The Latest Ceasefire in Syria Won’t End the Violence

Another U.S.-backed ceasefire, which began in Syria on Monday, held for no more than a few hours. Tom Rogan explains why no one should be surprised:

[The ceasefire] is simply another episode in Vladimir Putin’s long-running manipulation game. Consider how the Russia-Assad-Iran axis acted this past weekend. On Saturday, re-emphasizing its disdain for humanitarianism, the axis bombed a crowded market in the city of Idlib. Around 50 civilians were killed. Consider, too, the ongoing deployment of axis forces into the stranglehold of rebel-held eastern Aleppo. Putin and his allies do not seek peace. As things stand, Putin holds the strategic initiative in Syria. . . .

[N]ow, the ceasefire means that rebel offensives against Bashar al-Assad will stall and the axis position will only strengthen. . . .

[A]fter President Obama and the EU react positively to the pretense of peace, the Russians will use massive air power against moderate rebel groups. They’ll do so claiming that they were targeting Jabhat Fateh al-Sham [an al-Qaeda affiliate, formerly known as Nusra Front], but that will only be the pretense. This will be a very one-sided ceasefire. By the time that truth becomes clear, it will already be too late. The moderate rebels will have been degraded, and Russia will have scored another hammer blow against U.S. credibility in the Middle East.

Remember: degrading our credibility is a focal point of Putin’s overarching strategy to displace American influence around the world.

Read more at National Review

More about: Bashar al-Assad, Politics & Current Affairs, Syrian civil war, U.S. Foreign policy, Vladimir Putin

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society