A month has elapsed since Hamas successfully breached the Israeli defense perimeter around Gaza. Israeli security forces didn’t think Hamas could successfully overcome the high-tech wall/barrier around Gaza. Hama’s subterfuge in covering up their plans using communication platforms Hamas knew the Israelis monitor was especially successful. The Hamas misinformation feed led Israel to think Hamas was not planning any attack. And of course, the drones. Hamas destroyed the perimeter defenses with drones. The drones rendered the wall blind and mute. The element of surprise made the barbaric pogrom much more deadly than anyone would have imagined.
All the planning and subsequent broadcasting of the bloodshed is not working to Hamas’ (and Iran’s) advantage. The scale of the Iranian-inspired massacre is in itself, a mirror which reflects as reasonable, Israel’s insistence Hamas has to be eliminated from Gaza. Nobody imagined the scale of murder and mayhem Hamas could inflict on Israel. It galvanized Israel into more than just common cause, the solidarity of the Jewish state in reaction to this war could not have been imagined in the days, weeks, and months that preceded October 7th.
Hamas is merely a proxy for Iran. Iran’s purpose is a broader regional war with Israel. First and foremost, they want the Abraham Accords and the growing reproachment between Arab states and Israel to collapse. That’s not happening, although the governments of most of those Arab countries cooperating with Israel are facing down protests in support of the Palestinians. There is a little bending going on, but no indication that those governments aren’t secretly pleased to see Israel crushing Hamas. The Arab states, and Sunni Muslims in general, fear and despise Iran’s growing regional hegemony.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, is sort of the regional exception that proves the rule. Turkey is a functional democracy, and it is also on its knees economically and otherwise. Erdoğan’s recent re-election in May can’t cover up his weak and tenuous hold on power. The short-term political cover he gains from fulminating against Israel is valuable enough he can put up with helping Iran, whom Erdoğan and Turks in general, loath and fear. Besides, talk is cheap. The only action Erdoğan has taken is to postpone a scheduled trip to Israel. Turkey was the first Muslim-majority country to recognize Israel in 1949. Iran, under the Shah, was the second. The Arab nations need allies against Iran. They appear willing to take them where they find them.
Gaza has been a rats’ nest of trouble for Israel. Israel is going to clean it out and maintain a security presence there for as long as it takes to make sure the enemy has no organized presence in the strip. If only a few dozen Israelis had been killed or kidnapped in the October seventh pogrom, Israel still would have responded with overwhelming force to destroy Hamas. In this asymmetrical battle, who would have thought Hamas being too successful would hurt Iran’s cause? The tired, ‘disproportionate response’ arguments always hurled against Israel have run out of gas. The magnitude of sympathetic reaction for the Palestinians among so many various people is complicated, but it doesn’t seem to be moving the needles in their respective governments. If Israel is successful in driving most of Gaza’s population out of the strip, Arab and other nations may be a little more receptive to accepting and settling the Palestinian refugees than they have been in the past. It’s a tall order, but it would do wonders to end Israel’s Hamas problem. As fluid as national borders are becoming, it is a possibility. The Palestinian refugee problem is seventy-five years old, and it is a political contrivance Israel needs to end.
Millions and millions of refugees suffered and moved on in the twentieth century. Ask how many Greeks or Armenians are living in refugee camps in Turkey. Germans, by the millions, were driven out of their ancestral homelands at the end of the Second World War. By any of those past standards, Israel is the gold standard of constraint and care to minimize casualties among civilians. Hamas shoots men, women and children fleeing Gaza. That’s why they don’t flee until the IDF arrives to protect them. Hamas builds headquarters in tunnels under hospitals. None of this is Israeli propaganda. It’s just the truth. Israel has decided they have a window of sympathy that will soon close. The Israelis imagine that window is short - it doesn’t allow time to lay siege to Gaza. They will take the fight to the enemy and destroy him now.
The best advice when planning a war is; don’t do it. War always plays out in the future, where cause and effect can only be imagined. Most good ideas don’t seem so good looking back. Like my cousin, who spit in her father’s face at age four. She sobbed after the spanking, “that didn’t work out like I planned.” Looking through the fog of war, I’d say the Iranian regime will rue the day they decided they wanted this fight. But - am I a prophet?
When it comes to prophecy, I have a couple of other predictions that come out of this current war. The first one is drones. The use of drones in battle is just getting started. Think aircraft and 1914. Drones are the key to understanding Hamas’ success in breeching Israel’s defensive perimeter. They are the key to the offensive dynamic at the moment. They will be the key to the dynamic defenses that will emerge. There will be millions of militarized drones. They will be autonomous killing machines. Every nation, no matter how poor, even Hamas-like entities, will have them. They will bring total war to a crescendo of slaughter. I suspect Israel will lead the world in their development. Israel is supplanting Silicon Valley as the hub of digital formation. Which brings us to my second observation or prediction which is about Jewish exceptionalism.
The Jews are God’s chosen people. That’s hard luck for the Jews. He sets the bar pretty high for His people. They are supposed to obey His law. They are not free to do exactly what they want. They fall short. Like my cousin and her father, they have a special relationship with the Almighty and that complicates things. My advice is don’t judge them. They remain the apple of His eye. The law of God judges us all, if you want trouble with the Father, hate His son. Israel is the son. I realize even most Jews cringe to hear the facts of the matter so boldly stated. But there is no equality with God. If you seek equality, look at how we are all sinners, and we all die - the grave is equality. The gift of life is freely given. Be thankful you are alive and don’t despise the gift or the giver. You don’t get to choose your parents. God is the great differentiator. Get over it.
There are a lot of people who are never going to get over it. They are going to hate the Jews. What an eye-opener! It staggers the imagination to see the unsheathed malice and hatred multitudes have for the Jews. “Doctor, my eyes… have I left them open for too long?” I’d like to think it’s worse on the left than on the right, but it’s bad everywhere. I was in Tanzania for a couple of weeks, it’s bad in Africa. Which brings me to the Torah and the ‘why’ of Jewish exceptionalism.
Paul Reichmann was an Orthodox Jew who died ten years ago. He owned/controlled at one time a good chuck of New York City, London and possibly most of Toronto. Real estate investment. He was good at what he did. Forty years ago, he said something and I have decided over the years it’s foundational to my weltanschauung. He thought Jewish exceptionalism arises out of Torah study.
I remembered Reichmann last week when the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson said, “Someone asked me today in the media, ‘People are curious, what does Mike Johnson think about any issue?’ I said, ‘Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview.”
That sounds like something a Torah Scholar would say. Is Mike Johnson saying, “I may not be a Jew, but I think like one?” I wouldn’t be surprised if Johnson would endorse my interpretation. What else can you be thinking when you say something like that? The Bible is Israel’s story. Jesus of Nazareth is Israel’s king. If the tale is true, it ought to be transformative. Creative thinking has to be constrained by the truth to be useful. “The truth shall set you free,” as Jesus said, “if you abide in my word.” It’s Jewish thinking, good or bad, that is always transforming the world. If there was no truth in Marxism, it wouldn’t be such a persistent menace.
I could be wrong about why the Jews are exceptional. I am not wrong about their exceptional thinking and creativity. It’s a fact and the world doesn’t know how to deal with it. Harry Truman expressed my feelings about Jewish exceptionalism perfectly. Someone in the crowd on a campaign train whistle stop shouted out to Truman, “Give ‘em hell Harry.” Truman shouted back, “I just tell ‘em the truth and they think its hell.” God has chosen Israel. We all have to deal with it, and deal with it charitably. It’s the truth.