Yes, Netanyahu is right. Peace can only come to Israel if Hamas is destroyed, if Gaza is demilitarized, and if the Palestinians are deradicalized. But that will be impossible—unless they give up their evil, hateful ways. So, they must turn to God; they all must turn to God. That is the only way of true peace.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week outlined three prerequisites for peace in the region following months of war with Hamas.
Netanyahu, in an opinion piece published by The Wall Street Journal on Monday, outlined the three: the destruction of Hamas, the demilitarization of Gaza, and the deradicalization of Palestinian society.
“First, Hamas, a key Iranian proxy, must be destroyed. The U.S., U.K., France, Germany, and many other countries support Israel’s intention to demolish the terror group,” Netanyahu wrote.
“Second, Gaza must be demilitarized. Israel must ensure that the territory is never again used as a base to attack it,” he added.
According to Netanyahu, this will involve creating “a temporary security zone” on Gaza’s perimeter and a border inspection system to prevent weapons smuggling. He also claimed that expecting the Palestinian Authority to demilitarize Gaza “is a pipe dream.”
“Third, Gaza will have to be deradicalized,” the prime minster continued. “Schools must teach children to cherish life rather than death, and imams must cease to preach for the murder of Jews. Palestinian civil society needs to be transformed so that its people support fighting terrorism rather than funding it.”
Netanyahu wrote that once these three goals are achieved, “Gaza can be rebuilt and the prospects of a broader peace in the Middle East will become a reality.”
This morning my mind is on the US ships that were shot at in the Red Sea. No doubt this Israeli war with Hamas will escalate. Both Israel and the US has many enemies and they will take advantage of any opportunity to kill us. We must pray for the safety of all ships.
I was also thinking of my time at war in Viet Nam. One positive of soldiers being at war is that there is some comradery—a sense of togetherness. I don’t have that so much now since I live alone—it gets lonely. I always look forward to Sundays, to worship together with friends. I try to get out of the apartment as much as possible. I go to restaurants to hang out and talk with people that know me. I love the smiles.
Have a good day. God’s blessings to you. And don’t forget to pray for all those at war and in distress.
Both Herzog and Netanyahu agree that the Palestinians cannot be trusted to govern Gaza. I agree. All of the land promised to Israel should be Israel’s, and that includes Gaza. I don’t even think any of them should be allowed to live there; but if they are allowed, they will have to be controlled.
“We can’t leave a vacuum” that could enable the coastal enclave to turn “into a terror base again,” said the Israeli president.
November 16, 2023
Israel will need to maintain a significant presence in Gaza to prevent the Hamas terrorist group from regaining control of the enclave, President Isaac Herzog said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Thursday.
“If we pull back, then who will take over? We can’t leave a vacuum. We have to think about what will be the mechanism; there are many ideas that are thrown in the air,” Herzog said. “But no one will want to turn this place, Gaza, into a terror base again.”
Israeli forces have been conducting ground, air and naval operations in the Gaza Strip with the stated goal of dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, in the wake of the terror group’s Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel.
Herzog told the British daily business newspaper that the Israeli government has been discussing ideas about how Gaza will be managed after Hamas is defeated, indicating that the United States and “our neighbors in the region” would have some involvement.
The United States has been pushing for the Palestinian Authority to play a role in governing Gaza after Hamas, but Israeli officials have rejected the proposal due to the P.A.’s support for terrorism.
“In order to prevent terror from coming up again, we have to have a very strong force to make sure that it’s committed enough and it [the attack] doesn’t happen [again],” said Herzog.
Herzog’s remarks echo those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has stated multiple times in recent weeks that Israel will maintain security control over Gaza after defeating Hamas.
“The IDF will continue to have security control over the Gaza Strip for as long as necessary to prevent terrorism from it. The massacre on Oct. 7 proved once and for all wherever there is no Israeli security control, terrorism will return and establish itself; therefore, I will not agree to concede security control under any circumstances,” Netanyahu said at a joint press conference on Nov. 11.
Netanyahu also said during the press conference that Gaza cannot be ruled by “a civil authority that educates its children to hate Israel, to kill Israelis, to eliminate the State of Israel… an authority that pays the families of murderers [amounts] based on the number they murdered… an authority whose leader still has not condemned the terrible [Oct. 7] massacre 30 days later,” referring to P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas.
During the interview with the Financial Times, Herzog also discussed the hostage situation, among other topics, blaming Hamas for the lack of an agreement on their release.
“We haven’t even received one piece of information about our hostages,” he said. “So we have to fight and get them.”
Herzog also touched upon efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to the Strip, saying that Israel is discussing a “major effort” with Cyprus to deliver aid via the Mediterranean Sea and that Cypriot officials were visiting Israel on Thursday to follow up on the initiative.
“It’s under serious negotiations with the Cypriot government,” Herzog said.
I praise Netanyahu for his courage and wisdom for this decision. This is the correct action and will insure Israel’s survival. Israel is acting alone on this decision, so they will need the prayers of Christians everywhere. Israel must not let the Palestinians control the Gaza strip—ever again. It is Israel’s land—what God has given them.
PM speaks to mayors of Gaza border towns on plans to rebuild after Hamas atrocities; meeting comes after premier criticized for failing to meet local leaders since Oct. 7 massacres
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday the IDF will remain in control of the Gaza Strip after the current war ends, and will not rely on international forces to oversee security along the border.
Netanyahu made the comments in a meeting with the mayors of Gaza border towns at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv. The local leaders oversee many of the communities that were assaulted and had their residents murdered and kidnapped in Hamas’s October 7 massacres of southern communities. Others have faced daily barrages of rockets from Gaza over the past month, and many communities have been evacuated as Israel presses ahead in its military campaign, leaving tens of thousands internally displaced.
“IDF forces will remain in control of the Strip, we will not give it to international forces,” Netanyahu said, according to a readout from his spokesperson, not saying whether it would do so for the short or long term.
Netanyahu and his government have been vague on what they envision for Gaza after the war. Only hours earlier the premier told Fox News that Israel does not want to re-occupy or govern the Strip. Earlier this week, Netanyahu told ABC News that Israel will have “overall security responsibility” over the Gaza Strip “for an indefinite period” after the war against Hamas ends.
US officials have raised the possibility in recent weeks that an international force, possibly with troops from neighboring Arab allies, could manage security in the Strip for an interim period until it can be returned to a functioning Palestinian government, which Washington hopes will be the Palestinian Authority.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday called on Israel not to reoccupy the Strip once its war with Hamas ends.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reiterated on Friday that the PA is ready to retake control of Gaza, but said that would only happen if the move is part of a comprehensive political solution that includes a Palestinian state established along the 1967 borders. The PA leader made the same pledge on Sunday during a meeting in Ramallah with Blinken.
He also repeated his allegations that Israel is carrying out “genocide” in Gaza as it battles Hamas there, and called for an international peace conference to provide “international guarantees” and a timetable to end Israeli control of the Palestinian territories.
The group meeting between Netanyahu and local leaders was his first since the October 7 attacks by Hamas terrorists, which saw some 1,400 people killed, most of them civilians, and over 240 abducted to Gaza.
The prime minister had come under fire for waiting over a month to meet the local leaders, criticism that intensified this week as he met settlement mayors before sitting down with the municipal heads of the area devastated by Hamas.
The mayors told Netanyahu they want a different security reality after the war is over and urged him not to agree to a ceasefire until all Gaza terrorists are eliminated, the statement from the premier’s spokesperson said. They also called for a robust government support program to support their communities as the fighting continues.
Netanyahu said in a statement: “There is a great determination by [the residents] and the government to restore things to an even better state than before. To rehabilitate, to build, to grow. And first of all to bring back security, to ensure there is no Hamas and that Hamas does not return, but also to ensure there is strong life [in the communities] afterward.”
Sderot mayor Alon Davidi told Army Radio ahead of the meeting on Friday: “The State of Israel is the one that brought our great enemy upon us… The leadership brought us to this place.”
Among the local leaders in the south are a number of figures influential in Netanyahu’s Likud party, where the prime minister has faced growing criticism for the government’s failures that led to the October 7 attacks as well as those that have followed — in the slow pace of financial and other aid to affected communities.
Netanyahu is the only senior Israeli official who has refused to make a full-throated admission of responsibility for the horrors of the Hamas attacks, and is likely to face growing calls to depart office once the war ends or abates.
With the very large US ships appearing and now with all the US trucks coming with aid, you would think that Biden is beginning to like Israel. But Caroline Glick doesn’t think so. She is the senior editor of the Jewish News Syndicate. She says that all the aid coming in the trucks are here to aid Hamas, not Israel, and not the hostages. And, she says that the aid is not only for the injured civilians, but to advance the Hamas’s military effort against Israel.
No, Biden and his leaders are definitely against Israel. Those ships and the trucks are here to aid Hamas and Hamas only.
Please pray for Netanyahu, that he will know exactly what the US is up to. He must stand up to Biden. He has declared war on Hamas and so he must continue the war effort. Israel must destroy Hamas as soon as possible. The people have had enough time to get out. Now Israel must unleash hell!
Hamas, as you know has terrorized the Israeli people—even beheading little children; and did you know that Hamas leaders instructed their military to be sure to rape the women before they kill them? How savage is that! Hamas is no better than Isis! This is why Israel must destroy them all!
Caroline B. Glick is the senior contributing editor of Jewish News Syndicate and host of the “Caroline Glick Show” on JNS. She is also the diplomatic commentator for Israel’s Channel 14, as well as a columnist for Newsweek. Glick is the senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington and a lecturer at Israel’s College of Statesmanship.
On Sunday, U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan all announced that the United States expects Israel to permit “humanitarian aid” into Gaza.
The implications of this position are devastating for Israel. According to reports, there are “hundreds of trucks” lined up on the border in Egypt to enter the Gaza Strip carrying so-called “humanitarian aid.” These trucks, if permitted to enter, will not be inspected in any significant way. There is no reason to believe they are carrying baby formula and foodstuffs that will be delivered to the needy. There is every reason to believe they are carrying war materiel and jihadist fighters who have arrived to augment Hamas.
To the extent that there is food in the trucks, who will it feed? The hostages? The infirm? Who will the medicine be delivered to? The hostages? Will the fuel in the trucks be used in refrigerators to feed the captive Israelis?
Of course not.
Hamas is Gaza. All the “ministries” in Gaza are Hamas. All hospitals are Hamas. Hamas’s military headquarters is located under Shifa Hospital.
So whatever and whoever is in the trucks carrying “humanitarian aid,” all of it will be delivered to Hamas and will be distributed to benefit Hamas.
The idea that it could be otherwise is absurd. And the fact that the Biden administration is arguing this absurdity is an outrage.
Even if the “hundreds of trucks” are completely empty—and they manifestly are not—the trucks themselves are instruments of war. Their presence in Gaza will also advance Hamas’s military effort against Israel. They will augment Hamas’s capacity to kill and wound untold numbers of IDF soldiers now poised at the border waiting for the Netanyahu government to finally order them to enter Gaza.
Biden, Blinken and Sullivan—like their counterparts in Europe and the United Nations—insist that they want to give Hamas the trucks to avert a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. But their position is actually devastating for Gaza’s civilians.
By barring civilians from escaping Gaza to its territory, even for the purpose of transiting to third countries, Egypt is collaborating with Hamas’s war effort. By enabling Egypt to maintain its position, and demanding that Israel allow Hamas to resupply while calling that resupply “humanitarian aid,” the Biden administration is trapping the civilians of Gaza it claims to care about protecting. They will remain under Hamas’s jackboot. They will remain its human shields and cannon fodder.
Similarly, the United States is providing material support for Hamas’s propaganda campaign blaming Israel for the carnage of which Hamas is the sole author—in Israel and Gaza alike.
The United States is also acting in breach of binding international law. As professor Avi Bell of the Bar Ilan University and University of San Diego law schools explained in an interview on “The Caroline Glick Show” on Sunday, while Biden and his aides have insisted repeatedly that they expect Israel to respect the international laws of war in its prosecution of its war effort against Hamas, the administration’s positions in relation to that war are illegal.
Stephen Nielsen 