Waiting....Waiting

Israel Weekly War Diary- February 22, 2026

Israel Weekly War Diary-February 22, 2026

A week of waiting. Waiting for a decision to be made; explosions; sirens. Waiting for liberation of the Iranian people, who we in Israel are unaccountably dedicated to and concerned about, no matter that our countries have been antagonists ever since the Shah fled. Someone on Tik Tok (or was it YouTube?) said: “We Israelis are willing to face ballistic missiles to free the oppressed Iranian people.” I don’t doubt that is true. But their liberation is a footnote to our own liberation from the new Nazis.

More and more I am feeling so strongly like a German Jew in 1931. In Ruth Kluger’s Holocaust memoir Still Alive, she writes about her childhood in Vienna, circa 1931- 37: “An entire population had been incited to despise and persecute us,” she writes, responding to an Aunt’s scolding not to call attention to herself when walking to school, lest she incite Jew-hatred. Describing an English tutor hired by her mother, despite her obvious anti Semitism: “Nazis and non-Nazis weren’t like apples and oranges … it was rather a matter of more or less Nazi, and identities were constantly shifting.”

I can identify with both sentiments. But today’s version of Nazis, the Islamists, are really worse than the original, who at least had some shame over their actions, and did their best to hide them, whereas Islamists wear Go-Pro cameras on their heads and broadcast their atrocities. Which makes all the hate we are reading to our disgust on social media, even more egregious.

There is nothing we Jews have done to deserve it. Those involved are despicable morons. I can’t answer each one, correct each lie. Does that mean we lose? They are just so much more numerous than we are. Should we work more tirelessly to contradict them, show them truth?

Melanie Phillips says yes.

Bret Stephens says no: “The Jewish people, Israeli Jews and diaspora Jews, observant Jews and secular ones, right-wing Jews and left, all of us ultimately in the same boat, whether we like each other or not, have the honor of being hated. Constantly seeking to prove ourselves worthy in order to win the world’s love is a fool’s errand. We need to stop being wounded. We need to stop being aggrieved and indignant. And I’d go further. We need to take this as an opportunity to stop caring.

“We have the honor of being hated by the campus lemmings chanting anti- semitic slogans whose meaning most of them aren’t bright enough to understand, though some of them understand it perfectly well. We have the honor of being hated by Ali Hamini, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and other despots whose loathing of Jews is directly proportionate to their crimes against their own people. We have the honor of being hated by Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens, Alice Walker, Roger Waters, Francesca Albanese, Tucker Carlson, the out and out Jew-haters and their sly enablers. We have the honor of being hated by those who think Jesus was a Palestinian. We have the honor of being hated by the so-called feminists who downplayed the rape of Israeli women on and after October 7th and by the so-called progressives who denied it…”

I agree. To earn the hatred of such loathsome people is an honor, but one I would happily do without. And there can be no question that this hatred is spreading, defiling civilization. It’s a pre-Holocaust do-over,, except now the once hapless Jews have an army, air force, missiles and even a A-bomb. Will this generation try to repeat the sins of their fathers and grandfathers? Because this time, there will be no mercy for them, no rat-lines with which they can escape punishment, Divine and secular.

This week, the Ayatollah made the huge error of publicly calling on Hezbollah to take part in the coming war. Since then, IDF activity to take out Hezbollah terror enclaves has been notable, including a series of IDF attacks in the Al-Bekaa area leaving – according to Hezbollah – 10 dead and 24 wounded. The dead are senior operatives from Hezbollah’s missile commando who were speeding up Hezbollah’s build-up in this field.

In contrast to the reaction of any sane government facing the full wrath of an American enemy, Iran doesn’t seem to be worried at all. Abu Ali reports the following words of MP Amir Hayat Moqaddam, Iranian National Security Committee member: “Our missiles have no range limitations, and it is possible that one day you will see that even Trump’s own headquarters is hit. If war breaks out, it is not unreasonable that one of the American warships in the Sea of Oman will be sunk or taken captive. In such a case, there will be no place left for Trump in Washington, and he will be forced to flee the US.”

Steve Witkoff reports that President Trump is “curious” why Iran is not capitulating. This statement has been widely quoted across Islamist media sources, and has given great joy to Gazans and Palestinians, who see it as a sign of weakness.

I hate to break it to them. President Trump isn’t weakening. He is simply astonished that in light of the true situation which now exists, puny Iran can’t see the iron hammer about to crack open its stupid head. Never underestimate the blind hubris and idiocy of an Islamist.

OSINT sources reports more than 160 cargo flights by the US military to the Middle East since January 14th – a rate of about 5 flights per day.

According to Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel is interested in gradually reducing and eliminating the financial component of U.S. military aid within the decade. “In the next three years, we will operate according to the existing arrangement, and over the following seven years, we will reduce the economic aid to zero. Israel will support itself, just as we fight for ourselves. Our goal is to build an independent arms industry in Israel.”

US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that members of his Board of Peace “have pledged more than $5 billion dollars toward the Gaza humanitarian and reconstruction efforts.” He also said the countries sitting on the board promised to provide thousands of troops to the International Stabilization Force for Gaza. But, Trump, clarified: “Hamas must first disarm.”

Netanyahu agrees: “The weapons with which they murdered our people on October 7th were rifles. There are 60,000 rifles in Gaza. They need to be removed from the Strip. We have destroyed 150 km out of 500 km of tunnels in the Strip. We need to finish the job. “