As I write, the motorcade from Gaza has arrived in Abu Kabir with the remains of three Bibas family members and Mr. Oded Lifshitz, a senior who must not be overlooked as a mere asterisk. He deserved his own six hours of primetime television coverage on all channels. (As this is posted, we now know that the fourth body is not Shiri and that the boys were brutally murdered in November 2023, ed.)
People are interesting, and most are weird in one way or another. The facts have been the same for each hostage. The story the same. The pros and cons of the Hamas-Netanyahu-Witkoff deal the same through each exchange of a few innocent Jews for a flood of convicted murderous dirtbags, most of whom have murdered multiples of Jews and hardly could wait until they can murder more.
However, this hostage-for-countless-terrorists turnover was emotionally different. Not for an intellectually explicable reason but because of one or two pictures, each worth more than a thousand words. Those photos of those two muttiks (sweet boys) just melted all hearts. So much of those two photos cannot be described or even explained.
We all believe that our kids, when babies or tykes, were the cutest kids G-d ever created. In some cases, yes; in some other cases, well — let’s just stick with the ones who qualified for “yes.” But those two Bibas boys were just photogenic from another world. And they were red-headed. That made them stand out more and shock the senses. Israelis have a nickname for redheads — jinjie — and why not? But those two faces, smiling and happy, were from another planet. They will linger in our minds for the rest of time like the three IDF guys at the Kotel in 1967.
As my mother z”l would say, that four-year-old (Ariel) “was so cute I could eat him.” (Many of us who have articulated that expression have come to regret, a decade or two later, that we did not.) But Kfir, the nine-month-old? I barely, if ever, have seen such a happy, smiling, perfectly joyful face. And a redhead yet. Hearts melt over that one. His engaging smile was so perfect that he seems to have been more a painting than a photo. He was plastered a year ago even on the front page of the Times of London. Even the British had to admit they finally had found a Jew they could tolerate. An indescribably gorgeous baby.
This is the time, calmly and in measured tones, to realize that those faces will haunt Israelis and all devoted Jews forevermore, and even the faithless West for another 3-4 weeks. Then everyone will move on, just as half the Jewish country predictably have moved on from October 7. Half of Israelis are back to itching to crucify Prime Minister Netanyahu. Mass demonstrations to destroy him. Shouts of “Crime Minister.” (So clever.)
Efforts to tie him up in court while he recuperates from serious surgery, negotiates with American President Trump for existential financial and materiel support, avoids the ICC’s arrest warrants that are not aimed at him but at all of us, and engages with Haredim who refuse to serve pursuant to a foreign religion’s construct that is found nowhere in classic Written Law or Oral Law commentary. (Quakers? Seventh Day Adventists?)
So, while Lapid and Gantz lead the attacks on Netanyahu, notably the ICC never bothered with either them even though both their parties assented to the basic attacks on Gaza, too.
People forget so quickly. The knives are out again: Crime Minister. Baharav-Miara, a Public Nuisance rather than a real attorney-general, is back to investigating and indicting everyone she can find on the right. Now she is up to May Golan, poor kid. The corner at Kaplan Square fills again every Saturday night that Houthis do not disturb their dreams of Netanyahu in jail. Memories are so fickle.
But we do have 3-4 weeks right now.
Those babies, those gorgeous red-headed tykes’ joyous innocence captured everything we wish all the people around us could reclaim: a world without cynicism and unprovoked (i.e., wanton) hate; a world where, instead of having to go to work every day, for some at jobs that are hateful and depressing, one can simply wake up every morning with a 10,000-watt red-headed smile and have nothing to worry about except one’s next feeding.
Those darling, gorgeous, playing, smiling, laughing babies were brutally murdered. How? Were they stuffed into heated ovens to be baked alive as were so many other babies in kibbutzim like Nir Oz? Or were they beheaded? Or snuffed out with pillows over their heads?
Does it matter? Gruesome to consider, but mature adults among us have to ask that question to grasp precisely with whom we are dealing here.
A normal country, right now, would finally say “That’s the last straw.” Five wars started by Hamas. Five times Jews were sucker-punched and murdered, having entered into “ceasefires” that soon were dumped aside. Five times Israel had to fight back with all the destructive intensity it had. Five times “the World” (i.e., everyone except America) and America forced Israel to step back, sign a ceasefire, and then allow iron, steel, and aluminum into Gaza so that Hamas could build more and better tunnels, launchers, rockets, missiles, grenades, and RPGs; and then the next ceasefire was broken; and again Israel had to fight back with all the destructive intensity it had. So, again, “the World” (i.e., everyone except America) and America forced Israel to step back, sign a ceasefire, and then allow iron, steel, and aluminum into Gaza so that Hamas could build more and better tunnels, launchers, rockets, missiles, grenades, and RPGs; and then the next ceasefire was broken.
Wash, rinse, and repeat.
This time it has to be different. Hamas must be eliminated. This time the mission must be eradicating. Anyone in the way will be in the way, the wrong place at the wrong time just like New York City subway riders, just as Biblical King Saul (I Samuel 15:6) warned the Kenites to get out of the way before his army entered the battle theater to massacre the Amalekites. For Hamas to be eliminated, it is clear that all the rest of Gaza must be demolished and razed. From the weekly Hamas celebratory hostage-release stage shows, it now should be clear even to the blind that 15 months of bombing the daylights and nightlights of Gaza has destroyed more than 20,000 of Hamas even as at least another 10,000 “innocent Gaza civilians” have stepped in to replace them. Hamas is not demoralized or broken.
At this rate, they will rule Gaza forever. There are unlimited “innocent Gaza civilians” to succeed them. It cannot be more clear than it is now that, despite the great successes of the IDF’s first 15 months, a War in Gaza will be a War in Vietnam under these circumstances. It will never end, despite the heroics of the IDF, because no one can win a war if they endlessly supply the enemy with endless water, food, desserts, medicines, clothes, tents, and everything that can fit in endless trucks. By now, it is clear that there are not enough heroic leaders in Israel to comprise a 61-seat Knesset majority to stop the round-the-clock supply trucks.
Clearly, despite some lip service, Europe will not allow Israel to win. Nor will the International Criminal Court, nor Putin, nor China, nor North Korea. But Trump will. Trump says it over and over: Hell should break loose, and Israel — or someone — should “demolish” the place. Trump has, at most — with G-d’s help — three more years and 11 months in the Oval Office. (Maybe a 5 percent chance of getting the Supreme Court to give him a right to seek another term, on a theory that the 47th presidency starts a separate count from the 45th presidency).
It’s basically, at best — with G-d’s providence — 47 more months. That’s all. So that is the time Israel has to do it, at most: 3 years and 11 months.
At this very moment, Trump is saying that Gaza should be “demolished” and Hamas wiped out. When he says that, as far as he is concerned, “let all Hell break loose,” he means it. He will not insert American servicemen and women into a new battleground, but he will send the weapons, as he has begun doing, and the money as needed.
Understand that Trump has been steaming these past four years over the 2020 elections and has spent four years strategizing, based on what he learned and experienced during his first term, how to get it done his way. At his age, with his determination, and control of all government arms for at least these first two years, nothing will hold him back as long as G-d blesses him and his health. He is not worried about ICC arrest warrants.
He has been planning this a long time. When he gets an idea into his head, he pursues it. Right now, his Gaza idea is: eliminate Hamas, demolish Gaza, evacuate the “innocent Gaza civilians, “ and then go about building a Mediterranean vacation island with luxury hotels, gambling casinos, golf courses, television studios, and maybe a space center for Elon Musk.
And those two gorgeous, murdered red-headed babies, with million-dollar smiles, are on everyone’s heads right now.
This is the time to Eliminate, Demolish, and Eradicate. If this opportunity is missed, there may never ever be another one so fortuitous. If Trump consults his Secretary of State, that will be Marco Rubio, not James Baker or Antony Blinken. If he turns to his Defense Secretary, it will be Pete Hegseth, not Lloyd Austin. His U.N. ambassador – Elise Stefanik. Even his ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee instead of the Obamist Jack Lew or the even worse Thomas Nides. All of those people not only support Israel 100 percent politically, but those four also have something else in common. All four are deeply religious Christians who are on record, even very recently and very unequivocally, that they each believe the Land of Israel, including Judea and Samaria, was given by G-d to the Jewish People, and they believe the Bible’s promise that G-d will bless those who bless Israel. (Genesis 12:3).
There will be minimal repercussions if Israel finally eliminates, demolishes, and eradicates. Particularly right now. Putin is out of Syria and busy with Zelensky. Hezbollah presently is down in both Lebanon and Syria. The European Union players are in pandemonium dealing now with Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, demands that they pay more to NATO, and allow free speech on the right. They have no time to beat up on Israel now. This is the once-in-a-millennium time. Either Eliminate, Demolish, and Eradicate or prepare for the next Hamas Gaza war in 3-4 years. And then the next 3-4 years after that. And then the next.
Subscribe to Rav Fischer’s YouTube channel here at bit.ly/3REFTbk and follow him on X (Twitter) at @DovFischerRabbi to find his latest classes, interviews, speeches, and observations.
His recent statement on the Disastrous Hamas-Netanyahu-Trump Deal is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWkyLMRoJJY
His recent statement on the exasperating Hamas Celebrations during each hostage-murderer exchange is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P12TlJHUM2U
His recent statement on the proposal to transfer Gazan Arabs to Jordan and Egypt is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JinWymIQbuw
To be attend any of his three weekly Zoom classes — Sundays on the past week’s events impacting Israel and world Jewry, and Tuesdays and Thursdays on the Tanakh (Bible) and Jewish law — send a request to rabbi@yioc.org