Season of Comfort

Quick Update and News Roundup

Reckoning with a Calamitous Year

In the month of Elul followers of the Jewish tradition are supposed to prepare for our annual reckoning with the Master of the universe. We look back on the year behind and seek to make amends for the wrongs we may have done to our fellow human beings. We look ahead and try to imagine ways to be a better person and ways to build a better world. In return we look to heaven for blessings and good fortune for ourselves and those we love.

For the people of Israel this has been a particularly difficult year, full of heartbreak and trials. For many of us, the pain and loss are unfathomable. Our enemies continue to torment us and our captives remain in their hands. Hundreds of soldiers have fallen in battle and civilians continue to be targeted by terrorists. Many outside the Jewish community who may have been supportive in the past are conspicuously missing when it comes to supporting Canadian Jews at this difficult moment.

As Canadian students return to school, there are renewed reports of hostile crowds on University campuses picketing Jewish institutions and menacing Jewish students. Canada’s Foreign Minister just intervened to prevent a Canadian subsidiary of an American defense company from fulfilling an order from the United States government for ammunition destined for Israel. This flies in the face of declarations from Canadian officials that Israel has a right to defend itself from the criminals who just murdered six Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Yesterday at the Toronto International Film Festival, the screening of an Israeli film was disrupted by protesters claiming to be Jewish. The protesters repeated the libel that Israel is committing genocide. Meanwhile, South Africa, which brought genocide charges against Israel nine months ago at the International Court of Justice (IJC) asked for an extension of the deadline to submit their case. Apparently, nine months was not long enough for them to come up with evidence to support their accusations, which much of the world has erroneously treated as fact since they first brought the charges.

A Long War Seems Set to Continue

In the aftermath of the murder of the six hostages, Israel’s streets filled with demonstrators, in the largest gatherings since the Prime Minister tried to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in the summer before the war. Many of the demonstrators blamed Israel’s Prime Minister for the failure to achieve a ceasefire and hostage deal. As we’ve written more than once this summer, we don’t believe that a deal is actually possible on the terms that Israel has offered and which the United States has heavily supported. On September 10, Times of Israel reported that the US was at odds with the other mediators over whether Hamas or Israel was to blame for holding up a deal, with Qatar and Egypt blaming Israel and the US insisting that Hamas is to blame.

Fighting continued in Gaza. On September 11, Israel killed some senior Hamas officials in an air strike and Hamas, as it invariably does when senior officials are killed, claimed that Israel had killed a large number of civilians. Israel disputed this. CBC As It Happens broadcast an interview with a Gaza aid worker which focused entirely on the hardship being experienced by the people in Gaza. Asked what role Hamas had in causing the hardship, the aid worker ignored the question and said that Israel was using “disproportionate force” in Gaza. In doing this she demonstrated a misunderstanding of the concept of proportionality in the laws of war, arguing that Hamas’ claimed death toll of 41,000 in Gaza was out of proportion to any military benefit achieved by Israel.

Israel’s defense minister met with troops and told them to prepare for a ground operation in Lebanon. Hezbollah continued to send dozens of rockets into Israel every day. A terror attack killed two Israelis at the border crossing with Jordan. A soldier died near Beth El, after a terrorist drove a truck into a bus stop. Two more soldiers died in a helicopter crash in Gaza. Defense minister Gallant claimed on Wednesday that Hamas has been reduced from an organized military to isolated insurgent groups. Gallant released a desperate message sent to Hamas leader Sinwar by Rafa’a Salameh, Hamas brigade commander in Khan Younis. Ra’afah, who has since been killed, detailed catastrophic losses of weapons and personnel and failing morale as well as the loss of support from the people.

Image: Israeli Defense Minister Gallant displays Hamas Document Retrieved from Gaza ————- Source: Times of Israel

Thanks For Your Support

We are working on a longer piece and preparing for a dinner and discussion on antisemitism in the DEI world this evening at Kehillat Beth Israel Congregation in Ottawa. We are grateful for the continuing influx of new subscribers during the past week.

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