(Day 526) Swords of Iron – “Sons of Light Vs Sons of Darkness”

Chaim starts by saying that it’s the season of Purim and we’re living in the story right now. He compares an incident at the end of WWII, when Jewish American soldiers celebrated Purim in Joseph Goebbels’s house, and the situation today when IDF soldiers are celebrating Purim in Gaza. Chaim says that now, as then, and as has also happened many times in the past, with God’s help the Jewish People triumphed over an attempt to wipe them out by several evil forces which arose in the world.

Chaim also mentions the Iranian regime’s refusal to negotiate with US President Donald Trump over the Islamic Republic’s plans for nuclear weapons development. The leaders of this evil regime in Teheran are saying that they’re not the problem in the Middle East, Israel is the problem in the Middle East. Chaim says there are many other examples of calling evil good and good evil.

Chaim also talks about Omer Shem Tov, an Israeli hostage held in Gaza fot five months who was able to celebrate Shabbat every week by taking a small drink from a bottle of grape juice he found which never ran out and never went bad. He said it was like a Hanukkah miracle and he uses it as an illustration of how Jews, including secular and religious Jews and everyone in between, have to come together around the institution of Shabbat and otherwise be resilient in the face of all this pressure coming at us from all directions.

Chaim also talks about how the world in general is processing what’s happening here in the Middle East, UN officials standing together with al-Jolani, the leader of the regime in Syria which just carried out massacres of its own people. But Israel is standing together with the Druze community of that country and Chaim says this alliance will continue to grow stronger.

Chaim also raises the subject of Qatar, asking how it’s possible that they’re the party supposedly mediating negotiations between Hamas and Israel. This is absurd since Qatar is obviously taking Hamas’ side in this conflict and assisting it in many ways.

However, Steve Witkoff, the US envoy for negotiations, is taking a very constructive stane, which compensates somewhat for Qatar’s duplicity.

Chaim also talks about plans to move the civilian residents of Gaza to countries in Eastern Africa, and confidently declares that Israel will have full victory in this war. In this context, he quotes Zephaniah 2:7; The coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah;

They shall feed their flocks there; In the houses of Ashkelon they shall lie down at evening. For the Lord their God will intervene for them, and return their captives.