Day: December 20, 2023

THE DAY AFTER?

For Israel it’s returning to be the Lion of Judah rather than the sitting duck of October 7

By David E. Kaplan

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT

Adding to the bombardment of rockets, Israelis are now being bombarded with serious appeals to consider “The Day After”. These persistent overtures have the resonant ring of an apocalyptic movie, something to avoid rather than embrace. Yes, there is the ubiquitous talk of the ‘Two-State Solution’ but what is the state of that solution following the horror of the 7 October massacre; and that a majority of Palestinian society approves of it. This was reflected in a respected poll  carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip between 22 November and 2 December 2023?

When rockets last Friday from Gaza flew above Israel’s capital, the shrieking sound of the siren was more than a warning that sent Jerusalem’s residents dashing for cover. It was a warning to Israelis about what type of a future they can expect with those Palestinians that preferred to embrace the incoming rockets with applause, cheering and whistling!  

It appears we move in different directions literally as well as fugitively.

With the macabre nature of what befell Jews on October 7, a gaping chasm of two separate world views was exposed that wishful thinking will neither heal nor the chasm seal.

It may be so for generations!

For Israelis in the midst of a personally painful war, “The Day After” is as far removed cerebrally as the outer galaxy is physically. They can barely cope with thinking beyond the end of each day than face the politically abstract “day after”. And who can blame them when each passing day they are met with the news of another soldier they know or somebody they know who knows, that has fallen in battle. Every death is personal; it feels like an amputation, losing one limb after another as our nation is daily dismembered.

Images never to be repeated. Civilians burned alive in their car by Hamas terrorists. (Courtesy: South First Responders)

And so, rather thinking about ‘the day after” we think about today as at each morn, we mourn!

Nevertheless, despite this sad scenario, there is a positive of the increased talk of “the day after”, especially by global leaders for it implies a break with the past, a future without Hamas.  The more “the day after” is part of the conversation, there is an increasing acceptance of the notion of NEVER returning to the status quo ante bellum – the situation as it existed before the war.

So, when Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh expresses as he did in a recent televised address that any arrangement in Gaza without Hamas is a “delusion”, it may well be that it is he that is “dilutional”. No Israeli is ever going to accept that the people that conceived and orchestrated the massacre of October 7 will remain in power. And Israel is hardly alone in wanting to be rid of Hamas.

Blood on Beds. This can never be allowed to ever happen again where kids are murdered in their beds as what occurred in this blood-soaked child’s bed in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7.

Despite their public criticism of Israel in its prosecution of the war, the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and many Gulf states would joyously, if surreptitiously, welcome a “day after” free of Hamas. After all, they share the same agenda with Israel in wanting to see Iran’s “axis of resistance” of proxy militias from Hamas to the hot-headed Houthis neutralized. Not wanting to be caught in the crossfire, they prefer to let Israel do the job while applauding with one hand!

Israelis know – and are prepared to pay a heavy price as they are sadly doing – for “The Day After” that shall NEVER be a return to the position they were in on October 6 – the day before the massacre, a day that will live in eternal infamy. That coupled with an alarming global outbreak of antisemitism – that Jews are not safe anywhere – Israel needs to restore its deterrence.

Hate from New York. Only three weeks after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, these protesters at a “Flood Brooklyn for Gaza” demonstration on October 28 in New York, USA  are not shy to use the words to rid Jews “BY ANY MEANS POSSIBLE”. (Photo: CAITLIN OCHS/REUTERS)

To ensure this, I reiterate what I wrote in an earlier article that I never thought as a liberal thinker I would ever subscribe to the 15th century counsel of Machiavelli but then came October 7 and hence IF THEY LOVE US NOT, LET THEM FEAR US.

What will “the day after” look like? How do we visualize it?

This war will end not with iconic photos like our desert fighters in 1949 raising a makeshift flag in Eilat or our paratroopers in 1967 gazing heavenward at the Western Wall.  We are not looking for the celebratory visuals of victory but for an emphatic crushing of evil that will not rear its ugly head to strike again.

Violence on Vehicles. If this is the state of these civilian cars, one can imagine the fate of its occupants as Israeli forensic police try to identify any human remains. Many of these cars belonged to Israelis who attended the music festival in Re’im and were murdered as they tried to flee. (Photo by Jim Hollander/UPI)

Hamas must be synonymous with history.

For Israelis to resettle the south they will settle for nothing less.





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