My husband asked me if I’d seen the strange image of ‘the rocket’ that apparently fell in the Shomron.

Or is it, ‘near Jericho’, because its location is also changing around.

You can see it for yourself HERE.

I’d seen the original one, without the ‘curious chareidi guy’ next to it, so when I saw this one, the alarm bells started ringing even more that I was looking at hyper-realistic AI.

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Why did I think that?

Because there is no blast crater, at all, for a rocket that apparently dropped out of the sky ‘from Iran’.

And that makes no sense whatsoever, because even if a rocket doesn’t explode its warhead, the IMPACT by itself will make a huge crater all around it.

And then, there was the small detail that chareidi Jews just don’t live in the Bikaa Valley near Jericho – there are no chareidi towns anywhere near that place, for miles and miles.

So, the chances that some random chareidi dude would be the one captured staring at this fresh ‘rocket from Iran’ are incredibly, incredibly low.

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If it was a dati leumi, a secular Jew, an Arab, perhaps even a Thai worker, of which there are hundreds in the Bikaa Valley – I wouldn’t have thought something was up.

(Other than the missing crater, which honestly, is enough all by itself).

But the reason there is a chareidi guy in this image, is because the AI was prompted to put a religious Jew in the frame, and the AI is smart, but doesn’t know that no chareidi Jews can be found anywhere in that area, for miles and miles.

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I’m not going to speculate on the reasons why we are being flooded with fake / staged images of ‘rockets from Iran’.

I’ll leave that to you.

The good news is, fewer and fewer people here are going along with the narrative, that we need to be permanently at war, permanently under siege, permanently with no functioning airport, permanently with kids out of school…

There is a big counter-surge going on here now, where even government ministers (!) are starting to stand up to the people who want Israel in a permanent, never-ending state of war – for what real purpose, exactly?

Just to keep their jobs?

Stay out of prison?

Keep an iron grip on the country and the public’s ability to really ask questions about what truly happened on Simchat Torah?

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Whatever the reasons, I am feeling the zeitgeist here is starting to shift radically.

Fewer and fewer people are buying the story that we need to keep sacrificing our most precious assets – our children, our future – to a narrative being spun by people who have every vested interest in ensuring their military tech start ups stay relevant and paying out a lot of money to its shareholders and owners.

Alternatives ARE possible.

Peace IS possible without never-ending war, and without giving up any part of precious Eretz Yisrael.

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The Rav has been saying this for years and years.

In 2012, he held a massive gathering at the Winter Stadium in Tel Aviv, where he openly called for peace with the Arabs.

I can’t show you that video anymore, as his persecutors got it taken down from Youtube.

A couple of months after that Winter Stadium event, the Rav’s persecution began in earnest.

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At the time, there were rumours floating around Shuvu Banim, and even reported on in the South African press, that the Rav was being persecuted for preaching peace, instead of never-ending war against the Arabs.

At the time, I honestly have to admit to finding that theory a little far-fetched.

At this point… I don’t find it far-fetched at all.

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Leah, one of the commentators, shared a fantastic piece on Jacob de Haan from Segula Magazine, which you can read HERE.

The article is based on academic sources, and here is the snippet that caught my eye:

Hussein bin Ali visited the Trans-jordanian capital of Amman in February 1924. Although a Zionist contingent was also there to greet the world’s most senior Muslim figure, it was de Haan’s separatist mission that received the red-carpet treatment.

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Faisal, who saw himself as representing the international Arab movement (including Palestinian Arabs), told the separatists that all Arabs recognized the historic rights of Jews in Palestine but were very concerned by the Zionists.

As partners in government, he preferred the ultra-Orthodox Jews over the secular, as they could be trusted not to destroy the traditional foundations of Arab education: respect and modesty.

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Not only did de Haan extract a royal promise to partner with the anti-Zionist community, he also solicited a significant financial donation from Hussein to fund separatist institutions in Jerusalem. Yet the lobbyist wasn’t satisfied.

Returning to Amman several months later, he persuaded bin Ali to publicly denounce “the anti-religious Zionist movement” for its gross mistreatment of faithful Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

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This stuff is dynamite!

If you really think about this information, it starts to change the whole picture.

Peace with the Arabs is possible – even today, perhaps especially today, after all the violence that everyone is so sick of, on all sides of the equation.

But, it seems ‘peace with the Arabs’ can be achieved only when sincerely believing Jews take the helm in this country, and start to benefit from the siyatta di shmeya that Hashem bestows on those who are trying to do His will, to make all their problems start to disappear and dissolve.

Even seemingly intractable ones, like achieving ‘peace in the Middle East’.

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Here’s the thing:

The wars in Israel are fuelling the terrible anti-semitism growing all over the world now.

My mum told me she no longer thinks Golders Green is a safe place for Jews.

My brother told me that he is very impressed with Jews in London who continue to dress overtly Jewish, because he feels they are literally taking their life in their hands, particularly in certain areas of the capital.

It seems, God’s plan is to get the ‘overtly Jewish’ people back to the Holy Land, so we finally have the majority required, that will enable ‘peace in the Middle East’.

This is just my opinion, of course, feel free to have your own.

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In the meantime, “more war in Israel = more antisemitism in the diaspora”.

That’s the inescapable equation.

The real question, is what are you going to do to start resolving it? 

And to make real ‘peace in the Middle East’ possible, without firing another shot?

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PS: This is one of the academic papers that piece in Segula is based on:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43855720?if_data=e30%3D&seq=23

It’s really interesting, and shows things are / were much more nuanced than most of us ever suspect.

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Here’s another academic article, also cited in Segula, about De Haan:

https://www.academia.edu/43194874/From_Zionist_to_Anti_Zionist_The_Tragic_Fate_of_Jacob_Israel_de_Haan_in_Palestine_Reconsidered

This one focusses more on why did De Haan – an ardent ‘Jewish Nationalist’ to the last second of his life – turn away from the Z-Ist movement.

Here’s a pertinent snippet:

The Dutch historian Giebels underlined that De Haan’s anti-Zionism in his later years was not so much based on principals, but rather on the specific methods used by the Zionist leadership. He soon understood that the Zionist propaganda oversimplified the complicated reality of the situation in Palestine and felt the urgent need to inform mainly the Dutch society about his concerns and political activities.

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We are still dealing with the same problem today, aren’t we?

Still stuck in the over-simplified, ridiculous paradigms of ‘just bomb Hezbollah / Iran / Whoever more, and we’ll get peace in the Middle East’; or “just force all the Chareidim into the army, and then the army will start winning its wars again and fewer reservists will die in combat….”

After 100+ years, isn’t it time we finally tried something different?