This article was posted on Jewish.com on Thursday, August 17, 2006. The link is here.

Ceasefire brings temporary calm as Israel, U.S. prepare for next conflict.


With a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah still holding, however tentatively, and Israelis returning to their homes in the north, the politicians and historians are already hard at work putting their spin on the war that was. Did Israel win? Did Hezbollah?

The Israeli public has already voted, though. According to a Globes-Smith poll earlier this week, 58 percent of Israelis think Israel achieved "only a small part" or "none of its goals" in the war. That's up considerably from just two weeks ago when only 16 percent thought similarly. And the results don't look much better for the ruling Kadima or Labor parties - some 60 percent of the two parties' supporters say they would defect and become floating voters were elections held tomorrow.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz has already decided to set up a commission of inquiry into how the war was handled (which could presumably lead to his own downfall), and there have been calls for IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz to step down due to ethical improprieties - he apparently authorized a personal stock transaction three hours after hearing of the kidnap of the two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, the event that ostensibly sparked the entire war.

Beyond the post-conflict political wrangling, it's not hard to see why Israelis are disillusioned: a million residents across the north spent 32 days either in bomb shelters or in temporary lodgings in other parts of the country while over 4,000 missiles rained down, devastating the economy of one third of the nation.

And so now, Israelis are asking: At the end of the day, what have we got to show for our effort?

There is no provision or timetable in the ceasefire agreement to return the two kidnapped soldiers. Most countries have balked at sending troops to join a beefed up UNIFIL. And while the Lebanese Army is moving into the south of that country, a side agreement - in clear violation of the ceasefire - will allow Hezbollah to keep its arms as long as they're not "publicly displayed."

The bottom line: It looks depressingly like the region is rapidly heading back to square one.

That unflattering assessment, however, depends entirely on what was really going on in the last month of fighting. If the Israel-Hezbollah war is perceived as simply a regional conflict - an enhanced border skirmish, if you will - then Israel clearly came out on the sharp end of the stick. But if seen as an integral part of the global war against terrorism, then the past 32 days could, ironically, prove to be extremely valuable…for the next war.

The Next War?

Certainly, if you listen to Seymour Hersh, the controversial reporter for the New Yorker magazine who wrote that the attack on Hezbollah had been planned by Israel for some time, long before July 12 when the fighting began in earnest, and that the Bush Administration was closely involved in the planning of Israel's retaliatory operations. The U.S., Hersh claims, wanted to take out the Hezbollah threat prior to an American pre-emptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installation, which some have speculated is scheduled for as early as this fall.

Israel's bombing campaign against Hezbollah's heavily-fortified underground missile and command and control complexes, moreover, was to have provided the U.S. with invaluable data on how similarly fortified installations in Iran would withstand U.S. bombing.

Both Israeli and U.S. spokespeople have strongly denied Hersh's claims. But it's hard to deny the global terror connection, especially after last week's uncovering by British authorities of a plot to blow up airliners traveling from the U.K. to North America.

Am I implying that there is a direct connection between the 21 men arrested in London who were working on a plan to smuggle liquid explosives onto planes in sports drink bottles, and the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon? Not exactly.

But the money comes from the same patron: Iran. And it underscores that what has been going on in Israel during the difficult days of July and August cannot be viewed as isolated events, but rather as part of the proverbial big picture. While I don't mean to denigrate the success or failures of the just-concluded operation, whether Israel wins or loses today is ultimately less important than whether the western powers prevail in the long term. Israel, clearly, is playing its role with great intention, whether that's overt or circumstantial.

And how is the west doing in the overall war against terror? Not too well, says Saul Singer of the Jerusalem Post. In an article published over the weekend, Singer writes that a premature ceasefire that doesn't sufficiently degrade Hezbollah "will embolden Iran… Just as Hezbollah's survival will be widely seen as a defeat for Israel, it is also a defeat for the United States by Iran."

Singer goes on to quote historian Bernard Lewis who, in the Wall Street Journal last week, referred to an 11th-grade Iranian school textbook that cites the goals of jihad. In it, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeni says that "either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours."

In other words, all casualties - including those on the Iranian home front - are to be welcomed as this will bring about the ultimate triumph of good (Islam) over evil (everything else).

John Podhoretz, writing in the New York Post, takes the issue one step further, questioning whether the West is up to confronting this kind of enemy.

"What if liberal democracies have now evolved to a point," he asks, "where they can no longer wage war effectively because they have achieved a level of humanitarian concern for others that dwarfs any really cold-eyed pursuit of their own national interests? Can it be that the moral greatness of our civilization - its astonishing focus on the value of the individual above all - is endangering the future of our civilization as well?"

The same thought occurred to me as well as I read about 15-year-old girls from middle America being forced to pour out their hand lotion and toss their lipstick in the trash before boarding a plane last week. This kind of even-handed approach might be appropriate when dealing with a domestic matter or even a civil disobedience, but not with world war. And make no mistake: After London, Madrid, Bali, Istanbul and New York, we are in the midst of a world war, even if it hasn't yet been labeled as such. The West needs new tools and new approaches if it is to prevail.

Who Won?

Which leads us back to the original question. Who won in the war between Israel-Hezbollah? Militarily in the short term, Israel bested Hezbollah. The "state within a state" Hezbollah created is gone for now. Hezbollah has been pushed into a corner and much of the billions of dollars its backers in Tehran spent on fortified command centers now lies in ruins. Hezbollah may brag about success, but it has clearly been crippled.

In the mid- to long-term, will Hezbollah return to southern Lebanon? Undoubtedly. Will Israel get its kidnapped soldiers back? Unknown. Will missiles once again rain on the country's north? Unfortunately, probably.

But in the meantime, we now know a whole lot more about what Hezbollah had in store for Israel, what its technical capabilities were and, by proxy, what Iran has in store for the U.S., when and if it comes calling.

The London plot, in addition to bringing to public attention yet another way terrorists can attack civilian transportation, solidifies the need to not turn a blind eye to the key player in the what President Bush once mockingly called the "axis of evil."

The IDF and the western powers, we can only hope, are now aggressively using the data they've amassed to begin building new strategies and new tactics.

For the next war.

This article was posted on Jewish.com on Sunday, August 13, 2006. The link is here.

Parenting is never easy...even more so when you're dealing with comforting your child during a missile attack.


It was supposed to be the highlight of camp: "Survivor Day." Inspired by the TV show of the same name, the campers arose at 5 a.m. and prepared for a full day of managing outdoors on their wits. There were a variety of water challenges planned - a critical concession given the 90-degree plus heat - ranging from jumping on and off rafts to wet and wild tug of wars.

Everything was going swimmingly, so to speak, until - in the middle of all the fun - four long-range Hezbollah missiles from Lebanon landed about a kilometer from where the campers were frolicking in the local water hole, giving Survivor Day an unexpected and entirely unwanted twist.

For the past 12 days, our 12-year-old daughter, Merav, has been having the time of her life at her first overnight camping experience. The setting was Kibbutz Shluchot just south of Bet Shean in the northern Jordan Valley. "Everyday there's something different," Merav told us one night by phone. "You never know what to expect."

The ever-changing activities included swimming, arts and crafts, badminton, inline skating, nature hikes, a "Color War," tiyulim to nearby attractions (such as the impressive Bet Shean archeological dig with its ancient Roman amphitheater), a stroll through the kibbutz carrot factory, more swimming, basketball, Shabbat "walks" with a camper of the opposite sex, and, did I say swimming yet?

The kibbutz, Merav said was beautiful; the campers all received their own bicycles and they rode everywhere, from their bunks to the synagogue and then to the dining hall. Even the meals were pretty tasty, high praise from my newly vegetarian daughter.

Disrupted Routine

Survivor Day was set in a man-made swimming hole about a 15-minute walk from the kibbutz itself. After its early start in the wee hours of the morning, the action-packed day wasn't scheduled to conclude until near sunset. Then, at approximately 11 a.m. Hezbollah fired five long-range, Khaibar-1 missiles from deep inside Lebanon.

Unlike the shorter range Katyushas, which fall on beleaguered closer-to-the-border communities like Kyriat Shemona, Karmiel and Safed, the long-range missiles can travel 100 km or more and pack a much more powerful warhead.

The Khaibars landed in the Mount Gilboa forests between Bet Shean and Afula. As soon as I heard the news (since the war started over a month ago, I have been obsessively monitoring the Internet, checking in no less than once every five minutes), I pulled out a map. Whereas the previous round of missiles fired into the Bet Shean area sailed mostly over the town and nearby Kibbutz Shluchot - setting off alarms, but touching ground a good deal away near the West Bank city of Jenin - this time, they were daringly close to a camp full of kids outdoors, who not coincidentally, were also miles from the nearest bomb shelter.

The phone soon rang. It was Merav. She was clearly in tears; I could feel her shoulders heaving up and down in the tremble of her voice. "They're canceling camp," she said. "We're coming home tonight. They said it's not safe here anymore."

I didn't know exactly how to respond. It's hard enough parenting a teenage daughter in ordinary times and Merav's emotions are already volatile; I never know if she's going to take a comment in stride or launch into a sequence of ceremonial door slamming.

Taking Stock

Should I try to comfort her, ask her how she was feeling and if she was scared? Or should I act all nonchalant and normal and say what a shame it was that camp was ending early, letting her initiate any heavy-duty discussion?

I looked for clues in Merav's words.

"And today was supposed to be the best day of camp, too," she said. I sensed less shaking now and more of a pout. That seemed to call for a laid-back direction.

"That's such a bummer," I said, picking my words carefully. "I know you were really looking forward to it."

"But I'm scared, Abba."

"You are?" I said, confused now by the rapid change of course. "Well, what was it like?"

"We heard this whistling sound, it was more like a 'whoosh,' then we thought we saw a light in the sky - I'm not sure - it was almost like a shooting star in the middle of the day - and then there were these big 'booms' and we saw all this smoke going up from the other side of the mountain. We had to duck under these picnic tables for, like 15 minutes, and we were all wet and it was muddy."

"That must have been awful," I intoned caringly. "No wonder you were scared!"

"And now you're going to have a big load of clothes to wash!" Merav barked, a sprig of sarcasm back in her voice.

My parenting instinct was being ping-ponged all over the table. I needed to pick a strategy: casual or concern. But Merav had decided for me.

"I have to go now," Merav interrupted my game of mental table tennis. "We need to pack. We're coming home tonight. Bye."

A few minutes later, Devorah, one of the camp co-directors, was on the line giving us pick up instructions for the bus.

"Did the home front command tell you to cancel camp?" I wondered out loud.

"No, but one of the missiles landed in Nir David," Devorah said, referring to the next village over, a scant two kilometers from Shluchot. "We don't need to wait until it lands in our own garden. We wanted to be prudent," she said.

And that's how it ended. The weeks-long debate chronicled in these posts about whether to send our child to camp closer to the front lines, whether it was irresponsible not to take her out when the first missiles landed; the whole discussion was now moot. Camp was closing.

Later that night, Merav was home. After a five-hour bus ride, she looked less frightened than exhausted as she made her way around the campers and their parents, handing out hugs like chocolates at a bar mitzvah boy's Torah reading.

We thanked Kenny, the other co-director, who joked that "usually at the annual camp convention, the big conversation is what to do on a rainy day. I think I can top that this year."

Which got me thinking: maybe we can make a little hay out of the hell we've been going through, too. I'm half thinking of calling up CBS and pitching them on an idea for an upcoming season of that veteran reality show "Survivor." Forget the Australian Outback, Thailand or Panama. Just send the next crop of contestants to camp at Kibbutz Shluchot and tell them to prepare for "Survivor Day."

That should be enough to test the mettle of even the most TV-hardened competitor. We'll provide the missiles, free of charge.

This article was posted on Jewish.com on Thursday, August 10, 2006. The link is here.

Where are the miracles of Entebbe and the Six Day War in the current conflict with Hezbollah?


After 29 days of fighting, Israel is slowly winning the war against Hezbollah. There's still a lot of work to be done and the fighting is nowhere near over. Still, the overall outlook is surprisingly good. So why do Israelis feel so bad?

The destruction of Hezbollah and the Iranian-backed terror regime it has carved out of south Lebanon over the past six years hasn't proceeded the way anyone had expected. This war has been slow going to a fault.

After nearly a month of Hezbollah missiles, a million Israelis either displaced to points south or living in bomb shelters, and with no acceptable ceasefire looking to be finalized at any point soon, it's no wonder that many Israelis are beginning to question their government's handling of the war effort.

With our massive firepower and superior technology, why hasn't the Israel Defense Forces been able to secure a truly decisive win already, a growing clamor of voices is asking? How can it be that, despite Israel's occupation of nearly the entire former security zone (the area Israel held for 18 years from 1982-2000), more - not fewer -missiles are landing in the north? Why did the security cabinet feel it necessary to authorize an expanded ground operation on Wednesday to push up as far as the Litani River in an operation cabinet minister Eli Yishai said could last up to 30 days…and probably more?

And the question perhaps most prominent but rarely spoken: where are the miracles we've come to expect from the Israeli army?

Slow In Coming

Yes, miracles - that's the key to the despair that's taking over from the euphoria of during the initial weeks of the war. Israel demands miracles and it's just not seeing any in this protracted battle.

Where is the daring of a covert operation like the one in Entebbe that freed a hijacked plane of Israeli and Jewish hostages in 1976? Or a war against implacable odds and the combined armies of three Arab countries that ended miraculously in just six days, as in 1967? How about an unexpected and audacious attack on the very heart of the enemy, such as what Israel undertook when it shocked the world and removed the threat of Iraq's nuclear reactor in Osirak in 1981?

And let's not forget the stunning turnaround that represented the War of Independence - an outcome so miraculous that not only was the fledgling Jewish state not destroyed as its enemies predicted, but it ended up with a geography far larger than what was granted it under the initial U.N.-sanctioned partition plan.

Where are those quick, unexpected and outrageous miracles this time? Israel and its supporters have been deprived of the one-two knockout punch that would have ended the misery in a matter of days or hours, not weeks, now going into months. The Israeli air force tried, but has been unable to take out -let alone find - Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah from whatever super-secret bunker he's squirreled away in today. Where is the massive display of Israeli airpower we all believe - but have not seen - that can vaporize every single missile launcher deployed against the Jewish state with a single dramatic flourish?

Why, Israelis are wondering, can't the Israeli army deliver this time?

It's not just Israelis who are looking for miracles. The Americans too have been disappointed. Hoping that Israel would "show those Iranians who's the boss" by quickly defeating its front line proxy army - the Hezbollah; Washington analysts are starting to question America's over-reliance on Israel, "the little strategic ally that couldn't" as Jerusalem Post Editor David Horowitz put it this week.

As if the U.S. was able to do any better in Iraq. But that's not point. We expect more from Israel. We expect nothing short of miracles.

Amotz Asa-El, also writing in the Post this week, says Israel has made a number of strategic errors to date, most importantly by lacking "swiftness and imagination. Massive aerial bombardments on mountainous guerrilla enclaves, followed by ground forces frontally approaching villages just beyond the border fence, could hardly have been more banal," Asa-El commented.

Why such seeming incompetence? Ironically, it's Israel's Jewish moral and ethical values that have gotten in the way of the miracles so desperately needed, the Post's Horowitz says. Israel needs either a much greater use of the airpower it surely has, or a larger ground offensive.

But "either of those avenues would necessarily involve death on a far larger scale than we have seen thus far," Horowitz wrote. "Pulverizing airpower would likely create Lebanese civilian casualties of a number that would dwarf the toll to date. Wider use of ground forces, on Hezbollah's home territory, would likely dwarf the IDF toll hitherto sustained in the close-quarters fighting."

And so the current conflict justifies "the degree and scale of airpower and ground troops to date," Horowitz concludes, "and no more." Israel has "not chosen different answers to its ethical dilemmas."

Winning Pace

And yet, the war is being won, despite the loss of 15 soldiers yesterday in the Lebanese villages of Marjaryon, Khjam and Kila.. Let's look at some facts:

· Over 10,000 Israeli troops are currently on the ground in Lebanon and Israel now has in its hands large swaths of former Hezbollah-controlled land.

· Hezbollah has been on the run, and rumors are that Nasrallah had fled to Syria and is conducting operations from there.

· The rocket launchers in Tyre that have plagued Haifa have mostly been taken out, as has the area near Sidon where a long range Khaibar-1 missile was fired at Hadera - the deepest point south a missile has penetrated Israel - last Friday night.

More tellingly, wherever Hezbollah and Israeli forces have fought, Hezbollah has been defeated. That's not been without IDF casualties, to be sure, and the toughest battlefields, including Maroun er Ras and Bint Jbail, are still claiming Israeli soldiers' lives nearly daily. But Hezbollah has lost its grip on the Israeli-Lebanese border and the fortified bunkers that it used to taunt - and eventually kidnap - Israeli soldiers now lay abandoned to Israeli military might.

Even Hezbollah's main weapon - its extensive missile supply - has not had doomsday effect many feared. Over 3,300 missiles have been fired to date but "only" 51 Israeli civilians have died. While I don't mean to sound cavalier - tearful newsreaders regularly announce the times and locations of each and every funeral during Israel Radio's calm but sadly mesmerizing top-of-the-hour briefs - from a geo-strategic point of view, at least, that's not a very good return on investment. Israel eventually managed to deal with the last "new" weapon introduced into the region - the suicide bomb; now it is learning how to live with and neutralize Hezbollah's missile threat as well.

The fighting is not over, and as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a decidedly Churchillian speech before the nation last week, there may still be more days of "pain and tears and blood" ahead, but Israel is surely - albeit very slowly - gaining the upper hand.

All this brings us back to miracles. Perhaps we have been looking for miracles in the wrong places. Instead of hoping for a miracle from beyond - a Moses-like defeat of Israel's enemies in the desert or the parting of the Red Sea - maybe we need to look within. It may sound like a cliché, but the steadfastness of the Israeli people is truly its own miracle.

For nearly a month, Israel has been battered but not defeated. The north is on the run, but it has not given up. Israelis may question whether the government is handling the war in the best way possible (can you imagine Israelis not kvetching about something), but support for the war effort remains high.

And the stories of families in the center of the country opening their homes to complete strangers, or donating money to buy toys and supplies for those still stuck in the bomb shelters of the north are heartwarming.

Friends of ours are hosting a family from Karmiel who have been camping in tents along the beach for weeks. Museums and attractions all over the country have been offering deep discounts to families from "confrontation line communities." Tel Aviv is taking in 3,000 residents of the north who've been hardest hit, housing them in a municipal convention center. There is a sense of unity and consensus that this country has not felt for many years.

This past week, a delegation of Jerusalem municipal authorities headed by Mayor Uri Lupolianski drove up in a convoy of vehicles to Kyriat Shemona to provide help (the picture above shows the delegation under a banner in Hebrew reading "From Jerusalem to the North with Love"). The luggage compartments were filled with sandwiches and soft drinks; a petting zoo was in tow, as was a mobile children's library and a van filled with wheelchairs donated by the Yad Sarah organization.

One of the 13 vehicles heading north was from the city's veterinary department. Headed by Jerusalem's chief vet, Dr. Zohar Dvorkin, they were bringing massive amounts of cat and dog food to soothe the thousands of abandoned pets who are now roaming the streets (officials estimate there are some 8,000 abandoned pets across the north).

"You came all the way from Jerusalem to Kyriat Shemona to feed the cats?" asked a man emerging from his shelter, at once incredulous and grateful.

A small gesture, but one that speaks volumes for why Israel is winning this war. "We embrace life while the enemy embraces death." Another cliché, but in a war where one might reasonably expect blood-curdling calls for revenge, those very Jewish ethical and moral concerns for life (even animals) are what will sustain the country at the end of the day.

And that, unquestionably, is the real miracle.

Interest has been so high in my "Blogging the War" posts that I've put together an eBook that I'm making available at no cost. Simply right click on the file you see below under "Attachments" called "This Normal Life - Blogging the War" and choose "Save Link As..." (in Firefox) or "Save Target As..." (in Internet Explorer) from the menu that pops up. You'll then have the complete collection of "Blogging the War" articles in a convenient PDF format. You may send this to others via email or - better yet - suggest that they visit  the This Normal Life website to read more and download their own copy.

Please let me know if this experiment in a different format of online publishing is of interest to you by posting a comment below or dropping me a line at brian@ThisNormalLife.com.

Thanks!
-- Brian

This article was posted on Jewish.com on Sunday, August 6, 2006. The link is here.

Missile lands ten minutes from my daughter's camp.


Last week I wrote that my 12-year-old daughter, Merav, was scheduled to depart for two weeks of camp at Kibbutz Shluchot, just south of the town of Bet Shean in the northern Jordan Valley. In my post, I questioned whether it was irresponsible to send Merav that much closer to the front, despite the fact that nothing had happened at Bet Shean nor was anything expected to at the time. In the end, we decided to continue with our "normal life" and Merav climbed happily onto the camp bus that Friday morning.

Imagine, then, my concern last week, less than a week after camp had started, when I received a frantic call on my cell phone from the father of Merav's friend Shayna who was at the camp with her. "Did you hear?" the father asked breathlessly. "Sirens just went off in Bet Shean."

A minute later, the phone rang again. It was another parent who had just spoken with his daughter. "She said she heard a big boom," he said and asked if I had any more information. I didn't - there was nothing on any of the Internet sites I've been monitoring constantly since the conflict began.

After several tense minutes where I incessantly pushed the "refresh" button on my browser, a headline finally appeared: a long-range missile had penetrated into Israel the farthest of any to date, landing in Bet Shean proper, while another hit an open field somewhere between Bet Shean and the West Bank city of Jenin.

Bet Shean is 10 minutes north of Kibbutz Shluchot - a veritable gulf in this war of missiles. Still, that didn't particularly put my mind at ease, considering that at the very moment the missile was striking ground, my daughter Merav was not at the kibbutz at all. She had been come down with a nasty stomach ache that morning, and the camp nurse sent her to the closest HMO doctor…yes, where else, but in Bet Shean.

Now, I know the chance of the one missile Hezbollah has fired at Bet Shean actually hitting the exact spot where Merav was traveling at that moment was very low. But yesterday's strike in Kfar Giladi that killed a crowd of 10 people who were standing in a wide-open field shows that sometimes one's worst fears of being in the wrong place at the wrong time really do come true.

Until we located Merav, I was shaking.

After a very long 20 minutes, my wife, Jody, got a hold of Kenny, one of the camp directors, on his cell phone and he told us that Merav had just returned and was heading to the infirmary to take the pills the doctor had prescribed. We learned further that the camp had taken to the kibbutz bomb shelter for a drill that morning (Merav later told us she had done the real thing at the doctor's office, spending 15 minutes in the shelter there).

They were taking all precautions, Kenny reassured us, and were in touch with the home front command for any further instructions. We were not to worry.

The missile that landed near Merav is, fortunately, one of only a few long-range rockets Hezbollah has left. The IDF has been particularly effective at knocking out these weapons. It's the thousands of short-range missiles that pose a more constant threat to Israel's north. It was one of those that caused the deaths at Kfar Giladi.

At about the same time as the missile was landing on Bet Shean, I received an e-mail from an irate reader who took exception with my post on sending Merav to camp in the first place. In his particularly ill-tempered message, he called me a variety of names I will not stoop to print here, but his message was clear: Either I am "in denial" or am "unbelievably cavalier" he wrote. "You think sending your kid closer to the border war is OK, because that means you are not taking a defeatist attitude? That's a bunch of s--t if I ever heard it."

After the missile that landed near Bet Shean, I was momentarily inclined to agree with him, despite his foul language. But then my unpleasant correspondent continued on to shoot himself in the foot (not an easy task given that his pedestrian appendage was inserted firmly in mouth).

"Imagine if the U.S. was in a border skirmish with Mexican terrorists," he wrote, "and I decided to let my kid go to summer camp in San Diego or La Jolla, Calif., a stone's throw from the border? How stupid would I have to be to do that?"

Other than the fact that I have family living in both the aforementioned southern California cities who would be equally offended at his accusation, I have to ask: what would my tormentor do instead? If everyone took his approach, all terrorists would have to do is hit a few well-situated locations in the U.S. and, eventually, the entire population would wind up confined to a tiny corner of Wisconsin. Guess who'd win the global war on terror then?

We didn't send Merav to camp in order to fight. But we're not pulling her out either, despite our concerns and the Katyusha that landed too close for comfort. The big bully who wrote might call me cavalier. If so, then bring on the cavalry.

This article was posted on Jewish.com on Thursday, August 3, 2006. The link is here.

Will the now "official" name of the war stick?

Last week, I suggested several possible names for the war in which Israel is currently embroiled with Hezbollah in the north. Those included the ironic "War of Disillusionment" and "The War When Reality Finally Sunk In" as well as the official working titles: "Operation Just Reward" and "Operation Change of Direction." Even before that, though, I raised the possibility in an earlier column that, were the war to be concluded by today (Aug. 3) - which happens to be the fast of Tisha B'Av according to the Jewish calendar - the significance would be too much to avoid in deciding the war's name.

Jewish scholars will already have taken notice that the war started at the beginning of the "three weeks" prior to Tisha B'Av (literally, the ninth day of the month of Av on the Hebrew calendar) on a date that is also a fast day known as the 17th of Tammuz (Tammuz is the month in the Hebrew calendar preceding Av).

The three weeks between the 17th of Tammuz and the ninth of Av have traditionally been a mourning period. Jewish weddings are not conducted; observant Jews eschew live music and entertainment, and avoid eating meat except on Shabbat.

The three weeks commemorate a whole host of disasters in Jewish history, including the Jewish people's defeat at the hands of the Babylonians (resulting in the destruction of the first Jewish temple in Jerusalem) and Jerusalem's defeat 600 years later by the Romans (resulting in the destruction of Herod the Great's rebuilt Second Temple). Both these conquests, according to Jewish tradition, took place on the ninth of Av.

Other tragedies have subsequently been ascribed to Tisha B'Av - the date of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 during the Inquisition and even dates during the Nazi Holocaust.

If the war that began on the 17th of Tammuz and actually ended on the date of the ninth of Av, we would have no choice but to call it the "Three Weeks War." Even if it were to end a bit later, we might still have a bit of a "fudge factor" to play with.

Well, apparently, the folks in the naming wars department had the same idea. Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz has announced that the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah will be recorded in history as Milhemet Bein Hameitzarim or literally, "The War Between the Straits."

Come again?

There aren't any straits in Lebanon the last time I checked, so this can't be a literal translation. And it's not.

The "three weeks," as English-speakers have come to know them, is referred to in Hebrew as Bein Hameitzarim. The expression comes from the scroll of Lamentations, which is traditionally read on Tisha B'Av evening. In its first chapter are the lines:

"She dwells among the nations. She finds no rest. All her persecutors overtook her between the straits."

These words, from the prophet Jeremiah, are attributed to the nation of Israel, which he bemoans has forsaken its God. The rest of the scroll spells out in great detail the misfortunes that will further befall Israel if it does not repent.

Lamentations, it seems, is not a happy scroll.

While Jeremiah's words hardly seem meant to embolden an Israel now fighting for its very existence, there may be more between the lines, if not the straits. Milchemet Bein Hameitzarim could refer to the gap (implied in the word "straits") between cultures - in this case between the West and fundamentalist Islam.

In this respect, the official name of the war reflects both its time period and a clash of cultures, a highly appropriate metaphor for a post 9-11 Middle East struggle that has been referred to as everything from a proxy war for the U.S. and Iran, to the last chance to stop the runaway train that is Jihad's battle with the West.

Will a ceasefire be declared by day's end? It's hard to say. After Sunday's tragedy in Qana, a previously supportive world opinion has turned tepid, and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is said to be preparing a draft ceasefire agreement to be implemented as early as this weekend. At the same time, Israeli officials and Israel Defense Forces planners are talking about the war requiring another two weeks and some 15,000 Israeli troops.

Still, whether the dates are exact or not, the irony will not be lost on either the war-namers or the Jewish people.

This article was posted on Jewish.com on Tuesday, August 1, 2006. The link is here.

Will Qana tragedy be the turning point for the war?


If there were ever a need to provide further fuel for America's favorite diplomatic past-time, France-bashing, the French Foreign Minister served it up it in spades on Monday. Speaking during a trip to Lebanon, Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy declared, "In the region there is, of course, a country such as Iran - a great country, a great people and a great civilization which is respected and which plays a stabilizing role in the region."

Douste-Blazy's comments would be outrageous at any time, but coming a day after Israel's tragic targeting of an apartment block housing terrorists, missiles, rocket launchers…and - depending on conflicting reports - somewhere between 28 and 56 innocent civilians, including many children, who were killed in the blast, Douste-Blazy's words epitomize the double standard that has plagued Israel throughout all its battles, no less so in its current conflict with Hezbollah and Hamas.

Yes, the attack in Qana on Sunday was horrific. But sucking up to Iran isn't going to make Hezbollah stop hiding behind civilians, a tactic it has employed numerous times to turn the tide of world opinion as it did in Qana. Nor will the words of UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett who, referring to the deaths in Qana, said "it's absolutely dreadful, it's quite appalling."

Where were Ms. Beckett's words of shock and condemnation these past three weeks as Hezbollah has deliberately targeted Israel's cities, forcing over a million citizens into bomb shelters?

How did the apartment complex in Qana come to be targeted in the first place? After much scrambling, Israel released footage late Sunday night purporting to show a similar building being used as cover for the launching of dozens of Katyushas headed for Haifa, Afula and beyond (see image above of a Katyusha launcher).

The Israeli Air Force identified the building that collapsed as being a Hezbollah command center and said it had no idea there were civilians hiding in the bomb shelters. Israel says that it had warned residents to get out of town, dropping leaflets and making announcements by bullhorn.

In Gaza, Israel has taken this kind of advanced warning system to a new level: the army is now making telephone calls to the residents of a building about to be targeted for its use by terrorists in launching Qassam rockets against southern Israeli towns.

Did the Pesachov family near Safed get a phone call from Hezbollah before the Katyusha landed in the family's living room, killing a grandmother and her seven-year-old grandchild? Did Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah apologize to even a single Israeli the way all of Israel's top brass - from the Prime Minister on down - did immediately after the Qana incident?

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Sunday urged the U.N. to condemn the air strike in Qana but, remarkably, the Security Council couldn't figure out the language and, blocked by objections to strengthen the language from Qatar of all places, for once showed momentary restraint "only" expressing its "extreme shock and distress."

Israel announced on Monday a 48-hour quasi-ceasefire - the Air Force would halt proactive missions, although it pledged to provide cover for ground forces and take out "imminent threats." U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hightailed it back to Washington after canceling a trip to Beirut, broadly telegraphing her intentions to get a full ceasefire in place by the weekend.

The Israeli army says it still needs 10-14 days to completely silence Hezbollah, but some generals on Monday were already hinting that all of Hezbollah's border bases within two kilometers of Israel could be cleared as early as Thursday. Another report optimistically claimed that Israel had taken out 2/3 of Hezbollah's long-range missile arsenal.

That won't stop the Katyushas, though, of which an estimated 9,000 still exist, but it could quell the clamoring and complaints within Israel that will erupt if the war is forced to be called off "too soon," providing the government and the army with at least some mild face saving.

Will Qana prove to be the turning point in the war with Hezbollah? It certainly was in 1996 when a stray Israeli shell aimed killed 102 civilians in nearly the same location, forcing the government of Shimon Peres to order an abrupt and early end to an Israeli counter-terror operation known as "Grapes of Wrath."

Ten years later, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz are singing a different tune. Olmert and crew undoubtedly knew "their" Qana moment would come and were ready for it.

"Israel is continuing to fight," Olmert declared in an address to the nation on Monday night as the cabinet to expand the ground operation - something that had been turned down just days before in favor of more air power. "We will stop the war when the threat is removed, our captive soldiers return home in peace, and you are able to live in safety and security … we are determined to come out victorious in this battle."

"We are fighting against ruthless terrorists and we will not stop until they are pushed back from our border," Olmert added. "We have to finish the operation," Defense Minister Peretz declared. "The army will expand and deepen its actions against Hezbollah."v Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon also downplayed the ceasefire in the air. "It is not stopping the war. If it ends today it means a victory for Hezbollah... and for world terror, with far-reaching consequences. Therefore this war is not about to end, not today and not tomorrow," he said.

Israel may, ironically, receive help in its PR campaign from an unlikely source - an anti-Syrian Lebanese group, which is claiming that Hezbollah gunmen deliberately "placed a rocket launcher on the building's roof" in Qana, then brought "invalid children inside, in a bid to provoke an Israeli response." The Lebanese website Libanoscopie, which is associated with the Christian "March 14 Forces" group, says that Qana was picked because it is already a symbol for "massacring innocent civilians" and that Hezbollah's plot was meant to turn attention away from Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's "Seven Points Plan" which calls for deployment of the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon and the disarming of Hezbollah.

It was Nachman Shai, though, who perhaps put it best. Writing on Monday, the former IDF spokesperson, who served in that capacity during the first Gulf War and who is currently the Director-General of the United Jewish Communities' Israel Office, addressed both the war and the public relations challenge.

"Israel must continue its military actions," Shai stressed. "I know this is a difficult decision, which some claim shows callousness and indifference. Nevertheless ... this kind of accident should not divert attention from the main challenge we face: a democratic, Western country which acts according to moral standards faces a fundamentalist terror organization that acts against and from within the civil population, intentionally and brutally. We must present and market these facts, repeatedly and persistently."

In a world where battles are fought both on and off the battlefield, carefully choosing one's words may be the best weapon Israel has against the international double standard.

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This article was posted on Jewish.com on Sunday, July 30, 2006. The link is here.

Does the war in the north serve U.S. strategic goals?

Why is the U.S. giving Israel so much leeway in its war against Hezbollah? Why hasn't Condoleezza Rice been pressing for a ceasefire sooner than today's call, which only followed the Israel Defense Forces strike on the Lebanese town of Qana that killed 55? And why has the Bush administration so far blocked every U.N. attempt at condemning Israel for its "disproportionate response?"

Is it simply because this time - unlike during previous Israeli operations against terrorists threatening its home front - America "gets" it? Or is it that Washington's and Israel's interests in dealing a mortal blow to Hezbollah are finally in line?

I think both those points are true, but there's something more going on here. Since 9/11, Israel has valiantly pressed the case that its fight against terror and the global war on jihad are one and the same. That message may finally be getting through.

The U.S. is watching Israel's war with Hezbollah under an intense magnifying glass, but it is relating to it less as a regional struggle and more as a real-life "war game" with true geopolitical implications.

In the book "Blink," researcher Malcolm Gladwell relates a detailed accounting of how the U.S. in 2002 conducted a $250 million Persian Gulf war game, two and a half years in the planning, before actually going into Iraq. The same thing is happening now, except the game has taken six years to plan, will cost the Israeli economy even more, and is anything but virtual: the casualties on both sides are very real.

Center Stage

Israel-Hezbollah is a dress rehearsal for the main event: the U.S. vs. Iran. There's little to distinguish Hezbollah from Iran other than the smaller playing field on which it's conducting its attacks against the Western mini-power of Israel. Nor is Hezbollah's arsenal dissimilar from Iran's; indeed, most of the now 1,600 missiles that Hezbollah has fired into northern Israel came from Iran by way of Syria.

Hezbollah receives its marching orders from Iran; the raison d'etre behind the timing of Hezbollah's attack on the Israeli army convoy and subsequent kidnapping of two soldiers that started this whole conflict 19 days ago was in no small part to distract world leaders at the G-8 Summit from censoring Iran over its nuclear ambitions.

So it is of great interest to the U.S. to see which weapons Hezbollah (read: Iran) will use against Israel (read: the U.S.), what explosives payload they will be carrying, and how effective they are. The U.S. is also watching closely to see how quickly the Israeli army can respond and take out the threat, and how Israel synchronizes its air strikes and ground operations.

Ha'aretz's Avraham Tal put it succinctly last week when he described how much of a proxy Hezbollah is for its Iranian handlers. "Contrary to what the critics are arguing, the IDF is not fighting a small guerrilla organization," Tal wrote. "It is dealing with a trained, skilled, well-organized, highly motivated infantry that is equipped with the cream of the crop of modern weaponry from the arsenals of Syria, Iran, Russia and China."

There is also the question of strategy. If Hezbollah acts like Iran (whether under direct orders or not), it is critical to note the timing and order of missile attacks: Are they fired one at a time against different targets or does Hezbollah prefer a barrage against a single target all at once? At what point will Hezbollah pull out the long-range missiles, like the ones that hit Afula on Friday and that were rumored to be aimed at Netanya or Hadera but that "missed?" Does Hezbollah have the gumption - and ability - to make good on its threat to target Tel Aviv?

And then there's the issue of Jerusalem. Will Hezbollah necessarily spare Israel's capital because of its concentration of Muslim holy sites and heavy Arab population?

After all, it hasn't stopped Hezbollah from hitting Haifa and the Galilee, both of which have high Arab populations and have seen a large number of Arab casualties. Maybe Hezbollah just doesn't care. A martyr is a martyr no matter where the shell fell from.

Stage Set?

All of this, it can be assumed, will be repeated in some form if and when the "mother of all battles" is conducted between Iran and the West. As a result, the U.S. has little incentive to end the battle early. The more data this "war game" can yield, the better prepared the U.S. will be when and if what would surely be called World War III breaks out.

A cynical analysis? Unquestionably. But I'm not the only one talking like this. In an interview with the right-wing WorldNetDaily last week, Lebanon's Druze leader Walid Jumblatt charged that Tehran is using Hezbollah's confrontation with the Jewish state to test the abilities of Iranian weapons and to observe Israeli military capabilities.

"The Iranians are actually experimenting with different kinds of missiles in Lebanon by shooting them at the Israelis. Iran is using this violence to test certain of (Israel's) abilities," Jumblatt said.

The Jerusalem Post's Herb Keinon writing over the weekend spun the situation more in terms of U.S. interests in Iraq, writing that, "Washington is watching to see how Israel does. The US wants to see Hezbollah weakened badly; it wants to see Damascus weakened badly; it wants to see Iran suffer the loss of a key proxy. This is in their interest. This will help their own efforts in Iraq. A democratic Lebanon, something impossible with a strong Hezbollah and Syrian meddling, will enhance the American status in the region, a status that is declining with each passing Iraqi day."

Ha'aretz analyst Ze'ev Sternhell was more blunt. "Sometimes, it seems as if U.S. President George W. Bush wants Israel both to destroy Lebanon and to sustain painful losses," he wrote last week. "That way, Israel provides him with an excellent alibi for the war in Iraq: The fight against terror is global, the blood price is the same, the methods of operation and the means are identical, and the time needed for victory is long. The Israeli vassal is serving its master no less than the master is providing for its needs."

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah came to essentially the same conclusion as Sternhell. In Nasrallah's eyes, Israel has already lost and it is its U.S. patron that is a true warmonger. "The Israelis are ready to halt the aggression because they are afraid of the unknown," he declared. "The one pushing for the continuation of the aggression is the U.S. administration. Israel has been exposed as a slave of the U.S."

Regardless of whether Israel is being given such extraordinary latitude due to "America's determination to smash Iran's strength and positions of influence around the Middle East and the Persian Gulf," as another commentator put it, the support Israel is receiving also plays into its own interests.

For Israel - as I have written before - this is nothing short of an existential battle that will determine the viability of Jewish settlement in the north of Israel, if not the entire state. Israel has no alternative to win and the time to fight is now. If that happens to serve U.S. interests, who's complaining?

"Why did Hezbollah invest so much time and energy in creating a network of rockets and missiles that is the densest in the world (at least in terms of weaponry per square kilometer)?" asked Ha'aretz's Tal last week. He posits a chilling explanation: "This is the basic phase that will prepare the stage for an offensive attack on Israel, supported by Iran, that is intended to liquidate the Jewish state."

And if the war hadn't started now? "Eventually, Hezbollah (installed as Lebanon's formal regime), in collaboration with Iran, would have launched a war of annihilation against Israel. Should the confrontation with Hezbollah have been delayed until Iran had already acquired nuclear weapons?"

Major-General Ya'akov Amidror, former head of the IDF Intelligence Assessment Division, put it another way. Defeating Hezbollah will cost Iran "a key strategic deterrent weapon," he said, "in which it has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in weaponry, infrastructure, training, command and control in order to "light up' the Middle East."

And so the war goes on, now in its 19th day, with no end in sight. Yes, the fighting is proceeding more slowly than expected. Yes, Hezbollah is better trained and better armed than anticipated. But Israelis remain resolute and despite the events in Qana, it still seems that a U.S.-brokered ceasefire is days, maybe weeks away.

"War game" or not, for Israel this is no virtual reality.

This article was posted on Jewish.com on Thursday, July 27, 2006. The link is here.

Does living a normal life including sending your child closer to the border?


For weeks, 12-year-old Merav has been buzzing about summer camp. On Friday, she heads off for her first overnight camping experience - two weeks at the "Kayitz b'Kibbutz" program at Kibbutz Shluchot, just south of Beit Shean in the Jordan Valley.

Much of Merav's excitement has been about what to bring. She's spent hours and not an insignificant number of her parents' shekels buying new gear - pajamas and a new bathing suit, a better sleeping bag, two disposable cameras, bug spray, suntan lotion, snacks for the bus ride, and many more items I've long since lost count of.

She has busily consulted with her friend Shayna, who was a camper the year before, on everything from what to expect on Shabbat to the type of boys she might meet. Together they have looked at pictures posted by the camp on its Web site. By this point, she knows just about all she can before actually getting there.

Except for one thing, which we haven't had the heart to tell her. We're not sure she should go.

You see, her camp is a two-hour drive north of Jerusalem. Which puts it potentially in Katyusha range of southern Lebanon.

As the war with Hezbollah enters its third week, there seems little indication the missile barrage that has blanketed the north of Israel will let up any time soon. As of Wednesday, an estimated 1,402 missiles have been fired by Hezbollah - with Wednesday being the worst day of all with 119 rockets landing in Israel. Four people were injured, one seriously.

The day before, on Tuesday, some 90 missiles were launched, killing a 15-year-old girl. The Northern District Police's spokesperson reported a total of 19 Israeli civilians have been killed and 1,262 wounded - including 46 who are still hospitalized. Officials in the local authorities estimate that 30-50 percent of northern residents have left their homes over the past week.

Thus far, in Jerusalem we've felt mostly isolated from the fighting, watching the news just like our worried family members back in the "old country." Whether it's because we're out of range of the majority of the terror arsenal, or due to the (misplaced?) assumption that Hezbollah would never fire on Jerusalem with its many Muslim holy sites, we have felt safe here in Israel's capital. We've eaten in our regular cafes, attended jazz and wine festivals and gone about "business as usual."

But Kibbutz Shluchot, where our daughter's camp is situated, is not all that far away from Tiberias, the vacation resort on the Sea of Galilee that has been relentlessly targeted. And although no Katyushas have fallen that far south yet, they have landed in Afula, slightly to the west and nearly as deep into Israel.

And Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has made it clear that his group's "surprises" are not over. The ambush of elite Israeli army forces in Bint Jbail early Wednesday morning that left eight Golani troops dead and another 22 wounded was just one of a string of unexpected setbacks for Israel in the 16 days this war has raged.

On Wednesday, in a televised statement, Nasrallah fumed that Israeli incursions into southern Lebanon would not stop Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel and that the conflict was moving "to the stage of beyond Haifa." Fuad Dirani, a Hezbollah commander, went one step further and called for the residents of Netanya to evacuate their homes because "soon the range of our rockets will reach 100 kilometers (62 miles) into Israel." After everything else we've experienced, we have no reason not to believe them.

This week, the "Kayitz b'Kibbutz" staff informed worried parents that the camp was taking all precautions, including rerouting day trips that normally include bicycling in the Hula Valley (a few miles from the Lebanese border), a trip to the Banias waterfalls and an outing at the "Luna Gal" water park (in the aforementioned Tiberias).

The kibbutz has bomb shelters and the campers can be expected to be instructed in their use. Which only intensifies the dilemma: The tang of guilt my wife Jody and I have over sending our daughter two hours closer to the front is not the type of worry most parents have when sending their children off to overnight camp for the first time. Less bittersweet and more bitter lemon.

We're not the only ones grappling with questions about coming closer to the "action." On Tuesday, I received an email from my cousins Richard and Dori who live in Toronto. They are supposed to arrive in Israel next week with two of their children. Their plan was to tour the north and Jerusalem before heading south for a few days relaxation in Eilat. Clearly, the vacation in Haifa and the Galilee would have to be cancelled. But what about the rest of the trip?

"We have been agonizing as to whether to come now or not," Richard told me. Their daughter,, Cindy, is worried about the possibility of Tel Aviv getting hit by rockets. "She is saying that even Israelis are telling people not to visit now. It's not like me to cancel out. But do you think we would be taking unnecessary risks by coming now?"

How do you answer a letter like that? On the one hand, I can tell him all about our "normal" life in Jerusalem. I could say that it's not necessarily any safer in Canada. A gang of terrorists was recently arrested for plotting to storm Canada's parliament and behead officials, including Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

But could Tel Aviv (and Jerusalem) be targeted? Of course, we are at war.

And then there's Marla. Three years ago, our cousin Marla Bennett from San Diego was also agonizing whether to return to her Jewish studies program in Israel after spending a month student teaching in the U.S. This was in February 2002, at the height of the suicide bombing campaign, just prior to the horrific March that concluded with the Pesach massacre at the Park Hotel and the launch of Israel's Operation Defensive Shield.

She, too, sought our counsel. Four months later, she was murdered in the terror attack at Hebrew University on July 31, 2002. So what right do we have to advise anyone about anything when it comes to visiting Israel in time of war?

But giving in to fear also means giving up and giving a victory to our enemies. We received an email this week from the embattled town of Safed in the Upper Galilee. The son of a friend of ours who lives there was driving into the woods as he does every Friday to meditate before the Sabbath. As he got into his car, he encountered an old man who was hitchhiking. The man was going in the opposite direction but when the son tried to refuse, the man had already got into the car and there was no arguing with him.

The man then insisted on making another stop before their final destination; again there was no arguing with him. Eventually, it became too late and the son was forced to give up on his weekly meditation. As he returned to his house to prepare for Shabbat, the son looked out into the woods from the window in his living room and saw that a Katyusha had fallen exactly in the spot in the woods where he usually meditated.

Is the story true? Apocryphal? A miracle? I'm not a particularly religious man, but the son's experience reminds me that not everything is under our control. We can let fear rule our actions and keep our children locked up at home where we hope it's safe. Or we can continue living that "normal life" for which Israelis are so famous, knowing that sometimes you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, sometimes you're not, and there's little one can do about either.

In the current conflict, I'll opt for the latter. Which for us means sending our daughter on Friday off to camp…with Katyushas.

This article was posted on Jewish.com on Tuesday, July 25, 2006. The link is here.

Is it too early to give the war in the north a formal name?


What should we call this war? Thus far, we've been using fairly generic names, like the "War with Hezbollah" or the "War in the North." But those seem too pedestrian to capture the essence of what is rapidly shaping up to be one of the most decisive fights in Israel's short but battle-weary history.

A grander name might be the "Israel-Iranian/Syrian Proxy War." Or how about the "War Between the West and Radical Islam?" But those high-flying monikers presuppose we know more than we do about who the ultimate players in the unfolding drama will be and how it will all end up. Most wars don't get named until after they're done. After all, you couldn't know the Six-Day War would be called that on the fourth day of the fighting?

Indeed, maybe what's taking place today along the Lebanese border will eventually be downgraded in the history books from a full-fledged war to a limited "operation," in which case the military code name - "Just Reward" - might just as well be used.

The Knesset debated that very issue earlier today.

MK Menahem Ben-Sasson of Kadima argued that Israel can use "the term 'war' only when the military actions are started by our side." Ben-Sasson expressed concern that calling the current conflict a war would contribute to a negative public image painting as a "hostile aggressor." He preferred the label "military action."

That response infuriated Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav. "Refusing to call this situation by its rightful name, a war, is a completely irresponsible action by the government," Yahav declared. Only by calling it a war can "proper aid be received by citizens of the North."

A definition of war also allows for reparations for real estate damage and provides a security blanket to employees and businesses guaranteeing that both will be compensated for time absent from work, Yahav added.

Meretz MK Zahava Gal-On agreed. "I think it is a clear case of hutzpa by the government not to have declared war the first day," she said "They are trying to save money while people are suffering."

Legal wrangling aside, I think we have enough data to give the war a proper name. My proposal stems not from the war's most likely conclusion, but the mood into which Israelis have fallen at its onset. Yes, there's defiance and resolute steadfastness. But there's something else that's gripped the country.

I say we should call this "The War of Disillusionment."

Not disillusionment in our military or even the government: opinion polls still show a high degree of support for the action in the north.

Rather, this is the war when our dreams of a new Middle East literally went up in smoke. Everything we've strived for since the Oslo Accords has been bombed back to 1967, most critically our hope that things could ever be different in our tough little neighborhood.

When Oslo first emerged on the Israeli political scene some 15 years ago, it was met by both detractors and supporters, but there was an overall mood in the country that, if nothing else, life would not be the same. We had a chance at peace, at treaties, at borders and negotiated resolutions. Some felt Yasser Arafat was going to be rehabilitated and that the PLO would be our partner. Our children would no longer have to serve long years in the army and reserves.

That was quickly followed by the peace treaty with Jordan and the opening of friendly relations with several progressive Arab countries. We even gave our daughter, born in those heady optimistic days, the middle name "Yonit" - meaning little dove of peace.

The process eventually culminated with the pull-out from Lebanon which, while hasty and ill-planned, still said to the world: "This is an internationally recognized border and you no longer have any basis for calling us 'occupiers.'"

We all know what happened then. In the fall of 2000, following the failed Camp David talks, Arafat and the Palestinian Authority launched a protracted campaign of terror and suicide bombings against civilians inside the 1967 "Green Line" that effectively buried the Oslo process.

Ariel Sharon re-invented himself and his drive to build the separation fence, along with last summer's controversial Disengagement from Gaza, were conscious steps to create a new reality, one where Israelis and Palestinians - and indeed, Israelis and the rest of the Middle East - would be able to co-exist peacefully … just not together.

Giving up the dream of driving to Damascus for falafel was the first disillusionment. Now the War with Hezbollah represents the final one. Because if disengagement posited that we can live in the same crowded piece of real estate, just not in the same building, we were - a year ago - still closing our eyes to the growing reality that the other side wanted us evicted entirely.

We wanted so desperately to believe that all those statements made in Arabic (but not English) about still intending to push the Jews into the sea were just poetic hyperbole that made for good rally chants, but that no one really meant it. That all those who had died in the years of so-called peace had not died in vain.

Now, sadly, Israelis believe what the other side is saying. And the message is this: Nothing has changed since 1967. Since 1948 before that, and maybe all the way back to the Balfour Declaration. The War with Hezbollah tells Israelis that our neighbors don't want us here, not at all.

Lebanon is not a border dispute - Israel pulled out in 2000 and the UN went as far as to recognize the border. The legal definition of the border with Gaza is murkier, but for nine months, the Strip has been judenrein. The attack that killed two soldiers and resulted in the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit was on the Israeli side of the border. So what else could all this be, but a continuation of the first Arab-Israeli war?

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday told representatives of the Gaza evacuees living in temporary housing in the Negev community of Nitzan that "we will yet evacuate communities and it is important to me to complete this chapter as soon as possible." He added that he was "convinced that we made the right decision to carry out the disengagement plan."

But will he really be able to implement his realignment plan? Will Israelis, after the "War of Disillusionment," consent to setting the hoped-for new international border to just a few kilometers away from their homes in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv? Hezbollah and the Palestinian government run by Hamas both get their marching orders from Iran and Syria. If Hezbollah can make a 35-kilometer band of land in the north of Israel a living hell, why on earth would Israelis agree to a plan that could potentially put those same missiles under someone's bed in a house down the block, even if it is on the other side of a "fence?"

Let's not forget that "when Iranian President Ahmadinejad speaks about destroying Israel, he means exactly that," wrote MK Ephraim Sneh, leader of the Labor Party Knesset faction. "And before he obtains nuclear weapons, he is trying to hammer and weaken Israeli society with various types of rockets and missiles."

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Israeli Prime Minister in their meeting on Monday that it is "time for a new Middle East. It is time to say to those that don't want a different kind of Middle East that we will prevail. They will not."

Israelis won't give up. It's not that kind of disillusionment. We won't all pack up and make yerida to New York or Los Angeles. We have no choice but to remain vigilant.

Even if the war is concluded in our favor and Hezbollah is dealt a mortal blow with international peace keepers replacing terrorists in southern Lebanon; and even if Iran is given a bloody nose through the defeat of its proxy and remarkably goes the way of Libya which has purportedly given up its weapons of mass destruction program; even then there's still no turning away from the lessons learned in these hot weeks of July.

"Give peace a chance?" veteran Israel Television journalist Idelle Ross said this week. "Wouldn't we love to? Maybe another time, another place."

Let me suggest, then, perhaps an even better name for everything that's going on: "The War When Reality Finally Sunk In."

This article was posted on Jewish.com on Sunday, July 23, 2006. The link is here.

After years of languishing as a national pariah, Jerusalem is suddenly packing in the tourists.

The War with Hezbollah is, in a paradoxically twisted way, turning out to be one of the best things to happen to Jerusalem tourism in years. The city's cafés are overflowing and museums are packed as overseas tourists, bolstered by residents from the besieged north of Israel, turn their vacation attention on the national's capital.

Tourist spots all across Jerusalem, including the venerable Israel Museum, are offering 50 percent discounts to visitors from both the north and from communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip. Suddenly, the city that has long been branded a national pariah - perceived to be so dangerous that many ordinary Israelis have never visited at all - is the country's new center of culture, the one place in Israel deemed to be out of the range of Hezbollah's and Hamas' Katyushas and Kassams.

And Jerusalem has responded in kind by putting on its best party dress and dancing shoes. The range of events - a large number of which are free - scheduled for the coming weeks is nothing short of overwhelming. Not that this is entirely new: summer in misunderstood Jerusalem is always a non-stop express of outdoor extravaganza; this year just seems even more so given the "situation."

Some examples: there's a free jazz festival every Tuesday evening in southern Jerusalem's German Colony neighborhood and another on Thursdays and Fridays on a picturesque rooftop in historic Yemin Moshe, next to Montefiore's Windmill, overlooking the Old City.

The Tower of David Museum, in the Old City itself, is playing host to a unique series of events featuring musical instruments played by mechanical devices, including a giant, wooden, three-meter-high (that's (nine foot) harp plucked by 29 mechanical fingers, and a four-story tower of steel drums to be beaten by 33 robotic arms.

Nearby at the Khan Theater, the Hazira Dance Troupe is inviting visitors to a free interactive audience-participatory performance next Saturday night, followed by a break and belly dancing party in the theater's historic courtyard.

Israeli rock legends Aviv Gefen and Monika Sex are set to play at a free concert in Independence Park in August, while rapper Segol 59 and Iggy Waxman will be lighting up the new pedestrian triangle between King George and Agrippas Streets downtown. The annual International Crafts Festival in Sultan's Pool promises big name local talent including Tipex and Arkady Duchin. All that's on top of just concluded Jerusalem International Film Festival, which bestowed its Life Achievement Award on visiting director Roman Polanski.

And did we even mention the annual summer Beer Festival, which gets underway this week?

Fleeting Time

As Israelis flock to a happening Jerusalem, it seems light years ago that riding a bus or sitting in one of the city's café were tantamount to publicly proclaiming a death wish. Not that the rest of the country was immune to the terror that reigned unchecked before Operation Defensive Shield effectively silenced many of the most horrific attacks, but Jerusalem had by far the greatest concentration of bombings.

All that's changed, for the moment at least.

Last week, a friend of ours who lives in the center of the country needed to buy clothes for her kids to wear to an upcoming bar mitzvah. As she entered the Ra'anana Mall in a suburb just north of Tel Aviv, three armed guards at the entrance told her she could go in, but she couldn't come out: they were locking the gate behind her. There was a high terror alert throughout the Sharon region (a terrorist on his way to an attack was later apprehended in nearby Hod Hasharon). The mall itself was nearly deserted. All the shopkeepers were talking about the terror alert or the missiles in the north and whether they'd eventually reach as far south as Ra'anana.

The next day, our friend went shopping in Jerusalem and reported that it was "business as usual." Jerusalem was bustling, she said; everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves thoroughly, as if nothing at all was going a short two hour drive away.

Over Shabbat we hosted the program director for Harvard Hillel. He was in Israel to put the final touches on a program for some 20 Harvard and Yale students who are due to arrive in another two week's time. He wasn't sure what to advise the students…or their worried parents. Would it be safe to come while Israel was in the midst of a full-fledged war, albeit one limited to only certain parts of the country? If the group eschewed travel to the north and stayed primarily in the Jerusalem area, would that be a prudent compromise or a still unnecessary risk? He decided to wait a few more days before making the call.

Northern Exposure

But is the north really so dangerous? Not according to Michael Taslitz, who lives in Har Halutz, a small hilltop community not far from Karmiel and only a few miles from the Lebanese border. His approach to the war surrounding him was nonchalant, even casual, to say the least.

"Yes, we had a Katyusha land within about a kilometer of our house. But the kids aren't terribly anxious about it," he said. "They know if we hear the siren we go to the bomb shelter, which also happens to be our eldest daughter's bedroom. When we moved here, we were told that the bomb shelters were designed to withstand the direct hit of a Katyusha."

Not something you usually think about when you're buying a house in San Diego.

Aren't you concerned though? How can you sleep at night, I asked the former Southern California resident.

"It's not like we're living in an atmosphere of terror," he assured me. "It's more of an inconvenience. All of the camps are closed down. There's no day care, so one parent has to stay at home." As a result, they decided to get away for a few days, and when I spoke to Taslitz, the family was visiting friends in Jerusalem.

Taslitz admitted it might be different if he lived in Haifa or Nahariya proper, referring to the northern Israeli cities that have borne the brunt of Hezbollah's wrath. Nevertheless, "we're going home after the weekend," he added.

Ironically, Taslitz's wife, Leora, had not visited her sister who lives in the West Bank settlement of Efrat since the violence broke out in 2000. She finally made the trip only a few months ago. I wonder if her sister would visit her in the north today?

"It's all very surreal," another friend who lives in Ra'anana summed up the situation. "No one can believe it's really happening, that someone they know is actually there (in the north) while we're off to the pool to go swimming."

Or in Jerusalem, to sit in a packed café while listening to a jazz band or a tower of steel drums beaten by giant robotic arms.

This article was posted on Jewish.com on Friday, July 21, 2006. The link is here.

While tourists are leaving, Lois and Larry Frank head to Haifa.


Fifty percent of tourists who had planned a trip to Israel during July and August have either cancelled their trips or simply not shown up, according to statistics published this week by the Israel Incoming Tour Operator Association. The estimated loss as a result of the war with Hezbollah comes to $400 million according to the association.

But not everyone is staying home. Lois and Larry Frank of the Sandy Springs neighborhood of Atlanta didn't even have a trip to Israel planned. "We spent all of last Saturday discussing it, and on Saturday night, we got on a plane," Lois Frank said.

At a time when so many others are canceling their trips, and when many immigrants already in Israel are being urged by family to "return home," what on earth possessed the Franks to fly to Israel at the height of the war?

"We wanted to show our solidarity with Israel," Frank said. "And we wanted to have a better understanding of the situation, so when we talk to people about what's going on here, we're not just parroting some public statement."

The Franks have not been alone. Upon their arrival, they immediately joined a solidarity mission of 30 North Americans put together by the American Jewish Committee. This week, the group traveled up and down the coast of Israel, from Haifa to Sderot, to get a first-hand look.

"We went to Sderot near the Gaza border and met the mayor. We saw the missile damage in the areas of several schools," Frank said. "We also went to Ramban Hospital in Haifa and met with victims of the railway station attack. We met a family with eight children in Nahariya who's home was hit. Their home was gorgeous."

How did you know it was such a nice home?

"Because we went to go see it. The missile went straight through the roof and dropped into the living room. It was a miracle no one was killed."

Weren't you nervous going to Haifa in the midst of a war?

"There were people on our bus who had a tremendous anxiety level. We were stopped for two hours on the highway. I've never seen Americans so ready to subjugate their Type A personalities in this way, to say - it's OK, this is what we're here for."

The bottom line, Frank said, is that she trusts "the Israeli government to say if you shouldn't go there, to Haifa, and they didn't say that."

What were her impressions of the war zone?

"Haifa was like a ghost town. There wasn't a car moving, not a person walking on the street. Everything was closed down. We had dinner at the Dan Panorama (in Haifa's trendy Carmel district) and several times we had to all go down into the bomb shelter."

Was the feeling in Sderot similar?

"Not at all. Haifa has sirens that give you two minutes to get to a bomb shelter. In Sderot, the warning is only 12 seconds. If a missile had come down on us as we were standing there, I wouldn't have known what to do. There's a tremendous sense of vulnerability in Sderot that you don't have in Haifa."

The Franks are no strangers to Israel, having visited the country over 40 times before - five times alone in 2006. Larry Frank ran a successful manufacturing business in Atlanta; the couple, who have four children, now own a holiday apartment nearby one son Rabbi Adam Frank who lives with his wife Lynne and two children in Jerusalem's Baka neighborhood.

Rabbi Frank, who grew up in Atlanta and attended school in town - from the Hebrew Academy, to Riverwood High School and then Emory University - is now the spiritual leader of Moreshet Avraham, a Conservative congregation in the heart of Jerusalem. He said he wasn't worried about his parents coming at this time.

"I guess I'm good at compartmentalizing things," he said. "I figure they have a greater chance of being injured in a car accident than getting hit by a missile."

Growing up, the Franks were as staunch a Zionist household as you're likely to find anywhere. Larry Frank's mother, Rae Frank, was regional president of the southeast region of Hadassah and Lois is now national chairman of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, as well as being active in the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the American Jewish Committee.

Solidarity with Israel is not just an afterthought for the Franks. Rabbi Frank said he originally moved to Israel at the height of the suicide bombing campaign - davka as Israelis would say, that is, in spite of what would seem to be common sense. "It was during the second intifada and I felt it was just too difficult for me to be in America at that time," Frank said.

Lois and Larry Frank never stopped visiting either, despite the violence that has kept Israel in perpetual headlines. But Lois Frank says that being here during the current war has really opened her eyes.

"In the States, I didn't understand the goals of this operation. The media made it seem like it was collective punishment against the people of Lebanon. But I'm not hearing anyone say 'crush them, punish them.' There's real compassion. That's what you hear from the man on the street. It's not what CNN tells you.

If the Franks willingness to head to Haifa, Sderot and other front lines is inspirational, there are plenty of volunteer opportunities for visitors and residents in Israel alike to help beleaguered communities.

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein's International Fellowship for Christians and Jews (IFCJ) has been organizing its members to provide "emergency assistance to cities under attack." And the Livnot U'Lehibanot organization sent out a message to its large mailing list on Thursday asking for volunteers to come to the city of Safed where Livnot staff have been struggling to "prepare and serve meals to as many people as they can who are living in bomb shelters."

Livnot also is asking for volunteers to "help out with elderly citizens who are on their own, play with children and whatever else needs to be done." While Livnot acknowledges that "we cannot guarantee anyone's safety, we can promise that you will play a huge role in serving the people of Safed and all of Am Yisrael in a time of need." A festive Shabbat is planned for this weekend with guest Rabbi Avi Weiss from the Riverdale, New York Hebrew Academy.

Calls to action from organizations like Livnot and the IFCJ only strengthen supporters like Lois Frank who says that, as important as her family's expression of solidarity with Israel may be, what's even more impressive is Israel's internal solidarity. "As self-critical as this society is, they're together on this one. It's tremendously inspiring," Frank said. "This is the ethos of Israel and it makes me very proud."

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This article was posted on Jewish.com on Thursday, July 20, 2006. The link is here.

When is the time right for diplomacy vs. ripe for war?

The announcement on Wednesday that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was coming to the region as early as this coming Sunday was quickly qualified as being "premature." The visit, which was set in motion during the same expletive-tinged presumed-to-be off-microphone comments by President Bush to British Prime Minister Blair at the G-8 Summit earlier in the week, has now been downgraded as a more of a "stop over" on the way to Asia rather than a full-fledged peace-seeking initiative.

Which is good news for Israel: as the war with Hezbollah enters its ninth day, the time is far from right for outside parties to start trying to broker a cease-fire.

How do we know it's too early for a cease-fire? Because Syrian President Bashar Assad is asking for one. So has the European Union.

Because French Prime Minster Chirac has traveled to the region to ask for concessions "from both sides."

And because Hezbollah, despite Israel's continued bombardment of its rocket launchers and fortified bunkers, is showing as Ha'aretz commentator Amos Harel wrote on Thursday, "no signs of breaking."

The difficult days ahead are evident in what one commentator called the "epic battle" between Israeli forces and Hezbollah along the border on Wednesday where two Israeli soldiers were killed.

In addition to stockpiling up to 15,000 missiles of various types and ranges, Hezbollah has apparently taken a page out straight out of Osama Bin Laden's Afghanistan playbook and has been digging and fortifying underground bunkers along the whole of the Israel-Lebanese border.

What looked to Israel's eyes in the sky to be abandoned bunkers turned out to be filled with Hezbollah troops laying in wait to ambush the Israeli ground troops as they approached. The battle for the bunkers is still raging today and far from over. Along with the attack on an Israeli naval ship off the Lebanese coast by an Iranian-made missile that Israel didn't know Hezbollah had, this may be one of the "surprises" Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has promised Israel.

All this underscores the need for Israel to be given the time it needs to complete its goal of significantly weakening - if not outright destroying - Hezbollah. A visit by Secretary Rice too soon would serve as a sign for Israel and the region that the window of opportunity to act military was closing.

The White House apparently agrees. "A ceasefire that will leave the status quo ante intact is unacceptable," White House spokesman Tony Snow said on Tuesday. Rice echoed those statements. "We all want a cessation of violence," she said. "We all want the protection of civilians, but we have to make certain that anything we do will be of lasting value."

The contrast in international attitude with 2002's Operation Defensive Shield is striking. In April 2002, after a month that saw hundreds of Israelis killed in suicide bombs nearly every day - including the horrific Passover massacre at the Park Hotel in Netanya - Israel sent forces into the West Bank, Jenin in particular, to crush the terrorist infrastructure.

It was only a few days into the operation that President Bush demanded that Israel "withdraw without delay. I don't expect them to ignore [the message], I expect them to heed the call." Israel ultimately managed to significantly reduce the success rate of the suicide bombers, bringing the country several years of relative calm.

Why the difference in approach? Perhaps it is easier to give broader latitude to actions of "self defense" in a war against an enemy firing missiles at a civilian population than it is to fight back against terrorists blowing themselves up on buses and in cafes. While the two have the same goal - to destroy "normal" life among the general population - the spin on the latter tends to portray suicide bombing as "inevitable" and sometimes even "justifiable" by a downtrodden and hopeless population. Hezbollah, on the other hand, with its fortifications and massive munitions stores, seems anything but weak.

As Israeli novelist Etgar Keret wrote in Tuesday's New York Times, there has been almost an "unconscious breath of relief" in the current situation. "It's not that we Isra