GNITN – Special Edition

Israel At War – Day 18
Global Unrest Abounds

Déjà vu All Over Again

Right now in Israel, political infighting is being put side for the most part as the war to exist rages on into a third week. This is predictable, but there is, underneath all this patriotism, fissures of unrest and unease about how the attacks came about. In America, we saw how Bush 41 skyrocketed to over 90% in polls after he went into Iraq to stop Saddam Husein from taking control of Kuwait and probably going down into Africa to get more oil fields to harvest. He was thought to be a shoo-in to be reelected, however such popularity often doesn’t translate into political capital over time. The same could be said about his son, Bush 43 after he responded to the attacks on 9/11/2001 and invaded Afghanistan and held much the same popularity as his father did. In his case, he did win reelection in 2004, but it was much closer than people thought mainly because of the growing questions of why our intelligence agencies missed all the signs leading up to the terrorist attacks.

People Are Speaking Out

Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing criticism in Israel from an unlikely source now as one of the two hostages released yesterday was interviewed about her ordeal. While she gave scary details about what happened to her and others on October 7th, she also had justified concerns about her government in missing the signs leading up to it. Here are some quotes from apnews.com (see https://apnews.com/article/israel-hostage-hamas-militants-10b5491c6f63b4bf697c95f3ca052d61) :

Eighty-five-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz spoke of a “hell that we never knew before and never thought we would experience” as she described the harrowing Oct. 7 assault on her kibbutz by Hamas militants and the terror of being taken hostage into the Gaza Strip.

Lifshitz was the first of the four hostages released so far to speak of their experience, from the initial attack through the more than two weeks of captivity.

“Masses swarmed our houses, beat people, and some were taken hostage,” said Lifshitz, speaking softly from a wheelchair as she briefed reporters on Tuesday at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital, a day after Hamas released her and 79-year-old Nurit Cooper. “They didn’t care if they were young or old” …Lifshitz and her husband were peace activists who regularly drove Palestinian patients from Gaza to receive medical treatment in Israeli hospitals. But in captivity, the hostages told their captors, “We don’t want to talk about politics,” she said.

This description is in line with other descriptions we’ve heard of those who weren’t captured.

More Details

Lifshitz went on to tell what happened to her after her abduction in this quote from i24news.tv (see https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel-at-war/1698140253-i-went-through-hell-says-elderly-israeli-released-by-hamas) :

"They laid me on a motorcycle, blew up the electronic fence that cost two million dollars to build but was useless. I was taken hostage, there was no distinction between old and young. It was very painful. They beat my ribs and made it hard for me to breathe. They drove through the plowed fields and during the drive, people beat me with sticks."

She was then forced to walk several kilometers through the labyrinthine tunnel network. At some point the captors removed her watch and jewelry, Lifshitz said.

They Were Treated Well, Eventually

Lifshitz told about what her captivity was like and she told of being treated humanely in this quote from the same i24news.tv article:

She was then forced to walk several kilometers through the labyrinthine tunnel network. At some point the captors removed her watch and jewelry, Lifshitz said.

"They told us we believe in the Quran and will do us no harm. They will give us the same conditions they have," she said, adding "They were with gentle us. Our needs were met. They were prepared for us."

"There was a paramedic and a doctor also came every couple of days. We lay there on mattresses and they took great care of the sanitary side, so that we didn't get sick. They were very afraid of diseases spreading. They made sure we had everything, they were very friendly."

This, in contrast to the barbarous attackers, is hard to believe. I wonder what she will say once she knows about the other things Hamas did to those who didn’t survive.

Her Hard Words For The Government

She went on to level her criticism of how things got to the point of the attacks in this quote from the same apnews.com article mentioned earlier in this report:

Israel overlooked warnings that something was afoot ahead of the attack, Lifshitz said.

“We were the scapegoat of the government,” she said. “They (Hamas) warned us three weeks before they taught us a lesson. A huge crowd arrived at the road. They burned fields. They sent incendiary balloons to burn the fields, and the army didn’t take it seriously.”

In the i24nwes.tv article we read this about the same account:

Lifshitz said that her last message was that "we were very hurt that the IDF and shin bet did not know of the attack. We were the scapegoat."

As we’ve heard in previous reports, no official investigation will be held until the fighting stops and the war is over, but such statements will most likely continue as more hostages are released. How will Prime Minister Netanyahu and his party, and really all the Knesset respond about the failure to see the attacks coming? Only time will tell.

A Tone Deaf Speech

The Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) gave a speech today that the Israeli UN envoy lambasted. In it he made the assertion that Hamas and Palestinians need to be treated better than they are now. Here is a portion of António Guterres’ speech from the UN web site (see https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2023-10-24/secretary-generals-remarks-the-security-council-the-middle-east%C2%A0) :

Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets against civilian targets.

All hostages must be treated humanely and released immediately and without conditions. I respectfully note the presence among us of members of their families.

Excellencies,

It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.

The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.

They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.

But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

Guterres, in this speech tried to somehow make the case that the vast majority of these Palestinians are innocent in all of this, leaving out many factors. When given the Gaza Strip, more than 80% voted in Hamas to lead them and even now that support remains. Videos of “innocent” civilians jubilantly coming into Israel through the torn down defense barriers on bikes are hardly harmless or guiltless. And the speech leaves out the incessant attacks on Israel over the entire time they were given the land. If they are impoverished it is not because they haven’t been given billions of dollars in aid, it is due to how they money was spent. The Gaza Strip was flourishing under Israel and with it being on the coast line could have had a growing economy with trade. No, Mr. Secretary-General, you are not right about this and I portend that if Israel had the land again, people living there would fair much better.

His Solution Is Not Correct

Guterres went on to add this:

Even in this moment of grave and immediate danger, we cannot lose sight of the only realistic foundation for a true peace and stability: a two-State solution.

Israelis must see their legitimate needs for security materialized, and Palestinians must see their legitimate aspirations for an independent State realized, in line with United Nations resolutions, international law and previous agreements.

Finally, we must be clear on the principle of upholding human dignity.

Polarization and dehumanization are being fueled by a tsunami of disinformation.

We must stand up to the forces of antisemitism, anti-Muslim bigotry and all forms of hate.

And to this speech, the Israeli envoy, Ambassador Gilad Erdan said this:

The shocking speech by the @UN Secretary-General at the Security Council meeting, while rockets are being fired at all of Israel, proved conclusively, beyond any doubt, that the Secretary-General is completely disconnected from the reality in our region and that he views the massacre committed by Nazi Hamas terrorists in a distorted and immoral manner.

His statement that, “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” expressed an understanding for terrorism and murder. It’s really unfathomable. It’s truly sad that the head of an organization that arose after the Holocaust holds such horrible views. A tragedy!

The tired, old canard of a two-state solution was being tried when the Gaza Strip was given to the Palestinians. As we see now, they want a one-state solution and that means Israel doesn’t exist.

What Will Happen If Israel Prevails?

If the mixed responses to the post on X/Twitter by the Israeli envoy are any indication, people still are saying that the Palestinians are still occupied and oppressed by Israel. Such misinformation belies the truth that they freely live in the Gaza Strip and have done so for almost 20 years now. And as many quotes from Israeli leaders both politically and militarily have stated, the two-state solution is over. Lost in all of this is that no one wants to give a home to the Palestinians and this isn’t a new development. They were kicked out of Lebanon when they were led by Yassar Arafat back in 1982 and even back then he and the people he led were hard pressed to find another country to take them in. They eventually landed in portions of Israel per an agreement with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel that was signed in 1993 and 1995. The PLO took possession of Gaza and Jericho, but the violence never stopped. Now, Egypt won’t temporarily house the refugees, neither will Syria, Lebanon, or Jordan. Publicly they say it is because the Palestinians should stay in Gaza, but privately they know the unrest that always follows these people and want nothing to do with it. Religiously, there is the Shia and Sunni divide as well. If Israel prevails most likely they will be able to live in just about any region of Israel as long as they do so peacefully and if that region expands as I think it will, the area will live in peace for the first time since at least 1948 and perhaps longer.

Pray Without Ceasing

I sound like a broken record whenever I tell us to do this, but it really is the best thing we can do. Prayer changes things and always has. When Israel cried out to God when faced with overwhelming odds, God would help them every time. And now they are praying as a ground offensive gets closer and closer, perhaps on more than one front. We can lift them up in our petitions to our Heavenly Father and ask for the bowl that those prayers are filling up results in His grace, mercy, and provision to swiftly follow. Here is one such prayer from CBN.com (see https://cmsedit.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2023/october/the-scriptural-mandate-to-pray-for-israel-heres-a-prayer-for-the-peace-of-jerusalem) :

May God arise and have mercy on Zion.

May the set time come, may the time of favor come, and may all the nations under heaven fear the name of the Lord and give honor to Your glory.

May peace be within the walls of Jerusalem, on every street and in every home and place of worship.

May Jerusalem be known as a place of prayer and a place where all nations can come together and worship.

May God soften the hearts of the Palestinians.

May those who have lost loved ones be comforted.

May the generations of violence cease and may the sons of Isaac and the sons of Ishmael come to peace as the sons of Abraham.

Amen, and amen!