Western powers, often suppliers of advanced weaponry to Israel, are pushing the Jewish state to stop fighting Hamas and Hezbollah. Why?
You would probably laugh. Orthodox Jews do not use electronic or electrical devices during the Sabbath and holidays. Smartphones, computers, and the like are generally turned off with the entry of a holy day and only turned back on when the day goes out the following night. So what happens when Israel assassinates Hassan Nasrallah or kills Yahya Sinwar on one of these days? Orthodox Jews are still curious people, even if their internet-connected devices are off. There are generally three classes of people who will know what’s going on days like today, the first holiday day of Sukkot (The Feast of the Tabernacles):
1. Foreign nationals who are not Jewish.
2. First responders, including religious Jews, who have non-exploding beepers to get updates.
3. Non-religious Jews who travel, communicate and do much as they would on a regular weekday.
So as news of Yahya Sinwar’s demise spread, more people in our neighborhood started to ask their neighbor’s Philippine care-giver or a guy sitting in an ambulance if the news was true. One of our sons asked a first-responder whom we saw downtown; we had asked the same guy a month earlier when news of Nasrallah’s demise began to circulate.
Israel has notched some impressive milestones during the past few months of fighting—at the cost of soldiers killed and wounded as well as civilians harmed in rocket volleys or local terrorist attacks. Israel has killed the heads of Hamas and Hezbollah.........