The Israel Brief – 15 May 2023– Ceasefire ends “Operation Shield and Arrow”. Israeli Ambassador to UN asks envoys not to attend Nakba Day events. Is King Charles heading to Israel? Our Eurovision unicorn returns home.
The Israel Brief – 16 May 2023– Abbas’ Nakba Day speech. Israel – Sweden relations warm. Major defense deal with Montenegro. March of Nations.
The Israel Brief – 17 May 2023– Flags march in Jerusalem tomorrow. Prayers at Joseph’s Tomb. EU clash over Palestinian funding. Yulia the monk seal.
The Israel Brief – 18 May 2023– Yom Yerushalayim. Israel to take action against CNN? Defense deal with the Netherlands. Yulia bids farewell to Israel.
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).
Reflections from Israel amidst another round of hostilities
By Jonathan Feldstein
I have started and stopped writing this multiple times. From last Wednesday until the ceasefire Sunday night, Palestinian Arab terrorists in Gaza supported by the Islamist regime in Iran, have fired 1469 rockets at Israeli communities. There have been massive barrages of 100 or more at a time, multiple times. Throughout this operation, Israel had targeted and taken out both leaders of the Islamic Jihad terror organization, and much (but not enough) of their infrastructure. For the most part Israel’s Iron Dome has successfully intercepted most of these, specifically ones directed at densely populated areas. There have been injuries, significant damage, and as of last night one woman and a Palestinian worker from Gaza killed and 10 injured when their building took a direct hit.
Rock’ets around the Clock. Continuous firing of rockets from Gaza toward Israel. (Atia Mohammed/Flash90)
I stopped and re-started writing this article multiple times because of repeated talk of a cease fire. But each time one thinks the rockets might stop, the terrorists let off another barrage. Living in Israel, you develop an instinct as to whether there will be a cease fire or not, protracted rockets and Israeli response of taking out terrorists, or the risk of escalation and a ground operation. Of course, had 10 people been killed and not “just” injured yesterday, the calculations would be revisited, and all bets would be off.
But not one person should be killed, and the firing of one rocket at a civilian population is criminal, much less hundreds. If they can’t be stopped yet, they should face the consequences. Palestinian Arabs in Gaza should be sending thank you notes to Israel, not firing rockets.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to speak with a senior Israeli security officer about the situation in Gaza. “We know what kind of humus they are dipping their pita into,” he assured me confidently. It was funny, albeit seeming a bit arrogant. But how accurate both figuratively and literally.
Killing Killers. Gazan terrorist leaders who gave the orders to kill Israelis were the focus of Israel in its recent ‘Operation Shield and Arrow’.
What we have seen in the past days, as well as in other recent anti-terrorist operations in Gaza, is that he wasn’t just being funny. This week we have seen IDF operations that have been strategic, tactical and surgical. When you look at the pictures of the buildings in which Palestinian Arab terror leaders have been targeted and taken out, it looks as if someone came with a big industrial scalpel, cut open a careful hole in the side of a building, and carefully extracted the tumors, leaving the rest of the building and its residents shaken, but intact. The precision is remarkable.
Sadly, some of the terror leaders have chosen to sleep at home with their wives and children which means that some of their wives and children have also been killed. Sadly, the wives and children didn’t leave their terrorist husbands/fathers to protect themselves.
All this week’s IDF operations have indicated that Israel has incredible intelligence on top of the surgical precision. If I were an Arab terror leader, I’d be looking for another profession, unless I really believed the misogynist rhetoric about 72 virgins waiting in heaven. Certainly, Israel has developed a world-class intelligence network that’s the envy of many, as it helps to save lives not just in Israel but around the world.
Surgical Strike. Leaving this building in the Gaza Strip intact, only the apartment of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist leader is destroyed in a precision attack by Israel. (Associated Press, Fatima Shbai)
A case and point is that Israel successfully killed one particular terrorist leader in a ‘safe’ house demonstrating that the terrorist leaders are not safe anywhere. Fortunately, he saved his wife and children, though they are known to hide behind women and children which is immoral, and a war crime. In one case this week, a terror leader who had been tracked for two days had his life saved when the pilot commanding the operation noticed two children. In this case, the word “abort” saved two children’s lives.
Terrorists know that Israel will avoid firing at them and their infrastructure around civilians. So, they hide themselves, their weapons, their infrastructure in, under, and around residential areas, schools, mosques, hospitals, and UN facilities. But Israel’s level of precision has increased and the phrase “you can run but you cannot hide” is a warning that every terrorist in Gaza should heed.
Palestinian Arabs should be thanking Israel because its Iron Dome saves Palestinian Arabs. Had Israel not had the need, ingenuity, and priority to create something never before imagined to track and intercept short and medium range rockets, the terrorists’ rockets would surely wreak much more havoc. Were there to be more Israeli casualties, Israel would be forced to respond more forcefully. That would mean more Palestinian Arab casualties. But the Iron Dome that was invented and built and is deployed to save Israeli lives, also saves Arab lives, while allowing terrorists to inflict damage with relative impunity.
Meeting in Mid-air. Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ anti-missile system (right) fires interception missiles as rockets are fired from the Gaza Strip (left) to Israel, as seen from Sderot on May 10, 2023. (photo credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)
But Israel should never have to do this to begin with. The theory that goes that the rockets will stop only when the cost to the terrorists (and the population they have hijacked) suffer more than they are prepared. That means devastation. Yet it’s probably true. Eventually in a day, or week or a month, there will be a cease fire. Until the next round.
Speaking of cost, the expense Israel incurs to keep Israelis (and Palestinian Arabs) safe is some $50,000 per Iron Dome interception. If only half of the 1000+ fired this week required being intercepted, that’s $20 million. Astounding.
As I was finishing writing this, our family was startled by the piercing noise of an air raid siren in our community south of Jerusalem. We are dozens of miles from Gaza. The terrorists are upping the ante and widening the range to draw Israel into the conflict deeper. It’s personal and horrific.
Devastation and Death. An 80-year-old resident was killed when her apartment on May 12, 2023 in Rehovot took a direct hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP)
Gazans should be rising up to take back their society from the terrorists who hijacked their lives. They can choose to suffer just by the consequences of being around, behind and under the stranglehold of the terrorists, or they can fight back. When Israel withdrew all its communities, military, businesses, and even graves from Gaza in 2005, they had an opportunity to build something. All they have achieved are four “D’s – death, danger, destruction and destitution.
They should be thanking Israel and seek to live in a society that can be good neighbors rather than mortal enemies.
If only!
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).
“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” The true origin of this timeless aphorism — often attributed to Mark Twain — is disputed, the simple lesson it teaches is unquestionable. And in an era of social media algorithms and worldwide connectivity through the internet, it is just as applicable to hatred as it is dishonesty, and the results can be violent and dangerous.
Case in point: While the Israeli Defense Forces responded to over 1,000 rocket attacks launched by Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza in May of 2021, antisemitism also reached an all-time high in the United States. In major cities, like New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, cries of “free Palestine” and “death to Jews” accompanied assaults on the streets, in restaurants, and outside synagogues.
The prevailing presumption was that anger and frustration over events some 6,000 miles away was entirely to blame for unleashing this tsunami of hatred on American Jewish communities. In fact, new research from Boundless, which combats Jew-hatred, and the Network Contagion Research Institute, which identifies and forecasts social cyber threats, found that particular rhetoric propelled by social media outrage algorithms carried the signal for where and when real-world violence would take place. During this digital frenzy, terms typically used to discuss human rights surged on social media in the exact U.S. locations where violence against Jews occurred. Words such as “Apartheid”, “ethnic cleanings”, and “genocide” that used to have moral weight and legal meaning—were hijacked to delegitimize Israel and vilify Jews.
Off the Wall. Harvard students engage in lies and incitement against Jews in their mock “apartheid wall” erected on campus during Israeli Apartheid Week 2022. (Photo Credit: Harvard PSC)
These findings offer important new clues as to where and how harm targeting Jewish communities originates. Our research makes clear that greater attention must be paid to groups that march in American cities chanting “globalize the intifada” or “find where these Zionist fools live.”
Enemies of Israel’s existence hide behind the guise of progressive values to cherry pick terms from the human rights lexicon and distort their meaning to paint Israel and Jews as evil oppressors. These toxic accusations, in turn, act as a Trojan horse to infiltrate the mainstream discourse with abhorrent tropes about Jews.
There is nothing new under the sun, and this tactic is no exception to that truth. Its origins can be traced to Russia, where an ugly history of animosity toward Jews gave birth to the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion. During the Cold War, an explicit campaign sought to exacerbate tensions between East and West, placing Jews as the central scapegoats. The message of these campaigns infiltrated progressive circles, most obviously in institutions of higher education, and have received new life on social media.
Targeting the Talmud. Horrendous antisemitic fliers seen in Georgia, USA in February, 2023. (Esther Panitch/Twitter)
Social media ecosystems have long been known to accelerate the growth and spread of antisemitic activity, and it is well known that there is a linkage between online hate forums and real-world attacks. That said, when it comes to Jew-hatred, law enforcement has focused on neo-Nazis, Islamists, and other radical groups notorious for their toxic ideology.
But to effectively protect Jews – by far the largest target of religious hate crimes in the United States – those who make the laws as well as those who enforce them and monitor threats should heed this data and expand their activities to encompass threats emanating from groups using the façade of progressive human rights to demonize Jews and Zionists.
Terrorizing Jews. Ugly anti-Zionist rhetoric turns into a threat to Jews in this protest by pro-Palestinian activists in New York City, May 15, 2021. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
American Jews live in the crosshairs of an array of bad actors. The threats span political ideologies. Yet ideological blind spots are hindering efforts to keep them safe, and the consequences are devastating. Jewish communities are increasingly under attack and the fear of violence, hostility, and intimidation has led growing numbers of young Jews to hide their identity.
America’s promise to her people is not only that she will affirm their rights and human dignity, but that they will be protected by the rule of law. Social media signals can offer us critical insights into where and when attacks against Jewish communities take place. And where violence can be reasonably predicted, the warning should be heeded and the danger thwarted. Failing to do so means failing to fulfill that critical promise.
About the writers:
Aviva Klompas is CEO and co-founder of Boundless and can be found on Twitter @AvivaKlompas.
Dr. Rachel Fish is the President and co-founder of Boundless.
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).
Recollections and reflections of a South African immigrant under fire
By Joel Klotnick
The recent hostilities, which Israel named “Operation Shield and Arrow” brought back memories of the last ‘fireworks’ when we in Ra’anana – a city some 20 kilometers north of Tel Aviv – found ourselves in range.
At the time I penned a piece (hereunder) that I sent to friends and family around the world. I believe it no less relevant today – sadly so!
Crowd Flees Tel Aviv Beach After Siren Sounds
Ra’anana in Range
“It’s bizarre and surreal! I always wanted to meet a siren, i.e. one, who according to a definition in my trusty Oxford Dictionary is “a woman who is considered to be alluring but also dangerous in some way”.
Instead, I get to meet – or rather hear – an ear-splitting, caterwauling, prolonged sound telling me that it’s dangerous in some way!
On Friday, one minute we’re sitting and having coffee with friends at a popular local café in central Ra’anana, the next you hear a siren in the distance and although you think it is too far away to be of concern to us, a number of patrons of the coffee shop think otherwise and decide that it’s time to make a dash for the shelters. I felt less energised and decided to do more than dash.
From Gaza with Hate. What has changed in Israel today than from when this mother ducked with her kids in Tel Aviv in 2012 following a siren warning of incoming rockets from Gaza? (Photo Oren Ziv AFP/Getty Images)
As I was getting up – somewhat lethargically – to join them, I looked up to see a rocket plume far away and high in the sky and then another plume – from another direction – intersect the first one – and then a puff of smoke, followed 20 to 25 secs later by a “BOOM”, thus confirming that it was quite far away. So, after consulting our smart phones we confirm that the sirens were in Herzliya, the city adjacent to Ra’anana. But what about our friends, who are having coffee with us and whose kids are on the beach at Herzliya. A quick call to them to see that all’s OKAY and back to coffee and chatting. Our thoughts are also with friends, family, and just ordinary Israelis (including non-Jewish Israelis) who have to spend days and nights anticipating a CODE RED alert, giving them seconds to dash for shelter?
Dash for Cover. With only seconds to find cover, children in 2023 at a playground in Tel Aviv run as fast as they can to the underground bomb shelter. (Kobi Wolf for The Washington Post)
Why are there these guys in Gaza trying to frighten us! They are not going to weaken my resolve, nor, as far as I can judge, the resolve of all Israelis. There is a broad consensus that “we” have to go in and clean out the place once and for all. However, if you think about it a little more logically, “going in” means that our soldiers are likely to suffer injuries and worse. And can they really eliminate all terror cells and rocket launchers?
Rocket strikes ‘Home’. An 80-year-old Israeli is killed as Gaza rocket makes direct hit on her apartment in Rehovot.
So, what’s the answer? It’s obvious – it is PEACE – but you’ve got to have leaders in Gaza who are prepared to LEAD! I’m not known as a pessimist, but, unfortunately, I do not believe that this elusive PEACE will be reached in my lifetime.
Israelis, those who were born here and others “who’ve seen it all before”, regularly ask “So, are you still happy that you made Aliyah?” My unequivocal answer is a resounding YES, I would not like to be anywhere else.”
AFTERTHOUGHT
As I reflect about this 5-day “round” of hostilities that included a total of 1,469 rockets fired from Gaza toward Israel with 1,139 rockets crossing into Israeli territory, have my thoughts changed in any meaningful way since the previous engagements? Sadly not and am no less resolute to proudly call Israel my home and still hope against all the odds for that most elusive prize – PEACE.
About the Writer:
Joel Klotnick, retired in South Africa after many years in practice as a Chartered Accountant (CA) in commerce and as a volunteer in community affairs. Now volunteering in community affairs in Israel. Very proud and happy that all three children and their families (including nine grandchildren), live in Israel.
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).
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‘Shield and Arrow’ was a reminder to terrorists not to misread Israel’s internal tensions as fragility
By David E. Kaplan
The Right Moves. Students performing in the winning ‘Very Mad World’ dance at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv.
Thought’s about a competition-winning dance choreographed by the writer’s daughter, illuminated understanding and misunderstanding as no country in the world is NOT going to respond when over a 100 rockets are rapidly fired at its civilian centers?
People behind exposing the hard truth of Lithuania in the Holocaust
By Grant Gochin
In Black & White. Aftermath of the Kovno ‘garage’ massacre in June 1941, perpetrated by Nazi-supporting Lithuanians.
The writer makes the case that NATO and the European Union cannot demand truth from Russia when one of their own members is so deeply engaged in “Holocaust fraud”. Lithuania has to come clean and tell the truth about its own past.
Probably very different from Israelis who were ducking rocket fire near Gaza
By Jonathan Feldstein
Mercy of Monsters. Ditching their car, mother clutches her daughter as siren sounds warning of incoming rockets.
Parents who spend all night worried about protecting their kids from rockets have to wake up – assuming they even slept at all – to get their kids off to school and then get to work. How has ‘ABNORMAL’ terrifyingly morphed into ‘NORMAL’.
Marking Israel’s 75th, descendants of Nazi killers participate in Jerusalem’s ‘March of Life’
By David E. Kaplan
Road to Redemption. Gone down the road of their family’s past, descendants of Nazis will take to streets in Israel.
While a Nazi past of relatives can understandably be a taboo subject in some German families – not all. A number of descendants of Nazis chose to bravely confront rather than suppress their family’s war-time past. Hear their stories and why they will be in Israel this week.
LOTL Cofounders David E. Kaplan (Editor), Rolene Marks and Yair Chelouche
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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).
In Israel this week for Israel’s 75th anniversary of Independenceare descendants of Nazi killers participating in Jerusalem’s ‘March of Life’
By David E. Kaplan
“My father was in the SS” can be a hard fact for a child to first hear and then to accept but that was what Hartmut Janssen had to come to terms with and ultimately brave eneough to pass on to his daughters. He did so in 2014 when he he bought them tickets to see ‘Labyrinth of Lies’, a film about the Auschwitz trials that took place in Frankfurt in the 1960s. This provided the opportunity he had been waiting for. He was nervous because he was also dreading what their reaction would be. And so, during the discussion of the movie they had just watched, he revealed the hard truth:
“My father was in the SS.”
He had been terrified his daughters would reject him but instead, they hugged and reassured him that he was not responsible for the sins of his father.
The Nazi past of relatives can understandably be a taboo subject in some German families. But a number of descendants of Nazi criminals are not happy about suppressing the past; they want to explore that intimate dark tunnel wherever it takes them. It is a fateful and a very brave exploration of self, particularly so when they choose to reveal publicly their findings. This they do by participating in the ‘March for Life’.
They need to be commended.
This week, several thousand participants will march in Jerusalem from Sacher Park to Safra Square in front of the City Hall on May 16 at 5 p.m. under the banner:
“Mi Shoah le Tkuma– from the Holocaust to New Life”
They will be participating in the March of the Nations that unites people from all over the world and Israelis from across the country to celebrate Israel’s birthday on the streets of Jerusalem. The occasion this 2023, marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the modern state of Israel and is officially welcomed by Israel’s State President, President Isaac Herzog.
March on Track. Welcoming a delegation from March of Life from Germany and Israel at his residence in Jerusalem, Israeli President Isaac Herzog expressed his appreciation and support to Jobst & Charlotte Bittner, founder and president of the international March of Life movement. The large “March of the Nations” is to be held in Jerusalem and other Israeli cities on May 14-17.
Many of the international participants from Germany and more than 25 other nations are Christians. They have “worked through the Nazi past of their families, the antisemitic theology of their churches, and the history of Jew-hatred in their cities and communities.”
An example is a young German, Luisa, who reveals:
“A few years ago, I discovered that a great-grandfather of mine served in the Luftwaffe while another great-grandfather served in the SS, being stationed in Poland in 1939. There his unit expelled thousands of Jews from their homes and was involved in the shooting of many of them. Later, he supervised a concentration camp near Belgrade.”
Participants are part of the worldwide March of Life movement, which each year around Yom HaShoah calls people to the streets to raise their voices for remembrance, for reconciliation, for Israel, and against antisemitism.
Speakers at the closing event at 6:30 p.m. in Safra Square will include Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan Nahoum, Jewish Agency President Doron Almog, founder of the first Shoah Museum in Dubai, Ahmed Al Mansoori (UAE), and ‘March of Life’ founder, Jobst Bittner. The march is led by Odessa-born Holocaust survivor Arie Itamar, who arrived in Israel in 1947 on the Exodus as a seven-year-old.
Snapshot of History. Holocaust survivor Arie Itamar in a 1947 photo taken for a fabricated passport before boarding the Exodus to Palestine will be one of the speakers in Jerusalem.
On May 17, more marches will take place in various cities across Israel. Participants will travel by bus to Metula, Tiberias, Zichron Yaakov, Netanya, Ashkelon, Beer Sheva and Merhavim, where they will have encounter events with Holocaust survivors, students and soldiers. In the afternoon, they will march together through their respective cities.
The organizer is the international March of Life movement, an initiative of Jobst and Charlotte Bittner from Tübingen in Southern Germany that began with a memorial march from the Swabian Alb to Dachau in 2007.
Man with a Mission. Pastor Jobst Bittner, founder of TOS Church and March of Life. (Courtesy)
Together with descendants of German Wehrmacht soldiers and members of the SS and police force, they have organized memorial and reconciliation marches at sites of the Holocaust all over Europe. Since this movement began, marches have been held in 20 nations and in more than 400 cities in cooperation with Christians from different churches and denominations, as well as from many Jewish communities.
Although the March of Life in each country has its own name, such as – “March of Remembrance” in the U.S., “Marcha de La Vida” in Latin America, and “Marsz Życia” in Poland – the message remains the same:
REMEMBERING, working through the past, giving survivors of the Holocaust a voice
RECONCILIATION, healing and restoration between descendants of the victims and perpetrators and
TAKING A STAND for Israel and against modern antisemitism
The movement recognises that it was indifference and the silence of the majority that made the Holocaust possible, an indifference that even today, paves the way for antisemitism. They feel the need to act against this indifference and:
“We will not again be silent! ”
Never Again. Descendants of Nazis join fellow Christians and Jews marching in solidarity to acknowledge the past and strive so that it is never repeated.
Press Event: Members of the press will have the opportunity to speak with leaders of the March of Life movement and meet interviewees on May 16, at 3:30 pm, prior to the March’s kickoff event in Sacher Park.
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 – 08 May 2023– President Herzog at the Coronation. Diplomatic spat over Ben Gvir. World Food Programme suspends aid to Palestinians. Shin Bet arrest terror cell.
The Israel Brief – 09 May 2023– Operation Shield and Arrow Update.
The Israel Brief – 10 May 2023– Operation Shield and Arrow Updates. 2 killed in Tunisia. Kenyan President visits Israel. Noa Kirel slays it at Eurovision.
The Israel Brief – 11 May 2023– Operation Shield and Arrow day 3. UN Security Council stopped from condemning Israel. Nakba Day and Bernie. Israeli and Moroccan women celebrate innovation.
10 may 2023 – Rolene Marks speaks to WINA’s Rob Schilling about “Operation Shield and Arrow”.
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).
Israel’s military ‘Shield and Arrow’ operation was a lethal reminder to terrorist leaders not to misread internal tensions as fragility
By David E. Kaplan
My daughter Keren, a dance instructor, gets out of her car early evening outside a municipal dance centre in central Israel and is met by an arrogant woman driver in a car parked next to her with:
“I can’t breath, your car stinks’ its letting off terrible smells,” she bawls
“Geveret (lady)”, my daughter replies, “the whole country stinks tonight; it’s Lag B’Omer.”
This Jewish festivity is celebrated by lighting bonfires and having barbecues to symbolize the light that Shimon Bar Yochai brought into the world. The problem was not with my daughter’s car but with this woman’s knowledge or lack of it! Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad(PIJ) in Gaza suffer from that same malady – ignorance – not of Jewish festivities but of misreading the signs of Israeli society.
The Right Moves. Keren Kaplan’s students in the dance that came first performing at the Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance and Theatre in Tel Aviv. (Photo by Oren Cohen)
It could not go on! Terrorists were murdering Israelis – notably civilians as well as foreign tourists – in restaurants, pubs, standing at bus stops, walking along pavements and seaside pavilions while at the same time lobbing masses of rockets in the south from Gaza. There was a miscalculation by Palestinian terrorist leaders – that Israel was so wrapped up in internal issues and tensions over the government’s frenzied judicial overhaul that it was vulnerable and easy pickings. WRONG! What country in the world is not going to respond when over a 100 rockets are fired at its civilian centres?
You may argue with your government over tax returns; you are not going to argue with it when it tells you we are about to be attacked and to head for bomb shelters.
Shelter from the Storm. A mother clutching her baby in Sderot in southern Israel leave a shelter in between air raid sirens warning of incoming rockets fired from the Gaza Strip May 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
A total of104 rockets were fired into Israel over a 24-hour period in the week preceding ‘Operation Shield and Arrow’, most by the PIJ according to IDF reports, with some minor participation from Hamas.
Did the terrorist leaders orchestrating this murderous mayhem really believe that Israel was just going to continue with ‘life as ab’normal’? Did these terrorist leaders really think they were personally immune from attack while they were free to unleash hellfire on Israelis? Are Israelis expected to behave like chickens in a coup waiting to be randomly snatched? It was this imagery of chickens that reminded me of the response of Britain’s wartime PM to the sneering comment by French Marshal Philippe Pétain, future leader of the collaborationist Vichy French government who was convinced that Germany would successfully invade Britain as it had done France. He told Churchill that in three weeks, Britain would:
“have its neck wrung like a chicken”.
Churchill’s defiant reply in carefully crafted oratory was a dig at France and a scoff at Nazi Germany:
“Some chicken! Some neck!”
Defiant in Adversity. Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill delivering his famed “Some chicken! Some neck!” speech to the Canadian House of Commons on 30 December 1941. (Credit: Library and Archives Canada)
So Israel launched its operation, targeting senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad officials in pre-dawn airstrikes and no surprise it was supported unequivocally by leaders of Israel’s opposition. In matters of national security, Israelis will set aside differences and hastily shift into existential mode. With a thin sliver to land to protect, most within missile range from some potential enemy, the Shoah (Holocaust) and “never again” casts its shadow. Only a few weeks ago, Israelis stood for a minute’s silence as the siren sounded across the nation, in every city, town, kibbutz and moshav as we remembered the victims of the Shoah. Now that same siren sounds, telling us that rockets from Gaza are on the way. If the former siren sound was to remember past victims the current sirens are a warning to avoid being victims in the present. That is life in Israel. Israel’s Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant and Israel’s leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, may be at opposite sides politically but they can agree what is at stake – existentially. Both are children of Holocaust survivors. Galant’s 88-year-old mother who sadly passed away today while Israel is again at war, first arrived in Israel – then Palestine – on the Exodus. These passengers were inhumanely returned to Germany by the British. Yair Lapid’s father, Tommy, escaped death while being forced marched by the Nazis in Budapest to be downed in the Danube, when an air raid siren led his mother to drag him into a public toilet, and remain there. Staying in that toilet while the rest of the Jews, following the Allied air raid were led off to their deaths, ensured he would one day have a son who would be a Prime Minister of a future Jewish state and today Leader of the Opposition. While at the same time opposing the government on its judicial overhaul, the opposition is supporting it in its defence against terrorism and hence ‘Operation Shield and Arrow’. This the planners in Gaza failed to comprehend when they fired the barrage of 100 rockets into Israel setting off the consequences that were to follow.
Meeting of Missiles. Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system (right) intercept rockets launched from the Gaza Strip (left) on May 10, 2023(photo Ammar Awad/Reuters)
THE STAGE IS SET
These are crazy times. Saturday nights Israelis in their thousands are legitimately off to protests and in-between will shelter in bomb shelters. Addressing craziness in her own way is my dance instructor daughter Keren Kaplan with the non-smelly car. With the intense dramas playing out on Israel’s national stage, I was pleasingly diverted to another action occurring on a different stage – theatre stages in Tel Aviv. There, my daughter’s students of Soul Studio performed a dance choreographed by her called ‘It’s a Very Very Mad World’ and which won first prize in two national dance competitions – ‘I BELIEVE’ at Cinema Cityand the Confederation National Dance (CND) at the Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance and Theatre.
Following these spectacular wins, her students qualified to compete in two international competitions abroad – in the U.S.A and Spain. Explains Keren:
“In a crazy world like ours, we are all dealing with a lot on our shoulders whether personally or collectively; we are all in this delusional period. What the song is about is very relevant today and in my vision, we live in a kind of circus amidst all this chaos.”
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).
People behind exposing the hard truth of Lithuania in the Holocaust
By Grant Gochin
After a decades long campaign for basic truth about the Lithuanian Holocaust, the Lithuanian Government has finally told one truth. Ambassador Dainius Junevičius, the Lithuanian Ambassador to South Africa, admits that Jonas Noreika was a Holocaust perpetrator, not the rescuer of Jews they have previously asserted.
This admission follows a very strongly worded statement by the Governments of America and Germany, where these Governments declared that Holocaust revisionism can promote impunity for war criminals, normalize antisemitism, racism, discrimination, and exclusion, increase tensions between countries, and undermine public support for democratic institutions and values-based international structures.
Truth be Told. Lithuanian Ambassador Dainius Junevičius who has come clean about his country’s past by admitting that revered war hero Jonas Noreika was in fact a Holocaust perpetrator, presents his letters of credence to the President of the Republic of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa.
NATO and the European Union cannot demand truth from Russia when one of their own members is so deeply engaged in Holocaust fraud. Lithuania had no choice but to tell one truth.
In the Jewish tradition of Tikkun Olam (Healing the world) my first response to this was peace and genuine friendship. Friendship can only be based on truth.
It is indeed a tragedy that Lithuania still has open threats of criminal and constitutional charges against me for having exposed their long history of Holocaust distortion and revision. I hope these threats will soon be publicly retracted, along with Lithuania’s formal apology.
It has taken pressure from NATO and the government of the United States to bring Lithuania to the truth. Multiple legal actions failed. A massive worldwide media campaign failed. At long last, American pressure opened the door.
Dr. Efraim Zuroff, Director of Israel’s Simon Wiesenthal Center has led a decades long effort to raise and press these issues. His arduous and tenacious work has demonstrated that truth can be revealed, even when dealing with the most persistent of liars. Dr. Zuroff is my hero.
Fighting Falsehoods. Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff who reveals the uniquely extensive role played by Lithuanians in the mass murder of Jews is seen here saying Kaddish, a mourning prayer, for Holocaust victims near Kaunas, Lithuania. (Photo Cnaan Liphshiz/JTA)
Silvia Foti’s book: Storm in the Land of Rain: A Mother’s Dying Wish Becomes Her Daughter’s Nightmare broke open the door of Holocaust denial in Lithuania. Silvia Foti is my hero.
From Hero to Nazi. Raised on reverent stories about her hero grandfather, a martyr for Lithuanian independence and an unblemished patriot, Silvia Foti would later discover after a 20-year wrenching quest for the truth that Jonas Noreika had been a Jew-killer.
Ruta Vanagaite and Dr. Zuroff together wrote Our People: Discovering Lithuania’s Hidden Holocaust. Ruta paid an enormous personal, emotional and financial price for telling the truth. Her books were removed from Lithuanian bookshelves and she had to flee Lithuania for her personal safety. Ruta is my hero.
Home Truths. Rūta Vanagaitė was a best-selling author in Lithuania until she contradicted the story her country tells about itself. Following her book about her country’s involvement in the Nazi killing machine, she went from the “toast of Vilnius” to never leaving her own home without pepper spray.
Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas and Evaldas Balciunas researched the Noreika case. They were vilified by the Lithuanian Government for revealing the facts. They are my heroes.
Rokas Rudzinskas is my lawyer in Lithuania. This is a man of bravery, dignity and compassion. He is a Lithuanian patriot who takes on the cause of truth and justice in order to improve Lithuania and restore Lithuania’s integrity. Rokas is my hero.
Dr. Marylin Kingston is the brain behind many of my articles and strategies. She is my hero.
Dr. Melody Ziff is my Litvak backbone when I am (often) ready to fall. She is my hero.
Michael Kretzmer made a documentary J’Accuse! to tell the story of Noreika. His work is nothing short of remarkable. Hundreds of thousands of people have already seen and been educated by J’Accuse! Michael’s glaring light on Holocaust fraud will forever change society’s response to genocide. Michael is my hero.
Eugene Levin made a documentary “Baltic Truth” exposing multiple Holocaust frauds by Lithuania. It was shown on Israeli national television and ended the ability of Lithuanian diplomats to lie to Jews. Eugene is my hero.
Dr. Carol Hoffman has been my rock and support all the years I have been fighting for truth. Carol has taught me what Litvak integrity means. Her friendship goes beyond being merely close friends, rather, she is my dearest family.
Vladas Krivickas, an ethnic Lithuanian from Seduva, is my beloved, reliable and long term friend. Without his support we could not have reached our digital penetration. He has worked diligently to preserve and document Jewish history. To me, Vladas stands as an example of a righteous Lithuanian, to show what Jews and Lithuanians can achieve when we join together in goodwill.
Mark Blumberg stood up to Lithuania’s enablers. He has paid dearly for his passion.
Dillon Hosier of the Israeli American Civic Action Network has been a leading political advisor and activist. His intellect and strategic thinking has been invaluable.
My religious moral guides who have lent me so much support during these many years, include Cantor Daniel Singer and Rabbi Zev Meyer Friedman.
There have been countless Lithuanians who have assisted me over the years. I do not name them for fear of retribution or retaliation from their own government. These individuals are shining examples of genuine patriotism.
Beth Krom, Dina Gold, Dr. Lara Gochin, Dr. Jan Grabowski, and so many others have brought moral guidance and leadership skills of how to introduce truth to Lithuania.
How is it possible to be surrounded by so many amazing people? To top it off, my husband of over three decades, Russell Lyon, has managed unwavering support during times of crisis and darkness. He shares in even the smallest of victories and is unrelenting in his steadfast belief that this work will save lives and prevent future atrocities. I have not made it easy for him, yet his love continues to support and guide me. To say Russell is my greatest hero, is nothing short of a grand understatement.
After decades of lies, Lithuania has finally spoken one truth. We must show them a path where truth can bring reconciliation and authentic friendship. My suggestion is:
The government of Lithuania needs to follow through, revoke national honors for Noreika and remove all remaining monuments for him. Otherwise, theirs are just empty promises. There are a multitude of Holocaust perpetrators honored as Lithuanian national heroes. All of these national honors must be revoked.
The President of Lithuania should go on national television and admit the truth, and the national cover up. Half measures are unacceptable.
Lithuania needs to create a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to tell the whole truth of who committed the murders, and how the Genocide Center, Government and Courts continues to cover up their crimes.
Judges who ruled on instruction rather than fact, need to be exposed for their judicial misconduct and removed from their positions. Government workers who committed these frauds should be fired and their state pensions revoked.
As an act of contrition, sincere apology and redemption, Lithuania should welcome every Jew of Lithuanian heritage with a grant of Lithuanian citizenship.
There is no possibility of forgiveness as only the murdered can forgive. Lithuania has taken a miniscule initial step towards reconciliation. We are merely observers in the unraveling of their decades of Holocaust deceptions. Our hope remains, this time, it will be real.
Lithuanian Killers. Photographs like these expose a reality that Lithuanians today find difficult to digest. Seen here is the aftermath of the Kovno (or Kaunas) ‘garage’ massacre in June 1941, perpetrated by Nazi-supporting Lithuanians. (public domain)
About the writer:
Grant Arthur Gochin currently serves as the Honorary Consul for the Republic of Togo. He is the Emeritus Special Envoy for Diaspora Affairs for the African Union, which represents the fifty-five African nations, and Emeritus Vice Dean of the Los Angeles Consular Corps, the second largest Consular Corps in the world. Gochin is actively involved in Jewish affairs, focusing on historical justice. He has spent the past twenty five years documenting and restoring signs of Jewish life in Lithuania. He has served as the Chair of the Maceva Project in Lithuania, which mapped / inventoried / documented / restored over fifty abandoned and neglected Jewish cemeteries. Gochin is the author of “Malice, Murder and Manipulation”, published in 2013. His book documents his family history of oppression in Lithuania. He is presently working on a project to expose the current Holocaust revisionism within the Lithuanian government. Professionally, Gochin is a Certified Financial Planner and practices as a Wealth Advisor in California, where he lives with his family. Personal site: https://www.grantgochin.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).
Probably very different from Israelis who were ducking rocket fire near Gaza
By Jonathan Feldstein
Good morning from the Judean mountains. I slept well last night but when I woke up I realized that just 30-40 miles from my home, for hundreds of thousands of Israelis, it was a horrible night. Again.
Palestinian Arab terrorists in Gaza fired over 60 rockets at Israeli communities, trying to kill, maim, and terrorize as many Israelis as possible. Despite the Iron Dome that typically shoots down 90% of all incoming rockets aimed at Israeli communities, some broke through and there have been injuries.
As immoral as it is for terrorists to fire rockets deliberately at population centers, unfortunately that is very much the norm. The impact is felt widely.
Parents who spent all night worried about protecting their kids from rockets every hour or two have had to wake up (assuming they even slept at all) to get their kids off to school, and get to work. As if everything is normal.
At the Mercy of Monsters. This scene in May 2023 captures the terror for a mother and her daughter as they instantly leave their car on a road between Ashkelon and Sderot and crouch on the side of the road clutching each other as a siren sounds a warning of incoming rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. (photo credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90
Children who spent all night in bomb shelters ate breakfast, got dressed, and ready to go to study math and science and history, and socialize with friends. As if everything is normal. They will play in the playgrounds during recess, but not more than 15 seconds away from a bomb shelter. Just in case they have to take cover.
The rocket fire began before they went to bed the previous night. At the scene of one rocket landing in the middle of a residential street, kids gathered to have ice cream, displaying their bravery and resolve, as if everything was normal: a rocket lands on your street, and you have ice cream! Normal! But they were standing in front of a car littered with the shrapnel that was packed into the rocket, shrapnel that was meant to cut apart their bodies.
Red Alerts. For those in southern-western region of Israel near Gaza, these are the messages they are receiving one after another – ROCKET ATTACKS! (Photo: social media/the public domain.)
Their teachers have to be the adults in the room but are no less well-rested, no less stressed. They have kids of their own too. Teachers have to engage their young students in basic education, but also serve as a sounding board for kids who are physically exhausted from not sleeping, and emotionally fearful.
Elderly and infirm Israelis, some Holocaust survivors, will calculate whether they really need to go out for milk or eggs, and may decide it’s safest and smartest to stay indoors, hiding just like many did to survive the Nazis, just in case.
Hundreds or thousands of orphans and at-risk children who may not have had parents to protect them overnight, coming from homes that are not safe, woke up to the reality that they are not safe at home, not safe in their community, and struggle with the trauma and stress of all this even if they are too young to articulate why. For those who can articulate it, it doesn’t make them less stressed or traumatized. As if everything is normal.
Just a few miles away, thousands of Palestinian Arabs from Gaza will line up at the Erez Checkpoint to cross the border into Israel, coming to work, shopping, or getting medical care in the communities and among the people who Palestinian Arab terrorists spent all night loading and firing rockets at, to kill, maim and terrorize as many as possible. Civilians. Men, women and children. Just because the terrorists are evil and don’t sanctify life. Just a normal day on the Israel-Gaza border.
Life is reduced to Luck! A building in the Israeli city of Sderot sustaining a direct hit of a rocket from Gaza on a children’s bedroom.
Israelis wonder why our government and military don’t end the threat of terror from Gaza’s Palestinian Arab hate groups and target those responsible. Why are they allowed to hide behind their civilians, firing rockets from urban areas knowing that Israel won’t fire back to take out the terrorists and risk the lives of Palestinian Arab civilians? Are their lives worth more than ours?
People of good conscience around the world who see the black and white, the evil of the terrorists, and can’t imagine this happening in their community because it never would. But many don’t. They think Israel is somehow at fault, or deserving of ongoing rocket and other terrorist attacks because for some, morality is malleable, relative.
Anywhere else in the world, it would not be tolerated. In no other circumstance would it be considered normal. Nowhere else would the terrorist perpetrators be celebrated, and excuses made for their actions, while blaming the victims.
Two months ago, I visited Sderot, the Israeli city that’s closest to the Gaza border. It’s a lovely growing community. Less than a mile separates Gaza where terrorists reign, and some 30,000 Israelis just trying to live. I visited a program for orphans and at-risk youth for whom the trauma of their existence requires ongoing care and comfort, and which I have been privileged to support. They were engaged in a group therapy when I arrived, before playing in the yard, and then getting help with their homework and a hot meal before heading home, because their parents are not able to care for them properly. So the community steps up to help. Across the street is a playground made of concrete so that if they are playing and rockets come, they can duck inside one of the “climbing toys” and be protected. This is their normal.
The New Normal! Standing before a car struck by a rocket littered with shrapnel, these kids display the Israeli flag while having frozen suckers in a display of defiance and resilience. (Photo: social media/the public domain.)
You can join the Genesis 123 Foundation to provide urgently needed and ongoing therapies and care for the most vulnerable, orphans and at-risk youth. While we can’t stop the rockets, we can build resilience, show love and support, and enable these young people to stay strong, even when living in their normal lives is not normal.
If you woke up rested and not suffering the threat of terror or rockets, not worrying about protecting your children and staying strong for them albeit while you know that you can only protect your kids to a limit, please join us to help parents and children whose days started very differently.
How’s your day going?
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).
