can’t locate over 100 Israeli hostages within driving distance of Tel Aviv. And now, it appears human error has led to us blowing up a marked aid vehicle.

Our killing of real innocents saps our capacity for resilience, especially because it comes days after the 600^th IDF soldier killed in action was buried and with hundreds still hospitalized with life-changing war wounds.

The entire situation is heartbreaking.

With no scruples, our enemies use medical centers and ambulances as instruments of war. Al-Shifa Hospital was destroyed by Hamas – yet Israel will be vilified. Hamas exploits their civilian population as cannon fodder. As the Islamists see it, martyred Palestinian noncombatants, particularly babies and women, are essential soft power components in the strategy to destroy Israel. That is why civilians were kept out of the vast Hamas underground network below Gaza, where they might have been safe from Israeli bombardment of above-ground Hamas structures.

Hamas launched this war. So far, frustratingly, the polls I have seen show that its onslaught continues to enjoy widespread support among average Palestinians. A war that has claimed untold lives, shattered peace of mind, blasted buildings and dislocated thousands on all sides from Gaza and its borders to the West Bank and from Bab el-Mandeb to Lebanon and its borders. Yet, seemingly, if they could begin October 7, 2023, all over again, they would change nothing. From the Palestinian point of view, did they not with wanton abandon pillage, torture, rape, and butcher? Did they not capture and hold stretches of “occupied Palestine” for days? How intoxicating those first days after October 7 were. What good bloodsport!  

And didn’t the war unleash a tsunami of anti-Israelism? Look how it mobilized the world against the Jews – marching every Saturday in the millions in NY and London and Madrid, indeed everywhere TikTok and Instagram can reach, where a vacuous zoomer mind can be manipulated. And has it not created an axis against the Zionists comprised of wokes, socialists, Muslims, “people of color,” and ultra-right-wingers? Has it not shown the Democratic Party to be a weak reed of support for Israel? Has it not been revealed (as if that were necessary) that the mercurial transactional Donald Trump is a potential problem when (as may be expected) he regains the White House?

October 7 has made campuses treacherous places for pro-Israel Jews – really any Jew who won’t throw a keffiyeh around their neck. Quisling Jews have joined the jackals. Suburban communities – the latest being Teaneck, NJ –are subjected to neo-Hamas demonstrations. Major American highways and train stations are shut down. Campaigners have mobilized a worldwide – from the River to the Sea – intifada campaign to destroy the Zionist enterprise. 

Hamas has already exploited the deaths of the seven innocent aid workers to further its nefarious goals. And Western politicians and legacy media can be expected to jump on the Hamas pick-up truck.

So, yes, this Israeli is exasperated. I am saddled with Binyamin Netanyahu, who has ruined Israel’s brand. He fragmented the country to stay out of prison even before the war. His tally of domestic and international blunders is more than any politician has a right to accrue.

He never had the guts to tell Israelis that “bringing the hostages home” can’t be the goal of the war, for the only way to guarantee the safety of our captives is by opening the floodgates of hell – of releasing killers who make Yahya Sinwar seem like an obnoxious boy scout. That there was no way to cut a deal with Hamas without losing to Hamas.

Yet, in all his duplicity, Netanyahu has held firm in this one thing. Yes, he has mismanaged the war to keep his cabinet together, so no "day after" plans for Gaza. But at least he is not repeating the mistake he made in the Gilad Schalit episode.

He has to go, but I am not joining the protests against him because the protests are a complete mishmash – against the draft-dodging Haredim and for early elections – but also a prisoner-for-hostage exchange.

How can the image of tens of thousands of Israelis protesting the government not give Hamas succor?

And by the way, the polls are now hinting that the Great Charlatan is recapturing some of his old luster  –  that Chuckie Schumer and other international bigwigs’ efforts to pressure Israelis to dump Bibi may be having the reverse effect.

See why I am frustrated?

Israel-Gaza War: Day 163 - Q&A

 

Before October 7, you participated in anti-Netanyahu protests over his judicial putsch, which intended to concentrate power in his own hands. Are you taking part in the renewed anti-government protests such as the one last night?

No.

Presently, there are two streams of protest. One calls for early elections intended to end Binyamin Netanyahu's government. The other is to pressure his government to concede to Hamas's demands for a hostage deal.

The two streams have melded into one.

And since I am against any hostage deal that releases busloads of terrorists, I will not demonstrate against the government. Moreover, I am not comfortable protesting in the streets against Netanyahu in wartime.

A core group of demonstrators has been trying to provoke the police by illegally blocking traffic. It is as if we are not at war, as if the police are not working long hours, as if we are not in Ramadan.

Protesters are being manipulated. Many have not thought out the consequences of a mass prisoner release. They don't know that today's Hamas leaders in Turkey, Qatar, and Gaza are primarily alumni of Israel's prisons whom Netanyahu or one of his predecessors released in previous hostage-taking deals.

As much as I want Netanyahu to leave the political stage, I will not lend a hand to strengthening the enemy in wartime. Besides, he can only be removed if elements in Likud are willing to take him down. However, he has largely purged his party of internal opponents. Yaov Gallant, the defense minister, is the only one who has openly challenged him. And Gallant is culpable for October 7 no less than Netanyahu since he – ultimately – did not quit after publicly warning that Netanyahu had undermined our deterrence with his judicial putsch. When push came to shove – Gallant caved.

Netanyahu could be dislodged if the Hardal messianic parties (of Ben Gvir and Smotsrich) and the non-Zionist Haredi ultra-Orthodox parties essential to his coalition pulled their support. These two camps could fall out over Haredi draft dodging. For now, they have no interest in bringing Netanyahu down.  

You voted for Yair Lapid in recent elections. How does his support for releasing terrorists from Israel's prisons in a hostage deal sit with you?

Badly. Lapid has been clear. He wants to trade some of the most notorious terrorists in Israeli prisons, many serving multiple life terms, for the hostages, living or dead. He says, "No deal will be an easy deal, but a deal that will bring the kidnapped home is worth the price…There is no victory without them returning. We can't move forward without them being home."

So, I would find it hard to back him when Yesh Atid runs next. I think the alpha and omega of victory is defanging Hamas and making sure it can't govern the Strip or take over the West Bank. We can't overcome the Hamas Idea because it is embedded in what it means to be Palestinian, but we can keep Hamas (and the other armed groups) from posing a military threat. And doing so would send an unmistakable signal to Hezbollah.

Western governments and the prestige media profess to support Israel's right of self-defense. On Day 163 of the October 7 War, do you believe them?

Leaders and editorialists have convinced themselves that Israel can supernaturally overcome Hamas and Islamic Jihad without harm to Palestinian non-combatants (who are the group's primary backers, cannon fodder, and human shields). Israel can somehow win, goes fabulist thinking, by declaring a unilateral ceasefire and pulling out of Gaza, by turning the Strip over to a PLO 2.0, and by enabling the creation of an armed sovereign Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank that a bridge or tunnel would link.

This is delusional. We need to be far more creative than a PLO 2.0. I favor a trusteeship for Palestine funded by the Gulf States. One that would build Palestinian political institutions and develop a new Palestinian political culture.  

I ask myself why the West and Big Media oppose Israeli defensive measures like building a buffer zone between Gaza and Israel. They oppose cutting off Rafiah from Egypt (the point where all the tunnels cross into the Sinai); they oppose, in short, anything that would actually secure Israel from further attack.

At best, they are lying to themselves.

Should Israel be doing a better job in humanitarian aid?

Israel is constantly held to a double standard not applied to other member states of the UN. Hamas is responsible for the people of Gaza, not Israel.

Yet, Israel continues to allow the flow of food and fuel to the Strip even though this undermines our effort for regime change in Gaza. We do this to abate enemy suffering. We know if the situation were reversed, they would starve those they had not butchered.

Hamas and other Gazan actors either hijack humanitarian deliveries or engineer them into confrontations with Israel. International aid intended for free distribution is being sold. Palestinian society has little history of self-help because that would undermine its culture of victimization. And since the UN is barred from permanently resettling Palestinian refugees even within Palestine, the Sisyphean cycle of aiding the Palestinians never ends.

I have little doubt that sea-borne aid from UNICEF will also wind up being sold or controlled by clans or Hamas.

The best way to help Gazans is to help Israel overcome Hamas so that food, fuel, and material can once again flow in from Israel as they did before October 7.

So, instead of conspiring with Iran behind the scenes and leaning on Israel, which the Biden administration has been doing in secret talks in Oman – it should be sending a clear message that the US supports Israel's efforts to defang Hamas.

Ideally, Jerusalem should have a plan in place for who runs Gaza after we leave. But that would be too much to expect from Netanyahu, who habitually kicks complex problems down the road.

Finally, what did you make of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's call on Netanyahu to resign? And his claim that the good Palestinians and good Israelis want peace but that Hamas and Bibi and the settlers are in the way.

I was chagrined that Schumer pretended he doesn't get that the Palestinians don't want a state alongside Israel. He is right that Netanyahu should go, but his intervention's impact will be counterproductive. It helps Netanyahu stay. Some settlers are fanatics, and some settlements are genuinely problematic but in the final analysis, the crux of the problem is Palestinian intransigence.

Isn't it curious that Schumer's call on Mahmud Abbas to resign got no attention? That's because everyone understood his critique of the Palestinians was just a cover for his attack on Netanyahu.

Why Schumer (who is unarguably a friend of Israel) played along with the psychological warfare orchestrated by the Biden WH is anyone's guess – perhaps fear that the Democrats will further hemorrhage Muslim, woke, and African American voters, constituencies that surveys show have an antipathy toward the Zionist enterprise. If the  Biden-Harris ticket loses to Trump, it will be because Joe Biden abandoned the border with Mexico, led from the left, and having failed to inspire confidence, did not have the courage to step aside, giving a moderate Democratic governor a chance to lead the party against Trump. 

Biden showed courage and decency in backing Israel at the start of the war, and Israelis are grateful for that. He was a profile in courage. He just did not have the stamina to go the distance.

Don't Flinch - Look at Yazan Kafarneh and the Suffering Palestinian Children

Is your heart made of stone? If it isn't, you need to give a thought to Yazan Kafarneh, the ten-year-old cerebral palsy Palestinian boy whose sufferings and skeletal image have become the newest ploy in Hamas's propaganda war against Israel.

Hamas and the activist aid groups that collaborate with it say some 20 Gaza children like Kafarneh have already died from malnutrition and dehydration. And for once, I have no reason to doubt them.

The deplorable humanitarian conditions in Gaza are wrongly (but intentionally) being blamed on Israel – not Hamas – including by the Biden administration. That and the approaching "holy" month of Ramadan are being used as leverage to force Israel to…what precisely? 

To halt its military campaign and agree to an indefinite ceasefire. This would give Hamas breathing room to regroup and reassert its control over Gaza. Billions of aid dollars would flow into the Strip, which the terror group would again siphon. UNWRA, the Palestinian-infiltrated relief agency that is forbidden to resettle refugees, would be reconstituted. And in the fullness of time, Hamas – which is committed to Israel's destruction, not a Palestinian state alongside it – would be ready to fight again.

In return for snapping up this opportunity for a devastating strategic defeat, Israel would get back some of its 130 or so captives, or their remains the good citizens of Gaza are still holding. That's hardly all. Israel would need to release from its prisons the next generation of Mohamed Deifs, Yahya Sinwars, and Marwan Iss's, who would mastermind in the fullness of time their own onslaught.

From the perspective of the "international community," we had better capitulate before Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, prayer, and reflection. It is also, as anyone familiar with contemporary Islamic civilizations knows, a period of intramural bloodletting and violence against non-Muslims.

Several near-certainties accompany Ramadan: in Islamic countries, the stock market climbs; in Jerusalem, the already amplified pre-dawn adhān, or call to prayer, becomes even more piercing than usual; and there is a rise in Muslim bloodletting.

No doubt, for many of the faithful, Ramadan is a period of quiet reflection and spiritual serenity. For others, however, especially in places where large numbers of Muslims cross paths with Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, or Jews, it is an occasion for barbarity.

It is said that the gates of hell are closed during Ramadan, funneling martyrs to heaven with ease.

Jihadist groups tend to conduct more terrorist attacks during Ramadan than on non-Ramadan days.

No amount of ecumenical goodwill can change the fact that Ramadan is a blood-soaked period. 

Yahya Sinwar is not rushing to surrender so that suffering Palestinians can enjoy a tranquil Ramadan in Gaza. But if Western patsies want to believe Ramadan is like Lent or the Chinese New Year, he's not about to disabuse them. 

That said, Israel should do nothing to make it easier for the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists to mobilize uninvolved believers in the struggle against it who would use Ramadan as a cudgel. Hence, we should tread lightly on the Temple Mount. We don't need to further expand the Gaza conflict to the rest of the land of Israel. Hamas does. 

In Gaza, Ben Caspit, a veteran pundit, has suggested that we call the Ramadan ceasefire bluff and hold off taking Rafiah – the last Hamas stronghold – until after the month is over. I am agnostic on this matter as I am not privy to the minutia of the military situation. I just worry about how long the IDF can remain in a holding pattern while the Palestinian population of Gaza is living under Hamas-generated Hobbesian conditions.

The US decision to drop aid by parachute and build a makeshift pier off Gaza is the Biden administration's way of shaming Israel. They want to make it look like Israel is holding up aid to Gaza. 

In just the past 24 hours, even as Hamas is shooting at us, we sent a 28-truck convoy carrying food into northern Gaza. Likewise, we coordinated with UNICEF and WHO missions to refuel Al Ahali Hospital and water pumping facilities. Israel also facilitated the airdropping of 288 packages of humanitarian aid. The IDF controls the airspace over Gaza.

Israel is facing a relentless diplomatic and propaganda blitz. The Arabs who control the UN General Assembly are mustering votes to suspend Israel's membership. The Biden/Harris 2024 campaign, which is struggling to achieve a come-from-behind victory against Donald Trump, is losing its woke, Jewish-quisling, Muslim, and African American base because of the president's military backing for Israel. Western media intones the vacuous two-state solution mantra religiously as if the Palestinian Arabs want to live alongside a national homeland for the Jewish people. As if Israel is primarily responsible for the failure of the two-state approach. 

Internally, Binyamin Netanyahu shows no sign of stepping down, and his political survival remains his first priority.

Israel's non-messianic, non-apocalyptic population (still, I venture, the majority) is growing weary with the prime minister's political partners. Last night, the Supreme Spiritual Leader of the Shas Party, who also happens to be on the state payroll as Sephardic Chief Rabbi, declared that if his constituents were forced to do any form of national service, including the army, he would advise them to relocate to the Galut. Twenty years or so of Netanyahu's rule has created a Hardal and Haredi Political Golem that is out of control.

Meanwhile, Iran is waiting in the wings, watching our divisions and the fatigue the Biden White House is displaying in Gaza. If Israel is forced to abandon its mission of defanging Hamas and ensuring it cannot rule the Strip, that will bring relief to Hezbollah, which controls the failed state of Lebanon. Nasrallah's shock troops remain positioned to strike Israel when the Teheran mullahs give the order.

In the final analysis, Israel's fate is not in its own hands. We are burning through our ammunition and military supplies. We can't sustain a war against the Iranian Empire without US backing. Moreover, one of the unintended consequences of the Hamas attack on October 7^th is that it catalyzed a global tsunami of anti-Israelism and antisemitism from New York to Melbourne and from Pretoria to London.

Yet this much is clear: Defeat in Gaza – meaning leaving Hamas capable of fighting another day and the Palestinian polity emboldened in its zero-sum goal of Israel's destruction – will only make things worse for the Diaspora.

This is the unadorned reality as we begin the Day 156 of the Gaza war. Yazan Kafarneh does not deserve to suffer. Yet those responsible for his misery - and the sufferings of the other innocent Palestinian children in Gaza - are about to get away with it unless the US administration comes to its senses.