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My last few days in Israel were both sad and instructive. I now recognize more than ever how implacable Israel’s enemies are, how necessary it is that Israel deal with them now not later, and how difficult the information landscape is for Israel to navigate and how poorly it has prepared to do so. It has taken me more than a week to collect my thoughts during which time so much has happened that distracted me from what I planned to write about, such as:
Israel’s move into Rafah after Hamas rejected a temporary ceasefire deal praised by the United States and offered by Israel in return for release of hostages.
Israel’s move into Rafah (now 30-40% now taken by the IDF) and the concomitant safe evacuation of almost one million Gazans (more than 2/3 of the occupants) from the city. Something international observers thought impossible.
Benny Gantz’s threat to leave the War Cabinet unless Netanyahu comes up with a “day after” plan by June 8 and a method to restore the ability of northerners to return to their homes near the Lebanese border by September 1.
Hezbollah’s increased rocket and drone fire into northern Israel
Hamas’ attacks on sites from which supplies are sent to Gazans.
The ramifications of the death of Iran’s President and Foreign Minister in a helicopter crash likely caused by weather.
The IDF’s discovery of fifty tunnels leading from Egypt into Gaza and Egypt’s refusal to participate in any meaningful way to alleviate Gazan civilian suffering. Somehow, Egypt is getting a pass for its passive complicity due to graft and/or intent.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant (of course, the ICJ never thought to issue an arrest warrant for Bashar Assad, the President of Syria, who is directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilian deaths through his use of gas, barrel bombs and other means).
However, through it all, I have remained resolute that there is another important story to tell that takes precedence. With the daily onslaught of news, it is far too easy to forget what this fight is about—the right of Israelis to live in peace and security in a Jewish Homeland. That right, sorely tested on October 7, is being increasingly challenged as time goes on. Therefore, I think it important to return to the epicenter of January 7, to remind of what faces Jews in Israel, the United States, and elsewhere in the world if that fight is not won.
My Journey to the Nova Festival Massacre Site
About sixty miles south of Tel Aviv and three miles east of Gaza, is the site of the largest massacre perpetrated by Hamas on October 7. On Route 232, It is rather difficult to find, but is very close to Kibbutz Re’im, one of the many Kibbutzim invaded by Hamas.
The dirt road leading to the location is flanked on the right by trees with trunks that have a peculiar narrow diameter and fragility and on the left by a large open field—a field I think commemorated in a video taken that day that showed hundreds of young people fleeing the guns of the ravenous horde of terrorists that descended upon them. But when I was there it was peaceful except for cars and busses parked among the trees. There, I parked too.
A couple hundred yards north, up the dirt road, is where much of the horror unfolded. And that is where the simple memorials to those that suffered stand silently. Mostly on the right in a misshapen circle where the dance floor was, but also many to the left in a larger rectangular area that covered part of the open field, are hundreds of wooden poles rising out of the ground. Affixed to each is a picture, a name, and sometimes a little more than that.
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Collectively, those simple monuments bring to life their deaths and the horror they experienced. It is a place where in the space of minutes joyful frenzy turned to fear that morphed into screams, moans, and silent corpses.
In some ways, the moving, simple markers reminded me of the markers in Montana that commemorate where each of Custer’s soldiers died in the battle of the Little Bighorn River. But that was a desperate battle between men armed and fully capable of killing each other. The winners survived. The losers died. What happened at the Nova Festival was not a battle, it was a wanton orgy of hatred indicative of the dark souls Hamas sent that day to ravage and rape. It was not a battle between opposing forces. It was butchery of the helpless. It was the pogroms of the past coming to the present. For the hour I wandered through the site, I didn’t utter a word. I don’t know that I even blinked. There, the silent solemnity drowned out noise made by others who had come to see where carnage befell the innocent.
Five things impacted me other than those silent testimonials to the 364 that lost their lives that day, as well as the forty taken to the dungeons of Gaza.
The first were several concrete bunkers ringing the central site where I assume most partygoers congregated and most markers are located.
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They are rectangular in shape with slots at either end through which people looking for shelter from rockets, not a beastly horde, could enter into the main protective area and whose solid walls and roofs provided protection from missile attack. But those enclosures provided no protection from men with long guns and grenades who could enter them at will. I thought, as I walked inside one, of those who hopelessly cringed within them in failed attempts to avoid the savagery engulfing them.
The second was of all things, the temporary toilets. Never my favorite place to go the bathroom, I had no choice but to use one. But when I closed the door, I flashed to a thought different than a need for relief. Three times I’ve seen videos that showed and described what happened at the temporary toilets at the Nova Festival. One was the IDF produced forty-seven-minute film I saw last December, another the film Supernova: The Music Festival Massacre, and third, Sheryl Sandberg’s recently released Youtube documentary, Screams Before Silence, which highlights the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas on October 7. Now, in the same place, in the same type of toilet, seven months apart, I imagined what it must have been like for the people who hid in the same place I was—some successfully, others not. In Sandberg’s documentary is a description provided by a young woman cowering in one for hours while hearing sounds of rape around her. They say that a writer should show, not tell. Here, I felt, and in some small way, tried to understand.
The third thing that caught my attention was a ring of countertops, about twenty feet in diameter, within which refrigerators for beverages had been stored during the festival. It was called, the “Little Bar.” A sign outside the ring explains what happened. Twenty young partiers tried to hide there, some wedged between the wall and the refrigerators and others inside the containers. Outside the circle, a solitary policewomen tried to defend them. Opposing her were ten of the one hundred terrorists that had overrun the site. Two of those hiding jumped up and ran for their lives. They Survived. The terrorists snuffed out the lives of the remaining ones, along with the courageous policewomen. Now, it remains as a living memorial to those that died without hope.
The fourth was where many of the cars of the partygoers were parked. Getting to them seemingly required running toward the road from which the terrorists infiltrated the site. In the face of screams and gunshots, fear and uncertainty, I stood with disbelief wondering how I would have reacted—run towards the storm to reach my vehicle or run from it into the open fields where there was no cover from the bullets zipping by and the onslaught of the maddened looking for blood to slake their thirst?
But it was the fifth thing that is stamped indelibly on my mind. It was the trees.
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Not too stout, mostly straight, and with little underbrush. I believe they were part of what is called Re’im forest. They also may have been where, and certainly were representative of, the worst of what that day produced. Before I left for Israel, I watched Cheryl Sandberg’s documentary of Hamas’ the sexual violence that day. Not visually graphic, but horrifying nevertheless, I implore all who read this to watch it. Doing so is necessary for understanding what happened that day—not from an intellectual level—but a much more important visceral one.
At one point in the documentary, Sandburg interviews a man who came upon a scene of such horrifying nature that I wish it does not be told, but that must. In Re’im woods, he found many young women, stripped and shackled to those trees. Clearly raped, wantonly murdered—their agony exposed. I doubt they were left like that due to haste. Was it terrorist pride in their savagery? Was it proof of their prowess? Or was it meant to instill fear and send a message? I don’t know and frankly don’t care. But of one thing I am certain, Israel can never allow it to happen again. For the sake of its people and for the sake of mankind. Because if the perpetrators of this savagery survive this war, they will do it again. But even worse if the perpetrators of such barbarism are not rooted out, others of similar ilk will be inspired to embark on this form of warfare. Then, torturing the innocent will become normalized and repeated, not just to Israelis, but to anyone terrorists can touch. That means us in America, in Western Europe, and elsewhere around the globe. And so, by rooting out Hamas and not agreeing to give it a respite despite the international outcry to do so, Israel is doing the world a service, whether in the heat of the moment the world realizes it or not. Otherwise, what happened to Jews October 7, another day will happen to anyone that stands in the way of extremists who put hate before humanity.
When I left the site of the massacre, I thought about a couple things. First, within those trees I saw large numbers of IDF soldiers, sitting in circles, talking and reflecting. I can think of nothing more motivational before going to battle than spending a few minutes among the agonized whispers of those silenced. But those idealistic thoughts were quickly replaced by the reality of what I saw as I drove back to Tel Aviv along Route 232. From the narrow, two-lane road I was on, there was no escape for those that had been able to achieve a temporary respite by escaping in their cars. In one direction was Kibbutz Re’im. The other way was Kibbutz Be’eri and Kibbutz Azza. All were scenes of more massacres, more rapes, more mutilations, and more kidnaps. And all along the road I was now on, Hamas’ minions found joy in doing the same to occupants of cars desperately trying to find safety.
What I would have done had I been in one of those cars. What would you have done? Heavily armed men to the front and to the rear. And to the left and right rolling fields and woods. Nowhere was there a place to turn. Only forward or back. Death and devastation. No choices. Just cold corpses.
Now, with the benefit of a few days’ reflection, my views have hardened even more, and my frustration increased. Hardened, because I am certain that there is no reconciling with the type of human being that did what Hamas ordered on October 7. They didn’t just do it because they were ordered. They were inspired by their delight to denigrate. Motivated by their joy for the agony of the innocent. Neither is there any fruitful value in pursuing a negotiated resolution with Hamas that leaves it intact. Seek a hostage release? Yes. Agree to a permanent ceasefire such as the one that Hamas violated on October 7—never.
And frustrated, because somehow, for many through lack of knowledge or lack of caring, far too many continue to view Israel as the superior power required to make greater concessions when in reality it is an embattled, severely outnumbered nation facing overwhelming implacable hate. Somehow, the story has become how Israel fights its war (with disregard for the difficulty and Israel’s efforts to avoid civilian casualties that far surpass any other army in any other war) rather than the evil of what it is fighting. And somehow, there is a dearth of reporting about the direct line from the horror of the Nova Festival massacre to worldwide antisemitism. An antisemitism that cares little about Palestinian rights except as a tool to bludgeon Israel and beguile its erstwhile supporters.
The reality is this, the line between Israel’s survival and Jewish survival is thin. Mistakes have consequences and humans are prone to error. Already, we have seen three Israeli failures that have brought us to where we are:
An abject failure to comprehensively fight the information war for hearts, minds, and narrative. Through the interviews I conducted in Israel and by Zoom, I have learned learned that Israel has no methodical, organized information media plan, little budget for it, and a haphazard approach to it (with the remarkable exception of the IDF spokesperson’s office). This includes failure to engage on the most fundamental narrative of all—that Israelis (Jews, Druze, Christians, Muslims and all other citizens) have the fight to live in peace and security in a Jewish homeland.
Pre-October 7 adherence to a flawed concept concerning Hamas’ capabilities and intentions.
Overreliance on technologic solutions over ground forces in place.
These failures have combined with two of our own:
Our collective failure to consistently fight back against the belief (even among some of ourselves) that Israel is the superior power in the region thus requiring it to make risky concessions to its security when in reality it is a nation that has little margin for error if it is to survive in the face of overwhelming, implacable hatred.
A naïve and altruistic attitude among many of us in the diaspora that has blinded most, including myself, from recognizing the danger that was always there that we now collectively face.
As a result, Jews everywhere are threatened, not just in Israel. And in the long run, humanity is threatened if we countenance terror.
And so, when I see Israel asked to hold off finishing off Hamas, I rage. When I read of diplomatic attempts to rein in Hezbollah that have no teeth I see the ignominy of the world’s double standards. When I hear speakers’ rail disingenuously about supposed Israeli war crimes, I now am determined to engage rather than ignore. And when I hear stories of thinly veiled antisemitism or just pre-October 7 viewpoints now antiquated by the reality of what is happening in our schools, in media, and elsewhere—that serves to redouble my determination to speak out. For there is a direct link between the rapes and homicidal rage of October 7 to the antisemitism, once latent, that now surrounds us. Israel must do its part—finishing off Hamas, dealing with Hezbollah—all while facing down Iran’s threat. So must we do our job—advocating, donating, writing, litigating, marching, educating, and anything else to pound into dust the scourge that is tightening its grip on us. Otherwise, the river of blood spilt on October 7 will just be the first drips of the sea of spilt Jewish blood to come.
Each of us, Jews and non-Jews alike, must do something—anything—and collectively everything. Already, I see signs of that happening that makes me hopeful.
But it’s up to all of us. Let’s go to work.
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On May 9, I had the honor of speaking at an all-day conference about the War on Israel’s Northern-Iranian Front put on by the Alma Research and Education Center. It was attended by members of the IDF, media, research centers, NGOs, impacted people in the north, and others. My topic concerned the portrayal of the danger Hezbollah presents in the United States. You can view it here, by scrolling to the 4 hr. and 26 minute mark, where I am introduced. I speak for about 15 minutes.
Also, if you have an interest in the danger Hezbollah presents and how it came to be, you might consider purchasing my book which can be obtained on Amazon here.
Weekend Update May 16-19, 2024, 02:00 pm – Northern Arena—Written by Dana Polak Kanarik for the Alma Research and Education Center—May 19, 2024
The Gaza Terror Offensive – 15 April – 13 May 2024—Written by Dr. Eado Hecht for the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies—May 15, 2024
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IDF Reveals Hamas Terrorists use UN Vehicles, UNRWA Compound as Cover in Rafah - Watch—Written by Jerusalem Post Staff—May 14, 2024
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Gantz Challenges Netanyahu to Reveal his True War, Post-Hamas, Hezbollah Strategy—Written by Yonah Jeremy Bob for the Jerusalem Post—May 18, 2024
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The Forgotten Citizens of the North: A Day on Israel's Lebanese Border - Comment—Written by Eric R. Mandel for the Jerusalem Post—May 20, 2024
An Israel-Lebanon Agreement May Not Be Worth the Costs—Written by David Schenker for the The Washington Institute for Near East Policy—May 14, 2024
The Gates of Gaza: Israel Must Abandon the Failed Idea that Technological Wizardry Will Guarantee its Security—Written by Michael Doran and Can Kasapoglu for Tablet—May 13, 2024.
In Our Name: A Message from Jewish Students at Columbia University—An important and courageous message signed by a very large number of Jewish students at Columbia University.
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Name and Shame: Pro-Israel Website Ramps up Attacks on Pro-Palestinian Student Protesters—Written by Reuters and republished by the Jerusalem Post May 12, 2024.
Hezbollah: Methods and Flight Modes Challenge Israel’s UAV Interception Capabilities—Written by Boaz Shapira and Tal Beeri for the Alma Research and Education Center—May 16, 2024
Position Paper – Israel Should Completely and Thoroughly Destroy all CERS Infrastructures in Syria.—Written by Tal Beeri for the Alma Research and Education Center—May 12, 2024
In Seizing Rafah Crossing, Israel Turns Tables on Hamas’s Stalling Tactics—Written by Yaakov Lappin for Jewish News Syndicate—May 8, 2024
I Thought I Wanted to Understand the Situation with Hezbollah. Not Sure Now.—Written by Sheri Oz for her Substack Newsletter, Israel Diaries—May 11, 2024—This is an excellent summary of the Alma Center’s all-day conference regarding northern Israel security threats.
Even with a Ceasefire, war with Hezbollah Will Happen by 2026, Policy Experts Say—Written by Shaked Sadeh for the Jerusalem Post—May 11, 2024
Israel’s Struggle with Hezbollah—A War Without End is now available in eBook and hardback format on Amazon and IngramSpark. This compelling narrative explores Hezbollah’s origins and cancerous growth, traces Israel’s response, and reveals Israel’s present readiness to meet Hezbollah’s challenge.
Cliff Sobin
Important Link—Alma Research and Education Center: Understanding the Security Challenges on Israel’s Northern Border