‘Neria Needs a Miracle’

The car ramming terrorist attack that has put in danger the life of the son of Israel’s ambassador to America, Yechiel Leiter, also amounts to a battering of the delusions regarding the Jewish state. Neria Leiter is a reserve soldier in the Israel Defense Forces. He was manning a checkpoint in the West Bank when a Palestinian Arab launched an attack. Now, Ambassador Leiter says that to survive, “Neria needs a miracle.”The hearts of Americans go out to the Leiter family. The ambassador has already paid an extraordinary price — another son, Moshe Yedidya, was killed by Hamas in the weeks after October 7. Hamas praised the attack on Neria as a “natural response.” It comes after the murder on Sunday of a father of six, Netanel Shukrun. The Israel Defense Forces tracked the terrorist, a member of Hamas, to a hospital at Ramallah.Mr. Leiter notes that “Palestinian terrorism seeks to uproot the people of Israel from their land.” That truth appears to be lost on, say, President Emmanuel Macron of France. Paris’s actions, in any event, suggest that Monsieur Macron is hardly deserving of the benefit of the doubt. Earlier this month France joined with Britain and Canada — and nine other nations — to sanction Israel. Mr. Leiter has been at the van of peace talks with Lebanon.That effort was led by the British foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, who declared that he was acting “as a proud Jew.” He contends that “there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists, and all too often the Israeli government turns a blind eye to this.” While lawless action by Israelis is deplorable — Jerusalem has condemned it — the sanctions ignore the bloodshed of Palestinian violence.The Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet report that in 2025, 57 Palestinian terror attacks killed 20 people. In addition, two soldiers were killed by a Jordanian at the Allenby Bridge Crossing in September. In 2024, 258 Palestinian terror attacks yielded 35 deaths. In 2023, 847 attacks resulted in 41 deaths. The journalist Amit Segal writes “That it is far more dangerous to be a Jew than a Muslim in Judea and Samaria is obvious.”Mr. Macron asked his audience at Turtle Bay whether they would rather “return to the law of the jungle” or inhabit “a civilized international society.” Israel has long insisted — from firsthand experience — that the aims and methods of Hamas and its ideological fellow travelers are inimical to civil society. Mr. Leiter, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s man at Washington, has been at the forefront of making that case. Mr. Leiter, now en route back to Jerusalem’s Shaare Tzedek hospital from New York City, writes that “I believe in the power of prayer, and I believe that when the people of Israel unite, miracles happen. Neria needs a miracle.” He adds in respect of Israel and her enemies that “They choose death — we choose life.” Neria has “served hundreds of days in the reserves on multiple fronts.” Millions will be praying for Neria Dov ben Chana.

‘Neria Needs a Miracle’

‘Neria Needs a Miracle’

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