The Patriot Post® · Israelis Hail a Good Girl With a Gun

It’s probably not much of an exaggeration to say that every adult Israeli citizen knows the story of Jonathan Netanyahu. And perhaps one day, many years from now, every Israeli will also know the story of Inbar Lieberman.

Yoni, as he was known, was the 30-year-old American-born older brother of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the hero of the famed Entebbe raid, which took place on the American bicentennial of July 4, 1976. Netanyahu, a commando whose heroism was already well documented before a group of terrorists hijacked an Air France flight bound from Tel Aviv to Paris, led the daring operation that rescued 94 Jewish hostages from the old terminal building at Uganda’s Entebbe airport, where the plane had been re-routed. Netanyahu was the only commando killed in the raid.

Lieberman was born more than two decades after Operation Entebbe, but she distinguished herself greatly last Saturday during the early hours of the barbaric Hamas attack in which Islamist terrorists murdered more than 1,400 Israeli civilians and 30 Americans, and took 199 others hostage.

Lieberman, a member of the security detail of the Nir Am kibbutz, one of the Israeli farming communities that were targeted by Hamas, heard explosions erupting early Saturday. As America’s best newspaper, the UK Daily Mail, reports:

[Lieberman] quickly realized that the sounds were different to those she heard during the usual rocket attacks on the kibbutz and rushed to open the armory and distribute guns among the 12-member security team. The 25-year-old placed her squad of kibbutzniks in strategic positions across the settlement, set up ambushes, and turned the tables on the incoming forces. She killed five terrorists herself, while the others claimed the lives of 20 more over a four-hour period. Nir Am was turned into an impenetrable fortress, while nearby kibbutzims suffered heavier losses.

“It was amazing,” said one witness, Ilit Paz. “My husband was part of the standby unit that worked to prevent more casualties. They heard the shots and made contact on their own with other members of the standby unit and with Inbal — and they understood that they were told to be on standby. But Inbal made a decision not to wait and be jumped operationally. In fact, the fact that they did it early prevented dozens of casualties.”

A native-language social media post in Israel’s Mariv Daily reflected the sentiment of Israelis everywhere: “When it’s all over, this woman will receive the Israel Prize. The story of her heroism is a story that will go down in Israeli lore for generations. Inbal is the reason there is one kibbutz in the entire surrounding area that remains unharmed — Nir Am.”

There is no constitutional right for Israeli citizens to keep and bear arms, but the Israeli government has responded to the October 7 attack by making it slightly easier for its citizens to defend themselves against the terrorists in their midst.

As The Federalist reports: “Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir announced Sunday in Hebrew an emergency declaration that will ‘allow as many citizens as possible to arm themselves.’ Currently, a mere 1.5 percent of the [9.55 million] civilian population has a license to own a gun.”

Here, then, is a tiny bit of good news amid the slaughter, and yet another story of good people with guns defending themselves against bad people with guns.

We here in the U.S. have a hard time fathoming the existential threat under which Israelis continuously live, but it’s encouraging to see that their government understands the importance of a free people being able to keep and bear arms.