It’s about time – Smotrich urges Haredi community to share in Israel’s defense --- Israel’s survival depends on unity. To endure, all communities, including the haredim, must embrace the task of defending Israel, not just for the state but as a sacred duty.

*One year later: 12,000 injured soldiers in Gaza and Lebanon, 761  dead - The Chutzpah Of Hiding In A Yeshiva Is an Abominable Travesty* 

 

HAREDI VISION &THEIR TUNNEL

ENOUGH WITH THE DRAFT-DODGING -THIS IS NOT VIETNAM"  

THE HAREDI leadership argues that it is forbidden to draft yeshiva students whose Torah is their profession and that they defend the State of Israel through their studies."

 

Finance Minister Smotrich emotionally calls for shared IDF responsibility among the haredi community, emphasizing unity for Israel’s defense and survival.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich seen during a funeral of a slain IDF soldier

 

Yesterday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionist Party) took the floor at the Knesset in a rare display of raw emotion. As he began speaking about the toll borne by the religious-Zionist community in the IDF, the weight of his words caught up to him.

His voice broke, and he fought back tears as he acknowledged the disproportionate sacrifices made by religious-Zionist families, many of whom have lost fathers, sons, and brothers on the battlefield. For a man known for his unwavering rhetoric, the tears spoke louder than his words – a call from deep within for unity, a demand for shared responsibility.

Smotrich’s plea was, in part, a response to the mounting frustrations within his own constituency. Religious Zionists from across the spectrum have voiced their exhaustion. They’ve spent months in reserve duty, pulled from their families, their spouses, their children and, at times, even their grandchildren.

The demands of this prolonged conflict are taking a visible toll. Many are struggling, both physically and emotionally, stretched thin by the intense burden they’ve shouldered in defending Israel’s borders. Smotrich’s words echoed their plea: The weight of defense should not rest on a single community alone.

The ideological gap between Israel’s religious-Zionist and haredi (ultra-Orthodox) communities is stark. Religious Zionists see IDF service as an extension of their faith and a biblical duty to defend the Jewish homeland, blending traditional values with support for the modern state. Meanwhile, many in the haredi community emphasize Torah study as their ultimate form of service, viewing it as spiritually sustaining Israel and justifying limited participation in secular obligations such as military duty.

THE HAREDI leadership argues that it is forbidden to draft yeshiva students whose Torah is their profession and that they defend the State of Israel through their studies.

 

Over time, this has created a divide, with haredim often shielded from the responsibilities that secular and religious-Zionist Israelis bear – an imbalance Smotrich now seeks to change.

Smotrich urges Haredi IDF participation

Smotrich’s plea for haredi participation in the IDF reflects a sentiment that has simmered beneath the surface for decades: that every citizen’s contribution is necessary for Israel’s survival. The Torah commands us to protect human life above all else. In times of danger, it allows even those deeply immersed in religious study to put aside their books and take up arms if it means protecting their fellow Jews.

In fact, the Talmud is clear that saving a life transcends nearly all other commandments. For this reason, the religious-Zionist community has always seen IDF service as a natural extension of its beliefs. For the haredi community, however, the idea that young men studying Torah should set down their learning to join the army is deeply challenging and has fueled resistance.

Smotrich’s emotional appeal must serve as a turning point. It’s no longer sufficient for the haredi community to rely on a narrow interpretation of its role within Israeli society. The defense of Israel, a nation constantly under threat, demands the participation of all its citizens, whether through military service, national service, or other forms of support.

This call to action is not an affront to their values but rather a reminder of an essential Jewish principle: that the preservation of life overrides almost all other commandments. When lives are at risk, the duty to defend becomes a priority for everyone, regardless of sect or ideology.

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We stand with Smotrich in his call for shared responsibility in Israel’s defense – a moral imperative beyond military needs. The haredi community,  can now embrace this duty to protect. Smotrich’s call may be overdue, but it’s crucial, and all Israelis must rally to ensure everyone shares this responsibility.

His tears signaled a larger truth: Israel’s survival depends on unity. To endure, all communities, including the haredim, must embrace the task of defending Israel, not just for the state but as a sacred duty.

It took him too long to get to this conclusion, but it’s about time. Better late than never. Smotrich, listen to your constituents, and listen to a majority of Israelis looking for a solution: haredi enlistment in the IDF.

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Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook viewed military service as a collective mitzvah that requires individuals to set aside personal pursuits to protect Israel. He believed that defending the Jewish people and homeland is a sacred duty that can supersede even Torah study, as it sanctifies God’s name. He established modern day religious Zionism, and this should be your moral compass. 

 

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-826520?

Israel’s Iranian Missed Opportunity --- this was the opportunity to put the final nails in the ayatollahs’ coffin. I’m disappointed we didn’t finish the job but seem to have kicked the can down the road.

Israel Air Force fighter jet F-15, at the Tel Nor airforce base.

Iran Israel Israel Air Force (IAF) opinon

Over the weekend, Israel launched a major attack on Iranian military sites that’s being hailed as a wide success for its breaching all the Iranian air defenses, hitting multiple targets, and returning home safely. As many as 100 Israeli aircraft participated, flying 1000 some miles each way. 

Simply coordinating it all was a herculean task, not to mention its precision, executed to prevent Iran’s attack capabilities and weapons development, while minimizing civilian casualties. This the polar opposite to the Iranian attacks on Israel, which had millions of civilians and civilian structures in the crosshairs.

It’s noteworthy that Israel openly took credit for this attack, announcing the launching of the attack, the safe return home of all its planes, and even reportedly warning the Iranians in advance what the targets would be. These were coordinated and implemented with precision despite a treacherous US leak of top-secret information about Israel’s planned attack, and with no reported civilian casualties. 

Israel’s attack is being hailed as “historic,” “precise,” “powerful,” and having “met all objectives.” 

The outcome of the attack call it a “setback,” “crippling,” and “disabling” to the Islamic regime, leaving Iran “vulnerable,” having hit the “backbone of Iran’s missile industry.”  

In parallel to this apparent success, Israeli news reports are echoing that an Iranian reprisal is now anticipated, as early as this week.

The attack was indeed a wide success for what it was, but a tremendous, missed opportunity for what could, and should have been: eliminating the Iranian Islamic regime threat once and for all. In this light, it’s important to look at Israel’s attack not as a reprisal, but of preventative deterrence.

While there can be many ways to eliminate the threat, what should be happening is that the US should be stepping up to play an active role, regardless of who wins the presidential election, or the consequences of doing so on the election. 

While it’s anticipated that Kamila Harris would be weak on Iran, continuing the Obama-Biden policy of appeasement and even enabling and paying off the Iranians, she should be held accountable to her remarks in a “60 Minutes” interview, identifying Iran as the biggest threat. She should be pressed on how she would eliminate that threat, not letting the Islamic regime grow new tentacles. It should be bi-partisan US policy. 

In numerous interviews leading up to the anticipated Israeli attack, I have been asked what Israel’s response ought to be. Barring any military or intelligence background, and while there are many considerations as to how to eliminate the Iranian threat, to me Iran’s nuclear sites should have been target number one. This is Israel’s biggest existential threat, one that Iran has been allowed to strengthen, and must be eliminated not enabled. 

Second, all major IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard) sites and leaders should be eliminated. They not only are the fist that controls the cash and weapons to its terrorist proxies, it is a national terror group with massive power and control over the Iranian people yearning to break free of their tyranny. 

I would have eliminated the Supreme Leader himself, the brain of the head of the octopus. His death would not just be symbolic, but strategic. If Israel was able to take out Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in his Beirut bunker, Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the heart of Tehran, Israel can and should find and eliminate Ayatollah Khamenei as well. 

It is important not just to hit the Islamic regime hard to eliminate the existential threat to Israel, but to hit them so hard that the Iranian people can rise up and take back their country from the Islamists who hijacked Iran 46 years ago. Unless the Iranians do attack Israel again with hundreds more ballistic missiles, this may have been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that’s now missed. To think that the Iranians won’t rebuild (and since Israel didn’t target their energy infrastructure which funds the regime, on top of billions of obscene US pandering and outright complicity), they will have the resources to build up again. 

Rather than the US reportedly holding Israel back, this was the opportunity to put the final nails in the ayatollahs’ coffin.  I’m disappointed we didn’t finish the job but seem to have kicked the can down the road. 

Israeli security forces at the scene where a missile fired from Iran hit a school in the town of Gedera

In addition to the need for prevention and deterrence, Israel has the greatest case for legitimacy of such a bold series of strikes following two direct and unprecedented attacks by Iran, one in April and one in October, totaling several hundred missiles and drones. Accordingly, this may have been the best opportunity to do so, albeit that Israel would have been met with criticism and condemnation. 

The fact that Israel responded to the April attack in a way that was muted, also gives Israel greater legitimacy to respond forcefully following the second attack. Doing so would deter if not eliminate Iran’s opportunity to attack yet again.

It’s also been argued that anything but a forceful attack would incentivize Iran to attack again because they have little to lose, they don’t care about innocent civilians in Israel, Iran, or anywhere, and their goal is an Armageddon-style destruction of Israel.  Anyone who doubts the Iranian intention, or that they won’t use a nuclear weapon if they could, is delusional. 

A potential downside of attacking the Iranian nuclear sites is that anything not destroyed could be used in a sprint to cross the nuclear threshold to prevent Israel from attacking again. 

Another downside is the Biden administration making it widely clear, and public, that it opposed an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear targets. US pressure (likely influenced by the election) was evident, and is presumed to have included threats to withhold weapons to Israel as the stick, while dangling the carrot of deploying the THAAD missile defense system to Israel. 

Israel’s attack did not behead the Iranian terrorist octopus, but hit them in a way from which they can still recover, and regenerate their strength and harmful evil influence. Israel would be first to suffer the consequences of a legitimate attack to eliminate the threat, and that’s no little thing. 

Barring doing so, Iran remains able to do major damage on its own and through its proxies, and this was a missed opportunity.

https://israel365news.com/397376/israels-iranian-missed-opportunity/?utm_medium=push_notification&utm_source=onesignal