Swords of Iron Update
Hi everyone,
I haven’t written here in a long time, but with Israel at war, I want to make sure people are getting news from good sources. I am constantly on twitter\X updating when I can.
I am now the Senior Political Correspondent for Jewish Insider, and I want to strongly encourage everyone to subscribe here to get the Daily Kickoff, which is a great newsletter normally, but now has an update of what happened on each day of the war. With so much happening all the time, it’s essential to have one place you can look each day to get the updated numbers and important events.
Most days, I contribute to the opening of the newsletter, summarizing the latest Swords of Iron news mostly as it relates to politics and diplomacy, and I am also doing in-depth reporting. I’ll link to two of my articles on the war below, and you will be able to find more in JI.
Israel’s intel failure: ‘How did this happen?’
As Israel readies for a possible ground invasion of the Gaza Strip following the massive surprise attack last Saturday that killed some 900 Israelis and left the country reeling, Israelis are grappling with how the soldiers in the south were left so unprotected, and how the intelligence lapse — one that carries an eerie echo of the Yom Kippur War surprise attack almost 50 years ago to the day that Hamas brazenly struck southern Israel — was so glaring. The full picture will likely become clearer when the fog of war dissipates and a commission of inquiry investigates, as has become the custom in Israel after wars in the past 50 years. In the short term, as Israelis ask themselves, “How did this happen?” several possible explanations have already come to light.
The conceptzia: After the Yom Kippur War, one of the answers to how Israel was surprised by an attack from Egypt and Syria was the “conceptzia.” The word literally translates to “preconception,” and it refers to groupthink or an idea that captivated the whole cabinet, without consideration of the alternatives. “We were apparently dependent on a conceptzia that Hamas wanted money from Qatar and was deterred,” former IDF Military Intelligence Directorate head Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin told JI. “For every surprise, the surprisers come up with a distraction, and that is what we saw.” Israel built its defense plans “on the idea that Hamas was not interested in a war. They distracted us and kept us busy with other violations on the [border] fence,” Yadlin said.
Blinded lookouts: Another element of Hamas' attack that delayed Israel's ability to respond effectively was its targeting of bases in the south where tatzpitaniyot, who watch cameras and other feeds of the border, are stationed. One tatzpitanit who finished her service earlier this year told JI that she was going back to her old base, because there was no one left who knew how to do the lookouts’ job. Some of the tatzpitanyiot on bases attacked by Hamas told harrowing stories on social media. “In my worst dreams, I could not have imagined something like this,” one wrote. “I woke up for a 4 a.m. shift that turned out to be a nightmare. I never thought I’d see something like this from my lookout point in my life. I did the best I can, until a sniper shot my camera.”
Read the full story here.
Heroism under fire: The neighbors who saved their town – and another one
Amid the horror of Hamas’ murder and mutilation of scores of Israelis, from babies to the elderly, there have been stories of remarkable heroism.
Yonatan Werner lives in Shlomit, a tiny, Orthodox agricultural village established in 2011 just south of Gaza by the Egyptian border, and is a member of the village’s council. He also volunteers for its security team, which does patrols and is the first line of defense until the police or army arrive.
Speaking to Jewish Insider while at a shooting range near Israel’s northern border, where he is on reserve duty, Werner recounted that after the heavy rocket fire at 6:30 on Saturday, “we didn’t understand what was happening. It went quiet after 20 minutes, and I left the house to go to the head of the emergency staff, who lived right across from me.”
“When I went out, I smelled gunpowder and heard shooting all around, so I realized this was something bigger, some kind of infiltration,” Werner recounted. “We called the whole security team together.
I have been doing a lot of TV, radio and webinars. Here are a couple of examples (chosen mainly because they’re easy to access all over the world).
You can watch me talk about the start of the war here:
Here I am on India’s ThePrint:
Here’s a scooplet of mine:
Computer technology giant Oracle has announced its unequivocal support for Israel and the IDF around the world, including in Arab countries. The company operates in almost every country in the world, and put a message of support on each of its country homepages.
The Oracle website in Hamas’ patron Qatar, as well as most other Arab and Muslim countries, displays a picture of an Israeli flag with the message: “Oracle condemns the terrorist attacks against Israel and its citizens. Oracle will provide all support necessary to its employees and to the government of Israel and the country’s defense establishment.”
Read more in Wednesday’s Daily Kickoff.
My husband was called up for reserves on Saturday morning, so my three kids and I are hunkering down at home. He is in the West Bank, not Gaza, and our home is in a town that has only had one rocket siren the entire war. Things are tense, but all being said, we are relatively lucky and safe. I want to thank everyone who reached out to check how I’m doing.
Many people are asking me how to help Israel.
Aside from your prayers and expressions of support on social media, I want to recommend anyone who is able to write an op-ed in support of Israel for your local newspaper or news site. The tide has already started turn, as it always does, and the calls for Israel to respond “proportionately” - meaning weakly - will grow. What exactly is proportionate to beheading babies? To burning children alive? To murdering entire families in their homes? To massacring hundreds at a party? The world must bear witness and see the atrocities committed against the Jewish people by Hamas. If you can remind them of that, please do so.
If you know any journalists who want to be connected with families who lost someone or have a relative missing in the war, I can help them.
If you want to send money to Israel, please make sure you are doing it through a credible organization. Hamas and their supporters have opened fundraising pages claiming to be for Israel. Better safe than sorry.
Women across Israel lit extra candles on Friday for the women held hostage by Hamas who could not do so themselves. I baked a double portion of challah on Friday so that I could say a special prayer on it for our soldiers and hostages to be brought home safely.
Stay safe,
Lahav