Israel has been at war with Iran for a week. In deeply divided America and Canada, protests for and against Israel. War is terrible, but fighting to prevent one’s country to be overrun or, in the case of Israel, annihilated by a theocratic despot with nuclear weapons makes a virtue out of conflict
We have rebranded our “The Yakking Show” podcast and YouTube channel to “Health Declassified” to better reflect our focus on health and wellness topics. We have had some interesting guests in the last few weeks. Especially if like me you are now considered a senior and want to stay healthy and active as long as possible.
Although on a much larger scale than the terrorist war in Rhodesia in the 1970s and 80s, the reports remind me of the parallels between the two conflicts. Both countries were condemned by most of the rest of the world, had few allies, were vilified in the media and both were fighting enemies which had no compunction in killing innocent civilians. We were dealing with AK-47s, landmines and bombs in shops. Israel is facing missiles, drones and rockets. Conscripted civilians and volunteers formed the bulk of the military in Rhodesia, as they now do in Israel. Citizens fighting for their countries. Virtue on the side of those doing their duty.
There are two important differences. Israel has, under the government of President Trump, the support of the USA, including a supply of weapons – we had to make our guns and ammunition. Despite some trade barriers, Israel can openly export most of its sophisticated products and services to international customers. We were faced with sanctions and embargoes.
Many other countries, covertly or overtly, support and assist Israel. Rhodesians were abandoned by our WWII allies, and after the coup in Portugal, Mozambique changed from ally to enemy, leaving us with only South Africa in our corner. Ultimately, international pressure on South Africa ended that support. We won the war on the ground convincingly, we were not able to survive the betrayal by the West. The disaster that is Zimbabwe today is a testament to the virtue of our cause.
Reminiscent of the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel has executed the opening week of this war with careful planning and brilliant execution. We hope and pray that the people of Iran will now rise up against the oppressive regime of the Ayatollahs and bring the conflict to a quick end.
I had not heard from my friend Dr. Binyamin Klempner – a previous guest on The Yakking Show for some time. I was concerned for his safety and contacted him last week. He replied with an update, which I have included below. His previous updates can be found here: Updates from Israel.
June 17th, 2025
Dear Friends,
My wife and I just returned from an anniversary dinner at a restaurant that opened recently in the neighborhood. The food was fresh and delicious. We were the only guests at the restaurant, a restaurant which had been bustling with business a week earlier. It was nice having the place to ourselves. If you’ve ever been the only patron in a restaurant during a blizzard, that was the atmosphere. As we finished ordering an alarm went off on my phone. Then an alarm went off of the chef/owner’s phone. My wife and I, along with the waitress and two co-owners/chefs, went into the nearby bomb shelter. Before we could enter, an explosion in the sky shook the earth. A woman driving down the street with her daughter parked across the street and ran with her four-year-old daughter into the shelter. For ten minutes we schmoozed and then, along with the co-owners/chefs and the waitress, a young woman of about twenty-years with a lovely personality, we went back to the restaurant to enjoy a truly delicious meal. The Iranian Regime didn’t stop us. Didn’t scare us. Didn’t take away our appetite. My daughter meanwhile was on the stairwell outside of our apartment with her two younger brothers, and my thirteen year old son who was out of the house, took shelter in a nearby bomb shelter. When the sirens go off in the middle of the night, we lose sleep. However, it brings me great satisfaction, pride, and pleasure to hear the fighter jets fly overhead on their way to Iran to whoop them the whooping they brought on themselves – knowing that the Iranian Regime, the same regime that was behind the October 7th attacks and the Hezbollah attacks, was two weeks from acquiring a nuclear warhead with plans to exterminate the people of Israel because we’re Jewish. If the price of giving them a whooping is lost hours of sleep, the discomfort of missiles falling nearby, and the inconvenience of sitting in a stairwell with chain smokers at four in the morning, so be it.
Yesterday when President Trump advised the people of Tehran to evacuate, many did. Yesterday when the Ayatollah advised the people of Bnei Brak, where my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter live, to evacuate, no one did. The feeling on the streets here in Israel, despite the destruction caused by missiles, is electrifying. The feeling is like the English during the Blitzkrieg. We’re proud. God protects us. We’ll get through this.
Now, as I listen to the roar of jets, I think, and I think often, of the Ayatollah’s dead, contorted, silly-putty trunk, his legs and pale, blood-drained corpse head somewhere nearby. I watch the news and I laugh at the site of Iranian Regime Missile launchers, launchers aimed at me and those I love going up in flames. They have no reason to have hated me. I never wronged them and my people never wronged them. Now, I enjoy watching their demise. The site of a frazzled Regime news anchor as a bomb hit her studio during a live broadcast. I watched it with my children again and again and again. I laughed. We laughed at her fear. We laughed at her suffering. To be honest I would have liked to have seen her mangled.
I need to go now. I need to get my kids and bring them to the stairwell. The siren is sounding.
I’m now with my family on the stairwell. The sound of booms and army helicopters. (Army helicopters are great for shooting down Iranian drones).
We make jokes. Trying to laugh at the situation. I’m reminded of the Monty Python skit in which King Arthur battles the Black Knight. After chopping off the Black Knight’s arm and assuming victory, the Black Knight quips to King Arthur, “Tis’ merely a scratch” and continues on fighting until being reduced to merely an armless, leggless stump, who, still unwilling to accept defeat threatens to bite King Arthur’s legs off. This is the Iranian Regime. Even in war, there is humor.
As the saying goes, “You know Willard, one day this war’s going to end…”
All the best.
Be well. Stay safe.
Binyamin Klempner
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June 19th, 2025
I’m outraged. Iran hit a major hospital with a missile. But even greater is my outrage regarding the silence of the nations. The silence of the lambs. I return too often to an unpleasant memory. I was attending social work school at Barry University School of Social Work in Miami Shores, Florida. My Hasidic garb didn’t go over well with the social work departments idea of how a social worker should be dressed. It was decided that I should receive a hearing before the department board in which I could present my argument for why I should be allowed to continue my studies in their school. In retrospect I should have dropped out of the program there and then. But I didn’t. During the very anti-semetic, and self-hating, self-loathing, (if you include the “Jewish” faculty), hearing, I made a comment, it wasn’t a thought-out comment, it just came out like vomit, I commented, “The world just doesn’t like the Jews.” They protested. Turning the observation on me. Accusing me of being paranoid and obnoxious. Well, if they’re dead, I’m certain those Barry Social Work faculty members are burning in hell, and if they’re living, I’m certain they have hell to look forward to. Seroka Hospital in Beer Sheva was hit. Where is the outrage? The lack of world outrage, this is my greatest outrage.
Be well. Stay safe. Be outraged.
Binyamin Klempner
Thank you Binyamin, I continue to pray for your, your family’s and your nation’s safety and for a quick and decisive victory for Operation Rising Lion
You can support Binyanin’s mission to support Israeli soldiers by buying his book. It’s on Amazon.