Good morning.
Yesterday I took a planned trip to Las Vegas to see my son, take him and his roommate Luc to Costco so they could stock up their apartment with food and supplies, take them to dinner and surprise them with tickets to the U2 show at Sphere. Max loves live music shows and I knew he would be thrilled.
It was fun, but surreal, because across the world, Israel had been attacked by Hamas terrorists that same morning.
I woke yesterday to my WhatsApp groups and my texts lighting up about the attacks by Hamas against Israel.
Because I have so many friends in Israel and visit often, I have been let in these groups. I rarely say anything but enjoy listening in about the families, the tech scene and the food scene.
Yesterday was completely different. Friends were being called to the reserves and a lot of talk about what needed to be done and the ‘how and why’ argument of how the attack even could happen.
Every October, after the high holidays (which were ending as the attacks began) a group of Jewish Phoenix leaders takes a group of younger Jewish men on a tour of Israel to learn and see the country. I have participated in the trip twice myself. A few of our community leaders are heading to Israel as planned today despite the war that began yesterday. They are seeking good ways for all of us to make a meaningful impact.
Any time I spent on Twitter yesterday just made me mad. There is no way to tune Twitter to get any real sense of how murderous the Hamas attacks were. Venture Capitalists and politicians blaming politicians…
fake war game videos, really bad takes by people that have never set foot in the middle east and too many people that hate jewish people chiming in with hate in the comments.
As for mainstream media…here was ‘The Observer’:
Note to the Observer – Hundreds of jews were MURDERED. They did not just die. The Observer chose to run with a triumphant photo, and not mention that woman, children and old people were taken hostage.
I know these certain facts…Israel was able to create peace with other direct neighbors including Jordan and Egypt. They can’t with Palestine and after yesterday, I doubt they ever get close again. It seems like many Palestinian people are held hostage by Hammas and Iranian backed terrorists (don’t tell me about this $6 billion that Biden released which is still in the bank). Iran has oceans of money at their liquid disposal.
As Israel has made moves to build allies, right now with Saudi’s, Iran and Hamas etc move to thwart it.
I can’t get into all the complexities and the politics, but what happened yesterday quite simply was a savage terrorist attack. The Hamas and their backers are a murdering disgrace.
A very sad day.
Top picture: Photo by Nemanja Ciric: https://www.pexels.com/photo/symbolic-war-monument-12301311/
