Two things:
A prisoner swap has begun.
Israel has agreed to a swap that would essentially be 1 Israeli prisoner for every 3 Palestinian prisoners. In this first batch, so far, 24 people on the Israeli side have been released, including 10 Thai and 1 Filipino. In exchange, the Palestinians who enacted October 7th, raped women, killed babies, and burned people alive have been released.
In one case, there is an Israeli mother whose neighbor stabbed her in front of her kids. Because of this prisoner swap, they’ll be neighbors again.
Many of my Jewish and Israeli brothers and sisters are celebrating regardless. How can you not be at least somewhat happy and relieved that at least some of the hostages are being released? It’s still a good thing.
But I’m writing on this platform mainly for my fellow non-Jewish/non-Israeli friends who follow this newsletter. This is not a good deal at all. It’s crumbs. My Jewish brothers and sisters have no control over how this deal is done, so I am no in any way blaming them. I do, however, want you to see how this game tends to work.
Quite often, Israel bends over backwards and agrees to things that literally no other country would even think of agreeing to, only for the world to continue to falsely accuse her of the opposite. Israel is the only country in history who has won defensive wars, gained land, and gave some of it back. Israel is the only country in history to forcibly remove its own people and pull out of an entire city in an attempt for peace. And we see now, Israel has agreed to a terrible deal in which murderers and rapists who feel absolutely no remorse for what they did on October 7th, gleefully exit their imprisonment, and are let back into the general public.
For those screaming “ceasefire!” this whole time (which Hamas/PIJ broke 15 minutes in), you had no idea what was really going on, and many of you didn’t want to.
Israel gives work permits to some of the residents of Gaza to work in Judea/Samaria alongside Jews. Some of the employees who were there for 2+ years were only there to gather intel on their Jewish coworkers and report back to Hamas. The people killed in Judea/Samaria on October 7th was a result of that. Some of these people are now released in this swap.
On the one hand, the families who have their loved ones back are crying happy tears; I would be too if it was my wife or sons returning from being kidnapped. On the other hand, some of those same Israeli victims do not approve of how this is all taking place. I would be too.
Make no mistake, my friends; the terrorists will try this again. Hamas leader Ismali Haniyeh has already said that Hamas will repeat October 7th again and again until Israel is annihilated.
It has been confirmed that Hamas has a secret base underneath Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza.
When Israeli officials were saying this before, their reports were held up to massive scrutiny; which is fine if that is what was happening to Hamas as well, but what we’ve seen since October 7th is the opposite of that.
When Hamas said that Israel bombed a church, the media and many of us believed them. That turned out to be a lie. When Hamas said that Israel bombed a hospital, the media and many of us believed them. That was also a lie.
But when Israel said that Hamas has an underground terror base, the assertion was challenged.
It should be abundantly apparent by this point to any of you who wanted to hop into this fight that Hamas could not possibly care less about the people of Gaza. Neither do these so-called activists. This was a nice trend for many of them; evidenced by the fact that most of them have gone back to their regular programming.
For those who threw in their lot with Hamas, perpetuated the lies about Israel, tore down posters, celebrated October 7th, or simply were quiet when October 7th happened only to speak up to condemn Israel, your words and actions are being recorded in Heaven. That’s all I’ll say.
Thank you so much JoDavi. Watching mainstream news is sooo scary with its gaslighting, misrepresenting things out of context, ignorance of history and literally stoking the conflict. It is healing for Jewish people too, to read your column. I will always remember how you are putting yourself out there to speak the truth every day, and to defend Israel and Jewish people tirelessly. You are making one New Yorker's day every day and helping her keep her sanity through this. All love to you.
Just so awful.
Thank you for your clarity and courage. Most people I know are simply silent. And I think maybe it’s better than what they might say.
Regarding your parenting list, previous post, your parents did a great job, as did theirs and are you and your wife!
No like warm nonsense.