About twenty minutes ago, a Code Red warning went off in Beit Shemesh according to someone who posted on Facebook. It sounds plausible. Hamas shot 30 rockets in 10 minutes this evening and Code Red signals went off in Ashdod, Rehovot... and Tel Aviv.
Hamas fired over 30 rockets in a ten-minute period into Israel on
Monday, with hits reported in Sha'ar HaNegev, the Eshkol Region,
Netivot, Sderot, and Be'er Sheva between 8:00 - 8:10 pm IST.
No buildings were reportedly damaged. One Ashkelon resident is being treated for shrapnel injuries.
"Code red" sirens have reportedly been sounded as of 8:30 pm as far
as Tel Aviv and in Gush Etzion; rockets could be seen from as far away
as Beit Shemesh, just West of Jerusalem, eyewitnesses told Arutz Sheva.
The barrage follows the Security Cabinet decision to prepare for escalation in the South, including a possible military campaign.
Time to root the vermin out. To hell with Obama and Kerry.
UPDATE 8:59 PM
Within minutes of posting this, I got back tweets claiming that the sirens in Jerusalem and Mevasseret (which I did not report) were a false alarm, and another from someone claiming not to have heard anything in Tel Aviv. See the report above.
As you all know, I am in the US right now. I am leaving back to Israel tonight, and will be there tomorrow.
As far as I am concerned, one rocket per year is too many (because it means you can't go about your life totally freely), but even I didn't expect this level of success from Operation Pillar of Defense.
One of my daughters spent the Sabbath with a friend in Netivot. On the way back, her bus went through Sderot, which as you might recall is right on the Gaza border and took a lot of those 2,248 rockets. My daughter reports that Sderot is huge and rapidly growing, and that housing prices have skyrocketed (bad word, I know) there over the last year.
Here's a great post, with nearly all positive comments, from Michael Flaster, who left Amherst College to join the IDF(Hat Tip: Malcolm in comments).
What is their cause? End the occupation? Israel already pulled out of
Gaza seven years ago and has only been rewarded with more terror. The
remaining restrictions on the Gaza Strip are only in place to impede the
smuggling of weapons. (Gaza is already one of the most heavily armed
places on earth per-square mile.) The Hamas Charter proudly pronounces
their cause to anyone who is unsure: “Israel…will remain erect until
Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors….The time will
not come until Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them.” Those on the
left who claim to be champions of human rights do not realize the stark
contrast between Israel and Gaza or any of our neighbors for that
matter. You cannot be openly gay in Gaza. Women there can be arrested
for their own rape. How about life for children? I am not sure if there
is a worse form of child abuse than using your child as a human shield.
Yet, Israel is framed as the human rights abuser. Still, the greatest
tragedy in this conflict may be from those on the left, who in their
confusion, support a totalitarian ideology that hurts the very people
they claim to support.
The best way to support the people of Gaza, and indeed the entire
Arab world, is to support Israel in its struggle against Islamic
extremism. For Israel is the only viable model of a country with
religious tolerance, multiparty democracy, independent judiciary and
free press in a diverse, war-torn region. Israel is an imperfect
democracy, as all democracies are, but the governing ideology is one of
Western, secular liberalism.
I left Netivot the morning of November 21st for a placement interview
with the IDF. About six blocks north of where I was, a bomb tore
through a city bus, forever changing the lives of 23 innocent
passengers. That same day, Israel pushed ahead toward peace, agreeing to
a ceasefire. After the ceasefire began, five more rockets hit southern
Israel. Israel chose not to respond. Sadly, it looks like the rocket
fire will continue until the world demands more from Hamas. Until that
time, Israel will continue to need to defend herself.
It is this past week that reaffirmed my decision to leave the
comforts of study at Amherst College. I am drafting into the Israeli
army to help defend the Jewish people, to defend the democratic and
diverse people of Israel, to ensure the phrase “never again” remains
true and because defending Israel is not just a Jewish cause, an Israeli
cause or Western cause but a humane cause.
Breaking: Grad rockets hit Be'er Sheva and Netivot
Israel Radio just reported (10:00 pm Wednesday) that Grad rockets struck both Be'er Sheva and Netivot in the last hour.
In Be'er Sheva, the rocket scored a direct hit against a house, but no one was hurt, because the house's residents had heard an alarm and gone to the reinforced rooms that all homes built since the first Gulf War have within them.
Only in Israel: Grad rocket barely misses wedding party in Netivot
On Monday night, a Grad rocket from Gaza landed in Netivot. As you will see in this dramatic security camera footage, it barely missed a wedding party (Hat Tip: Honest Reporting).
Great news: Egypt won't be like Iran. It'll be like Lebanon
Alan Dershowitz gives what's unfortunately a plausible scenario for how what's going on in Egypt may play out. The good news is that Egypt won't end up like Iran. The bad news is that it may end up like Lebanon.
The following scenario is possible, if not likely. Mubarak will leave. Someone like Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Laureate who ran the International Atomic Energy Agency, will serve as an interim leader. He is supported by the Muslim Brotherhood, and, in turn, he has said nice things about the Brotherhood. On Sunday, he told Fareed Zakaria the following:
"You know, the Muslim Brotherhood has nothing to do with the Iranian model, has nothing to do with extremism, as we have seen it in Afghanistan and other places. The Muslim Brotherhood is a religiously conservative group. They are a minority in Egypt. They are not a majority of the Egyptian people, but they have a lot of credibility because all the other liberal parties have been smothered for 30 years.
They are in favor of a federalist state. They are in favor of a wording on the base of constitution that has red lines that every Egyptian has the same rights, same obligation, that the state in no way will be a state based on religion. And I have been reaching out to them. We need to include them. They are part of the Egyptian society, as much as the Marxist party here. I think this myth that has been perpetuated and sold by the regime has no - has no iota of reality."
This Pollyannaish description of the Muslim Brotherhood is misleading and incomplete at best and totally unrealistic at worst. The Muslim Brotherhood is a violent, radical group with roots in Nazism and an uncompromising commitment to end the cold peace with Israel and replace it with a hot war of destruction. Its very name undercuts ElBaradei claims that "every Egyptian has the same rights" and that "the state in no way will be based on religion." Christians, women, secularists and other dissenters will not have the same rights as Muslim men. Right now the Brotherhood "are a minority," but they are the largest and best organized minority, and they don't play by the rules of democracy, using assassination and threats of violence to coerce support.
ElBaradei is their perfect stalking horse—well respected, moderate and compliant. He will put together a government in which the Brotherhood begins as kingmaker and ends up as king.
This will not produce functional democracy. Nor will it preserve peace in the region. The first casualty may well be the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority will be emboldened by the prospect of a powerful military ally on Israel's border. The Israelis will be reluctant to surrender any more territory if they can no longer count on peace with Egypt (and perhaps with Jordan).
The second casualty will be religious freedom for Egyptians, particularly Christians, but also secularists.
Dershowitz left out one party that would be emboldened by that scenario: Hamas. That's already happening. On Monday night, Hamas terrorists shot two Grad rockets from the Gaza Strip into Ofakim and Netivot. Fortunately, no one was injured, but a car was damaged in Ofakim.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
