The sentiment “Never Again,” once a solemn vow against repeating the horrors of the Holocaust, has eroded in the face of rising global antisemitism and the ideological tides that now threaten the Jewish people and the State of Israel.
On Monday, the world marked Holocaust Remembrance Day — but it was a day not of remembrance but of “non-remembrance,” a stark reckoning with the betrayal of that promise.
Antisemitism manifests itself today
through a coordinated assault on Israel, a nation surrounded by hostility on multiple fronts. Globally, antisemitic ideologies flourish, infiltrating academia, workplaces and cultural institutions. This widespread animosity belies the hollow commemorations of the Holocaust; performative gestures by some nations contrast sharply with actions that vilify and discriminate against modern Jewish communities.
The Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023 — marked by atrocities against civilians, including children — laid bare the resurgence of genocidal hate. It is a grim reminder of the dehumanization that fueled the final solution of Jews that Nazi Germany worked so hard to achieve.
Hamas’ actions — filmed and disseminated for propaganda — mirror the worst atroci-
ties of the past, albeit with modern tools and a chilling openness. The cries of “From the river to the sea” and “Kill the Jews,” heard in protests across Europe, the United States and elsewhere, echo the rhetoric of annihilation. While the scale and methodology of these acts differ from the Shoah, the intent to demonize and eradicate remains disturbingly
familiar. The Holocaust’s haunting images — a mother clutching her child moments before death in Ivangorod, Ukraine — resonate with the horrors of families slaughtered in their homes or burned alive in October. These parallels challenge us to confront a painful truth: The anti-Jewish hatred that fueled the Holocaust is alive and adapting to modern contexts.
The failure to uphold “Never Again” is evident in the political opportunism and ignorance surrounding responses to contemporary antisemitism. Institutions that claim to honor Holocaust memory often simultaneously endorse narratives that demonize Israel. For example, universities expel Israeli representatives, while activists call for a “free Palestine” without addressing
Always remember the Shoah? Forgetaboutit!
JOnathan S. tObin
JnS Editor-in-Chief
n the 20 years since it was created by a vote in the UN General Assembly in 2005, International Holocaust Remembrance Day has become a staple of the world community’s calendar. It has even been embraced by the organized Jewish world, which is always eager for acceptance from established institutions.
It was established even though the Jewish world already recognized a Holocaust day — Yom Hashoah — observed in the spring a week before Israel’s memorial and independence days. More than 15 months after Oct. 7, 2023, it’s time to reassess that decision.
Why? Shouldn’t we encourage more Holocaust commemoration and education programs? Doesn’t the creation of a day set aside by the world for remembering the slaughter of 6 million Jews give this event the recognition it deserves, as well as making it less likely that the horror of the Shoah will be repeated?
As it turns out, the resounding answer is an emphatic “no.”
Empty words…
The leaders of the same international community that reacted with indifference, if not support, for the mass murder and atrocities committed against Jews during the border infiltration and ensuing murderous assault on southern Israel by Hamas terrorists and other Palestinians on Oct. 7, 2023, will dutifully line up on Jan. 27 to take part in these commemorations. They will say how horrible the Holocaust was. Some of them will use the familiar refrain of “never again.” In doing so, they will count themselves as the sort of responsible, compassionate and high-minded people who deserve not only to control powerful international institutions like the United Nations and its manifold agencies but also to tell the rest of us how to think and live.
This is just another example of how much of the world likes dead Jews but is utterly intolerant of live ones, who are prepared to fight for their rights and their existence.
As proof of that, in many of these ceremonies, there will be not a word said about the Nazis of our own day who wish to fulfill Adolf Hitler’s goal of the genocide of the Jews. And by that, I don’t mean the hateful though small, isolated and politically powerless neo-Nazis that dwell in the fever swamps of the far right in Western societies.
Instead, I’m referring to Hamas and other Islamist terror groups that have as their goal the destruction of the one Jewish state on the planet and the genocide of the more than 7 million Jews who live there. Hamas’s actions on Oct. 7 were part of an attempt to realize that genocidal goal.
Zero tolerance for empty words of remembrance
make a mockery of the memory of the victims and the fight against antisemitism.
This is the same international movement that has spent the last 15 months drumming up hatred for Jews and Israel. More than that, they have, with the assistance of a small mi-
Those who are morally neutral about or support the latter-day Nazis of Hamas should remain silent on Jan. 27.
nority of Jews who are estranged from any sense of Jewish peoplehood or their ancestral faith, attempted to flip the script of the Holocaust to falsely portray Israel’s war of selfdefense against Hamas as a “genocide” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Oct. 7 changed everything
Prior to the existential war for Israel’s existence that began on that Black Shabbat, it might have been possible to make a coherent argument in favor of cooperating with and using the Jan. 27 ceremonies as a way to promote awareness of global antisemitism. But these commemorations are not assisting in educating the world about where tolerance of Jew-hatred leads. To the contrary, it must now be acknowledged that their primary purpose is to provide cover to those who wish to make a distinction between the mass slaughter of Jews in the last century and those who are attempting it in the present one.
In the eight decades since the Holocaust, the growing trend toward the universalization of the Holocaust has long since gotten out of hand. Scholars, self-styled “human rights” organizations and others eager to make use of the historical suffering of the Jewish people for their own purposes have seized on the Nazi campaign to exterminate the Jews as an all-purpose metaphor for what they deemed to be bad behavior.
even one now being perpetuated against Uyghur Muslims in China — but these tend to fall by the wayside in contemporary discussions on the subject.
The Holocaust, however, is unique. It was the culmination of 2,000 years of antisemitism — a virus of hatred that unfortunately did not die out when the Allies entered the death camps, and then defeated the German Nazis and their collaborators. It lives on in groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and all those who echo their genocidal goals on American college campuses with chants like “from the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada.”
Contemporary antisemites don’t merely engage in slandering Jews and spreading lies about their actions and intentions, such as those uttered about Israel. They seek to delegitimize Jews in ways that are not dissimilar to those of the Nazis, who preached about a powerful Jewish cabal that engaged in conspiracies to undermine and harm non-Jews.
That is why Israel is the object of such hatred and a worldwide movement that not only treats its supposed offenses as the worst on the planet but also as a uniquely evil entity. They also claim that Jews wrongly “weaponize” antisemitism and even the Holocaust to attract sympathy and whitewash their crimes. That is exactly the sort of tactic that Nazi ideologues used to justify their actions.
After Oct. 7, the attempt to make a distinction between the current war on Israel and the Jews, and what happened during the Holocaust is not only outdated but intellectually and morally bankrupt.
Doing more harm than good
Suffice it to say that any commemoration of the Shoah, whenever it is held, must take into account the fact that Israel is currently fighting an existential war to prevent another Holocaust. Any event that purports to commemorate the slain 6 million men, women and children, and the fight against the Nazis, without doing so is a fraud.
Like other forms of Holocaust education that universalize the memory of Nazi Germany’s effort to wipe out the Jews, International Holocaust Remembrance Day may now be doing more harm than good.
Indoctrinated in the false leftist doctrines of critical race theory and intersectionality, they have accused Israel of being a “settlercolonialist” and “apartheid” state. In their view, it logically follows that all Jews and Israelis are guilty of being “white” oppressors who must be stripped of power. Against them, we are told by these supposedly enlightened intellectuals that every form of “resistance,” such as the barbaric orgy of murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction that took place on the morning of Oct. 7, is not only justifiable but laudable.
Those who promote such universalization claim to do so out of good motives. They desire to use the Holocaust as an example of how to combat hatred so as not to isolate it as a distinct event in history that can’t be applied as a lesson to other conflicts. In doing so, they deliberately misunderstand the nature of antisemitism. It is not garden-variety bigotry or unpleasantness directed at people who worship differently but hatred, coupled with a political program, employed to empower those who despise Jews. Examples of real genocide exist, such as the mass killings in Cambodia in the 1970s by the Communists or the slaughter of the Tutsi tribe by Rwanda’s Hutus — and
The United Nations is an institution that has been a cesspool of antisemitism for decades. But we are now at the point when its agencies like UNRWA have not only helped perpetuate the war against Israel but allowed its employees to take part in the Oct. 7 atrocities and its facilities to be used to imprison Israeli hostages.
You cannot be against the Nazis and also morally neutral about Hamas, and the war against Israel and the Jews. Anyone who tries to play that game should be exposed as an ally of those who seek Jewish genocide or one of their useful idiots. There should be zero tolerance for Holocaust commemorations that do not acknowledge that a genocidal war continues in our own day and that those who falsely accuse Israel of genocide to justify that war have no place at such ceremonies.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Nirenstein: It’s ‘Never again,’ again and again…
Continued from page 1
But rather than standing alone, they are reinforced by a powerful, widely supported international anti-Zionist movement. That movement is deeply integrated into the same institutions, like the United Nations, that use Jan. 27 — the date of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945 — to the human-rights abuses within Hamas- and Palestinian-controlled territories. Such contradictions erode the credibility of Holocaust remembrance and embolden those who perpetuate hate.
Yet there is a version of “Never Again” that persists — a version embodied by Israel’s resilience. After Oct. 7, Israel wages what has been called its “Second War of Independence,” affirm-
ing its right to defend its citizens and its sovereignty. This battle is not merely against Hamas but against the broader forces of antisemitism threatening democratic values worldwide.
Unlike the Jews of the Holocaust, Israel today possesses the means to fight back, and it does so in defiance of those who would see it fall.
However, for “Never Again” to regain its universal meaning, action is required beyond
Israel’s borders. Governments, institutions and individuals must address bigotry with tangible measures: cutting funding to organizations that promote hate, holding propagators of violence accountable and ensuring that history is taught accurately. UNESCO’s classification of Jerusalem as an Islamic heritage site, erasing its Jewish and Christian history, exemplifies the distortions that must be challenged.
This day of “non-remembrance” is a call to reclaim the essence of “Never Again.” To honor such a vow, we must reject performative memory in favor of substantive action. The legacy of the Holocaust, as well as the survival of democratic values, demands nothing less.
Fiamma Nirenstein is an Italian-Israeli journalist and senior research fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
A uniform from Auschwitz displayed at the Camp des Milles, an internment and deportation center during World War II, during a visit South Winners, the largest supporters’ group of the Olympique de Marseille football club, to raise awareness about antisemitism, on Dec. 23, 2024. Miguel Medina, AFP via Getty Images via JNS conduct ceremonies about the Holocaust that
Stefanik: Bible gives Judea, Samaria to Israel
By Andrew Bernard, JNS
Israel-related issues dominated the Senate confirmation hearing of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) on Tuesday to become the US ambassador to the United Nations. Nearly every senator on the Foreign Relations Committee probed her views on the Jewish state and the region.
The congresswoman vowed to use her seat in Turtle Bay to combat antisemitism just as she had done in Congress.
“If you look at the antisemitic rot within the United Nations, there are more resolutions targeting Israel than any other country, any other crisis, combined,” Stefanik said. “We need to be a voice of moral clarity on the US Security Council and at the United Nations at large for the world to hear the importance of standing with Israel and I intend to do that.”
Stefanik said that she would like to emulate Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who as US ambassador to the global body in 1975 spoke out forcefully against a General Assembly resolution that determined that “Zionism is a form of racism.”
That resolution passed with the support of Muslim and Soviet-aligned countries but was later revoked in 1991. It is to date the only G.A. resolution ever to be withdrawn.
Stefanik’s nomination was greeted warmly by Republicans but met with greater skepticism from Democrats, who questioned Stefanik about what the “America first” agenda would mean for US engagement with multilateral institutions during US President Donald Trump’s second term.
“We want to do a full assessment of all the US sub-agencies and make sure that every dollar goes to support our American interests,” Stefanik said. “I clearly think there are certain programs that are not meeting the mission of the US”
Stefanik said that she believed that the US Pal-
Lesson
RABBI
MOSHE HAUER OU Executive VP
Mof
estinian aid agency UNRWA should be “at the bottom of the list” of agencies to receive US financial contributions.
Former US President Joe Biden paused funding to UNRWA in January 2024 amid Israeli allegations that UNRWA staff directly participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel and that hundreds of UNRWA employees in Gaza had ties to terrorist groups.
In March, Biden signed a spending bill that barred US funding to UNRWA for one year.
Stefanik noted at the hearing on Tuesday that she had voted to defund UNRWA as a member of Congress.
Some of the most intense scrutiny of Stefanik came under questioning from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) about her views on Israeli sovereignty and the rights of Palestinians.
“I asked you in my office also about whether Palestinians have the right of self-determination. My understanding was you said, ‘Yes.’ You have a different answer today?” Van Hollen asked.
“That was not the direct question that we discussed,” Stefanik replied. “I believe the Palestinian people deserve so much better than the failures that they’ve had.”
Stefanik did not say that she believed Palestinians have a right to self-determination.
Van Hollen said that he was “surprised” to learn in his one-on-one meeting with Stefanik before the hearing that she believes “that Israel has a biblical right to the entire West Bank.”
Asked to confirm that that was her belief, Stefanik said, “Yes.”
Van Hollen told Stefanik that Trump’s goal of bringing peace and stability to the Middle East would be “very difficult to achieve” if she were “to continue to hold the view that you just expressed, which is a view that was not held by the founders
of the State of Israel, who were secular Zionists, not religious.”
Stefanik also clashed with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) over claims that Elon Musk gave a Hitler salute to Trump supporters at an inauguration rally on Monday.
“Elon Musk did not do those salutes,’ Stefanik said. “That is simply not the case. And to say so is — the American people are smart, they see through it. They support Elon Musk.”
Murphy asked if the New York congresswoman
was concerned that far-right and neo-Nazi social media figures had interpreted Musk’s gesture as a show of support.
“What concerns me is these are the questions you believe are most important to ask to the US ambassador,” Stefanik replied. “I have a very strong record when it comes to combating antisemitism.”
Senators also repeatedly quizzed the prospective ambassador about what she would do to confront US rivals and adversaries at the US, including China and Iran.
Stefanik said that she believed that the possibility of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon is “the most significant threat to world peace” and that she believed that the United States should reverse Biden administration policy towards Iran and impose “snapback” sanctions under Security Council resolution 2231.
“What we have seen with the hundreds of billions of dollars sent to Iran during the last presidency is you have an emboldened Hamas, who committed the bloodiest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust on Oct. 7,” she said. “You had an emboldened Hezbollah.”
“That’s funded by Iran,” she added. “It has a cascading effect across the region.”
On China, Stefanik described some of the efforts that Washington needed to take to counter Beijing’s attempts to dominate the US system.
“We need to pay particular attention to the technical organizations, whether it’s telecommunications, whether it’s civil aviation, and another way is we need to ensure Taiwan has maximum meaningful participation in international organizations,” she said.
“We need to have very strong Mandarin expertise and really keep a close eye on that as well in all the documents and statements coming out of the US system writ large,” she said.
Shoah and today: They destroy, we build
y mother is now well into her 90’s, and I am not referring to her age.
My mother and her parents left Hungary in 1943 as the Nazis were closing in. The train ride across occupied Europe was harrowing but ultimately brought them to safety in what was then Palestine. That could not be said for dozens of her family members, including grandparents, aunts, uncles and close cousins who within the year were consumed by the flames of Auschwitz along with the masses of Hungarian Jews.
Together with my father, of blessed memory, a Holocaust survivor from Romania, my mother was blessed to build a beautiful family. As she noted the other day while thanking G-d for a recent flurry of births of great-grandchildren, my mother now has well more than 90 descendants, in some way filling the void of her 90 close relatives murdered by the Nazis.
Those 90-plus descendants, divided almost evenly between Israel and America, are all — like her murdered relatives — proud Jews who study the Torah, observe its laws and live its values, pursuing peace, goodness, kindness and ethical behavior. My mother is grateful for every one of those descendants, but her past experiences make her fearful for their future.
From bitter personal experience, my mother is committed to the “never again” mantra but not as it is so often invoked as either an overly confident prediction or an arrogant expression of a newfound invincibility.
She has studied and experienced enough of Jewish history to be wary of its repeated patterns of tragedy and dislocation, and the chronic failures of overconfidence. To her, “never again” is a pledge to never again naively believe that it cannot happen here; that the cultured world will stand up against the ugliness of antisemitism; that Jews can outsource their defense to others, even friends. “Never again” is a reminder that allows her to recognize past evils in current foes.
“Never again” is expressed in encouraging and nurturing the further growth of her family with each newborn child being raised to achieve the blessing God gave to Abraham and his descendants: that they serve as a bracha, a source of blessing to the entire world.
“Never again” is her firm commitment to continue the Jewish response to persecution since our days under the Pharaohs of Egypt, responding to oppression with the sweet revenge of stubborn perseverance and growth.
“Never again” is expressed in her obsessive determination to see all the hostages of Oct. 7 return home, freed without conditions, and in her devastation and sense of foreboding at seeing them returned surrounded by and in exchange for unrepentant Hamas terrorists.
“Never again” is also alive in the sticker that has been on her front door for 20 years, declaring “Gush Katif: We will never forget.”
My mother has studied and experienced enough of Jewish history to be wary of its repeated patterns of tragedy and dislocation, and the chronic failures of overconfidence.
Gush Katif was a bloc of Israeli agricultural Jewish communities in Gaza that the Israeli government made the decision to evacuate and give over to the Palestinians in August 2005 on the premise that peace would only come with Jews and Arabs living separately. My mother knew from experience that a peaceful future could only come to Jews or Arabs from learning to live together and would be set back by abandoning territory to Palestinian leaders with long histories of supporting terror and incitement against Israel.
No matter one’s political feelings then or now, that summer helped cast the die for the horror that Gaza would become — a pseudo-state quite literally founded upon destruction. Oct. 7 made it clear that Gaza was built on Hamas’s dreams of destruction, including both their monstrous attacks on Israel and the carnage they knew that Israel would have no choice but to inflict on Gaza to eliminate the terror infrastructure Hamas had cynically built inside and under its residences, hospitals, mosques and schools.
Jan. 27 was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day established by the United Nations in November 2005 just three months after the failed attempt to make peace by rendering Gaza Judenrein (“empty of Jews”).
It is commemorated annually for the purpose of “reaffirming that the Holocaust, which resulted in the murder of one-third of the Jewish people, along with countless members of other minorities, will forever be a warning to all peo-
ple of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice.”
To my mother and many others, this day is a fearful reminder of how that warning continues to be ignored.
They will destroy, and we will build. Israel will defend itself from those who seek destruction, while its people will never despair of building families and communities that profoundly value life and contribute to the well-being and prosperity of all their neighbors.
And my mother will continue her response to the Holocaust — the sweet revenge of stubborn perseverance and growth, praying to see more great-grandchildren born into a world made better and more peaceful by their presence and values.
Rabbi Mosher Hauer is the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, one of the largest Jewish organizations in the United States. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Rep. Elise Stefanik testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on her nomination to be Ambassador to the UN, on Jan. 21. Kent Nishimura, Getty Images via JNS
Tale of 2 survivors on Shoah Remembrance Day
By Josh Hasten, JNS
Ceremonies were held around the world on Monday to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The annual commemoration was proclaimed by the United Nations in November 2005, marking the date of liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp by the Soviet army on Jan. 27, 1945. It is now 80 years since the camp’s liberation.
Israel’s Yom Hashoah takes place on 27 Nisan (a Friday this year, so it will be moved to 26 Nisan, Thursday April 24), the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
Statistics shared by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), an organization that provides vital assistance to Holocaust survivors, shows there are about 240,000 living survivors (as of 2023), with around 147,000 residing in Israel.
Unfortunately, according to Israel’s Welfare and Social Affairs Ministry, approximately 2,500 Holocaust survivors were thrust into extreme trauma once again by the events surrounding the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre. In addition, around 2,000 survivors were forced to flee their homes as a result of the ensuing war.
Galina Bailin, 87, from Ukraine, managed to survive the Holocaust as a small child when her family fled to Uzbekistan. Her older brother was murdered by the Nazis, and another brother was disabled fighting for the Red Army. With the fall of the Iron Curtain, she made aliyah to Sderot, near the Gaza Strip, in the early 1990s.
Bailin told JNS (via a translator) that on the evening of Oct. 6, 2023, she was visiting her daughter Zena, 60, who also lives in Sderot, as she did nearly every week.
Early in the morning on Oct. 7, Zena drove her mother home, as Zena was scheduled to spend a day of fun with other adults and seniors as part of an organized trip to the Dead Sea for residents from several area communities.
As they entered the house, sirens wailed,
warning of incoming rockets, and Galina urged her daughter to cancel her plans. However, Zena refused, as she had already paid for the trip.
Zena met up with the group and got into a minivan. A flat tire forced the vehicle to pull over at a bus stop. Not long after, Hamas terrorists who had infiltrated Sderot approached the stranded pensioners, shooting 13 dead at close range, including Zena.
Galina, who lives adjacent to the Sderot police station, could hear the battle taking place there between the police and terrorists from Gaza. When Zena didn’t answer the phone or return Galina’s calls, she was justifiably concerned.
“During the Shoah when I was a little girl, I wasn’t afraid because my mother was protect-
ing me. We didn’t have a lot to eat, only rice and rice pudding for years, but my mother made sure there was food,” she said.
“But now, on Oct. 7, I was afraid, and I feel guilty I couldn’t protect my daughter the way my mother protected me,” she added.
“At my daughter’s funeral I felt like my life was over, that I no longer had a reason to live. But my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, they say, ‘Grandma, we need you.’ They are the ones keeping me alive.”
Alla Lopatin, 93, managed to flee the Nazis with her family by train from the town of Bialystok in Poland, moving to eastern Ukraine and eventually Siberia. She remembers the trains stopping and having to routinely hide under the
cars during German bombings. She told JNS (via a translator) that she attributes her family’s survival to her father’s role in the Soviet army. The family was given preferential treatment, including clothing and a special card for bread, which she remembers waiting in line for at 5 am. Lopatin said that people were sometimes murdered for these cards.
The family made aliyah to Israel after the fall of the Iron Curtain in the 1990s, first to Safed, before moving to the northern border town of Kiryat Shmona.
Lopatin’s daughter Irina, Alla’s sole caretaker and provider, is a dentist with a clinic in Kiryat Shmona. They were evacuated from the city after Hezbollah opened a second front on Oct. 8. The two are currently renting an apartment from a friend in Jerusalem.
Irina said they are experiencing extreme financial difficulties, as they are currently paying rent and arnona (property tax) on the dental clinic. The clinic and their apartment were both damaged as a result of rocket attacks and need repair. Both mother and daughter said they are afraid to go back home.
“This evacuation reminds me of the first evacuation I went through during the Shoah. I was very afraid [after Oct. 7]. I couldn’t believe something like this could happen here in Israel. I feel safe here in Jerusalem, but I don’t know when we will be going home,” said Alla.
“The horrible trauma and suffering of these two women — and, sadly, so many others in Israel today — must move us to action,” said Yael Eckstein, president of IFCJ.
“For those survivors who have suffered, first in the Holocaust, and again on Oct. 7, we have a huge obligation — to turn remembrance into action.”
“Every hour, at least two Holocaust survivors die,” she added. “And so, for these final years that they are with us, we will do everything to make sure that they are living with dignity and hope.”
Holocaust survivor and evacuated Kiryat Shmona resident Alla Lopatin, 93. The family
500 Auschwitz items found ahead of 80th year
Canaan Lidor, JNS
KRAKOW, Poland — A Polish woman and her son last week turned over a cache of at least 500 objects recovered more than 80 years ago from the Auschwitz death camp, including a child’s ragdoll and a prisoner’s uniform.
The mother and son gave the objects to the Foundation of Memory Sites Near AuschwitzBirkenau on condition of anonymity, according to Dagmar Kopijasz, a member of the foundation’s council.
The woman said that her father had collected them before the former death camp was declared a museum. He often went there immediately after liberation to help with cleaning. He stored all the items in an attic. They are in varying states of preservation, according to Kopijasz.
The cache is one of the “most extradentary finds” in recent years at Auschwitz, Kopijasz said.
The state museum that preserves the state museum is scheduled to host the 80th anniversary commemorations of the camp’s liberation on Monday, Jan. 27. Many dignitaries and heads of state will attend. The Israeli delegation will be represented by Yoav Kisch, the country’s educa-
tion minister.
The objects filled a van that the woman’s son drove to the Foundation’s offices on Jan. 19. The Foundation of Memory Sites Near AuschwitzBirkenau intends to catalog and display some of the items from the cache on Jan. 27 at the Auschwitz museum.
The cache includes suitcases, one signed “Ungermann” and “transport 3262.” Among the ob-
jects are clothing items, including the infamous striped prisoner uniform, and dishes. The objects may also contain artifacts that belonged to SS guards at Auschwitz, Kopijasz said.
“We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. The van she and her son drove to us was full of things. We have been collecting camp relics for over 20 years, but we have never seen such a huge number at once,” Kopijasz told TVP3.
Yacov Livne, Israel’s ambassador to Poland, said the cache also contained some Judaica items.
“Despite the support of the Polish government and private donations, many Holocaustrelated sites around Auschwitz-Birkenau were neglected or destroyed. I hope that on the 80th anniversary of its liberation, a solution would be found to preserve what remains,” Livne tweeted on Thursday.
Namesake Golan town grows as Trump settles in
By Canaan Lidor, JNS
As President Donald Trump begins his second term, preparations are in full swing in Trump Heights, a tiny town in the northern Golan Heights. The community was established in 2020, named for Trump in honor of the US recognition, during his first term, of the area as belonging to Israel.
Construction of permanent homes will soon replace a trailer park and usher in a dramatic increase in population.
“It’s about to start right about now,” said Yarden Freimann, Trump Heights’ community coordinator. The current population of 26 families totaling about 100 people is expected to quadruple, he said.
Situated atop a windy hill, Trump Heights is within view of Mount Dov, a flashpoint for fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Also visible are the snowy caps of Mount Hermon. Israeli troops captured its higher, eastern part in December amid a violent political overthrow in Syria, which had controlled the entire Golan until 1967 and used it to target Israeli communities below with deadly rocket fire.
The town overlooks one of the many suspected minefields that dot the Golan’s treeless scenery, dominated by black basalt rocks nestled in grasses. The vegetation is lush green in winter but turns into a yellow blanket in summer. It is interrupted only by the springs and streams that crisscross this strategically crucial and untamed part of Israel, which at night echoes with the calls of jackals and wolves.
Asked how the residents felt about Trump’s return to office, Freimann steered clear of wading into US politics. The 40-year-old father of four did say that Trump’s “recognition of Israeli sovereign-
ty in the Golan Heights is very meaningful to us. It’s what made this place come true. We’re a small community now, but we’re growing and it’s part of developing Israel and guarding its borders.”
The name could attract residents and donors, Freimann said, and it makes the town a likely destination for a presidential visit if Trump lands in Israel during his second term.
But the Trump connection also brings unwanted attention. Following Trump’s election, international media visited here, depicting the town as an “illegal settlement” because much of the world still considers the status of the Golan to be disputed.
The name may have also made Trump Heights a symbolically desirable target for Hezbollah, which appeared to single it out for rocket attacks, although that may have been connected to the large army base that borders the town.
Trump Height residents interviewed for this report spoke positively of the president, but their answers made it clear that their attention is focused closer to home than to Washington.
“I wish him well,” Alon Israel, a 31-year-old father of two, said of Trump. “I hope he’s a force for good when it comes to Israel and the world. Beyond that, there’s no particular joy here that he’s entering office: We’re about building our family right here, in the Land of Israel.”
Israel and his wife, who’s a nurse, moved here 25 years ago from Metula, a Lebanese border-adjacent town that was heavily damaged during the recently paused war with Hezbollah. A former developer of social programs for youths, Alon is planning to open a bed-and-breakfast in Ramat Trump to cater to skiers bound for nearby Mount Hermon.
Tourism, farming and social services are among the few sectors offering employment to the 50,000-odd residents of the Golan, a rural area
about the size of Los Angeles that is roughly a twohour drive from the nearest major city, Haifa.
It’s easy to see how someone might feel isolated living in Trump Heights, but Alon, who is a religiousZionist Jew, said that’s “not an issue. This is such a tightknit and diverse community that I feel more plugged-in socially than ever since we moved here,” he said. A microcosm of Israel’s Jewish society, the town has secular and religious families living — and interacting intensively — next door to one another. Recently, two haredi families moved in.
“It’s what I like best about the place: The diversity,” said Alon.
The Druze of the Golan are part of life at Trump Heights. The town has a Druze kindergarten teacher at its nursery (the only educational facility in town).
During the visit by JNS, Freimann met with a Druze contractor who dropped in to check if his services were required. “We haven’t started building yet,” Freimann told the man from the Druze town of Buqata. But he took down the man’s phone number and asked if his wife was interested in joining the teaching staff.
Trump Heights’ diversity is its “cornerstone as it expands,” Freimann said.
Trump Heights has no grocery store, post office, cash machine, school or clinic. Public transportation is infrequent and unreliable, locals said.
Each trailer has a small fortified room, but the town lacks communal fortified spaces, as some
other at-risk towns have.
“We really felt the absence of something like that during the war,” said Freimann. The town’s border proximity provided little safety buffer during the many rockets and drone alerts it experienced.
“It meant the kindergarten was shut down and people couldn’t congregate. We were basically confined to quarters,” Freimann recalled. Most of the town’s men, including Alon Israel, were called up for IDF reserve service.
Such challenges are likely part of the reason for the recent demise of a town called Bruchim, which was established in the early 2000s where Trump Heights now stands. The new town uses some of the structures left from Bruchim, mainly for administrative purposes.
Bruchim’s collapse, and the absence of new communities in the Golan in the past 15 years at least, pour extra meaning into Trump Heights’ mission, Freimann said. “I mean, yeah, it’s named for President Trump but, more important, it’s the first town established in so many years in this critical part of the country.”
But won’t Trump Heights end up like Bruchim?
“Look, so far so good: We have a waiting list, and we’re about to break ground,” Freimann replied, noting that the government has invested tens of millions of dollars in developing the place. And then, he acknowledged, there’s the name. “Maybe President Trump gave this place the push it needed to succeed.”
Jewish scripture in a box housing items from the Auschwitz death camp. Courtesy Ambassador Yacov Livne, Foundation of Memory Sites Near Auschwitz-Birkenau
A doll’s head in one of the boxes storing items from Auschwitz. Courtesy of Ambassador Yacov Livne, Foundation of Memory Sites Near Auschwitz-Birkenau
A prisoner’s uniform found among items from the Auschwitz death camp. Courtesy of Ambassador Yacov Livne, Foundation of Memory Sites Near Auschwitz-Birkenau
Yarden Freimann, community coordinator at Ramat Trump, points to where houses will be built in the new Golan Heights community. Canaan Lidor
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the 2019 cornerstone ceremony for the town named after President Donald Trump. David Cohen, Flash90
Ops that Israel synced (and didn’t sync) with US
By Itay Ilnai, Israel Hayom
In early September, senior IDF officers were humming the biggest hit by Israeli musician Daniel Solomon, “So Many Ways.”
The military was preparing for a commando operation codenamed “Many Ways” to destroy a secret precision missile factory that Iran had built on Syrian soil.
Fighters from the Israeli Air Force’s Shaldag commando unit, who were to lead the operation, had already packed their equipment and were ready to fly to the target, which was hidden deep underground, not far from the city of Masyaf in Syria’s northwest.
The daring operation had been approved by the IAF commander, the IDF chief of staff, the defense minister and the prime minister, and all that remained was the final approval to send the fighters to the helicopters.
At that point, the ground maneuver against Hamas in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, was nearing completion, IAF strikes in Lebanon were becoming more efficient, and about a month earlier, Hezbollah’s “chief of staff” Fuad Shukr had been eliminated in an impressive targeted killing.
The political and military leadership in Israel, which had gained confidence as days passed since the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on the northwestern Negev, felt that the time was right to also strike the Iranian missile factory.
But there was one thing that worried decision-makers in Jerusalem before they would approve the Shaldag operation in the heart of Syria: the Biden administration.
‘A clear no-go‘
In fact, America had worried Israeli decision-makers from the very first moment of the war, and vice versa.
Throughout the months of fighting, the two countries conducted a complex give-andtake relationship that sometimes spilled over into confrontations, both public and private.
“It was really like a tug of war,” an Israeli source who was deeply involved in the feverish contacts with Washington, told Israel Hayom. “The problem was that by the time of the proposed Shaldag operation in Syria, the rope with the US was stretched to the limit.
“The main thing the US feared throughout was opening a front against Iran and deteriorating into an all-out war. The key word in this aspect was stability. …
“You can’t tell the Americans, ‘Listen, we’re
in trouble in Gaza and Lebanon, war with Iran is about to break out, so we decided to also carry out a raid deep in Syria.’ From their perspective, it was a clear no-go,” said the source.
He was not the only one who thought so. In the days before the operation, just by chance, a senior Israeli official met IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and whispered words of warning in his ear. That official, who had visited the White House a few days earlier and sensed which way the winds were blowing there, told the chief of staff privately that if Israel carried out the operation without getting US approval in advance, “it would be the point of no return in relations with them.”
Halevi also believed that there was no choice but to coordinate the operation with the Americans. Beyond the fear of severing ties with the White House, the action was to take place deep in Syrian territory. If something went wrong, Halevi knew, the Americans would be the only ones who could help.
The solution to the dilemma, as always throughout the Israeli-American roller coast-
er during the war, focused on presentation: In coordination between the political and military echelons in Israel, it was decided that the one who would inform the Americans about the operation would be the chief of staff. The recipient of the news on the other side would be his good friend, CENTCOM commander Gen. Michael Kurilla.
Reassuring messages
It was not by chance that the sensitive task was assigned to Halevi. It stemmed from the assumption that the IDF chief of staff was perceived in the White House as a moderate and level-headed figure, who acts out of practical motives and himself prefers to avoid escalation with Iran.
“The military, and the chief of staff in particular, are perceived by the Americans as the sane element in Israel,” an Israeli source puts it.
But more important, a professional relationship developed between Halevi and Kurilla throughout the months of the Swords of Iron/Northern Arrows war that evolved into a close friendship. During the war, Kurilla visited Israel 15 times, and often sat down for a heart-to-heart talk with Halevi in the chief of staff’s office on the 14th floor of the General Staff tower at the Kirya military headquarters, on the couches overlooking Tel Aviv’s skyline.
The two battle-hardened generals probably will never admit it, but a source who knows both of them describes the friendship between them with a very non-military word — love.
Israel sought to take advantage of this love. With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approval, Halevi met privately with Kurilla, updated his American counterpart on the details of the operation in Syria and its necessity, reassured him about opening a front against Iran, and asked him to gently convey the message to his bosses in Washington. Halevi emphasized that the missiles Iran was producing near Masyaf could reach all parts of the Middle East and one day hit American bases.
Kurilla proved, and not for the first time, his diplomatic abilities. The American general prepared CENTCOM forces for the operation in Syria, and did so under Tehran’s radar, and to a large extent also under Washington’s. Only at the right moment, according to sources in Israel, did Kurilla update Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the White House on all the details of the operation, while repeating the reassuring messages conveyed to him by IDF Chief of Staff Halevi.
The White House was persuaded not to thwart the action in Syria. The rest is history.
Divide and conquer
The case of “Operation Many Ways” is just one expression of how the relationship between Israel and the US was conducted during the war.
On the one hand, cooperation between the sides reached the level of unequivocal American support for Israel, meticulous approval of Israeli attack plans by American officials, and personal involvement of senior White House officials in Israeli Cabinet meetings and General Staff forums, as had not been seen before. On the other hand, Israel-US relations during the war did not proceed smoothly or in perfect harmony. Far from it. There were also cases where Israel launched critical operations without updating the U.S in advance — such as in the case of the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah — or carried out moves contrary to the White House’s clear position and aroused its anger, such as the entry into Rafah.
More than once, passionate arguments erupted between the sides that escalated to shouting and even cursing. “He’s a [expletive] liar,” President Joe Biden said about Netanyahu after Israel entered Rafah by ground, according to an American report.
Despite these disagreements, some of which delayed war moves, from Netanyahu’s perspective, the continued American support for Israel was a priceless gift. Conversations with a long line of sources reveal that the entire Israeli political and security leadership, from the prime minister down, was and remains in agreement that without backing from the Biden administration, Israel would have been forced to stop the war before achieving all its goals.
Beyond the American armaments that crossed the Atlantic Ocean and enabled the continuation of IDF attacks in Gaza and Lebanon, the most important thing from Israel’s perspective was America’s position in the UN Security Council and its ability to veto any resolution that would effectively end the war.
“Contrary to popular opinion in Israel, without the Americans, we would have closed this war long ago,” as a senior Israeli official puts it. “That’s why we had to tread carefully with them and walk on eggshells.”
Those shells were particularly fragile. The war broke out with Biden in the White House, whose interests did not always align with Israel’s offensive approach, or as a senior Israeli bluntly puts it: “The Democratic administration is anti-combat.”
As fate would have it, the war took place in a US election year, in which Biden was under pressure from elements in the Democratic
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (left) meets with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Tel Aviv on March 9, 2023. US Navy
Israeli Air Force Shaldag commandos inside the Masyaf missile production plant in western Syria on Sept. 8, 2024.
IDF Spokesperson’s Office
Public Notices
SALE OF TAX LIENS ON
REAL ESTATE
Notice is hereby given that commencing on February 18th, 2025, will sell at public on-line auction the tax liens on certain real estate, unless the owner, mortgagee, occupant of or any other party in interest in such real estate shall have paid to the County Treasurer by February 13th, 2025 the total amount of such unpaid taxes or assessments with the interest, penalties and other expenses and charges against the property. Such tax liens will be sold at the lowest rate of interest, not exceeding 10 percent per six-month period, for which any person or persons shall offer to take the total amount of such unpaid taxes as defined in Section 5-37.0 of the Nassau County Administrative Code. Effective with the February 2019 lien sale Ordinance No. 175-2015 requires a $175.00 per day registration fee for each person who intends to bid at the tax lien sale. Ordinance No. 175-2015 also requires that upon the issuance of the Lien Certificate there is due from the lien buyer a Tax Certificate Issue Fee of $20.00 per lien purchased. Pursuant to the provisions of the Nassau County Administrative Code at the discretion of the Nassau County Treasurer the auction will be conducted online. Further information concerning the procedures for the auction is available at the website of the Nassau County Treasurer at: https://www.nassaucount yny.gov/526/CountyTreasurer
Should the Treasurer determine that an inperson auction shall be held, same will commence on the 18th day of February 2025 at the Office of The County Treasurer 1 West Street, Mineola or at some other location to be determined by the Treasurer.
A list of all real estate in Nassau County on which tax liens are to be sold is available at the website of the Nassau County Treasurer at: https://www.nassaucount yny.gov/527/Annual-TaxLien-Sale
A list of local properties upon which tax liens are
to be sold will be advertised in this publication on or before February 06th, 2025. Nassau County does not discriminate on the basis of disability in admission to or access to, or treatment or employment in, its services, programs, or activities. Upon request, accommodations such as those required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) will be provided to enable individuals with disabilities to participate in all services, programs, activities and public hearings and events conducted by the Treasurer’s Office. Upon request, information can be made available in Braille, large print, audiotape or other alternative formats. For additional information, please call (516) 571-2090 ext. 1-3715.
Dated: January 23, 2025 THE NASSAU COUNTY TREASURER Mineola, NewYork
TERMS OF SALE
Such tax liens shall be sold subject to any and all superior tax liens of sovereignties and other municipalities and to all claims of record which the County may have thereon and subject to the provisions of the Federal and State Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Acts.
However, such tax liens shall have priority over the County’s Differential Interest Lien, representing the excess, if any, of the interest and penalty borne at the maximum rate over the interest and penalty borne at the rate at which the lien is purchased.
The Purchaser acknowledges that the tax lien(s) sold pursuant to these Terms of Sale may be subject to pending bankruptcy proceedings and/or may become subject to such proceedings which may be commenced during the period in which a tax lien is held by a successful bidder or the assignee of same, which may modify a Purchaser’s rights with respect to the lien(s) and the property securing same. Such bankruptcy proceedings shall not affect the validity of the tax lien. In addition to being subject to pending bankruptcy proceedings and/or the Federal and State Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Acts, said purchaser’s right of foreclosure may be affected by the Financial
Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act(FIRREA),12 U.S.C. ss 1811 et.seq., with regard to real property under Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation(FDIC) receivership.
The County Treasurer reserves the right, without further notice and at any time, to withdraw from sale any of the parcels of land or premises herein listed.
The Nassau County Treasurer reserves the right to intervene in any bankruptcy case/litigation where the property affected by the tax liens sold by the Treasurer is part of the bankruptcy estate. However, it is the sole responsibility of all tax lien purchasers to protect their legal interests in any bankruptcy case affecting their purchased tax lien, including but not limited to the filing of a proof of claim on their behalf, covering their investment in said tax lien. The Nassau County Treasurer and Nassau County and its agencies, assumes no responsibility for any legal representation of any tax lien purchaser in any legal proceeding including but not limited to a bankruptcy case where the purchased tax lien is at risk. The rate of interest and penalty at which any person purchases the tax lien shall be established by his bid. Each purchaser, immediately after the sale thereof, shall pay to the County Treasurer ten per cent of the amount for which the tax liens have been sold and the remaining ninety per cent within thirty days after such sale. If the purchaser at the tax sale shall fail to pay the remaining ninety per cent within ten days after he has been notified by the County Treasurer that the certificates of sale are ready for delivery, then all amounts deposited with the County Treasurer including but not limited to the ten per cent theretofore paid by him shall, without further notice or demand, be irrevocably forfeited by the purchaser and shall be retained by the County Treasurer as liquidated damages and the agreement to purchase shall be of no further effect. Time is of the essence in this sale. This sale is held pursuant to the Nassau County Administrative Code and interested parties are
Israel-US ops synced…
Continued from page 8
referred to such Code for additional information as to terms of the sale, rights of purchasers, maximum rates of interest and other legal incidents of the sale. Furthermore, as to the bidding, 1. The bidder(s) agree that they will not work with any other bidder(s) to increase, maintain or stabilize interest rates or collaborate with any other bidder(s) to gain an unfair competitive advantage in the random number generator in the event of a tie bid(s) on a tax certificate. Bidder(s) further agree not to employ any bidding strategy designed to create an unfair competitive advantage in the tiebreaking process in the upcoming tax sale nor work with any other bidder(s) to engage in any bidding strategy that will result in a rotational award of tax certificates.
2. The tax certificate(s) the Bidder will bid upon, and the interest rate(s) bid, will be arrived at independently and without direct or indirect consultation, communication or agreement with any other bidder and that the tax certificate(s) the Bidder will bid upon, and the interest rate(s) to be bid, have not been disclosed, directly or indirectly, to any other bidder, and will not be disclosed, directly or indirectly, to any other bidder prior to the close of bidding. No attempt has been made or will be made to, directly or indirectly, induce any other bidder to refrain from bidding on any tax certificate, to submit complementary bids, or to submit bids at specific interest rates.
3. The bids to be placed by the Bidder will be made in good faith and not pursuant to any direct or indirect, agreement or discussion with, or inducement from, any other bidder to submit a complementary or other noncompetitive bid.
4. If it is determined that the bidder(s) have violated any of these bid requirements then their bid shall be voided and if they were the successful bidder the lien and any deposits made in connection with said bid shall be forfeited.
Dated: January 23, 2025 THE NASSAU COUNTY TREASURER Mineola, New York 151098
who were shocked by the images of destruction streaming from the Gaza Strip and called for reducing support for Israel and immediately stopping the war.
Israel, therefore, had to navigate the political thicket of Washington, while stretching the American rope to the limit without breaking it. This juggling act relied on personal connections forged between senior Israelis and Americans, careful listening to the nuances of administration officials, and a deep understanding of the decision-making system in Washington.
The Americans also knew how to employ divide-and-conquer tactics. They, for example, drew closer to former Minister Benny Gantz, and later to former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, assuming they could help them exert pressure on Netanyahu and within the Cabinet.
The Americans also knew when to call on senior IDF officers for help, especially the chief of staff, when they lost trust in Israeli politicians.
“There were times when US Secretary of State Blinken arrived in the country and the chief of staff asked to brief him, but Netanyahu blocked it,” says an Israeli source. “But Blinken almost always insisted that Herzi come to meet with him, and so it was. He trusted Herzi.” Halevi, in a sense, became the White House’s Kurilla.
The Dermer axis
Only just before the Biden administration gave way to that of Donald Trump did those in Israel’s political and military system allow themselves to reveal the behind-the-scenes of managing contacts with Washington.
This Israel Hayom investigation, based on hours of in-depth conversations with those who were at the center of decision-making in Israel, seeks to map out the complex web of relations between Israel and the US as it developed during the war and behind closed doors.
“If you judge it now in retrospect after 15 months, I don’t see a single move we wanted to make that didn’t happen in the end,” said an enthusiastic Israeli source who was deeply involved in the ties with Washington.
It seems that indeed, Israel managed the fragile relations with big sister America efficiently. An in-depth look at the web of relations between the countries reveals that even if things often slid into ego battles and credit levels within the Israeli system, the relationship between Jerusalem and Washington was conducted throughout the war in a kind of chaotic synergy that proved its effectiveness.
The central figure in this aspect is Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s ultimate confidant, who is officially defined as minister for strategic affairs but in practice serves as Netanyahu’s long arm for American affairs. The experienced Dermer learned well how to stretch the rope with Washington to the limit, especially with Democratic administrations.
Throughout the Oct. 7 war, it seems that Dermer was the central axis who managed the relationship with America for Netanyahu, especially with the White House. He spoke regularly with Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and White House envoy to the Middle East Brett McGurk, and shuttled between Washington and Jerusalem to grease the squeaky wheels between the capitals, while leveraging his deep familiarity with the American system.
“Dermer knows how to confront the US, manage crises with it,” said a senior Israeli source privy to the matters. “Dermer and Netanyahu were not willing to accept any dictates from the Americans, but where possible, they did accommodate them. Israel and the US may not have been on the same paragraph throughout the war, but Dermer made sure they always remained on the same page.”
Message to Hezbollah
The relationship between Israel and the US shadows all the main events of the war. Already in the evening hours of Oct. 7, 2023, Halevi called Kurilla and updated him on what was happening.
offered it on his own initiative. “What do you need?” he asked.
The Israeli chief of staff explained to his counterpart that he was mainly worried that Hezbollah would raise its head and join Hamas in a ground attack on the northern border. “If you have an aircraft carrier of yours in the Mediterranean, and if American planes take off from their bases in the Middle East and patrol along Lebanon’s coastline, that could help,” Halevi said.
Kurilla promised to check what he could do. In parallel, Netanyahu conveyed identical messages to Sullivan, and later that day also spoke with Biden. “Israel will win the war against Hamas,” Netanyahu told the president, “But Hezbollah needs to get the message from the US: ‘Don’t enter the war.’”
Another figure who maintained telephone contact with Washington is Gallant, who spoke with his counterpart Austin. During the war, these two men would ultimately speak by phone about 200 times and meet on four occasions. The two former generals would find a common language.
In the first days of the war, the Americans significantly reinforced their forces in the Middle East and sent two aircraft carriers to the region. “The American actions definitely helped,” said a senior Israeli.
But even if Hezbollah initially remained on the fence and contented itself with bombarding Israel from afar, in Israel, they knew that one or two aircraft carriers would not suffice in the long run. In the first meetings of the War Cabinet, the chief of staff estimated it would take the IDF about a year to defeat Hamas’s “military” wing, and that for this he would need a lot of resources.
As Halevi phrased it, the US was the main factor that would drive the wheels of Israel’s “war economy.” Indeed, during the war, the US would transfer more precision munitions to Israel than in all the previous 15 years combined, along with many additional systems. The chief of staff knew he could not afford to lose this supply line. At times, this almost happened.
‘We had no partner’
What began on the right foot nearly came to a blow-up very quickly. On Oct. 10, three days after Hamas’s surprise attack, discussions were held in Israel about launching a preemptive strike in Lebanon.
The IDF had already built a plan to inflict extensive damage on Hezbollah’s rocket array (most of the organization’s missiles were still in warehouses at the time, which made hitting them en masse easier), and one piece of intelligence that reached military intelligence contributed another coveted target to the attack.
On the afternoon of Oct. 11, 2023, senior Hezbollah officials were scheduled to meet, including Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, his deputy Hashem Safieddine and the commander of the organization’s Southern Lebanon sector Ibrahim Aqil (all of whom would eventually be killed), with three senior officials of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. It was a golden opportunity.
The possibility of eliminating Hezbollah’s leadership appealed to Halevi and Gallant. The two men also estimated that if they launched an extensive attack in Lebanon, about 15,000 Hezbollah operatives would receive orders to move to the front and equip themselves with emergency communication devices, a plan well known to the intelligence community in Israel.
Those communication devices, as Gallant and Halevi already knew then, were boobytrapped and could explode on command. Such an order, if given at the right time, could deliver a decisive blow to the organization (in the end, the communication devices would explode about a year later, when most were in warehouses and not on the bodies of Hezbollah members).
On the morning of Oct. 11, Gallant presented the detailed plan in Netanyahu’s office in Tel Aviv, and spoke about restoring Israeli deterrence and creating a strategic advantage
See US-Israel on page 22 LEGAL NOTICE
Halevi did not have to beg for help. Kurilla
Torres: ‘Jew-hatred will find no refuge in NYC’
By JNS Staff
The Park Slope location of the Israeli restaurant Miriam was the target of an antisemitic attack on Sunday, hours before the beginning of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“Vandalizing an Israeli restaurant with the libel ‘genocide cuisine’ simply because it is Israeli is an act of antisemitism,” stated Rep. Ritchie Torres, whose Bronx district includes Riverdale. “The distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism might exist on paper, but it collapses in the real world.”
Torres, who visited the restaurant on Sunday, posted a picture of himself with the restaurant owner. “Jewhatred will find no refuge in the City of New York,” he stated. “A hate crime against the Jewish community is a hate crime against all of us.”
The restaurant posted a photo on social media that showed red paint on several of its windows, and the phrases “genocide cuisine” and “Israel steals culture.”
Kosher food posters on social media urged kosher Jews to encourage non-kosher friends and colleagues to patronize the restaurant, which is not certified as kosher.
“Yesterday, Miriam Brooklyn Restaurant was sadly vandalized with messages of hate. But we refuse to let this darken our spirit,” the restaurant stated. “Miriam stands for inclusivity and unity and bringing people together through the shared love of delicious food and warm hospitality.”
“We celebrate the diverse flavors of the Mediterranean, where cultures intertwine and stories are shared,” it added. “We will continue to be a safe place where everyone feels welcome. Join us in spreading love, not hate.”
UJA-Federation of New York stated that it is “deeply troubled,” and the Anti-Defamation League’s New York and New Jersey office called it “a despicable act of hateful vandalism meant to
terrorize the Jewish community.”
Vandalizing the “Jewish-owned Middle Eastern restaurant … will not free Palestine,” stated Jonathan Harounoff, international spokesman for the Israeli mission to the United Nations. “Shameful antisemitism on display. An appropriate response is to ‘flood’ this delicious restaurant with your business.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who lives nearby and visited the restaurant on Sunday, called the attack “despicable and antisemitic.”
“It’s a very good community restaurant, and my family has eaten there several times,” Schumer wrote. “Vandalizing a restaurant because the owner is Jewish is outright antisemitic.”
NYC Comptroller Brad Lander wrote that it was “infuriating” to see the restaurant, “one of my absolute favorites, vandalized (again) overnight with antisemitic graffiti.”
“Miriam serves and welcomes everyone, regardless of religion or politics, and doesn’t bring either into the restaurant,” Lander wrote. “They serve delicious Israeli food, and their owner and chef Rafael ,born in Petach, has lived in New York City for 20 years.”
“Vandalizing their restaurant because they serve Israeli food and their owner is a Jewish Israeli New Yorker is a clear example of when anti-Zionism becomes antisemitism,” Lander added. “One necessary response is that the vandals who did this must be identified and held accountable. A more delicious response is for all of us to go eat some of their excellent food.”
Rep. Ritchie Torres stands with the owner of Miriam restaurant in Park Slope. The Israeli eatery was red-paint graffitied, “Genocide cuisine” and “Israel steals culture.”
WINE
From bisque to beetroot: Stirring up some winter warmth by the spoonful, for Shabbat or any day
Chicken soup is a Jewish tradition and a time-honored panacea for whatever ails you. But there’s so much more that can be on the menu, especially during the cold-weather months. Look no further than your pantry or freezer. Chances are that you’ll find ingredients for a dozen ways to whip up thick aromatic blends that nourish and comfort body and soul.
Soups are a cook’s savior. They’re easy on the budget and serve a lot of people, often using just one pot.
More than that, they are a delicious catchall for “past due” ingredients. Use whatever is on hand. The few spoonfuls of jarred spaghetti sauce at the back of your fridge can liven up a soup; don’t toss it, use it.
Even wilted lettuce and drooping celery stalks still add flavor. Don’t run out to buy fresh produce and spices just for soup. Save those for salads and side dishes. Use your favorite dried spices and herbs on hand but incorporate them judiciously. Start off with a little and add more, as needed, to taste.
Time-saving appliances like food processors and blenders, and pantries and freezers crammed with often forgotten items make soups quick and simple. And with the addition of leftovers like chicken, beef, sausages, tortellini and grains like bulgur wheat, they can be a one-dish meal.
It’s no surprise that soup is one of the oldest items in the world. Archaeologists believe that soup-making dates back to 20,000 BCE, made with whatever could be hunted or foraged, put in a container and boiled. Present-day regional specialties show up all over the globe using local ingredients. There’s pho in Vietnam, minestrone in Italy and Cock-a-Leekie soup from my mother’s kitchen on the Shetland Islands.
She used a whole chicken, simmered until tender. My timesaver version: I use a store-
bought roasted chicken and add small golden potatoes, quartered. You can also use leftover chicken, sliced or shredded.
The beetroot recipe is not your bubbie’s borscht. Start off with winter vegetables, onion, carrots and celery before adding store-bought, precooked beets and tomatoes. It’s earthy, hearty and satisfying, and will liven up your table whether it is served before the main meal or as the entrée itself.
Note: Make double batches and refrigerate or freeze them for later.
Chestnut Bisque (Pareve)
Serves 4
Cook’s Tips: •Buy already roasted chestnuts. •Slice vegetables about a half-inch thick. •Serve drizzled with a spoonful of coconut milk.
Ingredients:
• 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
• 1 rib celery, sliced
• 1 medium carrot, peeled and sliced
• 1/2 small onion, sliced thinly
• 1-1/4 cups roasted chestnuts
• 2-1/4 cups vegetable broth
• 3/4 tsp. dried sage
• 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1 cup coconut milk
Directions:
Heat the oil in a medium pot over medium heat.
Add the celery, carrot and onions. Reduce heat; cover and cook to soften the vegetables, about 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.
Add the roasted chestnuts, vegetable broth, sage and nutmeg. Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes.
Cool before pouring into a blender jar or food processor. Process into a smooth mixture.
Return to pot and stir in the coconut milk. Heat over medium heat. Do not boil.
Pour into cups to serve.
Cauliflower Cheddar Soup (Dairy)
Serves 4 to 6
Cook’s Tips: •May use pareve consommé
seasoning mix for vegetable broth: 2 tsp. to 1 cup water. •Add more broth, if needed, for desired consistency. •Substitute grated Parmesan cheese for cheddar cheese.
Ingredients:
• 1 cup frozen cauliflower florets, thawed
• 1 cup mashed potatoes
• 2 Tbsp. plain yogurt
• 2-1/2 cups vegetable broth
• ⅓ cup grated cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup snipped fresh parsley or 2 Tbsp. dried parsley
• salt and pepper to taste
Directions: In a food processor or blender jar, place cauliflower, mashed potatoes, yogurt and broth. Process until smooth.
Transfer to a medium pot.
Add the cheese and parsley. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring often. Season to taste. Serve hot.
Beetroot Soup With Winter Vegetables (Pareve)
Serves 4 to 6
Cook’s Tips: •For a dairy meal, top soup with a swirl of sour cream. •Sumac is a Middle Eastern spice with a fruity, astringent taste.
Ingredients:
• 1 small onion
• 1 carrot
• 2 ribs celery
• 1/2 baking potato, scrubbed
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 1 (8.8 oz.) package of cooked beets
• 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
• 4-1/2 cups pareve chicken broth (vegetarian)
• 2 tsp. bottled chopped garlic
• 1 Tbsp. vinegar
• 2 tsp. sumac
• Salt and pepper to taste
Roasted chestnuts.
BeCi-ChannelCulture, Pixabay Beetroot Soup With Winter Vegetables.
Photo by Ethel G. Hofman
Soup bowls. Stevepb, Pixabay
EthEl G. hofmAN
See Warmth by the spoonful on page 14
Warmth by the spoonful, bisque to beetroot…
Directions:
Cut onion, carrot, celery and potato into chunks. Place in a food processor or blender jar. Process until coarsely chopped. Set aside. In a processor or blender, coarsely chop tomatoes and beets. Set aside in a small bowl.
Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
Add the chopped onion, carrot, celery and potato. Reduce heat to low. Cover and cook for 15 minutes or until softened.
Add the tomatoes and beets, broth, garlic, vinegar and sumac. Simmer for 20 minutes longer. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve hot.
Wacky Minestrone (Pareve)
Serves 6
Cook’s Tips: •Start with a 6-oz. tube of minestrone soup mix. I use Manischewitz. •Any canned beans may be used. Canned weights vary slightly, according to the brand.
Ingredients:
• 1 tube (6 oz.) minestrone soup mix
• 5 cups water
• 1 can (15.5 oz.) chickpeas, undrained
• 1 can (15.25 oz.) whole kernel corn, undrained
• 1 can (14.5 oz.) petite diced tomatoes
• 1-1/2 cups vegetable or tomato juice
• 2 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp. pareve consommé seasoning
• Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
In a large pot, bring water to a boil. Add the soup mix, including the seasoning package. Cover and simmer for 45 minutes.
Add the chickpeas, corn, tomatoes, vegetable or tomato juice, lemon juice and consommé seasoning. Stir, cover and simmer for 20 minutes longer. Serve hot with popovers.
Perfect Popovers (Dairy)
Makes 12 Cook’s Tips: •Best eaten hot from the oven. Traditionally from Yorkshire, England to sop up the gravy from a beef roast. •If browning too quickly cover lightly with a sheet of aluminum foil.
Ingredients:
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Generously butter a 12-pan muffin tray with 2 teaspoons of butter or margarine in each muffin pan. Set aside. Place all ingredients in a blender, whirling at High speed for 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the blender jar to remove any unmixed flour. Whirl again for 25 seconds.
Pour mixture, dividing evenly, into prepared muffin pans. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes.
Reduce heat to 375 degrees and bake 15 to 20 minutes longer, until puffed and nicely browned. Serve hot.
Cock-a-Leekie Soup (Meat)
Serves 6 to 8
Cook’s Tips: •Buy a store-bought roast chicken. •Cleaned and sliced leeks are available frozen in markets. •Dirt may be trapped between leek leaves. To clean, trim the root ends and dark green tops. Cut lengthwise, separate the layers and slice about 1/2-inch thick. Soak in a bowl of salt water (1 Tbsp. salt to 6 cups cold water) to loosen any sand and dirt. Drain and rinse again in cold water. Use as below.
Ingredients:
• 1/2 roasted chicken, skin and bones removed
• 3 Tbsp. vegetable oil
• 4 leeks, sliced 1/2-inch thick
• 4 small golden potatoes, quartered
• 1 tsp.salt
• 2 to 3 grinds of black pepper
• 6 cups prepared chicken broth
• 1/2 cup snipped fresh parsley or chives
Directions:
Slice the chicken meat into thin strips. Set aside.
In a large pot, heat the vegetable oil over medium heat. Add the leeks and potatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Cover and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes, or until leeks and potatoes are soft. Add the chicken broth and chicken. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes longer.
Stir in the parsley or chives. Serve hot.
To contact Ethel G. Hofman, write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Leeks.
jackmac34, Pixabay
Cauliflower Soup.
Photo by Ethel G. Hofman Minestrone Soup. Catceeq, Pixabay
Proudly Jewish. Proudly Zionist.
Jewish Star Torah columnists:
•Rabbi Avi Billet of Anshei Chesed, Boynton Beach, FL, mohel and Five Towns native •Rabbi David Etengoff of Magen David Yeshivah, Brooklyn
•Rabbi Binny Freedman, rosh yeshiva of Orayta, Jerusalem
Contributing writers:
•Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks zt”l,
former chief rabbi of United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth •Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh
Weinreb, OU executive VP emeritus
•Rabbi Raymond Apple, emeritus rabbi, Great Synagogue of Sydney •Rabbi Yossy Goldman, life rabbi emeritus, Sydenham Shul, Johannesburg and president of the South African Rabbinical Association.
It is no accident that Parshat Bo, which deals with the culminating plagues and the Exodus, should turn three times to the subject of children and the duty of parents to educate them.
As Jews we believe that to defend a country you need an army, but to defend a civilization you need education. Freedom is lost when it is taken for granted. Unless parents hand on their memories and ideals to the next generation — the story of how they won their freedom and the battles they had to fight along the way — the long journey falters and we lose our way. What is fascinating, though, is the way the Torah emphasizes the fact that children must ask questions. Two of the three passages in our Parsha speak of this:
And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the L-rd, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when He struck down the Egyptians.’ Ex. 12:26-27
In days to come, when your child asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the L-rd brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Ex. 13:14
There is another passage later in the Torah that also speaks of a question asked by a child: In the future, when your child asks you, “What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the L-rd our G-d has commanded you?” tell him: “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the L-rd brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Deut. 6:20-21
The other passage in today’s Parsha, the only one that does not mention a question, is:
On that day tell your child, ‘I do this because of what the L-rd did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ Ex. 13:8
These four passages have become famous because of their appearance in the Haggadah on Pesach. They are the four children: one wise, one wicked or rebellious, one simple and “one who does not know how to ask.”
Reading them together, the Sages came to the conclusion that [1] children should ask questions, [2] the Pesach narrative must be construct-
To defend a country you need an army, to defend a civilization you need education.
ed in response to, and begin with, questions asked by a child,
[3] it is the duty of a parent to encourage his or her children to ask questions, and the child who does not yet know how to ask should be taught to ask.
There is nothing natural about this at all. To the contrary, it goes dramatically against the grain of history.
Most traditional cultures see it as the task of a parent or teacher to instruct, guide or command. The task of the child is to obey. “Children should be seen, not heard,” goes the old English proverb. “Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the L-rd,” says a famous Christian text.
Socrates, who spent his life teaching people to ask questions, was condemned by the citizens of Athens for corrupting the young. In Judaism, the opposite is the case. It is a religious duty to teach our children to ask questions. That is how they grow.
Judaism is the rarest of phenomena: a faith based on asking questions, sometimes deep and difficult ones that seem to shake the very foundations of faith itself.
“Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?” asked Abraham. “Why, L-rd, why have You brought trouble on this people?” asked Moses. “Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?” asked Jeremiah. The book of Job is largely constructed out of questions, and G-d’s answer consists of four chapters of yet deeper questions: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? … Can you catch Leviathan with a hook? … Will it make an agreement with you and let you take it as your slave for life?”
In yeshiva, the highest accolade is to ask a good question: Du fregst a gutte kashe.
Rabbi Abraham Twersky, a deeply religious psychiatrist, tells of how when he was young, his teacher would relish challenges to his arguments. In his broken English, he would say, “You right! You 100 prozent right! Now I show you where you wrong.”
Isadore Rabi, winner of a Nobel Prize in physics, was once asked why he became a scientist. He replied, “My mother made me a scientist without ever knowing it. Every other child would come back from school and be asked, ‘What did you learn today?’ But my mother used to ask: ‘Izzy, did you ask a good question today?’ That made the difference. Asking good questions made me a scientist.”
Judaism is not a religion of blind obedience. Indeed, astonishingly in a religion of 613 commandments, there is no Hebrew word that means “to obey.”
When Hebrew was revived as a living language in the nineteenth century, and there was need for a verb meaning “to obey,” it had to be borrowed from the Aramaic: le-tsayet. Instead of a word meaning “to obey,” the Torah uses the verb shema, untranslatable into English because it means
[1] to listen, [2] to hear, [3] to understand, [4] to internalize, and [5] to respond.
Written into the very structure of Hebraic consciousness is the idea that our highest duty is to seek to understand the will of G-d, not just to obey blindly.
Tennyson’s verse, “Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die,” is as far from a Jewish mindset as it is possible to be. Why? Because we believe that intelligence is G-d’s greatest gift to humanity.
Rashi understands the phrase that G-d made man “in His image, after His likeness,” to mean that G-d gave us the ability “to understand and discern.” The very first of our requests in the weekday Amidah is for “knowledge, understanding, and discernment.”
One of the most breathtakingly bold of the rabbis’ institutions was to coin a blessing to be said on seeing a great non-Jewish scholar. Not only did they see wisdom in cultures other than their own, they thanked G-d for it. How far this is from the narrow-mindedness than has so often demeaned and diminished religions, past and present.
The historian Paul Johnson once wrote that rabbinic Judaism was “an ancient and highly efficient social machine for the production of intellectuals.” Much of that had, and still has, to do with the absolute priority Jews have always placed on education, schools, the Beit Midrash, religious study as an act even higher than prayer, learning as a life-long engagement, and teaching as the highest vocation of the religious life.
But much, too, has to do with how one stud-
ies and how we teach our children.
The Torah indicates this at the most powerful and poignant juncture in Jewish history: just as the Israelites are about to leave Egypt and begin their life as a free people under the sovereignty of G-d. Hand on the memory of this moment to your children, says Moses. But do not do so in an authoritarian way. Encourage your children to ask, question, probe, investigate, analyze, explore.
Liberty means freedom of the mind, not just of the body. Those who are confident of their faith need fear no question. It is only those who lack confidence, who have secret and suppressed doubts, who are afraid.
The one essential, though, is to know and to teach this to our children, that not every question has an answer we can immediately understand.
There are ideas we will only fully comprehend through age and experience, others that take great intellectual preparation, yet others that may be beyond our collective comprehension at this stage of the human quest. Darwin never knew what a gene was.
Even the great Newton, founder of modern science, understood how little he understood, and put it beautifully: “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
In teaching its children to ask and keep asking, Judaism honored what Maimonides called the “active intellect” and saw it as the gift of G-d. No faith has honored human intelligence more.
Learn from Bilaam and follow Isaiah: Cancel UN
DR. alaN MaZUReK
Great Neck and Baka
The release of the first three hostages on Jan. 19 revealed that they were most recently being held not in tunnels, or high-rise buildings or private homes, but rather in United Nations facilities. This includes not only UNRWA facilities but hospitals, schools and official buildings and offices.
While they, like other hostages, were continually moved around and held at times in tunnels, makeshift dungeons and elsewhere, over the last few weeks or months they were in areas that
by international law required their release, and those who were in control of those facilities had a legal and moral obligation to come forward and disclose these hostages’ whereabouts. Instead there was and has been silence.
This indicates that the UN has been a co-conspirator in the kidnapping and imprisonment of Israeli, American and other foreign national hostages who were seized during the barbaric Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
Furthermore, this explains why the International Red Cross has not done anything to secure information about the hostages’ whereabouts or welfare, or to provide them with food and medicine, because those officials knew they were being held by UN colleagues. This is not just a war crime, it is a moral outrage.
Founded on the heels of World War II to
guarantee world peace and stability, the UN has instead been a partner in perpetuating war, kidnapping, extortion, depravity, and torture. And as always the ever present “canary in the coal mine,” the Jew, has been the first casualty.
This must go.
President Trump, who has never hidden his disdain for this bloated, bureaucratic, corrupt criminal organization, should withdraw the US representative, cancel America’s UN budget (the US pays over a third of the total UN budget) and throw them out of the United States.
Israel should withdraw as well. Israeli men, women and children have been killed, mutilated, tortured, raped and maimed, and then held hostage for the last 16 months. The UN, which has failed to condemn Hamas, is now shown to have been clearly complicit in the horror.
As the evil Bilaam predicted for us (Bamidbar 23:9), at the End of Days we will be “Am Levadad Yishkon (a people apart)” from the rest of the world. But as Rabi Yochanan tells us in masechet Sanhedrin (105a), the curse that Bilaam was converted to a blessing, and the full end of the verse is: “Hen, am levadad yishkon, u’vagoyim lo yitchashev (Behold! It is a nation that will dwell apart, and among the nations not be counted.” Earlier in the same masechet Sanhedrin (39 a,b), the same verse is mentioned in a different context. The story is told of an encounter between Rabi Avina and a heretic, a nonbeliever. The heretic quotes the biblical verse (Samuel II, 7:23) “And who is like Your people Israel, one nation in the land?“ And he questions, what’s so special about Israel? In fact, they are just like all
Jewish home: Key to survival for us and the world
Walk into any Jewish home and ask yourself: What distinguishes it as a Jewish home?
There is actually no ritual, biblical obligation concerning the Jewish home, save one: the mezuzah. One would expect to find this symbol, therefore, in the center of our homes, the living room or dining room. Yet we place our mezuzah in the doorway at the entrance to the home, a place we only pass through, never really stopping to focus on much of anything.
Imagine a close friend gives you an incredible gift: an original painting by Monet. And
the next time he comes to visit he is shocked to discover you have hung the painting … outside your front door! He would probably be horrified! Why do we place our mezuzah in the doorway, rather than hanging it somewhere special inside our home?
Rav Ephraim Oshri, the last Rabbi of Kovno, Lithuania, in 1941, was asked a fascinating question in the ghetto.
One of the Jews wanted to know if there was a mitzvah to place a mezuzah in a home in the ghetto, given the horrible conditions the Jews were forced to live in. Would such a place constitute a home, requiring a mezuzah?
Amazingly, given the danger inherent in such a practice, and the fact that public Jewish ritual in the ghetto was often punishable by death, there was no question as to whether they should try and hide the mitzvah somewhere inside the home, as opposed to the front door.
Jews saved themselves by publicly declaring themselves worthy of being redeemed.
Yet, it was a given that a mezuzah only makes sense on the front door.
To understand this strange mitzvah, we need to take a closer look at the origins of the mitzvah of mezuzah, whose sources are to be found in the Exodus from Egypt, in this week’s portion, Bo.
After 210 years of slavery and nine plagues, G-d announces that the end is finally at hand, the Jewish people will finally be redeemed.
Hashem will bring one more plague on Egypt, and this one He will do Himself.
But one week before the redemption, on the tenth day of Nissan, each family (actually, each “home”) must take a lamb, and tie it up in front of the house (Exodus 12:3). Then, on the fourteenth day of Nissan, they must slaughter this lamb in the middle of the afternoon (12:6). What is the purpose of this strange sacrifice? And why are the Jewish people, enslaved by the most sadistic and evil society in history, made to wait for four days before being redeemed — just so the lamb can remain tied up in the front yard?
But that’s not all. Even stranger is what happens after the lamb is slaughtered: the Jews have to collect the lambs’ blood and paint their doorjambs with it! And strangest of all is the explanation G-d
Parsha of the Week Rabbi avi billet Jewish Star columnist
When one reads the opening of Parshat Bo, it is hard to ignore the question of who has the bigger ego — Pharaoh or G-d?
Over the course of the previous seven plagues, Pharaoh has actually given in four times. He allowed the Israelites to leave during the plague of frogs, twice in the plague of beasts, and once in the plague of hail. In each case, however, after the plague dissipated, he changed his mind, likely because his ego wouldn’t allow for him to give
up his slaves so easily.
In G-d’s case, it seems that the plagues have taken on a life of their own, with their objective having become “So that Pharaoh will know that I am G-d.”
We all know who is going to win this proverbial battle of wits. It’s not even a contest. But the truth is, if the objective is for Pharaoh to learn who G-d is, that was achieved during the plague of hail when Pharaoh declared, “I have sinned. G-d is righteous, while I and my nation are wicked!” (9:27)
It’s difficult to pinpoint the turning point — with Pharaoh standing stubbornly in defiance of G-d, versus when G-d Himself strengthened Pharaoh’s heart. It first happened in the plague of boils, and we’re told in the prelude to the plague
of locusts that “I have hardened [Pharaoh’s] heart as well as the heart of his servants, so my signs can be spread through them.”
It seems unfair at this point — even if Pharaoh were to give in, he has other devils controlling his mind. He doesn’t stand a chance.
Rabbi David Fohrman has developed an innovative approach to the differences between the phrases “va’y’chazek et libo” and “va’yakhbed at libo” (strengthened and hardened his heart, respectively) which is worth perusing on his Alephbeta website.
In a shiur I heard on yutorah.org, Rabbi Zev Leff argues that the purpose of any strengthening of Pharaoh’s heart was to make it that he wouldn’t give in and let the Israelites leave Egypt on account of the plagues — he needed to come
There are questions that people ask when they have experienced great disappointment. One such question, a theological one, is, “What did I do to deserve this? What sin have I committed that warrants such a painful punishment?”
In situations where such questions are asked in reaction to truly tragic circumstances, they are quite poignant, even heartrending. “What have I done to deserve such punishment? Haven’t I been a good person? Why did G-d do this to me?”
There is a parallel set of questions that can be
asked in response to happy events such as great professional accomplishments, successful recovery from illness, and family celebrations. Such questions include, “What did I do to deserve such success? Why am I being rewarded so marvelously? How can I thank G-d for such blessings?”
But those questions are seldom asked.
As we read the recent, current, and upcoming weekly Torah portions, the thoughtful student cannot help but ask both sets of questions. First, “What did the children of Israel do to deserve the
‘No gain without pain’ is an apt motto for Pesach.
harsh punishment of centuries of slavery? What horrible sins kindled G-d’s wrath and resulted in such brutal suffering?”
And second, perhaps more puzzling, are the parallel questions: “What did the enslaved people do to cause G-d to finally remember them? What, after years of unbearable bondage, earned them, in the end, their glorious freedom?”
Many have raised these questions, and some have found no answer except to defer to the inscrutable plans of the Almighty, who, long before the exile in Egypt, promised Abraham that his descendants would spend time as strangers in a land not theirs, and suffer slavery and torture, but eventually would be remembered and redeemed.
In his excellent overview of the works of the great traditional Torah commentaries, Binah B’Mikra, Rabbi Issachar Jacobson surveys several
to the realization on his own that letting the slaves leave was the right thing to do, irrespective of plagues.
Which brings us to the question of G-d’s ego. There are many ways to explain G-d’s role in the world, what He represents, what He wants of us, and why He created the world in the first place. Some of the answers include the desire to have a world of emet (truth), chesed (kindness), shalom (peace), and of course to spread His word and teaching through the Torah. Prior to the Torah being given, His purpose was for His Name to be known, an objective concretized by Avraham following the failed efforts and non-efforts of previous generations.
Is this egotistical? You create a world, and
See Billet on page 22
In Bo’s battle of egos, the contest is not close Just
approaches to the second set of questions, all addressed to describing the transformations of the enslaved people that earned them their ultimate redemption.
I will confine this column to one of these approaches as presented by Rabbi Jacobson in his overview of this week’s Parashat Bo (Exodus 10:1-13:16).
It is in this week’s parsha, Bo, that we read of Korban Pesach, the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, and the consumption of its meat in the context of a festive meal, celebrated by groups of family and neighbors, and subject to various rules and regulations.
This was the Pesach Mitzrayim, the Passover ritual followed once in history, by the yet enslaved children of Israel. It is also the precursor of the Pesach Dorot, the Passover ritual for all fu-
From Heart of Jerusalem
Rabbi biNNY
FReeDMaN Jewish Star columnist
Rabbi DR. tZvi
HeRsH WeiNReb
Orthodox Union
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Trump’s right on letting P’stinians leave Gaza
President Donald Trump is often at his best when he discards conventional wisdom and what the experts say is the only solution to any given problem. That was clearly the case when, during a 20-minute question-and-answer session with reporters on Air Force One on the way back from his visit to the site of the California wildfires, he said that both Egypt and Jordan should admit some of the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza as refugees.
As far as the president was concerned, it was just a matter of common sense.
“I’d like Egypt to take people, and I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump said. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people; we just clean out that whole thing.” Trump said that he had spoken to King Abdullah II of Jordan, saying, “I said to him. I’d love for you to take on more, cause I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess. It’s a real mess.”
Trump went on to say that the Middle East has “had many, many conflicts” over centuries. He said resettling “could be temporary or long term.” What’s more, he continued, “Something has to happen. It’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything’s demolished, and people are dying there. So, I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations, and build housing in a different location, where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”
Only sensible solution
It’s an inherently sensible solution both because of the devastation in Gaza and the likelihood that no matter how much aid is poured into the Strip in the coming years, most of it will be used by Hamas to prepare for the next round of fighting with Israel by building more terror tunnels, fortifications and armaments.
Indeed, although contrary to the normal practice of war in which a combatant, especially one like Israel which was invaded on Oct. 7, is not considered responsible for feeding and caring for a hostile, enemy population, the Jewish state has allowed convoys of aid to enter Gaza throughout
the war.
Most of it, however, was stolen by Hamas and various other criminal elements. That theft, coupled with the resale of vital supplies intended to go to hungry Palestinians, has helped fuel Hamas’s efforts to rebuild its military after Israel decimated its fighting power.
The claims about Palestinian casualties supplied by Hamas and mimicked by the corporate Western media are exaggerated. The same is true of the false reports about Gazans starving. The latter was also given the lie by the footage of the barbarous parades and demonstrations organized by Hamas as hostages were released.
Yet even if we assume that many of them are in a bad way, Trump’s idea of giving them shelter and new lives elsewhere is the most humanitarian approach to their plight.
His idea is more or less the opposite of what the international community, the US foreignpolicy establishment, the Arab and Muslim world and the Palestinian Arabs themselves have said is acceptable.
Even in the face of the massive devastation in Gaza caused by the war that Hamas started on Oct. 7, 2023, an international consensus accepted by the Biden administration takes it as a given that the Palestinians who live there must remain in place.
Nothing — not the conditions there or the prospect of continued rule by the Hamas terrorist organization, something that has been more rather than less likely by the ceasefire-hostage release deal pushed by Trump — has been allowed to shake it.
Why?
One of the accepted principles of Middle East foreign policy over the past eight decades has been the belief that the Palestinian Arabs who fled their homes in 1948 during the course of Israel’s War of Independence must stay where they are. That contrasts the treatment of every other refugee population of that era.
Palestinian refugees
During that period, as many as 50 to 65 million people were displaced by wars and the partitions that accompanied the post-colonial era in Europe, Asia and Africa.
That included 16 million German speakers who were forced out of their homes in Eastern Europe, both as a punishment for Nazi Ger-
Keeping descendants of the 1948 refugees in place is about perpetuating a futile war on Israel. They should be allowed to flee Hamas rule and seek better lives elsewhere.
many’s depredations as well as to make way for Poles and others who were displaced by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s shifting of the borders of various nations as part of his imperial ambitions. It also included 14 million inhabitants of what is now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as Muslims and Hindus fled for their lives to avoid the pogroms aimed at religious minorities who found themselves on the wrong side of arbitrarily drawn borders.
Among the number of those displaced in that era were approximately 700,000 Arabs living in the British Mandate for Palestine, which had been partitioned by the United Nations in 1947 to make way for a Jewish and an Arab state. The Jews welcomed the plan, but the Arabs rejected any resolution other than the establishment of a single Arab state.
When five Arab states invaded the country on May 15, 1948, after Israel declared its independence, many Arabs fled while some were also subsequently pushed out by the Israelis during the course of the bitter fighting that ensued.
During this same time, approximately 800,00 Jews were forced to flee their homes in the Muslim and Arab world, and were eventually resettled in Israel or in the West.
In the face of this enormous refugee problem, the fledgling United Nations created two agencies to deal with the crisis. One was established to help those 700,000 Arabs, the UN Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Another, the UN High Commission, was tasked with dealing with everyone else.
Over time, the UN High Commission fulfilled its task; there are no remaining refugees from that period who have not found homes and the chance to start new lives. UNRWA, though, believed that it had a different job.
UNRWA’s purpose
Since its founding, UNRWA considered that its task was not to resettle Palestinian Arabs. Rather, it assumed the role of ensuring that they stayed in refugee camps that, all these years later, are more like run-down urban developments. Maintaining them in such conditions kept open the theoretical possibility that, unlike the tens of millions of other refugees in the 1940s, they would return to their former homes and essentially rewrite the history of the conflict with Israel.
That attitude resulted in a situation in which UNRWA was not just educating generations of Palestinians to hate Israel and demand its destruction. It also became thoroughly infiltrated by Hamas with a number of its employees taking part in the Oct. 7 atrocities and using its facilities to imprison Israeli hostages.
From the start, they were assisted in this effort by the Arab states that hosted the refugee camps. They refused to offer the Palestinians citizenship in their countries. That included Egypt, which occupied Gaza in 1948; Jordan, which occupied the territories of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank of the enlarged Jordanian Kingdom); and both Syria and Lebanon, where refugee camps also were found.
JONAthAN S. tObiN
Editor-in-Chief
Palestinians return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip via the Rashid Street by the Mediterranean Sea on Jan. 27. Abed Rahim Khatib, Flash90
Just how useful are the ‘useful idiots’ of Hamas?
Ever since political Zionism emerged at the end of the 19th century as a movement to create and sustain a Jewish state in the historic Land of Israel, it has encountered Jewish opposition to its goals.
Some of these opponents were decently motivated but proven tragically wrong by history; some were driven by broader political beliefs and loyalties that they regarded as incompatible with Zionism; while some, particularly in the current generation, are just plain reprehensible, expressing a pathology that seeks the adoration of strangers by hatefully dissociating from their own community.
Jewish antagonism towards Zionism is not homogeneous. Particularly before the emergence of the independent State of Israel in 1948, there were bourgeois Jewish anti-Zionists who worried that Zionism would jeopardize their social position and encourage non-Jews to regard them as innately disloyal to their countries of citizenship. There were also proletarian Jewish anti-Zionists, wedded to a vision of socialism in which Jews would have, at best, “cultural autonomy.”
Among American Jews, there was a section of the community that regarded the United States as the Promised Land, viewing the repeated references to “Zion” in Jewish liturgy as a purely spiritual aspiration, rather than as a part of the argument for the restitution of the biblical Land of Israel. Among many Haredi groups, Zionism was seen as a secular heresy.
Yet polling these days repeatedly shows that the vast majority of Jews, religious and secular, identify with and support Israel, and many of
them are even more inclined to identify as “Zionists” in the wake of the October 7, 2023 Hamas atrocities. Those trends I outlined above have largely faded among Jews around the world, with a new consensus forming following World War II that the Jews, like other peoples and nations, can live happily in a world that contains both a Jewish state and vibrant Jewish communities outside Israel’s borders.
But Jewish opposition to Zionism has not disappeared. As the number of Jews identifying as anti-Zionists has dwindled, the output of those who declare themselves anti-Zionists has become all the more venomous.
Among pro-Israel Jews, it’s common to denounce such people as “self-haters” or as “useful idiots,” a phrase incorrectly attributed to Lenin to denote those Western liberals in thrall to the So-
viet Union who played a “useful” role in advancing Moscow’s propaganda. But how “useful” are the Jewish anti-Zionists?
After 1945, Jewish anti-Zionism was largely the preserve of the left. Inside the Jewish state, its main proponents were found in the Israeli Communist Party (whose Jewish leader, Meir Wilner, signed the Declaration of Independence) which became militantly anti-Zionist as the Soviet Union increasingly aligned itself with the Arab states in their quest to annihilate Israel. However, at a time when anti-Zionists were much keener than they are now to deflect accusations of antisemitism, the Jewish anti-Zionists certainly had a useful role.
“We as a party are … against the ideology and practice of Zionism, though you have to ask the question how to best fight against it,” Wilner
told the East German Communist dictator Erich Honecker when they met in 1979. “This is about leading the struggle from the clear perspective of socialism and progress, and thus convincing the Jewish masses that the fight against Zionism is in their national interest. This is about making clear and convincing that anti-Zionism is not directed against the Jews.”
The idea that Jews of any social class in Israel would abandon their own state to become a minority in an Arab-dominated, Soviet-controlled republic was always outlandish. But for the Israeli Communists — and even the handful of Israelis further to the left, such as the Matzpen group that actively identified with Palestinian terrorist groups — the abiding belief was that Jews would be a welcome presence in the socialist Palestinian state that would replace Israel. It is on this last point that the current crop of Jewish anti-Zionists has shifted. However ridiculous all the old slogans about a “joint struggle” with the Arabs against Zionism were, and however shameful the political alliances these beliefs nurtured, all this was preferable to what we have now. This generation of anti-Zionists fervently believes that Jews have no rightful place in the Middle East at all, regardless of who governs them.
In the last 20 years, social media has dramatically amplified the voices of the miniscule number of Jews who hold this position. Some readers might remember Israel Shamir, a Russian-Israeli writer who converted to Christianity and whom many were convinced was an agent of the Russian secret services, and Gilad Atzmon, an Israeli jazz musician who relocated to London, both of whom delighted in baiting other Jews with antisemitic tropes and who spoke and wrote about Israel in demonic terms, particularly during the wars in Gaza in 2008-09 and 2014.
A decade on, Shamir and Atzmon have become pretty much invisible, but their inheritors are out there.
Is it the art of the deal or the rout of the
real?
Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, has called the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal an “inflection point” for peace in the Middle East.
He told Fox News that he hopes to broaden the Abraham Accords by bringing in every state in the Middle East, including Qatar and Egypt, which he praised for their key roles in negotiating the Gaza ceasefire.
Qatar, he said, had been “enormously helpful in this,” and the communication skills of its prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, had been “indispensable.”
While the commitment of the new administration to expanding the Abraham Accords — signed in 2020 under the first Trump administration — is a welcome sign, Witkoff’s remarks should provoke no little unease among those who properly understand what Israel is facing.
Qatar can never be a solution in the Middle East because Qatar is the problem. Far from being instrumental in bringing peace and security to Israel, Qatar has been instrumental in bringing it mass slaughter.
For Qatar is behind Hamas. It created it, funds it and protects its leaders. Qatar promotes
the Muslim Brotherhood — the jihadi parent of Hamas — and hosts the Islamist propaganda news outlet Al Jazeera.
It’s an enemy of the West because it is governed by an Islamist regime that allies itself with other Islamist enemies of the West, including AlQaeda, ISIS — and Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.
Qatar’s role as an “honest broker” in negotiations between Israel and Iran’s proxy Hamas was farcical. For these purposes, Qatar was Hamas.
In large measure, that’s why those negotiations went nowhere for months. Israel managed to resist the appalling terms being pressed on it by the Biden administration — until Witkoff applied the thumbscrews to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who promptly crumbled, understanding that Trump was insisting implacably on a deal and that Israel couldn’t afford to make him an enemy.
True, there were some differences with the Biden package. However, a deal that traps Israel in a potentially exploitative, nightmarish and agonizing prevarication over the release of all the hostages while Hamas re-empowers itself in Gaza and Israel is forced to withdraw remains a lousy deal.
Astonishingly, Witkoff boasted that the new administration had taken the Biden deal off the shelf — with the “mathematics” of the unconscionable, staggered release of the hostages having been set by the previous administration and which Witkoff had seen no reason to change.
To speak about the release of the hostages in terms of “mathematics” is nauseating. Didn’t Trump say previously that unless the hostages were released by his inauguration, all hell would break loose? He did not say that if a mere three of the 90-plus hostages were released by that date, with four more due this weekend
President Donald Trump welcomes his friend, Steve Witkoff (now the president’s special envoy to the Middle East), in the East Room of the White House in 2018. Shealah Craighead, WH
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators during Israel’s 11-day conflict against Hamas in Gaza, the IDF’s “Operation Guardian of the Walls,” in May 2021. Raya Sharbain via WikiCommons
See Cohen on page 23
Beyond the Trump-Witkoff deal (and
let’s face it,
it’s really Joe Biden deal), Israel must win this war
caroline glick
Israel Hayom
On Oct. 7, 2023, Israelis saw what the end looks like. Thousands upon thousands of Palestinians invaded the country in wave after wave. They were unified in their barbaric hatred of Jews and bloodlust.
The atrocities the Palestinians committed against their overwhelmingly Jewish victims were like nothing we had ever imagined. And they were made all the worse by the fact that everyone participated.
Roaring crowds handed torches to 10-yearolds, giving them the honor of lighting homes ablaze, burning entire families alive. The Palestinian hordes whooped and laughed in ecstasy as they raped, tortured and murdered their victims.
And when they arrived home to Gaza with their hostages — dead and alive — they were greeted by crowds of thousands as conquering heroes. Yes, Hamas planned the sadistic genocide. Yes, Hamas led the charge. But it was a whole-of-society endeavor.
Somehow, over the two weeks of President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff’s dealmaking, the events of Oct. 7 seem to have faded from view. The deal he demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accept is incomprehensible in the context of that day.
Ignoring Oct. 7, Witkoff and his Israeli cheerleaders present the deal as a step on the road to peace. When the ceasefire becomes permanent, he has said, the Saudis will rush to make peace with Israel. So will Qatar and everyone else. Indeed, Witkoff told Fox News last Wednesday, even Hamas would be welcomed at the table. And Trump will get a Nobel Peace Prize.
In the same Fox News interview, Witkoff explained that his deal is precisely the deal that former president Joe Biden tried to coerce Israel to accept last May. The Biden deal, at its core, was a ransom deal. Israel, Biden said, would pay Hamas “generously” for the release of some of the hostages. How generously? Well, it depended on which phase you were in.
The Biden/Witkoff deal is a three-phase deal, and each phase is essentially a separate agreement. The first involves massive Israeli concessions to Hamas that are rife with dire strategic consequences for Israel in exchange for 33 hostages — including all of the women hostages.
To receive the 33, Israel is required to free nearly 2,000 terrorists, hundreds of whom are convicted mass murderers. It must withdraw its forces from the cities of Gaza and from the Netzarim Corridor, permitting the mass return of Palestinians to northern Gaza. And it must permit the full resupply of Gaza, still under Hamas control. All told, Israel is paying for the 33 in a manner that risks all of its soldiers’ hard-won gains on the battlefield over the past 15 months of war.
While that is a steep price, it pales in comparison to the price of moving to the second phase. Under the terms of the Witkoff/Biden agreement, in the second phase, Israel is to withdraw all of its remaining forces from Gaza, including from the border separating Gaza from Egypt. In other words, Israel must cede control of Gaza to Hamas. In exchange, Hamas will return the re-
maining live hostages to Israel — but retain the bodies of the hostages it has murdered.
Phase 1 will make it difficult for Israel to restore its previous gains and go on to achieve victory in the war.
Phase 2 secures Hamas’ victory. The implication of a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza is that Hamas wins the war. It survives not only intact, but in full control of Gaza, respected worldwide as the jihadist force that committed genocide and survived to rebuild and do it again and again.
Phase 3, if implemented, involves Hamas’ return of the bodies of the dead in exchange for the establishment of a Palestinian protostate controlled by Palestinian terrorists. So if implemented, Phase 3 ensures that Hamas will renew its genocidal assault on Israel sooner rather than later.
The Biden administration sold this deal by ignoring the strategic implications of Oct. 7. He and his advisers abjectly refused to draw the necessary conclusion from what happened.
The atrocities of that day showed that the Palestinian war against Israel is a zero-sum game — either Israel wins, ensuring its survival, and the Palestinians are defeated; or the Palestinians win and Israel’s countdown to destruction begins.
Instead of accepting that self-evident reality, Biden and his advisers talked about Israel as a “traumatized society.” A traumatized society is not one that needs to win. It is a society that needs a hug.
Israelis who demanded the destruction of Gaza were demonized as genocidal extremists rather than realists who understood the implications of the bloodlust. The administration refused to accept the legitimacy of Israel’s war goals of destroying Hamas and preventing Gaza from ever posing a threat in the future.
They placed hostages at the center of the narrative instead. The Palestinians weren’t an enemy, they were victims of Israel, which was waging a war for no reason. Israel had the right to defend itself, but not to harm its enemy.
The hostage ransom deal as crafted by Biden administration officials was a means of joining Hamas in exploiting Israel’s anguish over the plight of the hostages to prevent Israel from winning the war. Israel, Biden and his advisers believed, would be ensnared in the deal as Phase 1 moved to Phase 2.
The deal was structured in a way that would make it almost impossible for Israel to walk away. Negotiations for Phase 2 are to begin 16 days after implementation of Phase 1 begins. And if Israel walked away, the last of the 33 would remain behind.
Given the stakes, two questions arise. What does President Donald Trump intend to do with Biden’s agreement going forward; and what does Israel intend to do?
President Trump’s messaging regarding the deal has shifted several times over the first week of implementation. Initially, he said the deal will bring all of the hostages home — a statement that indicated he expects all three phases will be implemented. A couple of days later, the president said he is uncertain that the second and third phases will be implemented.
By adopting Biden’s framework, Trump placed himself in a box.
Trump wishes to prevent new wars from happening in the Middle East. But if he maintains faith with this deal, he ensures that even larger wars will break out in the region during the course of his four years in office. He also guaran-
The Palestinian war against Israel is a zero-sum game — either Israel wins, ensuring its survival, and the Palestinians are defeated; or the Palestinians win and Israel’s countdown to destruction begins.
tees that massive jihadist assaults in the US and the West will occur. After all, if Hamas’ success in murdering 1,200 Israelis in a day gave rise to the avalanche of antisemitism and jihad worldwide, there can be little question what a Hamas victory over Israel in the war will bring.
This is doubly true if the reports that President Trump is insisting that Israel withdraw its forces from Lebanon next week and that he is urging Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear installations are true.
Hezbollah has not withdrawn its forces north of the Litani River. And the Lebanese Armed Forces, which are supposed to force Hezbollah forces to decamp to the north, are helping them to remain in the south. Under the circumstances, an Israeli withdrawal projects weakness that invites a future invasion.
As for Iran, if Hamas survives and Hezbollah survives, then Iran will emerge as the victor in this war. If Iran, the victor, is also permitted to keep its nuclear installations, it will quickly cross the nuclear threshold.
The Iranian regime is not interested in a deal. It is interested in destroying Israel and the United States. That is why it has been trying to assassinate President Trump. And that is why it built terror armies all around Israel and has deployed thousands of Revolutionary Guard personnel to Central and South America, all while building nuclear weapons.
To win the peace of the Middle East, Trump must walk away from Biden’s failed policy of standing with Iran and its terror proxies Lebanon and the Palestinians in Gaza. He must restore his first term’s doctrine of supporting America’s allies against America’s enemies.
If Trump backs Israel in returning to the battlefield to secure Hamas’ defeat in Gaza and maintaining its buffer zones in Gaza permanently to prevent the area from threatening the Jewish state in the future, then he will build the foundation for a long-term peace between Israel and the Arabs of the region.
If Trump stands with Israel and backs its requirement for a security zone inside Lebanon that will prevent Hezbollah and other terror forces from invading northern Israel, and if he stands with Israel in its efforts to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations and supports the Iranian people that have fought for their freedom from the regime for decades, then he will restore America’s standing as the only significant superpower in the region.
If he fails to do these things, then he will cede the US’ position to China. China has been a beneficiary of Biden’s weakness and determination to realign the US away from its allies and toward Iran and its terror armies.
As for Israel, the dilemma is whether to sacrifice its future collective security for the salvation
of the hostages today, or to secure its national survival. Israelis who support the first option speak of the damage to Israel’s soul if we accept that the hostages may continue to suffer.
For those who receive their news from most Israeli media outlets, the dilemma isn’t too large. With a few notable exceptions, the Israeli media have been serving the public a diet of demoralization for nearly a year. Israel cannot win, they are told. There is no purpose to the fight. All it does is prolong the suffering of the hostages.
The only reason we are still fighting is that the man they have spent the past decade demonizing — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — refuses to quit. He refuses to capitulate despite the futility of the fight, because fighting is the only way he stays in power.
The media — like the Biden administration — prefer to ignore the strategic ramifications of Oct. 7, which they prefer to present as a one-off. The Palestinians aren’t really the people who beheaded their victims, and who mutilated their bodies as they butchered them. That was a mistake, or something. And anyway, fighting is futile. Bring them home.
This week, former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren wrote an article resonating this view. Oren admitted that the deal means that Hamas wins the war. But then he counters that Israel will save its soul by showing its devotion to the lives of its hostages by losing. “Our victory is moral, deep and long lasting,” he crooned.
The problem with Oren’s argument and the broader claim of the deal-at-any-price advocates is that the war is not futile. Our heroic soldiers are winning and can win. And they must win. Oct. 7 will only be a one-off if Hamas is annihilated and Gaza remains pacified forever. They are willing to pay a steep price to secure the freedom of 33 hostages, but the fight cannot be forsaken.
Hostage taking is the cruelest form of psychological warfare. And it is the most powerful weapon that Israel’s enemies have in their arsenal. They know that while they sanctify death, the sanctification of life is the foundational creed of the Jewish people.
Those who seek a deal at all costs are right about the soul of Israel. Our collective soul was bludgeoned on Oct. 7, and the wound remains unhealed every day the hostages remain in Gaza. As the years pass, the wound will become a scar that every Israeli and every Jew on earth will carry till the end of time. But our ability to carry those scars requires Israel to survive. Oct. 7 showed us our enemy. And now that we have seen it, we cannot ignore the truth. For the nation of Israel and the State of Israel to survive, Israel must win this war no matter what the cost.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Palestinians take control of an IDF tank after breaching the Israeli border fence from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, Oct. 7, 2023. Abed Rahim Khatib, Flash90
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US-Israel…
Continued from page 10
for the continuation of the war. The prime minister seemed to Gallant to be depressed and pessimistic. “If you attack Hezbollah,” Netanyahu said and pointed beyond the window pane, “all these buildings will collapse from their counterresponse.”
Call with Biden
Gallant continued to try, but Netanyahu was not convinced. “Before we do this, I want to talk to the [US] president,” the prime minister finally told the defense minister. Gallant knew at that moment that the attack would not go ahead: He felt that Netanyahu was seeking to use the US, and its tendency to avoid escalations, to thwart the attack in Lebanon.
While Netanyahu waited for his call with Biden, Gallant and Dermer entered an office, and at one o’clock in the afternoon called from there to Sullivan, the person closest to Biden. When Sullivan heard about the Israeli plan, as expected, he asked the Israeli ministers to wait. “I need to talk about this with the president.”
The problem was that the meeting of Hezbollah’s leadership was scheduled to take place in a few hours. There was not much time left to make the decision.
In another channel, Halevi also tried in his way to convince Biden to support launching an attack in Lebanon. Halevi believed that if he just clearly explained to the president why Israel needed to attack, Biden would accede to the request. Halevi would discover, perhaps for the first time but certainly not the last, that it’s not easy to convince Biden to go on the offensive.
“If Mike Pompeo [Trump’s secretary of state] was still in office, I would have told him, ‘Let’s go for this move together,’ and we would have had a partner,” said a source who was involved then in Cabinet discussions. “But in the Biden administration, we had no partner.”
Halevi and Gallant were indeed determined to launch the attack in Lebanon even without approval from Biden — ”What do we have an army for if not to use it,” Gallant pounded on the Cabinet table — but they did not have a majority.
Netanyahu and Dermer, along with Gantz and former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eizenkot, who were added to the War Cabinet that evening, voted against the attack and cited their fear of opening another front in the north and the lack of American support. Dermer emphasized that he was willing to go after Lebanon without the White House, but not without Israeli unity — and the preemptive strike was finally taken off the table.
The one most disappointed by this was Gallant. “I told you we should have attacked Lebanon first, finished the war against the stronger Hezbollah, and only then moved on to the weaker enemy, Hamas,” he said bitterly in almost every Cabinet meeting throughout the war.
Democratic primaries
Throughout the first stage of the war in Gaza, the Americans pressed, time after time, to increase humanitarian aid to the Strip, especially due to the growing pressure on Biden from within the Democratic Party ahead of the presidential primaries.
After the IDF moved into Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, and while American patience was running out and even threatening the continuation of the fighting, Israel had to make a decision: It was clear to the IDF that the next move should be a ground entry into Rafah in Gaza and in Lebanon.
However, various considerations caused the military to recommend to the Cabinet to choose only one of the two arenas. “It wasn’t possible to enter Rafah and Lebanon with full force simultaneously,” said an Israeli source. “In the end, the decision was to go to Rafah.”
This was not going to be simple. According to a source who was involved in contacts with the US ahead of the entry into Rafah, “Rafah was an excruciating tango dance of several weeks” with the Americans.
“There’s no doubt this was the biggest clash with them during the war,” another senior Israeli said.
Mazurek…
Continued from page 17
the other nations, quoting the verse from Isaiah 40:17, “All the nations are like nothing before Him (G-d)”. You, Israel are just like the rest of us! And Rabi Avina answers him with last words of our verse from Bamidbar, “and among the nations (you, Israel will) not be counted.”
We are the people destined — blessed — to be apart. But apart does not mean unengaged. It means being alone as a united people with our belief in the One True G-d and His holy Torah — welcoming friends, allies, converts, and adherents, yet proud and brave to take up the battle against those who would deprive us of our lives, liberties, beliefs and futures.
We are enjoined to be a “light unto the nations” (Isaiah 42:6), but only if they wish to be “enlightened” and only if we know that the source of our “light” comes from Hashem. The full verse in Isaiah says:
I am Hashem; in the righteousness have I called you and taken hold of your hand; I have protected you and appointed you to bring the people to the covenant, to be a light unto the nations.
The UN sits in its own self-inflicted darkness and corruption. We who seek the light of G-d‘s wisdom, guidance, goodness and power should shun that darkness and the institutions that perpetuate it. The UN must go.
Shabbat Shalom.
Dr. Alan A. Mazurek is a retired neurologist, living in Great Neck, Jerusalem and Florida. He is a former chairman of the ZOA. Write: Columnist@ TheJewishStar.com
Freedman…
Continued from page 17
gives (12:13) for this bizarre ritual: The blood will serve as a sign for G-d when He passes through Egypt at midnight. And wherever G-d sees blood on the doorjamb, He will pass over that house and spare the family from the plague of the first-born.
Why does G-d need a sign to implement the tenth plague? Indeed, the Torah tells us (12: 2425) that we need to safeguard this ritual for our children, and our children’s children, forever!
Incredibly, this condition is somehow so crucial to the story of the Exodus from Egypt, that the festival we celebrate to commemorate these momentous events, Passover, takes its name from this part of the story. Why does this represent the essence of the Exodus?
Thirty-two hundred years ago, in what was then the darkest place on earth, the Jewish people were given the opportunity to take a stand.
One of the gods of ancient Egypt was the lamb. So Hashem asked the Jewish people to take this lamb and tie it up outside their homes on the tenth day of Nissan, and leave it there for four days. Then, they had to slaughter this lamb, and paint their doors with the blood. No Jew could hide behind closed doors. While the first-born of Egypt were dying around them, they marked their front doors with the blood of the god of their masters.
Imagine how difficult this must have been.
Mordechai Anielewicz, in the diary he kept during the Warsaw ghetto uprising, points out how incredible it was to these embattled Jews that their bullets could kill the Nazi “übermentschen.” After nearly ten years of Nazi rule, the Jews could barely imagine their masters as men of flesh and blood, just like them.
Imagine how challenging it must have been for the Jews in Egypt to kill the god of their masters who had enslaved them for 210 years. In fact, the slaughtering of the paschal lamb takes place on the eve of Passover in the middle of the afternoon, when everyone could watch — and the doors of all the Jewish homes that slaughtered the Egyptian god were marked with its blood.
You see, before Hashem would take us out of Egypt, we had to be willing to take Egypt out of ourselves. The reason we celebrate Pesach on the night of the tenth plague when we were
still in Egypt, is because it was on this night that we took a stand and set ourselves free. This tremendous act of faith was the first step in the long process of the Jewish path to freedom.
On that night every Jewish family placed a sign on their doors that declared: through this doorway the gods of Egypt will not pass. The beginning of our emergence as a free nation was the birth of the Jewish home.
It was easy for G-d to take the Jews out of Egypt. It was much harder to take Egypt out of the Jews. G-d did not spare the Jews by virtue of seeing the sign on their doors; the Jews saved themselves by declaring themselves, for the entire world to see, worthy of being redeemed.
And this is the essence of the mitzvah of mezuzah. It is not accidental that the mezuzah is placed in the doorway; it is a sign that you are entering a Jewish home. And it is a challenge: what really makes each of our homes a Jewish home?
What influences do we bring in to our homes from the world, and what message do we carry forth when we go out into that same world? Are we proud to be Jews? Are we ready to define ourselves as such for the entire world to see?
Three millennium ago, a people, written off as one more culture that was about to disappear, began an incredible journey. Against all the odds, defying every rule of history, and confounding historians and scientists alike, the Jewish people began their odyssey to make a difference.
Thirty-two hundred years later, the beginning of that journey, the Jewish home, is still the secret both to why we are still here, as well as to what we have to offer the world.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Billet…
Continued from page 17
You don’t want its inhabitants, particularly those capable of the greatest intellectual and spiritual heights, to forget about You? You don’t want them to take You and Your world for granted? This isn’t ego, this is normal, this is healthy pride. If I’m a CEO or business owner, I’d like my employees to at least know who I am and that their positions are guided by my rules.
It is true that Pharaoh seemed to recognize this in the plague of hail, but six verses after asking Moshe to pray for the hail to go away, we see that once the hail is gone, “And he continued to sin.” (9:34)
Rashbam and Chizkuni note this timeline, suggesting that the explanation for the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is Divine influence, based on the opening verse of our parsha in which G-d said to Moses, “Come to Pharaoh. I have made him and his advisors stubborn, so that I will be able to demonstrate these miraculous signs among them.”
Prior to this, we’ve seen G-d strengthen Pharaoh’s heart after the plague of boils, but not specifically after the devastating plague of hail. So what gives? Why does G-d take credit for Pharaoh’s heardened heart in the foreshadowing of the plague of locusts, and not in the immediate aftermath of the plague of hails, where such credit would be due?
Ithink the answer is that the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is not an unfair tactic utilized by G-d to delay Pharaoh’s chances of salvation for himself and his people. Pharaoh prepared to let the slaves leave multiple times, and each time he backpedaled. And, after the hail, not only did he backpedal, but he sinned and doubled-down in his obstinance. What does it take, after you’ve said that G-d is righteous, to recognize the folly of your position?
For Pharaoh, it is a huge ego. He can’t admit he’s wrong for more than a minute. Even when the evidence is staring him in the face.
There is a lot of talk these days about what is right and wrong, who has an ego, who is a narcissist, what is best for this country, for other countries, for the world. Those of us who practice a little humility know we don’t have the answers, even if we think we know what’s correct. The world is complicated. Nothing is black and white. Except, in the end, that this world is G-d’s
world, and we must answer for the way in which we behaved and interacted with others. We can yell and scream all we want about how we understand injustice and what it means. But if we are yelling and screaming and never respectfully listening to another point of view, we are not demonstrating the kind of qualities that are godlike — truth, kindness, peace.
If, in the end, the purpose of the plagues was for Pharaoh to learn about G-d, we too must never remove G-d from how we relate to others. All people are created in the image of G-d. What they do in the name of that image determines how we treat them, whether refugees and immigrants from across the globe or a neighbor with whom we have political differences.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Weinreb…
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ture Jewish generations, which we know today as the Passover Seder.
The details of the commandment to prepare the paschal lamb are many, but one telling phrase describes the first step of the process with the words “mishchu ukechu lachem tzon lemishpechoseichem, pull out/extract and take for yourselves sheep for your families.” (Exodus 12:21)
The Mechilta, a midrash halacha, understands the word mishchu as “extract yourselves, detach yourselves” from all the cultural surroundings in which you have been imprisoned. Thus, “Rabbi Yosi of the Galilee translates: Detach yourselves from idolatry and attach yourselves to the L-rd’s commandments.” Were the Hebrew slaves indeed idol worshippers? Nowhere in the biblical selections we have been reading is there any evidence that this was true. But here is the passage in the Book of Ezekiel that supports this errant behavior on the part of the helpless slaves:
On that day, I (the L-rd) stretched out My hand to them to deliver them from Egypt to the land that I have surveyed for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, most precious of all lands. I said to them: Let each of you cast aside the abominations that you witness and do not defile yourselves by the idols of Egypt. I am the L-rd your G-d! But you resisted me and failed to heed me. You cast aside neither your visual abominations nor your Egyptian idols, so that I considered pouring out My wrath upon them, and expending My rage upon them, but to preserve my Name that it not be profaned in the eyes of the nations among whom they dwelled, that I revealed Myself to them, delivered them from the land of Egypt and led them to the wilderness.”
(Ezekiel 20:6-10)
Expanding upon this verse, Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenberg, Rav of Nikolsberg in the nineteenth century and author of HaKtav V’HaKabbalah, develops the approach which blames idol worship and participation in the decadent culture of ancient Egypt for the duration and extent of enslavement.
The author of HaKtav V’Hakabbalah continues by introducing the concept of teshuvah, abandonment of the sinful and returning to the ways of the Almighty.
The phrase mishchu ukechu is now the epitome of the processes of repentance and atonement: “Detach and attach!” Depart from your past, abandon your previous lifestyles, and connect through the Korban Pesach, the Passover ritual so steeped in symbolism; attach yourselves to your Father in Heaven and to all other who attach themselves to Him.
Rabbi Mecklenberg emphasizes the risks that detachment posed for the desperate slaves. Collecting and gathering sheep and goats for the korban meant open defiance of the surrounding culture of idol worship which considered these types of animals its deity.
Detachment from the culture at large is typically condemned as betrayal and treachery by the proponents of that culture. The risks of teshuvah are often overwhelming, and the need for courage is supreme.
Thus, besides the lessons of detachment and attachment, intrinsic to the festival of Pesach and all its accompanying practices and festivities
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is the need for strength. True bravery is paramount. “No gain without pain” becomes an apt motto for Pesach for all of us, and a challenge to our natural reluctance to detach from previous habits. Equally challenging is attachment to either a previous set of practices that we have wrongfully abandoned and to which we must return with renewed dedication, or to a set of new practices that we must strive to learn and integrate into our religious repertoire.
The central role of heroism in the teshuvah process often is not recognized. To correct that major oversight we must learn to admire those in our community who have heroically detached themselves from parts of their past and attached themselves to Torah and mitzvot
Moreover, each of us, no matter our religious backgrounds, must muster the heroic capabilities that lie deep within us, but which we all possess, as we attempt to free ourselves from the ways of Mitzrayim and attach ourselves to the ways of Yerushalayim.
Pesach is approaching sooner than you think! Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com Continued
Tobin…
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And that’s the way it remained for 75 years with the original refugees now largely replaced by their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who, contrary to legal precedent, are also accorded the status of refugees rather than merely as their descendants. The largest number are in Gaza, where they have sat waiting impatiently for Israel to be destroyed so they could turn back the clock to 1948 or even 1917, when the British Empire first offered its support for the creation of a Jewish National Home with the Balfour Declaration.
Were the problem of the Palestinian refugees merely one of compensation or the creation of a separate Palestinian state alongside Israel, the conflict would have ended long ago. Israel and the United States offered the Palestinians independence and statehood in the year 2000 — and repeated it with advantages twice more during the next decade. Even Trump offered the Palestinians a state with his 2020 “Peace to Prosperity” Mideast plan though with less generous terms than Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush or Barack Obama were willing to give them.
What Palestinians want
Each time, their supposedly more moderate leaders — Yasser Arafat and then Mahmoud Abbas — said “no” to such offers. That was in part because the descendants of the original refugees weren’t willing to settle for anything less than a “right of return” and Israel’s destruction. That refusal is integral to the Hamas Charter that demands both Israel’s extinction and the genocide of its Jewish population.
Many of them are still waiting to go “home” to a place their ancestors fled 75 years ago and which is now a different country, largely inhabited by the descendants of Jewish refugees who were themselves forced to abandon their homes in countries dominated by Arabs and Muslims.
Can Trump’s idea be implemented? Under the current circumstances, it’s highly doubtful.
Both Egypt and Jordan are technically at peace with Israel, but they are unlikely to go against the age-old Arab consensus about the imperative of Palestinian refugees being allowed to swamp Israel. Jordan’s population is already mostly Palestinian, and King Abdullah is in constant fear of them conspiring to overthrow him, much as they tried to do to his grandfather Hussein in the 1970s.
Egypt has maintained a blockade of Gaza not so much to halt the flow of supplies to the Strip; Hamas got much of its armaments via smuggling from Iran across that border. But it, too, is deathly afraid of allowing thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Palestinian supporters of Hamas into their country since the government believes that they would join forces with their Muslim Brotherhood allies who seek the overthrow of Egyptian President Abdel el-Fattah Sisi. Palestinian leaders from Fatah, which auton-
omously rules West Bank areas where Jews don’t live, and Hamas and other even more extreme groups will also never go along with this idea since it contradicts their doctrine that mandates the suffering of their people so the war against Israel can continue.
But Trump is right.
The only reason why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues is because the Palestinians don’t want any solution that will force them to live in peace alongside Israelis, let alone recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state — something that will be required if true peace is ever to be recognized.
Trump succeeded in brokering the Abraham Accords in 2020 with four Arab and Muslimmajority countries by essentially leaving the Palestinians out of it, which left them unable to continue to hold the rest of the region hostage to their enduring intransigence.
That’s why, despite the refusal of other Arab countries to get involved, Trump should persist in his position.
Offers a way out
The only hope for those stuck in Gaza is to break free of the cycle of violence to which Hamas and other Palestinian groups are committed as a matter of inviolable principle. Staying there means not only a difficult struggle for survival in a devastated, war-torn area. It also means continuing an existence in which their leaders believe that their only purpose is to suffer and die so that the war on Israel’s existence can go on and thereby gain sympathy from ignorant, easily manipulated or antisemitic onlookers elsewhere.
The foreign-policy establishment believes that the only alternative is granting the Palestinians statehood. In a world where Palestinians were not committed to Israel’s destruction, that might make sense. But we don’t live in such a world, and that’s why the overwhelming majority of Israelis, including many formerly on the left and sensible people elsewhere, oppose it.
Under these circumstances, that would mean not just rewarding Hamas and its supporters for starting a brutal war with unspeakable atrocities on Oct. 7. It also guarantees that Hamas and its allies would take over Judea and Samaria from Fatah, and thereby be enabled to make good their pledge of carrying out more Oct. 7-type atrocities from that far larger and more strategic territory.
There may be no way to break the impasse with the Palestinians, and Trump should be encouraged to return to his Abraham Accords formula and cut them out of the equation.
The Palestinians are, as some wags noted during his first term, akin to the owners of a rapidly depreciating property that are unwilling to budge from a high sale price that is no longer realistic. That is something that canny real estate owners like Trump can smell a mile away. Which is to say that there is no way that the intransigent Palestinians will ever get a state—or at least, not until at some point in the far-off future when they find a way to move away from a national identity inextricably linked to the war to destroy Israel.
In the meantime, the truly humanitarian thing to do would be to start the process of resettling Gaza civilians who want a better life elsewhere, an option they have always been denied until now. That’s what the president has embraced, and he’s right to do so. Perhaps only an outlier like Trump, who never listens to what the “experts” say is possible, would even consider such a plan.
Those who consider themselves to be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause or desirous of peace in the Middle East ought to support that stand.
To reach Jonathan S. Tobin, write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Cohen…
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The best, and therefore the worst, current example of what I’m talking about is an individual I’d never heard of before the Hamas atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. His name is Alon Mizrahi, and from what I can tell from his social-media presence, he is a former Is-
raeli who quite literally sees his homeland as the root of all the evil in the world.
In a sane environment, someone like this would have only a handful of followers, but Mizrahi has close to 100,000. His imbecilic posts are lauded by Hamas supporters and attract the ire of Jews. Even the identity he adopts — an “Arab Jew” because his family are Mizrahim — is scorned by other Jews of Mizrahi and Sephardi origin, me among them.
What distinguishes Mizrahi is the unvarnished pathology he displays. Whereas Meir Wilner was guilty of holding the ludicrous belief that the promise of the Soviet Union could sway the Jews away from Zionism, Mizrahi is guilty of spitting uncontrolled bile in their direction.
In one post, he said the claim that the Nazis were driven by antisemitism is rooted in Jewish “narcissism.” In another post after last week’s release of three female Israeli hostages, he viciously mocked concerns about sexual abuse in captivity, in turn, sparked by the ordeals of the Israeli women raped and violated on Oct. 7. “Deep sense of disappointment in Israel: None of the returning hostages is pregnant,” he wrote.
The question persists: How useful is this latest iteration of “useful idiocy”?
Not that useful.
Unlike the PLO, Hamas doesn’t care whether it has Jewish cheerleaders since its goal is to eradicate Jews from the face of the earth. The millions across the globe who have attended pro-Hamas demonstrations similarly don’t care whether they are joined by dissenting Jews because theirs is the Palestinian cause, and Jews are simply in the way.
There’s no need, anymore, for people on the left to protest that some of their best friends are Jews because in these circles, Jews are not a historically persecuted minority but the most affluent white community out there. Therefore, the function of someone like Alon Mizrahi is to entertain Hamas supporters when he trolls Jews and Jewish concerns, but nothing more than that. He may think of himself in heroic terms, but he is actually one of the clowns in the circus of the left.
If history is any guide, there will be other Jews and Israelis tempted to follow in the footsteps of Mizrahi and his forebears. At one time, I might have said that solid, informed political argument was the best way to win them over. But now, I would advise those friends and family members who love them to get them in front of a therapist.
Because what today’s Jewish anti-Zionism shows us is it is no longer political. It is a mental disorder that traffics in antisemitic hate to win the respect and admiration of non-Jews. Don’t be that guy.
Ben Cohen, a senior analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
Phillips…
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but the remainder left dangling in the wind, that would be just peachy.
The terms of this deal were set by Qatar. If the Trump administration really wants to defang the Middle East as a threat to the West, then it should start by following the advice given by Yigal Carmon of MEMRI: The United States should move the CENTCOM base out of Qatar and start treating the Gulf state as an international pariah.
Yet Witkoff’s admiration for Qatar appears to know no bounds. At its 2024 Economic Forum, he called the Gulf state “very, really impressive,” adding, “whoever they had who master-planned here did a really good job … this is solid government. The hotels here are magnificent.”
Witkoff and Trump, who are old chums, are tough-minded real-estate developers. Both frame every problem as a deal in which they’ll come out on top by bludgeoning the other side.
But this has its limits. Although Trump says Hamas must never rule Gaza again, he has declared himself against all foreign entanglements. He is the president who will end all wars, the peacemaker under whose alchemical “art of the deal” lions will lie down with lambs.
There is, however, another way to describe negotiated deals made with non-negotiable agendas. That word is surrender.
Israel’s genocidal enemies must be totally defeated so that they can never again attempt the extinction of Israel and the slaughter of Jews. That means there may be no alternative to war if Israel is to survive.
But Trump has made crystal clear that he won’t countenance America being dragged into any war. And this “America First” isolationism has led to some worrying appointments. He’s appointed Michael DiMino as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East. DiMino is a former fellow at the isolationist think-tank Defense Priorities, which is funded by conservative donors Charles and David Koch. DeMino has called for a significantly reduced American presence in the Middle East, spoken out against using military force against the Houthis in Yemen and even questioned American defensive support for Israel. He also argued against the Abraham Accords because it “left out the issue of Israel-Palestine.”
As Jewish Insider has reported, one of the key people hiring isolationist staffers to fill Pentagon roles is Dan Caldwell, a Koch-affiliated policy adviser who has often criticized America’s close relationship with Israel.
There can be no doubt that Trump and Witkoff genuinely wish Israel well. However, there’s a potentially lethal flaw in their view of the world.
On Fox, Witkoff was asked about the comment by Hamas official Abu Marzouk, who told the New York Times: “We’re prepared for a dialogue with America and achieving understandings on everything.” Witkoff replied: “I think it’s good if it’s accurate. We were able to demonstrate that President Trump’s policies, peace through strength, they work; everybody listens.”
Saying the release of the three hostages was the essential “hopeful moment,” he said that “we needed to show people we could stop the violence, and we could have conversation, dialogue. So this is the beginning of that, and hopefully, everything over there can be settled in that way. If it’s possible, everyone will become a believer.” This is laughably naive and ill-informed. It ends up in the same place as liberals like the Bidenites, for whom everything can be negotiated because they assume that everyone is governed by reason.
The Witkoff view is that everything can be negotiated because when Trump brings his fist crashing down everyone jumps. It’s true that everyone jumps. But the Islamists play the longest game in town. Behind a series of feints, they will regroup, recalibrate and adapt to suddenly emerge stronger than ever, precisely because they have not been defeated.
Which is why Witkoff’s further reported comment, that he wants to solve tensions with Iran over nuclear weapons “diplomatically … if people are willing to adhere to their agreements,” is even more troubling as are the rumors that Trump has already reached out to “negotiate” with Iran.
In the Islamists’ world, no agreement is anything other than a stratagem to defeat their enemy — with deceit Divinely mandated as a means to advance the Islamic cause.
The Witkoff view of the world doesn’t appear to factor in that Islamists aren’t motivated by selfinterest. The prospect of peace and prosperity for the region means little to people who believe that they are the warriors of God himself in purging the world of Israel, the Jews and the Christians, and conquering it for Islam.
For people who set their clock in the seventh century, waiting out four years of Trump is just another small delay that they will try to leverage to their advantage. This advantage may not become apparent until Trump has left office. But Israel can’t live with the threat of more Oct. 7-style massacres after 2028.
Of course, it’s possible that Trump does indeed realize all this. After all, most of his major appointments are of people whose commitment to Israel is deeper and more uncompromising than among many Diaspora Jews. It’s possible that he will come through strongly for Israel and help it see off its foes.
But it’s also possible that the art of the deal turns into the rout of the real.
Melanie Phillips is a British journalist and author. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
