Archives for 2006

It’s another surrealistic day in Israel. All day long Hezbollah has been lobbing rockets our way as well as mortars. They have hit pretty much every place in the North that people live. At times they were firing over 70 an hour. Most, thank G-d, landed in open fields starting fires, but not harming homes or people. However, some did damage to livestock—one hit alone killed tens of cattle. And the constant firing means that farmers can’t tend their livestock or their crops. However, once again, we paid the highest price with two soldiers killed in a firefight and three Israeli Arabs killed in Nazareth.

Shimon Peres, a well-known dove, former friend and confidante of Yassir Arafat, said today, “What does Hezbollah want? We have nothing that belongs to them. We have not threatened them.” He understands the irrationality of their hate, a hate so great that they put all of Israel and all of Lebanon in danger. I called my daughter up this evening and told her to make a note of this day. Chaim Ramon, a man whose opinions have been predictably diametrically opposed to mine was saying exactly what I believe—that this is a battle we HAVE to win. This is a battle that the Western world needs us to win. We are the front line in the terror war and we can’t afford to cave for our own sakes and for the sake of the rest of the freedom loving nations.

Our days here in Modi’in are fairly calm. It’s quiet outside and there is a warm breeze. At the health club this afternoon, I biked while watching our soldiers firing mortars and heard the reporters speaking as katyushas landed around them. I heard about the terror alert that paralyzed the center of the country until the terrorist and his explosives were located and the attack was prevented. I saw the battle in Nablus around the Mukata, I heard about the Kassams being fired from Gaza and heard about the man who died from a heart attack after a Kassam landed nearby. His brother had been killed in a terror attack about a year ago.

We pray for our soldiers, for those in the line of fire, for our leaders to continue to lead us with wisdom, and for G-d’s help in this just cause.

If you are interested in getting a newscast from Israel in English, this URL will be helpful to you. Thanks for all of the public and private support. I could never tell you how much it means to us.

What a people we are! Today our enemies attacked firing kassams in the south (in Ashqelon and Sderot), in the center (a terrorist was caught in downtown Jerusalem carrying a bomb in preparation for an attack) and firing katyushas in the north (Haifa, Safed, Meiron, Kiryat Shmona, Acre, Tiberias, Talal, Julis, Abu Snan, Kafr Yassif and other towns across the north) and yet we hold strong. One after another the government ministers, the mayors, the police all report the same thing: our people are saying “stay the course” “we can do this” “we are with you.” In Haifa where one building took a direct hit, the owner of the apartment said, “This is what we are involved in and this is part of it.”

I still don’t understand anyone’s criticism. Is there any possibility that these attacks on any other civilized country would be met with as much restraint as our forces are using? If the US were attacked on two of its borders and were a terrorist caught on the same day in Washington, do you really think it would absorb the blow? If they are targeting homes in our cities, what would be a proportional response? Targeting homes in their cities? When the Israel air force went after a civilian area that houses Hezbollah’s supplies and infrastructure, they dropped leaflets hours before warning civilians to leave the area so they wouldn’t be harmed. And the world says we use disproportional responses!

They can never defeat us. This is a people like none other. We are one large family. Yes, we squabble when things are going well, but comes a crisis and we truly are one.

OK, the world has offically gotten on my last nerve.

I won’t go into ancient history that would affirm that this land has been the land of the Jews since Abraham. I won’t expound modern history that would show that there was no such thing as the “Palestinian people” until after 1967 when suddenly the Arabs decided that the Arab people so outnumbering the Jews could never be looked upon as victims, so they had to form a sub-group that was a “minority” and now have created a myth of a people that never had its own land or culture.

I will just speak about the past few years. On May 24, 2000, Israel completed the withdrawal of its forces from southern Lebanon in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 425. The UN affirmed that Israel had left all Lebanese territory. That didn’t stop Hezbollah from shelling our positions and kidnapping our soldiers. And there were kidnappings that were foiled that hardly made the news.

Last August, Israel expelled 7000 Jews from their homes in Gaza– people who lived on lands that had NEVER been occupied by Arabs. In fact, when they came to settle there, the local Arabs greeted them with bread and salt and wondered how these people planned to live on the sand. But that expulsion didn’t stop the rocket attacks on our cities or the murder and kidnapping of our soldiers.

Then we elected a new prime minister who (I think, foolishly) vowed to withdraw (expell Jews) from Judea and Samaria to try and establish a border with a fledgling Palestinian state (made up of a majority who applaud the murder of Jews.)

But that didn’t sate our enemies.

And now, the world has the nerve to tell us to act with restraint! Don’t they realize that the Arabs want us dead and gone and want to erase Israel from the map! Listen to Hezbollah’s broadcasts. Last night they referred to Haifa as being occupied land. So is, in their mind, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Lod, Rechovot…. Wait. I don’t have time to list all of the cities in Israel because if you look at their map of Palestine, it includes ALL of Israel.

Folks! We are fighting for our lives. We are fighting today in the north and in the south because all of this country is within range of their rockets. We live about 3 kilometers from an Arab village. Former cordial relations have been disrupted by the radicalization of their populations. Ever since the west has begun singing its song of moral equivalence with the refrain of “both sides” and “cycle of violence” and has advised Israel to “exercise restraint”, the Arabs have felt emboldened. They see themselves as having been taken seriously and realize that there is sympathy for their cause. It helps them maintain the hope that they will eventually wipe us out.

We must win this time. We can’t afford to lose. We’re betting our lives on it.