Featured Post

Free The Hostages! Bring Them Home!

(this is a featured post and will stay at the top for the foreseeable future.. scroll down for new posts) -------------------------------...

Feb 13, 2025

why Qatar, why?

An investigative reporter yesterday uncovered that someone in the Prime Minister's Office, an aide, was moonlighting. He has also held a job with Qatar through much of the war to help them improve their image in Israel.

Word of advice, maybe pro tip: one way, maybe the best way, to improve your image would be to stop being one of the main sponsors of terrorism, and more specifically stop funding, hosting, and sponsoring Hamas.

Back to our topic, so one of the aide's of PM Netanyahu was also working for Qatar.

And this is after two other aides of Netanyahu had previously (and still? not sure) worked for Qatar.

Maybe there are more that we have not yet discovered.

As damning as that is, in my mind the most amazing thing about the Qatar story is why Qatar would hire any Israeli, let alone people from the Prime Minister's Office, to help improve their image. Has anyone in Israel ever successfully shown himself/herself capable of improving Israel's image that they bring good experience to the table to get this job?

 





------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Feb 11, 2025

What does Smotritch want?

PM Netanyahu just announced a threat to Hamas. he sort of backs the Trump announcement from last night but not explicitly and not fully, a bit ambiguously. he announced if the hostages are not released by Saturday, Israel goes back to war as ceasefire will be over.

Does Netanyahu mean the 3 scheduled for release? Does he mean the hostages scheduled for the first stage of the deal? Does Netanyahu mean all the hostages?

More than Netanyahu's ambiguity, which may be a good thing for the threat, Minister Smotritch is a bit perplexing.

I dont get Smotritch. He is out there demanding Netanyahu announce full support for Trumps plan and say explicitly if all hostages arent released by Saturday, no more rounds of releases, all at once, all hell breaks loose. We will conquer Gaza. We will shut off their water, shut electricity, gas, fuel, no more humanitarian aid, etc.

I dont get him.

All that sounds like a great threat and a great plan. But, if Hamas takes the threat seriously and releases all the hostages, Israel has to officially end the war, and then Smotritch promised to leave the government because we have to go back to the war. so what does he want? Does he want all the hostages out right away and the end of the war or does he want to go back to fighting a war to destroy Hamas?



------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

stop the aid

I don't know what is going on over there in Houthiville in Yemen, but it seems things are getting rough.

For whatever reason the Houthis have taken something like 28 UN workers as hostages. I don't really know what their demands are or what they are upset about. Maybe they want new robes and sandals. Regardless, I hope the UN workers will be treated well and released quickly.

That being said, Antonio Guiterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations, has called on the UN to immediately stop all programs and funding to the Houthis, stop all aid, while demanding the release of the UN workers taken hostage.

Interesting how when Hamas took Israelis hostage, Guiterres insisted Israel send in humanitarian aid to Hamas and the people of Gaza, increase aid. When Israel spoke about cutting aid to Gaza he and his people accused Israel of ethnic cleansing and genocide. 

Is the UN  now committing a genocide in Yemen (specifically in Saada)?



------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Interesting Psak: Dried Fruit on Tu Bshvat

With Tu Bshvat upon us, many have the custom of eating all sorts of dried fruits to celebrate the day.

Rav Yitzchak Yakobovitz, rav of the Southern Sharon region, raised an important halachic concern people should be careful about.

Usually when a rav talks about halachic issues of eating dried fruits (and even many fresh fruits) the concern under discussion is how to check it for bugs properly, if that is even possible. Rav Yakobovitz's concern is something else entirely.

Rav Yakobovitz started off his discussion saying people should dedicate their "Tu Bshvat Seder" this year to the success of Am Yisrael, to the return of the hostages and to the success of the IDF soldiers and other security forces. 

Rav Yakobovitz said the custom to eat dried fruit began because at times it was difficult to find ample supply of fresh fruits during the exile in some places during the winter months. When buying dried fruits, one must pay careful attention whence the fruits hail. Many of the dried fruits in our markets are actually imported and a high percentage are imported from Turkey (or Turkiyy) - good people have accustomed themselves to not eating dried fruits from Turkey - because they are Turkish! The Turks have joined with our enemies, and are also assisting Iran by funneling their pistachio nuts to the West.

The rav also mentioned that dried dates and dried apricot need to be checked well for bugs.
source: Arutz7









------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Quote of the Day



We have full backing from President Trump to apply sovereignty over 5% of Gaza territory for every hostage harmed

  -- Finance Minister Betzalel Smotritch

I hope this is true and I hope they act on it. Threats are only useful if you let the enemy know the threat. I havent heard this publicized until Smotritch said it today. Let Hamas know, loud and clear.

I do wonder, will there still be a real estate deal available for Trump in Gaza if Israel takes it over because of harm to the hostages?


------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Trump on Hamas and the hostages (video)




will Hamas play chicken with Trump? I have a hard time believing they will release all the hostages by 12 on Saturday, but am hopeful. If they dont, what does Trump and/Israel do?


------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

๐Ÿƒ Whispers of Spring in Jerusalem – Wadi Halilim Nature Reserve. Part 2 (video)







------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

KAVANA - Flowers feat. Nissim Black [OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO]







------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Feb 10, 2025

is a game afoot?

So it seems President Trump has a strong bark and people are worried about the bite behind it.

I am amazed at how leaders and governments around the world are shaking in their boots from Trump and at the first mention of anything by Trump they almost immediately cave on long-held positions. Without even any serious threat, without trying to call a bluff, without testing waters... just caving.

Trump made an angry comment about the Palestinian Authority's "pay for slay" program by which the PA pays terrorists and their families for their terror attacks against Israelis. The PA, after decades of ignoring complaints and threats from around the world over their pay for slay policy today revoked that policy on a dime.

I am happy they revoked, and curious why they suddenly did after one word by Trump. I do worry that there might be a game afoot. Perhaps Abbas is trying to get on Trump's good side, in light of Trump talking about banishing everyone from Gaza (Maybe Abbas is worried Trump will banish them from Judea and Samaria next, considering how PM Netanyahu has stressed to Trump that the PA is as bad as Hamas)... Will Abbas find a way to funnel the money to the terrorists but slightly less publicly?

If Abbas actually stops these payments, will the terrorists and general Palestinian public, many of whom rely on tat money, rise up against him? Can he stop these payments, even if he says he is?



------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Quote of the Day

I will hold the Strip, think of it as a real estate deal development for the future.... It will be the most beautiful place on Planet Earth. The Palestinians will not be given the right to return, we are talking about a a permanent destination for them. It would be years before they would be able to return, its not habitable. I think I can do a deal with Egypt and Jordan - we give them billions every year...

  -- US President Donald Trump

I guess it was not clear from the beginning so one cannot really say the plan is changing, but just yesterday PM Netanyahu issued a clarification in an interview saying Palestinians will be able to return, upon committing to not be involved in terror.




------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

#171: Behind the Bima - Rabbi Chaim Wolfson, Rosh Yeshiva of Yerucham (video)








------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Netanyahu: Trump’s plan could ‘change everything’ in Gaza (video)







------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Red Cross: Humanitarian bystander of the year (video)







------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Jerusalem's Bustle! A Walk Through the Crowded Streets. (video)








------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Aron Nasser - Ata Imady | Prod By Shriki’s [Official Music Video]







------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Feb 9, 2025

the Trump Plan for Gaza


Now that things have calmed down a bit and the initial euphoria has somewhat abated, I think I am ready to write a little about the Trump Plan for Gaza. Mostly I have questions, and I would love to hear your thoughts or explanations.

I'll start off by saying I too love the idea of the Trump Plan for Gaza to get rid of the Palestinians and taking over Gaza. I suggested throughout the war that what exactly is winning the war (total victory) without conquering at least some of the land. I think, anecdotally, most people in Israel are favorable to this idea, if it can be done. 

That being said, I am curious about the reality and pragmatically how this is going to work.

1. President Trump said the US will take Gaza. How does that work? Will the USA conquer Gaza and take ownership of it? Will they buy it from the Palestinians, like they want to buy Greenland from Denmark? Will they have Israel conquer Gaza and just hand it over to the USA? Will it continue to belong to the Palestinians but the USA will take administrative control over it (by force?) in order to demolish and rebuild?

2. As far as removing Palestinians from Gaza, Trump himself was unclear - will he remove them by force or will he encourage those who want to leave and open the gates? PM Netanyahu last night in an interview to Fox News clarified that they will not forcibly remove anyone but anyone who wants will be allowed to leave. Sounds good. How many want to leave? With 2-2.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, even if some want to leave, and I have not heard any estimates higher than a couple hundred thousand people might leave if given the chance but let's be "large" as we say in Hebrew and say half a million might leave - that still leaves 1.5-2 million Palestinians in Gaza who do not want to leave. What happens with them?  I assume the ones who do not want to leave aren't the ones who are a problem - it is the ones who wont want to leave who are largely the terrorist supporters, or terrorists.

3. Haven't we exhausted the mistaken belief that if we just pay them off with a good decent life they will leave us alone and be quiet and prefer to enjoy their lives? Suddenly we are going back to thinking that if we can promise them a decent living and a decent life somewhere else, that is all they want and they will go happily? Didn't we fall for that cone and they proved us wrong and showed that paying them off for quiet doesn't work? We are going to try that again and think it might work this time? 







------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

was it a Holocaust or not?

In light of the horrific pictures that emerged yesterday from the hostage release, pictures showing the hostages emaciated from starvation and torture, many were comparing the treatment by Hamas to the hostages as similar to the Holocaust victims as they left Auschwitz..

Finance Minister Betzalel Smotritch released a statement saying that the pain endured by our hostages in the cruel Hamas captivity rips at the heart, but comparisons to the Holocaust are a grave error and degrade the Holocaust. There was jus one Holocaust, and nothing as horrible as it may have been, can compare to it...

That is something I tend to agree with and have pointed out many times over the years. Israelis are quick to compare anything they dont like to the Holocaust. 

That being said, this government, including Smotritch, went right away to comparing October 7 to the Holocaust. They immediately called Hamas and their supporters Nazis. They compared the biggest day of Jewish murder to the Holocaust. They have repeatedly, and still do, talk about the Nazis and how they must be destroyed like the Nazis, and you dont make a deal with the Nazis, and all that... yet suddenly when someone else compares it to the Holocaust it is incomparable? They have pounded it home that Hamas are Nazis and their treatment of Jews is holocaust-like, and now he gets upset when emaciated Jews walk out to freedom to shock and calls of Holocaust???



------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Gaza and Israel Reborn: The Day After

Gaza and Israel Reborn: The Day After

By Dr. Harold Goldmeier

Harold Goldmeier teaches international university students at Touro College Jerusalem. He is an award-winning entrepreneur who received the Governor’s Award (Illinois) for family investment programs in the workplace from the Commission on the Status of Women. He was a Research and Teaching Fellow at Harvard, worked for four governors, and recently sold his business in Chicago. He is a managing partner of an investment firm, a business management consultant, and a public speaker on business, social, and public policy issues.

 

We recommend reading Asher Ostrin's new biography, SOVIET JEWRY REBORN, A Personal Journey (Gefen Publishing, 2024). The book is a pathway to answering the question dominating the international political landscape: What happens in Gaza The Day After?

  

“The Day After” has evolved from a question to a meme. It refers to the end of the October War when Hamas will be eradicated from Gaza. No, they won’t disappear. The Palestinian Liberation Movement across the Middle East, wherever Palestinians and their descendants live, will seek self-determination and a nation-state of their own. The Viet Cong proved the power of nationalism in our lifetime, against all odds, ultimately defeating the Chinese, French, and U.S. military powerhouses. Ostrin tells the story of  Soviet Jews oppressed over generations who kept alive their Jewish identity at the risk of torture, expulsion, relocation, and death.

 

His story “is about a large number of Jews who were thought to have been lost for eternity to the Jewish people but who, when a confluence of events made it possible for them to assert their identity, did so in a way that proved generations of experts wrong.” Ostrin was among the boots on the ground traipsing through Eastern Europe’s and Russia’s villages and cities for decades on behalf of the American Joint Distribution Committee.

 

These outsiders raised the physical and social standards of living among Jews. Knowing Jews survived and thrived outside the pale of settlement kept Jewish identity and resistance alive. “Soviet efforts to wipe out Jewish life and erase any vestige of Jewish identity had not been successful as was widely believed… JDC serviced Jews in eleven of the twenty-six secret cities in Russia.” When President Regan convinced Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down that wall,” Regan freed more Jews than Moses. The Jewish memory keepers were given the sobriquet of “refusniks.” Ostrin tells their stories over 271 pages.

 

Like it or not, Israelis have to stop declaring there are no Palestinian people. A century-old body of literature conveys the persistence of the Palestinian memory despite rule by Ottomans, British, and Israelis. Ostrin employs creative non-fiction telling individual and family stories. Soviet Jewry was reborn by attaching to Jewish traditions and community building; they were freed through political action. Palestinians have tried for 100 years to build a state with guns; they are called terrorists instead of refusniks. Watching videos of Hamas’s shows of machismo during the release of October 7 Israeli hostages it appears the Palestinians have not learned any lessons.

 

The Day After is the title of a 1983 movie. People go about their daily lives when nuclear bombs drop on a small town in Kansas. Residents must cope the day after to survive a nuclear winter. Parts of Gaza resemble images of a war-ravaged wasteland with thousands killed and injured. The day after, Gazans and Israelis have to make choices to ensure their identity and be reborn. The JDC learned in rebuilding communities that food deliveries were not the end but “a means for creating community.”

 

Israel began changing the day after October 7. The Holocaust never ended for Jews. October 7, 2023, was the latest burst of violent Jew-hatred and savagery by creatures out to erase the Jewish People. One long war against the Jews rages with hardly an intermission. It rages on from the open gates of concentration camps to an unending War of Independence. Tactics changed to terror attacks and missiles aimed at city centers. The barbaric violence on October 7 shattered the relative peace and good life on quiet kibbutzim and at a fun-filled music festival. Israel changed that day. Israel has to decide what the new Israel will look like.

 

Post October 7, Israel’s public is

  • Less trusting of IDF leadership, the cornerstone of the social contract;
  • Many doubt politicians are working in the public’s best interests or their sectarian own;  
  • Doubts rage if Israel is any longer or can be a lasting democracy;
  • Dissatisfaction abounds for the politicians who self-describe as Mr. Security when for years rockets and bombs sent Israelis into shelters;  
  • Dismay at best characterizes the Israeli's mindset that leaders take no accountability, and have no shame ought to trigger resignations;
  • Faith in religious leaders dives as they bicker over how much money they can squeeze from the treasury, hide from military service, and blackmail colleagues for power positions in the government;
  • The public’s anger was energized and evidenced by mass street demonstrations which have continued daily for 16 months;
  • IAF pilots threatening to ground their aircraft;
  • Reservists refused to serve after repeated call-ups;
  • Family and friends of Hamas kidnapped hostages are invading and excoriating Knesset members in cabinet committee meetings and outside private homes;
  • Domestic media and an angry public are furious with politicians and military leaders for allegedly betraying the hallmark of transparency, denying each other’s facts, impugning motives, fraying patriotism, and undermining a free press.

 

Israelis will have to dig deep to maintain their dynamic character. Their social norms are progressive, the economy robust, and Israeli culture peppy. This conglomeration of Jewish nationalities, races, and ethnicities makes Israel the poster child for diversity, equality, and inclusion. But it must resolve its conflicts with Palestinians and its conflicting policies inimical to Israel's status as a Jewish state and a democracy. The country is straining under the weight of it all. The nation feels rudderless.

 

Asher Ostrin’s memoir offers guidance to nation-builders. He warns to not rely on governments or old generation leaders. It is self-deluding. Soviet Russia “had a large army, nuclear weapons, near-total control of the lives of its citizens….” Yet, the Soviet Union disintegrated. Do not be complacent. “The arc of Soviet history and its aftermath” bent in the direction of repression and sacrifice of its youth. Shape your history, identity, and culture. Ostrin concludes from his life-long community development experiences, “And that is the true miracle of (Jewry’s) rebirth.”    

 

Gaza's civilian survivors must choose between acting as barbarians or Samaritans. They might have an opportunity to build a peace-loving community with the help of the world’s richest nations. Europe and Asia-Pacific were reborn.

 

Mark Twain said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often Rhymes.” Egypt and Israel made peace. Syria and Israel had no more war after 1973. Jordan and Israel learned to co-exist. There was Oslo and now there is the Abraham Accords. Not every Jewish community in Eastern Europe and Russia kept memories alive and observed traditions. The elderly yearn for what was, not what could be. Gazans and Israelis are among the youngest populations in the world’s census. The hope is the day after young men and women will become plow sharers, not soldiers.

 

page2image62369152page2image56049408page2image45285120

Soviet Jewry reborn, A Personal Journey Asher Ostrin Gefen Publishing, 2024 228 pages; $30

 

 



------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Related Posts

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...