Is 2024 the year that we finally turn a corner? Will we finally have security on the southern borders of Israel? Will the Diaspora finally feel totally safe in their communities without one eye on an exit strategy? I don’t know, but 2023 definitely showed us the challenges Jewish families across the globe will have to overcome in 2024, and it’s going to be tough.

There are, however, many things in play that are offering some light at the end of the dark tunnel. January 2024 has kicked off with a market-wide reduction in UK mortgage rates, easing some of the worry that millions of people have had either with tracker mortgages or with the renegotiation of their rates on mortgages coming due. There is, of course, still a long way to go until they’re at similar rates to the record low rates of the past fifteen years or so – but it’s a start. High inflation rates in the UK also started coming down last year, so the hope again is that once the Bank of England has this under control, we can start easing off the base rate hikes that formed so much of 2023’s narrative.

We’ve facilitated the delivery of over 115,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Further afield, in Israel, after three months of hell on earth with a war that nobody wanted or expected, our troops are starting to show real results. On Jan 2^nd 2024, Eylon Levy, Israeli Government spokesman, said, in listing their 2023 achievements since October 7^th: “We’ve identified 1,500 Hamas tunnel shafts and routes mostly hidden in schools, hospitals, mosques, UN facilities and civilian buildings, including a four-kilometre-long tunnel. We’ve demolished Hamas’ command centres under Jabalyn, Issa and Gaza City. We’ve killed at least 8,000 Hamas terrorists in targeted strikes, including half of Hamas’s battalion commanders, and when the deputy head of the Shejaiya Batallion took over, we killed him too. We’ve taken out the commanders of Hamas’s Aerial Array, and his replacement and his replacement, as well as commanders of drone operations, UAVs, surface-to-air missiles, advance warning systems and more. We’ve intercepted most Hamas missiles and dramatically reduced its ability to keep shooting, saving the lives of thousands of Israelis, all the while intercepting attacks from Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and as far away as Yemen. We’ve repaired the border defences and secured Israeli territory after the massacre. We’ve exposed weapons stockpiles in schools, kindergartens, mosques, and homes and showed the world how Hamas turned hospitals into military bases. We’ve exposed Hamas leaders’ corruption at the expense of Gazan civilians and their hijacking of aid. We’ve forced Hamas to agree to a Hostage Release Pause and let go of 110 hostages, and recovered the bodies of eight murdered in the Hamas terror dungeons. We’ve maintained the support of key allies to defeat Hamas and we’ve helped foreign intelligence thwart Hamas terror attacks in their own countries. We successfully evacuated hundreds of thousands of civilians from Northern Gaza, securing humanitarian corridors and tactical pauses to get them out of harm’s way and we’ve operated a Human Shield Hotline for Gazans to tell us if Hamas isn’t letting them escape. We’ve facilitated the delivery of over 115,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza, field hospitals, two floating hospitals, medical supplies, and doubled our capacity to screen aid trucks for Hamas weapons smuggling, and evacuated patients for treatment overseas. We’ve apprehended over 700 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, including many who surrendered, interrogating them for valuable information to target Hamas with precision. We’ve seized and destroyed over 30,000 Hamas weapons, including anti-tank missiles, bigger missiles, and rocket launchers.”

We can only hope for an end to this war in 2024.

These achievements show that even through the toughest of conditions, Israel is successfully dismantling the infrastructure that is causing so much pain and suffering not only to Israel and her allies – but to the people of Gaza too. But, carrying on this trajectory, we can only hope for an end to this war in 2024.

Where does that leave the Diaspora Jews, though? Well, through the last couple of months of 2023, one thing became abundantly clear to all of us – that a strong Israel means a strong Jewish Diaspora. Our relationship is so simpatico that there is no other nation-state or ancestral homeland with such a strong bond to such a small number of people all over the globe. We have proven time and time again that Israel’s strength comes not only from the amazing population inside her borders, but from the support of Jewish and non-Jewish Diaspora communities the world over.

Am Israel Chai in 2024 and beyond…

Photo of Joe by Blake Ezra photography