Haifa Diary
Haifa is on the "front line" in any action in the north but this blog looks at life in the shadow of danger to all of Israel
Friday, June 13, 2025
Monday, June 9, 2025
Flotilla Boat Towed to Israel, Activists to be Deported
This photo follows an interception of the "Aid" boat.
from Israeli soldiers.
or handcuffs, they were shown a 40 minute video
of the events of October 7th. If that did not change t
heir minds of the importance of supporting
the "Palestinian Cause" (as opposed to the Gazan people)
nothing will.
Friday, June 6, 2025
What Do You Know About the Haredi Draft?
For full report see https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israel-two-big-lies
Looking at the most explosive political issue threatening to derail the
Israeli government mid-war: namely, the conscription of roughly 63,000 young
Haredi men to the Israel Defense Forces. One would hardly know, listening to
the hyperventilation in the Israeli media, that there are already 6,000 Haredi
men serving in the army, that hundreds of them are combat soldiers, and that
they volunteer in such solid and consistent numbers that the IDF saw fit, in
1999, to establish an independent battalion just for Haredi soldiers, called
Netzah Yehuda.
How come Haredis don’t serve in the army? Why those Haredis who showed up
rejected.
Haim Ramon, a longtime Labor Party politician who served as a minister in
Yitzhak Rabin’s cabinet happened to browse a document released
by the Knesset’s research and information center that provided statistics about
various population groups and their representation in the IDF. One stat in
particular left Ramon feeling confused: Since Oct. 7,
the Knesset revealed, 4,000 young Haredi men showed up of their own volition
and asked to volunteer to fight, an initiative that would’ve doubled the number
of Haredi soldiers overnight and proven a potential way out of the political
impasse.
Almost immediately, the IDF deemed 3,120 of these men unfitting to serve,
mostly for being too physically weak to fight. Which, if you know anything
about the IDF, is a shocking revelation. A non-Haredi Israeli would have to
suffer from a truly debilitating health condition to be found unfit for
service; otherwise, 18-year-olds struggling with all manner of maladies—asthma,
say, or a bad back or a minor heart condition, even with Downs syndrome—are
happily recruited and assigned to support positions that do not require
strenuous physical exertion. You can find these excellent and motivated men and
women serving as intelligence officers or riflery instructors, drivers or
parachute packers, performing services the army absolutely needs. And you’d
think that with the national interest allegedly being the swift swelling of the
IDF’s ranks, the army would’ve made an effort to accommodate these enthusiastic
young Haredis in its ranks.
Instead, not only were they rejected, but also, of the 880 volunteers who
were found fit, only 540, or 61 percent, were recruited. In total, then, of the
throngs of proud and patriotic black-hatted Israelis who, when it mattered
most, wished to join their brothers and sisters in fighting, the army accepted
a mere 13.5 percent.
This heartbreaking account provides us with two urgent insights.
First, the entire debate about Haredis in the army is predicated on a
bright, shiny untruth. The army doesn’t need Haredi recruits to meet its goals.
If it did, it would’ve welcomed every one, or at least the ones physically fit
to fight. The army further understands that fully integrating Haredim into its
ranks would require a wide array of logistical challenges—providing strictly
kosher food, for example, or addressing concerns rising from coed military
service—it currently cannot and does not want to address.
Second, while liberal Israeli politicians are quick to refer to Haredis
in derogatory terms like shirkers and parasites, the Haredi community has just shown that it
is more committed than ever to seeing itself as part of Israel’s national
narrative. If you’re looking for a bit of perspective there, a 2023 report from the State Comptroller’s office revealed
that, in 2021, a whopping 32 percent of young military-age Tel Avivis chose not
to join the IDF, a fact that generated precisely zero national outcry.
Put bluntly, anyone who is asking why Haredis don’t serve in the army
should first ask why the army widely rejected those Haredis who showed up.
Thursday, June 5, 2025
There is NO Shortage of Food in Gaza
Friday, May 30, 2025
Why is Hamas so confident that it’s winning?
For full article go to https://www.jns.org/why-is-hamas-so-confident-that-its-winning/
Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas’s “political wing,” in his luxurious
living quarters in Doha, Qatar, thinks the war has gone just fine. He thinks that Hamas is “winning the war” and is
confident that the genocidal Islamist organization will, despite the battering
it has received from the Israel Defense Forces, play a “decisive” role in Gaza
in the future.
It takes an extraordinary amount of chutzpah to sit in a comfortable
place of exile where you are protected by Qatar—an ally of Iran and Hamas—while
the Gulf State also pretends to be friendly with the United States. It’s odd
for a “political” leader to be so blithe about a conflict that has, despite the
inflated statistics of civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip produced by Hamas,
certainly inflicted tremendous harm on his own people. By hiding from the IDF
in a warren of tunnels the size of the New York subway system underneath
civilian homes, they set in motion a confrontation that guaranteed that much of
the Strip would be destroyed. And Hamas itself has been severely hurt.
Reportedly, 20,000 operatives have been killed, and all of its organized
military formations are no longer combat-effective. The same is true of its
ability to send long-range missiles into Israel.
Survival equals a Hamas victory
By any normal definition of victory or defeat, in the aftermath of its
orgy of mass murder, rape, torture, kidnappings and wanton destruction in
Israel on Oct. 7, Hamas hasn’t been beaten.
While most of us have understandably focused on the fighting in Gaza as
well as the way Hezbollah terrorists have been able to essentially de-populate
a portion of northern Israel with its indiscriminate fire on civilians, one of
the key fronts in this war is not in the Middle East. It’s in the United
States.
Hamas have been doing nothing but playing for time. And they expected
that the time they needed to outlast the Israeli offensive would be provided to
them by Israel’s closest ally.
Combined with the post-Oct. 7 surge in antisemitism made obvious by the
pro-Hamas encampments at elite universities, it gave Hamas every reason not to
negotiate seriously for a hostage release deal. Hamas viewed all of this as
encouragement for its plan to simply hunker down in its remaining tunnel
strongholds, and hold out until U.S. and international pressure—heightened by
the anti-Israel bias of the mainstream media—forced Israel to stand down and
allow the Islamists to emerge as the victor in the war.
Demoralizing the Israelis
While Israelis have every right to protest against their government even
in wartime, Hamas also views the unrest inside the Jewish state as an asset.
The families of the remaining hostages and Netanyahu’s political opposition now
seek to pressure him to give up the war and sign a ceasefire agreement, even if
it means essentially handing Gaza back to Hamas and ensuring a repeat of the
horrors of Oct. 7. I understand why some feel that way for a number of
different reasons, but the fact remains that Hamas is counting on that
sentiment.
But above all, Hamas views American pressure on Israel as its ace in the
hole.
The reality of Palestinian politics
If left to carry out its tasks without foreign interference, the IDF will
eventually eliminate Hamas, though that task will not be accomplished easily or
quickly. It can certainly prevent it from returning to power in Gaza, thus
ensuring that its reign of terror over Israel as well as Palestinians is over. The
terrorist group are counting on feckless American politicians, ideologically
motivated leftist demonstrators and political activists, a media that is always
prepared to demonize Israeli efforts at self-defense, as well as war-weariness
and anguish about the hostages inside Israel to guarantee their survival. We
may hope that they are wrong about that, but it’s easy to understand why the
terrorist leader is confident that he can outlast the Israelis … with American
help.
UK Openly Finances Hamas & Closes Its Eyes
Thursday, May 29, 2025
Breakthrough with Laser Technology
Amongst many new technologies that have been proven in this war (but not yet officially reported), the laser based system has been very successful.
Israel’s Defense Ministry, in
collaboration with the Israel Air Force and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems,
revealed this week, that laser-based interception systems were successfully
used in combat for the first time during the ongoing “Swords of Iron” war.
According to a ministry statement, in
a major leap forward for military technology, dozens of enemy threats —
primarily drones — were neutralized using high-powered laser technology
developed through years of research and recently accelerated innovation.
The laser systems, which represent a
revolutionary layer in Israel’s multi-tiered missile defense architecture, were
rapidly deployed by the Air Force during the war.
The new systems reportedly achieved
high interception rates, preventing potential casualties and damage to key
infrastructure.
This achievement marks the first
operational use of such high-powered laser technology on the battlefield
globally.