1
The building swayed and shook like in an earthquake. The muffled noise that pierced the safe room walls announced a nearby impact. The next day, I went out to check. Shattered storefronts accompanied me on my way, twisted plastic shutters and crumpled cars whose front windshields were crushed to fragments, soot and smoke and holes in walls. I approached the impact site – the old buildings from the beginning of the settlement, which apparently survived two world wars and several more wars, this time collapsed in the face of hundreds of kilograms of explosives sent from Tehran to my city, Rehovot. We'll build others, more beautiful ones.
Still, I didn't hear wails and crying and despair. People came to their workplace and quietly cleared away the glass fragments, assessing the damage. A siren that caught me at the site brought me to a shelter in one of the houses. I listened around me – humor, words of encouragement, and understanding that this is an existential battle of no choice. "Behold, a people shall rise up as a lioness" (Numbers 23:24).
2
Pictures of destruction in our cities teach a historical lesson. Look at the damage caused by just one ballistic missile falling. Now, multiply it by hundreds of thousands, and you get the estimated power of a 100-kiloton atomic bomb. And we haven't even talked about radioactive radiation yet. The ayatollahs would use such a bomb if they could. God preserve us. This is their historical mission – to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews and their state in one day. Let us remember this when we come to wonder about the nature of the action in Iran.
3
"And like a lion it shall rise up" (Numbers 23:24). I receive requests for help from Israelis stranded in Europe in general and Italy in particular. They ask to return home. Let the world hear – our enemies will attack us and crown us, but for us, this land is the safest place in the world. Let the Jews of the world also hear – specifically now, come home. Make aliyah and secure your children's future.
4
"It shall not lie down until it devours prey" (Numbers 23:24). Our anonymous fighters are dismantling Iran's launch capabilities, and our pilots riding on wings of lightning are touring Tehran's skies and burning away the leaven. The lion cub of Judah awakens from its slumber, and it storms the Iranian blood regime, which, within two years, has lost its strategic assets. The stranglehold ring it labored to surround us with has crumbled, and the Baal priests in Tehran are at a loss. The campaign must not be stopped until their final defeat. "On the day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to overpower them – but it was turned about, and the Jews overpowered their enemies" (Esther 9:1).
5
The unity displayed by the opposition with the coalition in the face of Ayman Odeh's no-confidence motion deserves mention. I wish they would persist in it. Odeh did a disservice to supporters of integrating Israeli Arabs into society. Israel is fighting for its life, and he opposes this. Will the atomic bomb skip over him and his voters? And of course, his call to establish a Palestinian state on the hills of Samaria and Judea – an Islamic caliphate within spitting distance of our population centers, Iran on steroids. Odeh and his associates oppose the very existence of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people (but support a Palestinian state clean of Jews). By IHRA definitions, this position is defined as antisemitism for all intents and purposes.
6
"And it shall drink the blood of the slain" (Numbers 23:24). I saw those wise in their own eyes who brought the second half of the verse (especially these words) to testify to the illegitimacy of the campaign in Iran. Ignorance never prevented those who hold it from expressing themselves with confidence. Well, our sages saw in these words of Balaam a prophecy that Moses would not complete his historical mission "until he brings down the kings of Midian as casualties." We are therefore talking about enemy casualties. And what do we care about the kings of Midian then or the rulers of Persia today.
