Naming the crimes and refusing the rhetorical category of ‘terrorist’.
Meanwhile here in the Land:
“Israel is about to free 110 Palestinian prisoners, including major terror convicts, nobody knows where they are going” (h/t Times of Israel)
But hey, we’re getting three hostages back!
After over a year of reducing Gaza to rubble!
Leaving Hamas funded, armed, and in power!
This deal, bro.
This. Deal.
All I can do is pray. Learn. Try to be less reactive. Try to be more helpful. Let a little light shine through the clouds. The rest is up to the Creator.
The war in Gaza failed.
Hamas is still active, funded, armed, in power, and well-liked abroad.
Now can we have a strategy plz?
+ Elections
k thnx
At the beginning, I supported the war, with many doubts and reservations, because despite the perceived downside, repercussions, and moral quandary, it seemed like the least wrong move to make in a situation that demanded action.
Now, I support the deal, with many doubts and reservations, because despite the perceived downside, repercussions, and moral quandary, it seems like the least wrong move to make in a situation that once again demands action.
Purity of conscience is not a gift of this world order. We have to be willing to make moves when the hour calls for it even if none of them seem ideal, and we have to be willing to change and adapt when the hour calls for it even if we’re not entirely sure of what the change means.
מעשה אבות סימן לבנים
If the status quo continues, Hannukka will be the first of a new cycle of holidays which the hostages have now fully completed in the miserable captivity of Hamasniks, other militants, and crime families.
Hannukka was their first holiday spent in captivity – may it also be their last.
Scratch that. May it be their first holiday spent in newfound freedom, celebrating with the rest of their families.
It’s been a day. The ceasefire got off to a rocky start but looks like it’s holding.
May it be permanent.
May it spread.
May it give us a moment’s rest to catch up with our thoughts and our emotions.
May we seize the moment and bring in a new governing coalition. May we seize the opportunity and investigate everyone and everything responsible for Oct 7 and the year that followed. May we seize the hour and make the changes that need to be made, holding accountable those who need to be held accountable.
May we confront the Ruso-Iranian axis that seeks our destruction, with the help of the Highest and the Torah we were given. Not with strength, not with might, but with the spirit of the Lord.
May we prosper in peace and may we rebuild – ourselves, our land, and the homes we have destroyed in this war.
May this all be a sign of better days coming.
A prominent Palestinian activist referred to “nihilistic Jihadi ideology” and described it as “the worst motivational ethos in history.”
I find that to be a bold claim. I’d like to know more about what he had in mind with that statement, but in the absence of further elaboration I’m left with its face value.
What do we make of it?
Well now.
The murderer whose life was saved not once but twice by Israeli doctors – and who nevertheless then went on to risk the entire population of Gaza in a savage and bloody invasion of the southern cities and towns of Israel that left thousands dead and ultimately resulted in the abysmal destruction of the Gaza Strip – has finally met his judgement. Certainly an occasion to sing the Lord’s praises…
It seems that Sinwar was hit in an operation that wasn’t specifically targeting him – a unit just spotted “three combatants” in an area they were clearing and neutralized them. Divine providence at work even when we’re asleep at the wheel?
According to YNet, Sinwar’s corpse was first visually spotted (I won’t post the photo here but yeah it looks like him) and then identified based on dental records. He had on his person thousands of Israeli sheqels and (forged) ID/travel documents. While many expected Sinwar to die a martyr’s death surrounded by hostages and devotees, he apparently died like a rat on the run amidst the rubble of the city he ran into the ground.
And there you have it, folks.
May the joy of your holiday be enhanced by the open revelation of divine justice…
Imagine having a holiday dinner with your family and enjoying a cup of coffee in the autumn night air afterwards and going to sleep with grateful thoughts of how blessed you are, and then you’re woken up by gunfire and shouts and gunmen storming into your home and they literally capture you and you starve in captivity for an entire year.
For. An. Entire. Year.
Imagine going to a festival and just a few hours after the last set ends you’re still up and revved and decide to watch the sunrise with some new friends and it’s amazing, and then gunmen come and start shooting everybody and they literally capture you and you starve in captivity for an entire year.
For. An. Entire. Year.
This damned war is continuing not because of diplomatic cover and arms for Israel but for Hamas. It would be over in a day if Hamas was not still being propped up as an active threat (!) to Israel seven months into Hamas’s failed war (waged in violation of local ceasefire agreements and of international law).
Meaningless photo ops like the Irish, Norwegian, and Spanish politicians’ paper recognition of a state with no contiguous borders, no independent monetary policy, no actual army, and no functional popular government, are simply divorced from reality – the reality of state-building and the reality on the ground.
1948 was the last year an independent Palestinian State could have emerged. That ship sailed long ago and it doesn’t help Palestinians to pretend it still would be a viable option but were it not for Israeli obstinacy.
For a long time I’ve thought that people advocating a 2 State Solution are generally (but innocently) working against Palestinian interests, out of ideological bias. This impression was understandably strengthened by the USA’s injection of 2 State discourse into strategic talks during this war (as if establishing a paper state will prevent a new generation from taking up Hamas’s banner for Iran) and is confirmed by this latest episode of European “diplomacy” in attempting to reshape the Middle East (as if their new policy will change any facts on the ground and end the various conflicts in this region).
Enough of the endless foreign meddling and paper-pushing – and of trying to fit ourselves and our situation into the cultural categories and geopolitical theories of the West. Regardless of how the agents of imperialism and colonialism distort our histories and our identities, we are one people with one common destiny. Time to return to what we know.