Archives for 2006

It’s been hard to write this week. I am a tangle of feelings.

I am still reeling from the loss of life inflicted on us by the terrorists on our border. I hear about these young men- and now also a young woman- who served their country with pride and who were literally protecting their homes and families—not thousands or even hundreds of miles away, but on our own borders that were being bombarded by hundreds of missiles a day. The pain of their loss belongs to their families, but also to their larger family, the people of Israel.

I am still astounded by the willingness of people throughout the world to focus on the pain of the Lebanese people. Yes, I acknowledge that there are innocent victims among the Lebanese—often hard to spot amid the civilian- clad Hezbollah fighters, the bodies dug up from graves for photo-ops, and the live people posing as dead–. We know that Hezbollah’s weapons were purposely placed among civilians and we know too that under the Geneva Conventions, their fate is Hezbollah’s responsibility. And I am sorry for those who are innocent and who suffer from what their home-grown terrorists have done to them. But I am angry that no one acknowledges the death and destruction brought upon the Israeli people by this band of bloodthirsty fascists. Why does not one media report talk about the Israelis now returning to their destroyed homes? With the per capita largest foreign media presence in the world, how could Israel’s tens of thousands of war refugees from the north returning to their homes have been missed unless there was a decision made that Israeli suffering does not count. This is all the more tragic because this war consisted exclusively of Hezbollah targeting civilians.

I am overwhelmed by the goodness and kindness of the Israeli people who worked throughout this war to meet the needs of the people from the North—buying and delivering food packages to people who spent weeks in shelters, providing games and toys for the children, diapers and formula for the babies. Massage therapists went up to render their services, mobile banks and post offices served the people. The tens of thousands who evacuated were housed in people’s homes, schools, community centers, and in a huge tent city provided by Arcadi Gaydamak who provided not only food and shelter, but activities for adults and children and live entertainment in the evenings for a total out of pocket cost during this war in excess of fifty million dollars.

I am worried. I know that we have dealt Hezbollah a blow, but I am certain it was not enough to dissuade them from further adventurism. We absorbed (by being hit by them) about 4,000 missiles (don’t quote me on this…. Numbers aren’t my strong suit) and they had in excess of 10,000 before the war. You do the math. They already are armed for the next round and they are still are talking about wiping us off the map. They still are being given financial, military, and training support by Iran and Syria. Why would anyone think that a halt now is a good idea? They will just train to be more effective, arm themselves with chemical or biological weapons, and hit us again.

I am outraged that my government has agreed to any arrangement that does not begin with the release of our kidnapped soldiers. Wasn’t that the point? To show them that they could not come across the border and snatch people? How did our government agree to this? Don’t we look both weak and foolish?

I am happy that our men are coming home to their families. I pray that not one more will have to be harmed. They are precious and loved by this big family we call the people of Israel.

War. It is terrible. People who are good and kind—sons and husbands and fathers– are killed defending our country from the threat of extinction—that had anyone doubted was real until now, is no longer in doubt. Our enemies mean to destroy us. Not just our soldiers. Not just our buildings. They mean to destroy all of us. You can see it in where they fire their missiles. They mean to kill me and my husband and my children and my grandchildren and all of my neighbors and all of the people we see at concerts and on the beach and at the health club and in the supermarket. They want to kill the old people in nursing homes and the preemies in the nurseries. They want us gone. Eradicated.

But that is not the worst of it. Because we are the canary in the mine. We are the Western outpost in the Middle East. Once these sharks taste blood, they will attack again… Europe will probably be first. Regaining Spain has been in the plans for hundreds of years. Substantial populations of radicalized Muslims live in France, England, and Belgium. European countries, intoxicated with “peace and love” will be an easy target. But it won’t stop there. The next place for the spread of radical Islam will be the US.

“Foolish!” you call me. “It won’t happen here.”

9/11 was also unthinkable. The West must wake up. They need to know that there are people for whom the demise of the West is their reason for living.

If those panty-waisted liberals force us to give up the fight, we will not be the only losers—and when the inevitable conflagration happens, our enemies will be all the better equipped with sophisticated weapons including Iran’s “peaceful nuclear power” and all the more confident of victory.

This war is the war of the free world against hate and fanaticism. Please don’t force us to lose. Our fate is yours.

War is hell, but it is better than the alternative.

p.s. This web log shows the unreliability of the reporting. You actually will laugh at some of the pictures and comments. It relates to a New York Times photo essay with phony pictures.

I had told myself that I would get back to writing about families and marriage and spirituality, but frequently the times dictate what I write.

Yesterday was a terrible day in Israel. We lost twelve soldiers and three civilians. In the last few days there have been a large number of tragic deaths. To deny that it is traumatic for the country would be a lie. All of us are affected. All of us cry.

Once again I found myself angry. I decided to ask a couple of questions. Has anyone seen the following headline, “World condemns the targeting of innocent Israeli civilians”? Hmmm I didn’t think so. How about this one, “Hezbollah orders investigation of hit on Israeli civilians”? No? Really?

Let’s look at disproportionality: Hezbollah targets Israeli civilians—homes, shops, school, hospitals—and no one in the very moral international community (save President Bush) objects. Hezbollah kills children and grandmothers, Jews and Arabs, and no one protests. But Lebanon claims that 60 people were killed by an Israeli strike and before the words are out of the spokesman’s mouth, people are jumping to condemn Israel. When later the people are all found alive and safe, who apologizes? Who would that be? No one?

When I was a little girl, my parents still had fresh in their mind what had been done to Jews in Europe. They said, perhaps too often, that this one or that one was Anti-Semitic. After a while, I thought it was a thought pattern that they had picked up that really didn’t mean anything.

Now I am beginning to understand that to the rest of the world, we really are not worth caring about. Vast amounts of money are being collected for the “poor Lebanese” whose government stands behind the targeting of Israeli civilians. Who is helping us pay for the damage inflicted on us? Who is sending us money to feed our refugees and provide summer camps for the children and who sent us an air shipment of eight ambulances today? Jews around the world and American Christians.

May G-d bless them and may G-d protect our soldiers and citizens from harm. May he grant us victory over those who would murder us and who seek to spread their hate throughout the world.

Last night we drove to Jerusalem to hear the book of Lamentations on Safra Square, just outside the Jerusalem city hall. Women in Green had organized this reading this year as in previous years, and as in previous years, the reading was the first part of the evening, a prelude to the walk around the walls of the old city of Jerusalem.

We had walked around Jerusalem’s walls three or four years ago when the intifada was still at its height. That night, terrorists forgetting it was Tisha b’Av, had killed several foreign workers, the only people present at the targeted location. Last night we felt moved to attend once again because of the terrible war that is going on at present and our need to both give and receive support. Obviously the other tens of thousands who joined us felt similarly and as we walked, old and young, some with flags recalling the expulsion from Gush Katif and some with Israeli flags, there was once again a sense of comforting Jerusalem. Her children have not abandoned her.

When we stopped outside of Lion’s Gate, the one our soldiers entered when they recaptured the old city, there were three speeches. All of them referred to this war as having come as a result of last year’s expulsion or ten thousand Jews from Gush Katif. It emboldened our enemies. They saw that we wanted peace and quiet more than our land. And the people of the country allowed it. Soldiers followed orders and with tears in their eyes they carried women and children from their homes—families that a year later are still living in trailers and tents.

And now our terrorist enemies have forced our people in the North into shelters for over three weeks. In many towns, more than half of the population has moved south to friends, relatives, and strangers. Today eight innocent Israeli civilians were killed—three of them Arabs—by terrorists who don’t value anyone’s life.

But last night, in the clear Jerusalem air, we walked with our people – arriving at midnight at the Kotel, the Western Wall. As we came through the gate, hundreds of people were leaving. When we passed through security and arrived inside, the plaza was so filled with people that it was difficult to find a place to stand. Radio reports put the number of people there at 100,000. As we left, hundreds more were arriving, and on our fifteen minute walk to the car, we saw a constant stream of groups of people walking toward the Kotel.

Our pain is profound, but our faith and our will are strong and we will prevail.

I met Susan Nolan when we were young mothers, living in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Susan’s son, Jamie, and my son, Sammy, were in the same play group. Susan and I were good friends then and through the years, even separated by oceans and thousands of miles, Susan and I remained close. When I needed support a few years ago, Susan came on a “mercy flight” to help me out. She traveled through Israel with me and felt the holiness of the Land. She is a true friend. She is soon to be ordained as a minister. This is the letter she sent me today.

Dear Rona,

The actions of Hezbollah bring me back so many years to the tactics of the North Vietnamese in the Vietnam War.

The North Vietnamese, like Hezbollah- both of whom do not honor the value of human lives- gave us the first glimpse of guerilla tactics that made women and children victims, in order to influence the media.

That was the precedent for what we are seeing today, in my opinion.

They set up their mortars in heavily populated areas and also near such targets as Buddhist temples.

Of course, when the American and South Vietnamese soldiers returned fire, innocent civilians were killed-playing right into the North Vietnamese hands.

The American media went wild.

As a result of the public uprising,the American Congress then began micro-managing the war- setting up “no-fire” zones. A no-fire zone was, as it sounds, an area into which the Americans and South Vietnamese were not allowed to fire mortars – and not allowed to bomb.

I was married, at the time, to a young US Army lieutenant who was in Vietnam, serving with an engineer group. There was an incident that he told me about that I never forgot. He and his platoon had just finished putting up a fire-base on a mountain outside Da Nang. One night, shortly after it was up and operational, the North Vietnamese began shooting mortars at an American base in Da Nang. My husband described the frustration that the soldiers at the new fire-base experienced, when they called in for permission to fire back at the location from which the enemy fire was coming. (They could even see the flashing of the mortars in the night.) They were denied permission to fire, because the enemy (surprise surprise) was firing from a “no-fire” zone.

There were many American soldiers killed at an American base in Da Nang that night. I recall my husband telling me how some of the soldiers at his fire-base literally cried, as they watched the destruction of that base, knowing Americans were being killed, and that they were helpless (because of the no-fire rules) to help them. It was a tragedy, and a farce, that was repeated over and over again in Vietnam.

So sad.

When will we learn?

I believe those guerilla tactics are why the US and South Vietnamese were so badly defeated in that war.

It pains me to see the same happening to Israel…and throughout the Middle East.

What does it take for us all to understand that these “people” don’t care about the rules of civilization. They don’t care a whit about Geneva Conventions or anything else.

They intend to defeat all of us by using our respect for life against us.

I expect Hezbollah will cause the death of many more Lebanese women and children and old people and whoever else they wish to sacrifice……until we can’t stand watching it on television any longer…and try to humiliate and torment Israel into stopping its self-defense.

Hezbollah will have to answer to God for this act against their own brothers and sisters.

The rest of us will be called to answer for Israel. God gave Israel to the Jews. I believe we will all be called to answer for harm done to them.

I pray that the world will come to see the truth of Hezbollah and all of these Islamic terrorists. They are bloodthirsty killers.

They promulgate evil.

And they cynically manipulate the media for their own evil purposes.

I pray for your protection every day.

Susan

It’s been hard to write for the last two days. We have lost nine precious souls– men who willingly gave their lives so that the people of Israel can live. One, Major Ro’i Klein, 31, and the father of two young sons, saw a grenade thrown toward his men and realized it was too late to escape it, so he said, “Shma Yisrael…” and threw himself on the grenade to minimize the harm to his men.

But his is not the only story of bravery. There are all of the soldiers who gathered up their wounded comrades and carried them on stretchers two kilometers to the nearest place a helicopter could land safely and the helicopter pilots who flew into an area where they knew they could be shot down. There are those who went in under cover of night to rescue the bodies of their fallen comrade so that Hezbollah would not desecrate them or make use of them as bargaining chips.

And on the home front, the nation is amazingly resilient and brave. Many of the towns in the North are bare of inhabitants. Haifa could have less than half of its population at present. All of these people are being housed with family, friends, and strangers. Real estate agents have been contacting foreign owners of apartments in Israel and asking if they might be used as temporary shelter. Nursing homes are moving their patients together and making space for people from the North. And for those who have stayed in their homes, the banks have sent vans up so that people can get their banking done. One of the credit card companies is allowing people to miss their August payment with no interest. There are mobile doctors’ offices and post offices so that people don’t have to endanger themselves traveling in unsafe territory, and one of the largest supermarket chains is offering customers the opportunity to send foodstuffs to people in the North by just adding the cost to their bill. The love and caring of this people is exquisite.

Today I saw a couple who made aliya only a month ago from the US. I said to them, “I guess this was not such a wonderful time to come.” The husband responded, “Well, in the city we came from, last week there were seven murders. In another part of the US some kid shot people on a freeway because he was mad at his folks and somewhere else a kid who didn’t get to go to the prom murdered his family. In comparison, it’s pretty tame here.”

These are difficult times for us in Israel, but make no mistake; these are times that have enormous implications since our victory here will be the beginning of the defeat of terrorism.

May it be G-d’s will.

It was another emotional day. Rockets were falling. People were missed by a matter of moments or yards. When a news person asked the Russian immigrant who had witnessed one of the hits in Haifa and who had gathered the ball bearings and other devices that were packed into it to inflict maximum harm on a civilian population whether perhaps he regretting having come to live in Israel, the man was incredulous. He said, “This is the safest place for a Jew to live.”

So it didn’t surprise me a bit when today two planes filled with new immigrants arrived– 500 from Paris, 150 from Marseilles. Our new citizens were welcomed with joy and singing and they couldn’t have been more elated.

This afternoon, we took another new immigrant (this one from Oklahoma) over to the airport to pick up the last member of their family to make aliya, their cat, “Lila Tov Chatul” (Goodnight, Cat). She too seemed anxious to begin her new life here.

Normally I avoid reprinting other people’s work, but this article is too important to miss. It is reprinted from the Jerusalem Post online edition (www.jpost.com)

Jul. 22, 2006 22:49 | Updated Jul. 23, 2006 19:05
The predictable condemners
By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ

The Hizbullah and Hamas provocations against Israel once again demonstrate how terrorists exploit human rights and the media in their attacks on democracies.

By hiding behind their own civilians the Islamic radicals issue a challenge to democracies: Either violate your own morality by coming after us and inevitably killing some innocent civilians, or maintain your morality and leave us with a free hand to target your innocent civilians.

This challenge presents democracies such as Israel with a lose-lose option, and the terrorists with a win-win option.

There is one variable that could change this dynamic and present democracies with a viable option that could make terrorism less attractive as a tactic: The international community, the anti-Israel segment of the media and the so called “human rights” organizations could stop falling for this terrorist gambit and acknowledge that they are being used to promote the terrorist agenda.

Whenever a democracy is presented with the lose-lose option and chooses to defend its citizens by going after the terrorists who are hiding among civilians, this trio of predictable condemners can be counted on by the terrorists to accuse the democracy of “overreaction,” “disproportionality” and “violations of human rights.”

In doing so, they play right into the hands of the terrorists, causing more terrorism and more civilian casualties on both sides. If instead this trio could, for once, be counted on to blame the terrorists for the civilian deaths on both sides, this tactic would no longer be a win-win situation for the terrorists.

IT SHOULD BE obvious by now that Hizbullah and Hamas actually want the Israeli military to kill as many Lebanese and Palestinian civilians as possible. That is why they store their rockets underneath the beds of civilians; why they launch their missiles from crowded civilian neighborhoods and hide among civilians. They are seeking to induce Israel to defend its civilians by going after them among their civilian “shields.” They know that every civilian they induce Israel to kill hurts Israel in the media and the international and human rights communities.

They regard these human shields as shahids – martyrs – even if they did not volunteer for this lethal job. Under the law, criminals who use human shields are responsible for the deaths of the shields, even if the bullet that kills them came from the gun of a policeman.

Israel has every self-interest in minimizing civilian casualties, whereas the terrorists have every self-interest in maximizing them – on both sides. Israel should not be condemned for doing what every democracy would and should do: taking every reasonable military step to stop the terrorists from killing their innocent civilians.

NOW THAT some of those who are launching rockets at Israeli cities have announced they have new surprises in store for Israel that may include chemical and biological weapons, the stakes have gotten even higher.

What would Israeli critics regard as “proportioned” to a chemical or biological attack? What would they say if Israel tried to preempt such an attack and, in the process, killed some civilians? Must a democracy absorb a first strike from a weapon of mass destruction before it fights back? Would any other democracy be expected to do that?

The world must come to recognize the cynical way in which terrorists exploit civilian casualties. They launch anti-personnel rockets designed to maximize enemy civilian casualties, then they cry “human rights” when their own civilians – behind whom they are deliberately hiding – are killed by the democracies in the process of trying to prevent further acts of terrorism

The very idea that terrorists who use women and children as suicide bombers against other women and children shed crocodile tears over the deaths of civilians they deliberately put in harm’s way gives new meaning to the word “hypocrisy.” We all know that hypocrisy is a tactic of the terrorists, but it is shocking that others fall for it and become complicit with the terrorists.

Let the blame fall where it belongs: on the terrorists who deliberately seek to kill enemy civilians and give their democratic enemies little choice but to kill some civilians behind whom the terrorists are hiding.

Those who condemn Israel for killing civilians – who are used as human shields and swords for the terrorists – actually cause more civilian deaths and make it harder for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.

HOW THE WORLD reacts to Israel’s current military efforts to protect its citizens will have a considerable impact on future Israeli steps toward peace. Prior to the recent kidnappings and rocket attacks the Israeli government had announced its intention to engage in further withdrawals from large portions of the West Bank.

But how can Israel be expected to move forward with any plan for withdrawal if all it can expect in return is more terrorism – what the terrorists regard as “land for rocket launchings” – and more condemnation when it seeks to protect its civilians?

The writer is a Professor of Law at Harvard and the author of Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways.