The fire from the north has intensified but it is unclear if Hezbollah are ready for a total battle with Israel. They are likely just showing support for Gaza and will wait until they are sure of victory as they do not want to be displaced from Lebanon and Syria where they have established a good power base.
Gaza is not going well and success is taking time. In normal war fare when they the enemy sees they have no chance of winning they generally surrender. The cost in human life is heartbreakingly high as we are not dealing with an enemy who values life . Even the Japanese who were not opposed to kamikaze eventually surrendered.
The IDF are fighting a desperate war with an enemy that has a subterranean network of weapons, full of booby-traps and tunnels. The urban warfare is such chaos that the IDF tragically accidentally shot 3 hostages while trying to eliminate terrorists. The option of flooding the tunnels is a last resort as it may destabilise the area for years to come and risks further hostage fatalities. To date Israel has not yet located or rescued any hostages alive and the condition of their captivity remains unknown. The Red Cross have still not been given access.
At this time the whole of Israel, both its Arab citizens and its Jewish citizens remain united in the quest to remove Hamas as their neighbours.
My grandson, who has had an accident, is in hospital in Beer Sheva and is attended to hourly by Arab doctors. He is sharing a ward with two other Arab patients and one Jewish. He is receiving the best care after accidentally spraying his eye with a chemical that caused a total corneal burn. His hospital department is dealing with hundreds of serous eye injuries from the war. They are short staffed and under pressure, but the whole hospital is working united, Arabs and Jews, during this difficult time.
The western media would have you believe that Israel is an apartheid state, but there is no truth in that. Jewish, Arab and Christian citizens in Israel have equal rights. That is not to say individual racism doesn’t exist, as it does in every society. Israel still remains the only country in the Middle East where Arabs have full civil rights and are not living under a dictatorship.
The Arabs that live outside the green line or in the ‘occupied’ West Bank (as it is referred to by the rest of the world) are under the administration of the PA who are responsible for all civic services, education and health and do not benefit from the Israeli democracy. Israel is responsible for security, hence there are road blocks between areas as many terrorist attacks emanate from these areas.
We are constantly led to believe that the conflict will be resolved if there was an independent Palestinian state with total self-determination. Sadly for them, their leaders, are unelected and self styled dictators, and repeatedly refused every offer of statehood . Firstly, a State was offered during the partition in 1948, that triggered the 1948 War of Independence.
A two state solution was possible in 1967, 1994 , 2000, 2001, 2005 and 2007. Each offer was jeopardised by the Palestinians, mostly leading to violent uprisings. It doesn’t take too much analysis to realise this is not a battle for a Palestinian state side by side with a Jewish state.
The neighbouring Arab states have supported this terrible status quo, as it enabled them to fight Israel via the Palestinians, while pretending they are not involved. The United Nations have come on board the lie, supporting the myth that Israel is an apartheid state and blaming Israel for the appalling situation that the Middle East now finds itself embroiled in.
For self-defence Israel has charge of the security in the West Bank, which paints a picture of occupation. However, it is not a true occupation, and not an occupation that most Israelis support. All the ills and problems are blamed on the Jewish settlements but there are no settlements in Gaza and no occupation, so that argument just doesn’t hold water. Similarly there were no settlements in 1948 or 1967 but that didn’t prevent the Arab-Israeli wars.
Todays settlements would eventually be part of a negotiating package of land swaps, if ever a serious bid for a Palestinian State arose, and meanwhile the settlements provide much needed homes and work.
Many of the people living as so-called refugees in the West Bank have Jordanian passports , which is a complicated status, as despite having passports, they do not not have citizenship. Jordan has deliberately maintained their status as refugees for over 70 years.
Half of Jordanian nationals are of Palestinian origin, others who arrived later to Jordan are denied rights and citizenship. There you have a a real apartheid system of discrimination but the King, whose Hashemite power base is weak, is threatened by a large Palestinian population, therefore he continues to support the fight for a Palestinian State either on Israel’s borders or within the whole of Israel while denying his own people their civil rights and citizenship. A rallying call for violence is always the impending destruction of the Al Asqa mosque. Another myth that never fails to rally the masses and set afire an already inflamed situation in Israel.
Israel is so well established in the area and has made peace with both Jordan and Egypt and recently with the Gulf States, that the fight to eradicate the Jewish State is now no longer on their agenda, but that same fight has morphed into a holy war . It is no longer a fight for an independent state within the ‘67 borders but a fight for an ideology and that cannot be settled by a two state solution. Hamas make no secret that there goal is a one state solution that does not include Israel.
Hence, we now see the involvement of the Iranian regime. A despotic totalitarian theology that wants to spread its ideology globally. Those who march in favour of the Palestinian cause do not realise they are marching in support of one of the most brutal anti west regimes the world has seen. The chant From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free, is a chant for genocide.
The children of today’s Gaza have been completely brainwashed and were used as pawns to fight the Jewish State on behalf of all those Arab countries that were defeated in 1948, 1967 and 1973.
That is how we have arrived at a population who think death and Jihad is a noble cause. The wickedness did not start on October 7th, that was the culmination of years of prepping and poisoning of young minds that has turned a whole generation into a killing machine and whose pay master is now Iran.
Now Israel faces the unenviable task of defeating an ideology that has no hesitation to use their own people as human shields, and happily butchers those, young and old alike, who do not agree with their vision.
Hamas and their young fighters do not care if they fight to the last man as an ideology cannot be bombed to death. All Israel can realistically hope for is that it cripples Hamas’ ability to harm Israelis and it moves away from its border, giving the people a chance to embrace normality. Also that the neighbouring Arab countries do not offer refuge to the remnants of Hamas.
The Western World is going to have to face Iran sooner or later and this is only one battle of an impending Armageddon .
May we have a peaceful Shabbat and hear only good news.