IN the upside down world of Israel’s political and military hierarchy, black is white, evil is good, and everything is “morally” equivalent. Negotiable.
IN fact, this is the tragic state of affairs that is suffocating Israel’s top-tier (inculcated, poisoned, by the multicultural “teachings” of non-elected elitists and their western counterparts), so much so that IDF Generals/Officers are duly afflicted and infected. Indefensibly, highly dangerous political gamesmanship is impairing and warping the IDF’s upper command from fully executing its sworn mandate to do what they must – protect the Jewish nation at all costs!
NOT only that, few would have believed it possible that our – never gonna retire – bombastic PM, “Bibi” Netanyahu, would have the utter chutzpah to pose beside Syrian “rebels” (then al-Qaeda/al-Nusra affiliated, now aligned with their offshoot and progeny, ISIS) who were (still are) treated in an IDF field hospital!
MORE specifically, the above travesty resulted from “dear leader’s” inability to say NO to HUSSEIN Obama, as he followed his master’s lead to prop them up! Said disaster was featured more than once at these pages, if interested, take a sordid peek. In effect, how Israel came from there to here.
THUS, it was a “natural” progression – via a continual erosion of Jewish honor – which brought about another ! immoral inversion, of all days, on the eve of last week’s HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY.
STILL yet, before we get to the meat, let’s just clear through the leadership’s muck: in the same Orwellian manner in which leftists – aka joined-at-the-hip multiculturalists – continuously wield the “racism” bugaboo as their PC silencer, so too Israel’s hierarchical political and military elites shut down dissent. Effectively, whenever they are called on the carpet by Zionist nationalist dissenters, they scream: shut up, that’s anti-IDF talk!! In a word, bullsh-t. שקרנים .
IN fact, the opposite is the case. Honoring the IDF – and Israel as the Jewish homeland – means thoroughly abandoning the appeasing rot taught in the IDF’s Command and Staff College via its so-called “Code of Ethics” (take note of its “Purity of Arms”, an oxymoronic “ethic” and standard, when battling genocidal foes), much of which has been gleaned from their leftist academic counterparts. Instead, reworking it to build and mirror a mentally strong and proud “Jewish Code of Ethics”, one which embodies “Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof…Justice, justice, shall you pursue… צדק צדק תרדוף” – Shoftim (Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9), would uplift the soldiers, the Jewish nation, world Jewry at large, ultimately, protecting her survival for “time immemorial.” By the way, one needn’t be formally religious to internalize the aforementioned dictum’s intrinsic worth.
CONSEQUENTIALLY, doing so would have ensured that the following national besmirchment by IDF COS Yair Golan – indefensibly, defended by the Defense Minister “Boogie” Ya’alon – would have never passed his lips, nor anyone else’s, while serving the nation as a representative of Israel.
IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan caused an uproar on Wednesday evening over comments he made in a speech during a Yom Hashoah ceremony at the Massuah Institute for Holocaust Studies.
Golan said in his remarks that he sees in Israel today evidence of the same processes that occurred in Europe before the Holocaust.
“If there is something that scares me about the memory of the Holocaust, it is the identification of horrifying processes that occurred in Europe in general and Germany in particular – 70, 80 and 90 years ago – and finding evidence of them here among us, today, in 2016,” he said.
The Deputy Chief of Staff went on to say that Holocaust Memorial Day is intended for national soul-searching.
“On Yom Hashoah we should consider our ability to uproot from our midst signs of impatience, signs of violence, self-destruction and moral decline,” said Golan, adding that the Holocaust “should lead us to a deeper reflection on the responsibility of leadership and about the quality of our society and must lead us to think thoroughly about how we, here and now, treat the stranger, the widow and the orphan, and those similar to them.”
Golan’s words caused a storm on social networks. MK Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home) tweeted, “What scares me are baseless and distorted comparisons in the name of the Holocaust, especially when they come from important people such as the Deputy Chief of Staff.”
“What ‘similar’ phenomena does he recognizes among us?! Is anybody here setting up gas chambers and seeking to destroy another nation just because it’s different?! Are you out of your mind?!” he asked.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett also criticized Golan and tweeted, “Before the Holocaust deniers flag those bad words. Before our soldiers will be compared to Nazis. The Deputy Chief of Staff made a mistake and must correct it immediately.”
But opposition leader MK Yitzhak Herzog expressed support for Golan and tweeted, “The Deputy Chief of Staff is a brave commander. Those disturbed people who are about to start screaming at him need to know: That’s how ethics and responsibility sound. We will not be afraid of shouting and of obscenities and will continue to back the IDF and its commanders. Always.”
BY the by, could it be that IDF higher-ups – angling for political positions post-retirement – are playing to other audiences? More pointedly, could it be that to receive the backing of powerful leftists – inside and outside Israel – that they, opportunistically, are willing to besmirch fellow (non-leftist) Jewish Zionists for political gain?
KNOW that this investigative journalist is not alone in her harsh assessments via mainstream global interviews and the like, nor in being repeatedly aghast at the leadership’s bizarre, counter intuitive statements ala their “strategic thinking.” Thankfully, embarrassing as it is, their dirty laundry is being aired on all fronts. Besides, what’s the alternative?
IN this regard, Israel’s State Comptroller is executing his duty bound mandate, much to the leadership’s chagrin and shrill pronouncement: foul! In any case, his team’s recently released findings – relative to the 2014 summer-long missile war with Hamas – harshly condemns the resident blowhards. For the record, the same basic assessment can be gleaned in Part Two of a global interview (given on Sept. 3, 2014), almost immediately after the so-called “ceasefire” with Hamas. Hmm.
ONTO the righteous skewering…and its concomitant knock-on effects.
Former commander on Protective Edge report: ‘spineless leadership’ only plans ‘according to length of its term in office.’
In response to the revelations of the leaked state comptroller’s report on 2014 Operation Protective Edge, former IDF Southern Commander Maj. Gen. (res.) Yom-Tov Samia criticized the state for having no strategy vis-a-vis Hamas in Gaza.
The as-yet-unpublished report strongly condemns Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon (Likud), and then-IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz for their handling of the operation. Parts of the report that have been leaked point to misinformation, mistaken appraisals of the danger of the terror tunnels, and not fully sharing information with the Cabinet.
“The state of Israel has no serious, deep and long-term strategy,” appraised Samia in an interview with Walla! News on Sunday.
“There is no leadership with a backbone that is capable of making the other side understand we have a strategy. The entire nation of Israel sees there are no long-term plans, everything is according to the length of the term of the government or minister.”
According to Samia, whose post as Southern Commander had him tasked with operations in Gaza, not only does the state lack an overarching strategy but it also had no specific strategy in the 2014 operation.
“The army receives the goals of the operation from the political echelon,” he explained. “Generally, when there is no strategy, the goals of the operation are very vague and cannot be quantified or checked. In Protective Edge there were cloudy and unclear operational goals.”
Referencing previous wars launched by Hamas, he said, “it was completely clear from the start of the operation that its end would be like Cast Lead and Pillar of Defense, and the test was how long the ceasefire that would be obtained would last until ‘Protective Edge 2.'”
Samia assessed that the entire operation could have been avoided if Israel had dealt with the threat of Hamas’s terror tunnels breaching under the security border earlier, and indeed major tunnels were exposed as early as half-a-year before the operation.
The former commander noted how during the operation TV footage showed how the IDF pushed to deal with the tunnels using various technologies and vehicles, and their efforts showed results as 34 terror tunnels were destroyed in the operation.
“I ask the decision makers: why didn’t that take place two years ago? Why weren’t all those vehicles dispatched on the ground in April 2014? They knew about all the tunnels then, because everything was published in the media,” he noted.
“If those vehicles had been brought there earlier and the treatment of the tunnels had been preventative, ongoing and aggressive, Protective Edge might have been avoided or else we would have (at least) come to it prepared.”
Hamas used its extensive terror tunnel system during the war to lethal effect, surprising the troops and inflicting significant casualties.
Earlier on Sunday, Samia spoke to Army Radio where he condemned the “festival” of honorary citations handed out after the operation.
“Seventy-two honorary citations is a scandal in my eyes. I have a feeling that the way Protective Edge was summarized, the manner of the investigations, the citations, all came to cover up something,” he said.
He added that he was not surprised by the comptroller’s report, saying, “as serious as it (the report) may be, I’m not sure that it will be serious enough.”
Sources close to Netanyahu and Ya’alon have already rejected the report “out of hand,” saying, “this is a report which is not serious and was authored by a comptroller who is not serious.”
YES, Israel’s leaders are spineless, even as they saber-rattle and puff out their chests on a regular basis. Indeed, their so-called “strategic” planning hardly lasts as long as a spin-cycle, let along their term(s) in office. This American-Israeli investigative journalist – with close ties to this one and that one – defies any of the resident blowhards to convince otherwise.
DOUBLE DARE…..
TRAGICALLY, even after building the most technologically advanced nation in the world, coupled with an equally awesome military which is the envy of most, ironically, it is quite possible that Israel’s top-tier leadership will, heaven forbid, bring about her demise.
INDEED, let’s put aside the obvious dangers; militant Islamic jihadists on every front. For when Israel’s top leaders are no longer convinced of the nation’s reason for being – as the Jewish people’s birthright and concomitant national heritage – thus, despite their puffed up chests and IDF medals galore, the Jewish majority population can no longer feel safe from the nation’s under-miners, those who sit inside officialdom and outside the nation’s borders.
AND for more proof of the same creeping insidiousness, a peaceful protester carrying signage – which called out the leadership for, once again, denying Jewish title and rights thereof to the holiest place in Judaism, the Temple Mount….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8thyFfK1PY – was arrested! In tandem, recently, the hideous comparison of a heroic IDF soldier to ISIS, and his concomitant incarceration (talk about adding insult to grievous injury…mind you, while defending the nation, additional soldiers/officers have been punished for daring to permanently dispatch terrorists) for “neutralizing” a terrorist, bespeaks of their twisted pathology and warped mentality. In their mixed up PC outlooks, the enemy has more rights than their own! Damnable leaders.
IN no-holds-barred honesty, akin to the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t the above reminiscent of fascist-like behavior, even as Yair Golan had the temerity to paint an egregious comparative, yes, wagging his fingers in the direction of nationalist Zionists, accusing them (at times) of Nazi-like behavior! Not only that, he chose, of all times, the eve of HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE to impugn their integrity, thus, denying the judicious rights of Israel’s Jewish majority and Jews at large!
MEMO TO YA’ALON & GOLAN, his sidekick: your “apologies” are not accepted, at least by this American-Israeli and countless others!!
NOT only that, as always, whenever powerful players get caught with “foot-in-the-mouth” fallout, they revert to contrived spin-doctoring, in what amounts to one disingenuous excuse or the other: insincere “apologies”, or someone else made the mistake, thus, is blameworthy! Whom do they think they are fooling….conning? Regardless, this is precisely how it is playing out, as the leadership falls back on both plans of counterattack: an “apology”, followed up by it was someone else’s fault! As if.
POSTSCRIPT TO PM NETANYAHU: fire them, or you too will become complicit in whatever blow back results from the most vile comparative ever uttered – shamefully, defended by Ya’alon and his gaggle of supporters – in recent memory by your subordinates! It’s your call. Your legacy.
Adina Kutnicki 