Asking The Impossible
Dear Editor:
Has President Biden told President Zelenskyy to hurry up and win the war in the Ukraine that the US has been funding for over two years? Has he told him that if they don’t win soon, the arms supply from the US will stop or that if any civilians are harmed, he will be called to task? The US fought the war in Afghanistan for 20 years and, before that, the Vietnam War for eight years. Many American servicemen lost their lives, many civilians died, and we accomplished nothing. The US goal was to win; and, therefore, they didn’t stop until eventually they realized the impossibility of the task.
Israel can and will win. As PM Golda Meir told the then-Senator Biden, “We have a secret weapon. It’s called Ein Breirah (We have no choice).” President Biden knows Israel is creating a world-class standard for battle while protecting civilians. He knows this has to be done slowly and carefully. He also knows that Israel can’t stop now without giving Hamas the ability to re-arm and commit 10/7 again, and if Israel stops fighting, we will have to return thousands of captured genocidal terrorists in order to get the hostages back. Further, Biden knows it’s in America’s best interest to show strength to Iran, to bring stability to the Middle East, to hurt the Islamic Jihad regime that is anti-democratic and has pledged to come after America – “the big Satan.” Most of all, America can win without the loss of American blood.
President Biden should be defending Israel’s right to destroy those who brutally attacked her, demanding the release of the remaining 135 hostages and demanding Hamas cease fire and surrender. He should be telling the world what an amazing job Israel is doing in protecting and providing for the Palestinian civilians, and he should be explaining that, unfortunately, innocents get killed in war and that Hamas started the war and is responsible for all the bloodshed on both sides. But overriding all President Biden’s logic is his concern about the pro-Palestinian vote. Biden wants a two-state solution, but the states are Michigan and Nevada, key swing states with significant Muslim populations.
Therefore, President Biden thinks he has the right to threaten PM Netanyahu, saying that Israel is running out of time and threatening to stop supplying arms to Israel if there’s no cease-fire. Israel won the Six-Day War in six days and the Yom Kippur War in 19 days. Yes, Israel has the know-how, the intelligence, and the capability to go in and quickly and thoroughly destroy Hamas. Besides the advanced military weaponry and brilliant war strategists, Israel also has the ability to block the entrance of food and oil into Gaza and could turn off the electricity, water, and the Internet. The Palestinians themselves would turn against Hamas. But President Biden doesn’t want to lose the Arab vote, so he wants the Palestinians, 84% of whom still side with Hamas, to be kept safe.
Therefore, President Biden is criticizing Israel, demanding that they be even more precise and emphasizing that mistakes, despite the fact that they are unavoidable in war, will not be tolerated. So, in addition to fighting the war, Israel is tasked with making sure all Palestinians have an abundance of food, all civilians are moved out of harm’s way, precious Israeli pilots have to fly planes to drop leaflets, and Israel has to make sure the phone service is operating in Gaza so that Israel can notify civilians where the bombs are being dropped. So much for the possibility of Israel pulling off surprise attacks against a country laden with tunnels, operating out of schools and hospitals, and full of Arab booby traps.
Israel is concerned with human life, not because the world is demanding they care about civilians, and Israel desperately wants the safe return of its hostages, but because Jews value all life. Hamas surrounds itself with both the hostages and their own civilians, especially children, and uses both as human shields. So how exactly does President Biden expect Israel to be meticulously careful and act quickly?
And yes, Israel is losing the PR war, but that’s because there are 1.9 billion Muslims in the world, many of whom are lying and spreading false propaganda, compared to 15 million Jews, most of whom are telling the truth, so it’s quite hopeless to compete in public relations. But on the battlefield, Israel will be victorious. We simply have no choice!
Ruki Renov
The Solar Eclipse: Another Example of Neis V’Lo Teva
Dear Editor:
Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler zt”l (who was the rebbi of my father zt”l), in his classic sefer Michtav MeiEliyahu, proposes a central theme of Neis V’Lo Teva, that everything that happens is in fact a miracle rather than nature. As an example, he states that if someone were to cut off the ear of a cow and plant it in the ground and a cow grew out of that, we would exclaim that it is a miracle, yet when we plant a grain of wheat and a whole stalk grows out of it, we routinely say that’s just nature when it truly is a neis, as well.
As some of us witnessed the solar eclipse this past week, we had the opportunity to see yet another true neis and appreciate the greatness of the moment.
The pasuk in B’reishis 1:16 states: “Hashem created the two great luminaries, the Sun to rule the day and the Moon to rule the night.” There is a clearly implied parity of these two celestial bodies. Yet we know that one, the Sun, is a massive ongoing thermonuclear explosion while the other, the Moon, is simply a relatively small rock. Where is the parity?
I once heard this fantastic explanation. In distance from us, the Sun is approximately 100 million miles away. The Moon is but a quarter of a million miles away. This works out to about a 400 to 1 ratio. In size, the diameter of the Sun is 400 times that of the Moon (i.e., you could lay about 400 moons side by side to cover the diameter of the Sun. Not to be confused by the difference in mass which would be in the billions). This common 400 to 1 ratio in both distance and diameter is what allows our tiny Moon to almost perfectly block out the much larger Sun and for that one moment give it parity with the Sun as had been the plan of the Borei Olam.
The fact that this exact matchup of distance and size exists, blows away the theory of the atheist scientists who claim the Moon is simply the result of the collision of two space rocks that resulted in its formation. (The probability of that happening randomly would be a near mathematical impossibility). Further, the existence of the Moon along with its exact orbit and location is instrumental in the control of the tides, which is vital to the functioning of our world. This is but one of the multitude of facets in the Almighty’s Master Plan.
We should see this and all the other nisim in our daily life and increase our emunah and bitachon so that we will be deserving of the coming of the Mashiach. As the Navi Yirmiyahu so eloquently puts it at the end of Megillas Eichah: “Hashiveinu Hashem eilecha v’nashuvah, chadeish yameinu k’kedem.”
Shlomo Zalman Orbach
Packing
Dear Editor:
You need help decluttering? Call me. You can’t finish eating all your chametzdike cookies and cakes? I’m your go-to person. You need a buddy to do some clothing shopping with you? I’m just a phone call or email away. However, if you need help with packing or your taxes, I’m useless.
As I prepare for my trip to Eretz Yisrael, I can’t figure out whether books go at the bottom of the huge suitcase or at the top. How many Yom Tov outfits do I need? (Don’t answer that. Consult your local rabbi.) Is it really hot in Israel now? Don’t ask me to change from Centigrade to Fahrenheit or the other way around. I have (hopefully, I still do) a best friend who used to come to my house for Pesach, and as sure as New York doesn’t get earthquakes (yeah, right), whatever clothes she packed, the weather would prove her wrong. If she brought heavy clothes, it would be sweltering, and if she packed light clothes, it would be freezing. The only sure bet was the trusty jean skirt.
Anyway, I want to wish everyone a Chag Kasher V’Samei’ach, and I apologize to those whom I offended with my barbs. It’s never too early to ask for m’chilah.
Talk to you, im yirtzeh Hashem, in a month or so.
Debbie Horowitz
Joe Biden Only Cares About Joe Biden
Dear Editor:
Joe Biden has been pressuring Israel for weeks now to end their mission to destroy Hamas. He is said to be outraged over the loss of Palestinian civilian life and has stated his feelings on the matter numerous times including calling Israel’s military response to the murder of 1,200 Jews as “over the top.” The latent hypocrisy of Biden’s Israel condemnation vs. his silence over the United States’ killings of far more civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq wars is laid bare for all to see.
Biden is very angry with Israel over the IDF’s accidental killing of aid workers last week. Except Biden has similar blood on his hands. During Biden’s disastrous retreat from Kabul in August 2021, US forces mistakenly incinerated an entire Afghan family, killing ten civilians, seven of them children. The Biden administration termed that a “tragic mistake” and all was forgotten by the following week. Somehow the same benefit of the doubt of a mistake occurring during the fog of war was not extended to Israel.
Joe Biden likes to fancy himself as a family man, yet he has zero sympathy for the families of the Jewish hostages being held by Hamas. How do we know this? Because he has not made any demands of Hamas to release the hostages, and instead called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as Israel is on the cusp of strategic victory over Hamas. He often complains about the so-called “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza of Palestinians lacking food (that Hamas steals) and has nary a word for the Jewish hostages who have been held at the mercy of Hamas barbarians for the past six months. The same fool who was more than happy to pay a ransom of $6 billion to Iranian terrorists for five American hostages has shown zero interest in bringing back the five American Jewish hostages Hamas is holding. Truly disgusting.
Multiple writers to this publication have lauded Biden for his support of Israel over the past six months. What they fail to realize is, like Chuck Schumer, Biden lacks a moral compass. He stands for nothing. He merely mirrors what is fashionable within Democrat circles as he always has. He’s likely neither pro, nor anti-Israel. He’s an unfit leader with a 50-year track record of being wrong on every foreign policy decision. The mistake other writers make in this instance is they think Biden is considering the evidence and weighing the merits here. He’s not. His response to the war against Hamas is no different from his failed Afghanistan pullout for a celebratory 9/11 photo-op, the blowout spending to make himself look better at the expense of future generations, the unconstitutional student loan forgiveness to lock up young voters, or the lawfare he is waging to kneecap Donald Trump. What all of these responses have in common is they advanced his own interests, while the country has paid a terrible price. Biden’s response to Israel is not surprising at all, and is just another reason why he will go down as the worst President in the history of this once great country.
Jason Stark
Dear President Biden:
On October 7, Hamas acted on its expressed genocidal drive to brutally murder, rape, and kidnap Jewish men, women, and children.
You immediately recognized Hamas’ evil and strongly supported Israel’s fulfillment of its moral obligation to destroy Hamas, secure Gaza, and free the hostages.
April 3, 2024, marks 180 days since that black day:
- 180 days of the unimaginable torture of those held hostage in Gaza.
- 180 days of shockingly increasing anti-Semitism on the streets and campuses of this country.
- 180 days of Israel fighting an enemy that has cynically and viciously embedded itself within the civilian population.
President Biden, I am writing to ask for your strong support for Israel to enable her to achieve her goal of effectively eradicating Hamas.
Israel and its army are the Good fighting the unspeakably Evil, making unprecedented efforts to minimize civilian casualties and maximize humanitarian assistance while doing what they must to eliminate the mortal threat to their citizens. We need you to continue to stand with them.
We need you to push back against the narrative that is feeding the anti-Semitism harming American Jews every day, absurdly turning the accusation of genocide against those defending themselves from it.
And we need you – who have been so dedicated to the release of the precious hostages – to increase the pressure to achieve their unconditional and immediate release.
Thank you for your commitment to Israel. Please continue to stand strong with Israel – it’s the right thing to do today and it will long be remembered.
Jacques Hakim
Biden’s Priorities Vs. Trump’s
Dear Editor:
Great piece last week by Moshe Hill highlighting the split screen of Donald Trump honoring murdered police officer Jonathan Diller by attending his wake while Joe Biden was busy honoring himself at a Manhattan fundraiser.
One point on that topic that was not mentioned is the fact that Joe Biden arrived in New York hours before the fundraiser with enough time to attend the wake if he so desired. The reason we know this to be true is because, instead of going to the wake, he chose to appear on a podcast hosted by Justin Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett in the hours before the fundraiser. This insensitivity on the part of the President is part of a pattern that has played out throughout Biden’s “Reign of Error.” He pledged on his first day in office that he would immediately fire anyone in his administration who acted in a disrespectful manner. Yet a litany of reports has leaked out through the years that Biden often uses abusive and foul language when he gets frustrated with aides.
He was caught looking at his watch multiple times while attending the dignified transfer of the 13 murdered servicemen in his botched Afghanistan withdrawal. He is routinely dismissive towards victims of violent crimes perpetrated by the illegal aliens he allowed into this country, while deploying lackeys to remind us that it’s racist to point out the rise in migrant crime.
Biden exploited the phony “Captain Empathy” moniker the media played him up to be during his campaign in 2020. By now, it has become obvious to all that Biden is not only a colossal failure as a president but also a nasty old man with a terrible bein adam l’chaveiro track record.
Jonathan Goldgrab
