Blog Day 3 (Saturday March 23rd) and 4 (Sunday March 24th)
I woke up energized by the Purim parties our little Village Temple group walked by last night in the shuk Hacarmel where we had dinner. Young Israelis 18 to 30 were wearing costumes and partying in the streets all night, a sight that has heightened significance after the trauma of the Nova festival. These young people are fighting a war we do not want to have the freedom to dance and sing in the streets of their country.
With this background music (literally, we had to wear earplugs to get some sleep), we have been meeting with experts trying to make sense of the current situation. I will borrow an organizing framework from Rabbi Fersko to share some of what we heard in
1) the political realm focused on governments and the global impact of their decisions;
2) the civil society and the exceptional response of israeli citizens;
3) the hostages and their families with a focus on the ongoing trauma in Israel;
4) the victims of the massacre and epicenter of our shared trauma reminding us that this is an issue of survival for our people and our values (this is for tomorrow)
In the political strategic realm: we heard from 4 individuals who offered 4 different yet each compelling view points
Or Heller, a military correspondent for Channel 13 [there are 4 main channels (11 to 14) covering the spectrum of Israeli politics. While Channel 14 is supportive of the Netanyahu government along with Channel 11 to a lesser extent, Channels 12 and 13 offer a more nuanced and critical view]. Or embodies many of the qualities of Israelis. He is charming with a huge EQ conveying humanity while discussing war tactics. He offered a balanced and thoughtful view of the situation with a directness and a blunt delivery that is typically israeli.
Or recounted that at 6:29 AM his boss told him the country was at war and he needed to leave his vacation spot in the Galilee and report to Gaza. Or woke his little children up, packed up the car, drove his wife and kids to his in-laws in Petach Tikvah and then drove south to Gaza and despite all this he arrived before the IDF. I debated whether to share this debacle and risk undermining confidence in the IDF but censorship would be a bad idea. This reality is something the country is tackling and face it we must do we can work on repairing.
We asked questions about the release of hostages as they are omnipresent in our landscape,
Or explained that it is incredibly hard to run successful operations to save the hostages, as they know from Hamas prisoners that terrorists have been given the order to kill the hostages should they hear close fighting. He reported that 15K Hamas were killed out of 30K deaths (a number confirmed by others). He firmly believes that we need to enter Rafah even in a limited capacity to get rid of Hamas but understands that Israel cannot get rid of the idea of Hamas. He also understands that Egypt is an important partner in the region and that Rafah being at the border will make it very hard. Let me add that he believes Israel needs a new government without Netanyahu.
https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/article-772772
Alon Pinkas, former advisor consul general in The US and a foreign affairs analyst.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alon_Pinkas
Alon was very transparent in where he stood politically, it was clear from the first start that he had no respect for Netanyahu. He spoke about Bibi's work to divide PA and Hamas and then decry the lack of a true peace partner. He spoke about how Israel is traumatized and how the whole country lives and breathes with the fallen soldiers in Gaza while the rest of the world is seeing images of dead Palestinian children every day. He doesn’t believe we can enter Rafah and risk the ire of the US and Egypt, he is worried about the isolation of Israel on the world stage and thinks the war has to end soon. He was supportive of Chuck Schumer’s comments and the effort from the US to put pressure on a change in government. Like Or Heller, he believes that a deal to release the hostages would essentially end the war, as Israel could not resume fighting after a long ceasefire.
Let me stop here and share my thoughts after these two conversations. It is pushing my limits to hear criticism of Israel’s tactics especially as it relates to Israel’s increasing isolation (the term Pariah was shared) on the World stage from allies that initially “stood by us” for the most part, especially the US. I should first start by saying that I am very comfortable with criticism of Netanyahu, I might even add that it is quite reassuring to see it. While it is easier for me to argue against criticism of Israel’s tactics especially coming from people who know very little about the region and Israel’s history and who do not have any love for the country; it is necessary for me to lower my defensive stance when I listen to accomplished individuals (the best of the best) who love the country at least as much as I do and who want to see the Jewish people thrive. So with that in mind, here are some of the questions I am left with:
Is Israel (and am I) blinded by the impact of the deaths and our military campaign on our isolation on the world stage? Is it that the necessary and understandable focus on the hostages and soldiers (sons and daughters of nearly every family) is keeping us from truly seeing the toll in Gaza and its ramifications? If one looks at the military campaign, there is a 1:1 correspondence of Hamas vs civilians deaths which is incredibly low in any war; it seems essential to destroy Hamas capabilities so that another october 7th cannot happen (even if the Hamas idea and some Hamas terrorists remain), Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization dangerous to the whole region and in the way of a peaceful resolution. Should we do what we know is necessary for our survival despite the lack of international support, this is an election year for the US and they have other priorities, we also need to understand that when we interpret the pressure they place on us.
A lawyer in our group posed the following question at breakfast today: Is it worth dropping a 2K bomb to kill 1 Hamas terrorist if it will harm 500 civilians in Gaza? The question itself is very telling.Where is this equation coming from? This hypothetical ethical dilemma is brought forward as if it is a daily reality and very quickly it can (it has) become a dangerous narrative. Who benefits from issuing this narrative? How can we believe we have access to any detailed military intelligence? Are we to believe that the public has the needed expertise to opine on military decisions with zero context? Is there any other army in the world whose every move is scrutinized to this extent? This is yet another appalling case of a double standard. More importantly the underlying assumption that bothers me is that Israeli soldiers somehow have no moral compass or heart. After 25 years of delegitimization of Israel through social media and Academia, it is now easy to think of us as a people that could commit genocide and enable famine.
Is there an alternative to entering Rafah? The central command of Hamas is there yet 1M additional civilians are now in the region after being displaced from the north and Rafah is very close to the Egyptian border, an important regional partner along with the US who has essentially drawn a red line against attempting a large operation there.
When does the war end? When all hostages are back? Will a 45-day ceasefire essentially bring about the end of war as Israel cannot resume fighting? When Hamas capabilities are destroyed (who decides that we’ve reached that point)?
Rabbi Hirsh had an interesting point around this, Zionism did not promise to end anti-semitism which is irrevocable because it is not founded on reason. What Zionism promises is that jews would not be victims of pogroms. Unfortunately, 10/7 was a collapse of that central idea that we could be safe or at least have agency on our safety on our own land. Getting the hostages back and securing our borders is part of returning to that promise and re-establishing confidence in our military and our government.
Sundays headlines and other societal topic:
Israel’s defense minister is traveling to the US to meet with Blinken and Loyd Austin as US weapons delivery is delayed. Another sign that there is tension between the US and Israel?
Law to draft the haredim (ultra-orthodox) under the same rule that governs everyone has the potential to bring down the government. 66K of draftable haredim are exempt each year. Secular Israelis have risked their lives and are paying the majority of the taxes while a group is exempt from the army. There is an insufficient number of soldiers leading to current soldiers to stay for longer periods of time, causing a major disruption in their private lives, in their livelihoods and in the larger economy. We are approaching a breaking point. There is also talk about increasing the age of those who must serve. What is needed is at least a 10K army. By this week they gave a decision making headline to July otherwise they will be drafting. Of note there are 44K women fighting today in the army and the time for women and men serving has equalized to about 2.9 years.
50 missiles were launched from Lebanon onto the Golan (a near daily occurrence), the iron dome stopped 4 and the rest fell in open fields.
Negotiations on hostage release are going slowly, access to Sinwar is very slow (IL, US, Qatar, Hamas, Sinwar then back again). 40 hostages (civilians taken from their bedroom) for 800 Hamas fellons including 100 murders and a 45-day ceasefire. Of course both groups have a different outlook on the value of life and from a moral perspective it’s hard to see such a deal as fair but any hostage dead or alive is of utmost importance for the Israeli psyche and Hamas sees that as our weakness. Gabi Eisencrot (Beny Gantz’ advisor) is part of the war cabinet and is largely thought to have the most flexible position on the hostages (his son and nephew have died in combat). He is for real and not governed by politics. If he resigns we will know that the process has been politicized. The war cannot end before the hostage situation is resolved so this is a key issue.
Jeremy our guide jokes that the national bird of Israel is the crane since there is so much construction. Most of the construction is done by Palestinian farmers who get paid 10 times more than they would in Gaza or the West Bank. The flow from the territories is minimal. A new wave of immigrants from India, Bangladesh, Africa and Sri Lanka is being brought to the country.
Colette Avital, a diplomat and politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the Labor Party and One Israel between 1999 and 2009.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colette_Avital
Colette is yet another avid critic of Netanyahu whom she has known for years. Asked if he would be a mensch and let the government fall and accept a hostage deal that would effectively end the war, she said unfortunately he would likely hold on to power for as long as he can. She also confirmed how hard it has been to get any cooperation from the Red Cross to see the hostages and ensure they received medication. She was concerned about the isolation of Israel.
Miri Eisin, a retired colonel from the army and former advisor to the Prime minister on foreign media who also teaches counterterrorism at the Reichman University.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miri_Eisin
Miri helped make a complex situation a little clearer. She describes Hamas’ war strategy in 3 stages: 1) terrorize and inspire of October 7th; 2) deny that they had committed any crime (October 8th and 9th) even if they filmed said crimes on facebook live (that erases after a few hours) and 3) defensive (ongoing). The longer the war goes on the more it benefits Hamas. As a background Yahya Sinwar was sentenced to multiple life sentences for amongst other crimes personally killing Palestinians that he thought were collaborating with Israel. He was released from Israeli prison in 2011 after serving 22 years of his life sentence as part of a deal to get Gilad Shalit’s corpse back to Israel (1000+ prisoners for 1 corpse). In 2017 he became head of Hamas in Gaza. He was born in Khan Younis and refuses safe passage to Qatar as part of a deal to end the war because we think he would rather die as a martyr in Gaza and be part of the lineage of islamist martyrs. We asked how this war can end. The goal is to destroy Hamas’ capabilities but we cannot eliminate its idea or all Hamas terrorists, and that she says will take most of 2024 and even into 2025. There are other geopolitical forces in the region and a hostage deal does not resolve these. The Houthis in Yemen are blocking an important source of international trade (15% of worldwide trade) and it is impacting the Egyptian economy the most. There is another war raging in the north with Hezbollah with many communities at the border with Lebanon evacuated. She has a husband and 3 sons that are in active duty, she wants the war to end as well. As for the day after plan, she said how can we have a day after if we are focused now on eliminating the threat on 2 fronts, it is hard to predict what will happen over the next 12 months. We also asked about the impact of further isolation if there is no day after plan. She offered a very useful explanation that the gap between israel and countries in the region vs countries in the west is due to the fact that we are using 2 very distinct languages: SECURITY (Israel and countries in the middle east) while war is bad it is a necessary evil and has terrible consequences there is a threat to our security that must be the focus and HUMANITARIAN (the west) who see war as bad no matter what and can never be justified, while they are perceived as having good intentions they are also perceived as understanding the problem at a very high level
2) the civil society and the exceptional response of Israeli citizens; This is what I needed to see and hear. It is very clear to me that it will have a long lasting impact on me.
Rabbi Fresko also encouraged us to think about the following: are we questioning things we thought were secured before 10/7? Have we been awakened in any way? How can this awakening lead us to a new and better dawn? My initial thought is that while institutions have failed, in Israel and the US, the resilience of the two individuals we spoke with today is awe inspiring, truly, and makes me proud of this country. The situation in Israel was so bad and the system so broken that it required major measures and sacrifices from human beings who became superheroes overnight.
Meeting with Brothers in Arms (Achim laneshek) and the incredible professor Karine Nahon (she has my vote if she runs for prime minister) who teaches the politics of information and power dynamics on the web (fake news, polarization and how they impact the structure of democracy). Karine also established Privacy Israel with 9 others.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_in_Arms_(organization)
This movement was started January 4 2023 in response to the threat of a judiciary overhaul by justice minister Yariv Levin and a larger threat to our democracy, to Zionism and to the notion of a Jewish State. The existence of Israel was under threat from within. There were protests for 9 months (Kaplan street at the HaShalom junction is the epicenter of the anti-government protests), those that had organized around these protests shifted the focus to help after 10/7 and held the country afloat quite literally for a week until the government came back “online”. In fact many in the military and high ranking officials in the army and reserves had threatened not to mobilize for this government if they were to be called to duty because of the current government's ideology. The government called them traitors when they didn’t show up for regular drills. After order 8 was issued on October 7, 120% of the reservists turned up to enlist. Yes, reservists who were not called up still turned up including our former prime minister. Brothers in Arms led the call, on October 7th they sprung into action and mobilized civil society within 24 hours.
Over the past 5 months, an army of volunteers has met at 8AM every day for the past 5 months operating 26 desks in all.
DAY 1: On October 7th she set up the MISSING WAR ROOM after realizing that the public administration could offer only a resounding silence when asked how to start identifying the missing. By Sunday morning Karine had made 2 good decisions. 1) she would get a list from the Nova festival attendees to have a starting point; 2) she would give the information she collects to the government only. The government has structured information but the civilians have people on the ground. Hundreds came to volunteer within hours of the war breaking out.
DAY 2:. By Sunday 9AM she had created a website to start transferring the information from the public since young people were filming the war and posting. By 12PM Sunday there had a list of 10,000 missing (family could not locate them). The best brains of Israel from twitter, FB, IG, engineers, lawyers, archeologists, data scientists, AI experts were in the room to help. A VP of google came and said this volunteer invented facial recognition, this one I have been trying to recruit for months. 3 meals a day were provided, equipment was donated, they were ready to contribute.
Archeologists were asked to map all the pits on the ground outside the music festival then people from the army and volunteers drove down south to evacuate those hiding in the pits running against the clock and in some cases in areas where they were still terrorists.
A call to the public was made via social media to send in any pictures, videos, texts. 200K videos were uploaded. Now the question became, how to ID those in the videos since you can’t share any info with the public to avoid hysteria.
5 technology desks were created and in 110 hours new algorithms were developed (it takes on average two year to build a startup)
Hamas channels were harvested (gaza now and gaza online) from small groups who had posted horrific videos. Hamas quickly understood that these were being analyzed and deleted the videos but only after they had been downloaded by the WAR ROOM.
The hard job of sifting through the information to understand who was killed, wounded or taken. This was a grueling task as Karine put it, at 8AM you come and kill your soul 1,000 times, we were the protective gear for the public.There was no chance for error (not type A or B error) you can’t tell a parent their child is alive when he is dead and vice versa.
DAY 3: the Shabak (Israeli FBI) called to say they needed info and units were created to liaise with the WAR ROOM. In exchange, 2 terabytes of footage from the cameras in the kibbutzim and from the GO-PRO of the terrorists was given to tye WAR ROOM. .
The issue of how to transfer 2 terabytes was the next issue to solve.
Avi Gabai head of orange sent trucks
CEO of amazon sent airplane with experts to help with the transfer
There was a desk of 35 people whose job it was to sift through the videos frame by frame. The horror was unprecedented. Very quickly, it was decided to only keep those who were in their 50s or 60s so the younger volunteers would not be subjected to the sights. There were over 30 psychologists available.
1st FRIDAY: they did kiddush together for shabbat and the emotion came pouring in, they were sent home to spend Shabbat with the family.
After 1 month the MISSING WAR ROOM was closed. A new war room could be recreated within 2 hours if it happened again. The information was turned in to the government but not before sending it to the public library for archiving and classifying so the information could be made available to journalists and the public.
When asked about gathering evidence for the rapes through the videos, she answered that culturally Muslims film every atrocity but stop short of filming the sexual acts (they never filmed the raping of the Yazidis); regardless in the initial days the mindset was on identifying victims not documenting the rapes. In fact the first responders who buried the bodies (Zaka) covered the genital areas to give dignity to the women who were either burned or badly disfigured. Over 1,000 bodies were buried in the first 2-3 days. In the overwhelming majority the women who were raped were then killed. In retrospect there’s a regret with deleting some videos once people were identified, the scenes were so horrific they didn’t think it would benefit anyone to see these, after 3 days they stopped deleting the videos. There are hours of footage of women being exposed to humiliation and we have many eye witness accounts of rapes that were provided to the police.
Karine, is an incredible woman who dedicated her life to a higher calling and a week ago she announced that she will return to the streets to fight for Zionism once again through non-violent protests. Her parting message was that it is time for us to elect a new government and it’s time for Israel to rest and to rebuild.
Our meeting with Project 24 (for the 24 displaced communities from the north and the south) with Daniel Gradus. This is a startup that helps connect donors with displaced communities born from the need to help these communities retain dignity while they are being flooded by donations. P24 empowers them by leveraging their unique skillsets; make it a win:win and level the playing field so anyone can participate even in small ways.
https://www.project24israel.org/
Daniel told us another typical story of growing up in Israel. In 1998, age 20, Daniel found himself 11 km into Lebanon at 3AM on a mission to gather information (pictures) from a Hezbollah camp and come back to base before sunrise at 5:30AM. As they were about to leave they run into terrorists, both groups were surprised and gunshots were fired with one of the soldiers was wounded in the leg. Now they found themselves in a dilemma knowing that a larger terrorist group would be searching for them. Should they go back to base (could they make it on time with a wounded man) or should they hide up in the hills for 24 hours until the next night? They decided to return, made it by 5:30, showered and at 6AM was on his way home. He was picked up by hitchhikers, a young 16 year-old couple that had been out partying all night. They asked him how his night had been and he decided not to share his story, he said that it was his turn to fight so that they can go out partying. At some point it will be theirs so that the others can party.
Daniel talked about 3 front lines during this war: 1) Gaza; 2) civilians in Israel and 3) in New york and other cities where jews are facing rallies and hatred (he just got back from New York and felt safer after landing in Israel!)
One thread that is weaved across the various Israelis we met is the notion that Israelis have a propensity to be entrepreneurial (we call it the start up nation after all), pull people together and as David from our group called it: “pick up and do what needs to be done”. However, Israelis sometimes fall short with seeing things through, as Daniel said “stories we start, others can finish.”
3) the hostages and their families with a focus on the ongoing trauma in israel
The parents of Omer Shem Tov had no response on the whereabouts of their son on Saturday AM and 12 hours later assembled in their home a team of 10 who had worked on the release of Gilad Shalit’s body. This is how the initiative for hostage families began. That day they also sent out a message for families looking for their loved ones to contact them. 140 families had reached out in the first 10 hours and over 200 had been assembled by night on Saturday October 7th. They initially operated out of space donated by a law firm that provided $10K to start, then received $1M from known donors (Ronson, Rotschild…). They had 2K volunteers and lawyers working pro bono. The initiative offers the following services free of charge for all the families: 1) family services (trauma care, psychologists, one social worker is assigned to each family); 2) advocacy (media posts, delegations, experts in diplomacy or fund raising, work with ICC, ICJ, UN); a space with 3 meals a day, showers, offices to work, laundry services. Hostage square in front of the Tel Aviv museum of art is waking distance and holds rallies every Saturday (attended by 50K people), artist installations, prayer groups. Families usually stay home or join delegations around the world. On saturdays their friends come and meet them in hostage square to hug and hold them. There are in all 20 nationalities in the remaining hostages.
We listened to 60 year-old Gilad describe his nightmare since October 7th when 7 members of his family were taken hostage with others murdered in kibbutz Be’eri. 6 were released after 54 days (3 kids and 3 women), While in captivity the kids couldn’t speak hebrew or cry by fear of the neighbors selling info to the Israelis, so they whispered and stayed quiet. His son Tal remains in Gaza. Gilad told us it is not logical Hamas would kill Tal as he can be used as ammunition, as a bargaining chip. The family cannot start the healing process without their dad, the 8 year-old son wanted to dress as a terrorist for Purim and the 4 year old sister burns her dolls. He told us that a first wave of Hamas terrorists came to kill and take back hostages while a second wave from Gaza of civilians were allowed to come in and take hostages to rape, burn or kill at their will. Every day they believe a hostage gets killed.
We also heard from 2 grandkids of the founders of kibbutz Nir Oz where 25% of the people were killed or taken hostages along with their grandparents Oded and Yocheved Lifshitz who are peace activists, Yocheved was released in the first wave. She recounted being taken by Hamas barefoot (Hamas terrorists tried her shoes on in the kibbutz) on a motorcycle and when she arrived in Gaza she was paraded and the crowd attacked her, she suffered a wrist and forehead injury from that harowing experience. Despite a foot injury she was made to walk barefoot underground for a long distance. She met Sinwar who spoke perfect hebrew and asked the hostages how they were feeling. Yocheved answered “how dare you ask me”, he left in silence. She thought her husband had been killed on October 7 in the Kibbutz but a released hostage recounted sharing a cell with Oded, who collapsed (from lack of medication) and was taken away but never returned. We do not know if Oded is alive or received his medication…
Let me leave us on the thought that every person who dies also means the death of all the descendants born from that person, just as it is true that when you save a life you same many. In the old testament, god asks Cain where his brother Able is and there is mention of “all the bloods” (all the generations that will be lost). Every single hostage is a world in itself and as we will see tomorrow when we visit the site of the nova festival and the kibbutz Re’im.
Until then Shalom
Nathalie Horowicz-Mehler