Israelis who were taken hostage or lost loved ones during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack are suing the United Nations agency that aids Palestinians, claiming it has helped finance the militants by paying agency staffers in U.S. dollars and thereby funneling them to money-changers in Gaza who allegedly give a cut to Hamas.

But the agency, known as UNWRA, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the staffers were paid in dollars by their own choice. Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank don’t have their own national currency, and primarily use Israeli shekels.

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An affliction is running rampant and has developed an uncanny resistance to any sort of countermeasures.

No treatment, whether medication, surgery or preventative action can cure the malady once it has infected individuals. It has reached epidemic proportions in every part of the globe.

Myopia is a common vision problem in which close objects look clear but far objects look blurry.

Most Israelis can clearly see the agenda of jihadist perpetrators and their supporters while the UN and its fellow travellers have only a blurry outline of which countries are behind terror and its fatal future.

As we know all too well from our history the temptation to throw in the towel when the going gets tough is always there. As the Israelites traversed the desert in their forty-year trek to the Land promised them, there were several occasions when complaints, revolts and despair surfaced. There were those who nostalgically looked back to the “paradise” of Egypt. There were others who wanted to surrender to their enemies as they faced the armies of Egypt and Amalek. Others complained about the lack of meat. Finally, ten of the spies sent by Moshe to survey the Land threw their hands up in despair and spread a defeatist narrative about their ability to prevail.

Looking at the situation today one can clearly discern similar patterns playing out both within Israeli society and internationally.

Robust political dissension has always been a hallmark of Israel’s democratic fabric. Media commentators, breast-beating myopic dreamers, fleeting visitors talking only with certain sectors of society and those hankering for some sort of paradise in the Diaspora all have one thing in common.

They prefer to beat the doomsday drums of depression and despair while they proclaim the impending demise of Jewish sovereignty. At the same time, they rubbish the “unenlightened” majority who insist that they are here in Israel for a purpose and who are only too cognizant that Jewish survival has always been an existential battle. If Israel holds no special place in Jewish history and is replaced by a myopic belief that life is far better and safer in a world increasingly hostile to Jews, then, of course, the 10 spies’ narrative wins. If galloping Diaspora assimilation is unimportant then it is no surprise that the vast majority of those who jump ship look with disdain on those who remain attached to their spiritual traditions.

Detractors love to bewail the rightward drift of the Israeli electorate but generally refuse to acknowledge exactly why this is happening. The hallucinatory mirages of Islamic jihadists embracing love and tolerance, incubated by left-wing groupies, were always going to shatter once reality landed. Refusing to learn from past pogroms and hate-infused indoctrination, they naively believed that in order to wipe away our original sin, all we had to do was surrender more land and pour money into bottomless corrupt pockets.

Feeding crocodiles and hoping that they will not eat you has never been a winning strategy and so it tragically proved yet again on 7 October and the subsequent venomous vitriol unleashed against Israel and Jews since that black day.

Without a doubt, Israel faces gigantic challenges, but they are no more catastrophic than those faced by our ancestors in previous generations.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that there needs to be more accountability in various sectors of society.

Elections whenever they are held will hopefully result in a cleanout of failed politicians and those who refuse to own up to their misdeeds. The stranglehold that Charedi parties and their Rabbinical patrons exercise over their followers has become an impediment to integration and a source of scandalous shame. The spectacle of thousands of able-bodied young men shirking military or community commitments can no longer be tolerated. If the Zionist enterprise is so treif, then the best alternative is to re-establish the shtetls in such “holy” places as Poland, Ukraine and Russia.

The Arab parties in the Knesset which identify as Palestinians should pack up and move to the “enlightened” PA where they can enjoy the delights of a Zionist free ethnically cleansed “democratic” autocracy.

The Chief Rabbinate needs to be released from the political corruption it is currently suffering from and transformed into an institution which attracts rather than repels the majority of Israeli Jews. In other words, it needs to be released from the clutches of vested out-of-touch interests and instead, be led by spiritual leaders who inspire and live in the real world.

Aliyah will increase as threats to Jewish life worldwide becomes a critical factor.

These changes will occur sooner rather than later and are part of an inevitable and unstoppable transformation.

At the same time that Israel faces these domestic challenges the myopic musings and blurred visions articulated by an increasingly deranged UN membership continues unabated.

One listens with wonderment and amazement as latter-day appeasers lecture and warn Israel not to react in the face of unrestrained terror.

Blinken and sundry American officials demand that Israel not escalate tensions with Hezbollah. It is an unbelievable moment of imbecility that faced with thousands of rockets aimed and fired at Israel and the evacuation of thousands of civilians from the north, the country being threatened is expected to turn the other cheek.

Compounding this idiocy are the dire warnings that any sort of reaction by Israel risks a response from Iran. This astounding assertion confirms that not one democratic nation is prepared to deal with the real culprits. The pathetic inability to destroy Houthi piracy is a perfect example of this rampant refusal to face up to the primary sponsor of terror. It explains why Iran is unimpeded in its march to nuclear blackmail status and its declared objective of destroying the Zionist “entity.”

The road map to catastrophe is a repeat of the 1930s reactions of the democracies when they refused to see, acknowledge and deal with Nazi Germany’s intimidations and ultimate aggression.

If you want a perfect example of how myopia can distort even the most sensible individual look no further than the current American Ambassador to Israel. This Biden Administration devotee who also happens to be a genetic Jewish Democrat supporter, recently made an assertion that can only be described as totally detached from reality. It exemplifies the sorry shambles international diplomacy has now descended to and explains why Israel cannot count on any sort of meaningful support.

Ambassador Lew asserted with presumably a straight face that “Palestine with Fatah/PLO in charge would be a defeat for Hamas.” It would miraculously then open the door to a messianic vision of all Arab & Islamic countries embracing Israel and the region basking in unprecedented peace and tolerance.

This miraculous transformation mind you can only occur if Israel accepts the creation of Palestine in the heartland of Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem.

What could possibly go wrong?

Look at the Oslo disaster and the handing over of Gaza to PA control as roadmaps of what would inevitably follow the establishment of “Palestine.” It is a certain recipe for collective Jewish suicide promoted by the usual useful idiots.

This type of myopia is incurable and the sooner we face up to it the better for all concerned.

We desperately need a much clearer vision in order to successfully combat the machinations looming ahead.

In the ongoing dispute over weapons shipments between the United States and Israel, two possibilities emerge: either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is lying, or the Americans are being dishonest. After careful examination, the latter seems more likely – the Americans are obscuring the truth.

Multiple shipments of various types of ammunition to Israel have been delayed since February – that is four months. This far exceeds the single weapons shipment President Joe Biden mentioned regarding operations in Rafah.

The delayed shipments include artillery, tank and air combat ammunition – weapons Israel has already paid for – as well as thousands of JDAM kits that convert unguided bombs into precision-guided munitions. Netanyahu, not always known for strict adherence to facts, accurately describes the situation.

His unprecedented move – releasing a video directly criticizing Washington. – became necessary after months of quiet diplomacy failed to resolve the issue, effectively freezing weapons deliveries.

The actual delays stem from State Department officials who are not processing the required export permits for these shipments to Israel.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s trip to the US will address this issue, which highlights Israel’s significant military and diplomatic dependence on America, as revealed during the ongoing war.

The benefits of US support for Israel are clear: $4 billion in annual military aid, continuous ammunition supply during war, and international backing against hostile entities like Iran, Russia and the United Nations. However, the drawbacks are less discussed: Israel’s limited freedom to act according to its own judgment, both operationally during the war and diplomatically in its aftermath.

The logical goal is a dramatic increase in domestic production – both in volume and variety – and liberation from contractual restrictions that prevent Israel from independently developing additional weapon types.

While dependence on the US won’t disappear overnight, efforts to reduce it should have begun yesterday. Israel has already taken some steps to increase its future autonomy.

Some may ridicule this ambition as unrealistic, but it’s not far-fetched. Similar skepticism surrounded the gradual phasing out of US civilian aid to Israel, which no longer exists today.

Reducing military aid will take years, but it’s the right path. Simultaneously, Israel must break the “siege” on weapons supply by approaching countries it wouldn’t normally consider, as it did during its first War of Independence.

n early November, a letter allegedly written by Osama bin Laden went viral on the social media app TikTok, where American kids were making videos of themselves praising the letter’s contents and confessing that it made them rethink their fundamental beliefs. The letter is deeply antisemitic and makes the case for Islamic terrorism against Israel and the West. So vociferous were the accusations against the social media platform for the spread of the letter that TikTok eventually removed all content featuring the video.

Of course, it’s not surprising that Osama bin Laden would have gained viral popularity with American teens on TikTok. Tiktok is owned by Bytedance, which is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, and China is committed to the destruction of the United States and its allies—especially Israel.

“The Hamas movement is part of the Palestinian national fabric and China is keen on relations with it,” Chinese diplomat Wang Kejian told Hamas during a meeting with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar in March, according to Hamas. It was around this time that a video was widely disseminated on Chinese social media in which a TV presenter bragged that “TikTok has won big for Palestine.”

The CCP-Hamas partnership goes both ways. Khaled Meshal, a top Hamas leader, said in early November in an interview on Arabic TV that Hamas “seeks cooperation with the superpowers, China and Russia.” He added that China should take inspiration from the Hamas invasion of Israel for their own plans to conquer Taiwan.

What possible interest does Hamas have in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan? The answer is simple: Both Israel and Taiwan are seen as allies and proxies of the United States.

This represents a shift for China. Israel’s diplomatic ties with China go back more than three decades, and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s 2017 visit to China led to 25 cooperation agreements at an estimated value of $2 billion. At the time, Netanyahu expressed interest in joining China’s Belt and Road Initiative and invited China to build infrastructure projects in Israel.

Then they full on switched sides.

Massive amounts of recently acquired advanced Chinese military equipment and weapons technology were foundin Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces, according to Guermantes Lailari, a Scholar at National Chengchi University in Taiwan and retired U.S. Air Force Officer. Chinese tunnel warfare specialists helped design and build the Hamas tunnels. Lailari also told me that two tunnel engineers from China’s People’s Liberation Army were discovered by the IDF, meaning that China helped Hamas significantly in its construction of the massive tunnel networks under the Gaza Strip. (The engineers were returned to China after pressure on Israel.)

And at the end of April, the CCP hosted Hamas and Fatah leadership in an effort to bring unity between the Palestinian factions.

Why has the CCP, with extensive trade relations with Israel and a traditionally neutral posture in the Middle East, suddenly turned so sharply against the Jewish state?

In March of 2021, Iran and the CCP signed a 25-year cooperation pact which Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called “permanent and strategic.” Per the agreement, China will invest in Iranian energy, infrastructure, transport, and seaports. In exchange, Iran will provide a discounted regular supply of its oil.

China and Iran have since intensified the partnership in all these areas. And one of Iran’s key strategic goals, the purpose of proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, is the destruction of Israel (the “little Satan”), and eventually the United States (the “great Satan”).

And here’s where China’s goals and Iran’s overlap: In May 2019, Xi Xinping declared a “People’s War” against the United States. The PLA website explains that “a people’s war is a total war, and its strategy and tactics require the overall mobilization of political, economic, cultural, diplomatic, military, and other power resources, the integrated use of multiple forms of struggle and combat methods.”

China and Iran have a comprehensive strategic partnership and share the goal of bringing down the United States. This is why China is promoting Iran’s geopolitical goals in the Middle East.

It is high time that Israel and the United States recognize the truth: The CCP is an enemy of America—and an enemy of the State of Israel.

Rabbi Pesach Wolicki is host of Eyes On Israel on Real America’s Voice network, cohost of the Shoulder to Shoulder podcast, and serves as Executive Director of Israel365action.com.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.