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Exploiting military related suicides to end the war on Hamas

Over the past weeks, the legacy media in Israel has spotlighted a suspected rise in suicides among IDF soldiers since the start of the war and has deliberately given extensive coverage of these suspected suicides of IDF soldiers while on leave or upon completing military service; both among young, enlisted soldiers as well as among older reserve soldiers.

The extensive reporting has consistently presented a reckless and dangerous narrative that highlighted suspected cases while claiming that by prolonging the war, the government of Israel is pushing soldiers beyond their limits and the resulting psychological toll has caused an increasing rate of suicide among IDF soldiers.

As a former IDF medical mental health officer with 25 years of professional military service, the proliferation of legacy media reporting of suspected suicide cases whether true or not has a contagious effect on those soldiers who are contemplating or are at risk of attempting suicide. Soldiers who are experiencing a period of instability or unrelated difficulties in their lives (relationships, family illnesses, financial, and so forth) may very well be affected by the extensive coverage and feel a sense of relief, a sense of legitimization, that’s it's OK to end ones' life similar to what other soldiers are doing.

During pervious cycles of suicides in the IDF (prior to the era of social media), it was proven empirically that media reports of suicides have an impact on the rates of suicides among IDF soldiers. At the time, the major media outlets agreed voluntarily to refrain from reporting on suicides in the IDF, and over the following years, there was a significant drop in suicide rates among IDF soldiers.

According to the data released in January 2025, which reflects a total of 15 months out of the 21 months of war, up to 28 soldiers are suspected of committing suicide since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. An additional 10 suspected suicides occurred earlier in 2023, before the war began. These suspected suicide rates mark a sharp increase compared to previous years: 14 suspected suicides were recorded in 2022, and 11 in 2021. Overall, the total number of deaths in the IDF during 2023-2024 — including combat fatalities — was the highest in decades, largely as a result of the ongoing war. These are the statistics that have been used by the legacy media to sway public opinion and demand that the government in Israel end the war on Hamas. The most simplistic extrapolation and statistical analysis will clearly show that the legacy media narrative is not only false but widely misleading and has in itself created the snowball effect of additional suicides that might never have been realized.

Since the outbreak of the war on Hamas on Oct 7, 2023, the size of the standing army in Israel has increased substantially. For context, Israel has a population of about 9.5 million people according to 2023 census estimates. In 2022 the IDF counted 169,500 active-duty personnel and had a cadre of 465,000 reserve personnel in 2022, bringing its total force to about 634,500 individuals.

That equates to about 7% of the population in active or reserve military service. For comparison, America’s total active and reserve military force consists of about 1.74 million or roughly 0.5 % of the population. In addition to the active force, the IDF says that approximately 295,000 reservists have reported for duty since the beginning of the war. In essence, the country has committed about 75% of its armed forces personnel to service in a slate of different roles - basically a full war footing. The average number of days of reserve service is 61 according to the report. Approximately 45,000 reservists have returned to full reserve duty after having been given an exemption from active reserve service. The reservists remain overwhelmingly male at 81% of the reserve force. However, a couple of other numbers jump out. The report’s numbers show that approximately 20% of Israel’s reservists are over 40 years of age. Some 40% of them are parents (115,000 men, 3,000 women).

The war on Hamas has taken a heavy toll with killed in action reaching close to 900 soldiers and thousands wounded. These numbers include those killed and wounded as a result of operational accidents and "friendly fire". The IDF has reported that approximately 9,000 soldiers' mental health has been affected during the war. Of these about 75% have returned to operational activity.

The IDF has increased its active standing army by hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Proportionally speaking, the claim by the legacy media that the IDF is pushing soldiers beyond their limits resulting in a higher rate of suicide is simply incorrect and misleading. The high proportion of older reserve soldiers has created an additional risk factor. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are returning home between military call ups and take their service automatic weapons home with them, an additional risk factor. The immediacy of a weapon at home may very well be the most significant suicide risk factor for men who develop PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), or are exposed to other non-military stress related events while home. Men and women in uniform commit suicide for many reasons, from my professional experience, many of the reasons are unrelated to military service and are a result of psychological stress from civilian life. The proliferation of alcoholism and drug use in civilian life has also contributed to the rate of suicide while soldiers are on leave or home between periods of reserve duty.

The war on Hamas has taken a heavy toll on the mental health of soldiers who have served as well as their families. We as a nation mourn all of our fallen soldiers, whether in combat or outside the combat zones. To claim that the government of Israel should end the war to prevent future suicides is a false and dangerous narrative that will motivate others to consider suicide as an option rather than all that can be done to strengthen the resiliency of all soldiers serving in the IDF

Jews, infidels, and everyone else in-between

When observing the daily demonstrations by Muslims and their radicalized supporters on the campuses and streets of America, I never cease to be amazed by the primal rage, overt hatred, and endless blaming of Jews expressed loudly, obsessively, and repeatedly. One cannot escape the question: why are Muslims so easily offended? When I see and hear these voices of hostility, I am reminded of the classic novel “Moby Dick” authored by Herman Melville. “Call me Ishmael”, is the opening sentence that opens the novel “Moby Dick”, and recounts that he, Ismael is sailing to sea out of a sense of alienation and cultural inadequacy. Ishmael describes the behavior of Captain Ahab who is so relentless in his obsession to kill the great white whale, that he is willing to endanger the entire ship, all of his sailors, just to kill the great white whale. The name Ishmael, the son of the Patriarch Abraham from the old Testament as well as the Koran, symbolizes more than anything the sense of being rejected and being scorned my one’s peers and by one’s civilization.

Ever since the days of Napoleon's landing upon the shores of Egypt at the very end of the 18th Century bringing with him the modern era to the people of the Middle East, Islam has been unable to free itself from the shackles of inferiority and self-destructive primal rage that typifies the hatred of modern day Muslims and their radicalized supporters against Jews and essentially everyone else. In recent years, and even more so since the Oct 7th massacre by Hamas of civilians living in communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip, the intensity of the hate, blame, and violence against Jews has reached new heights.

The European continent has over the past two decades undergone a rapid demographic transition that has led to a large Muslim population harboring an unchanging, hostile attitude toward their respective communities and host countries. We have much to learn from their experience during this transition. Nicolai Sennels, a Danish psychologist who has had extensive experience with treating Muslim youths has identified four main cultural differences that are important in order to understand the behavior of Muslims and how they interact with Western influences. Sennels has identified four main cultural sub-types that are important in order to understand the behavior of modern day Muslims. They concern anger, self-confidence, the so-called "locus of control" and identity.

Westerners are brought up to think of anger as a sign of weakness, powerlessness and lack of self-control. According to Sennels, in Muslim culture, anger is seen as a sign of strength. To Muslims, being aggressive is a way of gaining respect. When we see violent demonstrators, or the more classic pictures of bearded men jumping up and down while shooting in the air, we should take it for what it is: these are the true role models of acceptable behavior and the explicit legitimization of anger. In Western culture, self-confidence is connected with the ability to meet criticism calmly and to respond rationally. We are raised to see people who easily get angry when criticized, as insecure and immature. According to Sennels, in Muslim culture it is the opposite; it is honorable to respond aggressively and to engage in a physical fight in order to scare or force critics to withdraw, even if this results in a prison sentence or even death. Non-aggressive responses to such threats and violence are a sign of a vulnerability that is to be exploited by Muslims. They do not interpret a peaceful response as an invitation to enter into a dialogue, diplomacy, intellectual debate, compromise or peaceful coexistence but the opposite, as a sign of weakness.

"Locus of control" is a term from the field of psychology, and relates to the way in which individuals feel that they have control of their lives. In Western culture, we are brought up to have an "inner locus of control," meaning that we see our own inner emotions, reactions, decisions and views as the main deciding factors in our lives. There may be outer circumstances that influence our situation, but in the end, it is our own perception of a situation and the way we handle it that decides our future and our state of mind. The "inner locus of control" leads to increased self-responsibility and motivates people to become able to solve their own problems.

According to Sennels, Muslims are brought up to have an "outer locus of control." Their constant use of the term “Inshallah”, ("Allah willing") when talking about the future, as well as the fact that most aspects of their lives are decided by older traditions, clan tribal affiliations and authorities, leaves very little space for individual freedom. Independent initiatives are often severely punished. This shapes their way of thinking, and means that when things go wrong, it is always the fault of others or external factors (Jews, discrimination, so called corrupt American culture and so forth).

Identity plays a significant role when it comes to psychological differences between Muslims and American society. Americans and Europeans have been brought up to be open and tolerant toward other cultures, races, religions, etc. This makes us less critical, impairs our ability to discriminate, and makes our societies open to the influence of other cultural trends and values that may not always be constructive. According to Sennels, Muslims, are taught again and again that they are superior, and that all others starting with the Jews are subservient and inferior and that Allah will throw them into hell when they die. Muslim culture's self-glorification achieves the very opposite when exposed to the overall freedom afforded in America. In general, Westerners are taught to be kind, self-assured, self-responsible and tolerant of others, while Muslims are taught to be aggressive, insecure and intolerant.

The Pavlovian tendency to being overly forgiving in response to Muslim self-pity and blame is the psychological crowbar that has welcomed the escalating Muslim violence against Jews and everyone else in their way. It was Newt Gingrich who stated that "the Islamists cannot reconcile with a secular system of laws. They cannot truly tolerate a West that maintains a presence in the Arabian Gulf or that would defend Israel's right to survive as a country. They cannot tolerate freedom of speech, freedom of religion, or freedom for women. Their demands are irreconcilable with the modern world.

While trying to understand the volatility of millions of Middle Easterners taught from birth to hate America and to despise Israel, we in the West should be asking one basic question. Why do we feel the need to pander and apologize to the most radical, violent and intolerant extremes around the world, to let them set the tone; a tone designed to stifle all criticism of Islam, to declare as blasphemy any attempt to reform radical Islam. This more than anything is at the crux of the transformation America is undergoing, making the campuses and streets of America intolerant of Jews and anyone else in their way. It can also provide a pathway to explaining why Arabs are so easily offended.

Putting Egypt and Turkey on notice

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, published back in 2011 his book entitled “Palestine.” In explicit detail, the leader of Iran laid out his vision of how to destroy the “Zionist entity” phase by phase. Make life in Israel miserable and unbearable with daily terror from the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, from Hamas in Gaza, and from Hezbollah in Lebanon creating a never ending instability militarily, politically, economically, and culturally thereby threatening the national cohesion of the State of Israel. The final goal in his book ends with the dispersion of the Jews to their previous countries from which they fled or immigrated. It was no surprise that when the Iranian ballistic missiles began raining on Israel ten days ago, Palestinians everywhere celebrated and danced in the streets and on their rooftops, handed out sweets to passersby, and cheered on the destruction and havoc caused by these bus size ballistic missiles with 1.5 ton warheads. Yet despite this apocalyptic Islamist fantasy, and as the temporary ceasefire brokered by President Trump between Iran and Israel goes into effect, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is holed up in some descript bunker in the north of Iran with his immediate family, cut off from the world, exhausted and consumed with his hatred of the Jews and the State of Israel, wondering about the moment when Israel will decide to finish him off.

The Iranian regime’s stated goal from its inception has been the total annihilation of the State of Israel. This is not a slogan, but a cornerstone of Iranian religious, political, and military doctrine. Iran and its current regime leadership are indeed an “existential threat” on the State of Israel, having her nuclear arsenal and capabilities destroyed by Israel literally at the last moment. The Iranian plan to surround and coordinate an attack on the State of Israel with terror proxies; Hamas terror organization in Gaza, Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, Hezbollah terror organization in Lebanon, the Houthis terror organization from Yemen, Syrian Army, culminated in a barbaric and savage attack on Israel on October 7^th, with thousands sadistically murdered, wounded, and taken hostage. Yet, from that dark day, from the depths of unfathomable suffering, when Israel was caught unprepared for the murderous onslaught, and arising from this painful low point, we can today proudly raise our heads after destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities that endangered the continuing existence of the State of Israel, after destroying the Hamas terror organization, after destroying the Hezbollah terror organization, after destroying the Syrian Army. The political and military leadership of all these enemies have been eliminated one by one and at times in clusters.

In the aftermath of the ten day war between Israel and Iran, Israel’s decision makers must calibrate their thinking about how to deter future adversaries whom despite being perceived as deterred, were able to coordinate an offensive initiative, rooted in the element of surprise, and inflict death and destruction on a local level, and severely weaken Israel’s strategic capabilities and dominance in the Middle East. Israel launched Operation “Rising Lion”, to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival, but no less to send a very specific lesson to future adversaries such as the nations of Egypt and Turkey. Both of these nations have quietly abetted and provided political and strategic support to the very same terror proxies trained and funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Egypt and Israel signed a historic peace agreement in March 1979 to end hostilities and normalize relations. It marked the first treaty of its kind between an Arab country and Israel. The peace agreement between Egypt and Israel was viewed at the time as having reshaped the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict for the better. Yet for the past two decades, Egypt’s claim to de-escalate and bring an end to the conflict between Israel and her neighbors would be much more believable and credible had they neutralized and prevented the construction of hundreds of underground tunnels between the Gaza Strip and the adjacent Sinai Peninsula, the eastern border of Egypt. These tunnels some large enough to allow motor vehicles to pass through, enabled Hamas to import arsenals of weapons and unlimited materials to enable the construction of an underground military capacity that clandestinely threatened the State of Israel.

Although Egypt is a poor country, with a low GDP per capita rating, with tens of millions of Egyptians forced to live in cemeteries or boxes as a substitute for a home; Egypt has built up the strongest army among the Arab nations of the Middle East with over: 5,000 tanks, hundreds of advanced fighter warplanes and helicopters, over 100 naval vessels and submarines, and an estimated one million soldiers in uniform. A study by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies reported that Egypt's air force has undergone the most significant modernization of any military in the Arab world. "From the point of view of weapon systems," the author concluded, "the military-technological gap between the Egyptian and Israeli Air Forces is gradually narrowing." In addition, the “Egyptian Air Force’s increasing confidence is reflected in its acquisition of aircraft for deep-penetration strikes into enemy territory.” Egypt now has some of the most sophisticated U.S.-made weapons, including Abrams tanks, F-16 fighter planes, and Apache attack helicopters. Western intelligence agencies are aware of and have leaked details that Israel - the country Egypt signed a peace treaty with - is the "enemy" in all of Egypt's war games.

Turkey, one of the few countries in the world that most Americans do not visit, probably in response to the 1978 movie "Midnight Express" , portraying Turkey for what it is, a backward, sadistic, and corrupt nation.

Despite its 85 million citizens, Turkey has failed to position itself as an influential regional power. The current Islamist government’s new policy, which is premised on Neo-Ottomanize (a return to the Ottoman Empire’s glory days,) registered a series of stinging diplomatic failures in recent years. Yet Prime Minister Erodgan and his party have reinforced their political status within Turkey through the daily scapegoating of Israel in the "best" of Islamic tradition. Only recently Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador, suspended defense contracts with Jerusalem, announced legal action against senior Israeli figures in European courts, threatened to bring the dispute before the international court and “take measures for freedom of maritime movement in the Mediterranean” including positioning her Navy so as to interfere with the free movement of Israeli shipping and mining expeditions in the Mediterranean Sea. Turkey has been a dominant and strategic partner to Hamas and her leadership enabling terror leaders to operate, coordinate, fund, and train terrorists in Turkey.

The epilogue to the current period ending with the total humiliation of Iran; militarily, technologically, and politically while exposing her true capabilities as nothing more than a “paper tiger”, and nothing close to the regional superpower the Iranians have falsely claimed. The lesson should not be lost on the nations of Egypt and Turkey. Both nations have large populations of poor and uneducated citizens, allowing them to become just another Islamic nation that can be overthrown at any time.

"Redemptive antisemitism" aims to rid the world of Israel and all Jews.

We are witnessing the rebirth of Nazi era inspired "redemptive anti-Semitism” where all the world's problems are solved by exterminating and purifying humanity by annihilating Jews everywhere. All you have to do is listen to the thousands of anti-Israel and Jew haters as they demonstrate on the campuses of American Universities or on the streets of major urban cities everywhere in the United States. The very same slogans were shouted out by an illegal Egyptian Muslim immigrant as he attacked Jews in Boulder Colorado with flame blowers and fire bombs, and by a leftist extremist as he shot point blank and murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D. C. as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum, all happening within the past two weeks.

Despite historical record being supportive of our collective Jewish historical narrative and Israel becoming a nation admired and respected throughout the world, we have witnessed in recent years, primarily during the Democratic progressive administration of the Biden Presidency, a kind of pinnacle of anti-Semitism and Jew hatred everywhere. This transformation from harboring anti-Semitic thoughts to physically attacking Jews, symbols of Israel or the Jewish religion, desecrating Jewish institutions, cemeteries, JCC’s, represents a historical leap that is reminiscent of Jew hatred during the Nazi era. Anti-Semites have in a relatively short span of time created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation that Jews are conscious of whenever they leave their homes. Today’s Jew haters feel empowered due to the lack of enforcement and harbor a sense of immunity from being held accountable as they document their hatred on social media. Tolerating Jew hatred has become the new norm, allowing Jew haters to commit a violent attack on any Jew that crosses their path.

For the past century America was a “safe haven” for American Jews enabling the Jewish community to reach the highest pinnacles of almost all fields of endeavor. Yet with the continuing daily anti-Semitic attacks reaching new heights, an updated understanding of how the old or classical anti-Semitism has evolved into the new anti-Semitism namely, “Redemptive Anti-Semitism," is due.

In the past we were accustomed to the classical type of anti-Semitism, the “gentlemen’s agreement” type of bigotry and discrimination against Jews; residential restrictions, academic restrictions, cultural restrictions, and employment restrictions. We have entered a new era of Jewish hatred that resonates from the past. As we move back to the future, and as Jews are hunted down and attacked violently in broad daylight on the streets of major cities in America, Canada and Europe, all you have to do to understand this new phenomenon is listen to their declarative threats. The common thread unifying the desire for the total destruction of Jews is shared by Muslims, radicalized supporters and Nazi ideology. They want Jews to die and they want to annihilate the Jewish community as a whole. These vicious barbarians want to “kill the Jews” with their own bare hands and show their actions to the world through social media.

A relatively unknown historical manifestation links together the radical anti-Semitism of the Nazi ideology and the modern day Jew hatred by radical American/European Muslims and radicalized supporters. This common bond of “purifying” humanity of any Jewish presence promoted and upheld by radical Islam and the Nazi ideology now spans more than a nine decade period. We can no longer deny the nearly identical ideological and doctrinal models used by the Nazis and modern day radical Muslims and radicalized supporters who promote the killing of Jews and demand the total annihilation of the State of Israel.

Nazi ideology spoke of “redemptive anti-Semitism”, namely a form of anti-Semitism that explains all in the world by offering a form of “redemption” by exterminating and purifying humanity from the Jews. Islamic religious and political leaders broadcast daily sermons of incitement to murder Jews, promising heaven and redemption for those that carry out this call to rid the world of Jews. “Redemptive anti-Semitism” is a theory expounded by the Holocaust historian Professor Saul Friedlander. He maintained that Nazi anti-Semitism was distinctive for being “redemptive anti-Semitism”, namely a form of anti-Semitism that could explain all in the world and offer a form of “redemption” for the anti-Semitic person. Friedländer spoke about a specifically Nazi aspect of anti-Semitism. That's the belief in a racial hierarchy, with the "the Jews" at the bottom. It holds that everything wrong with the world, and everything wrong with people, is a result of the malign influence of "the Jews." According to this idea, exterminating the Jews will prevent them from corrupting the world any further and will enable people to be redeemed and purified. Friedlander’s use of the term "liberation from Jews" begins with physical attacks, followed by the expulsion of Jews from their homes and communities and finally ends with their physical annihilation.

The connection between the modern day publicly displayed Islamic Jew hatred and the Nazi regime in Germany runs deep, as the Nazis did their best to support through finance and advice the embryonic radical Islamic movements in British ruled Egypt and Iraq through the late 1930s and early 1940s. A key player was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini who met covertly with representatives of the Nazi SS intelligence arm during the late 1930s, and not coincidentally with Otto Adolf Eichmann, who was a German-Austrian Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) and one of the major implementers of the Holocaust’s systematic annihilation and extermination of European Jewry. Eichmann played a central role in the deportation of over 1.5 million Jews from all over Europe to killing camps and killing sites in occupied Poland and in parts of the occupied Soviet Union. With the British Mandate intelligence services becoming aware of Al-Husseini’s clandestine activities, he opted to flee to Germany for the remainder of World War II, remaining active as a propagandist and recruiter of Balkan Muslims into the Waffen SS Handschar and Kama Divisions, used extensively in the latter part of the war, as German manpower available for combat divisions declined. An interesting footnote to Al-Husseini’s family lineage; Yasser Arafat, the deceased mass murderer pf Jews, and the founding leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, was a first nephew of Al-Husseini.

The shift of “redemptive antisemitism” from Nazi Germany to the four corners of the Arab world during and after World War II, is not merely a supplementary feature of modern radical Islam, but lies instead at its ideological core and is an antecedent of a modern manifestation of “redemptive anti-Semitism”. With its proliferation and exportation and re-introduction into Western societies, “redemptive anti-Semitism” has become rampant among American and European Muslims and their supporters.

Social media tweets and comments such as “As long as there is Jewish life in the world, peace is not possible,” or “Palestine from the river to the sea” have become the new norm and “redemptive anti-Semitism” will continue to empower Muslims and their supporters to continue their crusade to free humanity as they understand. There is no Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world, but there is a widespread global anti-Jewish conspiracy based on the principles of “redemptive anti-Semitism”. It starts with the Jews but it does not end with the Jews. The first airplane that was hijacked was an Israeli airplane, and today at every airport at every country in the world, we now we line up for security checks, so the world should be concerned. The danger of dismissing the inherent threat of “redemptive anti-Semitism” lies in its danger not only for the Jews, but for the whole world.