I want an end to the bloodshed but ceasefires with limited shelf-life prolong the problem

By Harris Zvi Green

November 17, 2023

My dearest friends,
Thanks again for your encouragement and support. It is much appreciated.
Ariel is well on his way to a complete recovery. We get occasional text messages from our son-in-law, Amir, and our grandson, Ori. Their messages ease our concerns for their safety. We’ve heard indirectly that our other serving grandson, Omer, and his unit are fine. His wedding will have to be postponed. He insists on celebrating his special day together with all his army buddies. Our granddaughter, Linor, has chosen to extend her military service and will continue her contribution to the war effort.
Phyllis and I spent most of yesterday morning pruning loquat trees at a nearby moshav. Israel’s farmers need all the help they can get.
Friends, our family experience is not unique. At this time, Israel is focused on two objectives – dismantling the Hamas military and governing infrastructures and securing the safe release of all the hostages. We’re in this together and we’re not alone.

Since the outbreak of hostilities, Israel recognized that her window of opportunity for military action against Hamas was limited. History has proved time and time again that the West is only sympathetic towards Israel when she’s hurting and suffering. As soon as the tide changes and Israel gains control of the situation, the sympathy is replaced by animosity.
The West resents a strong and independent Israel. They really don’t want Israel to score a resounding victory over those who challenge her right to exist. They introduce double standards to the equation and Israel’s right to defend herself is compromised.
Politicians don’t win elections by taking sides in international conflicts. They are elected to serve the needs of their electorates. The last thing they need is unrest on their streets. Winning the next election is more important to them than being on the right side of history.
Israel’s enemies exploit this to their advantage. Qatar and the Islamic bloc are doing their utmost to stall Israel’s momentum by positioning themselves as brokers of unacceptable deals for the release of the hostages. Al Jazeera is working overtime to propagate the Hamas narrative and shape public opinion in too many gullible countries. Tragically, antisemitism has once again become politically correct.
In keeping with tradition, the French were the first to buckle under the pressure. President Macron visited Israel a few weeks ago to express his solidarity with Israel. Since October 7, more than 1,500 antisemitic incidents have been recorded in France. Macron is now demanding that Israel initiates a ceasefire.
A pro-Palestinian march in London this past Saturday attracted more than 500,000 demonstrators. Participants were bused in from all over the UK. Events of this scale require a major logistic effort. The costs are enormous. How long will it take for Rishi Sunak to cave in under the pressure?
Statements made by the US Secretary of State in support of Israel’s right to defend herself have deteriorated from unconditional support to veiled warnings that are becoming less and less subtle by the hour.
The call for a ceasefire is not intended to save human life. It’s intended to stall the momentum on the battlefield, to protect the Hamas leadership in Qatar and Gaza and to save what’s left of the Hamas military infrastructure for the next round of the conflict. Such a ceasefire will only result in additional rounds in the conflict that will claim thousands more lives on both sides.
The best deal contemplated by the international community for the release of the 240 Israeli hostages calls for the release of more than 6,000 Hamas terrorists including their most notorious serial killers. It’s like enabling their release from the sin-bin and allowing them to play in the future matches in a world-series event.
Friends, I’m not a militant. I don’t want revenge for the sake of revenge. I want an end to the bloodshed. I want to live in peace and to enjoy the twilight years of my life. That’s what my children want. That’s what my grandchildren deserve. That’s what my great-grandchildren expect.
The way to achieve that is not by yet another ceasefire with a limited shelf-life. These ceasefires are dead-on-arrival.

When I read what I’ve written over the past few weeks, I ask myself whether these lines were written by the same innocent, compromising and impressionable boy born 77 years ago to parents who sincerely believed the last war had already been fought. I ask myself if this is the university student who was exposed to campus life during the turbulent sixties and who chose to embrace the values of peace, freedom, mutual tolerance and equality.
Because of the choices I made then, I believe the job must be done now. I acknowledge there’s a price to pay. But we have to do, what we have to do.
After 45 days, 240 hostages remain in captivity under the most terrible conditions. To date, the International Red Cross has not visited them or even provided a complete list of the hostages. The hostages must be released immediately and unconditionally. 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 for a complete and speedy recovery to the injured. 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)

From the knock of the roof to the knock on the door  – the sights and sounds of Israel’s war  with Gaza

By Jonathan Feldstein

“Knock, knock. Who’s there?” is a great way to start a timeless children’s joke, but in Israel today it has another meaning.

It’s well known and abundantly documented that for many years, one thing Israel’s military does when targeting and taking out a terrorist, there’s a policy of what’s called “a knock on the roof” where a non-lethal bomb is dropped on the roof of a building in which there is terrorist target. It may be the residence of a terrorist leader’s apartment building or the headquarters of a terrorist military or communications network. More often than not, these terrorist targets are deliberately located in apartment buildings in highly populated areas, embedded purposely within the civilian population. This is in keeping with terrorist policy to use their own civilians as human shields.

The purpose of the ‘knock on the roof’ is to warn residents to evacuate a building before a terrorist is targeted.  A positive of this policy is that it saves the lives of civilians, while the negative is that it gives terrorists an opportunity to escape. In some instances, targeting of the terrorist is so precise that it looks as if the Israeli military were highly trained surgeons, hitting the exact wall of the exact room on the exact floor in the exact apartment in which the terrorist leader is sleeping, mindful of the engineering of the rest of the building. This prevents it from collapsing entirely, and taking out the terrorist target with a level of precision unknown in modern warfare.  

The surgical analogy is also appropriate because it saves lives of others nearby, or even in the same building, while eliminating the terrorist threat.

A similar policy to the knock on the roof is the dropping of leaflets, or making wide broadcasts in Arabic telling those who are not combatants to leave a particular area.  That’s happened widely as Israel prepared to enter Gaza with combat troops and tanks, targeting the terrorists, and to try rescue the 240+ hostages.  Unfortunately, not only does this also provide opportunity for terrorists to escape, especially when specific times and routes are published during which people can get out of the areas facing the toughest battles, the terrorists target these areas and people trying to flee.  It has been abundantly documented that Hamas terrorists have been blocking the evacuation routes, threatening civilians at gun point so that they may not leave, and targeting these with mortar fire to prevent average Gazans from fleeing.   

Remember this when you see propaganda reports from the Hamas controlled “Gazan health ministry” about how many people have been killed.  Can you trust their numbers?  How do we know that among the actual dead and wounded they are all civilians when their terrorists wear no uniforms and hide among the actual civilians? When you see suffering of women and children, ask how many tried to flee, only to be turned back by Hamas to face certain carnage and suffering.

In Isael today, “knock” has another lethal meaning. In times of heightened conflict and war, when soldiers are actively engaged in fighting terrorists, a “knock” in Isael is something to be fearful of. There’s a whole military unit whose responsibility it is to inform families of soldiers who have been killed in combat of the death of their loved one. It’s known that the army shows up and knocks on the door.  Unlike Israel’s “knock on the roof” to save lives, this is a knock of dread.  It’s also the consequence of sending ground forces into highly populated areas to engage the terrorists face to face, precluding an actual carpet bombing, and therefore saving lives of more Gazan Palestinian Arabs, while putting our soldiers lives at risk. That’s also something to remember as the death toll of Israeli soldiers increases. Israel could simply bomb Gaza without any regard for the lives of their civilians.  Instead it sends ground troops in to engage the terrorists with precision, trying to prevent civilian casualties, yet at risk to themselves.

This week, I dropped off something at a neighbor’s house.  Naturally, instinctively, I knocked on the door.  As I heard her ask “Who is it?” I realized suddenly I should not have knocked but rang the doorbell.  Why?  Her son is in a combat unit, in Gaza now. Any knock on the door can create fear. 

Last week, I hosted conversation as an episode of the “Inspiration from Zion” podcast.  It was a with young Israeli women whose husbands have been called up into reserves and have been away from home, and their families, for most of the month.  There were several recurring themes about how these women have been holding up the home front while their husbands are on the front line.  But one of them, perhaps the scariest, is the fear of getting the knock on the door. It’s something they understand that their children do not, and makes keeping their kids safe and protected while coping with their own stresses all the more challenging.

On a personal note, recently my combat unit soldier son-in-law was promoted to Major.  His commanding officer called my daughter to share the news.  When my daughter saw who was calling her face went white and her blood pressure dropped. She didn’t know about the promotion, so a call from the commanding officer in the midst of a war, rightly, made her frightened.  It was good they could speak about that too.  However, my son-in-law’s commanding officer said, perhaps to be comforting or perhaps to deflect this reality with humor, “Don’t worry, if something happened, you’d get a knock on the door, not a phone call.”

“Knock, knock,” has different meanings in Israel at war. One knock is to save lives of Gazan Palestinian Arabs. The other knock is when an Israeli soldier lost his or her life. 

You can join the Genesis 123 Foundation Israel Emergency Campaign to provide humanitarian relief, support for soldiers, their spouses and children, desperately needed civilian security, and more, through this link HERE and send your own prayers and words of encouragement as well.

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).