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Some Thoughts on Israel’s Remarkable Next Generation
Israeli soldiers stand by a wall with names of fallen soldiers on Memorial Day, when Israel commemorates its fallen soldiers, at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem May 4, 2022. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Since returning from Israel after my latest visit, I am constantly being asked – what was it that left the deepest impression? I imagine what people expect to hear is about one of the places we visited, or about one of the people we met who said something particularly memorable. And yes, there were numerous moments throughout our trip that were especially moving or striking in their own way.
For example, witnessing first-hand the dedication of the Lemaan Achai team was deeply inspiring. Lemaan Achai is a Beit Shemesh-based social welfare organization that has had to scale up in ways no one anticipated, so that they can take care of hundreds of displaced families across central and southern Israel, along with the spouses and children of soldiers deployed to the war zone.
The mayor of Beit Shemesh underscored the incredible work of Lemaan Achai’s indefatigable founder and director, Rabbi Avrohom Leventhal. His superhuman efforts defy imagination. But despite that, it wasn’t our visit to Lemaan Achai that left the deepest impression.
The time we spent at Kerem Shalom, meeting the security personnel who repelled Hamas terrorists pouring over the border on October 7th, yards away from the kibbutz perimeter, was truly shocking. Their candid accounts brought home the horrors of the evil Israel faced via the experiences of those who lived through and survived that terrible day.
We also visited the Nova rave music festival site, which was transformed into a scene of violent carnage on October 7th. Even months later, an atmosphere of horror still lingers. But it was neither of these two places that left the deepest impression.
We spent over an hour with Israel’s former chief rabbi, Rav Yisrael Meir Lau, a child Holocaust survivor who lost most of his family at the hands of the Nazis, and whose personal narrative is an inspirational rollercoaster of emotions, embodying the entire story of modern Israel. Rav Lau captivated our attention with his lucid account of the many wars Israel has faced since its founding, all of which he personally lived through and drew lessons from.
Rav Lau’s upbeat demeanor, despite the existential threats to Israel – as real now as they were when Israel came into being – was incredibly uplifting. But it wasn’t our time with Rav Lau that left the deepest impression.
Our visit to Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem – the oldest hospital in Israel, founded 130 years ago, in 1894 – lifted our spirits and gave us much hope for the future. The facility is gearing itself up for the mental health crisis Israel is expected to face in the wake of October 7th and the current war. The staff’s sensitivity and the mental health team’s dedication deeply reassured us. They are doing everything they can to mitigate the crisis’s traumatic impact in the coming period.
The staff also showed us the bombproof wards that they are currently completing in the basement in anticipation of an escalation of rocket attacks from Lebanon in the next few months. Work on these wards began just a few weeks ago, and, remarkably, they are almost ready. We were totally blown away. Nevertheless, it wasn’t Herzog Hospital that left the deepest impression.
What left the deepest impression on me, and I believe on all of those who joined our solidarity mission, was best expressed by my friend Douglas Murray, the heroic reporter whose daily dispatches from Israel since October 7th have become compulsory watching for everyone hungry for factual journalism in a world dominated by lies and distortion.
Douglas joined us for dinner on the mission’s second night, and after giving us his analysis of the current crisis, he shared a conversation he had had with an Israeli man in his 60s which stirred him emotionally in a way that nothing else has since he arrived in Israel in October.
“He said something to me that was incredibly moving,” Douglas revealed. “We were talking about what Israel is going through, and what his generation, people in their 60s, had been through – and he said to me, impromptu: ‘I owe the younger generation an apology, because over recent years I have thought, and used to say to people: they’re on Instagram, they’re on Twitter, they go to parties – they’re just after pleasure. But I owe them an apology, because they have stepped up – like my generation did, and like previous generations did.’”
That’s when it hit me. The thing that most impressed me in Israel during this visit, and on my two other visits since October 7th, was the younger generation. In which other Westernized country would kids in their teens and 20s clamor to go into battle to defend their homeland?
I vividly recall the exodus of military-age men from both Russia and Ukraine after war broke out between those two countries in early 2022. So much so, that both countries restricted movement for young men, stopping them at the border and preventing them from leaving. Israel’s experience has been the polar opposite, with young Israelis flying home from all over the world to join their military units and go into combat.
This, more than anything else, has left the deepest impression on me. Douglas called it: “one of the most amazing things about being in Israel.” At a recent Friday night dinner with friends, Douglas told us that had chatted with a friend’s daughter. He asked her how old she was. “Twenty-one,” was the response. “And what do you do?” Douglas asked her. “I am an expert on intelligence in Yemen,” she replied. It was an answer that rendered him speechless. Because, as he explained to us, while this barely adult young woman is at the forefront of tackling existential threats, her contemporaries in America “are being indoctrinated – their parents remortgage their houses to send them to universities to make them stupid and wicked!”
On the final night of our mission, we arranged a barbecue for soldiers at the IDF base in Hebron, a city plagued by extremism and radical Islamists. We fed over 500 soldiers – boys and girls, some of them fresh back from combat missions, in full combat gear.
As the barbecue came to an end, we had a surprise for them – Israeli singing sensation Ishay Ribo rolled in with his band and sound team and they performed.
But as the concert got underway, I wasn’t watching Ishay serenading the audience with his rich repertoire of tender songs. Instead, I was watching the audience, with tears in my eyes. I watched the fresh smiling faces of Israel’s next generation, brave heroes swaying to the music, voices raised in a chorus of melody.
Minutes earlier, the base commander had informed me that immediately after the concert many of the soldiers were going off on a dangerous mission to break up a Hamas terrorist cell located very close to Hebron.
But you couldn’t sense any kind of negative vibe. Rather, the atmosphere was one of superlative confidence and Jewish pride. These young soldiers were totally ready for what was expected of them. Nothing would hold them back. And it was this that left an impression on me that I will remember for as long as I live.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
The post Some Thoughts on Israel’s Remarkable Next Generation first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Ritchie Torres Announces Intent to Vote for Sanctions Against ICC, Citing Anti-Israel ‘Ideological Crusade’
US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) speaks during the House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, DC, Sept. 30, 2021. Photo: Al Drago/Pool via REUTERS
US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) announced on Wednesday that he intends to vote in favor of imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
In statements posted on X/Twitter, Torres lambasted the ICC over its “weaponization of international law,” arguing that the Hague-based court has waged an ideological propaganda campaign against Israel and unfairly maligned Israeli leaders for “daring to defend” their country against terrorist groups.
“The ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants against the leadership of Israel represents the weaponization of international law at its most egregious,” Torres said. “The ICC has set a precedent for criminalizing self-defense: any country daring to defend itself against an enemy that exploits civilians as human shields will face persecution posing as prosecution.”
Torres accused the ICC of brushing aside Israel’s motives for prosecuting its war against the Hamas terrorist group. He also castigated the ICC as a “kangaroo court,” criticizing it for ignoring Hamas’s intentional use of the Palestinian people as human shields to maximize civilian casualties — a tactic employed by the terrorist group to tarnish Israel’s international reputation.
“The ICC ignores the cause and context of the war. Israel did not initiate the war. The war was imposed upon Israel by the unbridged barbarism of Hamas on Oct. 7 [of 2023],” Torres said. “Not only did Hamas wage war on Israel, causing the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, it carefully constructed a battlefield designed to maximize the loss of civilian life. None of that context seems to matter to the kangaroo court of the ICC, which cannot let facts get in the way of its ideological crusade against the Jewish State. The ICC should be sanctioned not for enforcing the law but for distorting it beyond recognition.”
In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas terror leader Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. The ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians — charges vehemently denied by Israel, which has provided significant humanitarian aid into the war-torn enclave throughout the war.
US and Israeli officials issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, initially made his surprise demand for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on the same day in May that he suddenly canceled a long-planned visit to both Gaza and Israel to collect evidence of alleged war crimes. The last-second cancellation infuriated US and British leaders, according to Reuters, which reported that the trip would have offered Israeli leaders a first opportunity to present their position and outline any action they were taking to respond to the war crime allegations.
Following the official issuing of arrest warrants in November, a slew of US lawmakers vowed to seek retribution against the ICC after President-elect Donald Trump takes office later this month.
“These allegations have been refuted by the US government,” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), Trump’s pick to serve as White Hous national security adviser in the incoming administration, wrote on X. “Israel has lawfully defended its people & borders from genocidal terrorists. You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January.”
Incoming US Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has also threatened to push legislation imposing sanctions on the ICC if it does not halt its efforts to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication. However, Hamas, which rules Gaza, has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the Israeli military.
Another challenge for Israel has been Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
The post Ritchie Torres Announces Intent to Vote for Sanctions Against ICC, Citing Anti-Israel ‘Ideological Crusade’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Biden Administration Shifts $100 Million in US Military Aid From Israel and Egypt to Lebanon
Lebanese army soldiers gesture as they secure the area near the US embassy in Awkar, Lebanon, June 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
In the final days of US President Joe Biden’s time in office, his administration has redirected over $100 million in military aid from Israel and Egypt to Lebanon, citing a need to strengthen a ceasefire agreement to halt fighting between the Jewish state and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.
The US State Department issued two separate notices to Congress dated Jan. 3, announcing that it would shift $95 million in military aid intended for Egypt and $7.5 million intended for Israel toward the Lebanese military and its government, the Associated Press reported.
The move came after some lawmakers in Congress expressed concerns about Egypt’s human rights record, particularly the arrests of thousands of political prisoners.
Most of the money will go to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which has a central role in enforcing the November ceasefire that stopped nearly 14 months of war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Islamist terrorist organization that wielded significant political and military influence in Lebanon.
“Successful implementation [of the ceasefire] will require an empowered LAF, which will need robust assistance from the United States and other partners,” the State Department said in its letters.
Hezbollah relentlessly pummeled northern Israeli communities with daily barrages of missiles, rockets, and drones in the months following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel from Gaza in the south. Roughly 80,000 Israelis were forced to evacuate Israel’s north due to the unrelenting attacks.
Israel intensified its military efforts against Hezbollah in September, using airstrikes and ground operations in southern Lebanon — bolstered by sophisticated intelligence operations — to decimate much of the terrorist group’s leadership and weapons stockpiles.
In late November, both Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire, which in part requires Israeli forces to gradually withdraw from southern Lebanon over 60 days. Meanwhile, the Lebanese army will enter these areas and ensure that Hezbollah retreats north of the Litani River, located some 18 miles north of the border with Israel.
The newly shifted US aid is largely meant to help the LAF in dispatching troops throughout southern Lebanon to supplement UN peacekeeping efforts there.
“US security assistance to the LAF increases its capacity as the country’s only legitimate military force and defender of Lebanon’s territorial integrity, enables the LAF to prevent potential destabilization from ISIS and other terrorist groups, and enables the LAF to provide security both for the Lebanese people and for US personnel,” the State Department said in its notices.
The department also rejected the claim that members of Hezbollah are serving in the LAF, insisting that the Lebanese army serves as a valuable “counterweight” to Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon.
“US support to the LAF reinforces the LAF as an important institutional counterweight to Hezbollah, which receives weapons, training, and financial support from Iran,” the State Department wrote. “The LAF continues to be an independent, non-sectarian institution in Lebanon, and is respected across all sectors.”
Critics have noted that UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 and is the basis for the current ceasefire, failed to disarm Hezbollah, with the terrorist group becoming more powerful despite the presence of the LAF and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
Nonetheless, US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) applauded the Biden administration’s announcement, arguing that the diversion of funds to Lebanon helps bolster American priorities in the region.
“Our military aid should advance US values and national security interests in the Middle East — not reflexively reward the Egyptian government, despite its failures to meet human rights conditions set by Congress,” Murphy said.
However, Richard Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington, DC-based think tank, argued that shifting money toward the LAF was ill-advised.
“If we actually saw the LAF take on Hezbollah, there might be value in this support, but right now, we are throwing away taxpayer money to a Hezbollah enabler. Egypt should be pressured to do much more to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas, but moving money from a Hamas enabler to a Hezbollah enabler makes no sense,” Goldberg said in a statement.
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Israeli Minister of Culture Urges FIFA to Remove Senior PA Official for Inciting Terrorism Against Israel
Palestinian Football Association head Jibril Rajoub speaks during a press conference regarding the cancellation of the soccer match between Argentina and Israel, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Sunday, June 6, 2018. Photo: Flash90.
Israel’s Minister of Culture and Sports Miki Zohar called on Tuesday for FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, to remove Jibril Rajoub as president of the Palestine Football Association (PFA) for inciting, justifying, and supporting violence against Israel.
Zohar wrote in a letter to FIFA President Gianni Infantino that Rajoub’s alleged incitement to violence is a “blatant infringement of the core values that international sports aim to promote — values of peace, unity, and mutual respect.” He urged Infantino and the FIFA Executive Committee to act swiftly and expel Rajoub from his senior position.
“There is no place for individuals who incite or support terrorism and violence within sports institutions,” he added. “His continued membership in senior roles within the sports world undermines public trust and sends a dangerous message — that the platform of sports can be exploited for political agendas and the promotion of hatred and violence … It is our collective responsibility to ensure that sports remain a unifying force that brings people together, rather than a stage for incitement and terror. I trust in your leadership and in FIFA’s commitment to upholding the integrity of international sports, and I am confident that you will act to safeguard its moral future.”
Zohar noted in his letter that following the Hamas-led deadly terrorist attack in southern Israel on Oct, 7, 2023 — in which 1,200 people were murdered and over 250 were kidnapped – Rajoub “publicly justified these acts of terror, stating that they were a ‘natural response to the occupation.’”
“He has repeated this appalling justification on several occasions,” Zohar added. He additionally pointed out that on Sunday, Rajoub made a guest appearance on television and “openly called for continued violent attacks against innocent Israeli civilians. He even encouraged the Palestinian Authority to take responsibility for overseeing such acts.”
“Tragically, within 24 hours of Mr. Rajoub’s statement, multiple terrorist attacks were carried out in Israel, resulting in the deaths of three innocent civilians: a 70-year-old woman, a 73-year-old woman, and a 35-year-old man,” Zohar explained.
Rajoub was fined and temporarily suspended by FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee in 2018 for inciting hatred and violence. He received the suspension after he called on soccer fans to burn jerseys of the Argentinian Football Association as well as pictures of Argentinian soccer player Lionel Messi ahead of a soccer match between Argentina and Israel. The Argentinians ultimately pulled out of the soccer game.
Since the start of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, the PFA has repeatedly called for FIFA to suspend Israel from all international soccer matches because of its military actions in the Gaza Strip, which target Hamas terrorists who orchestrated the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel. FIFA is expected to make an announcement regarding the matter in May. A number of international soccer organizations have voiced support for the PFA’s efforts to have Israel suspended from FIFA, including the Asian Football Confederation and the Norwegian Football Association (NFF).
“The Norwegian FA is not indifferent to the disproportionate attacks Israel has subjected the civilian population of Gaza to over time … The NFF is actively advocating for FIFA to address the Palestinian FA’s proposal for sanctions against Israel,” NFF President Lise Klaveness said in December. “We are also closer to the region and the Palestinian Football Association than most other European associations. For over 10 years we have worked on the ground in the region and the Palestinian West Bank to train female football coaches and create football activities for children in schools and refugee camps.”
Kaveness also denied reports that Norway has refused to compete against Israel.
“Israel is currently part of UEFA’s competitions. We are following the situation closely, and follow the policies set by FIFA, UEFA, and the Norwegian authorities,” Kaveness added. “This means our national team will play against Israel — in March away on a neutral pitch, and in October at home at Ullevaal Stadium. Everyone now has a clear responsibility to protect and respect the football matches and the players on both teams.”
The post Israeli Minister of Culture Urges FIFA to Remove Senior PA Official for Inciting Terrorism Against Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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