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"A time of war, even the image of these things was its image." We are fighting for our very existence. We must not forget this, even if some among us try to undermine our sense of justice. "He will dull his mind, and he will forget that justice is with him," Alterman wrote (after the Six day war) of the devil's failure to defeat the besieged State of Israel. Undermining the sense of justice is meant to erode the will to fight. Therefore, we must not forget.
The Seventh Day of Passover is dedicated to the splitting of the Red Sea and the miracle of our nation's salvation, one week after its exodus from the house of bondage. Upon seeing the dead soldiers of the Egyptian empire washed up on the shore, the Israelites burst into a mighty song. This didn't happen during the plague of the firstborn or upon leaving Egypt, but there, when they witnessed the defeat of Egypt's military force, the defeat of the enslaving kingdom itself, they internalized their freedom.
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They are dead, and we sing? Yes. They were the wicked. "The work of My hands is drowning in the sea, and you recite songs?" (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 38b) - This was said to the angels, not to the intended victims who sang in celebration of their rescue. In recent generations, it has become clear that "the work of My hands is drowning in the sea" refers to the Israelites themselves, who were in dire distress, not to the wicked who sought their destruction.
On October 7, the new Nazis sought to carry out genocide against us. They planned to do it in three phases but managed only the first. First, they intended to invade the Kibbutzim around Gaza and nearby towns ; then reach cities like Beersheba, Ashdod, and even Rehovot and Ness Ziona; and finally, Tel Aviv. They beheaded our sons, raped our daughters until their pelvic bones broke, and then shot them in the head. They bound parents and children and burned them alive. They wiped out peaceful communities, looted and torched whatever they could, and then dragged hundreds, alive and dead, into prepared tunnels. They boasted about it, filmed it, and posted it online. O land, do not cover their blood.
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A small group among us, having lost their moral compass, tries to convince us that the war is now pointless, and we are unjustly harming Gazans. Even a hundred years wouldn't suffice to repay these wicked ones for their crimes. They still hold 59 of our brothers and sisters, living and dead. We must fight for their rescue.
This confused group claims the hostages can be freed in a deal. By saying so, they mislead us and prolong the hostages' suffering in Hamas captivity, while also raising their price. Worse, their propaganda for ending the war jeopardizes our future and our lives in this cherished land.
Senior Hamas officials watch the lawlessness on our streets and in the media, and draw strength. A report this week stated: "Hamas informed Egypt that any agreement must begin with a ceasefire and a withdrawal (from the entire Gaza Strip), not the disarmament of the 'resistance' (i.e., Hamas), and that it categorically rejects any discussion of the weapons issue; it is entirely unacceptable." Not only to these Nazis is this unacceptable, but also to the defeatist propagandists among us.
"We'll deal with Hamas later," they say. Of course. Why didn't we think of that? After Oslo, the Lebanon withdrawal, the disengagement from Gaza, the release of Gilad Shalit, we promised we would. But we did nothing but enable the rise of a monstrous terrorist entity whose raison d'être, from its youngest to its senior commanders, is the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. We failed to stop it in time, and we got October 7. Listening to those with dulled minds and no sense of justice is dangerous.
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To grasp the full moral, security, and diplomatic recklessness of the defeatist propagandists, here are Hamas' demands from the most recent negotiations for the return of ten or eleven hostages. The rest would remain with Hamas, as a sinful reminder to ensure Israel does not attack or deviate from the agreed framework. From the Gilad Shalit case, they learned that even one hostage can unravel Israeli society.
So, according to reports this week, including on the excellent Telegram channel of Guy Bechor (highly recommended!), here are Hamas' demands which despite its situation,continues to believe in its ability to defeat us:
Hamas refuses even to discuss disarmament or to leave Gaza. It demands to remain a military organization, part of Gaza's governance and political structure after the war, and rejects any attempt to sideline it. It demands a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-October 6 border, including from the security buffer zone (the perimeter), and opposes foreign involvement, including from Arab states, certainly not the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.
Given the empty public calls in Israel to make a deal and then violate it immediately after retrieving our hostages (brilliant, isn't it?), Hamas demands "strong" international guarantees that Israel will not resume attacks. In short, it demands immunity for terrorists to reestablish themselves across from Gaza-border communities and plan the next massacre.
The billions in aid for Gaza's reconstruction, from the naïve and foolish around the world, Hamas demands to receive directly or through organizations under its control like UNRWA, and certainly not via the Palestinian Authority.
All this in exchange for about ten hostages. The rest will be kept as collateral until the full restoration of the Nazi entity and its preparation for the next invasion, after they again convince the Shin Bet chief of the day that this is a rational entity preferring business and economy to destruction, of course with sympathetic media coverage. To this we must add the usual umbrella of the legal system, which will continue to tie our hands from preemptively striking those who seek our demise and will insist on providing them with "humanitarian aid."
The implications of such a deal would be to make every Jew worldwide a legitimate target for abduction. This would become the insurance policy of every Jew-killer, wherever he may be.
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We have yet to see the current IDF chief of staff conduct a war. Since his appointment, we've been fighting at low intensity, and the "gates of hell" have yet to be opened on Gaza. The previous chief of staff feared occupying the Strip and preferred raids: the IDF entered and exited several times. After each raid, we left the area, allowing the enemy to regroup and, most importantly, to recharge in both morale and confidence.
The Ten Plagues resemble this raid tactic. After each plague, there was a lull, allowing the Egyptians to recover. It made Pharaoh think he could ride out the storm and survive. But unlike the Ten Plagues, the splitting of the sea was the final blow. This is why our sages in the Haggadah praise the blows at the sea and the magnitude of Egypt's defeat there.
Indeed, only after the sea split and Egypt's mighty chariots and army drowned, when the masses of former slaves saw their former masters swept away and cast dead on the shore, does it say, "They believed in the Lord and in Moses His servant" (Exodus 14:31). The term "to believe" in the Bible does not denote religious faith (that is a later meaning, probably from the Geonic period) but trust. Only then did the people conclude that they could trust the Lord and Moses. When they understood this, they broke out in a great song of freedom, newly rescued from death, a climax in their long struggle for liberation from bondage on the way to their historic homeland.
This was no one-off event. We will yet see other days that will shine upon us with radiant glory: "As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt, I will show you wonders" (Micah 7:15).
