We begin today with an interactive map that has been around for a while, though the data is constantly updates as more information becomes available. It’s a map showing the location of each and every person who was killed or kidnapped. You just zoom in, click on a dot and you get the information. Plus hyperlinks provided to show where the people who put the map together gleaned their information.
Just looking at the dots from “30,000 feet” makes clear why the area is called the Gaza Envelope. When you zoom in, and read about the lives lost and stolen, you can understand, once again, why there is almost no “stop the war” movement in this country and why, relatively speaking, Israelis are focused on the pain on this side of the border, not on the other.
Again, here’s the link to the map called Mapping the Massacres.
TUESDAY (2/27): Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF Chief of Staff who now sits on the inner war cabinet—and if the one reason that many Israelis have faith in that cabinet—lost his son in this war. Uvdah, an Israeli rough equivalent of 60 Minutes, with Ilana Dayan our parallel to Leslie Stahl (sort of), ran a long segment on him which was fascinating and moving. We’ve taken a few select pieces, added subtitles and will be sharing it.
WEDNESDAY (2/28): Yair Ettinger, a veteran Israeli report who is now with Kan TV News, has been featured in a number of the clips we’ve shared. Today we focus on his recent book, now translated into English. Entitled Frayed: The Disputes Unraveling Religious Zionists, won prizes for its Hebrew version, and the English translation was just named a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. We sat to discuss some of the elements of his book and how they play out in the political scene now developing in Israel.
THURSDAY (2/29): Much discussion has been devoted to newfound devotion to Israel that has been unleashed since October 7, and we’ve cover a good bit of that. But there’s another side of the coin—people who have just decided that the war, the stress and the uncertainty are too much for them, and are taking their families to Europe and leaving Israel. It’s a side of Israel we need to know about, and we cover it today.
FRIDAY (2/30): Finally, we’ll close out the week with some thoughts I shared with visiting groups on whether we’d make Aliyah all over again if we’d known what has going to happen, what the challenges and opportunities might be for a renewed relationship between American Jews and Israel, and a glimpse at some of this week’s Israeli press.
There’s really not much to say about the clip above, at the top of this post. It came out a while ago, but as the protest movement heats up even as Netanyahu says he’ll never resign (though as the Times of Israel screenshot below makes clear, not everyone in the Likud thinks he can survive this), a reminder of how deep the lack of faith in the government goes is important.
Will Bibi hold on until 2026? Hard to know. I’m much less confident than most people that he’s going to be forced out. And the longer he stays, the better are his chances.
None of that, though, has anything to do with the abandonment many parents feel, and which more and more or them are beginning to speak about. That pain, that sense of betrayal, is our focus today.
Impossible Takes Longer is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and at other booksellers.
"Our children learned in school that we have a country so that there won't be another Holocaust, and they died in a Holocaust."