Hamas/Gaza War Musings #64: Nu? Where's The Victory? Has It Flown Away?

 

I had used this photo for the 52frames Fluid album. 

At the time of the terrible surprise attack on October 7, 2023, all the murders, perversions, kidnappings done to innocent Israelis, visitors and foreign workers, Israel was totally unprepared, militarily and emotionally. That must be especially said of many of the victims and southern communities, who had been proudly in the "peace camp," believing that their kindness and generosity to local Arabs, especially including Gazans, trying to prove that we had nothing to fear from those Arabs. What a shock to them when many of those very Arabs came proudly as Hamas terrorists, joining enthusiastically in the murderous terror. Some of the attacked communities didn't even have weapons for self-defense. They didn't think such a thing necessary.

To make matters worse, it took much longer than it should have for the IDF to get its act together and begin the difficult defensive war for Israel's very survival. Israel's leaders, too, have been hypnotized/brainwashed by the misconception that we weren't in danger from the south, from Gaza. I have my theories on why that happened, but it's not for now.

Since Hamas began the war against Israel on October 7, 2023, over a thousand IDF soldiers and police have been killed, besides the approximately 1,200 murdered by Hamas Gazans in the various attacks/pogroms/massacres on that first black day. 

Within a few months, miraculously for sure, it looked like we were on the way to an amazing victory, but then... things changed, and instead of being strong confident victors Prime Minister Binyamin Bibi Netanyahu began looking rather pathetic trying to get approval and praise from foreign leaders who had been growing more critical and demanding with every concession he made. 

While groups of Israelis organized returns to their former homes in Gaza, Bibi pledged in the United Nations and the United States Congress that we had no plans of settling in Gaza. To show his seriousness, every few months he'd destroy Jewish communities in Judea/Samaria. If someone counted all the Jewish homes he has destroyed in his close to twenty years as Prime Minister, it probably rivals those Menachem Begin and Arik Sharon destroyed. Yes, in case you're wondering, all were elected on the Likud slate as Prime Minister. It makes you wonder; doesn't it?

And how has been going for Israel militarily? At one point it was looking good, but instead of fighting to victory, Bibi did his usual... nothing. Simply put, negotiation isn't his strong point. Bibi specializes in hypnotizing oratory. 

After almost twenty years as Prime Minister, too many Israelis can't imagine anyone else in the role. Yes, even those who agree that the situation is terrible, and that Israel has made many mistakes are terrified of losing Netanyahu. I just don't understand them. We've all heard:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

Do they really think that continuing with the same leader will improve things? I also like to remind people of what US President Harry Truman liked to say:

The Buck Stops Here!

Bibi can only blame himself, and we Israelis -Right, Left and Center- must admit that for us to see a true, total VICTORY, which we need for our very survival, we need new leadership, from top to bottom, from Right to Left and Left to Right. The Opposition is no more competent than the Government. They haven't proposed anything that will help. They just want to destroy Netanyahu. I wish they'd use their power and enthusiasm against Hamas, against our enemies. They are worse than the Likud. They haven't proposed VICTORY any more frequently than Bibi.

You're probably asking whom do I propose can take over... for that please wait, though you're welcome to propose people in the comments.

Israeli Democracy? Justice? Are You Confused?

Let's start with the easy stuff.

What's Democracy?

I decided to "printscreen" what professor google says about democracy,
so you can trust that I didn't edit/distort the meaning

There's nothing about Right/Left or Conservative/Liberal. It's in the numbers.

Democracy is broadly understood to mean ‘rule by the people’. In practice, it is often defined as people choosing their leaders in free and fair elections. 

Our World in Data

Democracy means that the country's leadership isn't decided in the street.

There are elections.

A democratic government is not chosen by who makes the loudest, most annoying and dangerous demonstrations. Nor does it give priority to people shouting in the street over legal elections.

Now, back to what has been going on in Israel. In the past half a decade plus, we've had multiple elections that ended without a new ruling coalition, and we haven't had a coalition/government that lasted its full term. 

Political parties which had dominated and ruled during the first few decades of the country no longer receive enough votes to be in the Knesset or if they are in, they are anorexic shadows of what they once were. This has been difficult for their supporters to accept. They and their parents, and in some cases grandparents, never liked the Netanyahu family, and they like the Revisionist founders of Herut/Likud even less. This is what is behind the irrational hatred of Binyamin Netanyahu. Remember that the demonstrations had actually begun during Netanyahu's previous terms as Prime Minister. 

We can't ignore the trials against Netanyahu. Even though years and much too much money have been invested in trying to convict him, the chances are nil. That's because they're trumped up charges, to put it mildly. Please ignore the unintended pun. If Bibi was really guilty of corruption, then it wouldn't have been hard to convict him, since the judges don't like him. 

To sum it up, the "anyone but Bibi" movement, along with the anti-Judicial Reform has nothing to do with his competence or honesty. It's the fading Left's attempt to override democratic elections and rule by street mobs with the help of the Leftist Supreme Court Judges.

Yes, the truth is that the opposition are those who are antidemocracy!

Israel's Memorial Day Isn't Just About Dead Soldiers

My husband and I made aliyah in 1970 to a very different Israel. The State of Israel was just twenty-two 22 years old. It had recovered from the early days of rationed food and finally, post 1967 Six Days War, had defensible borders and a Capital City that wasn't jaggedly ripped and threatened daily by enemy snipers. New neighborhoods, like a regal crown, were under construction in recently liberated Jerusalem, and a new road safely and relatively quickly connected it with the more affluent coastal plain, including Tel Aviv. 

In those days, Israel's Memorial Day only commemorated, remembered soldiers who had been killed during army service. It took almost fifty years, 1997, to broaden it officially and rename it Yom HaZikaron LeHalelei Ma'arkhot Yisrael ul'Nifge'ei Pe'ulot HaEivah יוֹם הזִּכָּרוֹן לְחַלְלֵי מַעַרְכוֹת יִשְׂרָאֵל וּלְנִפְגְעֵי פְּעֻלּוֹת הָאֵיבָה‎,  'Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers of the Wars of Israel and Victims of Actions of Terrorism.' That means that victims of terrorism are included, too. Not only are terror victims included in the ceremonies, but the families get more help from the government than previously.

Please don't think that there's always that much difference between the heroism of the dead soldiers and dead civilians. Some of the dead soldiers had spent their army service at very safe desk jobs, or were killed in civilian-type accidents, and some of the civilians died trying to save others in a terror attack. And we must all remember that Arab terrorists don't distinguish between soldiers and civilians. For them there's no difference between a toddler, bus driver and sniper, as long as there's a chance that they are Jewish/Israeli.

Unfortunately, as part of the antigovernment campaign, the opposition has demanded that no minister who hadn't done active army service represent the government in memorial ceremonies. By making such a distinction, the antigovernment activists are going back a quarter of a century and removing victims of terror from Israel's Memorial Day.

Unfortunately, many people who should know better have joined them. I'm rather surprised at Miriam Peretz among others. Peretz has joined the antigovernment campaign to marginalize/boycott the democratically elected government. 

There are all sorts of opposition groups campaigning hard against the government, and one of their "weapons" is that many of the prominent government ministers had never served in the IDF (not that they ever protested about Shimon Peres) and therefore have no right to publicly mourn/speak at Memorial Day ceremonies/events. 

This opposition totally ignores that Memorial Day also mourns victims of Arab terror. Arab terrorists don't distinguish between soldiers and civilians, men and women, adults and children, Jews and non-Jews nor Israelis and tourists. 

Why is the opposition making two or more classes of victims? Where's the unity? According to Jewish Law and custom, the dead are buried wrapped in simple cloth, preferably without even a coffin, because there shouldn't be distinctions between rich and poor, prominent citizens and ordinary people. IDF dead are buried in the simplest wooden coffin to constructed to disintegrate quickly into the earth, because not all the dead bodies can be neatly wrapped up in the traditional shrouds. 

All dead are equally dead; don't distinguish. 

Israelis mourn on Memorial Day, each in their own ways. Some of those we mourn were killed as Israeli soldiers, while others were civilians, random victims of Arab terrorism, and other stories are much more complex. 

There's something else, which is very important to me:

I have been saying for a long time that the present coalition should publicly apologize for their horrendous behavior when they were in the opposition last year. That would be a good step in unifying the citizens of the State of Israel.

Just Over a Week Before 5779, 2019 Knesset Elections, and We're on Verge of War

Life here is Israel is rather surreal. From what I've heard and know of history, Israeli culture and living here for almost half a century, that's "normal." There's just over a week before the 5779, 2019 Knesset Elections, and I notice less election hysteria than in the past. Maybe it's because the Israeli news has been so anti-Bibi that I feel that nothing has changed, or is it because of the EU backed Arab terror, riots, incendiary devices and rockets fired from Gaza for the past year, which has the country on the verge of war.

As tiny as the State of Israel is, and by American standards, it's about the size of New Jersey, we don't see and feel the terror/violence in most of the country. A few decades ago, Israelis in the north complained that most of the State of Israel was oblivious to the rockets, terror/violence they suffered. So, it's very deja vu for me. Israelis who had been alive during the War of Independence would tell similar stories, how despite the war all around, the cafés, coffee shops in Tel Aviv were always full of revelers.

Here in Shiloh, we haven't been directly affected by the Gazan attacks/terror, but other waves of terror, the intifadas were nearby, and then it was quiet in both the north and south.

Life on the border with Gaza - things people may not know (but should) Facebook group

Shiloh is northeast of Ramalla, which isn't in the "red zone."

As for the 5779, 2019 Knesset Elections, when I speak to neighbors and friends, we all seem to want the same thing from our MKs, but we differ on which political party will be the best choice.

Last night I even posted on facebook :

This may shock some people, but I don't mind if Likud is in the opposition for a bit. It'll go more Right.

Most responders/comments didn't agree with me. They just don't get it. Being in the opposition would be a good shock/cleanser for the Likud. It would remind them that the Israeli voter wants a real Right party in power, not a bunch of Centrist wimps. This scenario would happen if their prospective truly Right political parties, like the Shaked-Bennett New Right lose votes to the fake Right, like Feiglin and Kahalon.

And concerning the terror from Gaza, the IDF has called up a lot of reservists who are waiting for a decision. IMHO, we should have bombed them to bits last year when it started. Any terrorist or agent provocateur, regardless of age should have been eliminated. We're being attacked. That's war, and there's no need to act like these are toddlers having a bissell tantrum.

In less than two weeks, maybe there will be some election results. Or will the 5779, 2019 Knesset Elections be suddenly postponed because of war? Tune in ...

Yesh Atid Sounds so RIGHT from Opposition

Unlike most Right Israelis, I wouldn't at all be afraid of seeing Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud in the Opposition.

Please remember that unlike the American and many other political/governmental systems, the losers of the Israeli elections do have official roles as Opposition.

When in the coalition an MK or minister is shackled by "coalition discipline." It was the constant anti-government/coalition statements of Justice Minister Tsippi Livni and Treasury Minister Yair Lapid that tried the patience of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and finally convinced him to fire them and announce new elections. Now he has a smaller, tighter minimal coalition of 61 MKs, rather than the unruly large coalition he had last time.

Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid-There's a Future Party is very Center-Left, but now that it lost support and is in the dog house aka Opposition, we're hearing some Right sounding statements from his MKs:

'Government is negotiating with Hamas under our noses'
Charging that instead of fighting terrorism forcefully the government is talking to Hamas, MK Haim Jelin (Yesh Atid), the former chairman of the Eshkol Regional Council near the Gaza border, on Wednesday took issue with the term “trickle” to describe recent attacks.
“This isn’t a trickle. Terrorism must be fought with determination and force, the same force with which we founded the country,” said in a plenum discussion.
“The residents of Gaza border towns deserve quiet and security and determination from the government so we can raise our children in peace like in any other place in Israel.”
Instead, Jelin posited, “There are negotiations between Hamas and Israel under our noses, via foreign embassies, and don’t try to fool us.
“I ask, in the name of Gaza-border residents: Why now?” he said of the alleged talks. (Jerusalem Post)

None of this surprises me, especially because the last few wars aka "operations" Israel suffered through were so pathetic.

Israeli residents in the north and south have been complaining that there are still sounds from underground of tunnels being built by terrorists.

Nobody believes the government any more.

I honestly think that it would be good for the Likud to be in a position to stop defending its Centrist policies. Of course, Leftist Labor leader Herzog would keep on blaming Bibi for all the problems, and in some ways he'd be right, though not Right in his solutions. But in the Opposition, Likud will rediscover its Right ideology, G-d willing.

Let's see what the future holds for us. Unfortunately it seems like there will be another awful war. We must destroy our enemies and not continue to put up with the "drizzle," "trickle" and "rain of rockets."

ZERO TOLERANCE!!!!

That is the only policy that will bring us peace and quiet!!!

Israel Needs a Strong Right Opposition Not a Bloated Cabinet!

I look at politics differently from most, especially Israeli politics.  There's more than simple Right vs Left separating Israeli political parties. Generally Israelis choose their parties to vote for according to a few simple criterion, the youth movements they were members of as kids.  That's why the National Religious Party had a campaign slogan a few elections ago saying:

"Come home."

They wanted former Bnai Akiva members to vote nostalgia aka NRP or Jewish Home.

Labor Party also has campaigned on nostalgia hoping the children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren of former loyalists will vote for them.

Other parties campaign for or against religion, the chareidi and extreme Left parties. Kadima has even pledged to offer a "supermarket" of ideologies.

Recently, in order to renew the Old National Religious Party aka NRP aka Jewish Home, they've opened themselves up and have an active campaign primaries with all sorts of media and internet savvy wannabes.  One of the most surprising is a secular Rightist, Ayelet Shaked.  I've read a few interviews with her and at first was very confused.  In terms of ideology, she seems more suited to the Ichud Le'umi, National Union, but then I noticed that she dreams of a cabinet portfolio.

AS: I think I’d like to be either Education Minister or Foreign Minister since both education and hasbara are close to my heart. 

That's the criteria most people ignore.  Does the political party aim to be in the cabinet at any ideological cost or do they want to be the magnet pulling the Prime Minister to what they think Israel should be?

Ever since Menachem Begin's Likud put together the ruling coalition in 1977, there hasn't been a strong Right opposition.  The NRP is not a truly Right party; it's a coalition partner, willing to ignore and compromise in order to hold onto its portfolio and perks.  The Likud is a Center party supported by Right voters.

The Left has a very strong opposition.  That's how it keeps pulling the Likud leftward.  We need a very strong Right opposition in Israel.  That's why, although I know it's far from perfect, I will continue to support the National Union.  I wish that some of those charismatic NRP wannabes could understand that if they really want to make a difference in Israel they should try to strengthen the National Union instead of getting mired in the NRP.

Remember that cabinet posts come with lots of strings.  Wily politicians like Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu don't offer anything without those well-tied strings.  If a minister tries to step out of line, he or she finds them like a noose on the neck. 

If an Israeli wants to lead on the political scene, he or she is best best off staying in the opposition until powerful enough to be Prime Minister.