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Evyatar David |
A new poll by the Israel Democracy Institute has found that a large majority of Israeli Jews — including many traditional and even some Orthodox respondents — support imposing sanctions on Charedim who do not enlist in the IDF.
According to the survey, 85% of non-Charedi Jews support measures that would penalize draft evasion. This includes a striking 98.5% of secular Israelis, 86% of traditional non-Orthodox Jews, and 65% of Orthodox Jews.
I don’t know how many everyday Charedim are aware of just
how much the rest of Israeli society -
including most non-Charedi Orthodox Jews - resents them. But I can’t imagine
they don’t at least suspect it, especially knowing there is a war going on from
which they are exempt, while everyone else is not — and in most cases, has had
their lives dramatically altered because of it.
Not that this awareness is likely to change anything. They
will continue to cling to the notion promoted by their leadership: that their
intensive Torah study contributes more to the war effort than any soldier ever
could.
What makes this more significant now is the possibility that
Israel’s goal in Gaza may be expanded to include the complete occupation of Gaza.
All of it - including areas where hostages are still being held. That would
entail mobilizing more reserves to carry out combat operations, which sadly
means the likelihood of more IDF soldiers being killed.
To once again be asked to put yourself in harm’s way - after
already having served numerous and extended tours of duty - is to demand
sacrifices that I believe go beyond human endurance. And yet the most obvious
pool of potential soldiers who could help relieve this burden - with a few
notable exceptions - continues to be unwilling to step up.
I’ve said all this before. But it bears repeating.
No one wants the war to end more than I do. I don’t want to see one additional soldier die or be injured.
Enough!
From my admittedly limited perspective, I don’t know what
expanding the war will accomplish. It may even endanger the lives of the
remaining hostages, whose savage captors would likely not hesitate to ‘finish
them off’ in a final act of ‘martyrdom’.
At the same time, I am not prepared to say that the Prime
Minister is so evil that he is willing to prolong the war, risk losing the
hostages, and let more soldiers die or be maimed - all for the purpose of
staying in power.
He would have to be a monster of the highest order for that
to be his sole motive. I’ll grant that he wishes to remain in power and might
do almost anything to achieve that. But to deliberately abandon the hostages
and let more soldiers die solely to remain in office is, in my view, not
the case. Like him or not - a lifetime of service to his country says
otherwise.
I believe that he is sincere in his stated goal of
eliminating Hamas in order to secure his people. His recent declaration to
occupy all of Gaza was prompted by one of the most horrific hostage videos to
date. As reported by CNN:
“What I’m doing now is digging my own grave,” says Evyatar David, as his fragile figure, weak with hunger, scrapes at the dirt with a shovel in a cramped Gaza tunnel.
“Every day, my body becomes weaker and weaker,” the 24-year-old hostage adds, “and time is running out.”
This is just one of the horrifying scenes since October 7th. The latest were released by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, each showing a
surviving Israeli hostage - kidnapped on October 7, 2023 - sharply
deteriorating in captivity. Evyatar David looked like he was literally a skeleton
covered with a thin layer of skin.
When I saw the images of Evyatar David, I admit I reacted
with visceral anger. Especially at how the media chose to handle it. As the Wall Street Journal aptly put it:
“Hamas Starves Jews and Palestinians, and Israel Gets Blamed.”
Yes, the media did express outrage at those images. But they simultaneously maintained their overriding narrative that Palestinian suffering is the bigger problem. Suffering they continue to blame on Israel , without fail. This, despite the fact that their reporting relies heavily on Palestinian journalists in Gaza and their collaborators in the UN and so-called humanitarian agencies.
Just yesterday, for example, I saw an interviews with the
head of one of these agencies - one that is apparently highly regarded by the
mainstream media - speak about the starvation and ‘genocide’ happening in Gaza,
without being challenged or corrected.
Are Palestinians starving? Not if they’re members of Hamas.
To the extent that there might be hunger Hamas is entirely responsible.
Are they actually starving? The U.S. president seemed to
think so. Until he sent his chief negotiator, Steve Witkoff, to find out.
Here’s what the Jerusalem Post reported:
Witkoff told the families that he came to personally assess the situation in Gaza and to ensure that humanitarian aid is being provided.
He said that while there is hardship and food shortages, there is no starvation in Gaza.
That puts him at odds with all the ‘humanitarian’ groups
claiming otherwise . And with the images Hamas is providing to the media.
Images repeated daily by a media that prioritizes narrative over accuracy, and
which continues to trust humanitarian organizations with a long and
well-documented history of anti-Israel bias.
As for Netanyahu’s plan to occupy all of Gaza… is he mad? Or
does this have something to do with the new policy recently articulated by both
the U.S. President and his envoy?
Witkoff said the U.S. was planning an all-or-nothing approach to end the Israel-Hamas war and bring the hostages home - calling it
President Trump’s top priority.
The only way I can understand all or nothing is this:
Either Hamas surrenders, releases all the hostages, and exits Gaza permanently - or
Israel will make sure that happens by force.
Netanyahu’s plan may very well be coordinated with the U.S.
And I have a feeling that the 22 Arab nations who are
members of the Arab League - which
recently issued a call for Hamas to release the hostages lay down arms, and leave Gaza - may be in on this plan too.
I have no idea if any of this is true. But I sure hope that
whatever Israel does next, it is done in close coordination with the U.S. and that the Arab League is on board with it. And that, one way or another, it leads to freeing the
hostages, expelling Hamas from Gaza, and finally ending this war with the
victory Netanyahu has been seeking all along.
