Taking the Pulse of a Tense Israel

By Jonathan Feldstein

Last week, I went to Beirut, at least according to Google Maps and Waze. I was driving in northern Israel and no matter what app I used, or how I entered data differently, my starting point brought me to the Beirut airport. A short seven-hour drive from where I was going.

I was not alone – residents across Israel reported disruptions with their GPS-based navigation apps like Waze, Moovit and Google Maps, telling users they were in Beirut, most likely due to IDF jamming actions. After all – there is a war going on!

Things are tense in Israel at the moment. Last week was the last Friday of Ramadan (when there’s usually heightened tension, threats, and violence from our Arab neighbors celebrating the Islamic holy month), and especially this week as Iran threatens to retaliate for the targeting of its IRGC terror leader in Damascus. 

Yesterday I was out with my brother and sister-in-law visiting from the US and received dozens of messages from people asking what they can do, how they can pray, and what the situation is. I wasn’t aware of the reports they were seeing that triggered their concern until later. Frankly, I knew most of all that was going on and have accepted it. Their messages of genuine concern made me a little bit more concerned.  For me, living here amid a war, with the threat of a further escalation from day one (we are now six months into the war) has become the norm. It is really far from normal. 

Here’s what’s going on:

The army has canceled the leave for combat soldiers; more reservists are being called up again; public bomb shelters are open (we have one in our home as do many Israelis); the air force is on high alert, and GPS is being jammed as far south as Tel Aviv because Hezbollah has tens or hundreds of thousands of precision GPS guided missiles that can reach anywhere in Israel.  By jamming the GPS, the expectation is that those pointed at particular targets will miss their mark.  But if only ten percent of the volume of rockets and missiles that Hezbollah has, get through – estimated at between 150,000-350,000 total – there will be a great deal of death and destruction on our side alone.

Everyone I know with whom I have spoken about it believes that not only is a war with Hezbollah imminent (though different people debate when and under what circumstances), there’s nobody among these people who doesn’t believe that it is necessary, even knowing that thousands or more Israelis may be killed. It will be carnage here, and much worse in Lebanon. We cannot continue living like this and allow Hezbollah to continue threatening us with hundreds of thousands of rockets and precision missiles. At present, some 100,000 Israelis from northern border areas evacuated from their homes and communities. They are refugees in their own country!

The sense of an imminent war existed before events this week. Israeli intelligence, especially in Lebanon, Syria and Iran, as demonstrated with the targeting of this Iranian IRGC terror leader, is excellent. I hope when the war with Hezbollah begins, it will begin and end on our terms. It is scary either way. 

It’s easy to project what many of the terrorists’ targets are. I imagine some of their missiles getting through, hitting sensitive military sites, government buildings, airports, power plants, as well as tall apartment buildings. I wonder if any of them might accidentally go astray and hit either the Al Aqsa Mosque or the Dome of the Rock, Islamic sites on the Temple Mount.  It would be ironic if they took out their own holy sites and shrines, and knowing that of course the world would somehow blame Israel.

In addition to impacting families who will be displaced, suffer loss, and whose loved ones will be called up to fight again, many Israelis like us are stocking up on non-perishable food and bottled water, and making accommodations for the possibility that a terrorist attack could leave us without power for days. As inconvenient as it will be, the thought of walking up seven flights in our building that will not have a working elevator is the least of my concerns right now.

It’s a good thing I have a good sense of direction, otherwise when my GPS said I was in Beirut, I might still be lost in northern Israel. Yesterday, amid rocket fire from Gaza (still) and Lebanon (dozens a day), one of the big news items here was the GPS jamming creating huge traffic problems.  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned.  Prayers are needed and appreciated. 

The war in Israel is likely to get much worse before it gets better.  While Israel is currently in combat on multiple fronts – Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and the West Bank – it could dramatically escalate if Iran takes a more muscular posture directly – beyond its proxies. Compounding and confounding Israel’s position is that it has extended enemies from far afield fighting it politically and diplomatically, issuing direct threats and demands, blaming Israel rather than Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran for the war and the threat of escalation. 

Whatever will be, Israel will need its friends standing by its side.  Wherever you are, please show support and pray for Israel to remain strong, unified, and victorious.

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).

From ancient Persia to modern Jordan the narrative shifts from ‘savior queen’ to ‘drama queen’.

By Jonathan Feldstein

Last week, Jews around the world celebrated Purim, the miraculous biblical story of the Jewish people overcoming a genocidal threat by Haman in the Book of Esther in Persia 2500 years ago. Many Christians also celebrated, knowing that if all the Jews had been exterminated then, Jesus would not have been born. They did so in solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people, especially at such a time as this.

Despite the festive celebrations, the Jewish people are facing a modern genocidal threat again today, headquartered in Persia: Iran. As much as we celebrate Queen Esther and her selfless bravery, there’s another Middle Eastern queen who is fanning the flames of genocide against, and threatening the Jewish people today.

Unlike Esther, an orphan who was born in Jerusalem and exiled in Babylon, Queen Rania of Jordan could not be more polar opposite.  She was born in Kuwait, the daughter of Palestinian Arabs.  Unlike Esther, Rania came from a well-off family, got the best education, and became a desirable match for her King, Abdullah II.

Unlike Esther who remained in exile, Rania came home. What’s now called the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is overwhelmingly ethnically Palestinian because Jordan today was made up, and carved out of 80% of what used to be “Palestine”.  Deliberate or not, her marriage to Abdullah II gave him a kind of legitimacy, consolidating ethnic Palestinian Arabs into the monarchy as no previous Hashemite ruler ever had because they are originally from Arabia.

Esther became famous for her selfless and potentially life-threatening sacrifice to save her people.  Upon learning of the threat from Haman against all the Jewish people, Esther instructed all the Jewish people to pray and fast for three days, as she did.  Simply, they turned within, and to the Creator.

Far from being selfless, the at-home Queen Rania has made a habit of blaming others for the problems or her people. Most recently, she has twisted reality and misrepresented facts about Israel’s war against Hamas. Rania is fanning flames of hatred, blaming others, and putting the lives of others at risk, rather than taking responsibility. It would be interesting to know if she ever had a heart to heart with her father-in-law, the late King Hussein. It was during the 1967 Six Day War that her father-in-law attacked Israel, and in the process, lost Jerusalem and Biblical Judea and Samaria on the west bank of the Jordan River.

Rania has a history of public hostile anti-Israel comments, broadcasting these in the global media. Her most recent was with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, the queen’s go-to Israel-bashing journalist.

In her polished verbal assault, Queen Rania accused Israel of “dehumanization” of Palestinians, and doing so in a way that is “systematic”. And of course, she nonsensically accuses Israel of “apartheid”. Her blood-libel is not only false, but is based on a false premise that Israelis believe (regarding Palestinian Arabs), “if we don’t kill them, they’re going to kill us.”  Rania blames “hardline leaders for keeping their people in this perpetual state of fear of an existential threat that doesn’t exist and making them feel like just killing Palestinians and killing Hamas is going to be the solution to the problem.”

Hello, Queen Rania. Did you not see Hamas’ own live broadcast of the atrocities they committed on October 7? Do you not think that just maybe their terror and using Gazan civilians as human shields has anything to do with it?

Queen Rania boasted about Jordanian aid to Gazans, conducting the interview in a warehouse amid cartons emblazoned with Jordanian flags. Nevertheless, she said that while Jordan is providing as much aid as possible, her pattern of blaming Israel reached a crescendo with Amanpour. Tone deaf to facts and history of Hamas hijacking Gaza and putting all its residents in harm’s way, she chastised that providing “aid under bombardment does not stop the destruction, the death, and the heartbreak. We cannot save people from hunger only then to bomb them to death.”

Implying that Israel does not have a legitimate cause to defeat Hamas (and parenthetically free Gazans from under the boot of Hamas’ evil terrorist infrastructure and culture), Rania said, “There are no victories to be had as long as this war continues.”

Rania tripled-down on blaming Israel for actual problems that Gazans are suffering, including claims of cutting off food, fuel, and water, rather than place any responsibility on Hamas, or Egypt which also shares a border with Gaza, and under which no shortage of weapons and other terrorist infrastructure have been smuggled. A thoughtful observer wonders if Hamas can smuggle weapons from Egypt, why not food for Gaza as well, even if Egypt blocks such aid.

Blaming only Israel, Rania suggested that it was in fact a calculated, “deprivation by design.” Not very Esther-like to always blame others rather than being introspective.

Amanpour actually asked Rania about the atrocities that Hamas committed on October 7. Rania responded:

“As devastating and as traumatic as October 7 was, it doesn’t give Israel license to commit atrocity after atrocity. Israel experienced one October 7, since then, the Palestinians have experienced 156 October 7’s.”

Presumably, Rania’s interview took place 156 days after October 7, a fact she was prepared with for her scripted talking points. Despite her fine education, Rania must have missed a few math classes because had Gazans experienced 156 October 7 massacres, more than 187,000 Gazans would have been killed, a number so ridiculously high not even Hamas would think to make up such figures.  But facts don’t matter to Rania when good rhetoric and lies can be used to blame Israel and the so-called “occupation”.

Rania must have also missed a few history classes as she pontificated, “I think a lot of people need to know more about this conflict to really understand the intricacies of it, to understand that this is one of the greatest historical injustices, to understand what the root cause of this issue is, to understand that this conflict did not begin on October 7, that that it was a result of years of occupation, of settlement expansion, of human rights abuses, of disregard for international law, and this is what led us to this point.”

Interestingly, she neglected to mention the occupation of Gaza (by Egypt) and “the West Bank” (by Jordan) under her husband’s father, and great-grandfather for whom he is named. To her, the original sin is Israel’s “occupation”, neglecting the fact that when Palestinian Arab ethnicity was invented, so was the “armed resistance” that they still practice – Terror. She forgets that Palestinian terrorists also threatened her father-in-law’s reign, a bloody revolt he put down in September 1970, during which as many as 25,000 Palestinian Arabs were killed.

There’s no doubt that Rania’s remarks were well prepared if not scripted.  There’s also no doubt that Rania would never have given such an interview without the advanced knowledge – if not outright approval – of King Abdullah. While he has plausible deniability regarding her remarks, it would be nonsense to think that he and his court were not consulted, and did not consent. Maybe even helped write the script.

The truth is that while Abdullah did not make these remarks directly, the King has also been doubling down on the anti-Israel rhetoric. In a statement just weeks before Rania’s interview, King Abdullah let slip that he also blamed Israel’s “occupation”.  However rather than using the kinder and gentler approach to the term as coined when his father lost Jerusalem and the west bank of the Jordan River in 1967, Abdullah touted the “70 year” occupation, meaning that Israel’s very existence is by definition illegitimate.

As an Arabian Hashemite King ruling over a territory and people in which he and his tribe are not indigenous, in a country that was made up in 1946, aside from employing unprecedently hostile anti-Israel rhetoric, this gives new meaning to the term “the pot calling the kettle black”.

Back to the Queen and the “occupation”. She opined that “Palestinians do not hate Israelis because of who they are, they hate them because of what they’re doing to them.”

Just because she’s a Queen does not mean she is or ought to be immune from being called out on her anti-Israel diatribe, her deliberate twisting of facts and omitting others, her minimizing Hamas’ actual genocidal threat to Israel and the Jewish people, much less the severity of Hamas’s premeditated use of sexual crimes to rape and mutilate women. Perhaps she does this because she considers herself a proud Palestinian, as Esther was a proud Jew.  Or perhaps because she knows that in some way, if she were actually to speak the truth, she’d risk threatening her husband’s monarchy, also a target of Islamists.

Queen Rania ended her comments magnanimously saying:

 “We in this part of the world need to find a way to share these holy lands in peace.”

The problem is that when she delegitimizes Israel and blames only Israel for the actual suffering that’s happening now, and only blames Israel rather than taking or assigning any Arab culpability for their own situation, she continues generations of lies that does anything but enable us to live in peace.

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).