Unveiling the contours and contrasts of an ever-changing Middle East landscape Reliable reportage and insightful commentary on the Middle East by seasoned journalists from the region and beyond
Also available on YouTube@The Israel Brief – Simply click on the red subscribe button to receive alerts when a new report is posted.
What’s happening in Israel today? See from every Monday – Thursday LOTL’s The Israel Brief broadcasts and on our Facebook page and YouTube by seasoned TV & radio broadcaster, Rolene Marks familiar to Chai FM listeners in South Africa and millions of American listeners to the News/Talk/Sports radio station WINA, broadcasting out of Virginia, USA.
COMING HOME An emotional roller-coaster for all Israel
Israelis across the land, shared in the embrace and tears when families were reunited from brutal Hamas captivity in Gaza. Seen here is a mother and her baby daughters kidnapped from kibbutz Nir Oz – Doron Asher with Raz 4 and Aviv 2 – reuniting with anguished husband and father Yoni at Schneider Children’s Hospital.
Articles
(1)
THE KILLING FIELDS
A visit to south-western Israel in the aftermath of the Hamas massacre revealed a devastated landscape of burnt relics eerily crying for their stories to be told By Rolene Marks, photos Ilan Ossendryver
Death and Destruction. This was a green peaceful kibbutz until killers from Gaza arrived on October 7.
Failure to see the ethical differences between the two clashing cultures in conflict is like losing sight of the Grand Canyon when you are standing right on its edge By Sam Harris, PhD
Face the Facts. Conducting terror operations from schools and hospitals, an antisemitic world is purposely blind on the war in Gaza ignoring the heinous conduct of Hamas.
ISRAEL SHOULD LOOK TO PEARL HARBOR AND 9/11 PRECEDENTS AS IT RESPONDS TO OCT.7
The war against Hamas must achieve its goals By Dr. Efraim Zuroff
Fanatic Foes. From Pearl Harbor (r) to Gaza (l), the message is clear – existential threats from uncompromising fanatics demand neutralizing the enemy totally.
LOTL Cofounders David E. Kaplan (Editor), Rolene Marks and Yair Chelouche To unsubscribe, please reply to layotland@gmail.com
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
The Israel Brief – 27 November 2023– Three groups of Hostages released and updates on The Israel Brief.
The Israel Brief – 28 November 2023– Where is Baby Kfir? Updates on The Israel Brief.
The Israel Brief – 29 November 2023– Hostages share what they have endured. Warning: upsetting content.
The Israel Brief – 30 November 2023– Updates on Israel’s war with Hamas.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
When a dramatic, highly significant, totally unexpected, and especially tragic event takes place, it is only natural for people to look for precedents from their own history. That is exactly what happened in the wake of the October 7 terror rampage launched by Hamas, in southern Israel. Numerous comparisons from Jewish history, some more recent, others more distant, were made.
Merchants of Death. They came to murder, rape, mutilate, burn and kidnap. A scene at kibbutz Be’eri following the Hamas attack on 7 October.
And since the Holocaust is by far the most horrific of them, the number of Jewish victims on October 7 the highest since 1945, and the extreme cruelty of the Hamas perpetrators which was utterly barbaric, there were several attempts to describe the crimes using Shoah terminology.
Thus, for example, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan came to a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly devoted to the events wearing a yellow star, reminiscent of the identifying patches Jews were forced by the Nazis to wear during the Holocaust. Erdan’s yellow star said “Never Again”, but was not the appropriate vehicle to convey that message.
After all, how can the murder of 1,200 people in a sovereign Jewish state be compared to the annihilation of six million practically defenseless Jews over the course of four years, in all of Europe (except Switzerland, Sweden, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland)?
Country Road. In tranquil rural Israel – the setting for the Re’im Peace Music Festival – Gazan killer squads on trucks and motorbikes descended on unsuspecting civilians killing all in their path.
Others chose to compare the Hamas massacre to the Kishinev pogrom of 1903, that shocked the Jewish world by its cruelty and whose victims numbered 50 Jews, an act of brutality that today almost pales by comparison.
Another issue was the goal of the attack, and what it achieved. Besides murdering (mainly) Israeli/Jewish men, women, and children of all ages with the most unimaginable, inhuman savagery, and sowing destruction in numerous local communities, there did not seem to be a practical goal to this rampage, other than terrorizing the inhabitants of the border areas adjacent to Gaza. The leaders of Hamas, however, thought differently. Those interviewed in the aftermath of the rampage, were ecstatic about the results, since in their words, it focused worldwide attention on the plight of the Palestinians.
This kind of thinking reminds me of two other examples of terror attacks, one military and another religious/political, which began with great success from the vantage point of the perpetrators, but ultimately proved to be the beginning of their total destruction and downfall. In both cases, the attacks were launched against the United States, which was immediately prompted to embark on a worldwide campaign to destroy the perpetrators, and did so with little concern for humanitarian considerations.
Lesson in History. Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor shocked the American people, defining the day as one “of infamy” and led to the complete unconditional surrender of Japan. Israel should accept nothing less from Hamas.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
The first case was the Japanese sneak attack early Sunday morning on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Japanese fighter planes succeeded in destroying or damaging 20 American naval ships, including eight battleships, and over 300 planes. 2,304 American personnel and civilians were killed, and 1,178 were wounded. In the wake of that attack, which was considered a great success in Japan, the United States declared war on Japan the next day, and three days later, Japan’s allies Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, which joined the war in Europe against the Nazis and their allies, more than two years after the beginning of World War II.
Who knows how that war would have ended without the highly significant participation of the Americans? The Japanese were forced into submission by two nuclear bombs, thus marking the end of the regime that attacked Pearl Harbor and facilitating the transition to democracy, which exists in Japan to this day.
Fates sealed. The attack on Twin Towers, Al-Qaeda though it might break the “paper tiger” weaking its global influence but instead unleashed US power and the ultimate killing by American forces in Pakistan of the Al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden. Hamas should expect no less for its leadership.
The second example is the attack launched on September 11, 2001, by the Islamist extremist group al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden. Four commercial airplanes were hijacked by Islamic terrorists, two of which crashed their planes into the World Trade Center in New York, while another attempted to crash his plane into the Pentagon in Washington, and a fourth plane crash-landed in the Pennsylvania countryside after passengers attempted to overpower the militants in the cockpit. Nearly 3,000 innocent people were killed as a result, about 2,750 in New York, 184 at the Pentagon, and 40 in Pennsylvania. Bin Laden’s motivation for the attack was that he believed that the United States was weak, a “paper tiger”, (based on its retreats from Vietnam in the 1970s, Lebanon in 1983, and Somalia in 1993), and that attacking America in a dramatic way would help bring about a regime change in the Middle East.
No Compromising with Terrorism. Following the surprise multiple attacks on the USA on 9/11 as seen here on the southwest corner of the Pentagon resulting in the deaths of 184 souls, America mobilized global support as it responded with uncompromising force.
Of course, that was not what happened. Just the opposite occurred, as the “paper tiger” mounted a serious campaign to destroy al-Qaeda and execute Bin Laden, both goals of which were achieved.
Those are the historical precedents that Israel should study carefully, and which we should compare to the Hamas operation of October 7. Not every Jewish tragedy should be compared to the Holocaust, or even to other calamities in our history. There are a lot of important lessons to learn from the tragedies of others, and hopefully, we will achieve the same successful results.
About the writer:
The writer, Dr. Efraim Zuroff is director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel office and Eastern European affairs, and coordinator of the center’s Nazi war crimes research worldwide.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO)
The track record of the International Red Cross and the UN in Gaza shows both are part of the problem rather than the solution
By Harris Zvi Green
November 24, 2023
My dearest friends,
Another week has passed. The fighting continues to intensify. The casualties continue to rise. The tension is relentless. Our sleep is restless. The missiles continue to rain down on our cities. So much for the “humanitarian disaster” in Gaza.
Gaza may capture the headlines but Israel’s other fronts are far from quiet.
Hezbollah continues to shell Israeli towns and villages along Israel’s northern border. Around 100,000 Israelis from 28 separate communities have been evacuated from their homes along Israel’s border with Lebanon. This is an untenable situation. How long can it continue?
The Houthis, Iran’s regional proxy in Yemen, seized a cargo ship owned by an international consortium including an Israeli businessman. This act of piracy constitutes a gross violation of International Law. Let’s see what the international community does about it. Don’t hold your breath.
A Pensive Moment. The writer’s grandson Omer as he engages with a bird in Gaza.
On the family front, we were able to speak briefly with Omer. He sounds in good spirits. We had so much to say to him but found ourselves at a loss for words. Just hearing his voice was music to our ears. I can’t wait to hug him and tell him how much we love him and how proud we are of him and our other serving grandchildren.
Following achievement of Israel’s military objectives and the release of all the hostages, the Israeli government will certainly set up a judicial commission of inquiry to investigate the military, intelligence and civilian failures connected to the October 7 massacre. Given the indescribable atrocities perpetrated by Hamas, I’m reluctant to use the term, “many heads will roll”. This commission of inquiry is essential to ensure the necessary lessons are learnt by the authorities and that those responsible for gross negligence be removed from their positions of leadership.
It seems to me the international community should follow suit and set up similar commissions of inquiry to ensure it doesn’t repeat the mistakes it has made over the years and that the incompetent officials representing their organizations, be removed from their positions.
Both the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations Relief and Welfare Agency are organizations desperately in need of independent commissions of inquiry.
Established in 1863, the ICRC operates in battle zones around the world. Its stated aim is to help people affected by conflict and armed violence and to promote laws that protect victims of war. The ICRC is an independent and neutral organization. Its mandate stems from the Geneva Conventions of 1949.
Protesting ICRC’s ‘inaction’. Despite numerous social media posts on Palestinians suffering from the war with Hamas, the Red Cross failed to make a single mention of Israeli civilians suffering on October 7 or thereafter. (Photo: ‘Le’Ma’anam’ foundation)
During 2022, ICRC officials made 555 visits to Palestinian detainees and enabled regular family visits to more than 5,000 detainees held in Israeli detention facilities. Of course, none of this could have occurred without the full cooperation of the Israel Prison Services and the Israel Defense Forces.
Hamas currently holds the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed in 2014 and refuses to repatriate them for burial in Israel. In addition, Hamas has, for the past nine years, held two Israeli civilians – one of them, a former inmate at an Israeli mental hospital. Needless to say, the ICRC has done nothing to secure their release. No representative of the ICRC has ever visited them.
Since October 7, Hamas has been holding 236 Israeli hostages including octogenarians, women, children, toddlers and even pre-toddlers. Once again, the ICRC has done nothing to secure their release, let alone visit them. In fact, the ICRC hasn’t even provided the Israeli government with a list of the hostages and their state of health as required under the Geneva Conventions.
The ICRC has failed dismally. Yet the ICRC has been awarded three Nobel Prizes for its humanitarian work.
The annual budget of the ICRC is US$2.7 billion. 82% of this amount is provided by “governments”, otherwise known as innocent taxpayers. Yes folks. You and I are paying for these discriminatory practices, not to mention the gross incompetence.
Cross with the Red Cross. Israeli doctors protest against Red Cross demanding the organization visits hostages in Gaza.
The United Nations coordinates regular funding to Gaza under the guise of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). UNRWA’s aim is to provide essential services including health, education and social services.
UNRWA’s annual budget is US$1.6 billion. It is funded by voluntary contributions, mostly from “government donors”. UNRWA is also supported by the EU, regional governments and other UN Agencies.
The UN administration and the contributing countries are aware their funds are being diverted to building sophisticated military and indoctrination infrastructures to attack Israel.
They know Hamas uses UNRWA installations to launch missiles targeted at Israel.
They know their hospitals and schools serve as control centers and safe-havens for Hamas terror operatives.
They know UNRWA schools are Jihadi recruitment centers.
There’s plenty of evidence to support these charges but yet the UN and the contributing countries continue coughing up. UNRWA is not the solution. UNRWA is the problem.
Indeed, UNRWA is in desperate need of a judicial commission of inquiry.
Nice Neighbours. This UN building is located directly across from a Hamas rocket launch site.
Sadly, the media continues to fail us. They don’t ask the questions that need to be asked. Not only do they have a serious problem but so do we when we rely on their credibility to provide us with reliable reporting of what’s really happening on the ground. If journalism has ethics and professional standards, they are not in evidence.
After 49 days, 236 hostages remain in captivity. A deal for the release of 50 women and children in return for the release of 150 terrorists and a four-day cessation of hostilities, is currently in the works. Let’s hope the deal is consummated and that all the hostages will be released soon. Once again, I appeal to you to spare a thought for the hostages and to pray for their safety.
My condolences to those mourning their nearest and dearest. My wishes to the injured for a complete and speedy recovery. May God protect our brave soldiers.
Wishing you all Shabbat Shalom and better times ahead.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Harris Zvi Green.
About the writer:
Harris Zvi Green, born in Cape Town / South-Africa. Graduated from the University of Cape Town with a B. Com. degree and immigrated to Israel 53 years ago. He served as the Chief Financial Officer at a number of Israeli hi-tech companies. He is now retired. Married with 3 married children and is the proud grandfather of 13 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO)
Failure to see the ethical differences between the two clashing cultures in conflict is like losing sight of the Grand Canyon when you are standing right on its edge
By Sam Harris, PhD
I’d like to say something brief about the recent events in Israel that some may find useful as we watch the initial expressions of support for Israel begin to decay as it wages war in Gaza and perhaps beyond. As many of you know, I’ve spent many years talking about the conflict, as I see it, between Western civilization and Islam. I’ve spoken and written about the connection between the doctrines of Islam and jihadist violence. Of course, this violence has fallen out of the news in recent years, especially since the collapse of the Islamic State. But I’ve never been under any illusion that the problem has gone away.
Hamas spokesman encourages the use of human shield as policy
Those of you who have been following me know that I’ve said everything I have to say on this topic ad nauseum. I’m sure I’ll repeat myself for the rest of my life, because eruptions of jihadist violence and the attendant secular moral confusion about it will be with us for generations. However, I don’t want to offer criticism of Islam here. I’ll just briefly remind you of what I believe, which is that there is no possibility of living in peace with jihadists. So, whether we want to admit it or not, Israel will remain perpetually at war with them. As such, we must win a wider war of ideas with everyone both within the Muslim world and outside it who is confused about that. And there are legions of the confused. And there’s no place on earth where the truth about jihadism is more obvious or excruciating, and the moral confusion about it more reprehensible than Israel today.
But leaving all of that to one side, for the moment I’d like to make a very simple point that really shouldn’t be at all controversial, because it doesn’t prejudge any of the questions that people might disagree about. The point I’m making now says nothing about the causes of the recent violence in Israel. And yet it cuts through all the arguments and pseudo-arguments that attempt to paint some moral equivalence between Israel and its enemies, or to justify the actions of Hamas as though they were a response to Israeli provocations, to the growth of settlements, or the daily humiliation of living under occupation. Incidentally, there was no occupation in Gaza. There hasn’t been an occupation there since 2005, when Israel withdrew from the territory unilaterally, forcibly removing 9,000 of its own citizens, and literally digging up Jewish graves. The Israelis have been out of Gaza for nearly 20 years, and yet they have been attacked from Gaza ever since. But even a statement like that wades too far into controversy.
I want us to step back. Whatever you think about the origins of this conflict, whatever you believe about the role that religion plays here, or doesn’t play, whatever you think about colonialism, or globalism, or any other ism, whether you’re a fan of Noam Chomsky or Samuel Huntington, you should be able to acknowledge the following claims to be both descriptively true and ethically important. At this moment in history, there are people and cultures that harbor very different attitudes about violence and the value of human life. There are people and cultures that rejoice, positively rejoice, dancing in the streets rejoicing over the massacre of innocent civilians.
Conversely, there are people and cultures that seek to avoid killing innocent civilians and deeply regret it when they do, and they occasionally prosecute and imprison their own soldiers when they violate this modern norm of combat. There are people and cultures who revel in the anguish of hostages and prisoners of war, who will parade them before cheering mobs, and often allow them to be assaulted, or raped, or even murdered. They will desecrate their bodies in public and all of this carnage is a cause for jubilation. Conversely, there are people and cultures who find such barbarism revolting, and again, would be inclined to prosecute anyone on their own side who took part in it. In short, there are people and cultures who revel in war crimes, and who do not hide these crimes or their celebration of them, but rather proudly broadcast these horrors for all the world to see.
Conversely, there are people and cultures who have given us the very concept of a war crime as a sacred prohibition, and as a safeguard in the ongoing project of maintaining the moral progress of civilization. At one point to concede, and this will absorb all the nuance and nonsense that may be percolating in the brains of many readers, it is of course true that we in the West have been on the wrong side of these dichotomies in the past. Most Western armies, including Israel’s, have at one time or another been guilty of war crimes. And if you go back far enough, all of human conflict was just a litany of war crimes. And you don’t have to go back all that far, in fact, to find large pockets of Western culture that were morally indistinguishable from what we now see in much of the Muslim world. If you have any doubt about this, study the photos of white mobs celebrating the lynchings that occurred in the American South in the first half of the 20th century, where seemingly whole towns, thousands of men, women, and children turned out as though for a carnival to watch some young man or woman be tortured to death and then strung up on a tree or lamppost for all to see.
Hamas Mindset. This photo released by the Israel Defense Forces on December 14, 2022 shows a school in Gaza City, outside of which the Hamas terror group set up a rocket launcher. (IDF Spokesperson)
Seeing the pictures of these people in their Sunday best, having arranged themselves for a postcard photo under a dangling and lacerated and often partially cremated person, that’s one thing. But realize that these genteel barbarians, who consider themselves good Christians, often took souvenirs of the body home to show their friends. Teeth, ears, fingers, kneecaps, internal organs, and sometimes displayed them in their places of business. So, I’m not claiming that there are permanent differences between groups of people. I’m talking about the power of ideas that happen to be ascendant at any given time and place. I’m talking about beliefs and whole world views that come into being in one culture and have yet to come into being in others.
The point, of course, is that if we recognize the monstrosities of the past, we should recognize the monstrosities of the present and acknowledge that at this moment in human history, not every group has the same ethical norms governing its use of violence. For whatever reason, perhaps religion has nothing to do with it. Consider just one of these norms. Whenever an armed conflict breaks out, some groups will use human shields and others will be deterred to one degree or another by their use.
To be clear, I’m not talking about the taking of hostages from the opposing side for the purpose of using them as human shields. This is appalling and it is now happening in Gaza, but it’s a separate crime. I’m talking about something far more inscrutable. It’s astounding, really, that it happens at all. I’m talking about people who will strategically put their own non-combatants, their own women and children, into the line of fire so that they can inflict further violence upon their enemies, knowing that their enemies have a more civilised moral code that will render them reluctant to shoot back for fear of killing or maiming innocent non-combatants. If anywhere in this universe, cynicism and nihilism can be found together in their most perfect forms, it is here.
Hiding behind Kids. Israel Defense Forces officials reveal in this photo a Hamas rocket launch site located in a diplomatic building near a U.N. school in Gaza. (Photo IDF)
Jihadists use their own people as human shields routinely. Hamas fires rockets from hospitals and mosques and schools and other sites calculated to create carnage if the Israelis return fire. There were cases in the war in Iraq where jihadists literally rested the barrels of their guns on the shoulders of children. They blew up crowds of their own children in order to kill U.S. soldiers who were passing out candy to them.
Conversely, the Israeli army routinely warns people to evacuate buildings before it bombs them. Of course, during times of war, it is common to dehumanise one’s enemy, to describe them as barbarous and evil, and it’s natural for ethical and educated people to distrust such politically charged language. But pay attention. I’m describing concrete behaviours, behaviours that occur on only one side of this conflict. Just consider how absurd it would be to reverse the logic of human shields in this case. Imagine the Israelis using their own women and children as human shields against Hamas. Recognize how unthinkable this would be, not just for the Israelis to treat their own civilians in this way, but for them to expect that their enemies could be deterred by such a tactic, given who their enemies actually are.
It’s easy to lose sight of the moral distance here, which is strange. It’s like losing sight of the Grand Canyon when you are standing right on its edge. Take a moment to actually do the cognitive work. Imagine the Jews of Israel using their own women and children as human shields, and then imagine how Hamas or Hezbollah or Al-Qaeda or ISIS or any other jihadist group would respond. The image you should now have in your mind is a masterpiece of moral surrealism. It is preposterous. It is a Monty Python sketch where all the Jews die. Do you see what this asymmetry means? Can you see how deep it runs? Do you see what it tells you about the ethical difference between these two cultures?
There are not many bright lines that divide good and evil in our world, but this is one of them. Of course, there’s much more to talk about when considering the ethics of war and violence, and there’s much more to be confused about. For instance, as this war proceeds, many people will consider the deaths of non-combatants on the Palestinian side to be morally equivalent to the kids who were tortured and murdered at the peace concert by Hamas, or to the hostages who may yet be murdered and their murders broadcast on social media. But they’re not.
There is a difference between collateral damage, which is of course a euphemism for innocent people killed in war, and the intentional massacre of civilians for the purpose of maximising horror. Simply counting the number of dead bodies is not a way of judging the moral balance here. Intentions matter. It matters what kind of world people are attempting to build. If Israel wanted to perpetrate a genocide of the Palestinians, it could do that easily, tomorrow. But that isn’t what it wants. And the truth is, the Jews of Israel would live in peace with their neighbours if their neighbours weren’t in thrall to genocidal fanatics.
In the West, we have advanced to the point where the killing of non-combatants, however unavoidable it becomes once wars start, is inadvertent and unwanted and regrettable and even scandalous. Yes, there are still war crimes, and I won’t be surprised if some Israelis commit war crimes in Gaza now. But if they do, these will be exceptions that prove the rule, which is that Israel remains a lonely outpost of civilised ethics in the absolute moral wasteland that is the Middle East.
To deny that the government of Israel, with all of its flaws, is better than Hamas, to deny that Israeli culture, with all of its flaws, is better than the Palestinian culture in its attitude toward violence, is to deny that moral progress itself is possible. If most Americans are better than their slave-holding ancestors, if most Germans today are better than the people who herded Jews into gas chambers, if the students protesting this war on your college campus, who are so conscientious that they lose sleep over crimes like cultural appropriation and using the wrong pronouns, if they are better than the racists and the religious lunatics that inevitably lurk somewhere in their family trees, then we have to recognize that there is no moral equivalence now between Israel and her enemies.
About the writer: Sam Harris is the author of five New York Times best sellers. His work has been published in more than 20 languages and he has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, The Times (London), The Boston Globe, among others. Sam received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
A visit to south-western Israel in the aftermath of the Hamas massacre revealed a devastated landscape of burnt relics eerily crying for their stories to be told
By Rolene Marks, photos Ilan Ossendryver
(WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT)
It has been several days since I took a trip to the south of Israel to the areas targeted by Hamas terrorists on 7 October. Traveling down south with me was renowned photo journalist, Ilan Ossendryver and in the 45-minute drive from Tel Aviv to Sderot, our first destination, we discussed how as journalists, we have an imperative to suspend emotions for the time being and cover the story at hand – especially the murder, torture, rapes and kidnapping of our citizens. We said we focus on our work and deal with the emotions later.
Military vehicles in Sderot
We whooped and hooted every time we saw our brave soldiers of the IDF passing by in military vehicles, some bearing the flags of Golani or the Druze flag displayed proudly alongside the Israeli blue and white. One nation, one heart, one goal – eliminate Hamas and establish quiet on our southern border. Oh, how we want to hear the sounds of our children laughing in play on the kibbutzim and devastated towns again! We were in high spirits.
Military vehicles at the ready in Sderot
Until we reached Sderot.
Sderot is a town very close to my heart. I visit there often, meeting delegations and briefing them about how the town is the most bunkered in the world, having endured rocket attacks from terror entities in the Gaza strip for decades. I take them to our WIZO (Women’s International Zionist Organisation) daycare centres that are completely rocket proof. In what world do daycare centres need to be rocket proof?! Israel’s.
All that remains of the Sderot Police Station – a flag and a yahrtzeit candle
Sderot is a veritable ghost town, the remaining residents evacuated as the IDF and first responders, station themselves in and around the town. In my mind’s eye, I pictured the events of the 7th of October, the terrorists storming around the traffic circle in the entrance to the town, murdering people in the street. I thought of those on their way to synagogue and the tour of elderly people, headed to the Dead Sea before we saw the images of their slaughtered bodies. People going about their business – only to be slaughtered without mercy. The evidence is everywhere. The buildings are pockmarked from bullets, shattered glass on the floor. Next to a synagogue the terrorists were aiming for, a rocket has caused damage to a roof.
Bullet holes from where Hamas terrorists sprayed private homes
The sukkot (festive booths) still stand, a heartbreaking reminder that this massacre took place on the last day of this joyous festival. Cars are full of bullet holes, windscreens shattered. We got to what remains of the Sderot Police station. I have been to the police station often to show delegations what used to be the “Museum of Rockets” – a bank displaying the different kind of rockets that were relentlessly fired towards Sderot.
The Sukkot still stand – a sad reminder of the joy that filled the town on the 6th of October
No matter when I went, a gracious, friendly officer was more than happy to speak to the groups. On October 7, Hamas terrorists commandeered the police station, murdering the officers inside. The station was detonated to eliminate the terrorists. When I saw what remained of the police station, I fell apart. A lone Israeli flag and yahrtzeit candle stand there in mournful tribute. Several police officers arrived to pay tribute; the sadness etched in their eyes.
Impact from rocket next to a synagogue
The air was punctuated every now and then by the whooshing sound of an Iron Dome interception and the loud bangs of tank artillery being fired onto Hamas targets in the Gaza strip.
Sderot has rocket shelters dotted around the town. When the red alert is sounded, residents have a matter of seconds to seek shelter. These shelters are small, designed to hold about 10-12 people. I thought of the revelers from the Nova peace festival, seeking shelter of that black Sabbath from the rockets and the terror, 20-40 cramming inside. Grenades were lobbed in and AK47’s opened fire on these defenseless, terrified people by brutal barbarians. It was like a punch to the gut to realise just how vulnerable everyone was.
We drove further south towards Netivot. I looked at the road, the bomb shelters dotted around and I thought of how it looked on that horrific day when bodies and burnt cars lined the roads in a testament to the carnage of the day.
We could see one the decimated kibbutzim in the distance. Where picturesque houses once spoke of a vibrant community, all that is left is a burnt-out husk that bore witness to the atrocities of the day.
We could see the plumes of smoke where the IDF were striking Hamas targets in the Gaza strip, hear the roar of the fighter jets above and the loud whirr of the helicopter blades high up in the air.
Standing outside a shelter in Sderot
We were driving to a place that I was dreading seeing but knew we had to. The importance of bearing witness has never been more crucial as the horrific trend of massacre denial grows. Then we saw it. The “car graveyard”, the place where all the burnt out remains of cars that belonged to the Nova festival revelers or from the kibbutzim.
I looked at these decimated vehicles and each one told me a story about who owned them. The young, vibrant festival goers, dancing for peace until the break of dawn – the metaphor was not lost on me, the peaceniks who lived on the kibbutzim – each one a story. My heart shattered. There were four young, soldiers who we spoke to and one told me that the faint stench I could smell was not burnt metal – but flesh. Some of the owners of these cars were burnt alive in them or shot to death. I reeled. The cars screamed at me – tell our stories, tell the world what happened here. One young soldier told me his car is also there. He was from Nahal Oz. he told me it was so important that the world understood the legitimacy of Israel’s military operations in Gaza. “We were all peaceniks,” he says, “Now, they must live their lives and we must live ours but never again can they come in to Israel. I want peace but we cannot live with these people, not anymore,” he continued. ZAKA, the organization who recover remains after attacks or accidents announced that all the cars will be buried because they still contain the remains of victims.
The remains of cars tell the devastating story of the murders of their owners on 7 October
I noticed something quite striking when I was at the police station in Sderot and at the graveyard of cars. I noticed lots of white butterflies – but only at these two sites. I know that there is a spiritual message in their sighting. A rebirth. Israel is in the depths of deep pain and what will be rebirthed will be a lot different to who we were on the 6th of October. Perhaps the butterflies were departed souls reminding me to tell their stories. I vow I always will.
On the drive home, accompanied by alerts of rockets fired on nearby Ashkelon I tried to make sense of what I had seen in a place I know so well. Days later, I am still struggling to process it all. I do not think I ever will.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
The marrying of Muslim worship of massacring Jews with the overall repression of women is a marriage made in hell
By Jonathan Feldstein
Misogyny and cultural “norms” subjugating women are widespread in much of the Islamic world. These include female genital mutilation, forced marriages, persecuting women for not dressing according to strict Islamic standards, “honor killings”, and much more.
It’s no surprise then, but shocking and horrific nonetheless, that one “weapon” in Hamas’ inhuman massacre of over 1200 people in Israel on October 7, brutalizing thousands, and kidnapping more than 240, including young children and elderly women held hostage in Gaza, was the raping of Israeli women in the process. Underscoring that these are not individual criminal acts but part of something that was widespread and deliberate, it has been described as a sexual pogrom.
Beauty and the Beasts. In a most jarring video emerging from the current Israel-Hamas war is 22-year-old Shani Louk, who following her capture by terrorists on the 7 October from the Supernova music festival, is seen partially naked as she is paraded in the streets of Gaza City by Hamas terrorists in the back of a pickup truck before being murdered. Her long, black tresses are covered in blood from a head injury she presumably sustained, while trying to flee from her captors.
Adding insult to the injury, groups and people that should be advocating for women’s rights and under any other circumstance would be calling out such criminal behavior, have turned a blind eye to the forensic evidence, eyewitness accounts, and confessions of Hamas terrorists as if the victims and sexual crimes didn’t matter just because they are Jews. The evidence is clear. Medical examiners have reported that some of the rapes were so violent that the women’s pelvises were crushed.
A growing chorus have condemned ignoring of these crimes -some even denying that they happened, using the hashtag, #Metoo_unless_UR_A_Jew.
If the crimes happened to anyone else in the world, women’s groups, human rights organizations, the UN, and others would be decrying it. But the silence to these crimes that depict a depraved pattern of sexual violence used by the terrorists against their victims, is criminal in of itself.
If Hamas’ goal was to murder as many as possible, how did the terrorists allow themselves to stop for a gang rape?
How is rape in any way part of any “resistance” that Hamas claims and the Islamic world celebrates?
How did those fighting for the “resistance” ever think this was acceptable?
How could anyone of the Islamic terrorists be aroused when inflicting such horrors, much less multiple gangs of them?
The answer is simple. It was premeditated. It is inhuman evil Islam at its worst. It’s the marrying of worship of massacring Jews with the overall repression of women. It’s a marriage made in hell.
This inhuman behavior does not stop at the borders of Gaza. It is at the core of how the Iranian Islamic regime treats women, and which trickles down to other adherents of the “religion of peace”. This is documented widely, including in the book “A Love Journey With God” by my friend Marziyeh Amirizadeh. If not for public outcry after her arrest and death sentence for converting to Christianity in Iran, she’d likely have experienced much more of the suffering that many Iranian women who she knew in prison did, including the raping of virgins before they are executed as executing virgins goes against “Islamic values”.
The threat of raping Jewish women in support of Hamas’ inhuman behaviors also made it to the celebrated halls of Ivy League colleges. Last month, Patrick Dai, a junior studying engineering at Cornell, was arrested on federal charges of posting threats to kill Jews. It was the latest in a series of antisemitic incidents in the United States amid the Israel-Hamas war. Dai threatened to “shoot up” a campus building targeting Jews, said he would “stab” or “slit the throat” of Jewish men, and rape or throw off a cliff, Jewish women on campus. The incident followed the Ivy League campus being on edge following a spate of antisemitic graffiti that emerged after a professor said he found Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack “exhilarating.”
Jews were murdered, raped, mutilated and kidnapped and a professor at New York state’s Ivy League Cornell University says to cheering student supporters, he feels, “exhilarated”.
Other than the threatening remarks being horrific enough, it’s beyond comprehension to imagine how anyone could allegedly advocate for the Palestinians in upstate New York by threatening to rape Jewish women! It’s obscene.
The ‘raping’ of truth also comes from women who are charged with protecting women from sexual violence. The University of Alberta fired Samantha Pearson, the head of the campus sexual assault center who signed an open letter denying Hamas terrorists raped women during the October 7 massacre. The letter censured Israel for repeating “the unverified accusation that Palestinians were guilty of sexual violence.”
Naturally, antisemites around the world, including women who would never question the allegations of rape by anyone else, are challenging the facts specifically because Israel is sharing these. Fortunately, non-Israelis have witnessed and reported on this reality. After witnessing the gruesome evidence of rape, filmed and broadcast by the terrorists themselves, journalist Jotam Confino wrote he saw:
“Two dead women lying on the grass at musical festival – both with no pants on. One has her panties taken half off. The other doesn’t appear to have any on at all.”
Continuing, he saw an:
“Eyewitness describing how she saw a woman being raped by several Hamas terrorists, pulling her hair as they raped her and took turns. One of them cut her breasts off – the others played with them like a toy. The last terrorist to rape her shot her in the head and continued to rape her until he finished.”
Most of the most horrific documentation has not been widely released out of respect for the victims, and because this is part of ongoing investigations and likely additional criminal charges. But the terrorists’ confessions alone provide copious factual authenticity.
One terrorist was asked during his interrogation:
“And why take the kids and babies?”
He replied:
“To rape them.”
Another terrorist also confirmed that babies were abducted and raped.
These captured terrorists were not acting as “freelancers”. There’s documented evidence of Hamas commanders issuing specific orders to the terrorists who perpetrated the massacres not only to kill and kidnap as many Jews as possible, but to rape and sexually mutilate Israeli women.
In any other circumstances, where women ranging from babies to the elderly had been the victim of such ferocious, repeated sexual attacks, the #MeToo masses would have swung into full action. Yet that’s not happening. UN Women which published numerous articles decrying the situation of women of Gaza, have ignored crimes against Israeli women. There has not been any recognition of Israeli women who were burned alive, beheaded, raped, had their breasts cut off, had their babies cut out of their stomach, or been violently kidnapped.
The silence of those who purport to fight sexual violence on behalf of all women everywhere, has been deafening. It’s especially problematic in light of November 25 being United Nations-designated International Day for the Prevention of Violence against Women.
Rape and sexual assault as a tactic in the context of terrorism and war is a war crime. The Geneva Convention requires “women shall be especially protected against any attack on their honor, in particular against rape or any form of indecent assault.” The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court states that “rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, or any other form of sexual violence” is a crime against humanity.
In numerous previous wars, crimes against women were a cornerstone of international criminal indictments and prosecution of men responsible for orchestrating and participating in rape. Based on the silence of the world about these heinous Hamas crimes against women and girls, it is unimaginable that any special prosecutor will be enlisted to protect Israeli and Jewish women. The International Criminal Court has historically been so biased against Israel, as happens in many rape cases, it’s not impossible to see the ICC even blaming the victims. Maybe for dressing too provocatively.
About the writer:
Jonathan Feldstein - President of the US based non-profit Genesis123 Foundation whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians – is a freelance writer whose articles appear in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Townhall, NorthJersey.com, Algemeiner Jornal, The Jewish Press, major Christian websites and more.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Unveiling the contours and contrasts of an ever-changing Middle East landscape Reliable reportage and insightful commentary on the Middle East by seasoned journalists from the region and beyond
Also available on YouTube@The Israel Brief – Simply click on the red subscribe button to receive alerts when a new report is posted.
What’s happening in Israel today? See from every Monday – Thursday LOTL’s The Israel Brief broadcasts and on our Facebook page and YouTube by seasoned TV & radio broadcaster, Rolene Marks familiar to Chai FM listeners in South Africa and millions of American listeners to the News/Talk/Sports radio station WINA, broadcasting out of Virginia, USA.
After a nail-biting on-off-on wait, Israelis breathed a sigh of relief as they watched with tearful eyes the first sightings on their televisions of the 2nd group of Israeli hostages released in the early hours of Sunday morning from Hamas’ cruel captivity
Articles
(1)
A TALE OF TWO HOSPITALS
A hospital in Israel saving lives, a hospital in Gaza shielding terrorists By Jonathan Feldstein
Different uses of the same Machine. An MRI in Shaarei Zedek hospital in Jerusalem doing diagnostic testing (r) and an MRI at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza (l) storing Hamas machine guns and ammunition.
South Africa’s diplomatic posturing is reminiscent of an amateur actor auditioning for a lead role – with ‘real life’ deadly consequences. By Tim Flack
Farce about Face. South Africa’s attempts to play a role on the world stage have proved nothing but a farce- slapstick and amateurish, it fails to address local issues and flounders over issues abroad.
While a group of 500 South African Jews sign an Israel-critical petition that begins with the wording “We are a diverse group of South African Jews who are dismayed…” the writer responds with her dismay at Jewish betrayal. By Lesley Sacks
Bloody Bedroom. A reminder to those South African Jews calling for a ‘ceasefire, Israel wants to make sure it first ceases Hamas’ ability to ever again repeat like what happened in this bedroom on kibbutz Be’eri.
LOTL Cofounders David E. Kaplan (Editor), Rolene Marks and Yair Chelouche
To unsubscribe, please reply to layotland@gmail.com
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
While a group of over 600 South African Jews sign an Israel-critical petition that begins with the wording “We are a diverse group of South African Jews who are dismayed…” (see below) the writer responds with her dismay at Jewish betrayal.
By Lesley Sacks
I am almost speechless. I am furious, even a bit bewildered. Probably more than anything else though, I am completely heartbroken. Today I read a list of “Jews” who have signed a petition for a ceasefire in Gaza. In effect, signed a petition AGAINST Israel and FOR terror. And yes, it actually is as simple as that. The opening line of the petition reads: “We are a diverse group of South African Jews who are dismayed by the situation that is unfolding in Israel and Palestine.” In calling for a ceasefire they write: “We insist, however, that one heinous crime does not justify another. The experience of persecution and genocide is woven into our collective memory. We are therefore called upon to prevent it from happening again, anywhere, to anyone. Moreover, we have a particular obligation to oppose such atrocities when perpetrated in our name.” These concerned “in our name” Jews describe Israel’s legitimate defense of its people, of trying to retrieve some 240 hostages that include children and babies and to prevent a repeat of the heinous 7 October massacre as a “heinous crime”, as “persecution” and a “genocide”.
One would assume that this list would be made up of a bunch of uneducated, social misfits but unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. This list includes people I have considered friends. My siblings’ friends. A former Herzlian head boy. My cousin’s wife. People I have watched grow up. People who have converted out of Judaism yet still say “I am Jewish” on this list as it somehow gives it more credibility. Gay men and women and a transgender teen who, in the Gaza they believe they are protecting, would simply be beheaded for their sexuality. An ex-boyfriend. Doctors, accountants, psychologists, entrepreneurs and other professionals. People I was at school with. A former mayor’s children. People I have taught. People who may be Jewish in name only but who would still be murdered with the same zeal by those who would not care of their political affiliation. Someone called Imran and another called Tariq. This list makes me, literally, sick to my stomach. I also have a list. My list includes a little boy who has not yet celebrated his first birthday. Many, way too many, beautiful, innocent, little Jewish kids. Mothers. Fathers. Grandparents. Workers from Thailand and Nepal who came to this country in order to support their families. A baby born in captivity. Women and girls who have been raped and abused. Children who have watched in horror as their parents were SLAUGHTERED. Children who watched their sisters being raped and their mothers being mutilated. People who saw their elderly parents being shot. People who watched in horror as their homes and neighbourhoods went up in flames. Old ladies who were shot in their beds. Toddlers who were brutally murdered in their cots. Teenage girls who were raped in their own bedrooms before being shot in the head. People who saw their beloved dogs being shot. Beheaded babies and children. People who lay under corpses for hours pretending to be dead just so that they could live. Children who were bound together in groups of 10 and burnt alive. A baby who was cooked alive in an oven. A baby who was cut out of his mother and beheaded while still attached to her. Holocaust survivors who had already lived through the worst of humanity only to find that they are now amongst a group who are even worse than those Nazis. People who were so mutilated and burned that even now, 42 days later, have still not been identified. Jews. Druze. Foreign workers and even Arabs. It is a very gruesome list indeed.
If it’s lists you like I have two more.
KID’napped. Far removed from the 500 Jewish petitioners for a ceasefire, activists from the BringThemHomeNow campaign held Israeli flags and prams with the pictures of hostages held by the Palestinian militant group Hamas as they demonstrate in front of the South African parliament in Cape Town on Friday. (Photo: AFP/AFP via Getty Images)
This list has, some might say “only” 63 names on it. This list is made up of mostly young adults in the prime of their lives. Young people who have sacrificed their young lives in order that all the rest of us might live freely as Jews. In Israel as well as the rest of the world. Young people who did not choose to be “shahid” like others do but stepped up to DEFEND all of us. Young mothers and fathers. Sons and daughters. Grandsons and granddaughters. Brothers. Sisters. Our own family. Family who will never be coming back home again.
The next list is made up of terrible grief and anguish. Parents who have buried their children. Small children who have buried their parents. People who have buried their entire families. Their ENTIRE families. A woman I grew up with who has no clue where her son might be. Parents who don’t know if their children are dead or alive. Parents who wish they knew that their children were dead as the thought of the excruciating suffering they must be experiencing is far too much to bear. An entire nation with potential PTSD. An entire nation who will never forget the fear, the terror, the terrible images, the pain, the worry, the mourning. ZAKA (Israel’s leading non-governmental rescue and recovery organization) workers who have experienced mental breakdowns. ZAKA workers who can never rid themselves of the terrible smells of burnt flesh and horrific images that still haunt their dreams. Children and adults who huddle in corners of bomb shelters crying and shaking as they relive the trauma each time they hear a siren. (This I witnessed first-hand this evening in a shopping centre in Tel Aviv)
And you? How dare you sit in your comfortable homes in South Africa and London and who knows where else and demand a ceasefire. How dare you have the audacity to expect us to sit on our hands while the murderers are still rampant and STILL FIRING AT US DAILY. While stabbings and murderous, terrorist pogroms are still being perpetuated within Israel itself. How dare you use the overworked phrase of “proportionality” and “fundamental asymmetry” when you know full well that the IDF has no intentions of rape, mutilation and general wholesale murder. How dare you when you have no idea of what it is like in Israel right now, and when your voices were quiet while massive human suffering was inflicted on people in Ukraine, Sudan and other African cities.
Blood in the Bedroom. A reminder to those South African Jews calling for a ‘ceasefire, Israel wants to make sure it first ceases Hamas’ ability to ever again repeat like what happened in this children’s bedroom on kibbutz Be’eri. (Canaan Lidor/Times of Israel)
Yes, people have died. Those same people that have been offered a two-state solution no less than five times and have refused to even make a counter offer. People have died, yes, even though every effort has been taken to warn civilians, by means of flyers, WhatsApps, phone calls and even “knocks on the roof” – the practice of dropping non-explosive or low-yield devices on the roofs of targeted terrorist civilian homes as a prior warning of imminent bombing attacks to give innocent inhabitants time to leave. Yes, people have died; even innocent people, though not nearly as many as the producers of Pallywood would have you believe. But to call it “genocide” is utterly preposterous and an insult to those who have actually experienced genocide. Even more preposterous because of how the population has increased exponentially since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.
There is so much I am feeling right now. Incredible pride at being a Jew and an Israeli citizen. Joy and pride when I watch Israeli soldiers going about their day. Joy and heartbreak at seeing children of all ages embrace their parents who have returned from miluim (reserve duty). Pride and happiness at seeing every building lit up in blue and white. Flags flying from every balcony. Yellow ribbons tied to trees and cars and lampposts. Honour at being a part of something so much greater than myself. And along with all of this, an overwhelming feeling of being ashamed of all of you.
Lesley Sacks is a South African, living in Johannesburg but is a “proud holder of an Israeli passport.” Working with children of different ages for over 30 years, she is currently a teacher at at a local Jewish school.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
The Israel Brief – 20 November 2023– Damning evidence from inside Shifa hospital and updates on The Israel Brief.
The Israel Brief – 20 November 2023–
The Israel Brief – 21 November 2023– Israel recalls ambassador to SA and updates on The Israel Brief.
The Israel Brief – 22 November 2023– Hostage deal and more on The Israel Brief.
The Israel Brief – 23 November 2023– Delay in hostage release and updates on The Israel Brief.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
