Free Republic

One of the questions that has been asked since the 10/7 attack was how Hamas caught Israel so unprepared to respond. Within days of the attack there were reports that Hamas had been planning and training for it for more than a year. CNN reported there were half a dozen training camps set up to drill Hamas fighters in preparation for the attack. So how did Israel miss it?According to a story published today by the NY Times, Israel didn’t miss it. In fact, they had Hamas’ detailed attack plan a year ago. They just didn’t believe Hamas could pull...

Ever since October 7, people have been struggling to understand how Israel—a nation that’s been on the front lines since its creation (whether in the Bronze Age or 1948), that has a famed intelligence service, and that’s supposed to be bristling like a porcupine against all comers—could have been so vulnerable. Theories have ranged from sexism to a global conspiracy of the elites to Netanyahu being betrayed by leftists within his government to complacency. It turns out that the last two theories probably hit the mark.Caroline Glick, a political analyst in Israel, has posted an important video explaining what happened....

IDF lookouts who had warned their commanders that they were concerned about the situation along the Gaza border in the months before the October 7 attack were told to stop bothering them and even threatened with a court-martial, N12 reported on Saturday. According to the report, the lookouts warned that they had seen unusual training and other actions taking place next to the border, with more and more people suddenly getting near the fence in the months leading up to the attack. The lookouts felt that they weren't being heard; one of them decided to go directly to a senior...

In his Wall Street Journal column (“Why Hamas Atrocities Lead the Left to Hate Israel More,” Oct. 20) Shany Mor wrote that "many would think that an atrocity like Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre in Israel would lead opponents of the Jewish state to temper their attacks."... No British institution has demonstrated this pathology more than The Guardian, which, since Hamas’ Oct. 7 ISIS-style massacre of more than 1,400 Jews — which included rape, and murdering scores children and even babies in cold blood, and which forced hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens of those border communities from their homes —...

A resident of Netiv Ha'Asara returns to visit the settlements of Otaf Harev, relives the moments of trauma, and finds it difficult to understand how we got to the current situation Yoni Kempinski, published: 4 Cheshvan 5784, 10.19.23, 7:23 "I didn't imagine the magnitude of the disaster. I couldn't believe the cruelty and magnitude of the disaster," she says and states that now "the entire perception of the IDF must be changed, enough to be humane. We were too humane towards them, we gave them a lot of money, a lot of money that was not controlled, nobody knew what...

As the world’s attention continues to be focused on the war between Israel and Hamas, mainstream media have relied on people on the ground in both Israel and Gaza as vital sources of information or eyewitness accounts. Dunia Abu Rahma, a 22-year-old architecture student from Gaza, has appeared in recent days on both CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 and NBC News to tell her story. Abu Rahma told the veteran CNN reporter Anderson Cooper, “All I want them to know that there are civilians, people who wish to live a normal, peaceful life, to feel safe, because we are human, and...

In 2005 Israel voluntarily and unilaterally disengaged and withdrew from the Gaza Strip giving it outright to the Palestinians, who then screwed the pooch by electing the Hamas psychopaths for their leadership. Hamas’ crimes against humanity hearken back Imperial Japan’s Rape of Nanjing and the Nazis’ engineered Holocaust. All of the Hamas terrorists so richly deserve Nuremberg-like trials. Along with military and intelligence support, one of the roles America must take with Israel is to establish such a war crimes trial commission. Any Hamas terrorists and architects of this outrage left alive and captured by the Israeli Defense Forces should...