In Related News - Felons & Sex Offenders From Around The World Flood The Messiah With Paperwork!

 

Our greatest and most dangerous crisis is the decay of effective leadership at all levels of our national life, something that makes both our foreign and domestic problems, serious as they are, significantly more daunting than they should be.

‘After you, Teddy!’ A 1912 illustration from Puck magazine showing Theodore Roosevelt on his way to the ‘Hall of Fame,’ passing between two rows of kings, emperors, military leaders, statesmen, and others

 

America’s Crisis of Leadership

 

How Teddy Roosevelt can help save us from our Marie Antoinette problem

 

The biggest single crisis facing the United States on the eve of the election does not come from Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. It does not come from our enemies abroad. It does not come from our dissensions at home. It does not come from unfunded entitlement commitments. It does not come from climate change. Our greatest and most dangerous crisis is the decay of effective leadership at all levels of our national life, something that makes both our foreign and domestic problems, serious as they are, significantly more daunting than they should be.

Average confidence in institutions ranging from higher education to organized religion rests at historic lows, with fewer than 30% of respondents telling Gallup pollsters that they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in major American institutions. Only small business, the military, and the police inspire majorities of the public with a high degree of confidence; less than a fifth of Americans express “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers, big business, television news, and Congress. 

Much of the country’s political and intellectual establishment responds defensively to numbers like this, blaming falling confidence on the corrosive effects of social media or the general backwardness and racism of the American public. The East German communist hacks Bertolt Brecht satirized also blamed their failings on the shortcomings of the masses: “The people have lost the confidence of the government and can only regain it through redoubled work.”

While social media is problematic, and not every citizen of the United States is a model of enlightened cosmopolitanism, America’s core problem today is not that the nation is unworthy of the elites who struggle to lead it. That superficial and dismissive response is itself a symptom of elite failure and an obstacle to the deep reform that the American leadership classes badly need.

Signs of elite failure are all around us. In foreign policy, the field I follow most closely and one in which I myself have not been error-free, the American establishment fundamentally misjudged the global economic and political situation over the last generation, thinking that the world had entered a posthistorical utopia even as China and Russia laid the foundations for a formidable challenge to the American order. NAFTA was going to make Mexico more democratic, reduce cross-border migration, and enrich American workers. Conferring permanent most-favored nation status on China and admitting it to the World Trade Organization was going to turn it into a peaceful and law-abiding member of international society. It was certainly not going to create a new communist superpower determined to challenge the United States around the world.

Since 1945, the most powerful armed forces in the world have only won one war (the Gulf War against Iraq). A massive, sustained and very public Chinese military buildup failed to elicit a coherent response from the American side. As a result, the balance of power in the western Pacific shifted dangerously in China’s favor, increasing the risk of catastrophic great power war. Twenty years of earnest attempts to build civil society in Afghanistan collapsed ignominiously when the Taliban stormed back into power in 2021. Decades of illusory “democracy promotion” by American diplomats and philanthropists failed to stem a very real “democracy recession” as the rule of law retreated around the world.

Much of what distressed establishment figures deplore as “isolationism” is nothing more than a well-grounded skepticism about the competence of American civilian and military leadership in international affairs. For many in the foreign policy establishment, it is easier to condemn the shortsightedness of neo-isolationism than to ask why as individuals and as a class we have made such major and such costly mistakes for so long and in so many parts of the world.

Signs of elite failure are all around us.

It is much the same at home. The intellectual and moral collapse of the public health authorities in the face of the COVID pandemic deeply damaged public trust. The instinctive response of many in the news media to rally around a misguided establishment, while also marginalizing critics and skeptics further poisoned the wellsprings of public trust. The rising (and in my view tragic) popularity of trends like generalized vaccine skepticism fills the vacuum created by the absence of confidence in public health leadership.

More profoundly, the failure of American society to respond effectively to widespread and deeply damaging phenomena like the fentanyl plague reflects the inadequacy of leadership in all walks of life. Spending political capital on affirming trans students by making tampons available in boys’ bathrooms in public schools while the opioid epidemic kills more Americans every year than the Vietnam War killed in nearly a decade strikes many sensible people as a sign of derangement. Are they wrong?

“Trust the technocracy” and “invest in institutions” is the message Americans hear from establishment media. But the state of our society does not inspire confidence. Key social programs ranging from Medicare and Social Security at the federal level to civil service pension programs in many cities and states are seriously underfunded and set on fiscally unsustainable paths. Infrastructure construction has become almost impossibly expensive. The urban doom loop of higher costs driving higher taxes driving business and residents out of the cities spirals relentlessly without much pushback from a Democratic Party ostensibly committed to bettering the lives of the poor.

Per-student costs continue to skyrocket in many school systems even as students score poorly on standardized tests. The higher education system saddles too many young people with unpayable debt. Graduates of a handful of prestigious universities often enjoy undeserved access to desirable jobs, but many of those universities have lost sight of the values it is their duty to uphold. When a president of Harvard University can be credibly charged with plagiarism, the signs of decadence and decay are unmistakable.

The policies that contributed to the housing boom of the early 2000s and that were adapted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis were equally misguided, and the costs fell primarily on vulnerable families on the margins of the housing market. Home ownership, which is the foundation of middle-class prosperity and American political stability, is increasingly unaffordable for young families. At the same time, the weakening of labor unions has left millions of Americans without the support and protection that, imperfect as the old labor movement was, organization and solidarity gave to union members. The rise of identity politics testifies to the declining ability of American leaders to gain trust that crosses ethnic, racial, or gender lines, and the resulting fragmentation makes America harder to govern and deepens existing fissures in American life.

Americans are not wrong to believe that this level of comprehensive strategic and political failure across so many dimensions of our national life is unacceptable. They are right to withdraw their confidence from institutions and a leadership class that seems both unusually incompetent and indecently self-interested. But populism is better at expressing dissent than at planning for success. And the leadership problem transcends the division between populists and the current establishment. Populism too needs leaders, and many of those coming forward as would-be tribunes of the people are at least as poorly prepared for real leadership as the fumble-fingered elites they hope to replace.

While the American leadership class has been failing the test of history, not all of its sectors are equally culpable. When it comes to scientific and technological accomplishment, American culture continues to produce geniuses of all kinds. Although the rise of scientific fraud and the reproducibility crisis in certain disciplines points to some concerning trends, America’s failure point is not in the STEM disciplines. The failures come from where the wonders of technological progress intersect with the dysfunction of daily life. Our failure points are in the worlds of culture and social organization, not in the worlds of tech and hard science. 

Nor is the leadership crisis entirely our fault. Countries around the world suffer from a leadership deficit in these difficult days; one big reason is that the disruptive consequences of the Information Revolution make the tasks of leadership objectively more difficult. When transformational changes are surging through the economy and society, it is much harder to lead institutions from the federal government to a local middle school. Every firm, every political party, every school or university, every religious institution, every family, and anyone trying to make a living or invest for the future must cope with the unpredictable changes rippling through every society in the world.

And yet America’s leadership problem is only likely to become more acute as the international situation grows more challenging. In stable times, the need for effective leadership can recede into the background. But in crisis, institutions and societies with weak leaders often perish. Great Britain could survive the rule of sleek nonentities like Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s, but after Hitler’s blitzkrieg broke the allied lines in Europe, only Winston Churchill would do. Franklin Pierce and John Tyler might have been good-enough presidents for peaceful times, but it took an Abraham Lincoln to lead the country through the Civil War. Average leadership may work fine in average times. But extraordinary times demand more.

No matter who wins the election, a stormy period in American and world history lies ahead. Unless the quality of leadership in American life dramatically improves, the country could be heading toward some extremely dark hours.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/america-crisis-leadership-walter-russell-mead

There is a positive case to be made for the candidacy of Kamala Harris, but it is not as compelling as the negative one that has been building these last nine years against her opponent, Donald Trump.

 

Literally and Seriously

Why I Support Kamala Harris for President

Sam Harris Nov 4

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There is a positive case to be made for the candidacy of Kamala Harris, but it is not as compelling as the negative one that has been building these last nine years against her opponent, Donald Trump. When I think of Harris winning the presidency this week, it’s like watching a film of a car crash run in reverse: the windshield unshatters; stray objects and bits of metal converge; and defenseless human bodies are hurled into states of perfect repose. Normalcy descends out of chaos. In the same way, many of the reasons to hope for a future Harris administration bear the signs of a peculiar, counterfactual origin: the appalling prospect of Trump winning a second term as president of the United States.

For anyone who spent the last nine years mostly ignoring Trump, while watching in horror as the Democratic Party slid ever leftward toward the precipice, and the Great Wokeness beyond, the positive case for Harris must be made carefully, and with some casuistry. But it is simple enough to do. The truth of the matter is that the good woman was for every reasonable thing before she was against it—and she’s for these things again now, you can be sure. In fact, much the same can be said about the Democratic Party. I am willing to bet that there is not a single person within the Harris campaign, wielding authority sufficient to produce a cup of coffee, who has any doubt about whether we have a problem along our southern border. Nor will you find anyone willing to defund the police or to fund gender-reassignment surgeries for undocumented immigrants in detention. And there is probably no one on Earth who still believes that advancing a lab-leak hypothesis for the origins of Covid is “racist.” The spell cast in 2019 by blue-haired lunatics who identify as blue-haired lunatics has finally broken.    

If Harris loses tomorrow’s election, I might blame her and her team for avoiding a necessary series of “Sister Souljah moments”—where she could have made it clear how the pendulum of sanity had swung back, both within her brain and across the platform of the Democratic Party. And yet for anyone willing to see, it was clear from the beginning of her campaign that Harris had pivoted to the center of our politics. Despite the widespread psychosis on our college campuses, no one seriously confused about the events of October 7th was invited to address the Democratic National Convention—rather, the parents of an American hostage were, and they received a standing ovation. And though she would be our first woman president, there has been scant mention of this fact from Harris or her surrogates. Vice President Harris is not campaigning for the presidency like a leftwing activist, and there is no reason to believe that she would govern as one. If she wins on Tuesday, her first calls will probably be to allies like Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and Mark Cuban, and there will be no celebration with Rashida Tlaib or the rest of “the Squad.” However, if Harris loses, I have no doubt that the pendulum will swing outward again—because among his many pernicious influences on our society, Trump stands as living confirmation of the worst fears of the far left. Anyone who yearns to see our institutions break the grip of progressive orthodoxy should understand that the provocation of another Trump presidency is precisely what we do not need.

The positive case for Harris is simple: She will be a normal president, surrounded by normal experts, seeking normal political ends. The scientists she consults will be real scientists. The doctors, real doctors. Her administration will not be a 4chan thread come to life. Her foreign policy will not be made in consultation with podcasters who hock gold, ivermectin, and MREs. The notion of banning some vaccines will not receive serious consideration. Grifters and lunatics like Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, and Candace Owens won’t be short-listed for weekends in the Lincoln bedroom. The final stage of her campaign wasn’t organized and funded by an increasingly erratic billionaire who hallucinates about the strategic replacement of white America, and she will owe him no debt of gratitude. The positive case for Harris is easy to make: She is a sane public servant who will be committed to the rule of law and the betterment of our society.

There is more to say about her opponent…   

There is one fact about Donald Trump that not even his most devoted fans can dispute: He is one of the most prolific liars our species has produced. The man lies about everything, great and small. He lies compulsively, incoherently, pointlessly, impossibly. Yesterday, Trump assured the audience at one of his rallies that there were no empty seats at his campaign events, when they could see with their own eyes that the arena in which they sat wasn’t full. Many people have claimed that there is a method to this madness—but there is no method, only madness. I am well aware, of course, that Steve Bannon declared the method—“flood the zone with shit”—the desired effect of which is to produce a state of panic, and finally futility, in one’s political opponents (and, above all, the media). I will grant the reality of the effect, but not the intentionality of any method. Trump simply vomits lies in all directions, exhausting anyone who would try to make sense of him. The fact that this has proven to be politically expedient in late-stage America doesn’t suggest that it is a conscious strategy. Trump lied with the same astonishing velocity long before he entered politics, and he just never stopped. I believe the truth about Trump is simpler and less Machiavellian: there is something wrong with his mind. During his four years in the White House, The Washington Post counted more than 30,000 of his lies and misleading statements. It’s an impressive number, but it doesn’t begin to indicate how corrosive Trump’s dishonesty has been to our politics.

It was Salena Zito who first observed that the media took Trump “literally but not seriously,” while his supporters took him “seriously but not literally.” However, it seems to have been Peter Thiel who transformed this clever phrasing into a formula for mass delusion. And it did not take long for a reflexive discounting of Trump’s stated desires, fears, beliefs, and intentions to destroy the Republican Party.

The former president now says that if elected to a second term he will use federal troops to forcibly expel as many as 20 million undocumented immigrants from the country. When I recently pointed out to a Republican friend how vicious and idiotic such a purge would be—because most of these people are performing essential work in our society, and millions of them have children who happen to be American citizens—he sought to put my mind at ease, deploying words one often hears in Trumpistan: “He’s just saying that. He’s not really going to do it.”

The problem, of course, is that just saying that should count for something. (Must I really spell this out?) Even pretending to aspire to so dystopian a project—separating families by the millions and herding doomed spouses, parents, and grandparents into internment camps, at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, while their American relatives weep—should be disqualifying in a presidential candidate.

But neither this observation, nor hundreds like it, has any effect on my friend. I’m now convinced that if Trump promised to round up millions of undocumented immigrants, kill them in slaughterhouses, and turn them into dog food, my friend would respond with the same breezy rebuttal: “He’s just saying that. He’s not really going to do it.”¹

I’ve had nearly a decade to contemplate this transformation in our politics, and I remain completely mystified by it.

If we cannot believe what the former president says, can we believe what others say about him? Of course not. And so, when the vast majority of Trump’s former cabinet members decline to endorse him, we can draw no conclusions at all. We shouldn’t care that nearly everyone who advised him during his four years in office, especially on national security, has condemned him as unfit to serve as Commander-in-Chief. These people include Jim Mattis (Secretary of Defense), Mark Milley (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), and H.R. McMaster (National Security Adviser)—and those are just the M’s. These men have told us what Trump is like behind closed doors—that he is “a moron” and “a fascist”, and that he expects our militarily leaders to swear loyalty to him rather than to the Constitution. These were the proverbial “adults in the room” who prevented Trump from doing despicable things, like ordering federal troops to shoot Black Lives Matter protesters “in the legs.” Some of the most respected military leaders of their generation, like four-star admiral William McRaven (Commander of United States Special Operations), have been sounding the alarm about Trump for years. In a letter addressed to the President, published in the Washington Post, McRaven wrote: “Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation.” This isn’t a controversial opinion among those who served during Trump’s first term.

But half the country does not take such warnings literally, seriously, or in any other way, believing them to be just more partisan noise. (Strangely, this noise is coming mostly from lifelong Republicans and members of the military who have every professional and personal incentive to keep silent.) So, once again, half the country intends to grant Trump more power and responsibility than anyone on Earth, despite knowing that his second administration would be staffed by loyalists, election deniers, and sycophants who have no reputations for competence or integrity to protect.

It is amusing in this context, with their powers of discernment so blissfully in eclipse, to watch Republicans find reasons to despise Vice President Harris. Trump escapes their merely mortal judgment like some force of nature, while Harris’s every word and glance are weighed with Talmudic severity and found wanting. If her laugh isn’t perfectly disqualifying, they detect a fatal difference in “authenticity” between the two candidates. I will admit that Harris can seem evasive in interviews, while Trump sometimes appears to be authentically what he is—a terrible human being.

But enumerating Trump’s many flaws leaves one vulnerable to charges of “elitism.” It seems that the moment we travel right-of-center in our politics there is no longer any place to stand from which to observe the obvious: that the former president embodies the kind of vanity, ignorance, lechery, and avarice encountered only in fairy tales—or scripture. Add to these foundational sins the man’s boundless capacity for lying, his obsession with celebrity, his casual cruelty, and his achingly bad taste—and most of your work still lies ahead of you...

We mustn’t ignore the stench of the carnival that follows Trump from room to room—for the former president is the very archetype of the impostor, the confidence man, the crackpot, and the peddler of quack cures. The sheer fraudulence of his every endeavor, reaching back decades, is breathtaking. His fake businesses, fake charities, fake university, and fake tan seem to be mere embellishments of some deeper deception lurking at the very center of his being. Trump wouldn’t hesitate to sell his farts in bottles if he could only find the time—but they would be fake farts and fake bottles.

Add to all his wheeling and dealing the multiple bankruptcies and countless legal entanglements—and all the groping and bullying and wheedling and chiseling—and wrap this sad frenzy of self-promotion, self-praise, and self-deception in a bad suit, made to measure for a rhinoceros, and there he is, hunching and scowling—the man in full.

Donald Trump is a game show host who was relentlessly marketed on television as a business genius for twelve years, and half the country bought the lie. The fact that he became President of the United States, and may yet do so again, is surely the greatest imposture in American history.

But, again, my “elitism” is showing. It is now considered indecent to demand a modicum of integrity, or even moral sanity, in a presidential candidate.  

Of course, the gravest problem with Trump is that, as president, he refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. He then made every effort to steal the 2020 election—while claiming, against all evidence, that it was being stolen from him. Anyone who watches the HBO documentary Stopping the Steal should recognize Trump’s election denial for what it is: one of the most malignantly selfish acts in the history of our country. And the fact that Trump persists in denying the outcome of the 2020 election—and is clearly preparing to reject the result of the current one, should he lose again—represents a continuous provocation to political violence.

I can only say, as I contemplate the fragile miracle of our democracy on the eve of this election, that I find it impossible to believe we will return this man to power.

But we will soon see what happens and know the truth about ourselves…

Hitler phones Trump

NOVEMBER 4 - FINAL POLL

The ADL is Correct that Antisemitism is Rising — But the Main (and Most Dangerous) Source Isn’t the Left, It’s Always Been the Right

https://religiondispatches.org/the-adl-is-correct-that-antisemitism-is-rising-but-the-main-and-most-dangerous-source-isnt-the-left-its-always-been-the-right/?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=daily

 

Trump Will Lose In An Electoral Landslide ---- Post Dated Sunday November 3, 2024 - L'Misparam :-)

 

NOVEMBER 4 - FINAL POLL

Trump Said He "Shouldn't Have Left" the White House After the 2020 Election

At a rally in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump vented angrily about new polls that show him losing ground to Kamala Harris. He also joked about reporters being shot.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/11/03/us/harris-trump-election?

Trump or Kamala? Ben Shapiro and Sam Harris Debate. Two Great Debaters & Jewish Minds - Ben Wins on Verbal Gymnastics, Sam Harris Wins On The Facts, Reality & The Danger That is Trump!

On Tuesday, Rabbi (Reservist) Avrohom Goldberg Z"L, 43 years old with 8 children, widow Rachel, issued a second request — that ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students join the army, even as their political and rabbinical leadership have been doing its utmost to maintain the ultra-Orthodox community’s thoroughly un-Jewish exclusion from military or national service.

A plea from the bereaved heart of religious Zionism

 

 

 

Encouraging Israeli leaders to pay condolence visits, the family of Rabbi Avraham Goldberg, 43, a Jerusalem father of eight and much-loved teacher at the Himmelfarb school who was killed fighting in southern Lebanon this weekend, made a highly unusual request: Politicians from across the spectrum would be welcome… provided they paired up, one for one, with somebody from across the aisle.

This request, issued in the spirit of Goldberg’s own efforts to bridge gaps and build bonds within our people, was indeed heeded, with several Knesset members recognizing the importance of the plea and partnering up to attend the shiva.

MKs from coalition and opposition parties on October 28, 2024, attend the shiva in Jerusalem of the family of Rabbi Avraham Goldberg, 43, who was killed fighting with the IDF reserves in southern Lebanon

On Tuesday, his widow Rachel issued a second request — that ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students join the army, even as their political and rabbinical leadership have been doing its utmost to maintain the ultra-Orthodox community’s thoroughly un-Jewish exclusion from military or national service.

Political extortion has enabled this perversion of Jewish values and Orthodox Jewish principles to persist for decades, its disgraceful inequality eating away at Israeli society. But the injustice that sees much of Israel risking life and limb while also financially subsidizing the fastest-growing sector of the populace — which insists on playing no practical role in protecting the country, and in some cases mocks and derides those who do — has never been as divisive and manifestly untenable as it is today, more than a year into a multifront war. What began with the cataclysmic deaths of some 1,200 people in the Hamas invasion continues to exact a terrible price, with some 70 soldiers — including many, many reservists like Goldberg — losing their lives this month alone.

 

https://israel365news.com/397432/5-stunning-art-prints-that-bring-israels-spirit-into-your-home/?
 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-next-round-in-iran-gaza-after-unrwa-and-a-war-widows-plea-for-the-haredi-draft/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2024-10-30&utm_medium=email

Lichtman predicts Kamala Harris will win in November

 

Historian Allan Lichtman has insisted that he stands by his prediction about who will win the 2024 presidential race despite recent polls – and revealed that he has “never experienced” so much “hate” in an election cycle.

Lichtman is known as the “Nostradamus” of polling due to the fact he has correctly predicted the results of nine out of 10 presidential elections since 1984.

His method for forecasting the race so accurately is known as “The Keys to the White House,” a system he devised with the Russian academic Vladimir Keilis-Borok in 1981.

And despite the polls, which show the race is now tighter than ever between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Lichtman stands by his prediction that the Democrat will win the White House in November.

“My prediction has not changed,” Lichtman said on his YouTube channel.

“I have frequently made my prediction correctly in defiance of the polls, it’s based on 160 years of precedent.”

Lichtman conceded, however, that there is always a possibility he could be wrong.

“The keys are very robust,” he said. “But it’s always possible that something so cataclysmic and so unprecedented could change the pattern of history.”

The academic strongly defended his method, which looks at 13 factors from the president’s party’s standing in the House of Representatives to the health of the domestic economy, any record of scandal, social unrest, or foreign policy disasters during their tenure, and the comparative charisma of the two candidates to decide the victor, applying “true” or “false” designations to each category.

“My predictions have stood the test of time, my indicators have always been right,” he said. “The keys are very objective and quantitative.”

Lichtman maintained his method and predictions are “totally non-partisan,” highlighting how he correctly predicted the “two most conservative presidents of our time,” referring to Ronald Reagan when he was elected for the second time in 1984 and Trump in 2016.

But this year the historian has received an unprecedented amount of hate in calling the election for Harris, he revealed.

“I have never experienced anything close to the hate that has been reaped upon me this time,” he told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo.

“I’ve been getting feedback that is vulgar, violent, threatening, and even beyond that, the safety and security of my family has been compromised.”

The professor said previously that eight of the 13 keys currently yield “true” answers, suggesting a Harris triumph and another four years in power for the Democrats.

“Foreign policy is tricky, and these keys could flip,” Lichtman said.

“The Biden administration is deeply invested in the war in Gaza, which is a humanitarian disaster with no end in sight. But even if both foreign policy keys flipped ‘false’, that would mean that there were only five negative keys, which would not be enough for Donald Trump to regain the White House.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/allan-lichtman-trump-harris-nostradamus-pollster-predictions-b2637999.html

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

DO NOT LEAVE THE SUKKAH - EVER! Rabbi Zilberstein noted that his brother-in-law, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, said these three hours are before sunrise on Hoshanah Rabbah.

 *Moshiach crackpots ...Continued...*

 

 “All that remains for us now is the task of being united among ourselves and to be careful to stay away from arguments and speaking slander because the Messiah is already here and hears everything…”

 

O mortal, turn your face toward Gog of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. Prophesy against him

Ezekiel 38:2

Major Israeli Rabbi: Gog and Magog War Will Begin (and end) Wednesday Morning (last Wednesday)

 

Rabbi Yitzchok Zilberstein, a prominent Orthodox rabbi in Israel, recently gave a lesson to his students in Ramat Elchanan, Bnei Brak, in which he said that the War of Gog and Magog would take place in its entirety in the three hours before dawn on Wednesday, the Jewish holiday of Hoshanna Rabba.

Rabbi Zilberstein discussed the miracles happening to Israel throughout the year-long war in his lecture. He noted that Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran have fired over 2,000 rockets into Israel with relatively few casualties. 

The rabbi referred to a teaching by Rabbi Obadiah ben Abraham of Bertinoro,  a 15th-century Italian rabbi known as the Bartenura. In his commentary on the Mishnah (Megillah 3:5), Bartenura predicted when the revival of the dead would occur and when the War of Gog and Magog would begin. He based his interpretation of the revival of the dead on Ezekiel’s vision of Dry Bones (Ezekiel 37:1-14), which is read in synagogues on Passover. Bartenura explains that this corresponds to the dead’s actual resurrection, which will occur on Passover.

Bartenura writes that based on a later section of the Book of Ezekiel (38:18-39:16) the war of Gog and Magog will begin in Sukkot. This section is read in synagogues in Sukkoth.

“Therefore,” he said, “we must strive not to spoil things. In other words, everything depends on us, on each and every one of us. This is a time of special favor, and we must try not to spoil it, meaning to make every effort to fulfill Hashem’s will, each person according to their ability.”

It is to be remembered that the war began on the last day of Sukkot last year when Palestinian Hamas invaded Israel and massacred its citizens.

Rabbi Zilberstein then referred to a teaching by the 18th-century Jewish scholar Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, also known as the Vilna Gaon, brought by the 16th-century Tzfat Kabbalist Rabbi Chaim Vital. They both taught that the War of Gog and Magog would take its entirety during the three hours before “Hanetz Hachama” (crack of dawn)  of Hoshanah Rabbah, the last day of the week-long holiday of Sukkot.

“Whoever wants to be saved should sit in the sukkah,” Rabbi Zilberstein taught. He based this on a verse in Psalms.

“He will shelter me in His pavilion (sukkah) on an evil day, grant me the protection of His tent, raise me high upon a rock.Now is my head high over my enemies roundabout; I sacrifice in His tent with shouts of joy, singing and chanting a hymn to Hashem. Psalms 27:5-6

Indeed, throughout the past week, Israel has been filled with the incongruous sight of Jews under the threat of rocket attack choosing to sit in flimsy sukkot rather than reinforced bomb shelters. 

Rabbi Zilberstein noted that his brother-in-law, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, said these three hours are before sunrise on Hoshanah Rabbah.

Rabbi Elie Mischel,  the Director of Education at Israel365, wrote about the end-of-days battle of Gog and Magog in his recently released book, The War Against the Bible: Ishmael, Esau and Israel at the End Times. Rabbi Mischel noted that, like the War of Gog and Magog, the war in the Middle East is reverberating around the globe.

“This is a war with global implications, pitting Jews and Christians, the people of the Bible, against Muslims and secular progressives, who reject the Bible and all that it stands for,” Rabbi Mischel wrote. Based on Jewish sources, Rabbi Mischel identifies the leader of the Gog and Magog coalition as Islamist Iran. He also identifies Iran as the fourth kingdom of Ishmael and Edom, described in the Book of Daniel as working together to persecute Israel at the end times. 

“Gog and Magog’s motivations for attacking Israel are different from those of other nations that have attacked Israel throughout history…Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah are not afraid that Israel will conquer their lands, nor do they seek economic benefits from attacking Israel. Hamas’ attacks have only brought death and destruction upon the Gaza Strip. They are driven by pure hatred of Israel, seeking only to murder and destroy.”

“Gog and his allies believe they can uproot the people of Israel and send them, once again, into the darkness of exile.”

Rabbi Mischel predicts that the focus of the pre-Messiah war will shift, pitting the former allies Esau and Ishmael against each other.

“Not only will Gog and the people of Ishmael suffer for their sins, but so will Edom, the Western nations that support them,” Rabbi Mischel wrote. “Initially, the Edomites will join the Ishmaelites in an alliance against Israel. But ultimately, the Ishmaelites will turn on the Edomites, who will be forced to fight back. “

“The Western nations trying so hard to appease the Ishmaelites will inevitably have no choice but to battle the Islamic jihadists of Iran and their allies and proxies. When the Ishmaelites go too far and directly attack the West, the Edomites will be forced to declare war against them. This will lead to the great war between Ishmael and the West, when “every man’s sword will be against his brother.”

Many are concerned for the fate of Israelis as the hugely destructive War of Gog and Magog is described in prophecy as being fought inside Israel. In October 2015,  Rabbi Shalom Berger, the spiritual leader of the Mishkoltz sect of Hasidic Judaism, gave a Torah lesson at the end of the holiday of Simchat Torah in which he made predictions regarding the imminent arrival of the Messiah.

“My heart tells me,” concluded the rabbi, “that God has mercy on the nation of Israel and, despite what the prophets have prophesied – that the Gog Magog War needs to be within Jerusalem. Nevertheless, God sweetened this and is currently making it in Syria. And the proof is that it is brought down in Sifri (Devarim 1) that the gates of Jerusalem are destined to reach until Damascus.”

“If that is the case, instead of the war being in Jerusalem with the inhabitants of Israel suffering from it, God widened Jerusalem so that it reaches as far as Damascus so that the great war will be there, as we saw when Russia entered with powerful forces into Syria.

“All that remains for us now is the task of being united among ourselves and to be careful to stay away from arguments and speaking slander because the Messiah is already here and hears everything…”

In Jewish tradition, there are two forms the final redemption can take: a redemption that is “Be’itah” – i.e., one that is set at a predetermined time. The Talmud (Tractate Avodah Zarah 9a) states that the world will last 6,000 years. The Messiah must come at the end of the 6,000 years, even if mankind has not prepared itself.  The current (2023/2024) Hebrew year is 5785. By this calculation, the start of the 6000th year would occur at nightfall of 29 September 2239, and the end would occur at nightfall of 16 September 2240

The other form redemption can take is “Ahishena” – i.e., one that will come earlier than its set time. The Jews can bring redemption early based on the merits of performing God’s commandments.

The main differences between the two forms of Redemption are the time it will take and the amount of suffering the Jewish people and the world, in general, will endure until it occurs.

An “Ahishena” Redemption is a Redemption that comes suddenly, miraculously as the world has already reached its correct fulfillment and purpose.

A “Be’ita” Redemption is a Redemption that a long and arduous process precedes it, full of suffering and tests for the Jewish people and for the world in general, which concludes with the terrible death of about two-thirds of the world, in addition to those among the Jewish people who, according to God’s calculation, are not fit to be redeemed.

 https://israel365news.com/397270/