One Heroic Story from October 7, 2023 (brutal Hamas terrorist attack on Israel)

 

This is translation from a Hebrew X (Tweeter) post about the heroic October 7^th story of the Cohen family from Kibbutz Nir Oz titled “The Fight for Our Lives!”

We realized that we were next in line.  We heard them destroying our neighbor’s house, and we realized that at any minute they were coming for us.  Our stomachs were turning inside out.  And then at 11:00am they got to us.  We told our kids that no matter what happens, keep quiet. 

We heard them breaking into our house.  They came to our safe room [many Israeli houses in the south have bomb shelters to protect against Hamas rocket attacks] and knocked on the door, and then they tried to open the door with force.  This was a 40 minute battle over the door handle between Yakir [my husband] and the terrorists.  Then we heard automatic weapon fire.  Mika, our dog, started weeping from pain and ran from side to side of the safe room while bleeding.  We realized that a bullet penetrated through the safe room steel door and hit our dog. 

And then the terrorists started to try to open the steel window.  Yakir jumped to the window and was holding it.  We did not think of locking the steel window!  Then they approached the door, again.  Yakir jumped to hold the door handle, and I was holding the window.  Suddenly, there was a crazy explosion and I ceased to hear anything.  They threw a grenade at the window, but I continued to hold the window with all my might.  Then I realized that Yakir was wounded and kept quiet about his injury.  He took a dipper and our daughter’s hair band and tied his bleeding hip.

All this time our neighbor was holding the baby in her hands and our three kids were close to her under the bed.  At this point the terrorists gave up penetrating our safe room and started to break everything in the house.  They looted and broke everything they could.  Then one of the terrorists screamed in Hebrew: “today you will not live past this afternoon.”

After a few minutes we started to smell smoke, and we realized that they wanted to burn us alive.  There was a very strong smoke that penetrated the safe room.  Our throats were burning.   The walls of the safe room got very hot as if we were being fried live in an oven on high heat.  Kids started to throw out and we felt helpless.

We waited for the terrorists to leave, and then Yakir opened the window little bit.  He checked to make sure that no terrorists were around and then opened some more to let every one of us to take a breath of fresh air. 

We were not able to stay in the safe room anymore.  We decided to exit through the window.  It was 12:45. Yakir jumped first and checked that there were no terrorists around.  Then we got the kids and our neighbor one by one, and I tried to get out last.  The smoke was so bad that I was not able to jump out.  Yakir had to pull me out from the window.

We stood 3 seconds next to the safe room’s window, and then Yakir decided to run to the safe house that was behind the Kibbutz play-set about 100 meters behind our house.  We were running quietly praying that the terrorists would not hear and catch us.  We were lucky that our kids had their cell phones with them, and we were able to make contact and let people know that we were inside the safe house. 

The stay in the safe house was very stressful as we heard sounds of weapons firing and explosions.  We were scared that the terrorists would find us again.  Yakir stood in the opening suffering from the immense pain from his injuries.  He was praying that someone would come to save us.  The kids were crying quietly.  My son, Amit, whispered that he hoped that his friends were OK.  In about four hours IDF soldiers came to rescue us.

 

The Truth Matters

To my friends, family, and business associates:

As you know, my home country was savagely attacked on Saturday, October 7, 2023.  The horror and inhumanity of the terrorists that attacked the peaceful people of Israel is just starting to come out.   Comparing these terrorists to barbarians is an insult to the Barbarian people – these people were humanitarians compared to what the Hamas terrorists perpetrated to the children, women, and elderly in south Israel. 

The purpose of this blog is not to rehash what media has been reporting.   The purpose of my message is to deal with the clear causes of why this evil happened and ask for your help to prevent this from happening here in the US and again in Israel.

This was not only a tactical failure in Israel, but also a failure of concept and doctrine in Israel and the US.  What happened was also a result of weak and misguided Biden administration’s actions in the past three years.  I will not deal here with failures in Israel.  I am interested in dealing with failures and causes in the US.

But first, Israel needs your help!  Even if you are not Jewish, helping Israel is helping US security, it is helping humanity, it is supporting the Judeo-Christian values that we all share.  I am glad of the unconditional support coming from Biden’s administration for Israel. However, will this support stay when Israel will do what is necessary and civilian casualties will mount on the Arab side?  We are already seeing false narratives in the form of statements from some politicians and pro-Palestinian demonstrations. 

The world loves dead Jews.  Many were outraged by the Holocaust, and many were outraged by the evil behavior of Hamas on October 7^th.  The world, however, does not like when Jews defend themselves.  When Israel will start doing what it must by eliminating jihadists in Gaza, the world will start crying foul and comparing the collateral killing of civilians in Gaza with the slaughtered Israelis.  We all MUST fight this phenomenon.

The narrative that the so-called Palestinians were oppressed by Israelis, and this caused this attack.  This is a disgusting narrative whose supporters must be shunned by our society! This narrative is also false from factual and historical perspectives.  Supporting lies lead us to this massacre.  We must stop these lies.   

Many say that this is a complicated conflict.  It is not.  The facts are fairly simple.  The historical land of Israel was not populated for thousands of years.  Many Jews were expelled from their homeland by various conqueror empires (from the Romans through the Turkish Ottoman empire). 

The land of Israel (later termed as Palestine by the British) was scarcely populated and poor.  There were few native Arabs living on this land.  When Jews started to come back to their land after the Holocaust as part of the Zionist movement, many Arabs from the neighboring states (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt) started to immigrate to Israel looking for work.  There had never been a nation called Palestine – this is an invented nation first by the British and later by the Arabs. 

When Israel was founded, the neighboring Islamic Arab nations did not want to have a non-Islamic non-Arab state in the middle east.   They supported the Palestinian victim narrative to justify them trying to expel and kill the Jews who settled back on their homeland. 

Of course, this is a brief summary -- I omitted some details about how the British took control of Israel, of the various international resolutions that gave the Jews the right to settle their homeland, the various wars that Arabs fought against the Jews, etc.  But in essence the previous two paragraphs summarize accurately and factually the lie of the “Palestinian People”.  The Palestinians call the Jews as “settlers” and illegal occupiers of their land.  History and facts, however, are exactly the opposite. 

Despite having the legal and righteous claim to the land of Israel, Israeli Jews have been trying for over 75 years settle the dispute with the Arabs through land-for-peace agreement.  Which means that Jews would give Arabs some Jewish land, and Arabs will live in peace with the Jews.  This has never worked because the Palestinian Arabs are not after co-existence with the Jews.  They want the entire land of Israel for themselves and to kill the Jews.

In 2005 the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a traitorous move decided to remove Jewish settlements from Gaza.  The thought was that if Israel unilaterally retreats from Gaza, it will not have to spend resources on controlling the Arab population in Gaza, and by administering themselves, they will live in peace.  Soon after the Israeli withdraw, Hamas overthrow the elected Fatah administration (which was another terrorists movement, but with different tactics) and took control.   Immediately, Hamas began with terrorist acts, which culminated on October 7^th massacre of the Jews in southern Israel.

So, the statements that Palestinian supporters and the left media throws around that Gazans had no chance because they were locked in a small piece of land like animals is false given the historical facts.  They were locked up because they behaved like animals.  Also, the statements that the civilians in Gaza are also victims of Hamas are not completely true.  Multiple public surveys showed that Hamas has enjoyed very high popular support in Gaza.  Most people in Gaza support the inhumane acts against the Jews not only in Israel, but also around the world.

This is not only an effort by Hamas to expel the Jews from the middle east.  The reason they are cooperating with Iran, is that this is a broader effort by Islam in their war against the other religions and the west.  Hamas is another tool in the global Jihad (Holy War) against all of us.  This is a war between good and evil, and all of you are part of it whether you want it or not!

Now back to the United States of America.  It is not a coincidence that this happened during the Biden administration.  It was also not a coincidence that there were several terror attacks in US and Israel during the Obama administration.  False narratives and false policies caused these types of events.   By exhibiting weakness, trying to appease Iran, weakening the sanctions on Iran, the failed withdraw from Afghanistan, their war on American energy production, intentional open borders, their focus on woke causes such as climate change and so called “right-wing extremism” at home – all this were a direct cause to this disaster.  No amount of Israel support should exonerate Biden for his responsibility.  As we were told many times, elections have consequences.  This event showed us that elections can have deadly consequences. 

The main doctrines in both Israel and United States that guided various center-left politicians for many years completely collapsed.  The belief that Hamas can be “managed” if Israel provides them with economic incentives collapsed.  Hamas, as they have stated many times in their charter has one goal – the goal to annihilate Jews in Israel and everywhere.  Their goal is the same as ISIS goal and of other Islamist and Iran – the genocidal ideology of global Jihad to kill the non-believers all around the world.

The doctrine of the two-state-solution has collapsed as well.  The other “Palestinian” organizations such as Fatah and the Palestinian Authority have the same goals.  We will make another mistake if we believe that the other organizations are moderate.  They are driven by the same Islamic ideology, and they are rooted in the same lies.  We must learn the painful lesson from this horrible event.

This war is between good and evil, and you are in it (as everyone in the western world) whether you want it or not!

So, what can you do?  First, you can help fight the lies that are spread around the world and in much of the western corporate media.  It is important for as many people as possible to be aware of the truth as outlined in this blog. 

Second, Israel needs your help.  Israel is a modern and economically successful country, but this attack and its aftermath strain its institutions.  For example, the Wolfson Medical Center is required to assist the southern Israeli hospital in treating trauma victims.  They urgently need more funds to support their operations and to upgrade their imaging systems (if you are interested in donating, please contact Simon Raban for details).  You can also donate the Israel Rescue (https://israelrescue.org/) and Magen David Adom (https://www.mdais.org/en), as well as the Israeli Defense Forces (https://www.fidf.org/).

Third, you must vote in the US for people who stand for truth and for common sense policies.  Unfortunately, in today’s politics it leaves only the Republican Party as the Democrats, with exception of Robert Kennedy, Jr. (who is no longer running as part of the Democratic party) have lost their collective value compass.

Please subscribe for the Jewish News Syndicate (https://www.jns.org/) and to Caroline Glick (https://carolineglick.com/) for the most accurate updates and analysis of Israel.

Thank you for reading this, and God bless United States of America and Israel!

 Here is an update from Caroline Glick from October 17, 2023 that makes my point:

https://www.jns.org/the-real-and-awful-reason-biden-is-coming-to-israel/

I Was Vindicated by Trump

Before re-launching the new RR Racing with my brother, I spent a long career working in consulting – primarily implementing complex business applications and IT technologies.   One critique that haunted me throughout my career was that I was too direct.   Many times I told the client the truth in a business world that not always wanted to hear the truth. 

 

Over the years the situation got worse.  Business culture has developed in the United States that made people afraid to express any clear opinion about anything slightly controversial for it may offend someone.   Customers have grown to expect to be told what they want to hear – they expect accommodation instead of competence.  Most want to hear a “YES” – not even a “maybe” or “consider this”.  I believe this culture was one of the reasons why people from India took over the entire US IT industry – they are naturally accommodating, agreeable, and not eager to tell the truth, while willing to constantly apologize (but this is a subject for another article).

Trump cut through this attitude – he says what he thinks and does not mince words.  He is not ashamed to point out if someone behaves or says something stupid.  And surprise – many people actually like him.   Although many people like conformity in the corporate world, many of them also understand the negative impact of fake behavior – especially when such behavior impacts their own performance and professional life.  Voters in the US got tired of politicians telling them what they wanted to hear before the elections and then doing something else after.  So now many voters are seeking candidates like Trump, who seem to speak up their mind, with the hope that they will act on all those direct expressions.  Directness translates into honesty for many voters.

But is Trump really the answer to the extreme “YES” culture?  Is the opposite to saying “YES”, and avoiding telling the hard truths, is saying whatever comes to mind and using derogatory names against anyone who you do not like?  For me being truthful and direct never meant being insulting and lacking of substance.  I would never tell a client or a colleague that I disagree with his or her position without supporting my disagreement with a substantive, factual, and intelligent explanation.  I would never use derogatory words in my disagreement, and I would do my best to express my position in the most respectful manner.

The balance to overly protective YES culture is not an abusive arrogant and empty of substance culture – both are negative extremes that are not productive. So despite feeling good that Trump’s success vindicated me, I hope that people would see the lack of substance and arrogance that he has exhibited.  Life works best when balance is achieved – I hope that we all learn how to look for this balance between a “YES” and “I know better” extremes.

Warning: Fraud on HomeAway Vacation Rentals Site!

Many people use HomeAway.com to search and book their vacation rentals.  They think that this is a reputable site and safe to use.   As my son and his friends recently discovered, there are scammers who use this site to defraud people, and HomeAway does not do enough to prevent fraudulent postings on their site.  They also refuse to reimburse the victims for the losses as per their guarantee promise.  Please read the short story below to avoid being scammed when you book your vacation rental.

My son and his friends were looking for a vacation rental for this summer’s senior week.  One of his friends, Brian, volunteered to make the arrangements.  Brian found several houses they liked on HomeAway and send inquiries.  He received various responses.  One response looked as it came from the HomeAway site stated that the apartment he inquired had a cancellation, and, if he moves fast, he could reserve it.  The property number was different than the one he inquired on (which he did not notice), but it represented a legitimate property on HomeAway.

The group made a  mistake paying this fraudster up front by making a money transfer.  After the money transfer was made, the “property owner” emailed Brian that there was a mistake in account number and the funds he wired were not received.  He provided another bank account and requested to make another wire transfer.  The group checked whether the money was transferred back to Brian’s account, and since they were not, they tried contacting the home owner and requested to check what happened.  The emailing back-and-forth went for a few days.  At this point they finally suspected that something was fishy and tried to reverse the wire transfer.  They were notified by the bank that it was not possible to reverse the transfer because the account the money was wired to was closed.

Before the payment was made, HomeAway identified the false listing and sent an email notifying Brian that they delisted this listing for suspected fraud.  However, since the listing of the property now Brian was dealing with was different, he figured this email was in reference to one of the other listings he inquired on and took no action. 

When I contacted HomeAway to see what could be done to recover the lost money and find out how do they let fraudulent listings on their site, their Trust and Security customer service person first implied that it was very likely that the group would be eligible for a $1,000 refund as part of the HomeAway guarantee.  He asked me to collect and submit all documentation including all communications, wire transfer records and signed contracts. 

After I submitted all documentation, HomeAway notified me that my son and his friends were not eligible to receive the $1,000 guarantee, because they made the payment after HomeAway sent the email notifying of suspicious listing.  My pleas and explanations that listing number was cleverly changed by the fraudster did not help.

I feel that although Brian and his friends made many mistakes in this process, HomeAway was partially responsible for the fraud by letting an illegitimate person to make a listing on their site – they obviously do not check good enough whether the listing is legitimate and do not authenticate the people who make the listings.  It is unfortunate that so far they have not been willing to take responsibility for this and honor their guarantee. 

Who knows what other fraud schemes are happening on HomeAway site.   I would not recommend using their service for your vacation rentals -- you are risking losing your money and spoiling your vacation plans.