Israel is back!

In the 1987 film, Baby Boom, the lead character, played by Diane Keaton, is forced to leave her high-powered executive job, after unexpectedly being tasked with caring for her dead cousin’s toddler. When she independently succeeds in inventing a novel product that her old company wants to market, she proudly looks at herself in the mirror and declares, “I’m back.”

That’s pretty much how you could describe what happened to Israel just a few days ago when, after 11 months of dithering, losing our momentum as well as a lot of the good will and respect we had earned, as the country with the greatest intelligence assets, the exploding Hezbollah pagers caused some to say, “Israel’s back again.” At least that seems to have been the sentiment expressed by Jerusalem Post writer, Herb Keinon in his article titled, “From beepers to ballistics.”

“The height of this week’s successes in Lebanon only highlights the depth of the failures of October 7. Yet the colossal shortcomings of October 7 make the jaw-dropping successes this week in Lebanon even more significant.

Why? Because they show to Israelis – wracked by self-doubts following the collapse on October 7 and the country’s inability, up until now, to free all of the hostages – that the country still has “it,” that it still retains unparalleled intelligence and operational capabilities.”

And while Keinon says that Israel “still has it,” the question is – can we keep it?  

It’s sad to say, but Israel found herself completely unprepared for the attack of October 7th, as a result of not believing that Hamas was capable of doing what they did. In fact, Hezbollah, was the only threat considered to be formidable, which is exactly the reason that Shin Bet, our intelligence services, concentrated on taking them out by coming up with this clever idea of setting up a straw company, which would then “sell rigged communication devices to Hezbollah.”

The assumption is that this plan had been carried out over the past few years, all in preparation for the moment in time when it was needed. That moment came this past week, and while it definitely set the enemy back, creating much chaos and panic, not to mention the physical disabling of many of their military fighters who are no longer able-bodied men, it also restored what was fast becoming a tarnished reputation of the country known for its superior military minds, might and ingenious strategies.

Now, being feared by those who thought they had us right where they wanted, for Israel, there is a sense of, once again, being in the driver’s seat. This is an opportunity which cannot be squandered. To be mired in the indecisiveness, which has kept us paralyzed for nearly a year, would not be beneficial to anyone.

It is the reason that we must take advantage of this momentum and continue to develop a strategic course which will give us the upper hand, enabling us to fight a cruel and unrelenting enemy that has done its best to make us believe that they can set us back to the days when we first established the Jewish homeland but were immediately attacked on many different fronts, threatening our existence.

Those days are gone, and it’s time that we remind our neighbors that we are here to stay. God Almighty has settled that fact long ago. We are in the land which He gave us, living out our destiny, never again, to be uprooted.

But this also demands a number of actions on our part. We must, first and foremost, seek divine wisdom and guidance as we go forward, invoking God’s hand of protection and seeking out leaders who will be committed to abandoning personal political aspirations while they employ the best course of action, guided by the One who has preserved us, despite being surrounded by so many hostile countries who have been dedicated to our demise.

We must also be prepared to fight to the end, no matter who demands an immediate ceasefire, because only we will have to live with the consequences of stopping before the job is finished. That might mean standing alone among the nations, in order to ensure our safety. But our success will also be to the benefit of so many others, because, to the extent that we can eradicate the evil of these barbaric terrorists, the world will also reap the blessing of a few less savage murderers.

We must also stop having faith and putting confidence in those who erroneously believe that deals can be made with demonic agents who are never deterred from their goal of a Jew-free world. It is due to ill-advised agreements, such as the Oslo Accords and other plans that call for a two-state solution which have led us down the proverbial garden path by those who have nothing to lose from pushing treaties which will only hurt us by forcing a false peace with people committed to our end.

We’ve “been there, done that,” and it hasn’t produced any good will which has resulted in the belief that there can be a peaceful, productive partnership and coexistence in this one sliver of real estate. Consequently, we must come to the conclusion that there can be no sharing of the Jewish homeland with anyone who starts off with the assertion that this place is not our rightful inheritance.

It’s time for us to re-read our Bible, remember who we are and who brought us back to this land! 

If we can do that, no army will prevail against us, because we will have finally internalized why we are here and who is behind our defense! 

Israel may feel as if she is back, but it can easily turn the other way if we try to go it alone as we have been doing. It is now time for the Chosen People to choose their God and fully rely upon His help to support us, fight for us and continue to give us the edge in a battle which only has the capacity to keep us in a precarious position with no way out.

Israel is back is if she decides that God is back, because it is only His leadership that will be no match for those who think they can out-strategize the maker of heaven and earth.