When is a cease fire not a cease fire?

When it's a "cease fire" with Hamas.

Apparently, my government had decided upon a "unilateral cease fire." Um, okay. What's that?

According to what I can figure out right now, only a few minutes after the official announcement was made/explained, it's something like this:

My government can no longer handle the international pressure from the naive, at best, or antisemitic, at worst, people who are calling for Israel to stop the war.

So we'll say we're going to stop attacking -- unless they attack us first.

Now, if we keep in mind that even during the three-hour humanitarian "cease fires" that we've had over the last week or so, Hamas has attacked during nearly all of them, the chances are fairly small that Hamas is now suddenly going to raise the white flag and chill out.

So our army will maybe no longer have the approval to go searching for tunnels and terrorists to destroy them, because once again, in case you didn't catch it the first time, there's a unilateral cease fire going to happen.

But our soldiers will stay in Gaza, waiting to be attacked, and when they get attacked, they'll fight back.

I'm really hoping I'm misunderstanding this... but meanwhile it's past my bedtime, so I'm going to hope there's just a better explanation by tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I called one of the chessed organizations the other day to request a name of an Israeli soldier who would like prayers said on his behalf -- I got Chen ben Faygie. (Ch as in chhhhhh, not "chop")

In traditional Judaism, when we daven for someone, we say the person's name, and we say he or she is the son or daughter of, and we say the mother's name. So in this case, my soldier is Chen, which means "grace," and his mother's name is Faygie.

So about a gagillion times a day, I daven for the safety and wellbeing of Chen ben Faygie and all of the other soldiers and people putting their lives on the line for Am Yisrael.

I'll be happy when the war's over IF, and only IF, the war will actually be over.

We'll see what happens...

Rocket/air raid sirens in Jerusalem

We tend to be rather far removed from the war here... except for thinking about and praying for our friends, family, neighbors, etc., who are fighting in the war and/or live in the south (or the north, once again), we pretty much go on about our daily lives.

So today at lunch when I first heard a siren, I didn't think much of it. Then my co-worker asked, "Is that the rocket siren?" One of my other co-workers said she didn't think so... but the sound kept going.

We looked across at another table of co-workers, as they were looking back at us questioningly. We looked around the room, as at tables across the cafeteria, people were beginning to realize something wasn't quite right.

Someone opened a window, so we could be sure we weren't "just" hearing an ambulance. Nope, it was definitely the "something bad is happening" siren.

Since we live in Jerusalem, and we were all adults, we just assumed it was a test of some sort. I'm sure I was not the only one thinking to myself how awful, how unbelievably awful, it must be to hear that siren many times every day and know you have a mere 15 seconds to try to find shelter.

It's a terrible sound. It sounds like the movies from the 40's and 50's -- it's a wailing sound that steadily rises and lowers in pitch. It gets in your head and doesn't go away, even after the siren itself has stopped wailing.

Every day, tens of times a day, my brothers and sisters in the south hear that siren. Sometimes it's accompanied by an automated announcement screaming "Color Red! Color Red!" Often it's accompanied and/or followed by the sounds of the rockets exploding.

I heard it once -- today -- and that was more than enough for me.

When we got back to the office, my boss was explaining what happened during that time in her 12-year-old daughter's class. They were on break, and all the kids were terrified. They crawled under whatever they could find. Their teacher came out and had them run into the bomb shelter -- we have bomb shelters pretty much everywhere now, since we're under constant risk of attack. A few minutes later, only when it was clear that it was a false alarm of some sort, the teacher let the kids out of the sheltered room.

Apparently, it was some sort of "malfunction." That is, the siren system did exactly what it was supposed to do -- when a rocket was fired from Gaza in this direction, the siren went off.

Thank G-d, the rockets they have now "only" reach 30-40 miles inside Israel, instead of 80-100 miles. So the rocket was going to land somewhere between Gaza and Jerusalem, without actually reaching Jerusalem.

But please realize -- and I say this with all my heart -- please realize that if the extremism is not stopped now -- the next set of rockets WILL come from the "west bank." And they'll shoot rockets right on over eastern Jerusalem (maybe), right into my neighborhood and the neighborhoods around me, without a second thought about holy Jerusalem.

Remember -- they'rebooby trapping schools and homes now. They're purposely driving into areas crowded with civilians when they think their vehicles have been targeted by Israeli missiles. They're surrounding themselves with small children, and they're hiding in hospitals. Do you think they'll stop just because there will eventually be a "cease fire?" Really?

They are insane with passion for the G-d they believe in. I'm not saying all Gazans, all Arabs, all "Palestinians" are insane, G-d forbid -- but I am saying Hamas and even poor Fatah are insane. They have no qualms about causing civilian deaths... the murders of innocent children, whether Arab or Jew... they're not going to stop until they think they have won, or until we make them incapable of continuing.

So we need to stop them now, or those rocket and air raid sirens won't stop here in Jerusalem -- you'll be getting them wherever you are, too.

G-d bless our leaders with the abilities to make the right decisions. G-d bless our soldiers who continue to fight, and our soldiers who are out of combat because of their injuries. G-d bless all the civilians -- the real civilians on both sides -- who just want to have normal lives. Amen.

Why do other countries think they get to decide?

If you don't live here... if you haven't lived under the threat of suicide bombings, bulldozer attacks, rocket fire, etc... you do not get to decide whether or not we open our borders.

What the heck is the US thinking by abstaining on that RIDICULOUS UN resolution? Abstaining?

Hamas, a terrorist organization hellbent on the destruction not only of my sovereign country, but my very existence as a Jew, gets a light reprimand to stop attacking our citizens IF WE OPEN OUR BORDERS TO THEM?

Huh?

Does this make ANY sense? Because I tend to think of myself as able to see most points of view, and find logic from *some* direction... yet on this note, there does not seem to be logic.

I mean, really... we are supposed to say, "Oh, thank you so very much for stopping your rocket fire. As a thank-you gift, we would like to invite you to just come on in freely into our country -- and, hey, as long as you're coming, why don't you bring some suicide bombers and belts with you?"

I don't think so.

Was the abstention supposed to be a gift? By not voting against Israel, they were voting for Israel?

Chickens.

Honestly, as far as I'm concerned, we deserve to take back the land we gave up a few years ago, when there was supposed to be some sort of peace attached to our withdrawl.

But at the very least -- the very, very, very least -- Gaza has a border with Egypt. Egypt -- an Arab, Muslim country that cries all the time about the poor, poor "Palestinians." So let Egypt open their border with Gaza.

Why aren't they? Oh, right -- because they don't want the terrorists any more than the rest of us do.

And why aren't they getting yelled at for having closed borders? (Remember, they're not getting fired upon every day, either.)

Because they aren't the Jewish country.

We have this teensy, tinsy sliver of land that we've been fighting over 100 years for. WE decide our borders.

If only we can get our cowardly, corrupt government to remember that.

There is no such thing as a cease fire with these people

When you're watching the news, please try to remember that.

I as I wrote before -- during the last cease fire, almost 300 rockets were shot into Israel.

Meanwhile, they stocked up on newer and stronger weaponry -- so now instead of "only" shooting rockets 3-5 miles into Israel -- they go 30-40 miles into Israel.

If there is another "cease fire" before our holy soldiers can go in and destroy the terrorist infrastructure, we'll be doing this AGAIN in six months -- except next time, we'll be lucky if their rockets don't go 50-100 miles into Israel.

Hamas says repeatedly -- they want to destroy Israel.

This is not about the civilians in Gaza.

This is about the right of the citizens of a sovereign, recognized country -- Israel -- to live in peace.

We voted in our government. The civilians in Gaza voted in their government.

We paid and are paying the price for our decisions. They are paying the price for their decisions.

Democracy may be one of the best options available -- but you can't play the democracy game and then refuse to take responsibility for your votes.

Hamas still has Gilad Shalit in captivity -- as far as we know. They refuse -- REFUSE -- to follow the international red cross' rules of allowing visitors -- even IRC visitors -- to visit him, send in packages, find out the status of his wellbeing, etc.

Hamas has NEVER, to my knowledge, followed any international ruling they disagreed with -- UN or otherwise.

We need to fight this fight in the way it needs to be fought -- and if that means standing up against the UN, so be it.

Please, G-d, let my government have the strength and tools to do it.

Shabbat shalom.

It's been a long time...

... since I could say that I'm really proud of my government. In fact, I'm not sure it's ever happened -- here, or in America.

But today, right now, at 9:15 in the evening on 7 January, 2009/12 Tevet, 5769, I say it -- and I mean it. For a moment, anyway.

So far, Israel is standing up against the outsiders who are trying to create a one-sided cease fire. So far, Israel is fighting the fairest, most moral fight possible under the circumstances. I may not personally agree with the three-hour cease fire used to transport "humanitarian aid" this afternoon, but I respect the belief behind it.

For the record, as far as I'm concerned, I would approve of the humanitarian aid, if I thought it were actually going to the people who need it, and those people weren't terrorists or terrorist supporters. It's fairly clear that Hamas gets first dibs on everything that comes in, and they have no problems taking the medical supplies and food for their fighters. They also get to use the three-hour reprieve to restock their weapons, food and medical supplies, while we spend the three hours watching over the supply caravans.

More than anything at the moment, I respect the fact that when the IDF fired on a UN school, where allegedly 30-40 people were killed, my government did NOT immediately start apologizing and backing away from the war.

Instead, they produced proof that Hamas has fired rockets from such schools in the past. There are witnesses who allege that it happened this time, too -- I don't know what kind of proof the IDF has, but as it's been proven repeatedly that Hamas cares more about destroying Israel than about protecting its own citizens, I have confidence that such proof exists.

Golda Meir once said something that still remains true today. To paraphrase: When peace comes, we may be able to forgive them for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. She also said that peace will come when they love their children more than they hate us.

She was a pretty crappy prime minister, but she was right on with those sentiments.

I read a pretty good op-ed today. He pretty much says everything else I have to say today.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231167265397&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

In short, it's the sentiments above, plus the following:

During the "cease fire," Hamas still shot almost 600 rockets into Israel -- it's an average of 7 per DAY.

During the "cease fire," we hoped Hamas might actually spend time and energy trying to build its people up, instead of building its weapons caches to try and fight us.

At the end of the "cease fire," Israel still scrambled for diplomatic options, while Hamas started the rocket barrages.

The idea now of a "proportionate" versus "disproportionate" response is irrelevant. We were not responding proportionately for the last eight years while they were raining rockets down upon is -- we sat back and sucked it up. We left a beautiful piece of Eretz Yisrael in hopes they would stop shooting at us. We barely closed the crossings, even when we knew they were smuggling terrorists and weapons through them.

So if it's a bit loud and dangerous in Gaza right now, I am not going to apologize. Yes, with the very core of my being I feel bad for the mothers who are losing their children, for the children who are losing their parents, for everyone who is living every day terrified for their lives.

But I do not apologize. While letting our own citizens be terrorized and killed for years, my government tried the diplomatic options.

They didn't work.

So now it's time for us to protect the tiny sliver of land we were given.

G-d bless our soldiers and their families, as well as all of our citizens who continue to live under the threat of attack. And G-d bless the civilians in Gaza. Amen.

Tuesday update

Lots of stuff going on, not so much strength and energy to write about it.

Here in Jerusalem, we're pretty well insulated from the vast majority of the war. We don't hear the CODE RED warnings going off all the time, and we certainly don't hear the explosions of the rockets.

I don't know of any of my personal friends who've been called up at this point. I'm sure there are some, but they're not the close-enough friends that I'm on the top of the list to be informed.

But still, there are signs.

Yesterday, the sky was crossed with vapor trails from the fighter planes traveling to and fro.

Today I could hear the military helicopters for most of the time I was getting ready for work.

Today was also a fast day. It was the 10th of Tevet, the anniversary of the beginning of the siege against the Temple.

We believe the Temple was destroyed and the Jews were evicted from worshipping as G-d told us to, because of free hatred. We also believe that one reason the world hasn't been redeemed yet is that we still carry symptoms of what caused that destruction in the first place.

So the 10th of Tevet is a day to focus on starting over again -- starting again to try and love our fellow Jews and non-Jews. To start again to try and be better Jews. We fast from sunrise to sunset in order to help remind us of what we're aiming for.

And I have to say... having the war in the background added an extra dimension to the day. When we were thirsty or hungry, it took but a mere second to remind ourselves that our soldiers were out there risking their lives, and suddenly our thirst wasn't so important.

Meanwhile, the world is starting to come out of its deer-in-the-headlights surprise at our operation and starting the kvetching about how we're overreacting and responding in an out-of-proportion manner to the Hamas rockets that have been raining down on our land for the last 8 years.

And I say, yet again, that there is not a single sovereign country on the planet, now or in any other time in history, that would have allowed this to go on for eight DAYS, let alone eight YEARS.

War is hard. It stinks. Yes, "civilians" will die. We hate it that civilians die. That's why we drop leaflets, send SMSs, etc., to tell civilians to leave their locations, because we're going in. I mean, sheesh -- we're doing everything we possibly can to avoid "collateral damage."

On the flip side -- they're aiming rockets at Jews -- anywhere they can. At least two schools have been hit -- the only reason people did not die was that we're keeping our children home from school for the duration of the war, in any region close enough to be hit by rockets.

I am not going to apologize for civilian Gazan deaths. If they want the war to stop, they need to start standing up for themselves within their own people.

And I hope they do it soon. Otherwise, I hope our leaders and soldiers keep doing what they need to do, to make sure we don't go through this again.

No fridge, and other war updates

So my fridge died last week. I ordered a new one with the help of a co-worker. It was supposed to be delivered tomorrow.

But I got a call today that in fact, no, there will be no fridge tomorrow. See, the storage place is at the port -- which is currently closed because of the war.

I was mean to the lady before she told me about the war part... then I just felt bad. Really, except for the fact that I have to keep my soymilk on the windowsill, I manage just fine without a fridge.

It's a freakin' appliance.

People are missing their brothers/sons/grandsons/fathers/cousins/friends/etc., right now. My fridge? SO not a big deal.

On my way to work this morning, I noticed a lot of busses, but I didn't pay so much attention. Then I passed an elementary school and saw around 50 or so soldiers sitting on the playground, and then I noticed the handwritten sign on the fence announcing the name of the unit. These were soldiers being called away from their regular lives to go on war duty.

My daily prayers took a pretty serious turn after that.

Weirdly, it seems that no one from my office has been called up yet. At my last job, by the second day of the ground war I knew at least 25 people who'd been called up. Granted, there is a significant difference in the size of the workplaces -- this one is approximately 60, while my other was 800ish. But this one is more than 50 men (there are only 8 or 9 women in my company), and I think all of them are young enough to be in the reserves. I'da thunk that at least one or two would be called up. I imagine if the war goes on very long, they will be.

And it's a hard call as to whether to want the war to go on or not. The fact is that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of tunnels running in and out of Gaza. Some of the tunnels are actually big enough that they run cars through them for smuggling.

These tunnels need to be eliminated. Now. And without just going in and bunker busting everything, and just flattening the entire place, it's going to mean a significant ground war.

(Not that I'm 100% averse to the former, mind you. Even my left-wing, softy side is wondering why we need to sacrifice OUR citizens, because their citizens decided to vote a terrorist regime into power. Alas, as Jews and Israelis, we do not sink to that level of doing what's safest, because we believe that what's safest isn't necessarily what's right.)

We lost our first soldier of this current war today. A 22-year-old from Jerusalem. His burial will take place in about an hour.

Please, G-d, let him be the last one we lose. Protect our soldiers. Give courage and strength to any "moderates" that may actually exist within Gaza, so THEY will do what's right. Amen.

And it's about freakin' time

You might be thinking that the title of this post refers to the fact that it's been almost two months since I've posted here.

Sorry about that. Time's weird in Jerusalem, and I feel like it hasn't been nearly that long. But I'll be saying more in the coming days, I'm sure, so much so that you might just get sick of reading what I'll write.

Meanwhile, I'm jumping on now for a minute before I finally crash out to go to sleep, just to say that the title of this post refers to how proud I am that my weak-kneed, yellow-bellied government finally grew some intestinal fortitude and decided to do something about the rocket attacks that have been coming from Gaza for the last 3.5 years.

Last week, our military started an air war. Tonight they started the ground war.

Gazans have been warned flat-out -- if you store weapons or hide terrorists, you're a terrorist. Period. End of story. Stop it, or you are in danger. If you're hiding weapons in your mosques, your kindergartens, your hospitals, your homes -- you are to blame for the deaths of whomever is killed when we attack your weapons and terrorists. Period. End of story. If you hide guns in your "holy" places, it is YOU who are defiling those places -- not us. If you hide behind your wives and children while firing rockets, it is YOU who killed the wives and children -- not us.

Stop it, you inhuman cranks. If you want to fight -- fight, but don't be the cowards who let others die for them -- if you're willing to die for your cause, so be it -- don't make that decision for the little children.

Now I pray that our leaders have the tools they need, and give our soldiers everything they need, for this to be a successful mission. Our soldiers should be safe.

For any of you who are wondering -- the rocket attacks now have hit two places I travel through on a regular basis; Be'er Sheva and Kiryat Malachi. Both places are approximately 30+ miles from Gaza. That means areas like Tel Aviv are FAR within the boundaries of their missiles now.

If we don't get them now, they'll just continue to smuggle in more and more dangerous weaponry.

We have to do this now.