October 7th - Black Sabbath

On this solemn anniversary of October 7th 2023 - a truly Black Sabbath - our hearts go out to the bereaved families and friends of victims of the Hamas pogrom and those who may yet have survived the cruel imprisonment of 365 days in the squalor of Gaza’s terror tunnels.

At the same time, we are full of pride and admiration for the men and women of the IDF and the ingenuity of the intelligence echelon in the stunning results they have achieved against the enemy in Gaza and now Lebanon. The entire Jewish nation and its future generations will be forever indebted to the heroes who fell in battle and perhaps worse-still those who have been permanently disabled by battle injuries.

After an exile of almost 2,000 years, our generation was blessed to see the rebirth of the Jewish state in its biblical homeland and the recapture of our eternal capital, Jerusalem. Ongoing miracles and divine providence have become an almost daily occurrence to those with open eyes. Just consider how an Iranian president’s helicopter falls out of the sky. How two sets of unprecedented ballistic missile barrages, never seen before in any theatre of war, failed to cause one single Jewish death. The precision of the IAF’s surgical strikes on terror leaders. The sheer gall of blowing up Haniyeh in the centre of Tehran. And, to cap it all, the exploding pagers … truly a work of pure genius, even if Israel still doesn’t take the credit.

And perhaps the most remarkable sight of all is Bibi Netanyahu. At 74 years of age, how is this man still standing with the weight of Israel’s destiny on his shoulders and all the stress he has been under? Pilloried by jealous rivals like Ehud Barak, or people he has upset or passed over like Liberman, Yaalon and Pinkas, constantly under threat of losing his wafer-thin Knesset majority and – on the nights he might actually get some sleep free of terror worries, he gets woken up by the demonstrators shouting “Democracy” outside his bedroom window when all they really want is to overturn his own democratic election.

Just as Churchill stood in WW2 as a lone bull in a flock of appeasing sheep, Netanyahu is undoubtedly our people’s Churchill at this momentous and pivotal moment in world history.

We pray that G-d gives him strength to resist the appeasers of today, those calling for a ceasefire to save Hamas & Hezbollah from total annihilation and those restraining him from destroying Iran’s nuclear program.

And on that subject, let us not forget that – after all the world’s condemnation of Israel’s bombing of Saddam’s nuclear facilities in 1981 – Vice President Dick Cheney later thanked Israel’s air force commander for the "outstanding job he did on the Iraqi nuclear program" thereby saving the US from facing a nuclear-armed Saddam in operation Desert Storm 10 years later.

If, as is hoped, Israel now destroys Iran’s nuclear facilities, the same chorus of disapproval will in time give way to ultimate appreciation by the free world (if ever the TikTok morons of Gen-Z finally grow up) that this was yet another of the innumerable gifts of the Jews to civilisation.

Am Yisrael Chai. Together we shall be victorious.

Putin's Off Ramp in Ukraine

 

The closest this world ever came to nuclear war was in October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

America demanded the removal of Soviet nuclear missiles located in Cuba, 90 miles from the US coast. It imposed a blockade of the Florida straits and the world held its collective breath as Soviet warships confronted the US navy. One false move – nuclear holocaust.

Demonstrating true statesmanship, President John F Kennedy gave Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev an ‘off ramp’ to end the crisis without losing face. This brought back the world from the brink of a nuclear exchange in which all humanity’s achievements would have been destroyed in the space of a day, and a nuclear winter would still not by now have ended.

President Biden (if he is really cognisant of what is going on) is failing to learn from his Democrat presidential forbear. He is decidedly NOT providing Putin with any kind of ‘off ramp’ and seems determined to grind him and his Russia into the dust. That is clearly not going to happen with a cornered animal with nuclear power.

When Trump says he would end the war in a day, he clearly means to assure Putin retention of Crimea (which was so ignominiously surrendered by Obama) and to tell Zelensky that he either accepts that reality or the stoppage of all American aid. It’s that simple. War over.

The Soviet Union fell under pressure from its people. Russia will ultimately crumble under the pressure of its own people seeking freedom and Alexei Navalny’s day will come. It does not need Biden or NATO’s help right now.

It is said that Republican presidents bolster the US military but the Democrats take it to war. Never more true than today.

Everyone knows that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine with Trump in the Oval Office. Putin watched the ignominious surrender of Baghram to the Taliban and saw his chance. Just like China now salivates over Taiwan. And why Saudi Arabia cosies up to Iran and its new ally China.

As Bin Laden famously said: Arabs will always side with the strong horse. And, sadly, Biden is a dead horse.

What kind of Independence is this?

Days after Israel celebrated its 75th independence day, a demonstration of Israel's non-independence played out behind the closed doors of Israel's supreme court.

It concerned a tiny Bedouin settlement of ramshackle dwellings illegally-built on the outskirts of Jerusalem within Area C; a designation of full Israeli control under the Oslo Accords.

In a bizarre scenario, Israel’s supreme court ruled these to be illegal dwellings and ordered them to be demolished. 15 years after that ruling, the eyesore, called Khan Al-Ahmar remains standing.

The court wants it demolished. The government wants it demolished. And I daresay even its 35 families would like to take up the Israeli government’s offer to relocate them to brand new housing units a stone’s throw away, which are connected to mains water, sewerage and electricity – all free of charge.

What is standing in the way of this ideal solution? It is foreign-funded NGOs like B’tselem who have turned Khan Al Ahmar into an international cause célèbre which has left successive Israeli governments fearful of implementing the supreme court’s ruling.

You only have to look at this UK Government page on Khan Al Amar to see the furore that has been stirred up, as if this is a major priority for the UK or Finland or any other foreign government. Of course it’s not. If any of the foreign service mandarins of protesting countries cared a fig for Palestinian Arabs, they would want them to be properly housed like human beings. Instead, their visceral hatred of the Jewish state and nausea over its very existence means that the families of Khan Al Ahmar are to be treated as pawns just as they are treated by the corrupt Palestinian leadership which soaks up foreign aid for its own enrichment (Google: Hamas Billionaires).

I have said this many times before. Israel may celebrate its independence each year with parades, fireworks and all manner of pomp. But it will not be truly independent until it acts like a sovereign state. If the Netanyahu government does not finally lance this abscess, the infection will spread to other parts of Area C and we may then be forced to amputate parts of it. Which is exactly what the PLO and its foreign funded NGOs seek as their goal: the dismemberment of the Jewish state.

The silent majority finds its voice

This video was a rallying call for tonight's 300,000-strong demonstration in support of judicial reform, in support of democracy and a more representative supreme court.

The video reprises the 1977 election of Menachem Begin's right-wing party, which is now Likud. Ending 30 years of left wing and mainly secular hegemony since the founding of the state, they called it the 'earthquake'.

This was followed by a virulent campaign of personal attacks and demonization of Begin on a scale that is directly comparable to the current demonization of Prime Minister Netanyahu by the Left and its praetorian guards in the media and academia.

Just as Begin was famous for his social justice in lifting millions of Sephardi Jews out of poverty and for making peace with Egypt, Netanyahu has turned Israel's economy into one of the strongest on the planet and championed the Abraham Accords. He steered Israel through 8 years of a toxic Obama administration without surrendering an inch of our biblical homeland.

The street mobs in Tel Aviv - fanned and lavishly financed by foreign entities that are determined to see Israel destroyed from within - do not speak for the majority of Israelis.

PLease G-d let there be an amicable compromise on judicial reform so that Israel can focus on her enemies who are right now salivating on all borders.

Am Yisrael Chai !

Israel at 75

 My interview on Revelation TV's feature on Israel's 75th Independence Day. 

A Developing Story

The sisters of Maia and Rina Dee wail over their siblings, murdered by Palestinian terrorists on Friday.

Reading the funeral updates on the Jerusalem Post website just now, the report ended with the words: "This is a developing story".

Indeed it is!

And not just for the capture of these girls' killers.

Israel itself is a developing story.

A story of rebirth, survival and endurance against the most impossible odds. A stunning success story in so many fields.

The Jewish people may be moved by such tragedies, but they will NEVER be moved from their biblical homeland.

Am Yisrael Chai - Lanetzach!

To the people of Al Aqsa ...

 To the people of Al Aqsa:

Two sisters were murdered today in a hail of terrorist bullets sprayed on their car in the Jordan Valley. Their mother lies critically wounded in a hospital staffed by Arabs and Jews working in harmony. The family used to live in London as part of our Hendon Jewish community.

On such an awful day, the second day of our Passover and your 16^th day of Ramadan, I send you this message. We Jews have no interest in Al Aqsa, either to conquer or occupy it. That should have been clear after the Six Day War when we handed you the keys to your holy sites. No other victor – no Turk or Crusader - would have done such a thing. All we wanted was access to a wall, the last remnant of our holy temple.

Know that every scare story raised about Al Aqsa has been generated by your utterly corrupt leaders for the sole purpose of satisfying their Iranian paymasters that a permanent state of war continues to be stoked in the Holy Land.

We have tragically lost young lives today, but our people will prevail and prosper whilst your people will continue to pay the high price of reprisals of the kind you saw exploding last night in Gaza and which you will undoubtedly see more of in response to the slaughter of these girls today.

We take no pleasure in the suffering of the vast majority of devout Muslims who wish only to serve their god and pray in peace during their holy month, support their families and bring up their children for purposes other than killing Jews. All of our wars have been defensive, and our repeated offers to share the land in peace have been rejected for 75 years.

Who is responsible for all this? Look to your corrupt leaders. Just Google: “Hamas Billionaires” and you will see how they live in the greatest luxury whilst turning your lives into utter misery and daily bloodshed, by remote control.

Make a decision this Ramadan! Reject these users and abusers– break loose from their rapacious grip. Elect honest people to lead you to a better life, to reclaim the billions of foreign aid that were diverted to foreign bank accounts. You might start with “Arafat’s Billions” another easy search on Google which will take you to a CBS 60 Minutes investigation. It’s the same story. All those stolen billions were supposed to give you a better life.

But you are just pawns.

It is in your own hands to change all that.

The BIG Lie

The latest and largest in the series of Saturday night demos against Netanyahu are reminiscent of the “Not My President” marches against Donald Trump in 2016. Elections have consequences, but it seems leftists both in Israel and the USA are never prepared to accept them like grownups.

In both countries those demos were driven by a media that blatantly lied to the public in the service of an all-powerful left-wing establishment. This has been exposed most recently in America with the exposure of the Twitter files and the release of video coverage of the entry of demonstrators into the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The BIG lie being peddled in Israel is that Netanyahu is out to change the legal system in order to escape conviction in the trial he faces for accepting free cigars and conspiring to get better treatment in the left-wing media. If that had any shred of credibility you might ask: why on earth would Bibi want to upset the very judicial elites who will decide whether or not he goes to jail?

The truth is that the proposed judicial reforms, far from being retrospective and of any use to Bibi in his own indictments, have nothing to do with civil or criminal cases. They have to do with the self-appointing judiciary overruling the democratically elected parliament, the Knesset.

In no other democracy do courts have such veto power. As everyone knows, judges are there to interpret laws, not to make or change them. As things stand in Israel, and has been demonstrated very recently, all the supreme court has to do is deem a law or a ministerial appointment ‘unreasonable’ for it to scuttle the will of the people and its elected government.

Far from a threat to democracy, Netanyahu’s proposed reforms are solely directed to preserving ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’ as opposed to autocratic rule by an unelected court president acting as if he sits in an upper house of parliament.

Which brings me back to those Saturday night demos, stirred up by the media peddling the BIG lie.

Have you thought how much police manpower is needed to secure any one of those mega demos? How much background investigation is involved by the Shin Bet and other branches of the security apparatus? You are talking about many thousands of officers and working hours which are normally devoted to detective work in the prevention of the kind of terror attacks which have plagued Israel since these Saturday night circuses began.

Surrounded by mortal enemies, as well as clearly infiltrated by them, Israel’s security resources are still limited. A week’s planning for the securing of a major demo could better be spent protecting innocents like the 14 Jews who have so far been murdered in half as many weeks.

No Longer Helpless

 

Interviewed last week for International Holocaust Rememberance Day, my Christian TV host recalled his visit to Yad Vashem and the sight of the cattle wagon exhibit and an unfinished scrawled message he had seen on the woodwork.

This reminded me of my own visit to Yad Vashem many years ago, where I stood for a long time before this particular exhibit. It had special meaning for me as the son of an Auschwitz survivor who, at 19, was carted to Auschwitz with his mother and father in such an overcrowded and fetid wagon.

Standing there I tried to recall my father's narrative of that nightmarish journey, all recorded in his book The Yellow Star. The journey ended with the barking of savage dogs on the Auschwitz camp platform, from which my grandparents were swiftly selected for death that same evening.

Totally lost in my thoughts about the sheer helplessness of our defenceless people, I took a step back as one does in museums and galleries and bumped into someone. Turning to apologise, I found myself facing a young IDF soldier with a rifle slung over his shoulder and a kippa on his head.

I don't think my apology ever came out in full, so overwhelmed was I by the irony of this moment and this encounter.

From a vision of total helplessness, I had come face to face with its exact opposite - a symbol of our national independence and the power to defend our people. 

The soldier quickly moved on, but that moment and its emotion has stayed with me to this day.

Bibi's Comeback

My appearance on Turkish TV election panel with Gideon Levy and Mitchell Barak

9-11, Bin Laden & General Tzu

 Coming up to the 21^st anniversary of 9/11 I can’t help noticing that Islamic terrorism has been off our headlines for quite a while. Even the recent killing of Al Qaeda’s chief Al-Zawahiri passed without serious response or credible threats.

Does this mean that America has defeated Al Qaeda? Has the Jihad abandoned its quest to bomb the West back into the stone age and force its survivors to swear fealty to the Prophet?  I think not.

The more logical explanation is that the cunning and very patient emirs of the Jihad are content to see America destroy itself from within and save them all the expense, trouble and effort.

They watch as America’s military power is humiliated in Afghanistan and its economic power is withering under unprecedentedly profligate government spending and runaway inflation. They watch as millions of economic migrants from more than 150 countries pour across the US/Mexico border – some already on the terror watchlist and still more acting as ‘mules’ for the gangs smuggling vast quantities of Chinese-made Fentanyl tablets which are killing American kids by the thousands.

Those American kids that survive, will be educated in classes held back by the illiterate migrant children and their grades will suffer along with the country and industries that depend on that next generation of scientists and engineers. The migrant adults will enter the black economy – or worse still drugs and prostitution - sending all their earnings back to Mexico and beyond to pay off their human smuggler debt. And in the process of chain migration, migrant grandparents will join the family unit with all their ailments and disabilities ready to be unloaded on an already overstretched Medicare system – blocking beds to US citizens who’ve actually paid taxes into the system all their working lives. A recipe for resentment, civil unrest and national decline.

All the while, America is greening itself into bankruptcy – shutting its own pipelines to the world’s richest store of energy like a man cutting off his right arm as he clings to a steep cliff. To make things worse, the feckless US president has drained the country’s strategic energy reserve in a ‘King Canute’ effort to lower gas prices at the pumps – and this while a superpower confrontation looms in Europe.

And if all that wasn’t enough, the Caliphate elders are licking their chops over the disintegration of American family life – the very foundation of any society. It was bad enough when a third of America’s kids grew up without a father. Now they are being educated to doubt their own sexuality from pre-school age and to question the basic morality of their nation’s founding. Mix that with defunding of law & order and you have the full playbook of Western Hara-Kiri.

And it’s not just jihadis who watch this play out. China is also watching patiently, even as it soaks up billions in orders for solar panels and propellers that cloudy and windless Europe expects to replace its energy production. Always playing the long game, China’s leaders will follow the teachings of its 6^th century warrior/philosopher, General Sun Tzu who wrote: 'The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting’. 

Will the woke ever wake up in time to save themselves?

Slamming the door on 5781

Whilst we can all say Shehecheyanu with thanks to G-d for seeing us safely into a new year, 5781 is one of those exceptionally bad years that our people should be relieved to see the back of.

Our daily lives have been turned upside-down by the Wuhan virus which has affected our livelihoods, separated families between streets as well as countries, denied our children the education and social interactions that go with normal school life and – perhaps even more difficult for all of us Lovers of Zion – has prevented us from freely travelling to the land we love so much. If the pandemic taught us anything, it was never to take things for granted. Not health, not school, not air travel and not even basic freedoms … even freedom of speech on social media.

Aside from all things Covid, 5781 was beset by many tragedies in our global Jewish family. First came Meron on Lag B’Omer with the death of 45 men and boys in a stampede that left hundreds of others injured. Then the collapse of the bleachers at a Hassidic gathering in Jerusalem on the eve of Shavuot killing 3 and injuring 200. A cable car accident in Italy wiped out 3 generations of an Israeli family. A light airplane crash in Ukraine killed 3 yeshiva boys and a gangland shooting in Denver ended the life of an 18-year-old yeshiva student. And then the big one, a building collapse in the predominantly Jewish section of Miami Beach claimed almost 100 lives in the worst accident of its kind in US history.

To add to the pandemic and all these tragedies came the latest missile war from Gaza and the civil unrest that presented such an ugly face in Israel’s mixed towns and neighbourhoods. That ugliness extended to us here in the diaspora with an unprecedented rise in antisemitism here in the UK and Europe but more surprisingly in the USA.  The shine has now definitely worn off what used to be called ‘the golden medina’.

In politics we lost both Trump and Netanyahu – a dream team for Israel that is unlikely to reappear for a very long time. In their place we now have Biden who is hopeless and Bennett who is feckless. Both men elected on false pretences. One hopes karma will soon catch up with them and restore strong and bold leadership to both nations.

Where Israel is concerned, you have to be blind not to see the hand of G-d in its survival against impossible odds in endless wars and its deliverance from so many mortal threats and plots. And as for us in the diaspora, what is the purpose of antisemitism if not as a counterweight to assimilation? We must have faith that even in all this adversity there is a purpose; part of the grand biblical promise of returning our people from all corners of the earth to the land G-d promised to our patriarchs

Let’s pray that the mission is fulfilled speedily in our days.

Shana Tova !