The Har Dov Incident on the Lebanese Border, Revisited

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9 Av 5780

30 July 2020

Tisha B’Av 5780

It is the 9th of Av when Jews mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples. If you are fasting today, we wish you an easy fast.

Normally, your humble servant and his wife would have been in Jerusalem last night for the 26th annual walk around the Muslim Quarter of the Old City with the Women in Green. However, Jerusalem Police limited the number of participants in the walk to only 50 because of Corona so we were unable to attend.

More than 500 orthodox worshipers have gone to the Temple Mount yesterday and today:

Some of the orthodox on the Mount this morning. Take a good look at the photo. Notice that they are not on the steps leading up to the Kipat HaSela (aka Dome of the Rock)–and that there are Jordanian Wakf guards on the steps to make sure they do not ascend.

However, in this particular instance, the reason they are not on the steps is not entirely the fault of the Jordanians. When the orthodox go to the Mount, they follow the Halachic path established by rabbis. The purpose of the path is to make sure that the orthodox avoid possibly stepping on a place that once housed the holy of holies:

The orthodox are supposed to follow the dotted line.

The News on the Israeli Street

Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .

*Yesterday a Palestinian court in Gaza ordered that a father who beat his 10-year-old daughter to death be released from jail. The court ordered the release because the man’s extended family asked the Court to pardon him.

The case is disgustingly similar to a case two months ago. At that time, Nazmi G’rabah Zuid beat his 10-year-old daughter to death because he heard her talking on the phone to his divorced wife. In that case, because there was no complaint about the murder, Zuid was released from custody with no punishment whatsoever.

*Palestinian terrorists used Molotovs and “rocks” to attack Israelis at Deir Abu Mashaal, the Oranit Checkpoint, at the Maayan bend in Gush Etzion, Al-Aruv, at Rachel’s Tomb, in Hevron, and at Beit Omer among other places.

The daily Corona update . . .

As of 8 am this morning (Monday): There are 67,734 confirmed cases—an increase of 1,943 since this time yesterday 

32,746 of these confirmed cases have recovered—an increase of 589

316 are in critical condition—an increase of 5

99 of the most critically ill are on ventilators—an increase of 2

491 have died–an increase of 54

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There are 34,988 active cases.

*Despite the increasing number of confirmed cases of Corona, the Health Ministry apparently believes that this second wave of Corona is not as severe as the first wave because there is a “decreased percentage” in the number of critically ill and dead patients.

*Opening the skies? It appears now that there is strong movement toward Israel opening the skies to some international flights in the next two weeks. The first countries to which Israelis will be able to fly include Greece, Cyprus, Croatia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria.

TODAY’S BLOG:

The Har Dov Incident on the Lebanese Border, Revisited

What happened and what did not happen on the Lebanese border two days ago continues to reverberate in Israel. To begin with, there now appears to be no doubt whatsoever that prior to anything happening, the IDF General Command shockingly gave an explicit order to its commanders and soldiers not to kill any Hezbollah terrorists that might cross into Israel.

Allow us to lay out the sequence of events–according to the IDF:

1. While the heavily armed terror group consisting of 3 terrorists was in Lebanon, they began to be tracked by IDF intelligence officers.

2. After two or three hours, the group crossed into Israel, and proceeded toward the Gladiola IDF post of Har Dov–in the process, the group climbed hundreds of meters up a cliff reaching within a dozen meters of the post. At some time while this was happening, the IDF determined that this was a Hezbollah sniper unit.

3. After scaling the cliff, the terrorists were exhausted and while they were resting, the IDF opened fire. Not at the terrorists, but around the terrorists. The purpose of the fire was to cause the terrorists to return to Lebanon, and they did.

4. Finally, according to the IDF, “at no time were soldiers in danger of death.”

To summarize, the IDF allowed 3 heavily armed terrorists intent on killing Israeli soldiers to enter Israel and reach with 10 meters of an IDF post before taking action to scare them away.

It is simply breathtaking.

Why did we let them enter Israel? Why didn’t we kill them immediately? Why did we let them get within a few meters of our soldiers? And then why did we let them return to Lebanon with whatever information they discovered?

Again, it is simply dumbfounding.

So what is happening now? The IDF is now transferring large forces to the Lebanese border to counter what is still expected to be an impending Hezbollah attack. It is the largest accumulation forces on the border since the Second Lebanese War back in 2006.

Finally, if you can believe this, Chief of Staff Kochavi is being praised because he “contained the security incident” so that the IDF can continue to focus on Syria and Iran. Not surprisingly, headlines in the newspapers in the Arab world are talking about how this was one more manifestation of Israeli fear and one more IDF embarrassment.

And so it was. 

Your humble servant is no military expert, but one day, Israel’s pusillanimous policy of containment with regard to Hezbollah, Hamas, and the PLO will come back to haunt us. The question is “when that day comes will we have the resolve to kill our enemies?”