“Civilization will not last, freedom will not survive, peace will not be kept unless a very large majority of mankind unite together and defend them and show themselves possessed of a constabulatory power before which barbaric and atavistic forces will stand in awe. -Winston Churchill

When you take the field against your enemies and see horses and chariots-forces larger than yours- have no fear of them for the G-d who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you. Before you join the battle the priest shall approach and speak to you saying, “Hear, O Israel! You are about to join battle with your enemy. Let not your courage falter. Do not be afraid or panic or be in dread of them. For it is G-d who marches with you to do battle against the enemy to save you. Deuteronomy 20:1-5

To every thing there is a season and a purpose under heavens…a time of war and a time of peace. Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) 3

Return of the King:Aragorn’s Speech from the Black Gate. Aragorn: Sons of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!

If you do that which is evil, be afraid. For he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is a servant of Gd, to do justice, to execute wrath upon him that does EVIL. Romans 13:4

Glory to G-d in the highest and peace to all PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL.

This is another incredibly difficult article to write. I fear I will offend a majority of my readers, but the TRUTH needs to be shared.

We are currently in a very confused and mixed up world. Right is presented as wrong or cancelled altogether. Wrong is shouted as right. There is so much information coming from so many different sides at machine gun rapidity spraying our eyes and our minds. There are people who mean well, sincerely, but who are mixing up truth and messages.

When we see violent mobs, not just peaceful protesters, but those who wish to incite hatred and division, we should see this as evil. Evil. The call for death and destruction is evil. Vandalism and threats and attacks to one’s person are evil. Whether they be in Israel or in other nations.

I live here in Israel. It was land set apart by the British and ratified by the UN as a land for Jewish people to come home to after millennia of wandering. Not just for Jewish people exclusively. Not just for Jews. For those who live here among us and have for centuries: Christians, Samaritans, Arameans, the Bedouin. We want to live in peace with our neighbors.

Those now serving in the IDF are people with jobs, families, farms, lives. They are students who are suspending their studies. They are Jewish, Christian, Druze and even Bedouin Muslims standing united side by side as brothers in arms. Some are highly educated. Some are not. Some are wealthy, others impoverished. All are standing for one reason: national defense.

Israel is a tiny country, smaller than the state of New Jersey. We are completely surrounded by enemies who want to see us obliterated, our name blotted out for all eternity. We do not want to be fighting. But understand this. It is an existential threat that we face. WE ARE FIGHTING FOR OUR VERY LIVES; OUR VERY EXISTENCE.

When a certain people spreads lies, inflammatory untruths to turn others against us, it is EVIL. We are not colonizers. We want the good and prosperity of all. We are called to be a light and a hope to the world. Our national anthem is entitled “The Hope.”

When a certain people stores up arms against us, rams innocent people with cars, stabs to death civilians, shoots innocent civilians it is EVIL. When a certain people educates their children to hate, to kill, to die as martyrs in the death of others it is EVIL. When a certain people celebrates, glorifies and hands out sweets at the killing of a Jew, it is EVIL. It perpetuates a Culture of DEATH and DESTRUCTION.

When early on a lazy holiday morning, crisp and bright with the smell of freshly mown hay and ripe fruit, a mob comes, many high on drugs, to massacre whole families, sodomize children; bind parents facing their children and children facing their parents then gouge out the father’s eye and chop off the limbs of the children in front of each other before shooting them in the head; when a person can cut an 8 month old fetus out of a the womb of the mother, stab the baby, still attached, then behead both the baby and mother’s heads; when a group of children are bound together and burned alive; when adults are bound and ‘necklaced’ – gas soaked tires put around their necks then lit…this is barbarism. Torture and war crimes of the highest level. (For those of you who say it is untrue, confessions of the terrorists have been recorded. I have downloaded live footage of the atrocities if you dare to view them. I will send them to you)

I have heard first hand the sorrowful cries of the people who are called in to remove the bodies and prepare them for a holy burial. 237 that we know of – indiscriminate of nationality- have been taken hostage. This includes babies, the youngest 4 months, and elderly. As the hostages were paraded through Khan Younis and Gaza City as booty, crowds “innocent civilians” were thronged to beat the hostages with planks and boards. An 8 year old little Jewish boy was singled out, encircled by other children who were given sticks. They tainted him to cry out for his mother as they struck him. You might have seen the video. It was filmed and posted live as a gleeful thing on Al Jazeera 7-8 October. I have downloaded all this footage for posterity. It is EVIL. It is a crime against humanity.

Two days ago a speech was given at the UN by the Secretary General, Antonio Gutierres.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres blamed Israel for the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas, saying the burning, butcherings and beheadings of of 1,400 people, and kidnapping over 200 more, “did not happen in a vacuum.”

“The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing,” he said in a Security Council meeting on the war.

“No party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law,” Guterres said.

Guterres described the aid entering Gaza as “a drop of aid in an ocean of need,” warning of impending fuel shortages. “To ease epic suffering, make the delivery of aid easier and safer, and facilitate the release of hostages, I reiterate my appeal for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” he declared.

Yes. We all feel incredible sympathy for the innocent. But major blame was placed here on Israel. A majority of the Palestinian people of Gaza as well as thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators are not innocent. Gaza is not governed by Israel. Israel returned all of the Strip to the Gazans under the Oslo Accords in 2005. It immediately fell into the hands of Hamas, terrorists, not ‘resistance fighters fighting for their freedom.’ who murdered all their opposition.

Gaza is a beautiful strip of land. It borders the Mediterranean with wide stretches of some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Inland the land is fertile – pristine agricultural land. It could have been a Gan Eden, a Paradise of resort hotels, booming businesses, cultural centers. Instead it was turned into a heavily fortified bastion of hatred, victimhood and war. Israel had no control over it.

Just today, the Catholic Latin Patriarch, newly ordained Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa issued a scathing letter towards Israel and the Jewish people. I’m sure he had the best, most sincerest of intentions. Unfortunately it was totally misguided.

Pizzaballa wrote particularly that “it is only by ending decades of occupation and its tragic consequences, as well as giving a clear and secure national perspective to the Palestinian people that a serious peace process can begin.”

Unless this problem is solved at its root, there will never be the stability we all hope for. The tragedy of these days must lead us all, religious, political, civil society, international community, to a more serious commitment in this regard than what has been done so far. This is the only way to avoid other tragedies like the one we are experiencing now. We owe it to the many victims of these days and to those of years past. We do not have the right to leave this task to others.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Jerusalem, 26 October, 2023

I understand he is in a position to make peace, but if he was truly accurate, he would know Israel is not an occupier as they are their own state under their own sovereignty.Also, Israel has tried to negotiate, to give up large swaths of land in return for peace. But how can one negotiate with a charter that says “No recognition of the state of Israel. No negotiations. No peace.” And an official document of the Palestinian Authority (PA) is calling for the murder of Jews.

“The Palestinians are calling Islamic leaders to incite violence and murder on Friday, citing the Islamic verse: “O Abd Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” That verse about killing Jews comes straight from the Hadith, a collection of sayings by Islam’s founder Muhammad.

How can one negotiate with a peoples who call for outright genocide? Evil must be labeled as evil, regardless of political correctness. I note the refrain of the Gloria in Catholic liturgy: Glory to Gd in the highest, and on earth PEACE TO PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL.” These are not people of good will.

I will now include part of a letter written by an Israeli Jewish woman. She is on the front lines of inter-religious dialogue. I received it this morning: (exuse the broken English. It is her second language)

“I hope this email will get to Cardinal Pizzaballa. I relate to his last letter which I attached here yesterday.

When The Cardinal finally condemns hamas it is too late and too little, ignoring the horrible Nazis acts that they did. He compared them on the same level with Israel’s right to defend itself.

He has forgotten that the innocents in Gaza (if there are any, because they support hamas and celebrate their evil deeds) are suffering not because of Israel but because of hamas. Hamas can stop their suffering in one hour by surrendering.

But The Cardinal doesn’t call them to surrender. He just shamefully blames Israel. He has a heart to the people in Gaza but not to the hostages, the people who were slaughtered and burned alive, babies and kids who were tortured, woman raped, pregnant woman whose fetus was cut out of her body and other satatnic tortures. And what about the innocents in Israel who suffers rockets every minute of every day and many more. Not a word about all those. Why ???

It is not about revenge, The Cardinal mistakes. It is about preventing a second Holocaust.

It’s not an issue of Palestinians and Israelis. It’s an issue of a crime against humanity, it is a war against the devil, against Amalek. (Deutronomy 25:17-19)

Seems that The Cardinal doesn’t care about the existence of the jewish people. He has forgotten that Jesus is jewish.

Either The Cardinal misunderstands who hamas are (which I tend to doubt) or he is playing into the hands of the enemy. In each case I can’t trust him any more . I will never quit. I will stay and speak up as loudly as I can.

I am also afraid that The Cardinal is misleading many other catholics into the lies .

I ask not to publish his shameful letter as it will cause an aweful spiritual damage.

I pray for all who are invloved.🇮🇱✡️✝️”

We also received a phone call this morning by a distraught gentleman who is afraid, sincerely afraid, that the Catholic Church will turn against the Jews leading to a worldwide inquisition type period of progoms, persecution and massacres. For centuries the Jewish people have been fearful of blood libels and attacks by Christians. Please speak up and do not let this hatred spread.

I am also calling out Jewish people who come on the side of Hamas and the Palestinian people. They are anti Israel. They might have the best intentions of people who have empathy for the suffering, but again, these are people who are misguided.

From today’s article in The Guardian, written by

• Ellen Brotsky is a longtime Jewish activist and volunteer with Jewish Voice for Peace Bay Area, a chapter of the world’s largest anti-Zionist Jewish organization in solidarity with Palestinian freedom.
• Ariel Koren is an anti-Zionist Jew who quit Google in protest of the company’s military contract with Israel; she is the founder of Respond Crisis Translation, a rapid-response language justice collective

“It is now impossible for US politicians to ignore the slaughter in Gaza: more than 3,500 Palestinians have been killed in the 12-day barrage, including the 500 reportedly killed Tuesday at Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist hospital. Some 50 entire families have been wiped out – every living relative, including children and babies, gone. And Israel has issued a directive to those remaining that amounts to an ultimatum: leave northern Gaza, all 1.1 million of you, “for your own safety” – in other words, evacuate or risk death in the impending blitz and ground invasion.

The United Nations says such a mass evacuation is “impossible” and has potentially “devastating humanitarian consequences,” pleading with Israel to rescind the order. A UN special rapporteur was clear, calling the order “a crime against humanity and a blatant violation of international humanitarian law.”

We call it something else: unfolding genocide.

There is no other word to describe the pageantry of death embraced by Israel’s politicians. Under international law, genocide requires two things: an “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” and then the attempted destruction of that group. Without intent, these actions amount to ethnic cleansing. If deliberate, they are considered genocide.”

The article continues. Much of what they say is completely untrue. The hospital above was hit by a Palestinian Islamic Jihad missile that misfired. Most of the damage was to a parking lot adjacent. Unfortunately 12 people were killed and 15 injured. This story has been repeatedly dismissed by most journalists and the IDF based on images and recorded phone calls between the PIJ and Hamas operatives.

Israel asked all civilians in N Gaza to evacuate, but the order went out from Hamas commandos for them to stay. This is verifiable. Hamas blocked its own citizens in, blocking all evacuation routes. Also verifiable. This renders them guilty of their own civilian casualties. Miles of Hamas tunnels extend underground into S Gaza. The terrorists are now using that part of the Strip as a place from which they launch their missiles into Israel. The IDF has delayed any ground invasion for two weeks to allow in any humanitarian aid and allow for release of hostages.

Innocent civilians throughout central Israel and the densely packed major metropolitan area around Tel Aviv have been continually bombed with missiles. This constitutes a war crime. This includes residential areas, businesses, universities and hospitals . Not only are there Jewish communities, but also Muslim towns with mosques. Hamas targets civilian centers indiscriminately. Their Hamas Charter hinges upon the eradication of Israel and all the Jewish people. That is the definition of genocide. Israel must defend herself.

In conclusion, there is much misinformation and misunderstanding flying about. There has been a flood of mislabeling, whether good intentioned or not. But we as moral and ethical people have an obligation to call evil for what it is. Evil. A culture of death and deception. Now is the time to choose between truth and falsehood; good and evil; life and death. The choice is ours.

Israel remains the only true democracy in the Middle East. A small country who has given the world advances in technology, agricultural and medical advancements. It is one of the first countries to deliver humanitarian aid, search and rescue to the victims of disaster. We stand for life. We stand for democracy. We stand for human dignity and peace. We are literally in the fight for our lives, trying to eradicate evil, not innocent civilians. We fight for our existence. We have nowhere else to go-

If there would be an unconditional surrender of Hamas and its operatives to Israel, this whole conflagration would end in one hour.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.