Trump sold out. He knew he couldn't keep his word that there would be Hell to pay if Hamas doesn't release the hostages so he forced Israel into the deal. Once again Israel is kicked around and Hamas continues to get what it wants.
Largely to blame for the war continuing and not getting our hostages back was biden and blinkens demand that we supply gaza with humanitarian aid from day one. Blinken recently admitted that this is what allowed hamas to keep fighting and resulted in not getting the hostages back sooner. What an idiot!
Who the hell gives the enemy humanitarian aid after being attacked by them. What an awful administration. Imagine if the PKK attacked Turkey and massacred 10,000 turks you think for a second they would start giving humanitarian aid to the kurds from day one.
Unfortunately, Bibi is just about the strongest of the lot. That's saying a lot, but it's not saying enough. I dunno, maybe Ben-Gvir would be stronger, but for better and/or worse he's not going to be prime minister.
I can't think of a single opponent of his, in the Likud or out of it, who would have stood as firm as he did for so long. Mayyyybeee Bennett, and I'm not to confident there either.
Trump did exactly what he said he was going to do: force an end to the war before his inauguration. This is something that Biden wanted and recommended to Israel but was not willing to force on Israel. The only way to force an end was to lean on Netanyahu to accept a deal.
Just trying to accurately portray what Biden and Trump's actual positions are and always rather than just saying "Dems bad, Trump good" like most of the commenters here. I have been saying for some time that Biden as an ardent Zionist has been giving Israel an almost free hand even when he disagreed. My impression is that the Israeli top negotiators (Barnea and Bar) would have concluded a ceasefire agreement some time ago, except that Netanyahu kept undermining the negotiations because he was afraid of losing his coalition. If that is true, then yes, it is good that someone forced him to stop doing that, although it would have been much better if he did the right things himself. Now he looks more like a Trump lackey (which I guess he always was to some extent).
What gives you the impression that Barnea and Bar would have concluded a cease fire deal, had not it been for Bibi’s intransigence? And which party do you think would leave the coalition and what would Bibi offer them if they remained?
>”In Israel, whether people think the ceasefire/exchange is a great idea or a terrible idea (personally I have no idea), nobody is celebrating.
In Gaza, and among their supporters abroad, while some are bemoaning the terrible catastrophe that Hamas brought upon them, a lot of people are celebrating. Some are celebrating a release from destruction, but many are celebrating a victory.
Why are the reactions the opposite of what one might expect?”
You're overthinking it. Gaza, as the warzone and on the defensive since Day 2 of the war, naturally feels the ceasefire as a much greater psychological relief.
In contrast, for Israel, where - broadly speaking - life has largely continued as usual over the past year, the impact feels less pronounced.
I’m speaking as someone who lives in Israel. And yes, I have close family and friends serving in the reserves who have been in combat during the war; I’m not minimizing that reality
You say you have friends and family who have served, I don't understand in which world someone could say anything in the last 16 months has been, broadly or narrowly speaking, normal.
I'm stating a fact: my day-to-day life remains essentially the same as it was before the war. While the war is a constant psychological backdrop, it’s not at all comparable to living in an active warzone, like Gaza in the last year.
(Of course, Israelis living near the Lebanon and Gaza borders had a different experience, but they were a minority, less than 10 percent of the population)
If that was true the people in Gaza celebrating would not also be calling for another October 7th. They're celebrating because they "won", not because they're getting a reprieve.
Unfortunately, the protesting mothers have to be completely ignored. At a certain point their actions become selfish. Do they want us to release more Sinwars?
Shalit himself was of course not involved, and Bibi of course was, but there were other parties as well, parties who are still active. Advertising executives and perpetual protesters.
I do not blame Netanyahu. He knew that Trump tries to destroy everyone and everything that defies him or is merely in his way. Trump opposed the $15 billion aid package Biden got through Congress and got Vance and Rubio to vote against it. (Vance probably didn't need convincing; Rubio sold his soul.) Trump never praised the elimination of Nasrallah and is equivocal about the end of the Assad regime. Trump openly supported Hezbollah's candidate for President of Lebanon, who lost because Assad is gone. And everyone in the region knows how Trump betrayed the Free Syrian Army, the Kurds, and the Afghans. Netanyahu knows all this.
The blow to the soldiers' moral is infinite, why should anyone fight for this? Expect thousands of people to leave or sign up to Yeshiva not to enroll in the army.
How could Israel be hit by a repeat unless it repeats the gross intelligence failures of the past? The IDF is going to be positioned to prevent any similar attack.
There are more valuable takeaways from the ordeal of the past 15 months.
Douglas Murray said in an interview that October 7th was like someone shooting up a flare in the middle of the night, to light up the surroundings. It gave us a good look at who are our true friends, and who are our enemies. Surprisingly, we have seen Arab nations more supportive of Israel eradicating Hamas than we have seen among Western progressives and universities!
Also, there were a significant number of Israelis (including those living in the Gaza envelope) who sincerely thought that it was possible to make peace with the Palestinians. Judging from the Palestinian response to October 7th, we see that they overwhelmingly are comprised of people who 1) absolutely adore October 7th, and would love to perpetrate another one, 2) condone it and justify it as being "resisting the occupation" or "the logical outcome of suffering the crimes of the occupation", and perhaps 3) those who don't adore it or condone it, but thought it was a bad idea because of the destruction that Israel wrought on Gaza. Very few Palestinians condemn October 7th on moral grounds: that murdering and raping innocent people is simply wrong.
Not nice to bring this up, but during the withdrawal from Gaza settlements, as Israelis were leaving their lives, their parnassa, and their homes, a number of the border kibbutzim along the road had posted signs saying things like, "Welcome back to Israel".
Certainly. The leftist kibbutznikim were certain that the Gazans' hostility to Israel was because of the settlements in the Gaza Strip and the military presence to protect it. They were quite surprised when rockets continued being launched from Gaza, mere days after the Disengagement.
One woman recounted (after October 7th): "What's going on? Didn't we just give them what they wanted?"
While there are numerous opinions, most of the sources in Chazal that I have seen seem to indicate that Achziv is the northernmost point in Eretz Yisrael on the Mediterranean coast. It is about five kilometers south of the border with Lebanon.
Israel has not destroyed the tunnel system. Israel is being forced to withdraw from the Philidelphia Corridor and virtually all of Gaza, Hamas is still in power. Hamas will be getting billions of dollars of "aid", including tax payer money from USA. This is sicking.
Hamas didn’t win. Every one of their leaders is dead. Israel will never let this happen again. Hamas is nearly destroyed. Now, every other country in the Middle East are distancing themselves from these terrorist maniacs. Iran nuclear system has to be next.
Of course it will happen again. They are still in power. Hostage Taking pays off as it brought Israel to its knees. They learned that they can play on our Yiddishe compassion so they're gonna keep on repeating like they swore to do.
Golda Meir put it best when she said that Arabs don't make policy based on what's good for them, rather based on what they perceive to be bad for us (Jews).
Since Hamas inception, the idea has always been the same - trigger an Israeli reaction to their atrocities, whether in a hotel in Netanya or Oct 7th, which in turn would set the middle east ablaze and out of the ashes, the shiny califate of Palestine would be born. They understood that Arabs or more precisely Sunni didn't care so much about them, so they did the unthinkable and allied with the Shia.
At the end, even Nazis recognised they had been defeated. Here, even if a single Hamasnik is left in the ashes of Gaza, with his last gasp he will proclaim victory.
You make a list of wins and loses Rabbi, but there is the whole other side of how each perceive it as you say. And here is where Israel is left in an impossible position This war could have killed one and a half million Gazans, and it still wouldn't be a loss for Hamas, as long as they live to fight another day.
How do you confront an enemy like this? How do you contain it? As long as the world doesn't understand or care to understand what Hamas is about, we will be fighting this war forever.
Finally, let me add in your list of wins, that it should now be clear that when people say "I am not an antisemite, just antizionist", they're tell lies. The world showed what women's solidarity was worth when the women were Jewish, among many other things.
I hope we finally get what the Torah teaches us consistently, that we only have HKBH and ourselves to count upon.
Peeception is indeed sometimes more important than reality. Most Americans think crime is rising when in fact the opposite is true. Some US cities experienced unprecendented drops in homicide rates last year. Many Americans think we are not producing much oil any more; in fact no country in history has ever produced as much. There are numerous other examples.
It is my understanding that Israel will be required to exchange a thousand Gaza / Hamas terrorist prisoners for 33 hostages. If true, this “epic” deal is merely another round in endless losses of Israel vs stateless/Jordanian Muslim Arabs bent on destroying the Jews.
October 7th will be repeated. Does anyone do any math? Save a few tens of Jews from torture and death now vs doom hundreds or even thousands more to same, in future?
If you fight a long war you MUST either win or lose it. Hamas survived and got some people back. It is not hard to train up people to blow up things and fights they have the entire Muslim Middle East there ready assist them with training and tech. So, unless there is some secret agreement between Trump and Netanyahu guaranteeing US assistance with destroying Iran’s nukes/ayatollah regime (a far bigger immediate threat than Hamas) Israel lost, yes.
From a claimed “rationalist” perspective I expect more rationality.
Rationalism should be emotionless, but people can't help it.
Of course, it's considered in bad form for people to say "I told you so"- the Left in Israel started saying it's bad form very, very quickly after October 7- but that doesn't mean that people *didn't*, and that maybe they should be listened to again.
This was not a long war. The Maccsbees' war with the Seleucid Empire lasted decades. So did the US war against the Taliban. There are many examples between the two.
The post-October '23 military operation in Gaza is not an isolated incident or a separate war. It's yet another phase of a multi-decade, ongoing war between Jews and Muslim Arabs. If this reality is not recognized as it is, we cannot discuss this rationally.
Yes, this war is more than 50 years old. I remember as a kid in the mid-80s, being told not to pick up random toys on the street, because these could contain explosives. They made us watch a special videotaped program, to internalize these warnings. The First Intifada started in 87, and I remember all of this. (But the PLO had been operating much earlier than that).
Let's put this bluntly: the Muslim Arabs will not cease to wage war on the Jews whenever, wherever, and however they can. Hence, the solutions that Israel should seek now have to be of escalating severity, not of appeasement, as the time for dialogue has long passed (despite decades of trying hard for full resolution of the war via peaceful means, as is well-known by those who argue for peace in good faith).
The world, more or less, is against us, and we should no longer care too much. There are people out there who use the pretense of "facts" to mask their vehement vile hatred of Jews. It is pointless to argue or trying to prove that "we are the good guys." It is time to do what is right for the future of the nation and its state.
Only through true victory will our enemies start respecting us. Fear is what works for them, which means that fear is what we must make them feel. The other option is death of the state. If not by outright massacre then by outright emigration of the best and brightest, those who keep the nation functioning (and, sorry to say, these are mostly not those who pray day in and day out)
By Israeli standards, it's been a long war. Considering that Israel's military strategy has always favored short wars conducted outside Israel's borders, this has been a very long war indeed.
I hope Hamas breaks the ceasefire so that this terrible deal collapses. We will see how many hostages Hamas gives back. How many are still alive ? And in return Israel gives Hamas ten times (30 times ?) more living criminals who of course will volunteer to massacre more Jews in Israel.
Gen. Yitzchak Brik said early on in the war that failure to get the hostages back will always leave a bitter taste in our mouth, even if we would manage to rid Gaza of Hamas.
"Getting rid of Hamas" is not a realizable goal, as long as the education system of the Palestinians is what it is presently. Even in Palestinian Authority textbooks, Israel is considered a rapacious, colonizing entity that exists on stolen Palestinian land. The entire population has to be reprogrammed for peace, like Germany and Japan were after WWII.
Dan Sheuftan said in a recent interview, that it was much easier for Germany to return to normalcy after WWII, since Hitler and Nazism could be seen as an aberration. There was already a rich German culture and infrastructure that the German people could return to.
The Palestinians, on the other hand, only have an infrastructure that wants to eradicate Israel. As Einat Wilf quotes Ernest Bevin (I'm paraphrasing): "The Arab-Zionist conflict is irreconcilable, because the Zionists insist on creating a Jewish state, and the Arabs insist on there not being a Jewish state."
Note well, they insist on there not being a Jewish state, not on there being an Arab state. And the same goes for their friends around the world. It's how "the world" is more worked up about Israel occupying a few kilometers in a neutral zone on the Syrian border than it is about Erdogan occupying huge chunks of Syria. (Even Erdogan is.)
Anyway, it's not just that, as you correctly say, Germany and Japan had a lot to fall back on and Palestinian "infrastructure" does not, because it's not a matter of "infrastructure," it's a matter of the Palestinian people, who were created and continue to exist *only* as a way of attacking Israel. Can't get rid of Hamas? Try to get rid of the concept of a Palestinian people, or at the very least the idea that they have some rights in this land to a state of their own. (Hamas has pretty much killed that one off all on their own.) Or, dare we say, maybe try to shift some people around, shall we say. It was proposed years ago and could have been done for a lot less blood and treasure than it's cost since it was rejected as raaaaaaaaaaccciiiiist.
You think like a Westerner. Watch Eliahu Ioisin on YouTube and you'll understand why you're wrong.
Getting rid of Hamas" is not a realizable goal --> True, that's why you need to get rid of them all, including women and children. This is the Middle East, not The West.
It’s actually a 50:1 ratio. These worthless pieces of human refuse know that one Jew is worth 50 of them. No wonder they resort to their destructive culture to booster such nonexistent self esteem.
Although I thought Trump would be better for Israel, I am not so sure anymore. I have the feeling he has stabbed Israel in the back. However, maybe Israel is getting something we do not know about in exchange for this terrible deal with Hamas. Israel has to become less reliant on any foreign aid.
We diaspora Jews warned you. My earlier comment listed numerous recent examples that should have raised alarm bells. Trump only cares about what is good for Trump.
Do you recall what's been coming out of the Executive Branch for the past year? Do I have to remind you, or are you too wedded to...I dunno, abortion? Gays? to notice?
Unfortunately, many Orthodox Jews here in the US are firmly in the MAGA cult, and whatever Trump does or will do will be axiomatically "the best thing ever done," no matter what it actually is. Wait and see how any negative outcomes will be Biden's fault, or even better, Obama's fault. Or why not Carter's fault? It doesn't matter. It wasn't Trump.
I still wonder, as I have wondered from the start of this, whether when the fighting ends and results are assessed, people will be saying, "You know, in retrospect we should have prioritized the hostages, and just solidified our defenses to prevent the possibility of such attacks." I don't know if that will be the case, but there was a path not taken.
Trump is interested in what's good for Trump (which is not always a good thing), and a second- maybe a close second- in what's good for the US (which is perfectly OK for a US president). The two may align more often than not (or may not), and in turn may align with what's good for Israel- I think more often than not- but none of that is guaranteed.
Maybe Rabbi, one day you should tackle the sickly prevalence of conspiracy as a manner to explain the world in our days. This one, that the president who has been out of office for almost a decade and lead the efforts to have the kippat barzel installed is somehow behind the scenes to destroy us, is an interesting one. I will certainly admit he was naive and not really understanding of the realities of the middle east, but an enemy of Israel is a step too far indeed.
I know it's hard to accept if someone enthusiastically voted for him twice, but it's clear from his words and actions that the man has a big problem with the existence of Israel. Maybe he hasn't thought it through thoroughly, but that's part of the problem.
And if you think he's been out of office for eight years, perhaps you can tell me who's been making decisions the last four.
Defensive systems are nice, by the way, but not having to use them is even nicer. For some reason the United States doesn't need an Iron Dome.
Really? You should have seen his post reacting to this. He gets the hostages out of the way and then goes on and on about how this is good for the Gazans. Not a word about Israel.
I have first-hand experience with what people of his ethnicity (adopted in his case, but still) and age cohort were raised on ("our oppressed brothers in South Africa and Palestine"), and it's clear it influenced him deeply. And it's becoming more obvious by the day.
It's not the deal, however bad it might be, that makes an enemy. (Bear in mind that Trump is, ahem, not a very deep thinker, for better or for worse.*) It's what one feels about Israel.
*The US had one PhD president. It did not go well.
After bringing Israel low on October 7, 2023, Hamas survives and gets to rule Gaza. There are already enough new recruits to make up its losses, more or less, to be trained by 1000 hardened fighters fresh-released from Israeli prisons. There will be peace and time to regroup, re-equip, retrain, and rebuild, with oodles of money from international sources. Hostage-taking is validated as a successful way of war. (There will be much more, not only in Israel.) At a time of Hamas’s own choosing, and by a modality known only to them and their sponsor Iran, they will attack Israel again; and if history repeats, again and again and again. A large number of holy martyrs achieve Paradise. Nothing was lost that Hamas cares about. (Take their religion seriously. They do.) This isn’t a draw. This is a win for Hamas. Israel lost.
Because the United States has withdrawn as Israel’s reliable seller of advanced arms, this war was unwinnable. Nobody knew that for sure of both American parties until Trump’s negotiator arrived and spoke. Until now it was uneconomic for Israel to be self-sufficient in advanced arms, as Zionism would advise; now there is no choice.
I mostly only follow my side of the news, but it seems that the Israeli side at best views this ceasefire as a bitter pill, while the Palestinian sides is uniformly ululating. I know they are looking at our discourse and gaining encouragement from our disappointment. We should not give them the satisfaction. Maybe there is a value in projecting fortitude and touting our military achievements externally and keeping our disgruntlement relatively internal
Personally, I see "civilians killed" as a loss for everyone. It's not "THEIR civilians were killed so that's THEIR loss." When some innocent 5-year old child is killed, that's a loss for everyone. It matters what side of a political boundary the kid lived on?
Of course it matters. That's what war is all *about*. War is hell. People die, horribly, even people who didn't sign up for it.
Do you think the Allied leaders of World War II would have ever let the expression "an innocent 5-year-old German killed is a loss for everyone" even cross their minds? Of course not.
“The ruthless bombing from the air of civilians in unfortified centers of population during the course of the hostilities which have raged in various quarters of the earth during the past few years, which has resulted in the maiming and in the death of thousands of defenseless men, women and children, has sickened the hearts of every civilized man and woman, and has profoundly shocked the conscience of humanity.
If resort is had to this form of inhuman barbarism during the period of the tragic conflagration with which the world is now confronted, hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings who have no responsibility for, and who are not even remotely participating in, the hostilities which have now broken out, will lose their lives. I am therefore addressing this urgent appeal to every government which may be engaged in hostilities publicly to affirm its determination that its armed forces shall in no event, and under no circumstances, undertake the bombardment from the air of civilian populations or of unfortified cities, upon the understanding that these same rules of warfare will be scrupulously observed by all of their opponents. I request an immediate reply. Franklin D. Roosevelt.”
Wow, talk about missing the point. Please master some World War II history and some high-class English, and if you still don't get what he's saying here, get back to me and I'll spell it out in...eleven words.
You don’t seem to get it. IDGAF about a bunch of Stone Age terrorists or their progeny. They FA and FO. I’m worried about my people and THEIR children.
Caring only "for your own" is not humanity. Rats care for their own. Pigeons care for their own. Ants care for their own. Are you trying to tell me this is some great moral achievement you've arrived at?
Trump sold out. He knew he couldn't keep his word that there would be Hell to pay if Hamas doesn't release the hostages so he forced Israel into the deal. Once again Israel is kicked around and Hamas continues to get what it wants.
Largely to blame for the war continuing and not getting our hostages back was biden and blinkens demand that we supply gaza with humanitarian aid from day one. Blinken recently admitted that this is what allowed hamas to keep fighting and resulted in not getting the hostages back sooner. What an idiot!
Who the hell gives the enemy humanitarian aid after being attacked by them. What an awful administration. Imagine if the PKK attacked Turkey and massacred 10,000 turks you think for a second they would start giving humanitarian aid to the kurds from day one.
We need stronger leaders here in Israel.
Unfortunately, Bibi is just about the strongest of the lot. That's saying a lot, but it's not saying enough. I dunno, maybe Ben-Gvir would be stronger, but for better and/or worse he's not going to be prime minister.
I can't think of a single opponent of his, in the Likud or out of it, who would have stood as firm as he did for so long. Mayyyybeee Bennett, and I'm not to confident there either.
And then he has to go ruin it all.
"Ben-Gvir would be stronger"
I'm still waiting for him of Smotrich to pull out of the coalition and force elections.
As career politicians they prefer to be weak for years than strong for days.
Ben Gvir is all words and no action.
He’s a fraud… like a yungrman hocking in the coffe room about how easy it is to be rich and everyone else is so stupid and lazy.
Talks the tough talk, but has nothing to prove for himself , for crying out loud he never was in the IDF.
Trump did exactly what he said he was going to do: force an end to the war before his inauguration. This is something that Biden wanted and recommended to Israel but was not willing to force on Israel. The only way to force an end was to lean on Netanyahu to accept a deal.
Do you think that's a good thing?
Just trying to accurately portray what Biden and Trump's actual positions are and always rather than just saying "Dems bad, Trump good" like most of the commenters here. I have been saying for some time that Biden as an ardent Zionist has been giving Israel an almost free hand even when he disagreed. My impression is that the Israeli top negotiators (Barnea and Bar) would have concluded a ceasefire agreement some time ago, except that Netanyahu kept undermining the negotiations because he was afraid of losing his coalition. If that is true, then yes, it is good that someone forced him to stop doing that, although it would have been much better if he did the right things himself. Now he looks more like a Trump lackey (which I guess he always was to some extent).
@David Ohsie,
What gives you the impression that Barnea and Bar would have concluded a cease fire deal, had not it been for Bibi’s intransigence? And which party do you think would leave the coalition and what would Bibi offer them if they remained?
Read all the reporting. And look at what’s happening right now with the delays for “Shabbat”.
Thank God, someone came to their senses on the “Shabbat” issue.
>”In Israel, whether people think the ceasefire/exchange is a great idea or a terrible idea (personally I have no idea), nobody is celebrating.
In Gaza, and among their supporters abroad, while some are bemoaning the terrible catastrophe that Hamas brought upon them, a lot of people are celebrating. Some are celebrating a release from destruction, but many are celebrating a victory.
Why are the reactions the opposite of what one might expect?”
You're overthinking it. Gaza, as the warzone and on the defensive since Day 2 of the war, naturally feels the ceasefire as a much greater psychological relief.
In contrast, for Israel, where - broadly speaking - life has largely continued as usual over the past year, the impact feels less pronounced.
I’m speaking as someone who lives in Israel. And yes, I have close family and friends serving in the reserves who have been in combat during the war; I’m not minimizing that reality
You say you have friends and family who have served, I don't understand in which world someone could say anything in the last 16 months has been, broadly or narrowly speaking, normal.
I'm stating a fact: my day-to-day life remains essentially the same as it was before the war. While the war is a constant psychological backdrop, it’s not at all comparable to living in an active warzone, like Gaza in the last year.
(Of course, Israelis living near the Lebanon and Gaza borders had a different experience, but they were a minority, less than 10 percent of the population)
If that was true the people in Gaza celebrating would not also be calling for another October 7th. They're celebrating because they "won", not because they're getting a reprieve.
If the war does not resume by Israels initiative after this interlude, Israel is likely to be hit by a repeat.
Shalit is now the policy of the state. And everyone knows it.
Unfortunately, the protesting mothers have to be completely ignored. At a certain point their actions become selfish. Do they want us to release more Sinwars?
Let’s stick you in a tunnel for 470 days starving and torturing you and see how you feel after that.
Shalit didn't do the deal. Leave the poor guy alone.
Netanyahu made the deal, so let's start calling it the Netanyahu deal, the Netanyahu policy.
Shalit himself was of course not involved, and Bibi of course was, but there were other parties as well, parties who are still active. Advertising executives and perpetual protesters.
I do not blame Netanyahu. He knew that Trump tries to destroy everyone and everything that defies him or is merely in his way. Trump opposed the $15 billion aid package Biden got through Congress and got Vance and Rubio to vote against it. (Vance probably didn't need convincing; Rubio sold his soul.) Trump never praised the elimination of Nasrallah and is equivocal about the end of the Assad regime. Trump openly supported Hezbollah's candidate for President of Lebanon, who lost because Assad is gone. And everyone in the region knows how Trump betrayed the Free Syrian Army, the Kurds, and the Afghans. Netanyahu knows all this.
Wow, one wonders why Trump is so popular among Israelis, even left-wing ones. False consciousness, I guess. We need people to instruct us.
To be fair, it began with some soldier (or, rather, soldier's mother) in the 1980's. I can't be bothered to look up the names.
The blow to the soldiers' moral is infinite, why should anyone fight for this? Expect thousands of people to leave or sign up to Yeshiva not to enroll in the army.
They’ll fight because they’ll know if captured we won’t give up till we bring them home.
"Won't give up"? Or willgivr up, and release hundreds of terrorists and cost thousands of lives?
Bluntly I'd rather be dead.
And I'm pretty sure they'd prefer not to be captured at all. It's like Iron Dome: It would be nicer not to be shot at at all.
That has nothing to do with it.
How could Israel be hit by a repeat unless it repeats the gross intelligence failures of the past? The IDF is going to be positioned to prevent any similar attack.
That's also what we said last time
Could you be more specific. I don’t know what you are referring to.
There are more valuable takeaways from the ordeal of the past 15 months.
Douglas Murray said in an interview that October 7th was like someone shooting up a flare in the middle of the night, to light up the surroundings. It gave us a good look at who are our true friends, and who are our enemies. Surprisingly, we have seen Arab nations more supportive of Israel eradicating Hamas than we have seen among Western progressives and universities!
Also, there were a significant number of Israelis (including those living in the Gaza envelope) who sincerely thought that it was possible to make peace with the Palestinians. Judging from the Palestinian response to October 7th, we see that they overwhelmingly are comprised of people who 1) absolutely adore October 7th, and would love to perpetrate another one, 2) condone it and justify it as being "resisting the occupation" or "the logical outcome of suffering the crimes of the occupation", and perhaps 3) those who don't adore it or condone it, but thought it was a bad idea because of the destruction that Israel wrought on Gaza. Very few Palestinians condemn October 7th on moral grounds: that murdering and raping innocent people is simply wrong.
Not nice to bring this up, but during the withdrawal from Gaza settlements, as Israelis were leaving their lives, their parnassa, and their homes, a number of the border kibbutzim along the road had posted signs saying things like, "Welcome back to Israel".
Well, Gaza was never legally part of Israel....
It is not clear that Gaza has the halachic status of Eretz Yisrael. I have seen rabbinic sources that say it is not.
Gaza is a lot more halakhically Eretz Yisrael than the Negev is. So what?
Chabad of Eilat observes 2 days of YT.
Weird.
That's an academic point, and not at all what those secular leftist kibbutznikim were intending.
Certainly. The leftist kibbutznikim were certain that the Gazans' hostility to Israel was because of the settlements in the Gaza Strip and the military presence to protect it. They were quite surprised when rockets continued being launched from Gaza, mere days after the Disengagement.
One woman recounted (after October 7th): "What's going on? Didn't we just give them what they wanted?"
Unfortunately, no.
I saw it discussed in a halachic context.
But you brought it up here. Time to annex Lebanon, I guess.
While there are numerous opinions, most of the sources in Chazal that I have seen seem to indicate that Achziv is the northernmost point in Eretz Yisrael on the Mediterranean coast. It is about five kilometers south of the border with Lebanon.
Israel has not destroyed the tunnel system. Israel is being forced to withdraw from the Philidelphia Corridor and virtually all of Gaza, Hamas is still in power. Hamas will be getting billions of dollars of "aid", including tax payer money from USA. This is sicking.
Hopefully the hostages return and the US and Israel destroy the tunnels!!! 🙏🏻🙏🏻💪🏻
Hamas didn’t win. Every one of their leaders is dead. Israel will never let this happen again. Hamas is nearly destroyed. Now, every other country in the Middle East are distancing themselves from these terrorist maniacs. Iran nuclear system has to be next.
You're conflating your definition of "win" with Hamas's definition.
Or maybe Hamas doesn't care if they win or not.
Of course it will happen again. They are still in power. Hostage Taking pays off as it brought Israel to its knees. They learned that they can play on our Yiddishe compassion so they're gonna keep on repeating like they swore to do.
Well the war isn’t over. Will see. If the Islamic regime in Iran is crippled and Qatar gets pressured things could change.
My post is a response to the Hamasnic’s celebration as if they won.
Golda Meir put it best when she said that Arabs don't make policy based on what's good for them, rather based on what they perceive to be bad for us (Jews).
Since Hamas inception, the idea has always been the same - trigger an Israeli reaction to their atrocities, whether in a hotel in Netanya or Oct 7th, which in turn would set the middle east ablaze and out of the ashes, the shiny califate of Palestine would be born. They understood that Arabs or more precisely Sunni didn't care so much about them, so they did the unthinkable and allied with the Shia.
At the end, even Nazis recognised they had been defeated. Here, even if a single Hamasnik is left in the ashes of Gaza, with his last gasp he will proclaim victory.
You make a list of wins and loses Rabbi, but there is the whole other side of how each perceive it as you say. And here is where Israel is left in an impossible position This war could have killed one and a half million Gazans, and it still wouldn't be a loss for Hamas, as long as they live to fight another day.
How do you confront an enemy like this? How do you contain it? As long as the world doesn't understand or care to understand what Hamas is about, we will be fighting this war forever.
Finally, let me add in your list of wins, that it should now be clear that when people say "I am not an antisemite, just antizionist", they're tell lies. The world showed what women's solidarity was worth when the women were Jewish, among many other things.
I hope we finally get what the Torah teaches us consistently, that we only have HKBH and ourselves to count upon.
"As long as the world doesn't understand or care to understand what Hamas is about, we will be fighting this war forever."
nailed it (sadly)
Peeception is indeed sometimes more important than reality. Most Americans think crime is rising when in fact the opposite is true. Some US cities experienced unprecendented drops in homicide rates last year. Many Americans think we are not producing much oil any more; in fact no country in history has ever produced as much. There are numerous other examples.
Some Americans think Los Angeles is on fire.
"Mostly peaceful"
Or the old standby, refuse to arrest people and count it as decreased crime.
It is my understanding that Israel will be required to exchange a thousand Gaza / Hamas terrorist prisoners for 33 hostages. If true, this “epic” deal is merely another round in endless losses of Israel vs stateless/Jordanian Muslim Arabs bent on destroying the Jews.
October 7th will be repeated. Does anyone do any math? Save a few tens of Jews from torture and death now vs doom hundreds or even thousands more to same, in future?
If you fight a long war you MUST either win or lose it. Hamas survived and got some people back. It is not hard to train up people to blow up things and fights they have the entire Muslim Middle East there ready assist them with training and tech. So, unless there is some secret agreement between Trump and Netanyahu guaranteeing US assistance with destroying Iran’s nukes/ayatollah regime (a far bigger immediate threat than Hamas) Israel lost, yes.
From a claimed “rationalist” perspective I expect more rationality.
Rationalism should be emotionless, but people can't help it.
Of course, it's considered in bad form for people to say "I told you so"- the Left in Israel started saying it's bad form very, very quickly after October 7- but that doesn't mean that people *didn't*, and that maybe they should be listened to again.
This was not a long war. The Maccsbees' war with the Seleucid Empire lasted decades. So did the US war against the Taliban. There are many examples between the two.
The post-October '23 military operation in Gaza is not an isolated incident or a separate war. It's yet another phase of a multi-decade, ongoing war between Jews and Muslim Arabs. If this reality is not recognized as it is, we cannot discuss this rationally.
Yes, this war is more than 50 years old. I remember as a kid in the mid-80s, being told not to pick up random toys on the street, because these could contain explosives. They made us watch a special videotaped program, to internalize these warnings. The First Intifada started in 87, and I remember all of this. (But the PLO had been operating much earlier than that).
Let's put this bluntly: the Muslim Arabs will not cease to wage war on the Jews whenever, wherever, and however they can. Hence, the solutions that Israel should seek now have to be of escalating severity, not of appeasement, as the time for dialogue has long passed (despite decades of trying hard for full resolution of the war via peaceful means, as is well-known by those who argue for peace in good faith).
The world, more or less, is against us, and we should no longer care too much. There are people out there who use the pretense of "facts" to mask their vehement vile hatred of Jews. It is pointless to argue or trying to prove that "we are the good guys." It is time to do what is right for the future of the nation and its state.
Only through true victory will our enemies start respecting us. Fear is what works for them, which means that fear is what we must make them feel. The other option is death of the state. If not by outright massacre then by outright emigration of the best and brightest, those who keep the nation functioning (and, sorry to say, these are mostly not those who pray day in and day out)
By Israeli standards, it's been a long war. Considering that Israel's military strategy has always favored short wars conducted outside Israel's borders, this has been a very long war indeed.
I hope Hamas breaks the ceasefire so that this terrible deal collapses. We will see how many hostages Hamas gives back. How many are still alive ? And in return Israel gives Hamas ten times (30 times ?) more living criminals who of course will volunteer to massacre more Jews in Israel.
They won't, it's a big win for them.
The hostages are gone, if not physically, mentally. Do you think the women/men after being r*ped by hundreds can go back to normal life? Impossible.
So let them keep getting raped..!?!? You’re quite despicable.
When do you think the next Oct 7th will happen? 10 years from now? Or maybe 5?
That's an emotional argument, and of course not at all what s/he's saying.
Your gaslighting.
Why do we not save women from being held captive??
Gen. Yitzchak Brik said early on in the war that failure to get the hostages back will always leave a bitter taste in our mouth, even if we would manage to rid Gaza of Hamas.
"Getting rid of Hamas" is not a realizable goal, as long as the education system of the Palestinians is what it is presently. Even in Palestinian Authority textbooks, Israel is considered a rapacious, colonizing entity that exists on stolen Palestinian land. The entire population has to be reprogrammed for peace, like Germany and Japan were after WWII.
Dan Sheuftan said in a recent interview, that it was much easier for Germany to return to normalcy after WWII, since Hitler and Nazism could be seen as an aberration. There was already a rich German culture and infrastructure that the German people could return to.
The Palestinians, on the other hand, only have an infrastructure that wants to eradicate Israel. As Einat Wilf quotes Ernest Bevin (I'm paraphrasing): "The Arab-Zionist conflict is irreconcilable, because the Zionists insist on creating a Jewish state, and the Arabs insist on there not being a Jewish state."
Note well, they insist on there not being a Jewish state, not on there being an Arab state. And the same goes for their friends around the world. It's how "the world" is more worked up about Israel occupying a few kilometers in a neutral zone on the Syrian border than it is about Erdogan occupying huge chunks of Syria. (Even Erdogan is.)
Anyway, it's not just that, as you correctly say, Germany and Japan had a lot to fall back on and Palestinian "infrastructure" does not, because it's not a matter of "infrastructure," it's a matter of the Palestinian people, who were created and continue to exist *only* as a way of attacking Israel. Can't get rid of Hamas? Try to get rid of the concept of a Palestinian people, or at the very least the idea that they have some rights in this land to a state of their own. (Hamas has pretty much killed that one off all on their own.) Or, dare we say, maybe try to shift some people around, shall we say. It was proposed years ago and could have been done for a lot less blood and treasure than it's cost since it was rejected as raaaaaaaaaaccciiiiist.
You think like a Westerner. Watch Eliahu Ioisin on YouTube and you'll understand why you're wrong.
Getting rid of Hamas" is not a realizable goal --> True, that's why you need to get rid of them all, including women and children. This is the Middle East, not The West.
It’s actually a 50:1 ratio. These worthless pieces of human refuse know that one Jew is worth 50 of them. No wonder they resort to their destructive culture to booster such nonexistent self esteem.
There was a huge scandal when at Baruch Goldstein's funeral someone said something like "a hundred Arabs aren't worth a Jewish fingernail."
And then oddly the Arabs themselves keep insisting it's true. Remember what happened to Elon Levy's eyebrows?
I agree… we must stop incenting terror, intimidation, and bullies!!
Although I thought Trump would be better for Israel, I am not so sure anymore. I have the feeling he has stabbed Israel in the back. However, maybe Israel is getting something we do not know about in exchange for this terrible deal with Hamas. Israel has to become less reliant on any foreign aid.
We diaspora Jews warned you. My earlier comment listed numerous recent examples that should have raised alarm bells. Trump only cares about what is good for Trump.
Do you recall what's been coming out of the Executive Branch for the past year? Do I have to remind you, or are you too wedded to...I dunno, abortion? Gays? to notice?
Unfortunately, many Orthodox Jews here in the US are firmly in the MAGA cult, and whatever Trump does or will do will be axiomatically "the best thing ever done," no matter what it actually is. Wait and see how any negative outcomes will be Biden's fault, or even better, Obama's fault. Or why not Carter's fault? It doesn't matter. It wasn't Trump.
I still wonder, as I have wondered from the start of this, whether when the fighting ends and results are assessed, people will be saying, "You know, in retrospect we should have prioritized the hostages, and just solidified our defenses to prevent the possibility of such attacks." I don't know if that will be the case, but there was a path not taken.
You don't have to be in any sort of cult to think that of the options, Trump is vastly superior. You *do* have to be in one to think he isn't.
Trump is interested in what's good for Trump (which is not always a good thing), and a second- maybe a close second- in what's good for the US (which is perfectly OK for a US president). The two may align more often than not (or may not), and in turn may align with what's good for Israel- I think more often than not- but none of that is guaranteed.
Hamas won the war. It is regenerating. Hamas and their allies will attack Isreal again and then Israel may not be so lucky.
I'm pretty sure you can judge whether something is good or not based on whether our enemies are happy.
Obama is happy.
Obama is not our enemy.
Maybe Rabbi, one day you should tackle the sickly prevalence of conspiracy as a manner to explain the world in our days. This one, that the president who has been out of office for almost a decade and lead the efforts to have the kippat barzel installed is somehow behind the scenes to destroy us, is an interesting one. I will certainly admit he was naive and not really understanding of the realities of the middle east, but an enemy of Israel is a step too far indeed.
I know it's hard to accept if someone enthusiastically voted for him twice, but it's clear from his words and actions that the man has a big problem with the existence of Israel. Maybe he hasn't thought it through thoroughly, but that's part of the problem.
And if you think he's been out of office for eight years, perhaps you can tell me who's been making decisions the last four.
Defensive systems are nice, by the way, but not having to use them is even nicer. For some reason the United States doesn't need an Iron Dome.
who's been making decisions the last four.
It's this guy called Dave. Gret guy, salt of the earth.
Really? You should have seen his post reacting to this. He gets the hostages out of the way and then goes on and on about how this is good for the Gazans. Not a word about Israel.
I have first-hand experience with what people of his ethnicity (adopted in his case, but still) and age cohort were raised on ("our oppressed brothers in South Africa and Palestine"), and it's clear it influenced him deeply. And it's becoming more obvious by the day.
Trump is making a big deal over how HE is responsible for the deal happening. Is Trump also an enemy?
Very much so to decent people everywhere.
I agree but I seem to be in the minority here.
It's not the deal, however bad it might be, that makes an enemy. (Bear in mind that Trump is, ahem, not a very deep thinker, for better or for worse.*) It's what one feels about Israel.
*The US had one PhD president. It did not go well.
Sounds like you listened to a tad too much of Michal Savage and Seam Hannity….
After bringing Israel low on October 7, 2023, Hamas survives and gets to rule Gaza. There are already enough new recruits to make up its losses, more or less, to be trained by 1000 hardened fighters fresh-released from Israeli prisons. There will be peace and time to regroup, re-equip, retrain, and rebuild, with oodles of money from international sources. Hostage-taking is validated as a successful way of war. (There will be much more, not only in Israel.) At a time of Hamas’s own choosing, and by a modality known only to them and their sponsor Iran, they will attack Israel again; and if history repeats, again and again and again. A large number of holy martyrs achieve Paradise. Nothing was lost that Hamas cares about. (Take their religion seriously. They do.) This isn’t a draw. This is a win for Hamas. Israel lost.
Because the United States has withdrawn as Israel’s reliable seller of advanced arms, this war was unwinnable. Nobody knew that for sure of both American parties until Trump’s negotiator arrived and spoke. Until now it was uneconomic for Israel to be self-sufficient in advanced arms, as Zionism would advise; now there is no choice.
"Major threats from Hezbollah spectacularly near-neutralized"
Major? Near?
"... tens of thousands of fighters eliminated"
More where that came from
"Restoration of deterrence in Middle East"
Don't conflate deterrence with prevention
"it’s accepted that Israel can and will strike anywhere"
It's accepted that anything Israel does is against international law.
"Internally, a widespread understanding that the nation needs to be stronger and more cohesive"
Not among the left or Charedim.
"These are not significant benefits for people in Gaza."
That's western thinking. Don't conflate what you think is beneficial with what they think is beneficial.
Unfortunately I fear you may be right
I mostly only follow my side of the news, but it seems that the Israeli side at best views this ceasefire as a bitter pill, while the Palestinian sides is uniformly ululating. I know they are looking at our discourse and gaining encouragement from our disappointment. We should not give them the satisfaction. Maybe there is a value in projecting fortitude and touting our military achievements externally and keeping our disgruntlement relatively internal
Personally, I see "civilians killed" as a loss for everyone. It's not "THEIR civilians were killed so that's THEIR loss." When some innocent 5-year old child is killed, that's a loss for everyone. It matters what side of a political boundary the kid lived on?
Of course it matters. That's what war is all *about*. War is hell. People die, horribly, even people who didn't sign up for it.
Do you think the Allied leaders of World War II would have ever let the expression "an innocent 5-year-old German killed is a loss for everyone" even cross their minds? Of course not.
“The ruthless bombing from the air of civilians in unfortified centers of population during the course of the hostilities which have raged in various quarters of the earth during the past few years, which has resulted in the maiming and in the death of thousands of defenseless men, women and children, has sickened the hearts of every civilized man and woman, and has profoundly shocked the conscience of humanity.
If resort is had to this form of inhuman barbarism during the period of the tragic conflagration with which the world is now confronted, hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings who have no responsibility for, and who are not even remotely participating in, the hostilities which have now broken out, will lose their lives. I am therefore addressing this urgent appeal to every government which may be engaged in hostilities publicly to affirm its determination that its armed forces shall in no event, and under no circumstances, undertake the bombardment from the air of civilian populations or of unfortified cities, upon the understanding that these same rules of warfare will be scrupulously observed by all of their opponents. I request an immediate reply. Franklin D. Roosevelt.”
Wow, talk about missing the point. Please master some World War II history and some high-class English, and if you still don't get what he's saying here, get back to me and I'll spell it out in...eleven words.
You don’t seem to get it. IDGAF about a bunch of Stone Age terrorists or their progeny. They FA and FO. I’m worried about my people and THEIR children.
Proud to not give a fuck.
Excellent. Then I'm certain you don't begrudge Hamas the killing of Israeli civilians either. Everyone is fair game, is that right?
I do begrudge because I’m not dumb enough to think there is some moral equivalency between terrorism and collateral damage during war.
That's irrelevant to whether you see the loss of an innocent 5 year old child as tragic.
You think your preening makes you moral, but it is in fact the opposite of morality.
No, you're people aren't; theirs are. Welcome to the real world.
Well said…
This whole conflict is about othering…
When we other someone to the point where we lose their sense of humanity, we can celebrate their death .
I’m surprise people get so bent out of shape when they see pockets of Palestinians celebrating October 7.
When they themselves don’t give a hoot about a five-year-old kid dying.
Humanity means caring for your own. Sorry.
Caring only "for your own" is not humanity. Rats care for their own. Pigeons care for their own. Ants care for their own. Are you trying to tell me this is some great moral achievement you've arrived at?
Humans care for their own. Pretending they don't is utopian liberal nonsense.