A Report From Several Fighting Fronts

Children of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

First, thank you so very much for your very moving response to Wednesday’s post. It’s always a little bit of a decision: how intimate to be in a column like this. I’m trying to serve all of you in very specific ways, providing community, information, resources, uplift, moral support, political reinforcement, etc. How advisable is it actually to show up in all my idiosyncratic glory (glory meant ironically here, in case it’s not obvious)? Can I show this little shade of my crazy?

I know the post upset at least two of you and I’m genuinely sorry about that. I very much get the depth of anguish many feel upon seeing an animal that’s been lethally hurt. If I didn’t feel the same way, I wouldn’t be compelled to maintain this ritual of funeral rites.

But so many others expressed love for the post, both publicly and privately, and it felt so good to be understood to that extent, and to know others share the wish to accord respect and tenderness to all sentient beings.

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I know I owe you more folks to follow. But it’s hard to devote whole columns to anything that doesn’t include current news because so many things happen every day. I will talk about one more today, toward the end of this newsletter, and really, I will just introduce you to these people, if you don’t know them already, on an ongoing basis. There are truly so many. More than you would believe given the haters sucking up all the media airspace.

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So — news on the middle eastern front:

Israel has advanced deep into central Rafah, ignoring international condemnation, a decision I applaud. It has established operational control over the Philadelphi Corridor, which is a thin strip of land around 9 miles in length along the border between Egypt and Gaza. This allows the IDF to strangle the supply line between Egypt and Gaza through the terror tunnels in that zone.

Despite what the mainstream media would have you believe, Israel is winning this war. Hamas is now saying it’s ready for a “complete agreement” and a comprehensive hostage exchange if Israel ends its incursion. The terror group released a voice recording of hostage Noa Argamani, who was undoubtedly forced to read a Hamas script, calling for Israelis to pour into the streets and protest the government. Reportedly a new three-stage proposal from Israel, backed and promoted by President Biden, is on the table, and said proposal would include the return of all hostages and a permanent end to the fighting.

While I have my own opinions about the best course of action, from my vantage point in the U.S. and my limited knowledge which of course does not include behind-the-scenes negotiations, I would not dream of saying what the IDF should do. The truth is there are profound drawbacks to whatever it decides.

The idea of leaving the hostages in captivity is completely annihilating and I cannot bear to think of it. But incentivizing Hamas to keep taking hostages and agreeing to wildly unfair terms to release them is also doing terrible harm. When we released 1,000 terrorists for Gilad Shalit, we sent the message that they only have to nab ONE Israeli and every single one of thousands of murderous, sadistic terrorists are released to commit more atrocities. Yahya Sinwar was among the ones released in that deal. I fully understand the desperate need to recover our hostages, but when we released a thousand terrorists for one Israeli, we were creating the conditions for many, many more hostages and worse atrocities the next time.

Again, I don’t know what Israel should do. I loved Israel for getting Gilad Shalit back at any cost. I guess this is to say: I’m not going to second-guess the Jewish Nation’s decisions on this front, nor do I feel I have any right to judge whatever it does in this respect.

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In news from the home front: I live in Portland, Oregon where the public school system’s teacher’s union is doing terrible things. I love and support teachers in nearly every context and I was fully in support of their strike last year, even though my children missed a full month of school as a result.

But now the Portland Association of Teachers is seemingly obsessed with joining the jihadist resistance in Gaza. They have held many, many meetings on how to support Palestinians, and as of this week, it has crossed an outrageous line into wildly unacceptable territory. They went from initially demanding a ceasefire and issuing politically advisable statements about affirming and upholding the right of ALL people in the region to safety, to now distributing propaganda at their meetings that is explicitly violent, eliminationist and Hamas-supporting — and pushing for such trash to be taught to students at all levels, from kindergarten through high school.

To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, here are just two images from what was distributed:

While I can’t say more just yet about the specific ways I’m waging the battle against this scorchingly anti-Semitic and violent campaign, please know that I am joining forces with other Jews here and taking action on many different fronts, and we are not going to let this unfold on our watch without a fierce fight.

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As we go into Shabbat, allow me to conclude this newsletter with a word about a man who has my abject gratitude literally every day: Mosab Hassan Youssef.

I don’t know when I’ve been more fascinated with a story than I am by his.

Mosab is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of the commanders and co-founders of Hamas. He was born in Ramallah and he grew up aspiring to be a Hamas member. He was arrested as a teen for terrorist activity and spent months in prison in Israel. During one such stint of incarceration, he spent time at Megiddo Prison, a facility that’s solely for terrorists.

During his time at Megiddo, Mosab witnessed such gruesome torture of other Palestinians by Hamas members, for suspected collaboration with Israel, that it turned him against his own father’s terror cult and even against his father, whom he had previously adored. This was a life-altering experience that led him to become an undercover agent for the Shin Bet. During the years he spent in this role, he was the Shin Bet’s most valuable asset, thwarting dozens of terror attacks, preventing many assassinations of Jews, leading to many arrests (including that of his own father) and the ambush of many Hamas terror cells.

Eventually, he was granted protective asylum in the United States, where he converted to Christianity from Islam.

You can learn more about him from The Green Prince, an incredible documentary about his work for Israel (you can watch the trailer here) and from his own memoir, Son of Hamas (available anywhere books are sold). You can also follow him on Twitter here, where he advocates tirelessly for Israel and Jews worldwide, and very often posts videos of his media appearances and debates, which are always more than worthwhile and wildly gratifying.

Okay, fam. I hope you all have a beautiful Sabbath. I’ll be back with you on Monday.

Sending heartfelt love to all of you. Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai.