First Time Here? Readers suggest starting with the expanded Gaza Explainer in #133 and #120.
Top Ten IsRafOK Entries: #85; #123; #128; #140; #144; #154; #161; #162; #164; #171
Tags: Six Minute Read; Raf Analysis; Relief
An "Only in Jerusalem" story, as directly experienced by Raf.
The current war started early in the morning [Israel & Iran time] on Friday, June 13. That evening, we were to go to friends', M & S, for Friday night dinner. Leaving the house, tray of roast vegetables in hand, there was a Red Alert. We diverted to nearby friends who have a safe room (mamad, in Hebrew), and spent Friday evening with them.
Yesterday, a week later, we got to M & S' for shabbat lunch. They told us about the guests they had the evening we missed. An old friend from New York and his recently-converted-to-Judaism wife.
Who emigrated from Iran to New York just a few years ago.
This couple is here on her first-ever trip to Israel, planning to then go to Turkey to meet her family.
(I have no idea what their current plans are.)
When I went from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem a week and a half ago, it was for a long weekend. Running low on reading material, I scanned M & S' shelves. M shoved a book about Iran into my hands: Roya Hakakian's Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran. It's now a day later and I'm nearly through it.
Ms. Hakakian was 13 when the Iranian Revolution occurred in 1979. The book is an excellent survey of both the nature of the Islamist Republic and the dynamics of revolution.
Recommended.
Mail
About Relief Dalet in #184
Very unrealistic video, all his generals are dead.
All Journalism is Biased
Unconstructive tautology?
I was sent a Youtube clip by TLDR News Global. I call this kind of channel a YABN (Yet Another Bedroom Newsroom). The folks have zero education or expertise in the domain of Middle Eastern politics or history (ditto for the other topics they cover). Their videos get millions of views. I called out a spin they choose:
...the international reaction has been full of statements of alarm, concern, and condemnation of the military escalation
Ignoring that many Western countries acknowledged Israel's right to take military action against Iran's nuclear program and its military is… a hostile act. Not a biased act. A hostile act.
Anti-Israel content is forwarded five to twenty-five times more than neutral or pro-Israel content. This is simply how it is. (In a chapter I recently read about urban policing in the U.S., the author cites data showing that clips of a white officer using violence against a black person are forwarded at many times the rate of a black officer using violence against a white. This causes perception to disconnect from reality.)
The message is not "All Journalism is Biased."
The message is: Youtube and social media are wells of poison that break the body politic.
Don't take it from me. Hear it from Member of Congress Sarah McBride.
America and Iran
American involvement in Iran. What could go wrong?
I hold that American involvement is a mistake at several levels:
Track Record: America either loses outright or makes a hash of its every effort in the Middle East. (C.f. Iran, circa 1953; Lebanon, circa 1982-83; Afghanistan, 2003-2018+; Iraq, 2003-2018+. Even food aid to Gaza didn't work out in 2024.);
Value to Israel: The region's perception of Israel's power is enhanced when it acts alone and is diluted when it depends on others;
Value to Israel: If Israel can't/couldn't solve Fordow on its own, it's rational for attacking to begin with was weak;
History: Anti-American hatred was a major component of Iran's 1979 revolution (that brought the Ayatollahs to power). Why strengthen the hand of the Ayatollahs by putting American aggression back into the mix?
Reality: Very little can be solved with bombers. (If anything.)
Context, a Time/CNN Poll, April 2003:
Iraq War Reference: Over 4,400 American troops killed in action; 150+ journalists and their assistants killed; and, Between 150,000 and half a million Iraqi civilians killed by violence or as a direct consequence of the war. And the final result? Pax Americana? Rather the opposite: The essential doubling of the Iranian sphere of influence, as post-war Iraq became subservient to the whims of Iran.
Below: A convoy of trucks leaving the Fordow facility two days before it was attacked by American planes (yes, I agree that destroying the Fordow facility has value even if equipment or fissile material has been moved out):
Dept of The Invisible
Items invisible in the Western media. (Now combined with the Postmark concept, to help consolidate topics by locale.)
Syria
Syrian security forces managed to capture Wasim al-Assad, the cousin of ousted President Bashar al-Assad, in the Homs region while he was trying to flee to Lebanon.
Wasim al-Assad is considered one of the Assad regime's biggest drug traffickers.
Daraa, Syria: The Drone Junkyard:
A young Syrian from Daraa, with business sense, collected several downed Iranian drones and is advertising Iranian UAVs for sale online to the highest bidder...
Iran
IDF Reports
Showing targets struck in Iran as of June 19. (At this point, June 22, there are many more dots.)
The key on the lower right reads, top to bottom:
Military Command Centers (black)
Nuclear Installations (yellow)
Anti Aircraft Systems (blue)
Surface-to-Surface Missiles (red)
Nuclear Research (burgundy)
On The Ground in Beer Sheva
Internet in Iran Is Back Up, Kinda
With connectivity, content from Iranians surfaces again. In the clip below, Iranian citizens document the movement of launchers and military equipment in various places in Iran (including locations).
As in domains personal and political, "privacy" exited with the deployment of smartphones...
However, the internet is only partly up:
Despite promises from the Iranian Ministry of Communications, internet services in Iran have only been partially restored. Most Iranians are still without internet.
The Russia-Iran Axis
Putin was asked why he is not assisting Iran.
His response: “Israel today is almost a Russian-speaking country, two million people from the Soviet Union and Russia live there. We take that into account.”
Raf didn't know, but this Wikipedia page says (emphasis by Raf):
Russian is the third most common native language in Israel after Modern Hebrew and Arabic. Government institutions and businesses often also provide information and services in Russian, and has effectively become semi-official in some areas with high concentration of Russian-speaking immigrants. The Russian-speaking population of Israel is the world's third-largest population of Russian native-speakers living outside the former Soviet Union territories after Germany and the United States, and the highest as a proportion of the population. As of 2013, 1,231,003 residents of the Post-Soviet states have immigrated to Israel since the fall of the Soviet Union. As of 2017, there are up to 1.5 million Russian-speaking Israelis out of total population of 8,700,000 (17.25%).
Gaza
Israel
The hostages are not completely forgotten...
Relief Area
About the Hagari memes (#183, #184 Zayin, #184 Yod) I missed this (thanks M.T.!):
June 15, 2025: IDF spokesperson brings back predecessor Daniel Hagari
Hagari will serve as the assistant to Defrin, similar to what Ronen Manelis, Hagari’s predecessor, did in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 massacre.
Alef
TV: Tehran in flames
Sephardic Chief Rabbi: This is the end of the Ayatollah's rule...
(It is their crowds that were rioting against being drafted into the army, putting streets of Jerusalem in flames...)
Bet
The latest street art…. (in the middle: “Yo’ Daddy is a ____”
Gimmel
The above is based on the meme theme “Piper Perri Surrounded” (I won’t go farther here).
The original (more context below):
Dalet: Social Media
חברים אני מבקשת בכל לשון של בקשה האיראנים אוספים מידע על מיקומים רגישים בישראל דרך קבוצות ווצאפ. בבקשה לא לפרסם שום דבר , לא על הכור בסכנין, לא על מאגרי הטילים באום אל פאחם ובטח שלא על כל המטוסים שלנו שחונים ברמאללה.
Friends, I beg you: The Iranians are collecting information about sensitive locations in Israel through WhatsApp groups. Please do not publish anything, not about the reactor in Sakhnin, not about the missile depots in Umm al-Fahm, and certainly not about all our planes parked in Ramallah.
[These are Arab cities and towns in Israel and the West Bank where Iranian missile debris has been falling.]
Hey
"The country can function without several air force squadrons, but not without a government!" -Bibi
Photos of the screaming extremists who control him.
(This relates to the vitriol this group has heaped on members of the protests, many of whom are IAF pilots. And at the moment, these pilots are working overtime, many of them over Iran twice a day.)
Vav
I saw something of this nature in New York outside Yankee Stadium about a month ago. A guy in a ski mask held a large "Genocide in Gaza" sign. He also wore an oversized cross on his chest. My best estimate is that he was a Muslim radical and that somehow it may be permissible to "present" as Christian as long as his face is hidden.
I find it a perversion of the First Amendment to hide one's identity. Those who protest in masks should be protested (or ignored? or fenced off?). The framers did not imagine a public square of anonymous actors. The point of having a voice is to have a voice attached to a member of the franchise.
Zayin
Chet: Non Fiction
Tet: Non Fiction
Making IDF History
Top: Four Female Flyers Participate in Attack on Iran
and
Bottom: Four Women Turning Israel into Iran [These women are members of the governing coalition controlling Bibi]
Yod
Chaf
Lammed
And to think that a week and a half ago the most interesting news was about Greta... We've come a long way since then...
Mem
Syrian commenter on Mossad activity in Iran:
عدد سكان ايران : 90 مليون. عدد عملاء الموساد الاسرائيلي في ايران : 91 مليون
Translation: Number of residents in Iran: 90 million
Number of Israeli Mossad agents in Iran: 91 million
Nun
Right to left:
Americans who think Iran will bomb them now.
Israelis who know they will be bombed where they are.
Samech
Something I am not doing well is going to bed earlier than needed. When there is then an alert at seven or eight in the morning, I wind up underslept.
South Jerusalem sights this morning:
The neighborhood shelter (there are a number of them within a block) was the most crowded I've seen it. Innovation of the day: I now have wifi in that shelter (finally got the password).
To Peace,
Raf
(Thank you A.K., M.T., R.G., M.R.)