An Ode to Bombastic Tweets

Forty-some odd years ago, I would have had to look up the term “existential” in a dictionary. But it’s the catchword of today – especially in Israel.

So at 5-something in the morning, at the dawn of a ceasefire, I was having an existential moment in my protected space as ballistic missiles from Iran were raining down on Israel’s north and south.

After I WhatsApped the kids, said Sh’ma Yisrael, and read a couple chapters of Tehillim (Psalms), I came down to earth and looked at the news. A residential building in B’er-Sheva had taken a direct hit and there were reports of horrific casualties.

Under these surreal (too real) circumstances and with warnings of missiles yet to arrive, US President Donald Trump’s peace-in-our-time tweet read like a Christmas card from Hell.

Conspicuously absent from these tidings of joy were any accompanying statements from the leaders of the warring parties.

One had to wonder if this was “fake news.”  No word about the terms of a ceasefire, the return of Israeli hostages from Gaza, or any future understandings with Iran’s many terrorist proxies.

But a quick scroll through President Trump’s tweets made it clear that “Operation Rising Lion” would henceforth be known as “the 12 Day War.”

I guess that’s one way to neuter a lion cub.

I mean POTUS was firmly in the pilot’s seat of the B-2 Stealth Bombers over Fordow. He controlled the skies, the space and the universe, and he never came down from the joy ride – except to drop a very public and deliberate F-bomb and varying other affronts upon his staunch ally, the State of Israel and its prime minister.

That Israel has been fighting a not 12, but over 630-day multi-front war sponsored by Iran since Shabbat Simḥat Torah 5784 did not figure into Trump’s equation. Nor did the fact that the Jewish state had taken years to plan and prepare the ground, sky, and even the very heavens so that the Americans, if they so chose, could safely carry out their impressive grand finale master stroke with their magnificent flying machines and munitions.

Apparently not Twitter-worthy in US presidential cyber-territory.

But if someone tells you that there is wisdom in social media, believe it… The following analogy has been circulating on social media under the handle @kilovh:

“As one rabbi put it, when you write a Torah scroll, a scribe sits for two years his back aching and toils over every letter. On the last day, they make a big happy gathering and some rich guy shows up and colors in the outlines of the last two letters, for which we let him call it his Torah, and everyone is happy. And so have Israel and the US defanged the Iranian regime.”

And while President Trump was still deliberating as to whether or not to take the plunge and every other failed Israeli politician and ex-general was scrambling for their moment on CNN, there was this from Dr. Aaron Lerner of @IMRA_UPDATES:

“There’s a plan for Fordow.

So it’s time for all the retired generals and former intelligence heads now sharing their ‘wisdom’ on television panels to have a modicum of modesty.

They are clueless about what the plan is.”

I would guess that most Israelis knew in their guts that, if need be, Israel could go it alone and somehow gain access to Fordow and render it harmless. It would have been harder and take longer, but we would have gotten the job done because we would have had no choice.

In these types of situations, the seas part, the very mountains split, and lions rise. The Ruler of the Universe plans it this way.

Now President Trump & Co. vs the media pundits and sundry experts can continue to entertain us all with their “nuclear obliteration meter” game.

Was it a 10, meaning absolute obliteration? Or a 1, suggesting a set-back of a few months?

Truth be told, as long as the Iranian regime and its proxies work 24/7 to achieve their aspirations of incinerating the State of Israel and the Jewish people, any bombastic fairytale narratives of peace and “expert” accounts about total obliteration of nuclear capability will go down in the history books as mythology rather than truth.

But I’m not sure that it’s truth that POTUS seeks.

“You know, the Iranians are very good traders,” said Trump in a recent interview.

“Very good business people. And they got a lot of oil.”

It’s the mad rush to make a deal that might be the most destructive force of all.

And true to form and history, it appears that it’s payback time for Israel.

Uncle Sam is always quick to collect on a debt from their “friend” and ally and rush us to a peace table where territorial compromise and a “two-state solution” is sure to be dusted off and served-up once again.

The “quick fix” for seemingly intractable problems is a very Western concept. Buy yourself a few months or a few years. But we Israelis have to look our children and grandchildren straight in the eye, in addition to remembering our obligations to past generations and to those who have fallen. We owe it to them and to all future generations to do our utmost to try and finish the job, or to at least establish solid, authentic, and lasting foundations to build upon.

It seems President Trump has now transitioned from tantrums and rants and calling Israeli planes back to base to running interference for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud).

“It was the United States of America that saved Israel, and now it is going to be the United States of America that saves Bibi Netanyahu.”

Referring to Netanyahu’s corruption trial as a “witch hunt,” Trump tweeted that “Bibi Netanyahu’s trial should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY.”

Regardless of how one feels about the corruption charges and ongoing trial of the prime minister, the last thing Israel needs is Washington interfering in our internal political and legal matters. We have a bad history when it comes to this. The Americans shouldn’t trump or tread on us. That’s not what strategic partners are meant to do.

There is a quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, who was ranked among the best generals of all times.

“If you want a thing done well, do it yourself” (and I always thought “I’d rather do it myself” was my mother’s line).

When it comes to upholding our integrity as a people, preserving our heritage, and defending our sovereignty and inheritance as a nation, we need to remember that “Yaakov remains alone.”

Otherwise, we run the risk of serving mad foreign kings who tend to get “very angry” at Israel. Or perhaps they’re just a little bit jealous of Israel’s leadership, accomplishments, and upward trajectory.