16-Jul-06: Sunday morning report

To remind us of the goals they share with Hezbollah, Hamas militants on Israel's southern war front fire 6 Qassam missiles into Sderot this morning. A school is damaged, and a public square as well. Fortunately there are no reports of injuries. This, on top of the intensive missile attacks (multiple) on Haifa this morning (picture at right) with many deaths and injuries, and in Nahariya, Acre and elsewhere throughout Israel's northern half.

And to remind us of just how much harm Hamas/Hezbollah can cause, the army's official spokesperson, Brig.-General Miri Regev, is on television as we write this, saying that everyone living north of Tel-Aviv ought to regard themselves as in firing range of the missiles and take appropriate precautions. That means Netanya, Kfar Sava, Raanana - in fact, more than half the population of this country. Keep this in mind when the Vatican, China, Russia, France, Greece, the EU and others next chide Israel for its disproportionality. It's inconceivable that the people in charge in those places are reading accurate reports of what's being done to Israel. 

But to be fair, it's not reasonable to get overly agitated about reactions of this kind; when did any of the aforementioned ever acknowledge any Israeli response to aggression (sixty years of it) as being proportionate? More to the point, what - in the face of repeated and explicit threats of annihilation coming from Hizbollah's state sponsor, Iran - would constitute a proportionate response?

It's a rhetorical question, of course, because like every country on earth, Israel will act in accordance with what its leadership considers the best interests of its citizens. Anyone have a problem with that?

As a long-term chronicle, we don't try to keep readers updated minute by minute on the dramatic events unfolding all over Israel. This doesn't mean we're not following events; of course we are. For people wanting to do the same, we recommend the high-quality updated coverage coming from these sources:

• Yediot Aharanot's website (called Ynet) - updated very frequently (minute by minute at times) and mostly free of political spin
• For Hebrew readers, Rotter.net provides real-time updates on events from an informal army of readers who send in their SMS and email messages. Often the first to report on breaking events, and mostly (not always) free of the hysterical tone than can come from being at the leading edge
• Haaretz (which sometimes seems to struggle to keep its website up) and the Jerusalem Post are generally respectable sources of reportage. Both sites feature newsflash/tickers.
• Israel National News, from Arutz Sheva, is always worth reading. Sometimes there is updated English-language audio and video.
• For Hebrew readers, Google's News Aggregator is very comprehensive and fairly fresh.