Ceaseless Fire

Posted on June 24, 2025 | Comments Off on Ceaseless Fire

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

As Winston Churchill allegedly said, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing — after they’ve tried everything else.” We are experiencing both parts of that aphorism in real time.

It is inconceivable that any Democratic president would have attacked Iran’s nuclear reactors. The allure of the diplomatic solution is that the dream never dies; it is always just one negotiation away. But credit to President Trump who thinks out of the box, has little use for “experts,” resents being endlessly strung along, and took the courageous decision to send American forces to obliterate the cornerstone of Iran’s diabolical plan to destroy the State of Israel – its nuclear weapons facilities.

Moreover, Trump had to unexpectedly return to office and also overcome the harping of his critics on the right and left, the dumbest and most tendentious of whom assert that the US attack was illegal without prior congressional authorization and an impeachable offense. That is preposterous; pursuant to American law, the President has to notify Congress within 48 hours of the deployment of American forces overseas, and that was done within six hours. Why would his critics prattle something so patently false? To get their names in the headlines, which works all the time.

Granted, it was always assumed that the United States would not attack first, and not on its own. The fact that Israel softened up – really, demolished – Iran’s air defenses rendered the attack relatively low risk, high reward. But there is always some risk involved, and Trump delayed, wanting to ensure that the US attack was politically, morally, and strategically defensible, as well as to add to the element of surprise through deflection and deception.

Obviously, high praise is due PM Netanyahu, who after decades of hesitation – he has literally been saying since the 1990’s that Iran is 6-12 months away from a nuclear bomb – finally acted. Our sages taught that “there are those who acquire their world in one moment.” The constellation of events that made this possible is breathtaking, biblical in nature. The capabilities of Iran’s proxies had to be greatly degraded or eliminated so that an attack on Iran would not result in immediate peril right on our borders. Netanyahu had to have a supportive cabinet of like-minded individuals, and not the negativity of his former officials who are now the has-beens who vilify him daily in the media. And he had to have a supportive United States to provide diplomatic cover, weaponry, and the bunker-busting bombs that could destroy underground facilities.

It was the right thing to do for both countries, and for both men, and for the world, and that they did it, acting in concert, can change history. Will it last?

There we come to the American predilection, identified by Churchill, to “try everything else” before doing the right thing. Trump’s impetuous announcement of a cease fire – no written text, no formal agreement, no discernible conditions – and callously allowing each party (to his thinking) to get in their last blows has already exacted a terribly steep price in the deaths of Israeli civilians. As I write, the deadline has passed but the missiles keep coming. What was he thinking?

The substance of Trump’s world view is a fundamental misconception of this part of the world and the nefarious actors involved. To call on Iran to “stop the hatred” miscomprehends the source of that hatred: it is religiously based, woven into the fabric of the brand of Islam embraced by the Ayatollah and Revolutionary Iran, and not readily relinquished. Trump may casually invoke “God’s blessings” on all nations and the world but – as a materialist who sees the purpose of life as making as much money as you can and enjoying it – he is essentially clueless as to the power of the religious idea, especially in distorted form. He simply cannot understand people who would rather launch deadly missiles at innocent civilians than play a round of golf or who would rather die – killing themselves and murdering Jews – than enjoy a day of frolic at a country club.

It is that fundamental misconception – really, a world view to which he cannot relate – that enables Trump to release such blather as “Israel & Iran came to me, almost simultaneously, and said, “PEACE!” I knew the time was NOW. The World, and the Middle East, are the real WINNERS! Both Nations will see tremendous LOVE, PEACE, AND PROSPERITY in their futures.” None of this actually happened. A cease fire that does not deal with the underlying causes of the conflict is bound to fail, and negotiations with Iran that do not begin with one question to which the only acceptable and decent answer is “yes” – do you repudiate your fantasy of destroying Israel? – is a waste of time and will only enable Iran to rebuild and plan the next war..

Additionally, it is far premature to claim that Iran’s nuclear facilities have been “totally and completely obliterated.” No one in a position to know actually says that with any assurance. To be honest, no one really knows what was obliterated; no one knows how much enriched uranium was destroyed and how much carted off to other secret locations; no one knows what centrifuges survived and where they might be; no one even knows if there are back-up facilities at which uranium can still be enriched and weaponized. Trump’s claims are wishful thinking uttered with complete bravado. And his reference to the “Twelve Day War” (yes, I know, we are used to Six) ignores the obvious fact that Iran has been at war with Israel for decades and that war has sadly not ended.

Only regime change will end the threat. The problem is that regime change is not in our hands nor in the hands of the United States. For decades we have heard about the dissidents, the Iranian opposition, the revulsion that “most” Iranians have towards the cruel regime of the mullahs and how given the chance they would rebel against and overthrow those who seized their country. Well, they have been given the chance.

An additional problem is that Iran is a factionalized society, a conglomerate of many different ethnic groups and religions who do not all share the same vision for their society. Any successor government would ideally permanently renounce Iran’s nuclear program but that is not guaranteed. There is no clear replacement, so much has Iran suppressed its people and persecuted any dissidents. Nor is it really known what percentage of the population truly despises the regime or is willing to gamble their lives attempting to depose it. Accordingly, the worst time, then, to walk away from Iran and suddenly declare a cease fire is when the boot is on the Ayatollah’s throat, his regime is reeling, and his capacity to intimidate and govern at its lowest ebb. It makes reconstituting his tyranny more likely.

No Israeli should be surprised if a cease fire goes into effect, and we finally expect a good night’s sleep, only to have that interrupted by renewed rocket fire from the Houthis. And while Hezbollah has been neutralized, at least for the moment, the zombie-like Hamas – dead but not buried, dysfunctional but still holding our hostages and attacking our soldiers – is also extant, kept alive by our “humanitarian” aid. (Q. By the standards to which we are held, shouldn’t Iran be required to provide humanitarian aid and money to rebuild to the Israeli victims? Shouldn’t Iran be called to account by the UN, ICC, ICJ, and the rest of the alphabet for its gross violation of human rights for targeting Israeli civilians? A. Don’t hold your breath. Those sham rules only apply to Israel.) A cease fire gives us time to refresh and regroup – but it gives the enemy the same time.

It is not normal that Israel – a tiny country with a tiny but magnificent population – should have been the world’s only nuclear non-proliferators (Iraq, Syria, Iran) until this past Sunday. Perhaps being a light onto the nations includes relentless reminding them of good and evil, moral and immoral, right and wrong, and how their choices will determine their futures much more than they think. We do have what to teach the world, and many still resent us precisely for that reason.

We are left now with many unknowns, and perhaps that is how it should be. We are not truly the masters of our fate. We are the beneficiaries in miraculous ways of the Lord’s kindness that we are living through now. We have suffered terrible losses, injuries, and devastation, but nothing like what should be anticipated from the extent of the rockets and missile fire we have endured. It is as if a small number get through in order to make us realize that our human systems are not perfect and we are ultimately shielded by Divine Providence.

The events of the last two weeks have demonstrated again the resilience and strength of the people of Israel – and of the protective hand of G-d “who is Good and does good.” May that protective shield continue until we merit complete redemption.

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The Wounded Bear

Posted on June 20, 2025 | Comments Off on The Wounded Bear

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

Our illustrious sages often compared Persia to a bear. For example, n the vision of the prophet Daniel (7:5) cited in the Talmud (Kiddushin 75a), “and behold there was a second beast, a bear…” “Rav Yosef taught, these are Persians.” The Gemara continued, “when Rav Ami would see a Persian riding, he would say, ‘this is a bear on the move.’”

There is nothing more dangerous than a wounded bear. Physically injured, the bear’s natural aggression becomes even more intensified and its capacity to strike its enemies is even more enhanced. Such a bear has to be put down, or in Napoleon’s phrase, “If you want to take Vienna, take Vienna!” As such, now is not the time to relax the pressure on Iran or to negotiate. Such will only ensure the survival of an evil, genocidal regime of fanatical Jew-haters, and guarantee that they will immediately ramp up the enrichment of their remaining stocks of uranium to weapons grade levels, weaponize them, and deploy them against us and others. That will be the inevitable price of taking our foot off the accelerator, G-d forbid.

We have to resist the natural inclinations of the world’s diplomats, which is to let evil flourish until it is too late, eschew war at all costs, encourage the signing of agreements despite their toothlessness and lack of enforceability, and, above all, deprive Israel of any semblance of victory and feeling of security.

How did we get here and to where should we go?

It is worthwhile to recall one of the most egregious miscalculations ever made in international diplomacy. In the late 1970’s, US President Jimmy Carter, a self-styled “do-gooder,” turned against the Shah of Iran because of the latter’s human rights abuses. This betrayal occurred notwithstanding that the Shah was an American ally – and an ally of Israel. Carter favored the return to Iran of the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, who as a “man of faith,” would lead Iran with religious wisdom and moral clarity. It was a dreadful error; if the Shah abused human rights as an act of policy, the Ayatollah, who abused his people with even greater viciousness, did it as an act of faith, the fulfillment of a religious obligation.

Just a few years after seizing power, the Ayatollah launched Iran’s nuclear program, which was temporarily sidetracked by the long-running Iran-Iraq War in the 1980’s, but with the expressed ambition of destroying Israel. And since the Ayatollah seized power in 1979, he and his followers have repeatedly humiliated and attacked the United States, without real consequence or retribution.

In 1979, the American embassy in Tehran was overrun, dozens of US diplomats taken hostage and held for 444 days. There was no American response. The detonation of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 by Iran-backed terrorists who soon formed Hezbollah killed 241 US service members. There was no American response, except for three civil cases brought in the United States against Iran decades later for this murderous act, and for which Iran was found liable. Iran has several times attempted to assassinate American politicians, again with no American response. Throughout America’s long engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran carried out the deaths of hundreds of US soldiers and the maiming of thousands, to which the American response was mostly limited to the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

Instead, several administrations – most notably those of Barack Obama and Joe Biden – have sought to coddle Iran, subsidize it, and even acquiesce in Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. (Recall the Obama agreement did not enjoin Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon; it only delayed it for ten years – or 2025.) Even Ronald Reagan was ensnared in a major scandal in his second term by chasing the fantasy of “moderates” in Iran who would be pro-American and providing them with weapons. This outreach has been met for more than forty years with Iranian cries of “Death to America,” and the labeling of the United States as the “Great Satan.” Such braggadocio is hard to fathom unless we realize that it is rooted in religious doctrine.

For how long can a nation endure repeated degradation, without a response, and retain the credibility due a superpower? We will find out shortly.

Our current war is certainly not over, as the repeated Iranian missile attacks on Israeli civilians demonstrates. For sure, we have achieved tremendous, even miraculous successes, unprecedented in warfare, already legendary, for which we offer gratitude to the Almighty for His kindness, and His gift to His people of ingenuity, resilience, courage, and commitment. (May we continue to be worthy of the Lord’s blessings and compassion!)

What we have achieved to this point has been solely the result of our efforts, and certainly our offensive operations in Iran have been unaided by any nation – even those who also perceive Iran as an enemy. (We should duly note Saudi Arabia’s hypocritical condemnation of Israel – however muted – for the Saudi’s perceive Iran as their greatest enemy and yet do nothing about it. We should remember this duplicity when the calls come for Israel to make concessions to induce Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords. Dishonorable mention also goes out to the UAE.)

There are two remaining objectives, both of which might require assistance from others: the destruction of the underground facility at Fordow and regime change. Whether Israel is capable of destroying a reinforced weapons factory buried under a mountain remains to be seen. There are probably four options, of which the easiest would be American military intervention. By all accounts, the United States possesses the bunker-busting bombs – 30,000 pounds – that can penetrate a facility located eighty meters below ground level. But do we Israelis want that, especially considering that President Trump is very transactional and will expect something in return (he already has a new plane) and considering even more the outcry of the isolationist and sometimes anti-Israel crowd that this will provoke – that Israel is dragging the United States into war. The uproar will occur but the prospect of America at war is quite negligible. After all, Israel has total aerial supremacy in Iran. This strike could take place and be completed successfully in less than several hours. But do we want that?

What should matter more is what is in America’s interest. Does the US have an interest in the wounded bear healing itself and using its Fordow plant to produce a nuclear weapon? Of course not. The US will soon be a target of these weapons, either after Iran develops ICBM capability or through the smuggling of a dirty bomb into the United States. Indeed, the destruction of Fordow would be appropriate retribution from the United States to Iran for the more than four decades of contempt, attacks, and mortification of the US by Iran.

Another advantage is that Iran has linked itself with both Russia and China, both American adversaries. The disappearance of a hostile Iran weakens both those countries, and a muscular American response to the Iranian threat might serve to deter China from invading Taiwan. Those are also American interests, which cannot be advanced by words, threats, or negotiations, but only by forceful and fruitful action.

Rendered impotent with the total loss of its nuclear program, Iran would be ripe for regime change, and this is the touchiest subject of all. This can only come from the Iranian people, who we have been told for many years despise the brutal reign of the Ayatollahs. If Iranian offensive capabilities are neutered – their defensive ones are currently almost non-existent – then the time has come for the opposition forces to present themselves, organize, and foment strife, and overthrow their oppressors. Obviously, this cannot be done from or by Israel and the United States, but both can assist from afar, and ultimately, this is the only path to stability and security in the region.

If Fordow is left intact, then even this grievously injured Iran becomes even more dangerous. If the Ayatollahs and the Islamic Revolution live to maraud another day, then they will, and they will rebuild, faster and deadlier. Regime change will not be simple, for as we have seen, Islamic radicals do not play by the rules of war, the Geneva conventions and the farce of international law mean zilch to them, and they will gladly stoop to barbarity to retain their power. But destruction of their nuclear weapons program and loss of their oil revenue – which should be on the table even now to drive them into submission – will weaken them even more and bolster opposition forces.

What should be intolerable to the US, Israel, and Europe is the marriage of religious fanaticism with weapons of mass destruction. Now is the time to put a death blow to that evil fantasy – and end the suffering of the wounded bear. Can it be done? In truth, democracies have an extremely poor record of anticipating threats and acting to forestall them.

As PM Netanyahu has taken to quoting with some frequency – and much pertinence – Winston Churchill lamented Britain’s feeble response in the 1930’s to the rise of Nazism. In the House of Commons in May 1935, Churchill said:

“When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the story… It falls into that long, dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong—these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”

We Jews know best of all the steep price that is paid when genocidal maniacs are allowed to flourish and are challenged by the world’s powers mostly by a torrent of rhetoric, and little else. They think they are thus avoiding war while, in fact, they merely delay war and ensure that the eventual conflict will be far deadlier than it might have been.

US policy towards Iran since 1979 has been marked by naiveté, restraint, strident speech, and ineffectual deeds. President Trump can change that dynamic by acting boldly and decisively, not by urging negotiations that will invariably lead to undesirable outcomes.

We cannot let the wounded bear recover. We have to finish what we started – and if the United States correctly perceives its self-interests, the US will act powerfully but surgically to remove the Iranian threat, midwife regime change along with Iranian dissidents, and spawn a better, more peaceful, and more prosperous world. And without revolutionary Iran, its murderous proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, will in short order – after some reflexive terror – wither and die. Imagine that.

Israel has already done 90% of the work. Let the civilized world – also Iran’s targets – help with the remainder.

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Virtue-Signaling Hypocrites

Posted on June 16, 2025 | 1 comment

      

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

Thursday, June 12 – The decision by five nations – United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand – to sanction Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is both outrageous and shameful. It would seem that they were sacrificial lambs, offered up by these nations to placate the Jew-haters in their midst because these countries are not yet ready to recognize a Palestinian state. Something had to be done to keep their ravenous, Jew-hating wolves at bay, and the sanctions regime was chosen. It should be met by a muscular Israeli response, notwithstanding the lack of practical effect but especially considering the baseless accusations against government ministers.

In short, the ministers were accused of “inciting violence” against Arabs but zero evidence was marshalled in order to sustain that indictment. Instead, the inciteful statements included their unequivocal opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state and their energetic support for Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria. Notwithstanding that these are two policies now widely favored by the Israeli public (85% of whom are opposed to a Palestinian state), how does that translate into “inciting violence” against Arabs?

In the delusional world of the European and Oceanic diplomats, building Jewish homes in Judea (of all places) and opposing the formal creation of a terror state, somehow incites violence, presumably of Arabs against Israelis. This conclusion is in keeping with the soft bigotry of low expectations with which the Western world treats the Palestinians, who apparently cannot help but shoot and kill a Jewish woman in childbirth because they do not like where she lives. If these countries actually believe that Smotrich or Ben-Gvir incited Jews to attack Arabs, they should adduce that evidence forthwith.

Other statements that agitated these diplomats were Smotrich’s assertion that the Palestinians are not a nation, and that both have declaimed that Gazans should be relocated to another country. That latter suggestion was termed “monstrous” by British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, presumably implicating President Trump as well, as that “monstrous” idea was his. But it is hard to contend that Palestinians are a nation, as they lack any history before the 20th century and exist only as a counterforce against Israel.

This, indeed, was prophesied in the Bible. The Torah teaches that at the end of days, in our last futile rebellion against G-d, “they will provoke Me with a non-god…and I will provoke them with a non-people” (Devarim 32:21). Golda Meir famously said that “there is no Palestinian people.” To be sure, they are a contrived people, a 20TH century fabrication, which had no national life or even ambition until Jewish nationalism arose. That is why when Egypt and Jordan occupied, respectively, Gaza, Judea, and Samaria from 1948-1967, they did not create a “Palestine” country nor did any such “Palestinians” demand one. The issue only arose when Jews conquered that territory, ancient and integral to the Jewish homeland.

One can quibble as to whether they are a nation today; as recently as 1967, the UN Resolution 242 that sought a “just and lasting peace” made no mention of Palestinians or a Palestinian state. But is rejection of an Arab state carved from the land of Israel tantamount to “inciting violence”? Only in the fevered imaginations of these diplomats.

What is especially rich is their denunciations of Israel as a colonialist power. The French, who haven’t yet sanctioned Israelis but who are otherwise making mischief in the Middle East, still retain vestiges of the French Empire, with twelve territories stretching from Martinique and St. Martin in the Caribbean Sea to French Polynesia and New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean. They came into possession of these territories the old-fashioned way – military conquest – apparently still indifferent to the very modern value of the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.”

The British are even more egregious, retaining control over Gibraltar, the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos, and a dozen other territories where they should not be. They even went to war in 1982 when the Falkland Islands were conquered by Argentina, which still claims sovereignty over these lands that are right off their coast. Put another way, the UK dispatched a naval flotilla six thousand miles from their shores in order to retrieve a small piece of land they claim as theirs since the 18th century despite Argentina’s parallel claim. Yet, the British deign to preach to Israel about Jews settling in Judea or about the conduct of our war in Gaza which adjoins Israel and is relentlessly hostile and homicidal. Such assertions are obviously and unimaginably hypocritical. The British killed 649 Argentinians during that two-month conflict (or 64,900 as counted by the Gaza Ministry of Health).

Indeed, it would be quite appropriate now for Israel to recognize the Falkland Islands as sovereign Argentinian territory (if Argentina approves). This would be a worthy gesture to Argentinian President Javier Milei, whose unabashed support for Israel is a bright star in an otherwise dark world, and especially in light of Argentina’s decision to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Let the British withdraw from land which they have no rational reason to possess and let them acknowledge Israel’s sovereign right to the land of Israel.

How should Israel respond? The government’s denunciation of the sanctioning of our ministers as “outrageous” is a good beginning but it should not end with words. The foreign ministers of these countries should be barred from visiting Israel and their ambassadors should be called to the Foreign Ministry for a stern lecture.

Additionally, Smotrich’s decision to disconnect the PA from the Israeli banking further exposes the PA as a house of cards ready to collapse, incapable of sustaining itself. This is a tough but crucial measure to create a new Middle East, including an Israel in which only people who want to live here and accept Israel’s sovereignty are allowed to live here. We will never have even a semblance of security until that happens.

It is also high time for the British Consulate in Jerusalem, the UK’s representation to the Palestinian Authority, to be summarily closed as an offense to Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem. These consulates – there are about a dozen others – should be denied a presence in Jerusalem, and if those countries wish to have representation to the PA, it should open offices in Ramallah, the PA’s seat of government. Israel has for too long acquiesced in this affront to our sovereignty. Furthermore, Israel’s Finance Ministry and National Security Ministry should cut off all contact and relations with their counterparts in those five countries.

These would be the responses of a proud nation. For that matter, these would be the responses of even an unproud nation whose ministers are penalized for defending their nations’ interests. We need not and should not accept these indignities. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir simply reflect the will of their constituents. If opposition to a Palestinian state and Jewish settlement in the heartland of Israel is worthy of sanctions then half of Israel could effectively be sanctioned. It means that any right-wing government is worthy of sanctions. It is thus best to challenge this decision now; even as a hollow symbol it is still repugnant.

If, indeed, these sanctions are essentially meaningless, except as an insult, why did these countries rush to implement them? Well, insulting us is part of the goal, but more importantly, these countries – all governed now by leftists and all being besieged by an influx of Muslims immigrants, legal or not – are pseudo friends of Israel at best and quiet enemies at worst. Each of these countries have been victims of Muslim terror and each struggle to protect its Jewish population from the predations of these new immigrants. It is not the country as much as it is the governments of those countries. Their ideology has no place for a religious-national entity; as such Israel, the national home of the Jewish people, is in their view doubly flawed.

The perfidious quintet sanctioned Smotrich and Ben-Gvir for no valid reason – but they mean all of us. These virtue signalers are not in the least sincere. We should not allow their stunning hypocrisy to resonate with us or doubt the justice of our cause. At the end of days, the nations will thrash about and challenge the people of Israel one last time. Let this be the last gasp of secularism and its discontents before the era of redemption unfolds before us and elevates all of mankind to a more moral and peaceful world.

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The Folly of Humanitarian Aid 

Posted on May 30, 2025 | Comments Off on The Folly of Humanitarian Aid 

   (First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

We seem to be falling again into the same traps and repeating the mistakes of the past expecting a different outcome in the future. It is bad enough that any portion of this aid will be seized by Hamas, and even worse that it sustains a hostile population. Not only has there not been a single person from among these “innocent” civilians who has acted upon Israel’s offer of $5,000,000 plus free passage anywhere in the world in exchange for information leading to the liberation of even one hostage; but also, Hamas’ terrorist ranks have been steadily replenished from these same “innocent” civilians. Tens of thousands of terrorists have been killed but reportedly have been steadily replaced.

What do we gain by strengthening the enemy but the prolongation of the war? After all, breaking the will of the enemy is one traditional path to victory but we apparently eschew that at all costs out of humanitarian concerns. In truth, I cannot ever recall reading that the United States dropped pitot and pasta on Hiroshima and Nagasaki alongside the atomic bombs. Humanitarian aid to the enemy population comes after the war – not during the war – and the chimera known as “international law,” even in the hypocritical, distorted, and arbitrary manner it is misapplied to Israel, should not hamper our chances for defeating the vile enemy who attacked, massacred, raped, tortured, and kidnapped us on October 7, 2023.

There are four situations that render the provision of aid plausible.

  1. Surrender.

This is the traditional way that a defeated party ends the war, when it concludes that it has had enough, can suffer no more, and seeks a way out of the conflict. Countries that go to war surely plan how they are going to provide for their citizens while the battles rage. Hamas’ plan, obviously, was to plan not at all but cynically appeal to the world’s sympathy (and bias against the Jewish state) so that Israel, in wartime, should have to sustain its enemy’s population – i.e., the enemy population that voted Hamas into power a little less than twenty years ago.

If we do not insist on surrender, we are literally following the enemy’s game plan and ensuring its survival to maraud another day. There is no starvation in Gaza, period, although there are shortages and undoubted hardship. They want food, water, and electricity? Surrender. And if they don’t, then obviously failure to surrender has grave consequences, as defeated aggressors throughout history have learned to their detriment.

  • Release our hostages!

If Hamas wants its population fed, it can release all of our hostages, at one time, in one place, in exchange not for murderers already imprisoned, or the rapists, sadists, kidnappers, savages, and pillagers of October 7, but in exchange for food. If it does not want its population to be fed, that really is their problem, not our problem. We need not exhibit more compassion for the enemy population than their leaders show for them.

We are a naturally compassionate people, but it is easier to deal with the severe consequences if we, accurately, deem Hamas like the Nazis, and the people of Gaza as Nazis and future Nazis. They are raised to hate Israel and murder Jews. The deaths of people who dedicate their lives to these propositions should not disturb any normal and decent person. And if there are truly innocent people – who despise Hamas, love Israel, or would like nothing more than to leave Gaza permanently – they should be fast-tracked to leave.

  • Leave

We should not be feeding our enemy but we should be aggressively pursuing the Trump plan of evacuating the Gazans to safer habitations. For some reason, we are not. I would love to hear the Prime Minister, instead of repeatedly threatening to win the war but always hesitating, talk directly to the nations of the world – Arab, Asian, European, and American – and state unequivocally: “If you are sincerely concerned about the welfare of the citizens of Gaza, you would not be insisting that we do what you have never done – nourish your enemies in wartime. What you would do is rush to offer asylum to as many as one million Gazans anxious to leave. You would be sending large ships and planes – we will facilitate their departure – to accommodate these people for whom you express such deep concern. We can evacuate 30,000 a day. Within one month, the situation in Gaza would be permanently transformed for the good, the people would be fed and resettled, and the war would end.”

The more aid we provide, the less likely it is that they will leave. Don’t we realize that? The sooner they leave, the sooner the war will end – because it will only end when they taste defeat, which in their terms is exile and loss of land.

  • Feed our hostages first!

It is obscene that we are providing food and water to an enemy that is, by all accounts, starving and abusing the hostages. It is immoral. It is foolish. It is disgraceful. Consequently, we should insist that the hostages be verifiably fed first. It does not matter if the Red Cross provides the food, although since that tendentious and pretentious entity cannot be trusted, they will have to be accompanied by a third party of our choice. But I don’t care if it is the Red Cross, or the Blue Cross, or if Steve Witkoff himself delivers food to our hostages, but not one morsel or drop should be given to Gazans until our hostages are treated like human beings.

We seem to ignore the fact that they are being held against international law, which has not once been marshaled to demand their release. Apparently, international law only carries weight when it can be used against Jews, and never when it can be used to help Jews. Why do we play along with this charade?

We must stop validating our enemy’s tactic (more than fifty years old) of kidnapping Jews, killing them, and/or holding them in abusive conditions until our foes achieve their nefarious objectives. We are playing right into their hands. And those who call for an end to the war in exchange for the release of all hostages and full withdrawal of Israel from Gaza seem not to realize that Hamas will survive, prosper, threaten us forever, but worse – they will one day, soon thereafter, Heaven forbid, kidnap five children at a bus stop, or take a school class captive, and then demand even more, and more, until our demise becomes sensible to us. Releasing our hostages by paying the enemy’s price, again and again, only ensures that we will suffer more kidnappings, more hostages, more torture, and more national anguish. What rational entity would pursue such folly?

The eighth of the Ten Utterances we will read on Shavuot is “you shall not steal,” which the Sages interpreted as “you shall not kidnap,” a capital crime (Sanhedrin 86a). When we normalize a capital crime – literally nourishing it instead of punishing it harshly – we bring disaster on ourselves, and the uncivilized part of our world is strengthened and emboldened.

There are Israelis who hate our government so much they would rather lose the war and endanger our survival than clear a path to victory. There are others who, under the trauma of the last eighteen months, see no way out other than to surrender and declare victory, and pray that the next traumatic event never happens or just does not affect them. And there are still others – many in our government – who persist in negotiating with an enemy sworn to our destruction and indulging in the same failed policies and approaches of the past. We deserve better – new approaches that do not involve the release of those who murder us and laugh about it, or those who blow up our buses, shoot our vehicles, and stab our pedestrians knowing full well that they will get away with it from our side, and be paid handsomely by those who dispatched them.

We can also say “no” to Trump, Witkoff, and others who just want an end to war, some diplomatic achievement, and a signing ceremony, regardless of the day after costs and consequences. (It was actually amusing this week, to hear Steve Witkoff say he is providing a new “term sheet” to Hamas; “term sheet” is, of course, a real estate term, wholly inapplicable to high stakes diplomacy involving life and death, survival of a nation, and the ignominy and revulsion due to terrorists and their supporters. Talk about being in over your head.) If anything, Trump has repeatedly told Israel to “finish the job.” But we are bookended in our politics by a government afraid of victory and a fanatical left that welcomes defeat if only that will finally topple the government.

Of course, our “no” should be mitigated with these four choices: surrender, release our hostages, leave, and/or feed our hostages first. If not, then let the promised gates of hell open on our tormentors. It is impossible to conceive of more worthy targets.

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