Looking Back On A Month Of War In Israel, News Roundup: Part 1 [Use Android Or Desktop To Open These Posts]

By
Dan
-
22
Photo Credit: Askii [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons
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This is part 1 of a 3 part series that I wrote before Tuesday’s truly incredible rally in DC, which I’ll write about seperately.

You can find part 2 here and part 3 here.

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The Simchat Torah Pogrom

It had been exactly 50 years since Israel was caught flat-footed by its neighbors. On October 6, 1973, Israel was unprepared when Egypt and Syria attacked on Yom Kippur. Some 2,500-2,800 Israelis were killed and another 8,000 were wounded. Israeli intelligence considered the Arab countries unprepared to attack Israel.

On the 50th anniversary of that attack, this time on Simchat Torah, the most joyous holiday on the Jewish calendar, the country faced its most barbaric massacre in its 75 year history. Did Israel forget the lessons learned?

And while Jews around the world recoiled in shock and mourning from a 21st century pogrom that affected everyone, much of the world seemed to celebrate.

Many Jews, myself included, couldn’t sleep at night after hearing about the atrocities committed. The gleeful reaction from scenes around the world made it all the more worse.

Shockingly, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust sparked the worst outbreak in anti-semitism seen since the Holocaust. We have gone from trauma to trauma.

Jews don’t feel safe on the streets or on social media these days. At just 0.2% of the world population, we’ll always be outnumbered. Maybe the hateful comments are mostly from Russian troll farms, but the comments on anything we post on Instagram or TikTok are just shocking.

 

 

My sister-in-law, Rachel Goldberg from Pittsburgh, put the words to how so many of us are feeling. (For many of the social media posts in this thread, you’ll need to click to read more and see the entire post):

While the Nazis tried to erase and hide their atrocities, Hamas gleefully used body cameras to document their crimes against humanity to score propaganda points. It was a level of evil that the world had never seen before.

But the Jewish nation is nothing if not resilient and has rallied as one to take on the challenge. After all, Hamas, like the Nazis, didn’t care if the Jews were religious or not, right-wing or left-wing, or celebrated Simchat Torah or went to music festivals. They just wanted to kill all Jews.

 

There were calls for a ceasefire even before Israel responded. That ignored the reality that there already had been a ceasefire on 10/6.

If Israel had taken care of business in the past and not settled for a ceasefire, countless lives would have been spared on both sides.

 

 

Even leftist Yair Lapid was shocked at people’s ignorance:

 

So I guess the real question is, why haven’t we seen pro-Palistinean protestors against Hamas?

Surely there must be some voices that realize the damage that Hamas is inflicting on their cause?

There are some, but they are few and far between:

 

Here’s some of what we have learned over the past month…

 

Hamas has been planning this for 2 years:

While Israeli intelligence assessed Hamas as giving up on terror in favor of running a functional government and enriching themselves in Gaza, it was nothing but a smokescreen. This attack had been in the works for years:

 

In order to avoid Israeli interception of communication, they used landline phones in tunnels to communicate.

Tens of thousands of Gazan workers have been allowed to work in Kibbutzim in recent years. But while in Israel, they collected detailed intelligence for Hamas to know every detail to orchestrate their massacre.

Hamas also used drones to spy on Israel from as close as 150 feet in the sky, and they hoped to even reach the West Bank during the attacks.

In the weeks leading up to the attacks, hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists trained in Iran.

Israel has promised to hunt down every last one involved in the attacks and to destroy their military infrastructure. Hamas’ head of intelligence was killed and the rest of the terrorists will also meet their just end, Inshallah.

 

 

 

Israel stopped listening to Hamas’ radios a year ago

The IDF stopped snooping on Hamas handheld radios a year ago, as Israeli intelligence assessed that there was no longer a threat from the group. They found those very radios on the attackers, had they still been monitored things would have ended very differently.

US intelligence also wrote off Hamas as an active threat.

At 3am on Simchat Torah the Shin Bet noticed unusual activity, but assumed it was just an exercise. They didn’t bother to awaken the Prime Minister.

Israel was so sure that “The Barrier” sealed off Gaza, that they maintained just a skeleton crew protecting the region. The wall’s sensors, cameras, and remote sight-shooter systems would neutralize any attacks.

But Hamas was prepared and easily destroyed that technology, leaving the country blind.

Many warned about the overreliance on the wall and technology.

We have been working with Gershon Hacohen to get a pair of tefilin to every IDF soldier that commits to wearing them daily. He wrote over 7 years ago that a wall and technology can easily be defeated by an enemy. They are predictable, while boots on the ground are not. The sealed wall also staves off Israeli intelligence collection.

It sure seems like arrogance and overreliance on technology as well as thinking that Hamas could be reformed are to blame.

“And you will say to yourself, “My strength and the might of my hand…But you must remember the Lord your G-d, for it is He that gives you strength.”

 

Hamas says they will do it again and again

Hamas doesn’t shy away from saying they will repeat an attack of this nature again and again until Israel is annihilated. 

 

 

 

Anyone calling for a ceasefire is asking for the future deaths of both Jews and Arabs.

This sums it up well. Dear world: I don’t care.

 

 

You can’t have a ceasefire when you have an enemy that states they will never stop firing.

Even ultra-progressives like Bernie Sanders understand that:

 

The loss of any civilian life is tragic. Full stop.

But the blood of losses on both sides are squarely on Hamas’ hands. This war was started by Hamas and Hamas uses their civilian population and hospitals as shields.

 

The notion that Israel is committing genocide is laughable. Would they be risking themselves to evacuate civilians from the battleground via humanitarian corridors if that were the case? Would they call and text people to leave buildings where Hamas is hiding? Why is the Gazan population growing so fast if there is genocide occurring?

 

Indeed, calling it genocide plays right into Hamas’ terror playbook and endangers the lives of millions of innocent civilians who will continue to be used as human shields.

The world has gone crazy if they can’t see that.

The world is starting to see that, with the EU finally condemning Hamas for their use of hospitals and civilians as shields.

The Red Cross has long known about Hamas’ abuses of medical facilities and ambulances:

 

 

 

But this is nothing new.

 

They even used amusement parks as terror entrances:

 

In the words of Prime Minister Golda Meir, “If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.”

 

 

It wasn’t just Hamas

Certainly, there are innocent civilians in Gaza, but so many of the 10/7 attackers were civilians.

 

Israeli-German Shani Louk was kidnapped and paraded around Gaza naked before she was murdered. Everyone in the streets were celebrating her kidnapping, with nary a soul protesting the barbaric behavior.

The Arab world has been disappointingly silent in condemning the evil we saw that day. Condemning Hamas should be universal.

It will take strong voices of peace to change so much hate.

 

Attacks were foiled in the past

Before “The Barrier” was built, Israel had constant human eyes on the ground.

Famously, Passover Matza and the Shmita year saved the kibbutzim in the Gaza Envelope in the past.

It sure seems like the reliance on the wall created the complacency that failed to foil the plot this time.

 

 

Mapping the Massacre

This website maps out the massacre, giving visualization of the pogroms that broke out all around the Gaza Strip.

Even weeks later, many of the dead are unidentified, having been burned to ash or other unrecognizable substance.

 

That has meant that some victims thought to be dead, such as 8 year old Emily Hand, were actually changed to presumed kidnapped when no remains were able to be identified.

 

Shema Yisroel 

A Jewish person may find themselves far enough from religion that they celebrate Simchas Torah at a rave with a giant Buddha instead of Torah scrolls, but when threatened, the essence of the Jew comes out.

Neta David shared that “Several times, we heard the terrorists approaching, shouting in Arabic, searching for gun fodder. I recited ‘Shema Yisrael,’ sure that my life was over.”

Michal Ohana shared that it was a miracle that she made it out alive and thought that she was going to die. “In that moment of danger and agony, she said the Shema Yisrael, which is one of the most sacred prayers in Judaism, a prayer that you say when you believe that you are about to die.”

Of course, it’s a prayer that Jews say multiple times a day, but it’s one that is said, no matter what your religious level, when facing death. Because in the end, we are all one.

 

Jews are the indigenous people of Israel

Jews have lived in Israel for thousands of years.

Rashi wrote 1,000 years ago on Genesis 1:1 that the reason the Torah starts with the story of creation is so when the nations of the world call the Jews thieves for being in Israel, we can respond that G-d created heaven and Earth and gave the land to the Jews. The Torah is the foundation on which all monothetic religions, including Islam, are based.

For thousands of years, Jews have prayed daily to return to Jerusalem. Every part of Jewish faith incorporates our connection to the holy land.

But even if you want to ignore the religious aspect, just dig in Israel and you will come across our artifacts ranging from Jewish coins to housing to Torah scrolls written in Hebrew. There is no debate, Jews are indigenous in the holy land.

 

 

 

Israeli Arabs have equal rights and serve in the Knesset and Supreme Court. They would never trade life under Israel for life in another country.

Meanwhile in the rest of the Middle East…

 

Heroes

Oz Davidian drove a truck back and forth for 6 hours to save 120 lives from the massacre. He came face to face with terrorists that shot at him, but he miraculously survived!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a Bedouin bus driver saved 30 people from the massacre!

My mother always did tell me to keep some cash on hand at home and when traveling. In this case it saved 2 lives.

And here is a truly incredible interview of what a mother went through, hiding in a safe room with her kids for 20 hours.

 

Rachel from Ofakim as the modern day Yael

In the Torah, Yael gave Sisera milk, making him sleepy, before killing him.

And in 2023, Rachel Edri was a hostage in her home in Ofakim, but survived by distracting her Hamas captors with lattes and cookies.

No surprise, but she has now become a folk hero in the country.

There’s even a video game to play where you can kill Hamas terrorists with her cookies.

Want her cookie recipe? She shares it here.

 

The brave boy from Sderot

This is just amazing:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Jewish Learning Institute (@myjli)

 

The boy, his father, and grandfather all spoke at this week’s Kinus Hashluchim:

Bring Yigal Yaakov home for his Bar Mitzvah!

I’m not crying, you’re crying!

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Rita Benisti Inspired (@ritainspired)

The Nir Oz Community WhatsApp Chat

The complete WhatsApp chat of the Nir Oz community is just devastating.

Even with Israel being caught off-guard, it’s just tragic that it took so long for help to arrive.

 

The Gilad Shalit trade

12 years ago, Israel traded a shocking 1,027 terrorists for Gilad Shalit.

That included the mastermind of the 10/7 attacks, Yahya Sinwar. He also managed to lull Israel into thinking that he had changed Hamas’ goals.

It seemed like too high of a price to pay then and it’s that much worse as it led to attacks that killed so many, along with another 240 hostages.

Sadly, paying ransom like this just encourages more kidnapping.

But maybe it’s time for Israel to finally adopt the death penalty for terrorism? Why are they arresting convicted terrorists and just leaving themselves open to kidnappings to free them?

 

Craziness across the globe

Just after the attacks, Germany reaffirmed their special commitment to Israel and said they would ban pro-Hamas demonstrations. France did the same. As did the UK.

But talk is cheap.

Even on October 7th, people were celebrating in the streets of Berlin:

 

And in Sydney:

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the other hand, Germans also protected a synagogue that was threatened in Berlin:

 

 

In LA, a Jewish man was murdered by a pro-Palestinian protestor. The murderer has now been arrested.

 

But the media can’t tell the truth about what happened:

 

In Montreal, Jewish schools were attacked:

 

 

 

Insurrectionists?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How quickly does London forget?

 

 

Refugees have changed Europe, says an Austrian MP visiting Israel.

Ya’ think?

Germany’s Vice Chancellor on the attacks and German responsibility

A must-watch:

More than half of Israeli hostages were rescued on 10/7

The number of hostages could have been more than double had it not been for this IDF rescue at the Sufa Military Post, where Hamas gathered Israelis to be brought back to Gaza as hostages:

 

Why supply Gazans with water when you can build rocket launchers?

Our tax dollars hard at work…

 

 

 

You can find part 1 here and part 3 here.

College craziness

On the day of the attacks, many Harvard student groups said Israel was entirely responsible for the attacks. Talk about victim blaming. But that was just the beginning.

If you have experienced anti-semitism at school or work, you can report it to Agudah here.

Less than a day after the attacks, tenured college professors were calling the attacks awesome and incredible.

Even exhilarating:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Qatar has spent lavishly on donations to US colleges, gaining a strong foothold in advancing their Muslim Brotherhood ideology.

Meanwhile, Harvard’s focus has been on creating a task force for students who were exposed as anti-semites.

Davis Polk and other law firms have rescinded job offers to these students.

 

But young Americans don’t side with Israel. Part of the reason for that is social media propaganda, which is where Hamas excels.

 

But Jewish celebrities have also shared words of encouragement on social media:

@hillelintl

@Mark Cuban wants you to be proud and STRONG of your Judaism. Our LOVE and the STRENGTH in our community is how we combat the hate. AND you ALWAYS have Hillel to lean on. #hillel #jewish #jewishlife #college #jewishlifeoncampus #jewishtiktok

♬ original sound – Hillel International

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, Ben Shapiro did a fantastic job debating college students in Oxford about Israel.

The original speeches by President Biden and Secretary Blinken were incredible.

The speeches from President Biden and Secretary Blinken in the week after the attacks were unabashedly pro-Israel. Israel must defend itself and dismantle Hamas. Both of them were shocked by the atrocities committed and asked what the US would do in that scenario.

It won them unlikely fans.

 

Hillary Clinton also defended Israel:

 

As the President said long ago, if Israel didn’t exist, the US would have to invent it:

 

But that sinking feeling was always there that it was too good to last. Just how long would they support Israel’s goals?

Indeed, the speeches seem to become more watered down with each passing day, as the 10/7 attacks fade into memory.

I guess that’s no surprise considering the position of many at the State Department and other departments of the government. We’re lucky that the President is as supportive as he is despite his staff.

But what purpose exactly will a 3 day ceasefire serve, except for allowing Hamas to recoup and rearm?

The irony of the Arab nation now asking the Jewish nation for 3 days off isn’t lost on anyone familiar with the Exodus story. But is it for men only or women and children too?

 

 

Bibi speaks to foreign media

Prime Minister Netanyahu, a gifted orator, was surprisingly quiet for the English media for weeks after the attack.

He finally broke that silence with this excellent speech:

 

Read more in part 2.

Leave a Reply

22 Comments On "Looking Back On A Month Of War In Israel, News Roundup: Part 1 [Use Android Or Desktop To Open These Posts]"

All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.

Nikki

Thank you for sharing this.

Reply
November 16, 2023 7:03 pm
Dan

Had to get the pent-up frustration of the past month off my chest, even if it’s far too long for most people to digest.

Reply
November 16, 2023 7:28 pm
eg

Not too long at all! I really appreciated it. Too long for one sitting, but I def kept coming back to it. Very intriguing pieces. Great selection

Reply
November 22, 2023 9:27 am
SREPW

Very well done. Anti-Semitism is a massive issue, but I’m not sure that’s always the root of it. When we now have TikTok filled with teens and students supporting Bin Laden’s “Letter to America,” the issue is very much about supporting feelings and emotions against all logic. It’s not surprising when we see how emotions have trumped reality in so many other areas (think biology, marriage, etc.)

Reply
November 16, 2023 7:22 pm
Dan

Thanks.

Social media like Tik Tok seems to remove critical thinking and encourage group think, echo chambers, and conspiracy rabbit holes. A brilliant way for China to destroy the west.

Reply
November 16, 2023 7:30 pm
Chaimel

Very true. China’s censors actually influence world opinion via TikTok on purpose. For example, the TikTok algorithm pushes Arab views over Jewish ones.

Reply
November 16, 2023 7:49 pm
J

Dan, it’s not loading on the app and Chrome is struggling. You may want to use another platform to embed or split into more parts

Reply
November 16, 2023 7:54 pm
Dan

Bumping up against mobile size limits it seems.
Does it not load in chrome even when you give it time? Maybe try closing other open tabs.

Or try on a desktop when you have the time?

Not sure it’s practical to split into 6 parts…

Reply
November 16, 2023 7:56 pm
Danfan

Love it, Dan!

Reply
November 16, 2023 8:14 pm
Dan

Thanks!

Reply
November 16, 2023 9:50 pm
Es

Dan, I’ve only just scratched the surface of your article and just post after post hits straight to the gut. Really yasher koiach, beyond words what you’ve weaved together. I’ve been reading every news site, Jewish and non, across the spectrum and haven’t nearly come across this type of content and certainly not to the level of emotional connection that you’ve presented. Chazek ubaruch, may we see yeshuos, nechomos and geulah

Reply
November 16, 2023 8:59 pm
Dan

Appreciate the kind words, thanks!

Reply
November 16, 2023 9:50 pm
yelped

Agreed 100%.

Reply
November 17, 2023 10:09 am
Harvey

Wow, thank you, Dan!
You break things down in to a well-documented concise and accurate report and timeline.

It’s an incredible resource. But unfortunately not sure it’ll be ready by those who need to read it.

Very important work nonetheless, so thank you!

Reply
November 17, 2023 12:35 am
Dan

Appreciate it, thanks!

Reply
November 17, 2023 9:50 am
Sheldon R. Reich

Yasher Koach, Dan! This excellent piece of scholarship should be mandatory reading for anyone seeking the complete picture of what the past 40+ days. Outstanding!

Reply
November 17, 2023 7:59 am
Dan

Thanks!

Reply
November 17, 2023 9:51 am
JR

I am sorry you had to go through so much to try and get a point across, it’s really scary time now in the world and especially in the US when so many people are so easily brainwashed. Hope people will wake up soon to the realities in the world, before it goes way too far and costs more lives. thank you for sharing this ! I am going to be using many links to send to “friends” who have now become very anti-Israel overnight.

Reply
November 17, 2023 1:53 pm
Yochai

Dan, this is simply amazing! I’m looking back at days I spent reading news articles and opinions and you’re able to sum up all this information and feelings in 3 posts!
Was definitely worth taking the time to read. We really need more people like you to push the agendas on SM.
On a related note, did you ever consider writing a book about some of the topics you researched, (LY Shabbos flight, LH antisemitism etc.) withe some of the cute DDF stories?

Reply
November 17, 2023 2:55 pm
izzy

Its crazy that the man in the first youtube video didnt become frum after saying a whole hashgacha prattis story. it was obvious from his am haratzus in hilchos shmitta and shmura matza . Its just amazing how the yetzer hora can distract a yid

Reply
November 18, 2023 4:13 pm
KMC

Think whatever you want, take whatever daher you want to draw, learn lessons wherever you find them, but why do you have to publicly criticize?
How many Frum people don’t take a full measure of hissorerus from lessons they learn or things they experience? ALL people are capable of, and fall prey to, the same inertia.

The story is not over; never give up on yourself or anyone else.

Reply
November 19, 2023 9:55 am
Abraham

Wow! Job well done! Keep it up!!
The boy at the Kinus Hashluchim made me cry…

Reply
November 19, 2023 2:31 pm
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