Assessment of the Enacted Law​

The amendments to Israeli criminal legislation, in particular to Section 301A of the Penal Law (חוק העונשין), providing for the death penalty or life imprisonment as punishment for intentional killing with a purpose directed against the existence of the State of Israel, are in themselves justified. However:

(1)

As I have previously written, in criminal law in general and in Israeli criminal law in particular, a law that establishes or increases a penalty has no retroactive effect (Article 15 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Section 3(b) of the Israeli Penal Law (חוק העונשין)).

That is, although some may get the impression that the law can be applied to terrorists who took part in the attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, in reality it cannot. The law may only be applied to acts committed after its entry into force.

(2)

The enacted law contains a provision allowing the court to impose a death sentence even though the prosecution has not requested it.

This is a very serious violation of a fundamental principle underlying the very concept of a court of law.

The introduction of the death penalty as a form of punishment is not in itself a violation of human rights, but a violation of the basic principles governing the functioning of a court is.

This also violates the recognized religious principle of the commandment to "establish just courts" for all peoples, including Israel (the Laws of Noah).

(3)

Under Article 6(4) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Israel in 1991: "Anyone sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of the sentence. Amnesty, pardon or commutation of the sentence of death may be granted in all cases."

The bill was drafted without regard to this provision. This gives rise to the suspicion that its drafting took place without the involvement of international law specialists.

(4)

The law proceeds from the assumption that residents of the District of Judea and Samaria are not residents of Israel, i.e. it is based on the premise that the District of Judea and Samaria is not a territory of Israel.

This is incorrect; see on this site my text "Borders and Territory of Israel".

(5)

The law thus in no way addresses the question of what to do with the terrorists held in Israeli prisons who took part in Gaza's war against Israel. And this is indeed a difficult problem that calls for very tough but carefully considered decisions, not populism.

How It Could Have Been Done Better​

Naturally, in light of the above observations, a legitimate question arises: "What should have been done instead?"

We cannot give retroactive effect to a law that establishes or increases a penalty, i.e. apply it to acts committed before its entry into force. No one who calls himself a lawyer should do such a thing. However, we can consider several possible approaches which, though debatable, are of interest:

(1)

There is a concept known as continuing offense, i.e. an offense that may have been commenced before a law's entry into force and may continue after it — in which case it is punishable under the new law, since the act took place after the law's entry into force, even though it may have begun before it.

Here is a remarkable example: in Georgia, criminal liability was introduced for being a thief in law (thief with code) (Rus. «вор в законе»). This law, naturally, had no retroactive effect. That is, a person could not be punished merely for having become a "thief in law" before the law's entry into force. But he could be punished for continuing to be one after the law entered into force. A person would simply be brought to the police and asked: "Do you continue to be a thief in law?"

We already have a fairly well-developed, though, regrettably, applied far less than it should be, Counter-Terrorism Law No. 5776 (2016) (חוק המאבק בטרור, התשע״ו–2016) (The Counter-Terrorism Law, No. 5776 (2016)). It already provides for such offenses as "membership in a terrorist organization," "provision of services or resources to a terrorist organization," "an act of identification with a terrorist organization," "incitement to terrorism," and others.

Following 7 October 2023, it is of course necessary to increase the penalties for these offenses, including life imprisonment and the death penalty for mere participation in a terrorist organization. We must, regrettably, acknowledge that the mass sadism displayed by residents of Gaza who burst into kibbutzim and a music festival killing everyone in sight, the ecstatic joy with which crowds tortured and killed hostages in the streets of Gaza (as recorded in numerous videos — both from the music festival and from the streets of Gaza), justify such severe measures.

At the same time, the death penalty must never be a mandatory penalty and must always be imposed with due regard to the individual circumstances of the accused.

But there is an important point here. Membership in a terrorist organization is a continuing offense. That is, we cannot impose the death penalty for mere membership in Hamas prior to the entry into force of the relevant law. However, it may be applied to those who continued to belong to Hamas after the law's entry into force. And members of Hamas may, regrettably, continue to be such even while held in prisons. But this, of course, like any question of imposing a criminal penalty, must be considered on an individual basis.

It should also be noted that the accused's own confession of membership in a terrorist organization may in itself be insufficient (it may, like any other confession, be false), but equally, the accused's own assertion that he has ceased to be a member of a terrorist organization should not be treated as the sole and sufficient evidence — but rather assessed in the totality of the circumstances.

In short: we cannot retroactively apply increased penalties, including the death penalty, simply for the fact of membership in terrorist organizations prior to 7 October 2023 (i.e. those penalties that were already provided for at that time may be applied, but no more), but for membership in such organizations after the law's entry into force we may impose penalties up to and including life imprisonment and the death penalty (I emphasize: with due regard to the individual circumstances of the accused).

(2)

Criminal prosecution is not the only, and not always the optimal, lawful form of terminating criminal activity. In Israel, the majority of persons committing terrorist attacks are neutralized on the spot by ordinary citizens, since many in our country are armed.

It must be acknowledged that this is the right approach, and it should be formalized to a greater degree — by adding to the Counter-Terrorism Law No. 5776 provisions on non-punishability of causing harm to a perpetrator up to and including death (while torture and degradation of human dignity are impermissible under any circumstances) for the purpose of suppressing offenses defined by the law. The list of such offenses should be explicitly specified, including established membership in a terrorist organization, with a definition of the conditions under which this rule applies.

The following must be emphasized: 1) each such case must be thoroughly investigated to verify the extent to which the application of such measures by citizens was in compliance with the law; 2) if the perpetrator, having realized in such a situation the criminal nature of his actions, ceases them and manages to surrender to the authorities — he then enters the framework of formal criminal proceedings.

It appears that such an approach is, on the one hand, effective and, on the other, does not contradict the fundamental principles of criminal law and criminal procedure but, on the contrary, is grounded in its generally recognized concepts, such as "continuing offense," "measures aimed at the suppression of an ongoing crime," and so forth.

(3)

And one more important point regarding the death penalty. In addition to the principle that it must never be a mandatory penalty and must always be imposed with due regard to the individual circumstances of the accused, a humane measure would be to provide that even death sentences imposed for offenses under the counter-terrorism law are not to be carried out except when Israel is engaged in active hostilities.

The positive aspect here is that the enemy will know: an attack on Israel will henceforth lead not to the release of their accomplices from prisons, but to the carrying out of death sentences against them.

A valuable addition here would also be the inclusion in the counter-terrorism law of a prohibition on complying with any demands of persons who have taken hostages. This relieves politicians of responsibility for refusing to negotiate and deprives the enemy of the motivation to take hostages in the future.

Post and discussion on Facebook (in Russian): part 1 and part 2

I intended to write this post on Purim. But I did not. And now the esteemed Rabbi Kochubievsky posed me a question about how I would explain such two delicate topics as Haman's verdict to annihilate the entire Jewish people, and the Holocaust.

Perhaps Rabbi Kochubievsky himself posed the questions about Purim and the Holocaust as two separate difficult questions. But in my view this is precisely one question. Purim offers a way to explain the Holocaust, because if we analyze the situation in which Haman's decree came about, we can put forward a hypothesis that a certain pattern is discernible here, and extrapolate the conclusions to the subsequent and present-day situation.

To appreciate how intellectually and morally dangerous this topic is, one must cite one of the most influential Jewish religious authorities of the post-Holocaust period — the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Sefer HaSichot 5751 Vol.1 p.233):

"There is absolutely no rationalistic explanation for the Holocaust except for the fact that it was a Divine decree … why it happened is above human comprehension – but it is definitely not because of punishment for sin"

(as cited in Belief After the Holocaust // chabad.org)

So — yes, I understand that constructing hypotheses about what, in the opinion of a great sage and righteous man, lies beyond the limits of human comprehension, is a path on which it is difficult to avoid errors. But being aware of how intellectually and morally dangerous this undertaking is, I consider it necessary, and moreover — the refusal to undertake it far more dangerous.

We will return to the Lubavitcher Rebbe's position, which is of great importance here, and will try to understand why it is as it is, not limiting ourselves merely to the fact that it appears epistemologically unsatisfying for a person who considers understanding the designs of the Almighty a paramount task for anyone who thinks from the premise of His existence.

Purim​

Let us then consider the situation in which the events of Purim occurred. The Jews were in the exile known as the Babylonian captivity. It is precisely this exile that the famous Psalm 137 (by the Masoretic numbering), "By the rivers of Babylon", speaks of — the psalm in which this formula appeared:

אִם־אֶשְׁכָּחֵךְ יְרוּשָׁלָ͏ִם תִּשְׁכַּח יְמִינִי תִּדְבַּק־לְשׁוֹנִי לְחִכִּי אִם־לֹא אֶזְכְּרֵכִי אִם־לֹא אַעֲלֶה אֶת־יְרוּשָׁלַ͏ִם עַל רֹאשׁ שִׂמְחָתִי

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not; if I set not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy.

The Persian king Cyrus (כוֹרֶשׁ) issues a decree permitting the Jews to return to Jerusalem and begin rebuilding the Temple (Ezra 1:1-4):

מִי-בָכֶם מִכָּל-עַמּוֹ, יְהִי אֱלֹהָיו עִמּוֹ, וְיַעַל, לִירוּשָׁלִַם אֲשֶׁר בִּיהוּדָה; וְיִבֶן, אֶת-בֵּית יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל--הוּא הָאֱלֹהִים, אֲשֶׁר בִּירוּשָׁלִָם.

Whosoever there is among you of all His people--his God be with him--let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD, the God of Israel, He is the God who is in Jerusalem.

A portion of the people returned with Zerubbabel, but due to the difficulties that arose, the rebuilding of the Temple was suspended.

The greater part of the Jews, however, instead of setting out for a ruined country unfit for habitation, remained in the comfortable exile, where all the benefits of civilization available in those times were at hand. Highly telling are the names of the main characters of the Scroll of Esther: Esther herself — whose name derives from the Babylonian goddess Ishtar — and Mordechai, a name that means "the god Marduk lives" — the chief deity of the Babylonian pantheon; as well as the fact that the king, whose wife Esther was, did not know she was Jewish — that is, outwardly her belonging to the people was in no way manifest (observance of customs, fulfillment of commandments).

And at this very time, the country into which the Jews had already begun so comfortably to integrate suddenly becomes hostile. Haman arranges the issuance of a decree by King Ahasuerus for the annihilation of the Jewish people. But his wife — Queen Esther remembers that she is Jewish, and reveals this to the king, who until that moment had not even known it. In the end, the Jewish people, being one step from annihilation, survive; the Jews remember that they are Jews. And already after Ahasuerus, King Dareyavesh (possibly Darius II) — Esther's son (according to the traditional and most logical interpretation) — issues a new instruction for the Jews to return and rebuild the Temple, and the majority of the Jews return (the aliyah of Ezra) and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

What happens overall: the people of Israel, attempting to evade their mission and even to forget their calling, find themselves on the brink of destruction, which pushes them back toward the mission destined for this people.

The Holocaust​

In this history we see a painfully familiar pattern, but now repeated with intensified cruelty.

At the beginning of this history, the head of the Persian Empire, Cyrus, is paralleled by the monarch of another great empire — King George V. On November 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour publishes the Declaration:

His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object.

And on July 24, 1922, the League of Nations confirms His Britannic Majesty as the Mandatory for Palestine for the realization of the objectives set forth in the Balfour Declaration.

Just as after the decree of Cyrus, a portion of the Jews makes for Palestine. And just as with Zerubbabel, the process encounters certain difficulties and obstacles.

But the greater part of the Jews decides to go nowhere and to rebuild nothing. Moreover, this is the virtually unanimous position of the people's religious leaders: there is no need to go anywhere until the Mashiach comes. Rav Kook writes about the beginning of the Geulah, but the majority of rabbis do not follow him.

The Jews, who for nearly two thousand years had been repeating the oath — "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning; let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth" — do not stream en masse to Jerusalem.

Moreover, the religious leaders invoke the "Three Oaths" from the Talmud (Ketubot 111a), which prohibit a mass return to the Land of Israel.

That is, they did not simply fail to go and rebuild the Temple — they said "our religion forbids us to do so."

All the while, they continued to celebrate Purim — without drawing any parallels.

And then the unbelievable happened: the most (or, at the very least, one of the most) rational, pragmatic, and educated nation in Europe goes insane. A paranoiac comes to power who considers it an indisputable fact that the Jews had deliberately been bringing Black people into Germany "with the same vile purpose — through miscegenation to inflict as much harm as possible upon the hated white race" (see Mein Kampf on the Yad Vashem website), and suchlike. And millions fanatically follow him.

Just as Haman, the Nazis devise a plan for the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" — through the annihilation of the Jews.

A conflagration ignites in Europe, one called by the Greek word Holocaust — "a burnt offering." In which a part of my ancestors and relatives perished, as, most likely, did those of many reading this text.

And in many of those who had accepted the Pharisaic — and particularly the Christian (and Christianity is a branch of precisely Pharisaic theology) — concept of God, a natural question arose: "Where was God during the Holocaust?" They had thought that God was a kindly old man with a long gray beard, sitting upon a cloud. But such a God does not exist — as history demonstrates. That is to say, if He exists, then He is as He is described in the Tanakh:

כִּי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, אֵשׁ אֹכְלָה הוּא: אֵל, קַנָּא

For the LORD thy God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.

(Dvarim/Deuteronomy 4:24)

There is a brilliant passage in the Rambam where he, as it were, develops this thought; reflecting on the Almighty, he writes:

והמשל בו – האש: תתיך קצת הדברים ותקפיא קצתם, ותבשל ותשרוף ותלבין ותשחיר

(in the classic translation by Ibn Tibbon)

And the example for this is fire: some things it melts, others it hardens. It cooks, and it burns. It whitens, and it blackens.

Just as "cheerfully" fire burns in a fireplace, creating domestic comfort, just as "cheerfully" it can burn down a house together with its inhabitants. This depends not on a change in the nature of fire, but on changes in the behavior of those who interact with it.

as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to cause you to perish, and to destroy you

כַּאֲשֶׁר-שָׂשׂ יְהוָה עֲלֵיכֶם, לְהֵיטִיב אֶתְכֶם וּלְהַרְבּוֹת אֶתְכֶם--כֵּן יָשִׂישׂ יְהוָה עֲלֵיכֶם, לְהַאֲבִיד אֶתְכֶם וּלְהַשְׁמִיד אֶתְכֶם

(Dvarim/Deuteronomy 28:63)

This is why prayer cannot "change the mood" or change the attributes of the Almighty, or direct the Almighty onto a different path. Prayer can change only the one who utters the prayer — and make him not the one who will be melted, but the one who will be hardened by fire; not the one who will be burned, but the one who will be warmed.

The same applies when the leaders of a people pray for the people. When Moses turned to the Almighty with a prayer to save the people, he did not change the mood of the Almighty; he changed the properties of the people, of which he was both a part and a leader.

As I have already written in "Metaphysics of War": the metaphysical level of causes is this: why does the Almighty (you may call this "the Universe," "the world," "life") allow this to happen to us (to a person in the case of illness, to a nation in the case of war); what is this war or illness sent to us for; and, most importantly: what must we realize and change in ourselves.

Therefore our refusal to attempt to understand is a devaluation of the Almighty's attempt to explain to us. And if we at all presuppose the existence of the Almighty, then the Almighty speaks to us not only through ancient sacred texts, but through everything that happens in the world. We have no way to understand and reason infallibly, but we do have a guaranteed way to err — and that is the refusal to attempt to understand.

Returning to the Foreword​

We return once more to the question: why could a great sage and righteous man, one of the most influential Jewish religious leaders, not give an answer to the question of the causes of the Holocaust? The letter we cited above was written as a response to the position held by a part of the Haredi rabbinate: that it was punishment for not observing the commandments strictly enough and not studying the Torah sufficiently. But in their understanding, the commandments are only what pertains to domestic rules — kashrut, the washing of hands, the prohibition on working on Shabbat — and Torah means the Talmud.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe writes:

How much more so of those who died in the Holocaust, many of whom, as is well known, were among the finest of Europe's Torah scholars and observant Jews

(Belief After the Holocaust // chabad.org)

Yes, he saw that this was not the cause.

But he could not say: the cause is the abandonment of the Temple, the violation of the oath about Jerusalem. Because this cannot be said without stepping outside the framework of the Talmudic tradition of the Pharisees, a tradition founded by those who abandoned the Temple (see my text "Sadducees and Pharisees" — one cannot do without it here).

And one cannot say such a thing without then saying further: therefore it is already necessary to leave the exile and build the Temple, otherwise catastrophe awaits us again.

Post and discussion on Facebook (in Russian)

The Hasmonean dynasty was a dynasty of priests—kohanim (כֹּהֲנִים)—that is, it belonged to the tradition of the Sadducees (צְדוּקִים), who were the dominant, or official, form of Judaism before the destruction of the Temple. By contrast, the Talmud–Shulchan Arukh tradition represents the line of their ideological opponents within Judaism—the Pharisees (פְּרוּשִׁים), perushim, “the separated ones.”

In other words, the Maccabees—the Hasmoneans—really did embody a different Judaism, one that differed sharply and fundamentally, in ideological terms, from Pharisaic Judaism.

A clarification is necessary here: in Christian tradition, the word “Pharisaic” acquired a negative meaning—hypocrisy, sanctimoniousness, ostentatious righteousness—although ideologically Jesus himself was precisely a Pharisee and conducted his polemics within Pharisaic discourse, as did the founder of Christianity, the Apostle Paul. In this text, I attach no negative meaning to the term “Pharisaic,” using it simply as a historical term.

The Sadducees represented the tradition of the priests (kohanim) and of the Temple attendants. In their worldview, the role of the priests and of the Temple was central.

In fact, I have already pointed out that the Maccabees fought first and foremost for control of the Temple and for the ability to continue the Temple service—something without which they could not conceive of Judaism. In other words, it was not enough for them to hide away, study Torah, and observe Shabbat and kashrut (that is the vision of Judaism characteristic of the exilic tradition); for them, it was a matter of principle to hold authority over the Temple and to fulfill the role assigned to the kohanim.

The ideological differences between the Sadducees and the Pharisees were substantial.
On matters of religious doctrine, the sources point to the following features of the Sadducean worldview:

• denial of the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the dead (a position that follows quite directly, in particular, from the Book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes)),
• denial of angels as independent entities.

These differences are also noted in early Christian sources: “For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both” (Acts 23:8).

As is easy to see, from the standpoint of strict adherence to Rambam’s Thirteen Principles of Faith—specifically the thirteenth principle—the Sadducees would seem, by that standard, to fall outside the bounds of Judaism altogether. And yet, in the age of the Temple, it was precisely the Sadducees who represented the dominant and traditional form of Judaism. This creates a striking paradox: the high priests who lit the Menorah in the Temple would, from the point of view of a present-day rabbi “from Bnei Brak,” be heretics.

The confrontation between the defenders of the priestly tradition—the Sadducees—and the “separated ones,” the Pharisees, was severe—so severe that in the 90s BCE it became a civil war that lasted about six years, under the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus, who also held the office of high priest and who crushed the Pharisees and executed their leaders.

According to Josephus, the Pharisees were regarded as “the most skillful interpreters of the laws.” The Sadducees, by contrast, were conservatives, supporters of a literal reading and understanding of the ancient scriptures. Yet the majority of the people were ideologically closer to the Pharisees than to the Temple aristocracy. As Josephus wrote:

“And concerning these things it is that great disputes and differences have arisen among them, while the Sadducees are able to persuade none but the rich, and have not the populace obsequious to them, but the Pharisees have the multitude on their side.”
(Antiquities XIII, 298)

In the Pharisaic conception, the Temple and the Temple service were not the essential load-bearing structure, while the priestly estate was perceived more as an adversary. In the end, the Temple was physically destroyed, and the priestly estate was broken. But Pharisaic Judaism was far better adapted to life without the Temple and without the Temple service, and it replaced the aristocratic institution of the priests (kohanim)—whose role in the Pentateuch was central and unshakable—with the more “democratic” institution of the rabbis. The Pharisees could survive in exile; the Sadducees could not.

The key moment here is the story told in the Talmud, in Gittin 56b:5. During the siege of Jerusalem, the Pharisaic leader Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai escapes from the city and reaches an arrangement with the Romans. When Vespasian, who commanded the siege and later became emperor, says, “Ask of me whatever you wish,” Ben Zakkai replies: “Give me Yavne and its sages” (תן לי יבנה וחכמיה). He does not ask that the Temple be saved. He asks for his own Sanhedrin—the Pharisaic one: without the Temple and without the Temple aristocracy, in Yavne rather than in Jerusalem. About a year later, the Temple was destroyed.

One may therefore say that Pharisaic (that is, Talmudic) Judaism was a beneficiary of the catastrophe of 70 CE—and perhaps, in that sense, one of its spiritual causes as well (which, incidentally, resonates in an interesting way with what is said in the Quran, although Muhammad himself could not have known all these historical details).

Thus, the rejection by modern Pharisees of the idea of restoring the Temple and the Temple service—which also implies the restoration of the role of their ideological rivals, the priestly estate—is not merely a legacy of the “Judaism of exile.” It reaches back to a much earlier period: the confrontation between the Pharisees and the ancient Temple aristocracy.

Post and discussion on Facebook (in Russian)

Any war and any illness, and indeed any crisis situation in our life, has two levels of causes: a material, “physical” one and an immaterial, “metaphysical” one.

The material level​

At the material level, in the case of illness this means, for example, questions such as “what triggered the allergy?”, “which virus infected the patient?”, and so on; in the case of war, it is “what motives guided those who started the war?”, “where, in fact, should the border run?”, and the like.

If we speak about ignoring causes at this level, then of course, as a classic example, we must recall Chamberlain and Daladier, who at one time were guided by exactly the same logic as Donald Trump today. But with an essential difference: what is being proposed now is even worse – it is Munich after Poland.

There is probably no need to spell out that the peace plan for the Middle East likewise rests on the assumption that there is no need to clarify the causes of the war.

We are not analysing these causes here; they are the subject of separate, extensive examinations. What we are talking about is that the “peace plans” being proposed today are constructed as if the question of the causes of the war and, as a consequence, the question of who in this war is right and who is guilty, not only can but even ought to be left outside the discussion.

The metaphysical level​

The metaphysical level of causes is the question of why the Almighty (you may call it the “Universe”, “the world”, “life”) allows this to happen to us – to an individual in the case of illness, to a nation in the case of war; for what this war or illness has been sent to us and, most importantly, what we must become aware of and change in ourselves.

Assessments and conclusions​

The current plans for a peaceful settlement, both in the Middle East and in the European East, are built on an explicit ignoring of the causes at the “material” level and on an implicit denial of the very existence of a metaphysical level of causes.

Of course, the approach “for now the main thing is a truce, and afterwards we will see” is understandable. But if we look from the viewpoint of metaphysical causes, then the war came to these peoples precisely because they did not want to see these causes without a war.

Or, in other words, if one ignores both the material and the metaphysical causes, war will not simply “be able to return”; it will most likely return in a more severe form and on a larger scale.

This is not a pessimistic scenario; on the contrary, there is a ray of hope in it, which stems from the fact that we matter to the Almighty (“the Universe”, “the world”, “life”) and that what happens in the world depends on us – on what is within us, on what we understand. “Us”, “we” here refers both to the individual person and to peoples/nations. We are not hostages of chains of accidents, forced only to extinguish their consequences; we are the cause of what happens in the world and of how it happens.

In the photograph: our fighters have completed a night forced march. Together with them we meet the dawn. The sun is rising over Jerusalem.

Post on Facebook (in Russian)

"Come on, my friend, get ready the pen,
Sign the paper to have it done!”
He touched his brow; with a heavy thud
A bottle emerged in a blink.
I asked in horror: “Is it blood?”
But answered he: “Just ink.”

(A.Galich)

(a)

An agreement on any actions by Israel in exchange for the release of hostages constitutes recognition of the legal personality (subject status) of a terrorist organization and legitimizes the taking of Israelis as hostages in the future.

If Israel agrees to anything in exchange for hostages, this means that taking Israelis hostage is profitable, and therefore they will be taken again—including abroad.

In its time, Israel did everything possible (including the Operation Entebbe, in which Yonatan Netanyahu was killed) in order not to comply with the demands of hostage-takers, and for a long period put an end to the practice of targeted hostage-taking.

Gilad Shalit was captured by chance. This was not a targeted seizure. But the Shalit deal showed that Israel’s position had changed. And the enemies decided that it was possible to continue pressing Israel in this way. If Israel continues to make concessions in exchange for hostages, new hostages will be seized—ever more and more.

The only reasonable course now is: after the return of the hostages, to declare that the deal concluded for the release of the hostages is void and does not bind Israel to anything, and, accordingly, after the hostages are released, to continue hostilities until the full capitulation of Gaza.

This is a fully lawful position, including in accordance with the rule in Article 52 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties —as reflecting a general legal principle. I wrote about this in greater detail in the article “Как следует действовать дальше” (“How We Should Proceed”) on the Channel 9 website, 2025-01-20

The formal capitulation of Gaza, with Hamas acknowledging defeat, is a path to peace, whereas receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is not a path to peace. As we recall, in 1994 the Nobel Peace Prize was already awarded with the wording “for their efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.”

(b)

What the Government of Israel does not yet understand is this: when signing any documents aimed at resolving the conflict—whether signing instruments of capitulation with enemies or agreements with partners—the first clauses should be ideological theses. Ideology legitimizes the narrative, and the narrative shapes what is perceived as the operative norm.

Our adversaries, however, understand this very well. The most cardinal error of Oslo was that the preamble to the Oslo II Agreement affirmed that there exists a “Palestinian people” and that the PLO is its representative.

And now any document aimed at achieving peace must begin with the statement and acknowledgment that the “Palestinian people” is an invention, and that the Arabs residing in Palestine do not possess a right to self-determination separate from the right of the Arab people as a whole.

In order for the text of a document to have a real effect, it is necessary to understand the other side’s frame of reference. For Arabs and for the majority of Muslims, international law is secondary to religious sources.

Therefore, any document signed with the participation of representatives of Arab or Muslim states must contain an indication that the right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel (also known as “Palestine”) derives not only from the norms of international law (which, for them, is of secondary importance), but—most importantly—from the Quran, with the corresponding citations (5:21, 17:104, and others). For only this is authoritative for them. And only the acknowledgment of this is the path to peace. Everything else is merely a pause for preparation for a new war.

You would be raising black wolves yourself
And teaching them wag the tail!
While having later to pay for that –
The payment you can delay!

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The position of rabbis of galut (the so-called "Haredim") towards army service is flawed not so much because they don't want to let their flock join the army in order to maintain control over their personalities, but primarily because they do so under the guise of the Torah.

Following the attack on Israel on 7.10.23, and considering the sacrifices we have endured and continue to endure in this war, such a stance cannot be justified.

The narrative that participating in a war in defense of Israel interferes with "Torah study" is just as absurd as the claim that treating the wounded interferes with studying medicine.

Continuing education courses for doctors should not be a place where doctors hide from patients, for then they lose their meaning. Likewise, a yeshiva should not be a place where "Torah students" hide from the world, but a place preparing them to interact with it, and it should not be viewed as the final stage of such interaction. You cannot learn solely from books what it means to love a woman and children, what it means to hate enemies who have killed your friends, what it means to overcome the fear of death, or what it means to have faith in the Almighty. The prayer of a warrior going into battle is on a spiritual level fundamentally unattainable in yeshiva conditions.

Yes, perhaps there can be a period in a doctor's life when, for some reason, he cannot treat patients and must concentrate exclusively on studying medical textbooks and lab work. But imagine a doctor who is called to treat the wounded and replies: "This distracts me from studying medicine, I might soil my sterile white coat, besides, your hospital is far from perfect, lacking even bandages and antiseptics, and those doctors who are now treating the wounded there in blood-spattered, non-sterile coats—these are the wrong kind of doctors and their medicine is incorrect."

This is exactly how galut rabbis are acting today. Just as medicine loses its meaning without the Hippocratic Oath, their "Torah study" loses its meaning without participation in the mission of the people of Israel (as Pinchas Polonsky says: their refusal to fight for Israel distorts their understanding of the Torah). In their understanding, Judaism is exile (galut), and for them, leaving galut means abandoning Judaism. Observing numerous daily rules and prohibitions invented in exile is, for them, more important than fighting for the land of Israel and more important than rebuilding the Temple.

Therefore, we must honestly state that "Haredi" rabbis holding such views cannot claim to be spiritual authorities, let alone "Torah sages."

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The Zionist regime has nearly collapsed and was crushed by the strikes of the Islamic Republic. They never imagined or conceived that such blows could be delivered to the regime by the Islamic Republic, yet it has happened. We thank God for assisting our armed forces, who managed to break through their advanced multi-layered defenses and leveled many of their urban and military areas to the ground…

The Islamic Republic has slapped America in the face

For anyone to expect Iran to surrender to another country is one of those absurd follies that will certainly become the subject of ridicule among wise and knowledgeable people.

It is crucial to understand here that, in their view, victory is not determined by who suffered greater losses. Indeed, they have suffered more losses, but they perceive themselves as victorious precisely because of these sacrifices. Similarly, the Soviet Union suffered greater losses in World War II than the Third Reich, yet the Soviet Union was the victor.

In their understanding, the very act of celebrating victory serves as self-evident proof of that victory. From their perspective, the defeated would not have the opportunity to celebrate; Israel, for example, does not celebrate.

In 1924, in the decision of the case R v Sussex Justices, ex parte McCarthy, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales Gordon Hewart formulated one of the most remarkable jurisprudential maxims:

Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done

Недостаточно осуществить правосудие, необходимо, чтобы было показано, что осуществлено правосудие

This principle similarly applies to achieving victory in war, particularly in wars involving adversaries such as those Israel fights:

it is not enough to defeat the enemy; it must also be seen that the enemy is defeated.

As I have written since the early days of the war with Gaza, victory over Gaza will only occur when a surviving representative of Hamas signs a document acknowledging Gaza's defeat. Anything short of that is not a victory, but merely a temporary ceasefire.

All the more so with such a formidable adversary as Iran, military actions should not end with a tweet by Trump, with all due respect to him, in the online newspaper "Truth." Military actions can be stopped solely and exclusively after Iran signs a document acknowledging its defeat and detailing its obligations towards the victors. Any other approach is folly on the part of the leadership of the United States and Israel.

Pictured: Lord Gordon Hewart

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By contrast, the previously traditional method accepted in international law for ending wars—signing an instrument of surrende, i.e., a formal recognition of defeat in the war, imposing on the guilty party the costs of war (reparations), and depriving it of territories (annexations)—actually works.

Photo: Marshall Keitel signs German surrender terms in Berlin, 8 May 1945

After the signing instruments of surrender, accompanied by territorial losses, deportations, and reparations, neither Germany nor even Japan attacked anyone again and transformed into peaceful, civilized, and respected states.

The ancient practice of distinguishing between states of war and peace, formally declaring war, and then formalizing its conclusion and results—is correct.

Whereas all this evasion and ambiguity—where it’s not clear whether we’re at war or not, and we’re not really at war with a neighboring country but with some bad terrorists, and so on—comes from ignorance, a lack of historical knowledge, and a misunderstanding of international law.

The current war began on October 7, 2023 with an attack by the Palestinian Authority (an autonomy on Israeli territory, created under the Oslo Accords) on Israel.

At that time, the war should have been classified as a "Non-International Armed Conflict (NIAC)", since the autonomy is located on Israeli territory (see Where Are Israel’s Borders and What Does Israel Really Occupy).

Contrary to the disgraceful situation where representatives of the Palestinian National Authority sit in the UN, portraying themselves as victims and making demands of Israel, while simultaneously disavowing responsibility for the attack on Israel, Israel should have announced from the very beginning that the attack came from the Palestinian Authority in violation of the Oslo Accords, and that responsibility lies not with some gang in Gaza, but with the legal institution known as the “Palestinian National Authority.”

It was precisely this entity that was entrusted with the administration of the relevant territories, specifically for the purpose of ensuring peace.

Formal responsibility for the attack should also rest with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was a party to the Oslo Accords.

This responsibility of the PNA and the PLO should include compensation for damages, including through territorial losses and the deportation of those whose interests the PLO and PNA are recognized to represent under the Oslo Accords.

For the fundamental principle of law is this: there are no rights without obligations; if an entity has the capacity to possess rights, it thereby also acquires the capacity to bear obligations.

On October 8, 2023, Lebanon entered the war by committing aggression against Israel. Who "Hezbollah" is—we are under no obligation to know; this is an internal issue of the Lebanese Republic. It is the Lebanese Republic that is a UN member and a party to international treaties, and it is the Republic that bears responsibility for the aggression, including by paying reparations, losing (annexed) territories, and deporting the population thereof.

Thus, as of October 8, 2023, the war had already become an international armed conflict. The parties to this conflict are, on the one hand, the Lebanese Republic, as a sovereign state, and the Palestinian Authority, as a non-sovereign but institutionalized autonomy on Israeli territory.

On October 19, 2023, another UN member—the Republic of Yemen—entered the war against Israel. Again, who the "Houthis" are—we are under no obligation to know; the aggression was committed by the Republic of Yemen, and it must bear responsibility for it.

The refusal to recognize the international legal responsibility of a state for armed actions carried out by institutionalized armed formations based and operating on its territory is a catastrophic concept, leading to the creation of “shell states.”

In this framework, shell states are formal structures with the status of a UN member (such as Lebanon and Yemen) or a “UN observer state” (such as the “State of Palestine”), which receive only the rights of a victim of retaliatory strikes and the opportunity to theatrically weep bitterly in the UN Security Council as a victim—as does Riyad Mansour—but without any responsibility for waging war, fearing neither reparations nor territorial losses, thus shielding the real aggressors hidden behind them.

On April 13, 2024, the Islamic Republic of Iran entered the war on the side of Lebanon, Yemen, and the Palestinian Authority, also committing aggression against Israel (see Strike on Iran). That means this is not a separate "12-day war" but the same war that began on October 7, 2023. And joining a war on the side of the aggressor is, in itself, participation in aggression.

And as experience from the time when wars were conducted according to international law—and not by the fantasies of airheaded pink cherubs—shows, namely the successful conclusion of the Second World War, war must be waged to force the aggressor to surrender (recall Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, and Nagasaki), and should end in surrender, with the aggressor losing territory, paying reparations, and undergoing the deportation of its population from the annexed territories.

This will restore peace and order. And the armed forces of all states with a practical interest in maintaining international order and peace should participate. In fact, this is what the UN was created for. And this is the right of a state that has been subjected to aggression, provided by Article 51 of the UN Charter, which also envisions the participation of other states in collective self-defense (casus foederis).

And yes, UN Security Council Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967, which, specifically for Israel, invented a prohibition—previously unheard of in international law (territorial annexations of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire occurred while the UN Charter was already in force—by the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Poland, the USSR, and others)—on depriving an aggressor of its territories, even if they were unlawfully seized—must be declared unlawful and in violation of the UN Charter.

The aggressor must lose control over the territory from which aggression was launched until it compensates for the damage and guarantees non-aggression, and paragraph 4 of Article 2 of the UN Charter must be interpreted precisely in this way (and not in the opposite manner, as it is now).

The recent shift observed in diplomatic and even international legal circles—from interpreting international legal norms as requiring firm military suppression and punishment of the aggressor, with methods strict enough to completely deter future wars, to prioritizing a ceasefire with the aggressor at any cost and protecting the aggressor’s population (reflected even in the renaming of “laws of war” to “International Humanitarian Law (IHL)”)—has, in practice, produced the opposite effect: the number of armed conflicts is rising, and therefore so is the number of victims. Wars frozen under the principle of “it doesn’t matter who started it, ceasefire above all” lead to recurrences and new victims. If the price of aggression is not high enough (loss of territory, population, reparations, etc.), and the aggressor is confident it can negotiate a ceasefire at any time, this only stimulates new acts of aggression.

And this kindergarten with tweets on social media instead of following legal formalities and signing the appropriate documents must end. What must return is the reasonable and honest application of international legal procedures.

Publication on the website of Israel’s TV Channel 9 (in Russian)

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In this context, I shall provide a brief international legal clarification:

Following Iran’s massive attacks against Israel on 13–14 April 2024 and 1 October 2024, today's strike on Iran cannot in any way be regarded as "preventive" or "preemptive."

It is precisely a retaliatory strike, as Israel had previously been attacked by Iran.

As early as 22 April 2024, the Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, sent an official letter to the UN Security Council notifying it of Iran's attack on Israel, urging the Security Council to take measures, and warning that Israel had the right to act by virtue of its right of self-defense.

The Security Council did not adopt any effective measures. Moreover, on 1 October 2024, Iran conducted another massive missile attack against Israel.

On 00 October 2024, Israel’s representative to the United Nations, Danny Danon, once again addressed the UN Security Council with a new letter concerning Iran’s actions, calling upon the Security Council to take measures to resolve the situation and warning that Israel would be compelled to take measures of self-defense.

Article 51 of the UN Charter states that Members of the United Nations possess "the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security."

Thus, in the absence of effective measures by the UN Security Council, bombardments of Iran by Israeli aircraft, as well as possible bombardments of Iran by Israel’s allies, constitute responsive measures in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter concerning the right of individual or collective self-defense.

"Behold a people that riseth up as a lioness, and as a lion doth he lift himself up; he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain" (Numbers, 23:24)

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As Moshe (Moses) once said to his people: "And the Lord shall scatter thee among all peoples, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth" (Deut. 28:64)

But every man from the people of Israel, entering into marriage, at the wedding ceremony pronounced an oath: "Let my right hand forget me if I forget Jerusalem"

Wedding each new year, the Jews raised a toast: "To the next year in Jerusalem"

Although from all sides they heard that they were cursed, cursed forever, and never to return.

Centuries passed, forming into millennia. New nations arose and passed into oblivion. Empires were created and destroyed.

But at every Jewish wedding: "If I forget Jerusalem..." And every New Year: "To the next year in Jerusalem"

In 1967, Israeli tanks entered Jerusalem. Almost two thousand years had passed...

The paratroopers who came out to the Temple Mount cried. And they sang a song that Naomi Shemer had written just a month before:

"My holy city, the city of light. My golden Jerusalem..."

(video in Russian, transcript in English)

Transcript:​

[00:00:05] Elena Prigova: Hello, friends! We have April 30th on the calendar today. We meet with Viktor Ageyev, who is an international lawyer, an attorney with extensive experience in international law. I will remind you that Viktor and I met a few years ago and discussed UN problems and, in particular, the exclusion of the Russian Federation from the UN Security Council. Viktor, good day.

[00:00:34] Viktor Ageyev: Good day! And we're having an evening already.

[00:00:37] Elena Prigova: Good evening, good day.

[00:00:38] Viktor Ageyev: For those watching from Israel, then happy holiday. We have Independence Day coming up.

[00:00:43] Elena Prigova: It's just that we've had a change and Viktor is now speaking under the Israeli flag. He lives in Israel, works in Israel. And I congratulate you on Independence Day. This is a very important holiday. Explain to me what independence means for Israel? I can explain all about American independence. I can tell you about Ukrainian independent addiction. But, what is independence for Israel (Yom Atzmaut)?

[00:01:19] Viktor Ageyev: It's not just for Israel, really. There is a concept that a certain cycle of world history was set in motion at the time of the destruction of the Israeli state. That is, that at the beginning of the first century A.D. the Temple was destroyed, Jerusalem was destroyed, and the people of Israel went into exile for 2,000 years. It set in motion a fundamental reformatting of the world, because Christianity came into being because of it, Islam came into being because of it. This could not have come about if Israel and its culture, its religion, its civilizational content was and remains simply the work of one Middle Eastern nation. And thanks to the very fact that Israel went into exile, a lot of things changed in the world in principle. That is, if we travel the world, in the Western world at least - you will find a book in any bedside table that tells the history of the people of Israel and the worldview of Israel people. In fact, it was a worldwide event. And what is Israel's independence? So it's not that Israel was dependent and then it got independence. In our case, it is the moment of the creation of the state. Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948, it declared that the state of Israel was being established in the land - after 2,000 years. There has never been anything like this in world history. That is, there is no nation that, not having its own state, would have survived for 2000 years, preserved historical memory as it happened here. And there is such an opinion that this is the start of a new cycle of world history.

[00:03:34] Viktor Ageyev: And, in fact, that is why Israel is at the center of the world conflicts, of the world processes. So, let's say we see a global conflict between right and left in the West - and it's very clearly now tied to what's happening in Israel. For Israel or against it? That is, there are other wars in the world. There is a war going on there, let's say, in Syria. In Israel, in fact, there is a civil war in Israel now, to some extent, because we are, well, not counting, let's say, Lebanon, Iran and the Houthis, - the main hot part is on the territory of Israel, in Gaza. But no other war is attracting so much attention right now, and no other nation in the history of the UN has been so high on the agenda. Well, for example - it's kind of the antithesis: there is a "United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People". No other nation in the world has such a committee, nor has it ever had one. But we know that this is not a committee struggling for inalienable rights of the (bogus) "Palestinian people," it is a committee struggling for State of Israel to cease to exist. Thus this is actually a very important event for the world agenda - that the state of Israel has been established. We are indeed in the midst of a historical process that is comparable to what happened in the first century A.D. when the state of Israel was destroyed. It's a new cycle.

[00:05:29] Elena Prigova: I've talked a lot about the importance of Oslo. We were discussing the importance of Oslo. 1993, and then Israel had to give up territories in return for peace. And - no peace, no territories now

[00:05:46] Viktor Ageyev: I don't agree as a lawyer that Israel gave away the territories.

[00:05:50] Elena Prigova: What happened in Oslo then?

[00:05:54] Viktor Ageyev: What happened in Oslo? In Oslo, agreements were signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization to establish a self-government for a national minority, the Arabs, within Israel. And this is a very important issue, but it's probably worth a separate broadcast: (legally) Israel has not lost any of its territories. What was Oslo's mistake? It's in what was in her preamble. The biggest mistake was in the preamble. It said that Israel recognizes the Palestine Liberation Organization as the representative of the "Palestinian people." Anti-Israel activity and rhetoric rides atop three great whales of myth. The first 🐋 is the allegation of Israeli occupation of land. The second 🐋 is the assertion of the existence of a "Palestinian people" as a separate subject of the right to self-determination, distinct from the Arab people as a whole. And the third 🐋 is the myth of the existence of a "Palestinian state." These three whales - they are very serious. And here is one of those whales - the existence of the "Palestinian people". That is, the main mistake of Oslo was in the official recognition that there was a certain separate "Palestinian people", and it not only existed, but it was also represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization, which in fact was a creation of the KGB of the USSR. That is, Yasser Arafat was reportedly trained at a KGB school. Mahmoud Abbas, the current head of the organization ...

[00:07:45] Elena Prigova: He had another school in Moscow.

[00:07:47] Viktor Ageyev: He studied at the "Peoples' Friendship University", so called, named after Patrice Lumumba. And there are documents that he worked for the KGB under the nickname "Krotov." That document is there, and as we know, the KGB, it hasn't gone anywhere. He took over the power in Russia. Here, so that's a thing, too. You have to remember that there's actually some very strange connection between Marxism and Islamism there, seemingly completely contradictory. But here we have Mahmoud Dervish, a poet, a Muslim, a communist.

[00:08:28] Elena Prigova: And I have a question like this, the simplest question that comes up when you get the gist of it. They, the Israelis, sat down at the negotiating table with an organization that does not recognize the state of Israel, which is a terrorist enclave within the state of Israel itself, the Palestine Liberation Organization. I don't understand how you could sit down at the negotiating table with Yasser Arafat - thinking back to '93, with Mahmoud Abbas, who is his follower, and continue to have some kind of negotiations. But the international community within the UN continues this narrative: one land, two states. And that's pretty much what happens to our international community. They keep nodding at Israel, bashing Israel.

[00:09:37] Viktor Ageyev: That's a good question: how was it possible to have an agreement with them? There are actually two fundamental underlying concepts here, in understanding what's going on in Israel, in understanding the causes of the conflict. Conventionally speaking, it's kind of like "right" and "left." Our leftists tend to be proponents of a materialistic and even atheistic view of the world. This is why, as I have written and said many times before, that the left is fundamentally incapable of understanding our enemies, because the motivation that drives our enemies - in the world of the left, it doesn't exist. Why are they at war with Israel? What are they fighting for? I mean, that's what they're kind of talking about. What is the name of the war - Gaza's attack on Israel? This is the "Al-Aqsa Flood". So its purpose is to wash away the Israelites, to cleanse the holy city of Al-Quds (the holy city of Jerusalem) from us. They're not fighting over territory, they're not fighting over resources. They are fighting to make sure that there will be no Jews here in the Holy Land. Why it's important. Because the hottest wars are not about money or territory, they are about worldviews. That is, for centuries, the Muslim worldview has treated the "yahud," the Jews, as damned and rejected. These are the despicable people. So it is like this: they have lost, they have fallen away from the Most High. And what we have now... Many Israelis do not understand this: the fact that now the Israelis have regained the holy city of Jerusalem, in the understanding of many Muslims means that now it turns out like: "they may be now with the Almighty, and now we are like them then" That is, they are fighting to prove that the Almighty has not abandoned them. This is a very, very serious thing. And they're willing to die for it. Our leftists are incapable of understanding this. In the world of our leftists, how do they explain why they are at war with us? "I guess we've been oppressing them. I guess they don't have much land. I guess they've got something right there - they're out there trying to do something for themselves."

[00:12:15] Viktor Ageyev: "Let us let them live the way they want to live. We won't touch them, then they won't touch us." That straight up sounded official. When we had the unilateral disengagement process in 2005, when we withdrew from Gaza. It sounded in the Knesset that "they won't be able to say that we're occupying them now - we're not in Gaza anymore." But they're not fighting for Gaza, they're fighting for Jerusalem. And it's written right on their banners. So it's not because life was bad in Gaza, but because Israel's presence in Jerusalem gives them a sense of detachment from God. That's why they were willing to invade Israel despite our clear military advantage. So it's a desperate move entirely. This should not be underestimated either. A completely desperate step: this is self-sacrifice, this is asceticism. Yes. I mean, these are people who have been there their whole lives, sitting in tunnels, fighting. It's not like they're doing it for a comfortable life. And our leftists think that they are leading for a comfortable life, that they just want to have wealthy life, to have self-government. That was the idea in Oslo: let's give them self-government. Then in 2005, "Maybe they don't have enough self-government there? Let us withdraw our troops, let us leave altogether" They liquidated our settlements there, so that there would be no Israelis left at all. "Then they won't touch us" is a completely false concept, a misunderstanding of what drives that side. And the misunderstanding is due to the fact that in the world of our leftists all this doesn't exist, it doesn't exist. "It's stupid to fight for some ancient ruins" So this is a very serious point, yes, which shows two opposite approaches.

[00:14:15] Elena Prigova: There are some very serious points about terminology. When the West Bank of Jordan sounds constantly, "occupied West Bank." It is thrown out that it is Judea and Shomron, the original Israeli territories, which were taken and named so. Is it a misunderstanding of what's going on, an unwillingness to figure it out? we now have this intense conflict. I'll quote, on April 22 of this year, there was a turning point in Israeli diplomacy, and Israel's official account on "X.com," issued a powerful statement, verbatim: "The Palestinian Authority doesn't educate children, it indoctrinates them: maps without Israel; teachers praising martyrdom; textbooks that glorify terror. As long as they teach hate, there is no hope for peace. Stop ignoring it. Stop funding education that leads to terror." That's the message Israel is sending right now. And what message is being sent, what message, by a world that is worried about the poor "Palestinians" that Israel is not letting live. By the way, I had a very unpleasant conversation yesterday as well. I noticed a car outside my house, a big car like this - transportation, and they have the name of the company Al-Aqsa. That's the name of the company. And I just walked up to the driver and asked, where is he from? He looked at me with hatred. And from there, of course, the conversation went in a different direction, and we will never agree. But I got the license plate number. And I feel it is my duty to inform, our distinguished service, that these are people who support terrorism. But I realize this will be a voice crying out in the wilderness.

[00:16:34] Viktor Ageyev: Actually, indirectly. Indirectly.

[00:16:36] Elena Prigova: It's circumstantial - it's not circumstantial. Because these people who go around with banners "From the River to the Sea", they eventually materialize the words into pogroms. Now, I'm talking about international law. About Israel not even being allowed to close UNRWA on its territory.

[00:17:00] Viktor Ageyev: Why not? Very much so.

[00:17:03] Elena Prigova: Yeah, well, they shut it down, and rightly so. The Trump administration has done the same by cutting off funding. But, how, then, does what happens within the U.N. happen? With what Israel's foreign minister specifically said: that Gutterish was personally responsible for UNRWA's crimes.

[00:17:30] Viktor Ageyev: See, there's this interesting thing here that also has to do with the conflict between the right and the left. So there's this organization called the Socialist International. It was created by the characters we know: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Actually, Karl Marx was the author of the idea of the International. This organization, it has a website, it has policy documents, a list of those who are part of it. And it is written in their program documents that their goal is the destruction of "capitalism," that is, the destruction of modern Western society. The member of this organization is the party that is the core of the Israeli protests. It's the so-called "Democrats" party. It was formed by the merger of remnants of the Avodah and Meretz parties. Prior to that, the Meretz Party was a member of the Socialist International. And a member of that very same socialist international is the Fatah party, led by KGB agent Mahmoud Abbas. Yes, and its previous head was Antonio Gutteres.

[00:19:00] Elena Prigova: I knew he was a socialist. I understood all that, but to have him so indoctrinated into this whole structure .... When the spectre, the spectre of communism is haunting Europe ...

[00:19:14] Viktor Ageyev: is haunting ...

[00:19:15] Elena Prigova: Across Europe

[00:19:15] Viktor Ageyev: There's a spectre out there. And it is not just "haunting", but in fact it is a very serious, influential force. Socialist International has, I believe, either the second or the first largest faction in the European Parliament. And the representative of that faction was also the socialist Josep Borrell, who you've obviously also heard of, who was very vocal in his position. I mean, really, what do these all have in common? It is this fusion of Marxism and Islamism that we talked about, which actually created the very idea of the "Palestinian people" and the "Palestine Liberation Organization". I mean, we have, for example, well, here's the leader of the Democrats, Yair Golan. He is very active there now. So that's the core of these protests in Israel. And they are gaining votes in Israel. But we have him in Israel being silent about the fact that they are one-party with Abbas. And, in fact, they are one-party. That is, they are part of the same structure.

[00:20:26] Elena Prigova: And we're talking about counter propaganda. Where are these posters that here they are together. This you and I, let's say, know, and our viewers already know. It should be loudly talked about that these people work for Abbas, together with Abbas, together with the enemies of Israel. I want one more little remark, Sarah Huckabee, who is the governor of Arkansas, is the daughter of her daddy, who is America's representative to Israel. I can say that I adore this woman. She is the only one, so far, who has stated that Arkansas forbids the use of the "West Bank" name, only - "Judea and Samaria."

[00:21:21] Viktor Ageyev: Well, look, here actually, I don't think it's that scary, because, indeed, the Jordan has two banks (there used to be a Zionist song: "and both are ours"...) Both banks are territory of Palestine. That is, both the east bank and the west bank. In the West Bank is the district of Judea and Samaria. And that's where the Palestinian Authority is. One more remark: I wouldn't say Golan is working for Abbas. It's just that both he and Abbas are working on the same subject, the same concept. That is, they don't work for each other, they just serve the same idea.

[00:22:01] Elena Prigova: But if people serve the same idea, they are called associates.

[00:22:05] Viktor Ageyev: Yeah, yeah. That's right. That's the thing to say, they're associates, they're one-party. They are what's called ... "comrades."

[00:22:14] Elena Prigova: And do you think that this internal anti-Semitism among Jews who are communists, socialists and other destructivists, why is it so developed? That's the whole thing... I look at 28 members of our Congress, Jewish, they are all leftists, they will all vote against Israel, they will all support "Palestine".

[00:22:43] Viktor Ageyev: And,

[00:22:43] Elena Prigova: Support

[00:22:45] Viktor Ageyev: There is an explanation for this. In fact, the reason - it's very very very serious. Because, as I was saying, the traditional historical conflict between the Right and the Left has now become so vivid, because another conflict has been superimposed on it - between materialists, supporters of the anthropocentric view of the world, or, as it is sometimes called, "humanism" - that is, where human is the supreme value, and there is nothing else in the world. And between, the proponents of, let's say, the theocentric, "idealistic" (what Marxist philosophy called idealism) - religious view of the world. This is a very serious conflict. And why do so many Jews side with the left? On the side of the anti-religious, on the left, which now aligns itself with the anti-religious. For example, we have the "Haredim" (ultra-Orthodox), they are actually leftists too, but it turns out that because they are religious, they have fallen into the right-wing camp, even though they don't really belong there (except for Chabad, which has a completely separate story). Is that why? Because if one recognizes that the atheistic materialistic idea of the world is wrong, then it turns out that if the Torah and the Bible are right, then this places a very great responsibility on the Jew. And upon the people of Israel - a very great responsibility. We have this notion of "Holocaust philosophy." This is a very painful question: why did the Holocaust happen? Did it just happen by chance, or were the people of Israel somehow punished for something, or were they led to something? Because if it's accidental, well, it's like we don't owe anyone anything then. What if it didn't happen by accident? And if, in fact, by belonging to this nation, you bear the burden of responsibility, it is something that not everyone wants to realize. You were born, and you already have a burden of responsibility. And in fact, that's why there's a very big rejection of it among many Jews, especially intellectuals, people who want to feel like a completely independent, "atomic" being in this world. This is how the religious idea, and by extension the right-wing idea associated with it, causes such rejection. And now the conflict between the left and the right, it's becoming a religious conflict. A conflict between religious and anti-religious views.

[00:25:44] Elena Prigova: That's how we got to the conflict. I will still mention UNRWA. Israel's Foreign Minister says: we will not appear before the International Criminal Court at the hearings. That is, Israel will not participate in the upcoming hearings of the international court. And do you think non-participation, refusal to participate, is the right decision? Is ignoring it the right thing to do? Or is it still more correct to use the tribune of this international court to condemn anti-Semitism?

[00:26:24] Viktor Ageyev: This, of course, is a big mistake, because...

[00:26:27] Elena Prigova: Explain the legal details then, please, and why this is a big mistake?

[00:26:33] Viktor Ageyev: Because, it's very important to articulate your position. That is, first of all, why is Israel losing the information war? Because on the one hand, Netanyahu is very diplomatic, on the other hand (and my main complaint with him is this), he sometimes does the right thing, but he doesn't articulate it. So Israel is afraid to announce something.... And this is about again what's going on. Because if we don't articulate our position, we can't win the information war if we adjust to them. Here I'll give you an example. Let's say the International Criminal Court, the case against Netanyahu and Galant for war crimes. And here's the accusation, "you're not supplying enough humanitarian aid." What are Israel's representatives saying in response? "Yeah no, we try, we try to provide it as much as we can." And what they hear in response is, "it's still not enough." This is the wrong position because the correct position is to open the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 23. To point the finger and say, "look, it says here that we have to let in: we have to let in, objects necessary for religious worship; as well as medicines; and food for children under 15, expectant mothers and maternity cases, and that - provided that we have no doubt that these items will not get to other people, that is, for example, to children over 15 years old, or to women who are not pregnant and not in labor". This is what international law obliges us to do. And that is why the correct position is to say that since we are obliged to supply only this, and in a situation where we have no mechanisms to ensure that no one else gets it, and even the Geneva Convention provides for a mechanism - that a third independent state is appointed.

[00:28:56] Viktor Ageyev: And so we can, Israel would have to say that until representatives of a third state, which we trust, are appointed, because it cannot be appointed without us, there will be no deliveries at all. It would be the right thing to do, it would be under international law. Instead of making excuses about: "no, we're trying." So the problem is that leftists have substituted international law with myths - leftist myths that are passed off as international law. Here you go. And even our government in Israel, unfortunately, goes along with these myths, trying to, well, to match the sentiments of the masses. As they used to say in the Soviet Union, "the broad masses of working people". Instead of coming out and saying that: in fact, it is like this, and our position is like this. And even though you might lose in court. I've had a lot of that in my practice. I worked in Ukraine, where it was much more difficult to work with the courts than it is now with an international court. Simply because we were there - just lawyers with nothing behind them. And if you have the state behind you, it's different. But we have achieved in high-profile cases, even when we lost in court, we achieved that public opinion was on our side. I had a story like this when I was walking down the hallway of the court .... Here I am walking down the hallway of the court, and the chief justice of the court, who is presiding over the case, walks towards me. He is ashamed to meet with me, he turns around and runs away, because we are there ... I don't want to say the word "hounded", but we showed them step by step: "we know that you are under pressure, but look, two times two is still four...".

[00:30:44] Elena Prigova: you have dirt on them.

[00:30:46] Viktor Ageyev: I have a real case in point as well. So we're looking at a case. This is the Luhansk Oblast Court of Appeals. Here you go. And I say, "look, theft is when there is a victim, there is a defendant, there is an object of theft, and the object of theft must move from the victim to the possession of the defendant". That's what I say once, second time, third time. And one of the judges... And, so, the president of the court was like that, more intelligent, she tilted her head there, looking down and did not say anything, and one of the judges, who is dumber, he could not stand it and said: "Yes, we have already understood". I said, "Okay, then I have a question, why is my client in a cage?" I mean, that's the way it works. And that's with a full house of people. I mean, they (the judges), they understand what it looks like, too. And before that, they have to be staged. Because, as one great judge said, "not only must Justice be done, it must also be seen to be done," so, in the case where justice is not done, it must also be shown that it is not justice done. We can't just stand back and let, say, an institution called the International Criminal Court or even the International Court of Justice pretend that they are doing justice. We shouldn't let them do that.

[00:32:23] Elena Prigova: Israel does not recognize the international ...

[00:32:27] Viktor Ageyev: There are two courts in The Hague. It's a complicated issue there. In fact, there is the International Court of Justice - Israel recognizes it as a member of the UN because all UN members recognize it - and there is the International Criminal Court, neither the United States nor Israel recognizes it.

[00:32:49] Elena Prigova: Neither does Russia, by the way.

[00:32:53] Viktor Ageyev: Yeah, and Russia doesn't recognize it either. But there's a reason for that there, naturally. But, again, let's say Israel may not recognize the International Criminal Court, but there are Israeli citizens, Yoav Galant and Benjamin Netanyahu, they can simply as persons accused say, "we have the right to defend ourselves, our state does not recognize your court, but we have the right to present our position." After all, if you work smart. The way our opposite side actually works. Hamas bought South Africa's representatives. Well, like, we all realize that he just bought it, because - why is South Africa suddenly "fighting for human rights in Gaza"? Well, simply because South Africa is one of the most corrupt state on the planet. And we could just use some of our allies. I mean, after all, we have states that support us and that have not yet withdrawn from the International Criminal Court. They, too, can present their position.

[00:33:57] Elena Prigova: Here's a question I absolutely have... I heard: South Africa is the most corrupt country in the world.

[00:34:04] Viktor Ageyev: One of the most. I don't have a tape measure or a yardstick to measure exactly..

[00:34:09] Elena Prigova: There is no corruption rating. But at the same time, I'm a little off-topic right now. But here is President Zelensky going exactly there, exactly to South Africa, and by doing so, he throws this - it's a message, he sends a message. What do you think of Ukraine, which sends out messages like this?

[00:34:29] Viktor Ageyev: Well, I honestly don't understand why Zelensky is going there. But Ukraine, I tell you, here's the fact that we continue our theme of UN reform, perhaps Ukraine, unfortunately, until recently, until now, has not had the ability to take its own position, to play its own game. I mean, Israel doesn't always succeed, but still Israel is a fairly independent state. We don't celebrate Independence Day for nothing. Ukraine does not have its own position at the moment, because even now, let's say, even if it is in conflict with the United States, to some extent (because we have all seen this altercation between Zelensky and Trump), Zelensky was basically right, when he said: "we tried to negotiate with Putin, it still won't work" But to formulate it, to convey it - they have neither the ability nor people with the appropriate qualifications.

[00:35:46] Elena Prigova: Let's leave this topic for now. I'm just saying. Back to our Israel. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy received Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa in London. There's an interesting point going on there next. They signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday pledging to advance Palestinian statehood as part of a two-state solution. I emphasize, the UK is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and has a veto, has a very serious voice. And that's the kind of message the UK administration is sending. How can this end?

[00:36:38] Viktor Ageyev: Look, where I would start analyzing this situation here is with the Oslo Treaty. In the Oslo Treaty, I don't remember the article number, it says very clearly that the Palestinian National Authority will have only those powers that the state of Israel will transfer to it. And it specifically emphasizes there that it has no right to open diplomatic missions, no right to any foreign relations. And so, it can't have a foreign minister, it can't open a diplomatic mission, it can't have representation at the UN, it can't have embassies, consulates. This is all clearly spelled out in the Oslo Accords. That is, the Palestinian Authority has no right to foreign relations. It's illegal.

[00:37:38] Elena Prigova: Then, in that case, if it's illegal and there are these Oslo Accords, how did 154 or how many states of the United Nations recognize a "Palestinian state"?

[00:37:53] Viktor Ageyev: This is actually probably a topic for maybe a separate discussion. The thing is, there is such a.... So in Latin it would be equivocation, in English it would be fraud, and in Russian it would be deception. Equivocation is such a logical device, a fallacy, consisting in using the same word for different things. So what's the problem here? It's that the Palestinian National Authority was established under the Oslo Treaty in 1994, and it has nothing to do with the "State of Palestine", which has all these recognitions. "The State of Palestine" was proclaimed in Algeria in 1988 by the same Palestine Liberation Organization. It was late 1988. And practically there in two or three months they got most of the recognitions they have now. This included recognizing, first and foremost, the Soviet Union and its satellites. So let's remember that Zelensky said that "we recognize both Israel and Palestine," and that's because they (the Ukrainian SSR) recognized the state of Palestine together with the Soviet Union in 1988, when they did not recognize Israel. That is 1988, all those states that did not recognize Israel, they are Arab states, most of them, except some, are Arab states, and they are socialist camp states. Here they recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization's proclamation in Algeria, the "State of Palestine." But those recognitions have nothing to do with that autonomy. These are different institution. This autonomy has a clear stipulation in the Oslo treaty that they have no right to foreign relations. These are different institutions.

[00:39:52] Elena Prigova: Does Israel have the right to break those relationships and the Oslo Accords? And how?

[00:39:56] Viktor Ageyev: Yes, of course he has the right. Well, first of all, there are general general rules of thumb. This is the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which states that, with certain exceptions, treaties may be terminated due to changes in circumstances, even if the treaty itself does not spell out a clear procedure for its termination, denunciation, in principle treaties are not concluded forever, except for some treaties, in particular treaties on borders. That's if the situation has changed, then you can get out of the agreement. I will give such a new example, of the latest one is the ceasefire agreement. ... This is sound here... fireworks, probably.

[00:40:44] Elena Prigova: Fireworks...

[00:40:47] Viktor Ageyev: We're already so...

[00:40:48] Elena Prigova: Used to others.

[00:40:49] Viktor Ageyev: Here you go. I mean, there was an agreement between Syria and Israel for a cease-fire and a withdrawal. By which, actually, the Golan was (the Golan Heights), it was Israeli because that was stipulated in the agreement with Syria. And because of what has now happened in Syria, Israel has violated that agreement. But in principle, it is justified in view of the fact that, well, here's how we could withdraw from the agreement if the situation has changed dramatically. It's exactly the same with Oslo. So, we can say that the Oslo treaty has been violated by the other side, it has indeed been violated. That is, the idea behind the Oslo Treaty was to achieve peace. It was a false idea, as we've said, meaning it was built on the left's misperception of our enemies, fundamentally flawed, but it's there nonetheless. I mean, there was some positive idea that "let's give them self-government and there will be peace". But that idea didn't work. Obviously, it didn't work. After October seventh, it became clear to everyone that Oslo was not securing peace, that the fact that we had done disengagement was not securing peace. Of course, this is a formal basis for, say, our Knesset to decide to denounce the Oslo Treaty.

[00:42:23] Elena Prigova: The last thing that struck me, outraged me with its cynicism, was when Abbas said that according to the Koran, the Jewish temple stood in Yemen. His predecessor, the organizer and spiritual leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, said this. And we're talking about this now as a substitution of all concepts, a substitution of what was, a substitution of history, a leveling of history, a rewriting of history and indoctrinating millions, hundreds of millions of the Arab world that "we now, we (here's this so-called "Palestine" that's not really theirs), we're entitled to Jerusalem (al-Quds, as you said at the beginning) and the temple and everything that Israel wants to have." That's how you fight it?

[00:43:32] Viktor Ageyev: There's a very interesting topic, actually, but I don't know, it probably deserves a separate program too.

[00:43:37] Elena Prigova: Look how many topics we have for separate programs.

[00:43:39] Viktor Ageyev: Yes. That is, I was saying that anti-Israel propaganda stands on three pillars. This is 1) the existence of the Palestinian people and their separate right to self-determination, different from that of the Arab people. It is 2) the myth of the "Palestinian state", something we have just touched on, because in fact the "Palestinian state" is also such a myth. And this is 3) the issue of occupation. Those are the three great whales of myth, that the Anti-Israel rhetoric rides atop. And we need a whaling ship to harpoon it. And we have our own kind of icebreaker that ... In fact, that's where I believe the path to peace is. This is Al-Aqsa. I mean, it's the same problem that we're being fought over. In a nutshell... Well, I've been talking to Muslims a lot lately about this topic, and it's very interesting to me. Because I believe that ... This, so to speak, is sometimes or not always understood by my international lawyer colleagues. I believe that in those matters, when we talk about the conflict in the Middle East, we should use not only the norms of international conventions of modern times, but also the norms of what was originally law, that is, the norms of religious law. Because in principle law was born as religious law. That is, the basic concepts, there "do not kill", "do not steal" - these are religious norms. So here's the question: what is Al-Aqsa really? This is the key, it seems to me, to resolving this conflict in principle.

[00:45:26] Viktor Ageyev: We were just recently on the Temple Mount... If you've been to Jerusalem, there's a slope down on one side, and that's where our excavations were done at the Wall. There are huge rocks there. An idea of how grand a building it was is given by the fact that in all of history the largest stone used in construction is the stone that - right there in the Wall. In the entire history of mankind. This gives an idea of how majestic this ancient Temple was. It's we haven't started digging in the middle yet, it's just around - around, because we're not digging in the middle yet, just around. That is, how majestic this temple of the ancient world is. And what is now called the Al-Aqsa Mosque - and this is a historical fact - was started to be built by Caliph Umar after he conquered Jerusalem in 638. Muslims prayed toward Al Aqsa, toward the "Distant Temple" back in Muhammad's time. And when Omar conquered Jerusalem, Muhammad was gone. I mean, it wasn't anymore. So, in the beginning under Muhammad, Muslims prayed toward the temple that stands in Jerusalem. The word for "mosque" is "masjid" in Arabic, which means "temple". "Al-Aqsa Mosque" is "the Farthest Temple" So here's a question: toward which temple in Jerusalem did Muslims pray before they started building a mosque there? What was the temple in Jerusalem?

[00:47:25] Elena Prigova: This is an interesting topic.

[00:47:27] Viktor Ageyev: And there's a perfectly unambiguous answer to the question here. You understand, don't you? There can only be one answer here: it is Solomon's Temple (well, rebuilt and destroyed, respectively). That is, Muslims under Mohammed prayed toward this Temple. Here in a discussion with Muslims, they say, "Well, OK, well, so Umar kind of rebuilt." I say: well, let's look at even what we see now - is it the "Al-Aqsa Mosque"? Under Umar, in general, excuse me, it was a small house of worship altogether. But even now (now you can go up to the mountain, you can go to see it) - it is not even a pathetic semblance of the majestic Temple that was there. Because this whole mountain was walled, it was a temple complex. It was a temple complex, the greatest in the history of mankind. Even just there, the stone blocks are the largest in the history of mankind. There were no such blocks in the Egyptian pyramids.... In St. Petersburg, under the Bronze Horseman, there is one, I think, even the biggest stone ever moved - it is bigger than the stones of the Temple Mount, but it was the 18th century, under Catherine the Great, and it's not a building, it's just a single stone, and there is a wall made of such stones.

[00:48:56] Elena Prigova: Look, you and I have just brought up topics without which you cannot understand the essence of conflict.

[00:49:04] Viktor Ageyev: Yes. And if we don't understand the real reasons of conflict, we can't resolve it.

[00:49:08] Elena Prigova: That's right. So, we are now saying with you that the side that claims to be the truth, the temple, everything, has based it on lies and the substitution of all concepts. I'm not even mentioning that their most important feast of sacrifice is again a substitution of biblical concepts. I am grateful to you for starting our meetings and conversations on this topic. I really want to talk to you about Israeli diplomacy. Or rather, why Israel is really losing the information war, why Israel is ignoring meetings that could be ignored and, on the contrary, coming with its agenda and telling the world about it. These are very important topics. They are topics related to war and peace. Tomorrow will be a new countdown for the new year after Independence Day. I wish you and all Israelis to remember what this day is about and less politics should be in it, more the essence, the true essence of the freedom and independence of the Jewish state, which has returned to its walls, to its homes, to its land, its historic land. Thank you again. We had Viktor Ageyev with us, an international lawyer who knows those details - and we always say that not only the devil is in the details, the truth is in the details too. Thank you, Viktor. You're on the Continent Channel. Please subscribe, spread the video. If anything is unclear to you, ask questions. We will be answering those questions. Thank you for being with us. All the best. Am Yisrael hai!

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On this Memorial Day, I stand before the names that no longer have a voice.
Before the faces that are burned into my memory as if they were here yesterday.
Brothers and sisters along the way, in the war, in the dreams.

They were the ones who walked with me on the battlefield,
With whom we tore apart the lines of fear - and the lines of hope.

And when my wound tried to overcome my body,
They were already there - wrapped in a silence,
That I will never forget.

I came back to fight - not only for myself.
I came back for them.
Because each one who fell left me a silent testament:
To continue,
Raise the flag with aching hands,
And to keep going - even when my heart is heavy.

On this day, when the siren cuts through the sky,
I close my eyes - and I see them:
Laughter on duty,
An anxious look on the last night,
Promises that we did not have time to make - and that were broken.

They cannot be measured by numbers, or names on obelisks.

They live in me,
Breathe in me.
They are an integral part of who I am today.
And each of us.

On this Memorial Day, I promise:
I will not forget.

ביום הזיכרון הזה — אני עומד מול שמות שאין להם עוד קול.
מול פרצופים שצרובים בזיכרוני, כאילו היו כאן אתמול.
אחים ואחיות לדרך, לחזית, לחלום.

הם היו אלה שהלכו איתי בשדות האש,
שפרצו יחד איתי את קווי הפחד — ואת קווי התקווה.
וכשפציעתי ניסתה להכריע את גופי,
הם כבר שכבו שם — עטופים בשקט,
שלא אוכל לשכוח לעולם.

חזרתי להילחם — לא רק בעבורי.
חזרתי בשבילם.
כי כל מי שנפל, השאיר לי צוואה חרישית:
להמשיך.
להרים את הדגל בידיים כואבות,
ולהמשיך לצעוד — גם כשהלב כבד.

ביום הזה, כשהצפירה חותכת את השמיים,
אני עוצם עיניים — ורואה אותם:
את הצחוק במוצב,
את המבט המתרגש בלילה האחרון,
את ההבטחות שלא הספקנו לתת — ושנשברו.

הם לא נמדדים במספרים, ולא רק בשמות על קירות הזיכרון.
הם חיים בתוכי.
נושמים בי.
היום, חלק בלתי נפרד מכל מה שאני.
ומכל אחד ואחת מאיתנו.

ביום הזיכרון הזה, אני לא שוכח.
אני מבטיח.

All previous attacks by Gaza against Israel followed the same pattern: Gaza initiates bombardments against Israel; Israel retaliates; Hamas and its allies flood the media and social networks with pictures of dead and crying children, triggering an outcry: "This must be stopped immediately; it doesn't matter who started it or who's right—the violence must end." Israel would halt its strikes. Gaza would declare victory, receiving fresh streams of financial and humanitarian aid, increased because now it needed "rebuilding." Those allocating and channeling the aid would benefit from greater kickbacks. Gaza would stockpile new rockets, and the cycle would repeat.

Why did our military believe Gaza would not initiate a full-scale war?

Because militarily, Gaza cannot stand against Israel—the imbalance of power is too great. The Hamas leadership understood this very well and could not fail to comprehend the situation.

So what did our military overlook, and what was Hamas counting on? They overlooked Hamas’s political support—not just from corrupt officials eager for fresh financial inflows to Gaza, but also from broad segments of left-wing circles in Israel and internationally.

Hamas clearly anticipated executing a swift and effective raid on border military facilities, demonstrating their efficiency to sponsors, showing that with continued funding and armament, they could build forces capable of confronting Israel. They expected Israel’s retaliatory strike to be curtailed by the usual methods: photographs and videos of dead children, weeping women, and outcries from the global and domestic left—"this must stop immediately, regardless of who started it; don't you have a sympathy for innocent children?"

But,

a) the attack proved far too effective, catching Israeli forces severely off-guard, and

B) most crucially, Gaza residents storming through the breached wall into Israeli settlements and a music festival committed unimaginable atrocities. They proudly posted videos on Telegram, which quickly spread to other social networks and media, thus breaking the traditional pattern of anti-Israeli propaganda.

In other words, if we assume Israel wages war as wars have traditionally been waged, as against Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan, — Gaza stands no chance. But Hamas attacked, betting Israel would not fight through to the end.

Currently, the only chance Hamas has to avoid destruction is a ceasefire — pushed by Israeli leftists ("deal now at any price") and other Hamas allies, including many U.S. and European officials benefiting from kickbacks tied to Gaza’s financial and humanitarian aid.

I've previously written about the conflict between "bunnies" and "lions" within Israeli society. Indeed, it must be understood that the "bunnies" bear responsibility for the October 7, 2023, attack. Had Hamas relied solely on military strength without counting on political protection, it would not have carried out the invasion. Hamas clearly depended on international pressure and internal Israeli leftist influence as its main tools for neutralizing Israeli retaliation.

This frightening realization for leftists is underscored by the document published in Bild, revealing Hamas’s reliance on the Israeli left in its war against Israel—a publication that led to Eli Feldstein’s arrest. Ironically, the disclosure of this document harmed Hamas's political plans rather than the Israeli government’s, raising the rhetorical question: whose secret plans were those arresting Feldstein actually protecting?

Published (in Russian) also on website '9 Channel TV' (Israel)

Discussion on Facebook (in Russian)

One of the debated issues when discussing Israel’s borders from a legal perspective (in our view, sacred texts should also be considered in international law) is the well-known phrase "from the Nile to the Euphrates," understood as the Tanakhic (biblical) definition of Israel’s borders.

Accordingly, on the one hand, some Israelis believe that Israel’s borders should be expanded to the "Torah-defined" boundaries from the Nile to the Euphrates. On the other hand, Israel’s opponents accuse it of striving to seize the corresponding territories.

However, this interpretation does not align with the biblical text. This passage is truly remarkable, considering the time it was written. That is, it was written thousands of years ago, and today it has come to pass as foretold.

No, Israel's borders do not extend from the Nile to the Euphrates, nor should they. In reality, this is not about the borders of Israel.

It was written as follows (Bereshit/Genesis 15:18):

בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא, כָּרַת יְהוָה אֶת-אַבְרָם--בְּרִית לֵאמֹר: לְזַרְעֲךָ, נָתַתִּי אֶת-הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת, מִנְּהַר מִצְרַיִם, עַד-הַנָּהָר הַגָּדֹל נְהַר-פְּרָת.

(On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: "To your descendants I give these lands, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates")

In the King James translation:

In that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: 'Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.'

The descendants of Abraham are not only the Jews but also the Arabs.

Thus, indeed, in the present time, as foretold, the lands from the Nile to the Euphrates are owned by the descendants of Abraham.

The boundaries of the land that the descendants of Israel were to possess are described in Numbers 34:1-12:

And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying:'Command the children of Israel, and say unto them: When ye come into the land of Canaan, this shall be the land that shall fall unto you for an inheritance, even the land of Canaan according to the borders thereof. Thus your south side shall be from the wilderness of Zin close by the side of Edom, and your south border shall begin at the end of the Salt Sea eastward; and your border shall turn about southward of the ascent of Akrabbim, and pass along to Zin; and the goings out thereof shall be southward of Kadesh-barnea; and it shall go forth to Hazar-addar, and pass along to Azmon; and the border shall turn about from Azmon unto the Brook of Egypt, and the goings out thereof shall be at the Sea. And for the western border, ye shall have the Great Sea for a border; this shall be your west border. And this shall be your north border: from the Great Sea ye shall mark out your line unto mount Hor; from mount Hor ye shall mark out a line unto the entrance to Hamath; and the goings out of the border shall be at Zedad; and the border shall go forth to Ziphron, and the goings out thereof shall be at Hazar-enan; this shall be your north border. And ye shall mark out your line for the east border from Hazar-enan to Shepham; and the border shall go down from Shepham to Riblah, on the east side of Ain; and the border shall go down, and shall strike upon the slope of the sea of Chinnereth eastward; and the border shall go down to the Jordan, and the goings out thereof shall be at the Salt Sea; this shall be your land according to the borders thereof round about.

Which roughly corresponds to the current borders of Israel: on the western side is the Mediterranean Sea ("the Great Sea"), on the eastern side is the Jordan, the Sea of Galilee (Chinnereth) and the Dead (Salt) Sea, on the south are the deserts of the Sinai or Arabian Peninsula ("the desert of Sin"), and on the north is the southern part of present-day Syria.

References:​

Wikipedia: Greater Israel

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See also:

Where Are Israel's Borders and What Is Israel Actually Occupying

(Baruch HaShem, he returned to service after two months and is now fighting in Gaza)

The original text is in Hebrew, the translation is mine.

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After a week's delay, I have finally decided to share what happened to me on the day I will remember forever. My story that I went through, and with great luck, I am now able to write these words.

October 7th, a day we woke up to the announcement of a "Red Alert" throughout the entire sector. We were in the shelter, and no one paid too much attention to these missiles, because what can they really do besides a few rockets...

We heard gunfire from the direction of a nearby base, and within a few minutes, our gear was on us, and we headed in that direction. From that moment, we entered the war. It's impossible to describe the feelings you go through during this. You stop thinking and feeling; you just do what you need to do. You strive, advance, and shoot—all in a combat zone unfamiliar to you, all while rockets whistle overhead.

And then comes the moment when I get hit by the bullet. At that moment, I felt nothing; I looked at my leg and couldn't believe this was happening. From here, everything happened in seconds. Seconds in which they take you back, apply a tourniquet, and tell you that everything will be okay. It all happened in seconds—seconds that replay themselves in my head for entire days.

I can't describe my pride toward my friends from Unit 414 who fought and destroyed the enemy in that battle. I love you, and you will always remain in my heart as the bravest people I've ever known, each and every one of you. You are my heroes and heroines, and I'm proud to have fought alongside you.

I have never felt more pain than the pain over those who fell. I still can't grasp the number of people who were taken from this world—and all in one day. Everyone I know lost someone: a friend, a family member, a brother, or a sister. Each one of them is etched on the heart of each of us forever. No one will be forgotten.

"Whoever is merciful to the cruel will end up being cruel to the merciful."

Publication on the website of Channel 9 of Israeli television (In Russian)

Publication on Facebook (in Russian)

I have written quite a bit about how the psychology of the left works, how the approaches of the right and the left differ, and how this causes conflict—not only in Israel, but more broadly.

In today’s situation, I would highlight two main points:

(1) Conflict Strategy​

During an emotional exchange on Facebook, one of my colleagues used a colorful metaphor to express her view that, unlike the right, those on the left are usually kind, soft-hearted people:

The left are "bunnies," but the right — are not.

By “bunnies,” she meant to describe people who are gentle, empathetic, peace-loving, and conflict-averse.

In other words, right-wingers tend to be more aggressive, more inclined to use force, and more likely to view strength as admirable by default, and weakness as contemptible.

Even in terms of metaphors, for the left, being a “bunny” is a compliment, whereas for the right, it’s more of an insult. The imagery they associate with themselves includes predatory animals—most often lions in Israel, due to local historical tradition (Lion of Judah).

This metaphor helps explain what seemed like a shocking incident in June 2024, in Caesarea, when leftists tore down and trampled on portraits of fallen soldiers and replaced them with images of hostages.

To them, the "lions" are alien heroes — associated with violence and cruelty. Their heroes are the "bunnies" — the victims. In fact, the cult of the victim is a core part of leftist ideology.

Accordingly, the strategies for handling conflict — and the values themselves — are completely different for "bunnies" and "lions."

"Bunnies" say: “These hyenas are evil and dangerous. If we fight them, they will tear us apart. We should step aside and try not to provoke them. And if they’ve taken some of our baby bunnies, we should try to appease the hyenas so they let them go and show that we’re gentle and harmless and not a threat to them.”

"Lions" say: “We should rip the heads off the nearby hyenas and show those severed heads to the faraway hyenas — so they’ll fear us.”

Naturally, the "bunnies" see this lion-like strategy as suicidal and view the "lions" as a threat to Israel’s very survival.

(2) Worldview​

Closely related to the first point, but separate: the left generally holds a materialistic worldview.

They believe that religion cannot and should not play any meaningful role in the modern world. In their eyes, religion is nothing more than an outdated and irrational superstition.

Incidentally, this is why the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) end up in the right-wing camp, even though ideologically they are actually leftist—and this distorts their religion. Their so-called “faith,” instead of making them fearless (“lions”), is used to instill fear, turning them into not just “bunnies,” but bunnies constantly trembling with fear of the outside world.

And while ordinary secular leftists, though inclined to appeasement, are still capable of fighting (like our leftist generals, some of whom serve in right-wing governments), most of these Haredim are not capable of fighting at all. But that is a side note—albeit an important one in this context.

Because of this attitude toward religion, when the left tries to understand our enemies’ motivations, they are fundamentally unable to do so. They believe our enemies fight us because we "oppress" and "occupy" them. And what other reason could there be? So, if we stop oppressing them and withdraw, give them land—they will no longer have a reason to attack us.

To the left, this line of reasoning seems logical and rational. And because it aligns perfectly with the deep-rooted psychological conflict-avoidance strategy of the "bunnies," they find it incomprehensible how the right can be so stupid as not to see this.

Post and discussion on Facebook (in Russian)

Currently, the main agenda of the left in domestic politics is the struggle against religion in favor of a secular state (which is why the Haredi parties, who are in essence also left-wing, are not aligned with them).

But on the other side, this is a religious war for the Holy Land. They want to destroy Israel because Israeli rule over the Holy City (Al-Quds) and the Temple (Al-Aqsa Mosque) is seen by them as an insult to their religion.

Atheist leftists are fundamentally incapable of believing this. In their view, the war is being waged against us because we oppress them, because we occupy them, because they are exercising their right to self-determination, and so on. And if these “causes” are removed, the war will end.

All leftist ideas about achieving peace are based on this: let’s recognize their right to self-determination, let’s give them autonomy, let’s leave them alone—then they will live with us in peace.

They won’t. The Arabs have no lack of territory—they control over 13 million square kilometers. Plus or minus 22,000 kilometers is meaningless—it’s about 0.17% of the Arab world. Nor is there a problem with having an Arab state—there are nearly twenty of them, including one in Palestine (Jordan).

The problem is that Islam is, originally, the religion of Banu Isra’il, i.e., the Israelites.

But Muslims believe that God abandoned and cursed the Israelites, and that they, the Muslims, have taken their place as the true followers of the religion of Musa (Moses), Dawud (David), and Sulayman (Solomon).

How do they know this? Because God expelled the Jews from the Holy Land and handed it over to the Muslims. And for centuries, Muslims knew they were the bearers of the true faith, while the Jews were cursed.

But now the Israelites have regained control over the Holy Land and the Holy City. And what does that imply? That everything once associated with the Jews now applies to the Muslims? That God has now abandoned the Muslims as He once abandoned the Jews?

This thought is unbearable for a devout Muslim, and he will do everything to reclaim the Holy Land. “Everything” includes war, bribery, propaganda, lies, and atrocities. Many of them are ready to fight and die for it.

They don’t want territory or autonomy—they want to know that God has not forsaken them and certainly has not exchanged them for those despicable Jews, whom they’ve looked down on for centuries. They want to be with God. They want to be part of the ancient true religion. And for them, Al-Aqsa symbolizes that connection. And they will not trade that for money, or for security, or for land. But these are concepts that, in the worldview of the left, either don’t exist at all or are not taken seriously.

And without understanding the true causes of the conflict, of course, there can be no solution.

It was foolish to think that by leaving Gaza, we would gain peace. They don’t care about Gaza. They are ready to sacrifice Gaza along with all its inhabitants—as the Hamas leadership openly states (when speaking in Arabic). What they want is Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa. Which, again, they openly say, you just have to listen.

Post and discussion on Facebook (in Russian)