29-Dec-13: Israel's north faces fresh round of terrorist rocket attacks

It's Sunday morning, and after several incoming rockets on communities in Israel's south, Haaretz is reporting that there has been a rocket attack on Israel's northern border. Times of Israel's report says it happened around 7:00 am.

Two rockets exploded in the vicinity of Kiryat Shmona, a town of some 23,000 people located near the border with Lebanon. Ynet says the incoming-rocket warning sirens did not sound. Haaretz, quoting the IDF, says they are Katyusha rockets, which we know to be heavily stocked by Hezbollah, and that they exploded in an open area west of the town. No casualties or damage are reported so far. Times of Israel says the landing was in forested land close to the border.

Two additional rockets, believed to be fired by the Hezbollah terrorist forces arrayed right across southern Lebanon, fell short; a Lebanese news report quoted by Times of Israel says those two other rockets fell near the village of Sarda, 10 kilometers from Marjayoun near the border with Israel. That's an area where the UNIFIL troops who are busy keeping the peace have a large presence. This being a Sunday morning, and the week between Xmas and New Years and who knows? They may have been distracted with seasonal festivities.

None of this, of course, is child's play. Though it will have gone little noticed outside Israel (which is the case with most of the near-daily terrorist-originating attacks on Israeli civilian targets), an Israeli serviceman was killed earlier in December while driving an unprotected vehicle along the Israeli side of the border road near the resort town of Rosh Hanikra. Shlomi Cohen, 31, was shot by a lone Lebanese Army soldier, close to the the spot where a bomb had blown up an army jeep, injuring four soldiers, in August of this year. Also during August, four Katyusha rockets were fired into Israel by terrorist forces in Lebanon ["22-Aug-13: Volley of rockets from Lebanon crashes into northern Israel, seeking civilian victims"].

10-Jan-10: Show and tell

Yesterday (Saturday) another three Qassam rockets crashed into Israel from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. They landed in Israel's Sha'ar Hanegev region. Fortunately there are no reports of injuries or damage.

On Thursday night, for the first time since the Cast Lead campaign of a year ago, a Hamas Katyusha rocket was fired into the area of Ashkelon, landing just south of the city.

Saturday's volley of Qassam rockets came just after a Hamas announcement that it has managed to smuggle new types of weapons into Gaza despite Israel's and Egypt's blockade. JPost quotes an Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades spokesthug saying the group has "thousands of fighters and good weapons capable of harming Israel."

Reinforcing just how ready these people are for more war, the Islamic terrorists published photographs of their new in-place weapons, including missiles with a double warhead, 107mm caliber missiles designed to penetrate fortified structures, and a new type of armor-piercing RPG missile.

15-Feb-08: "We Arabs churn out the same boastful speeches..."

The MEMRI Blog performs an invaluable service in throwing light on articles and speeches that, because they are expressed in Arabic for an Arabic audience, are rarely received in non-Arabic circles.

Today's "open war" speech by arch-terrorist Hassan Nasrallah of Hizbullah will undoubtedly come in for its share of analysis within the Arab world. (The BBC's report describes him speaking to a vast crowd of Lebanese from his hiding place via a recorded video projected onto a giant video screen, blaming Israel for the death of the mass murderer Mughniyeh, and saying Hizbullah's war against the Jewish state is not over.)

Until then, here's MEMRI's report of an article from Saudi Arabia, criticizing Nasrallah for an earlier speech of his.The notes below come from the Saudi daily Al-Watan, where columnist 'Ali Sa'd Al-Moussa harshly criticized Nasrallah for expounding in mid-January on the strategic value of possessing the body parts of Israeli soldiers. Courtesy of MEMRI, some excerpts from the Saudi article.

Could Nasrallah Have Said Anything More Brutal or More Harmful to Our Image?

"'We have the remains of Israeli soldiers. Severed heads. We have some arms and legs and a nearly complete body – from the head to the middle of the torso.' Read the ugly details in the previous sentence and judge: Could Nasrallah have said anything more brutal, anything that does more to distort the image of our people, our religion and our nation?

"Mr. Hassan [Nasrallah], I do not think that our glorious religion [of Islam] has ever, throughout its history, described human beings as [collections of] spare parts. In our rich heritage – from the glorious battle of Badr to [Operation] True Promise [Nasrallah's name for the 2006 Lebanon war], I never read of any military commander who went into such disgusting details. Believe me, I would have kept silent had I not felt great shame at hearing the entire world – East and West – quoting this line at the head of its news broadcasts and in the main headlines of the newspapers.

"I know, Mr. Nasrallah, that the cruel Israeli administration places great value on any remains of Israeli soldiers, and that you mention these body parts for bargaining purposes. I am aware that in return for the severed head of the Israeli [soldier], we may receive dozens of living Arab [prisoners]. And I am also aware that even the [severed] leg of a Zionist may constitute a [valuable] bargaining chip, leading to the release of several living Arab prisoners from Israeli jails.

"[But] we also know that [the Israelis] place more value on, and have more respect for, the bones of their soldiers than we have for [living] Arabs. Life has become so cheap for us that the body parts of a dead Israeli are [exchangeable for] dozens of living Arabs."

Operation "True Promise" Yielded Nothing but False Promises Enveloped in Rhetoric

"Let us see why this is so: I have not the slightest doubt, Allah forbid, as to the justice of our [cause] and as to the sanctity of our wars against the oppressive and occupying Zionist entity. But what is the cause of this humiliation and devaluation [of life]? The reason, honorable sir, is that we continue to churn out the same boastful speeches which leave us with nothing but imaginary victories. The battles we wage yield nothing more than a few body parts [of enemy soldiers], or a couple of hostages. And what price [do we pay]? [The price is] hundreds, even thousands, of Arab youths in Israeli jails, whose numbers multiply with every [war] like [Operation] 'True Promise' – while our only reward is false promises enveloped in rhetoric!

"[But] the chief reason [for our humiliation] lies in [the fact that] our enemy knows how to speak] the language of the world. It knows how to tap into the world's emotions, and to sugarcoat its oppression, tyranny, occupation and violence, presenting itself as a victim surrounded by savage beasts... And our statements provide [our enemies] with a golden opportunity. If they now tour the world, spreading your famous line about the remains of bodies and human spare parts, they will consider it the greatest achievement of their [entire] long war. [It will enable them] to present themselves as the victims, while [in reality] it is we who are the victims.

"Honorable sir, war is not [fought with] Katyusha rockets alone. Half of it is [fought with] words, and it is words that will decide [the final outcome]."

He makes some interesting points. So does Kirschen in his Dry Bones comment from 2006 below.

9-Jan-08: Northern exposure

Two Katyusha rockets were fired into Israel from southern Lebanon early yesterday (Tuesday) morning, in an apparent reminder to whoever is paying attention that the Bush presidential visit, starting later today, is not the only Middle East show currently in town. Terror is a constant in this neighborhood and has very little to do with occupation, colonialization, nationalistic aspirations or much else other than hatred and jihad.

The Israel Defense Forces have an early warning system to prepare residents in northern Israel in the event of incoming terror attacks like this one. But it appears the heavy skies and winter weather prevented it from operating yesterday. Residents of the northern community of Shlomi were lucky that this time the rockets crashed more or less harmlessly. No injuries, and light damage: shrapnel from one of the 107mm rockets struck a wall of a house, causing minor damage and a street was damaged. This was not the intention of the murder-minded Iranian-backed terrorists who fired them. Shlomi is located just a few miles south of Israel's border with Lebanon, and has a long history of suffering terrorism from across the fence.

The Washington Post quotes a senior Lebanese army official, speaking on condition of anonymity, helpfully denying the rockets were fired from Lebanon. Such reports, said the Lebanese, are "baseless and completely fabricated". A roadside bomb explosion in southern Lebanon yesterday, presumably also baseless and also fabricated completely, injured two soldiers from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.

We have pointed out before that Katyushas are fired from mobile launchers and lack a guidance system. Perfectly capable of the most irresponsible form of lethal harm to anyone in the neighborhood, and conducive to a fast getaway before the authorities come looking: an essential part of the terrorists' arsenal. 18 months ago, Katyushas were fired by the Lebanese-based, Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists nearly 4,000 times into northern Israeli towns and cities, killing 43 civilians and causing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to evacuate the region for several weeks.

Baseless and fabricated indeed.

6-Aug-06: Disproportionality argument starts to fade

To the evident satisfaction of the Vatican and leaders of most European countries, the disproportionality of losses between Lebanese and Israelis has undergone a significant re-alignment in the past 48 hours.

The tragic deaths of a mother and her two daughters in their own home in the Israeli village of Arab Daramshe on Saturday, almost entirely un-noticed and un-reported by news media outside Israel, pushed the death toll up, as did developments this morning. 

A fifteen minute-long barrage of Katyusha missile attacks on Sunday struck Kfar Giladi, Ma'alot, Safed, Acre, the Golan Heights and numerous open areas in the north. Initial reports say ten Israelis were killed in this morning's attacks, and many others injured. Additional missiles are landing as we write these lines.

Hezbollah's missile firings are always essentially pot-shots. 

This is by no means a strategic problem for the Lebanese Shi'ites since they have never pretended to be engaged in a strategic battle. Every loss of human life - and certainly including Israeli Arab lives, which happen to be over-represented among the Israeli casualties - on the Israeli side of the border is a victory for Nasrallah's barbarians. Any act of violence qualifies as "resistance", and there is a ready supply of media dupes ready to buy and repackage their spun stories.

Part of the freedom that comes from being designated a terror organization under United States, UK, Canadian and Australian law, but not under the laws of most European countries or of the EU, is that Hezbullah can shoot anywhere it likes. Anything that dies or is destroyed can then be treated as an achievement.

So long as Hizbollah can spin the news as effectively as it has done so far, even the deaths of Lebanese advance their cause. While this will sound odd to many ordinary people unversed in the finer points of press coverage, the editors of such sober and object publications as The Independent (UK) understand this well.

1-Aug-06: Using Dead Lebanese Children for Ammunition

Those of us living in Israel or concerned for Israel's welfare have a pretty good idea what's happening in Haifa, Nahariya, Safed, Afula. This is in large measure because of the real-time, mainly-unfiltered reportage and live television coverage from there and from every other part of this robustly democratic and open country.

But do you know what really happened in Qana? In Tyre? In Beirut? No, neither do I. What we think we know is what the news media – papers, TV, blogs, radio – feed us, generally after the fact, sometimes days afterwards. How safe is a diet like that? Well, as with most diets it's a matter of how carefully you want to check. Here's a look at who's doing the feeding and at the additives, preservatives and other foreign materials that are mixed into what reaches us.

Qana question

As painful as what happened in Qana is to most of us, there are some very disturbing aspects about the tragedy which go to the root of what happened. Some of them:

• Did Hezbullah stage-manage the Qana incident? A Lebanese source (translated from French to English here) says yes. It suggests disabled children were brought to a building which served as a base for a Katyusha battery because the inevitable destruction of such a building by the IDF and the deaths of children would have such a powerful effect on world opinion.
• As revolting as this sounds, the cynical parading of dead children's bodies tells you we're dealing with people whose culture and humanity are unrecognizable to most of us.
• We're also dealing with newsagencies (Reuters, AFP, Associated Press) whose photographers are active collaborators in this disgraceful pornography. The evidence is in the bullet below.
• A small handful of Hezbollah low-lifes appear in one staged photo after another, posing with a dead child's body, hamming up a range of facial responses. If you can stomach it, see The Parade of Dead Children - Euphoric Reality; What Really Happened in Qana? - Wizbang; Qana: The photographic evidence (Update: Bodies from Tyre?) from Hot Air; and especially EU Referendum.
• It may be that the dead bodies from fighting some days earlier in Tyre were trucked in to Qana. Ridiculous? Maybe. But you may want to read this before dismissing the idea entirely.
• In its briefing for journalists at the end of the long day on which the Qana incident happened, the IDF raised several more serious questions. Customarily careful to avoid saying what might not be fully confirmed, the spokespeople presented whatever they were confident to show. This included video footage of missiles being fired from immediately next to the destroyed house several hours before the IDF attacked Qana. CNN's Brent Sadler has just been on our screens this afternoon (Tuesday), reporting live from Qana, pooh-poohing Israeli claims that the town was a launching pad for Hezbollah war ("Nope, no Hezbollah people here"), and asserting that Israel has failed to bring any evidence to the contrary. If you have Sadler's email address, we'd be glad to know he gets this link to the film footage.
• Sadler or his CNN producers might also be interested to hear - since they evidently have no clue - that Qana was the source for no fewer than 150 rockets fired into Israeli civilian settlements in the past three weeks, as documented here. Hezbollah salvos from Qana have crashed (among others) into Haifa, Nahariya, Ma'alot and Kiryat Shmona. They caused the documented, proven and undisputed deaths of 18 Israeli civilians and hundreds more wounded. Brent, our email address is on this page for when you get a free moment to send the people of Israel your apology.
• Reuven Koret over at Israel Insider has some additional, cogent and bothersome questions. Please visit his excellent site to read them.
• We know how hard it can be for some people to accept that Hezbullah would ever treat their Lebanese brethren poorly. But there is some evidence that this is not entirely beyond them. Try looking here and here and here.
• As for the general credibility of Hezbullah, its record as one of the bloodiest of the bloodthirsty speaks for itself... though evidently not loudly enough.

But the western media would surely blow the whistle on stage-managed news fakery, right?

Reporting from southern Lebanon (and quoted in the Columbia Journalism Review), freelance journalist and Time magazine contributor Christopher Allbritton drops this little gem:

To the south, along the curve of the coast, Hezbollah is launching Katyushas, but I'm loathe to say too much about them. The Party of God has a copy of every journalist's passport, and they've already hassled a number of us and threatened one.

To be clear, he doesn't say that Hezbollah fakes the news events. Or that they manipulate the journalists. But he doesn't need to. And we're left wondering: on what other aspects of this complex story are he and his colleagues loathe to report? And what have they reported as fact that perhaps ought not to have been reported as fact? Fair questions, no?

CNN's Nic Robertson can supply a helpful answer to that. Last week, Howard Kurtz – on his Reliable Sources show on CNN - interviewed Robertson about reporting from Lebanon. Here's Columbia Journalism Review's analysis of their exchange:

Just a few days before, Hezbollah minders had taken Robertson on a tour of a neighborhood in southern Beirut that had been hit by Israeli missiles. Robertson told Kurtz, "Hezbollah has a very, very sophisticated and slick media operation," and in southern Beirut, "they deny journalists access into those areas. They can turn on and off access to hospitals in those areas." He also said that Hezbollah "designated the places that we went to, and we certainly didn't have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath ... Hezbollah is now running a number of [press tours] every day, taking journalists into this area. They realize that this is a good way for them to get their message out, taking journalists on a regular basis. Robertson [said]: "We went in to those southern suburbs of Beirut with that media representative from Hezbollah. They haven't let western reporters into some parts of that very, very, very carefully controlled southern suburbs ... they took us in because they wanted to show us what was being damaged." He then ended by again reminding viewers that it was a "very, very brief and swift tour escorted by Hezbollah." The disclosure that Hezbollah acted as tour guide does put the report into perspective, but still, Robertson could have dwelled a bit more on the calculated photo op CNN's cameras were provided by an obviously interested party.

(Source: Paul McLeary, Lifting the Cover of the Hezbollah PR Effort). McLeary also quotes CNN's Anderson Cooper from a week ago (transcript here):

We found ourselves with other foreign reporters taken on a guided tour by Hezbollah ... They only allowed us to videotape certain streets, certain buildings... This is a heavily orchestrated Hezbollah media event. When we got here, all the ambulances were lined up. We were allowed a few minutes to talk to the ambulance drivers. Then one by one, they've been told to turn on their sirens and zoom off so that all the photographers here can get shots of ambulances rushing off to treat civilians ... These ambulances aren't responding to any new bombings. The sirens are strictly for effect.

So whom can you believe?

In our opinion, no one deserves our uncritical support. Questions need to be asked, and no one is beyond criticism. Politicians will do what politicians always do, and terrorists will do whatever they can get away with. Our question is why are so few journalists doing what journalists do -- dig, question, investigate. Thus, the one action point we would urge on everyone visiting this blog is: never assume that reporters, editors, photographers are more credible or more objective than anyone else. It's perfectly plain that they're not and never have been. More than this, they are as capable of being jackasses and dupes as anyone else.

And working for a brand-name media channel is no defence.

30-Jul-06: A War on Three Fronts

Too many people have died, too many people are desolate, this war is atrocious, and too few people care to really examine why it's happening. The news from Lebanon is awful. But it still needs to be said (since so few conventional media channels are saying it) that Israel, in the course of prosecuting its disproportionate war, is under real, live, explosives-and-death attack on three fronts. Here's a Sunday snapshot.

In the north: About 100 Katyusha missiles have fallen so far this morning, making plain that the aggression of Hezbollah which kicked this part of the war off is well and truly in place. It's clear they are delighted with the way all of this bedlam, all this human-shield war, is going. In Acre on the coast, a residential building took a direct hit today, wounding two people and leaving others in need of hospitalization for shock. 6 additional Katyusha missiles landed in Acre, and 30 in and around Kiryat Shmona; here too there were injuries and property damage. Eight missiles crashed into Nahariya, five into Ma'alot, four in or near Rosh Pina and two in Tiberias. Sirens also sounded in the Haifa suburbs, western and upper Galilee, Afula, Nazareth, Migdal Ha'emek and Beit Hashita. On Friday night, 3 Hezbollah missiles with especially large warheads of 100 kilograms each, landed in fields near Afula. On Saturday, at least 90 missiles crashed into northern Israel. Villages and towns as far as 15 kilometers from the point of impact reported hearing the explosions.

In the south: Not much coverage here. To paraphrase the old philosophical conundrum, if a Qassam rocket is fired into a civilian area by barbarians intent on causing as much damage, death and destruction as possible, and everyone is too busy with other matters, did it really fall?
Well, yes it did. Qassams have been falling with deadly constancy since Israel's northern front exploded with Hizbullah missiles 19 days ago. And they continue to be fired into Israel's southern towns. Sderot was a victim this morning. One missile struck a factory in Shaar Hanegev, an industrial area of the town. Several people were injured but thankfully there were no deaths. (This was not the intention of the people firing the missiles.) Had it struck a nearby workshop some thirty meters away, the likely toll would have been far greater and more newsworthy.

Yesterday a Qassam landed next to the kindergarten of Kibbutz Zikim, just south of Ashkelon, where children were engaged in a Frisbee class. Two children were seriously injured; eight others had to be treated in hospital for shrapnel injuries, shock and damage to the hearing. The kindergarten building was damaged. The Al-Quds Brigades, a unit of Islamic Jihad, proudly claimed responsibility, declaring that "the shooting will continue in response to IDF crimes against the Palestinians." On Friday, 5 more Qassams struck Sderot and Shaar Hanegev, and on Saturday others hit Sderot, Netiv Haasara, and southern Ashkelon.

Unfortunately for the farmers, kibbutznikim and townspeople of Israel's south - those living in the arc that abuts the Gaza Strip - the unending rain of Qassam rockets has been all but forgotten outside of their immediate vicinity. Hard to imagine, but only a year ago, the government of Israel carried out an immensely painful and controversial abandonment of Jewish communities in the area, in the stated hope that an unoccupied Gaza Strip would become as beautiful as it was when Israeli towns and greenhouses dotted it. Whatever the hopes of last summer, the outcome has been an unmitigated disaster.

In the center: Yet another intending bomber of women and children was seized this morning. The media call him a suicide bomber, but it's far more accurate and helpful to term him a religious fanatic intent on achieving mass murder at any price, including forfeiting his own life provided he can take Jewish lives with him. This time , Israeli security officers and soldiers from an elite IDF unit seized an explosive belt in a Palestinian taxi in a West Bank town, following pinpoint intelligence tips about plans by terrorists to carry out a suicide bombing attack in Israel. The intending bomber and his accomplice were arrested.

Scanning the television coverage of the bombing of a residential building in Qana, you can't help but notice how the analysts, reporters and commentators in place are adjusting the level of their emotional response to the noise and passion of the Lebanese around them. There are those who say our side needs to make more noise, be more emotional, more demonstrative, wave our arms in the air. But Israeli society wants life - and when a bomber is caught and prevented from carrying out his death-cult plan, it's highly appropriate that we remain subdued, say a silent prayer of thanks, and keep going about our lives.

23-Jul-06: Fallacies and fabrications - nutshell responses

Like most of Israel's friends, we're fairly appalled at the disinformation, superficiality and distortions that characterise a good deal of the media's coverage of the war between Hizbullah and Israel. Here's our nutshell review of a handful of the key issues and how they're being mangled.

Q. Isn't Israel's approach to the fighting disproportionate?

It's claimed that Israel's military response to, initially, the provocative kidnapping of two Israeli servicemen on Israeli soil and, almost immediately afterwards, the Hizbullah missile barrages, is disproportionate. Also, that Israel is striking at civilians and infrastructure and in doing so, is irretrievably and unfairly pushing the fragile Lebanese economy and social infrastructure back into the dark ages of the eighties when civil war devastated the country.

But as we have pointed out in this blog, the IDF reports to the media every day, and in its briefings it discloses the nature and number of the targets it has attached that day. There's no doubt there are civilian casualties on the Lebanese side. But the vast majority result from the deliberate Hizbullah policy of placing its military equipment and its fighters among civilians, embedding them as deeply as possible within the civilian infrastructure. Katyusha launch pads are usually located in residential areas. Katyusha missiles are stored in villages, often inside or underneath civilian homes. Those are strategic realities that no one denies.

The IDF routinely gives advance notice of its plans to attack some emplacements by dropping leaflets onto those residential areas. Paraphrasing the message conveyed by those leaflets, here is what Israel says to its neighbours to the north:

You have terrorists among you, and they are firing on our homes. We would like them to stop but they're not stopping. Indeed, we don't see anyone - and most certainly not your Lebanese government or any third party in our neighbourhood - who is going to step in and stop these barrages. No one is as interested as we are to stop them, and we're going to do it now. So take your families and your possessions and get out immediately, or be prepared for the consequences. Is this fair? No, but the possibility of fairness and a happy outcome ended when Hizbullah took control of your neighbourhood six years ago. So now one of two bad things is going to happen. Either we Israelis are going to engage in self-help and remove the men and the armaments that are raining destruction down on our homes and our families. Or else we are going to remain on the sidelines with our arms folded while the Hezbullah in your midst pack up, move out and leave your neighbourhood restored to its previously peaceful state. Our experience tells us that only one of these possibilities is real; the other is fantasy, and we are suffering too much damage in Haifa, Nahariya, Tsfat, Meron, Acre, Kiryat Shmoneh and all the other towns, cities and settlements now under fire to allow fantasy to dictate policy. So unfortunately our bottom line is: leave now for your own sakes and allow us to exercise the most basic, elemental right which a sovereign state has - indeed which every sovereign state in the history of mankind has reserved to itself since time immemorial. The right to defend its population. If there's going to be damage and unhappiness, we prefer it be yours than ours, though we would much rather avoid all unhappiness and all damage. But in the current circumstances, that's just fantasy.

It ought to be self-evident, but evidently is not, that Southern Lebanon would be tranquil and safe if Hizbullah had not moved in, grabbed control and turned it into a war zone. The Lebanese authorities will have to give an account at some future moment for their complicity in this appalling state of affairs.

Q. Yes, but isn't Israel grossly over-reacting to the kidnapping of its soldier? If Israel would exercise more restraint, this crisis would have blown over sooner or later.Western journalists who hold to this line, and there are many, deserve our contempt. The relevant facts are beyond dispute and journalists who ignore them are ignorant or working to a personal political agenda.

Hezbollah's vast arsenal throughout the southern half of Lebanon comprises thousands of missiles with short, medium and and long range capabilities. Though the organization is not a sovereign state, has no elections and answers to no one, it is lavishly well-supplied in an active manner by Iran and Syria and in a less-active, but no less important, manner by Lebanon. The ability to exploit its uninterrupted control of half of the territory of a supposedly independent country (Lebanon) provides the sharpest possible contrast with the Palestinian Authority which has been miserably ineffective in garnering tangible support from sympathetic neighbours. In this sense, Nasrallah - Hezbollah's supreme leader - has demonstrated world-class political skills and business acumen. The ranks of his well-disciplined terror organization are equipped with outstanding quantities and quality of arms, explosives and training. Without a doubt, Hezbollah today constitutes a concrete and substantial threat to Israel and its people. The kidnappings were the opening gambit; the missile attacks which immediately followed were the fruit of six years of careful planning.

Q. Then what do you believe Hezbollah's strategy is?

Hezbollah has never tried to hide its goal. It's explicit, simple and public. Everything Hezbollah does is calculated to bring about the destruction of Israel. Hezbollah did not commence its operations yesterday, and has been involved in countless terror attacks in Israel and outside Israel (in Argentina, for instance, where scores of Buenos Aires Jews were murdered in two Hezbollah showcase operations in 1992 and 1994).

In practical terms, what's truly life-threatening and intolerable is Hezbollah's unparalleled missile capacity. Where else in the world, or in history, is there a stockpile of tens of thousands of missiles controlled by a self-appointed non-governmental association? And one with an agenda calling for the literal destruction of a nation? Established inside six years' worth of cement infrastructure and scattered throughout a compliant countryside, Hezbollah is the face of terrorist wars to come. It's the prototype.

So far, more than 1,600 missiles have been fired into Israeli towns, homes, cars and hospitals since the Hezbollah war began. 734 were fired between July 13th and July 19th. Pause for a moment and imagine what it feels like to live with a rain of deadly missiles going on for day after day.

More than a million Israelis live and work in communities that are under missile attack right now. Tens of thousands of Israelis will spend tonight in bomb shelters. Hezbollah's strategy, if that's what we can call it, is to do more of the same. They have demonstrated that they will keep doing it until they're stopped. No one is about to stop them, other than Israel. And while there are very few Israelis who believe a resolution can come from military actions, Israeli society from one end of its political spectrum to the other has demonstrated a historically unparalleled unanimity around the idea that - while resolution is something we all want to see - we'll settle right now for taking Nasrallah and his Party of Gd out of the game any way we can.

The sooner this happens, the sooner our neighbours, the Lebanese, will get their country back. And the sooner both countries can get on with developing long-range solutions for living side by side with or without the involvement of outside help.

22-Jul-06: Silent testimony - the bearings

 

Here are two of the pictures we referred to in our earlier item. These are ball bearings, packed inside the Katyusha missiles raining down on Haifa and dozens of other locations in Israel's north by courtesy of Nasrallah's Army of G-d.

Their purpose is to maximize the damage to lives and bodies of civilian Israelis. They're especially good at killing children like 7 year-old Omer Pesachov and his grandmother. They have minimal impact on armored military equipment.

Keep these handy for when your local newspaper or media analysts say this war is all about kidnappings of Israeli soldiers and Israel's massive, disproportionate over-reaction.

 

21-Jul-06: Silent testimony to what Nasrallah wants to achieve

For most of us, the word explosive means 'bang'. It's a reality that until you confront an explosion from up close, the overwhelming power is impossible to imagine. In reality, it's not just 'bang'.

Palestinian terrorists have long understood that they can magnify the deadliness of their explosives by adding nails and ball bearings to the device. These fly off in every direction and kill exactly the way bullets do. When our daughter's bag was handed back to us by the Jerusalem police a week after her murder in August 2001, the tough ballistic nylon case inside of which she had kept her cell phone was shredded to pieces. As we picked the remains of the phone out of the case, nails fell onto the table. They had embedded themselves inside the case, inside the phone and inside the bodies of the victims at the Sbarro restaurant massacre. There's a picture of the phone and one of the nails here and here. (The hand-writing on the bottom of the shattered Nokia phone is our daughter's. Malki had written a reminder to herself in Hebrew: "Never speak ill of other people.")

The other pictures come from Lenny Maschkowski who lives in Haifa (thanks, Lenny). He's captured some important images. One shows a car that was wrecked in one of the many missiles to have fallen in Haifa the past few days. Note the tiny holes that have punctured the metal in a million places. The other two show the ball bearings that caused those tiny little holes and that are intended to puncture people's bodies. These ball bearings, stuffed inside the Katyusha rockets, are Nasrallah's calling cards. It's not explosions he wants to cause. It's the greatest possible havoc, and the greatest possible number of injuries and death that he can wreak.

What's a proportionate response to that?

(If the pictures don't appear in this blog entry, it's because of a temporary technical glitch which we're trying to fix. The links to the pictures however should work fine.)

21-Jul-06: Tzav Shmoneh

Thousands of "you're called up" notices are being issued by the IDF as we write these lines. Known by the familiar Hebrew expression Tzav 8, the dreaded notice requires that the reservist who receives it drop everything and just turn up at his assigned place, ready for military duty.

It's a feature of life in Israel where a significant portion of the country's self-defence capability is based on compulsory military reserves duty.

It's the eve of the Sabbath, late in the afternoon of an otherwise beautiful summer day. But it's also a day on which a massive Katyusha bombardment has struck downtown Haifa in the past hour, causing extensive damage to property (mostly private residences) and serious injuries to Israeli human beings: at least 19 of them are injured.

In fact the third bombardment of the day is underway in Haifa, with the air-raid sirens shrieking, as we write this (5.10 pm, Friday).

21-Jul-06: This war grinds on

Israel's firepower is huge as unfortunately it has to be. Thus, it strikes us that when the Israeli authorities say what they have done in the battlefield, they ought to be believed. Clearly they can do far more harm to individuals and property than they do; that they don't is because there's a moral conscience driving Israel's military decisions. So if they report on what they did, it's likely to be true. Anyone who has followed news reports for years, as we have, knows that over time, Israel's version of events usually turns out to have been the truthful one.

So in view of the know-nothing imagery exemplified in our last posting, and taking account of howls (such as from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees) about wanton destruction of property and lives by the IDF, it's appropriate for us to place the IDF's version on the record. Since so few other sources seem to be doing that, and since we get the IDF's press releases, we'll share what we know.

On Thursday July 20th, more than 50 Katyusha missiles were launched by Hezbollah's terror

forces on Israel's towns, cities, settlements and inidividuals. Not one, as far as we can tell - and this is not the IDF speaking - was directed at or struck a single Israel military installation. For the Nasrallah storm-troopers, this has never been about inflicting strategic damage on the IDF, but on terrorising Israeli society.

More than 900 missiles have so far landed in Israel (about the size of Rhode Island) in the seven days since Thursday July 13th.

The IDF says it carried out about 150 aerial attacks on hostile targets yesterday (Thursday). These included:

• 16 different Hezbollah headquarter facilities, structures and bases
• 3 Hezbollah ammunition warehouses
• 6 Hezbollah missile launchers
• More than 100 "access routes used by the Hezbollah" to use the IDF's press release language. (This presumably means roads and bridges. If it were up to us, we would be more forthcoming and less shy about stating in plain language what needs to be stated. Hezbollah's main weaponry is military-use missiles that are being used to rain terror down on civilian settlements. These need to be moved from place to place by heavy truck, and if the road or bridge is taken out or otherwise rendered unusable, mobility of missiles is diminshed. End of story.)
• 21 vehicles that served Hezbollah for the launching of missiles. This included one vehicle believed to a Fajer 3 launcher. (It's the Fajer 3 which Nasrallah means when he speaks of "surprises" waiting for us Israelis.)

One further development: a wedding took place inside one of the hundreds of Israeli bomb-shelters. Mazal tov to Maya Lougasi and her groom Shlomi Bouskila from Kiryat Shmona, pictured in the snapshot above. In Israel, life is always preferable to death. (Nasrallah says openly that he takes the opposite view.)

The southern front has not been quiet either. Four missiles were fired at IDF forces and Qassam fire was directed at an Israeli town in the western Negev area near Gaza, wounding an Israeli civilian who was hospitalized. The IDF has been firing on Qassam launch sites in the northern Gaza Strip during the past 24 hours. Between Thursday night and Friday morning, IDF forces confirmed hitting 10 armed Palestinian Arabs, some of whom were part of two groups of anti-tank missile launcher cells, and a group of Arab gunmen targeted in aerial attacks as they were attempting to reach and attack IDF forces operating in the area.

Far from the cameras and writing pads of foreign journalists, Israel has been ensuring food and fuel are quietly delivered to the Arabs of the Gaza Strip via the Nahal Oz and Karni crossings (both of which have routinely come under terror attack, with significant loss of Israeli life). Here's what was delivered yesterday, July 20th 2006.

• At Karni crossing: 146 truckloads of basic food items.
• At the Nahal Oz fuel terminal: 370,000 liters of diesel, 90,000 liters of gasoline, 175 tons of natural gas for cooking.

The spokesperson for the coordinator of Israeli government activities in the Territories, Shlomo Dror, was kind enough to make his cell phone number available for anyone wanting to know more. We'll gladly pass it along to anyone willing to write about Israel's ongoing humanitarian concern. There's nowhere near enough light thrown on the incompetent, kleptocratic leadership in Gaza and the catastrophic state of the society in their care.

Remember the headlines last month about the Palestinian Authority tottering on the edge of collapse, unable to pay the salaries of the tens of thousands of make-work "employees"? Now imagine how things might look if a fraction of the enormous funds Hezbollah has tied up in its arsenal of missiles and weaponry had been diverted to the struggle of their Palestinian brothers. No, not that struggle. We mean the struggle to give their children a better life, education, health, a future. Right, that struggle.

Just imagine.

19-Jul-06: The fog of war

Having viewed other people's wars through the lens of the television screen over the years, and lived through several in a more direct fashion, we know how different the reality is from the image. To give our readers a small taste of the sort of chaos and uncertainty that comes with the up-close experience, here's a snapshot of what's happening at 10.30 Wednesday morning - a thin time-slice in an event-rich and turbulent period.

• First, most of the country is without electricity at this moment. Jerusalem where we live was blacked out for about 15 minutes around 9.30 this morning, but power was restored and has stayed "up" for now. But we're told to expect rolling blackouts around the country for an unspecified amount of time to come. Elevators are shut down and stuck in many places with hundreds of people stuck inside them. The firefighters and police are scattering to respond to rescue calls (as if they did not have enough to do already).
• Since traffic lights need power, there's traffic chaos in much of Israel.
• There are tens of fires - mostly brushfires as far as we know - in various parts of the north. No immediate explanation. Maybe the heat, maybe missiles, maybe arson.
• The entire Sharon region (basically the northern arc around Tel-Aviv) is subject to an immediate and concrete highest-level terror warning. There may be a pursuit underway right now of a specific individual or terror gang. One report (basing itself as always on news tips from its readers) says there's a suspicion of terrorists having penetrated Tel-Aviv. (UPDATE: At 11am, the authorities in Kfar Sava, a tel-Aviv suburb, are urging people to stay indoors while the pursuit is underway.) As always, reports like this need to be taken with enormous care, but in this part of the world, you can never tell, never be too wary.
• After absorbing about 120 Katyusha missiles yesterday, the north is on edge again and under attack today. In Nahariya (where a man running towards cover in a shelter after the sirens sounded, was killed) and Haifa, there are reports this past ten minutes of multiple Katyusha attacks, multiple booms and at least one direct hit in Haifa (on a residential building). This happened around 10am. Residential buildings in this country are almost invariably apartment houses with six or eight residences or more. For security reasons - a reluctance to convey to the enemy how accurate or inaccurate their fire is - the radio and television are being cloudy about what and where, but there are injuries.
• Some twenty Qassam rocket attacks pounded the area around Gaza during the night and early morning. The IDF is now moving into the central Gaza strip, with few clear details other than that five soldiers are wounded. It's a developing story, it appears.
• Today and yesterday - significant fighting right inside Nablus. Given the circumstances, the over-stretched state of military management resources and all that's going on elsewhere, it's our guess this was initiated by the locals and not by the IDF. There's little concrete information to go on for the moment.
• The army, under Israeli public pressure to convey both the scale of the achievements and the size of the ongoing problem, is quoted in this morning's news saying that its forces have destroyed 180 Katyusha rocket sites in Lebanon and some 200 Hizbullah buildings and weapons warehouses. In the nature of things, it's hard to put this into a context, but the military's estimate is this represents between 40% and 50% of what Hizbollah have in place. But the essence of their message is this: Hizbollah have had six years (since the total withdrawal of any Israeli presence from Southern Lebanon) to dig in, spread out and equip themselves. Six years of passive-aggressive apathy and non-interference by the government in Beirut. Six years of this sort of dedicated work are not going to be neutralized overnight, so be ready for much more where the missiles till now came from.
• To emphasize the dynamic nature of their resources, Hizbollah suffered the loss of four large truckloads of weapons and munitions 'neutralized' by IDF action when they were intercepted on the road into Lebanon from Syria. Rather laconically, the army's comment on this says: "Syria is not a target. Messages have, however, been relayed to the Syrians and we hope that this phenomenon stops." Amen.

It's unlikely the fear, uncertainty and doubt that come with moments like this are translating well via the media.

18-Jul-06: Quotation for the Day

It is hard to know if the fire was intentionally directed at us. We know from the movies that hospitals are not attacked (in war), but when it comes to Katyushas the rules must be different.

Deputy director of Safed's Rebecca Sief Hospital Dr. Klein Shapira, speaking after the hospital was hit by a Hezbollah missile on Monday night. The attack damaged the hospital's air conditioning system and injured 5 patients, two doctors and two other hospital employees. All were treated in the hospital's emergency room.

17-Jul-06: Dvarim Sh'ro'im Misham Lo Ro'im Mikan

This is the not the first missile war we've endured. After years of military build-up and months of explicit threats, an egotistical, nationalistic, power-drunk despot living in our near-neighbourhood opened up with barrages of missiles in mid-January 1991. His weaponry was not directed at Israeli military or strategic targets but, like the actions of a petulant child throwing a tantrum with his dinner food, were simply flung at any reachable part of the other party's territory.

We sat in our sealed rooms here in Jerusalem, gas-masks jammed onto our faces (very unpleasant but bearable) and onto our children's faces (simply unbearable for us parents). Fifteen years later, the memory of it still elicits a shudder.

Saddam Hussein is behind bars these days and on trial for his life. Hassan Nasrallah, however, is at the very peak of his powers in a bomb-proof bunker deep inside devastated Beirut. To judge from last night's television news footage, Nasrallah is simply thrilled to bits with how the war he single-handedly provoked is going. He's literally glowing: anyone who has seen the video clips knows what we mean.

Like the Butcher of Baghdad and some other prominent Jihadist personalities, Hezbullah's fuehrer has a way with words. He's direct, frank, unambiguous and perfectly willing to telegraph his intentions day or night. And unlike the political leaders we're more familiar with, this one means exactly what he says and does what he threatens to do. By way of illustration (and there are plenty more where this came from) here is part of a Nasrallah speech delivered to a cheering throng two months ago:

"A year ago today I said in Bint Jbeil that the resistance has more than 12,000 missiles. When I say "More than 12,000 missiles", it doesn't mean 13,000... I acknowledge that for many years - since 1992, to be precise - the resistance has had a significant and respectable missile capability, both in quantity and quality. Therefore, I can tell you that the north of occupied Palestine is entirely within the range of the missiles of the Lebanese resistance. This, of course, is the minimum. As for reaching beyond the north - the less said the better. We have no reason to say whether or not we have such capabilities. Let's keep quiet about this. Today the north is within the range of the missiles of the resistance - their ports, their bases, their factories, everything... This creates a balance between the north of Palestine and the south of Lebanon and Lebanon in its entirety... I say to the people of the settlements in the north of occupied Palestine: On behalf of Hizbullah, I recommend that you go down to the bomb shelters within two hours..."

There it is, from the horse's mouth, and you don't need fluent Arabic to comprehend it: the war front, opened up a week ago right across the north of Israel, has been fourteen years in the preparing.

What does this tell us about the prospects for a negotiated settlement? About the value of bringing in yet another international observer force? About the good sense of the BBC's editors and journalists who choose to wrap up the violent events of the past week this way:

"Israel launched operations in Lebanon after Hezbollah seized two of its soldiers and killed eight others in a border raid last Wednesday."

Really? And has nothing else happened that might explain Israeli forces firing on Lebanon? Go now to the BBC's news page on this war and you'll see a report which manages to give you all the information that Bush House wants you to know about this war: no mention of Israeli losses, no mention of damage to Israeli homes, towns and lives; not even a hint of a reference to half of Israel's population being under fire at this very moment. Not one word.

From conversations with other Israelis who lived through the 1991 Iraqi missile attacks, we know that the memories of those difficult, uncertain and not-so-distant days still cast a dark shadow. We shared a sense of all being in this together. All of us at risk, equally. And all of us equally frustrated.

Why frustrated? Because we hadn't done anything to bring this on ourselves. It wasn't about Israeli aggression, Israeli colonialism, Israeli racism, Israeli occupation, Israeli anything. We were dragged shouting and waving our arms into a shooting war engineered by bad neighbors.

Frustrated also because Israeli forces, at the insistence of the US administration, sat that war out from beginning to end. Missiles were destroying houses and apartment buildings in Tel-Aviv and Haifa, and the Likud government was keeping its forces firmly on the leash and out of the battle. Not a single Israeli bullet was fired back at the Iraqis. The IDF's involvement was limited to rescuing Israelis buried in the ruins of their homes and explaining the strategic situation to us on television and radio. And though the war did go America's way, US forces somehow found themselves fighting the same war twelve years later... all of which conveyed some lessons that Israelis won't forget in a hurry .
The sedation of the nation had other elements as well, including music. Among the soothing tunes that pre-cable Israel television and radio broadcast into our sealed rooms, we remember a Matti Caspi/Yehudit Ravitz song whose key line, repeated over and again, translates into English this way: "Things that you see from over there, we don't see them here." That captured a significant part of what went through the nation's consciousness, and perhaps still does.

Things that you see there - on the front pages of your mainstream media newspapers, in the lead stories of your national news programs - look very different when viewed from here.

The frustration of 1991 has another aspect, one we've encountered in visits outside Israel. "What's the big deal? Only a handful of Israelis were killed. You're making a big deal for no reason." So here's the scoop: it's true. It's no big deal at all when missiles fall on Israel, when families are obliged to lock themselves into air-raid shelters, when bombs fall onto open fields and occasionally on top of the odd house or apartment building or school. Really, no big deal. Truly nothing to break into a sweat about.

Unless you live there. Unless there is an existential danger to you and your wife and children. Then things tend to look altogether different.

Allow us to share with you how things look from here, today, Tuesday afternoon. Just a few snippets from among many:

• A powerful terrorist bomb was found a couple of hours ago in the bag of a suspicious-looking young Palestinian Arab right at the doorstep of the City Hall in the nation's capital. Where they found the courage to do so is beyond us, but some alert police on foot patrol in the heart of Jerusalem, just a few minutes walk from where our daughter was murdered five years earlier by another young man who was not intercepted, told him to stop. A 5kg explosive was in his bag, and he quickly admitted to being en route to his 72 virgins. 5kg is enough to blow away a dozen people and destroy several buildings. Did this make it into your local news?
• IDF forces in Nablus, engaged in apprehending an Al-Aksa (Fatah) terrorist, came under fire. 3 soldiers were wounded, one was killed, by an explosion. "Dozens of residents gathered around the soldier's body and burst into shouts of happiness in front of the Arab media's television cameras… A senior member of the Brigades tells Ynet that his people hold part of the killed soldier's body…" Holding onto a body part. Words don't do justice to the revulsion but be sure this report will go nowhere outside this country.
• 20 Qassam rockets were fired into Israel's southern towns - Sderot, Nahal Oz and Ashkelon - during this past night.
• Katyusha missiles struck Haifa (in the picture above), Carmiel, Tiberias and Safed earlier this afternoon, and another attack on Haifa is happening as we write these lines. Also today, Hezbollah missiles struck the southern Golan Heights, Kiryat Shmona, Acre (including a direct hit on a house landing just a few meters away from a couple as they slept and injuring 3 family members), Talal, Julis, Abu Snan, Kafr Yassif and other towns across the north. A barrage of rockets landed in Afula, Upper Nazareth, Migdal Ha'emek and Givat Ela late last night.
• Fifty Katyusha missiles have struck towns and cities across northern Israel in the past three hours. (It's now 3.45pm)

We fantasize about those pundits, politicians and prelates who declare Israeli anti-terror actions disproportionate being obliged to listen to the melodious Yehudit Ravitz. Things that you see from your distant vantage point in safe, far-away London, Washington or Melbourne tend to look very different from here at Ground Zero.

But since that's not going to happen, we offer a different suggestion especially for the journalists and editors reading these lines. Before their views are allowed out into the world of newsworthy ideas, those declaring Israel's actions disproportionate - no matter how prominent their public profiles - should be required to define what would be proportionate. Which Israeli actions, coming after unprovoked waves of missiles fired on exclusively civilian targets, would be fine in your eyes? 

And if that's too challenging, then give us some practical advice for how we stop Nasrallah and his Hizbollah hordes from their murderous crusade and their tens of thousands of missiles, accumulated over 14 years of meticulous planning. One condition: the advice has to be delivered in person, here in Israel. Nahariya might be a nice location for the hand-over. Or maybe Haifa. And please feel free to bring the wife/husband and child/children.

But know that if you don't have an answer, your complaints about disproportion simply lack credibility and good sense. Things are different when you view them from here.

14-Jul-06: This Ongoing, Ongoing War

In the past several hours (it's now mid-afernoon, Friday), Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon have fired off barrage after barrage of Katyusha missiles into any Israeli target they can reach - civilian, military, agricultural; it's all the same to them. Rockets have hit

• Tsfat (some know it as Safed) - reports in the last few minutes of another direct hit on a residence. The Old City was extensively damaged there yesterday and there are several people critically injured.
• Nahariya - center of town is hit. Local leaders and government politicians happen to have been meeting very nearby to discuss the crisis situation. Among politicians present was Vice Premier Shimon Peres.
• Hatzor Haglilit near Rosh Pina - several people suffered from shock after a missile landed near a bomb shelter. A vehicle parked nearby exploded.
• Beit Jan
• Kiryat Shmona - two separate barrages. One near a factory in the city's northern industrial zone; a second near the village of Beit Hillel.
• Biranit
• Matat
• Sasa right on the northern border.
• Karmiel - where we have friends who spent last night very uncomfortably accommodated in a bomb shelter. All the residents of the city have now been told to enter bomb shelters and protected structures this afternoon after today's Katyusha missile landings in the vicinity. So far no reports of injuries or serious damage, but we're told (and we believe) it's terrifying.
• Maalot - initial reports of a direct hit on an apartment building with injuries and damage.
• And Haifa's residents are being told right now (4.40pm) to find shelter and stay there.

If you're not familiar with Galilee and northern Israel, the places listed above are not military bases or desert reserves. These are towns and cities filled with people; places that have not been under direct Arab attack in decades, and which ought to be in the midst of their tourist season. The area suffered 120 long-range missile attacks yesterday. And today's no quieter.

For those of us mindful of what a terror organization is, it's self-evident that the only thing that will stop their active enmity (translation: shooting) will be when their physical ability to do this is neutralized.

Of course, it would be awfully nice if that could be done in a proportionate way. And we're happy to discuss with anyone interested (perhaps the political leaders of the European Union, Norway, Russia, France, Italy, the United Kingdom) how a proportionate response to deliberate, willful and enthusiastic mass murder ought to be conducted.

One last word: we named our blog "This Ongoing War" when we started it because we're appalled at the way observers and reporters keep presenting events out of context. Our daughter was murdered almost five years ago in a terrorist massacre. That attack on a restaurant filled with women and children, conducted by agents of the people who now sit in the Palestinian parliament and funded and supported by them, was one in a long series of acts of war. We can wish it weren't so. We can hope that there are people on the other side who really, truly want peaceful relations. But we can't make it happen by wishing and hoping. And we can't ignore the straight line that connects today's missile attacks on Israel, yesterday's Qassams and Katyushot, last week's stabbings, last month's drive-by shootings, and the restaurant bombings, grenade throwings and all the other acts of intended and actual murder carried out day after day for the past 6 years since the Arafat War began.

That straight line is described in our chronicle below, and wishing and hoping won't change its reality.

13-Jul-06: A hot summer shaping up

Lebanon's de facto army, Hezbullah, scores a significant military advance this morning when a missile despatched from Southern Lebanon but controlled from Beirut strikes a dwelling in the resort town of Nahariya. So far, we know of one woman killed in the attack; 12 others are reported injured. But we also know that several towns and kibbutzim (including such popular tourist destinations as Rosh Pina, Ayelet Hashahar and Kfar Hanasi) in the surrounding area have come under Lebanese missile attack in the past few hours. Some ten Katyushot already this morning according to Israel TV's Channel 10 report which we heard a few moments ago. Though tens of thousands of Israelis have been ordered to go to neighbourhood air-raid shelters, it seems inevitable that the casualty numbers are going to rise.

Hezbullah's strategy has, for years, been to target military targets so defined in its Mein Kampf blueprint, and it has prepared well for this current battle. (The illustration above purports to be an actual Hezbullah fighting unit, marching in Southern Lebanon. Go try to figure the mindset of these people.) In Hezbullah's book, military targets have long meant apartment buildings, single-family dwellings, supermarkets, kindergartens, holiday flats. Thousands of their Katyusha rockets are currently aimed at Israel, including (according to a Jerusalem Post report) hundreds of Fajar 5 rockets that can strike as far away as Haifa and Hadera. (Hard to know if this is right but the Israeli commentator speaking on the program that's on our TV just quoted a number for the total stock of their live missiles: 13,000!) Their goals are clear and unambiguous.

Having terror-minded regimes just over the back fence comes with some significant downsides. First, people tend to think that defending yourself against their attacks makes you part of a cycle of violence, and don't want to be bothered by the facts. Second, when the men with the poorly-managed rockets operate from civilian areas and fire into civilian areas, the victims on both sides tend to be civilians. And third, even though it's our side that has decisive - even overwhelming - military superiority, this counts for relatively little. This is because at every level, our society aspires to ethical standards (making this claim enrages the anti-semites, for those who haven't noticed, but it's true nevertheless) which effectively lead us to tie one of our arms behind our back while fighting with the other, all the while keeping an eye on the self-destructiveness of the pathetic leaders on the other side busy placing their nighbours' children in the line of our fire.

When the map of Israel is displayed, as it very occasionally is, on television news screens, it's often out of context. It fills the screen leading anyone watching to conclude that Israel is the size of, say, Texas. In reality Israel is smaller than New Jersey. (Australian readers: please click here.) And even so-called primitive missiles pointed in our direction - like the one that blew up an apartment building this morning - can reach all parts of this little country. I could try to make the case for why a society living under this sort of constant threat would want to have an effective air force and a strong deterrent capability. But the message would be lost because no one's paying attention to deterrents today. War fever has the Arabs firmly in its grip.

The result is that, presumably for good cause, the authorities have raised the terror alert level throughout Israel this morning. It's now just one notch below the maximum. There are no ordinary TV programs - just direct coverage from the fronts (north, south, center, everywhere), and military reserves units are busy sending messages to families throughout the country saying "we need your sons". The local financial markets are in turmoil too - no good news there. And the bed-and-breakfasts throughout the north are coping with a wave of cancellations.

In the face of the superficial and dangerous pseudo-military analysis that seems to be everywhere this morning, here's a voice that gets beneath the surface to some painful truths.