Busy Summer in Ottawa
In Israel the War Continues and the Political Battles Go On
We have had a string of beautiful days in Ottawa since our return from Atlanta a week ago and our plate has been full of things to do. We are planning a new year of programming and adult education at our Ottawa synagogue where we chair the Adult Education committee. We are living in an era where the need for uplifting and informative Jewish programming is felt more acutely than before, and people are turning up at synagogue services, both on Shabbat and during the week in bigger numbers than we have seen since before the pandemic shut it all down for a year.
The backlog of things to do has resulted in a bit less output on this platform for the past week or so. But there is also a question of what should occupy our attention next. After nine months of war, we understand that the enemy is as intransigent as ever. We understand that, while we have some allies, much of the world does not share our pain. A segment of that world seems rather to think we are getting our just desserts.
As a result, Jews are feeling more isolated. When we go out, with our kippah and dog tags, we still encounter smiles, but also meet hostile and angry looks. As a retired person, we don’t have a workplace to navigate any more. When working as a software consultant, we were generally surrounded by people of many national and religious backgrounds. We wonder what those workplaces would be like today.
In Israel the political maneuvering continues. The Jewish Power party leader and Police Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir has demanded a seat in the war cabinet, which has in fact been disbanded. To press his claim, on June 8, he withdrew his caucus from the Knesset when it came time to vote on a bill concerning rabbinical appointments that was championed by the Shas party. The government had to pull the bill from the agenda to avoid losing the vote.
In response, ultraorthodox Shas leader Aryeh Deri called Ben Gvir “an inflated balloon”. Ben Gvir called Deri a “lapdog of the left”. The head of United Torah Judaism, the other ultraorthodox party in the coalition said that the government seemed to be on the road to dissolution.
Both Ben Gvir and Religious Zionism leader Betzalel Smotrich are threatening to leave the government if the hostage deal which is currently being negotiated in Cairo and Doha is approved. There is also division within the Likud party over stalled legislation to exempt tens of thousands of Yeshivah students from the military draft. In the absence of the legislation, the army has announced that it will start drafting ultraorthodox students in August, stating that there is a great need for additional personnel.
We have just marked nine months of war and nine months of captivity for the Israelis taken on October 7. At a meeting of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice committee on Monday, the chair, Simcha Rothman ejected the brother of a hostage. The removal involved a large number of security guards, who dragged the man from the room. Danny Elgarat, whose brother Itzik is a hostage in Gaza, was ordered removed when he interrupted Boaz Miran, who was speaking against Israeli acceptance of a proposed hostage deal. Boaz’ brother Omri is also a hostage in Gaza.
Image: Danny Elgarat, whose brother Itzik is in captivity in Gaza speaks at a rally in February. —————-Times of Israel
While indirect talks between Israel and Hamas have apparently been revived, and there is said to be progress, the fighting has intensified throughout the territory. The IDF reports continued success in destroying tunnels and in killing terrorists. Sadly, heroic IDF fighters continue to lose their lives as the army pursues its goals against the enemy.
While the remaining hostages and the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar remain elusive, this report indicates that at least some of the Hamas officials in Gaza have had enough. It seems that they appealed to the Hamas leadership abroad to accept a ceasefire deal with Israel, in spite of the reluctance of Sinwar, suggesting that Sinwar may be out of touch with the scale of Hamas losses, wherever he is holed up.
In the north, the level of violence is escalating daily. This evening we heard very sad news that two civilians have been killed in the Golan Heights after a barrage of forty rockets was fired by Hezbollah. Israel has been successful in targeting senior figures in the Lebanese terrorist organization, but most of Hezbollah’s rockets remain in reserve and it is expected that a full scale attack would cause large scale death and destruction throughout Israel.
While terrible for Israel, such an attack would lead to Hezbollah’s destruction at the hands of the IDF, and devastation in Lebanon, and it is still thought that Hezbollah would like avoid full scale war.
At the UN, officials who work for “human rights” offices made statements that Israel is carrying out a “targeted starvation campaign” in Gaza. Among those signing the statement was UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhri.
“Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza,” the 10 independent experts said in a statement.
— Statement by 10 UN staff
While these people were not speaking on behalf of the UN, their harsh language drew a rebuke from the Israeli UN ambassador. The ambassador said
“Mr. Fakhri, and many so-called ‘experts’ who joined [him], are as much accustomed to spreading misinformation as they are to supporting Hamas propaganda and shielding the terrorist organization from scrutiny.”
The statement is just the latest misleading response to a recent report by the UN Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), “which determined that famine had not materialized after aid access had improved somewhat”. The IPC incorrectly forecasted in March that famine in Gaza was imminent.
As we do our best to carry on with our lives in difficult times, we also get up each day determined to continue writing the truth about what is happening in Israel and to make the case for Israel’s just war of self-defense against the obscene provocations committed by Hamas on October 7. While we mourn for everyone we have lost and for the loss of our sense of security, we remain confident that the resilience of the Jewish people will continue and that Israel will win this war and again see better days.
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David, I really appreciate your writing skills and attitude.