People were wondering who was the spy in Hezbollah helping Israel. It was somewhat of a joke, maybe also a little bit serious. Israel's level of secured intelligence turned out to be off the charts great and accurate.

Well, at this point, one might say Ayatollah Khameini is either next in line to be eliminated or he is possibly the Israeli agent revealing the whereabouts of all the terrorist leaders so they can be eliminated. That would be great if it turned out Khameini is the Israel plant who has been foiling the nuclear plans all along and helping Israel take out the terrorists

Today's PotD is one from the archives...

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Hamas terrorist Ismail Haniyeh has reportedly been killed in Iran tonight. Thoughts and prayers to Harvard University and all its mourning students pic.twitter.com/HyKXdWL29d

— Shabbos Kestenbaum (@ShabbosK) July 31, 2024

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Maybe more later

Surely Oslo (perpetrated by Labor with the support of Shas) and the Disengagement (perpetrated by the Likud under Sharon with the support of Netanyahu) can be seen as the sources of many of the problems we are dealing with today. I find it amusing as they try to rewrite history and blame everything on the Left when the Right bears as much responsibility as the Left for those events (and so many people seem to buy it). And let's not forget the Wye agreements in which Netanyahu gave control over most of Hebron to Arafat.

However, the world did not stop at Oslo or at the Disengagement. Nor did time.

At the time of those agreements/events, the leaders (Rabin, Sharon, Netanyahu and others) all said, they all justified it by saying, that if the Palestinians attack or shoot rockets or commit acts of terror against Israelis, Israel would respond harshly. Israel would break their bones. Israel would destroy Gaza over even a single rocket. etc. Many more statements like that.

I would say that as much as the problems are sourced in Oslo and in the Disengagement, they are also sourced in the 20 years since the Disengagement and in the 30 years since Oslo in which Israel, led by several different Prime Ministers, did not actually hit the Palestinians harshly as had been promised when they engaged in terror. Instead Israel allowed Hamas to formulate and grow and become a formidable terror organization. Israel let the terrorists become emboldened in their fight against Israel. 

While it is easy to blame Oslo and the Disengagement, and it makes for nice soundbites, the real problem is that Israeli leadership since those two events did not do what they were supposed and what had been promised. 

Obviously there are laws and everyone has to follow them. I am not privy to the evidence for or against whatever is claimed they did so I am not going to comment on their innocence or guilt. 

However.

However.

October 7, 2023 was an outrageous day, a chaotic day, a day of fear and adrenaline. A day the government and the IDF took 8-10 hours before responding. A day that private citizens from all around the country grabbed a personal weapon, if anything, and drove down south to fight the terrorists and save lives while the government and IDF did nothing. Private citizens, amidst overwhelming chaos and fear, with no organization, with perhaps not enough knowledge of laws and/or ability to evaluate the situation.

I don't know what they did or did not do. If it is clear and obvious that they were just murdering terrorists already in captivity, that is one thing and that situation has to be stopped. if it was not so clear and there is room to think the terrorists might still have been a threat in some way, the authorities should approach this differently. These were unusual and exceptional circumstances. The authorities should be saying thank you to all those people who went in and filled the void and prevented the situation from being even worse than it was. If there is any room for leniency, any way to see that the situation at the time was unclear and uncertain, they should be treated with the utmost leniency

Desperate times calls for desperate measures. Exceptional times calls for exceptional measures. Unusual times calls for unusual measures.

They should be held as prisoners and only release din a hostage exchange deal, if at all. Why are we releasing terrorist prisoners, for free, while our hostages are sitting in Gaza? Are they also offering goodwill gestures and releasing Israelis for free?

Yet all the people at the top, responsible for this decision, know nothing about it, only heard from the news, and pass the blame each to another office. Take some responsibility!

And having no control and really not knowing about it is no excuse. that might be even worse.

The best defense of the law, in my opinion, that Israel can offer is simply pointing to yesterday's rescue mission in which Israel rescued Noa Argamani from captivity in Gaza. Argamani was being held by a "civilian" captor who worked as a photojournalist for Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera employees working for Hamas and holding Israeli hostages? if that isnt enough proof that Al Jazeera supports terror and works against Israel, and needs to be shut down, what else possibly would be?

Bank Leumi was the first to respond, freezing the account of Yinon Levi, one of the four. Today Bank Hadoar, the Postal Bank, froze the account of Dovid Chai Chasdai, another one of the four

Yesterday Finance Minister Betzalel Smotritch called on the banks to not follow these orders and to not freeze the accounts, even saying he will not allow them to follow the orders. Smoritch said no Israeli will be affected by these US orders to freeze accounts.

I am not quite sure how this works. Does Minister Smotritch have the authority to prevent the banks from following such orders? If the banks listen to Smotritch and ignore the orders, practically speaking, will they be able to continue operating as normal or will the US government be able to escalate and freeze all international wires to Israeli banks or take some other action against these institutions? Is like the FATCA rules from several years back - the banks have to play along, no choice, even though it makes things difficult for their customers with US citizenship?

And for those calling for a boycott of Bank Leumi because they followed orders and froze the account, what will happen when other banks do the same to the accounts of the other people in the list - will we be called on to boycott all the main banks? And what do they want people to do - transfer their accounts and loans and mortgages out of Leumi to some other bank, another bank that may do the same a few days later? Do they realize how difficult it is to transfer an account and move all the necessary connections (standing orders of what comes in or goes out) over to a new account? Outstanding checks that will bounce because the account no longer exists, credit card payments on an account that no longer exists, payments to the electric company, gas, school, for the washing machine that someone recently purchased in payments, etc?

I dont know if these four people did what they are accused of and if this order is justified or not. Freezing an account does not seem to require a court case - even within Israel they can put a lien on your account and lock it down because of money owed or due to criminal activity or for other reasons without putting the account holder on trial first. So I dont know if these orders are justified or not or if they can be appealed and challenged, but I dont see how the banks can just ignore the orders.

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Enquiring minds want to know... why was this plane not blown out of the air or shot down? And if they flew commercial, why was their airplane food not poisoned? 

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According to Israel Hayom, they are suing for the negligence and failures of the security services in mismanaging the event considering the security risks.

It seems this is the largest lawsuit ever filed against the State for security failures.

They are claiming that all the State had to do, all the security services had to do was make a phone call to the organizers of the event on October 6 at night saying due to information just received the party must be dispersed.

The permit for the event was requested three months prior. Before issuing the permit the security forces considered concerns about holding this party so close to the Gaza border, but eventually they issued the permit. There was also a specific concern for allowing it on that date specifically because of the holiday - with many soldiers being given leave to go home for the holiday it might be difficult to secure the event properly. Despite the concerns, they issued the permit.

They claim that during the night of October 6 unusual activity was detected and the security forces knew something unusual was going to go down, but they did not update the organizers of the Nova music festival and did not order the dispersal of the party.

This is going to be interesting to watch. The State failed them, as it failed residents of the entire region of the communities and towns near the Gaza border. Before an investigative committee convenes, investigates, and publicizes its finding, how are the people behind this lawsuit going to prove what the army (and other security forces) did or did not know that night about what would happen the next morning? I tremble at the thought that they actually did know what was coming (rather than having general security warnings they probably see every week) and did nothing about it.

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Breakfast: tea, vegedtables, sliced bread, jelly/chocolate spread and white soft cheese (gvina levana), cottage

lunch: Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Shabbos: a meat main dish, side of rice/potato/couscous, vegetables

Monday, Thursday, Friday: cooked veggie/legumes dish, rice

bread

Dinner: vegetables, sliced bread, rice/falafel, tehina/hummus/beans/tuna

sometimes eggs

This does not sound too extravagant or luxurious but the publication of this menu made people very angry. Hamas is holding our people hostage for some 90 days by now and all they get is half a piece of pita a day with some dirty water. The Thai hostage that was released testified he ate tissues to ward of the feelings of hunger. They are starving our people and we give their people 3 good full meals a day? Cut it down! 2 meals a day! 1 meal a day! just a piece of pita! no meat at all! etc

I dont disagree with the sentiment at all. The only difference being that they are a terrorist group and abide by no international agreements and conventions and commit war crimes and crimes against humanity with impunity, while Israel is a democracy and an "enlightened" country, whatever that means, and we cannot behave like a terrorist group but must adhere to the rules we have agreed to play by (which itself may be why Israel and the other Western countries have such a difficult time dealing with these terror groups - they resort to doing whatever they think will inflict the most harm while we treat them with kids gloves). I definitely wish we could treat them the way they treat us.

Itamar Ben Gvir, Minister of National Security, tweeted a statement when this was publicized saying that whoever ignores my explicit instructions to stop serving types of meat meals to the murderous Nochba terrorists and gives them full rich meat meals like what has been presented, while our hostages are in Gaza eating half a pita daily - is not worthy of continuing even one more day in the job. We must have reforms in the prison services.

I dont think this is the major issue with this tweet but if Ben Gvir is going to call for not feeding prisoners properly he is going to bring ruin on Israel. Ben Gvir is a minister in the government of Israel. A senior minister. The minister responsible for this realm. Ben Gvir is not a private citizen with no influence who can talk until he is blue in the face and burn out all his frustrations and anger by saying how we should starve the Hamas prisoners like they are starving Israeli hostages. Ben Gvir is a minister and for him to call for breaking international conventions and agreements is very bad for Israel.

As I mentioned, I dont think that is the biggest issue with the tweet. The bigger issue is how Ben Gvir seems surprised by the information. He does not seem to know what is happening with these terrorists and is only finding out from the newspaper article. He thought he told them to feed them gruel and finds out this morning they are actually getting falafel and kebab! I dont know if he has a way to enforce the various policies he announces every now and then, considering they sometimes violate international agreements, but if he does, maybe instead of just signing a paper he should also go check and see what is actually happening under his authority. That's why he needs to fire (not extend) the head of the prison services? Maybe. But maybe he can also do things without firing people. At least know what is happening. He seemed blindsided by this.

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