Fall of Tadmur (Palmyra) - Israel Will Make a Yom Tov

Debka:

The historic Syrian town of Palmyra falls to ISIS

Islamic State fighters Wednesday night seized full control of the historic Syrian city of Palmyra after fierce clashes with the army and allied combatants. DEBKAfile: The Syrian army launched a massive operation to evacuate as many civilians as possible of the city’s 100,000 inhabitants before its epic defeat..

(See Wikipedia on Tadmur and Palmyra.)

Now, this just happened on Wednesday night, but Rav Fish, or the person he quotes, somehow amazingly knew that this was to happen in advance. Rav Fish's newsletter is posted to the Ladaat site on late Tuesday night/early Wednesday and usually is emailed earlier.

Rav Fish, in this week's newsletter, said the following:

And Rav Eliyahu Webber adds that it was publicized this week that the ISIS organization captured the ancient city of Tadmur, and we find in the gemara (Yevamot 17a) [Daf | Text | English]:

יתיב רב יוסף אחוריה דרב כהנא ויתיב רב כהנא קמיה דרב יהודה ויתיב וקאמר עתידין ישראל דעבדי יומא טבא כי חרבי תרמוד

R. Joseph sat behind R. Kahana while R. Kahana sat before Rab Judah, and while sitting he made the following statement: 'Israel will make a festival when Tarmod will have been destroyed'.

And as a footnote (#19) in the Soncino on the previous daf notes:

Tarmod or Tadmor, (Palmyra) lay in an oasis of the desert of Syria.

Now, the reason for the Yom Tov is that, as Rashi on the Daf explains, they are Mamzerim and they will intermarry with Jews and cause lineage problems.  (Later on, the gemara says that Tarmod is on a lower level than Gehinnom itself.)

May this be a sign for us to make a Yom Tov for not only the destruction of the city, but for a much greater reason.


UPDATE:
Continued here.