Devastating Attack, Day Seven

As of tomorrow morning it will be a full week. I honestly cannot remember anything like it in my life. Today’s my birthday and I recall how as a little kid on this day fifty years ago I was watching the news as the battles in the Sinai and Golan unfolded and the rest of the family looked at the screen in disbelief. People did not comprehend it. In retrospect that war was of a completely different magnitude with guys in tanks fighting it out, now we have terrorists murdering kids, beheading babies and raping women.

It was also a week in which I had to travel to Italy for a tech and venture finance conference and in between meetings with many start-ups I was checking into the news and back at the hotel writing out the daily updates. The weird thing was that there was not one moment of feeling tired or overloaded, it was non-stop activity and it felt like being charged with an unusual source of energy. It was so hectic that I was late checking in with some of my Jewish and Israeli friends and when I reached out they responded instantly. One of them shared the photo above of last night’s rally in Amsterdam.

Again thanks for the e-mails. New subscribers joined, some exited. I bring a selection of news, but try to focus on analysis and background. The feedback on the historical context I get from many of you is really great, so I will keep doing that. For today, I will keep things short and leave you with a few key things and appropriate links:

• Israel is starting its ground offensive in Gaza and has warned civilians there to make a move into the southern section of the strip. This will be a violent battle and do watch for how things are being reported, the disinformation started on ‘X’ early today and expect more over the days and weeks ahead.

• A few of you asked why Egypt is not letting in the Palestinian refugees which one would expect to happen as the right thing to do, in particular given Egypt’s proximity and room to accommodate. Instead they closed the border. Egypt’s leadership has had its experiences with radical Islam and will not allow anything to destabilize the current order under president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Not even a humanitarian crisis.

• The stories of horror and grief keep coming. We need to look it in the eye, we can’t look away ever. A few emotional ones that hit hard: a father who learned of the death of his 8-year old daughter and accepting that as a better fate than her being hostage in Gaza. An account of how a baby was shot and killed in front of its mother, and this. No words.

• One of the commentators I really value is Michal Cotler-Wunsh, who is based in Israel and is the daughter of former Canadian liberal justice minister Irwin Cotler. Her daily videos with succinct and terse commentary brim with unusual moral clarity. Watch them.

• For those asking where my lifelong journey with Israel comes from, take a look at what I wrote for Israel’s seventieth birthday on my old blog, here. It sums it all up.

• And yes, the Israeli intelligence failure was colossal. There are many aspects to this, like how Israel’s systems failed, but also how Hamas prepared, apparently for over two years. And how early and direct warnings from Egypt about a ‘terrifying’ event fell on deaf ears. One other tidbit I picked up was how the attack on the rave was planned weeks in advance by Hamas infiltrating some of the event’s preparations on Facebook. There is a lot here and I hope to return to it next week. In the meantime, the NYT has a good summary to get started.

• Protests are taking place all over the world. Pro-Israel, like the one above in Amsterdam last night and pro-Palestinian ones like the one at the University of Washington in Seattle. Watch it. And cry. Scenes like this are taking place across many campuses in the US. Full-on unmitigated Jew hatred. At the time we thought ‘never again’ meant ‘never again’ Jews are no longer safe anywhere. The Amsterdam rally too was heavily protected and a flower display left after the event was destroyed, of course.

Keep your eyes on the news, we are living through some of the most unusual and defining periods of modern history. See you all next week.