Adedokun Waliyu 
There’s an old Hebrew proverb. It goes something like this:
“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.”
It’s true. And, this week, we will get to see who really supports Israel, and who doesn’t, won’t we? Now we get to see who is a real friend.
Last week was different. Last week, after hell opened up and disgorged Hamas serpents spitting death at children and the elderly, the Western world’s social media was full of well-meaning words and images mostly signifying nothing.
Lots of folks tweeted nice words about Israel, and posted nice pro-Israel profile banners on their Facebook pages. Governments shone Israel’s flag on their buildings at night. There were rallies. It was nice.
This week isn’t going to be nice. The coming weeks aren’t going to be nice. So, now, we will get to see who is a real friend of Israel. Now we will get to see if all those well-meaning folks with “Hate Has No Home Here” signs on their lawns really mean it.
Your noon-hour look at what’s happening in Toronto and beyond.
One, some of the highest cellphone usage in the world is found in the Middle East. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics tells us that there are 4.2 million cellular mobile subscriptions in Palestine. In Gaza, as in the West Bank, it’s estimated that 97% of households — no matter how poor — have at least one cellular mobile line.
That’s not an aberration. In places like the UAE or Qatar, smartphone penetration is just about 100%. Canada, in comparison, is slightly less.
Why is all that significant? Because, when Israel sends in ground troops and artillery into Gaza this week — as they must — it is going to be one of the best-documented events in recent human history. It is going to make coverage of the moon landing look like an afterthought.
Hamas is counting on this, of course. There are going to be more smartphones pointed at Israel’s soldiers than rifles. Hamas, and their Satanic brethren, wanted to provoke Israel into a disproportionate response to their mass murder. That’s why they took as many as 150 Israeli hostages, as well: To live-stream their executions, and whip Israel into a frenzy and overresponse.
Which they will then document on their ubiquitous cellphones, and beam out to a waiting world.
Which brings us to Reason No. 2. The military response.
The Yom Kippur 2023 attack on Israel, as we have all seen, is being likened to 9/11. For Israel, it was and is a Pearl Harbor moment.
Years ago, when I was last in Israel, I visited the Golan Heights, in the north. Twenty thousand Israelis are there, in about 30 settlements. While there, I heard gunshots. They sounded far away. I asked one of the soldiers I was with what the shooting was about.
He grinned. “They’re shooting at us,” he said, completely blase. “They’re shooting at you.”
We didn’t get hit, but the episode underlined a simple truth about Israel: It is a small country, where everyone knows someone in the army, or has been in the army. Everywhere I went in the north, I saw soldiers and young people carrying automatic weapons. Many of them looked too young to vote.
Israel, even more than the United States, knows that one does not fund and maintain an army for show. You do so to use it when you have to. And Israel now must.
Cellphones notwithstanding, it must enter Gaza and drive Hamas and its ilk into the sea. It must wipe them off the face of the Earth. It must show no mercy.
These are the two reasons why the coming weeks are going to be bloody and brutal. One, Israel has no choice. And, two, anyone with an Internet connection is going to be seeing what happens.
Friends in good times aren’t friends. Friends when the going gets tough? Those are the real friends.
