Is Raf OK? -- Installment #101
2024-04-14 -- Jerusalem & Tel Aviv
Tags: 3 Min Read
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Curious to hear more about this when you have the chance in some future installment: "[Iran] Superior to Israel in a number of areas."
I hope to in a future post. If it ever quiets down long enough…
Hope You Are Staying Safe Over There (Ten or twenty of these)
I was in Jerusalem. As it happened, Jerusalem had a red alert (at about 1:45AM, I think). So that got me up and into a safe area in the house. There were a few booms. Tel Aviv was quiet. Would have slept better there...
But one never can tell...
War Mongers....
Many Israeli drums beat: Respond! Show Strength! This is the Middle East!
They forget that the whole world (especially the Arab world) saw a pretty big fail on the part of Iran.
Social Mocks...
Some of the mocks on Arabic Language Social Media:
Fitzal Al-Kasim, prominent Syrian journalist (6.5 million followers on Twitter & 12 million followers on Facebook) mocks the Iranian response tonight. He adds the following quote to Netanyahu's photo:
“We filed a complaint with the UN because they [the Iranians] made us stay awake for nothing.”
More of the mockery on social media for the fact that it was just a show:
“The Iranian attack was delayed... we agreed on 19:00!!”
Images from the Iranian Attack
Iranian missile doing the dead sea float.
Multiple Iranian missiles fell within Iran and other areas outside Israel. One destroyed a house in the village of Kohrama, Iran; Another fell in a field in the Damascus province of Syria; One in Kurdistan, Iraq, in Erbil, Iraq and also in Baghdad itself; And in A-Ramatha, Jordan (which started a serious fire).
Above: Iranian missle that fell in Baghdad
Bottom line: There was a single reported injury in Israel (A Beduin girl was seriously hurt by shrapnel.) Otherwise there was no damage outside a pit on an airbase. The Iranian barrage caused more damage to places in the Persian and Arab worlds than to Israel.
Interceptions
There are a lot of videos of this. Including social media clips in Lebanon and elsewhere. I won't bother you with a stack of those. Just this one:
The IDF spokesman publishes documentation from the successful interception of dozens of UAVs and cruise missiles from Iran.
The interceptions in the video were carried out using fighter jets. In the documentation it is possible to distinguish the unique shape of the Iranian UAV - Shahad 136. 1 Min.
On Iranian Social Media
Channels affiliated with the Iranian opposition: Graffiti on a wall in Tehran:
Hit them, Israel
Iranians are behind you
How Raf Sees It
The vaunted Israeli Iron Dome defense system is tactically amazing. However, Raf isn't sure it is a strategic win.
The rockets from Gaza, and simple Katyushas from Lebanon, are cheap. Probably $500 to $5,000 each. Every Iron Dome interceptor is $20K-40K. A large barrage can cost Israel half a million to a million dollars, just for interceptors.
The single night's defense against Iran is estimated by Israeli military leaders to have cost US$1 Billion. Weapons like the Iranian Shahed 136 UAV, with a 50KG warhead, costs $20K-40K. The clip above from Israeli fighters shooting them down? The fighters are crazy expensive, but even forgetting that, the air-to-air missiles are ten to twenty times more expensive than the Shahed.
To Raf's eyes, this is tactical success, not strategic victory. Something Israelis forget: Solutions come from diplomats and politicians, not generals.
“You can't make peace by military means.”
— Former chief of the ISA (Shabak)
(If you care about Israeli security and haven't seen the documentary The Gatekeepers, well...)
As Matti Friedman wrote (emphasis Raf’s):
Tehran’s strike on Israel…should make clear, for those still in doubt, that [the Gaza war] is not about Gaza, or even about Israel and a single Iranian proxy in Hamas. It is about Iran.
“The importance of last night’s barrage was that for the first time, the full Iranian alliance gave us a practical demonstration of its scope, orchestration, and intentions,” Matti writes. “If you’d been watching from space, you probably could have seen the lines of this new Middle East etched in orange and red across the map of the region.”
From Gaza
Soldiers: In Gaza We Saw Strange Things....
7 min, Hebrew w/English Subs
Bakeries Open in Gaza City
Palestinian social media channels report that for the first time since the beginning of the war, a number of bakeries in Gaza City have reopened - this morning there were long lines there.
The Iranian Missile Attack...
Was thanked on social media, as there weren't drones buzzing over Gaza for the first time since the war, so people slept better.
Events
April 12, Hezbollah Launches Huge Rocket Barrage
There is no difference between Anti Zionism and Anti Semitism
Relief Area
Alef
Bet
Gimmel: Pesach is coming.... The Four Children...
Dalet
Hey: RE Iranian Attack of April 14:
I was in the north of Israel, on Kibbutz Gadot for a couple of days. They moved the cheese factory off site, so there weren’t any guys wearing “Make Cheese, Not War” tshirts. (I sooo want one of those shirts.) A lot of the guest houses are occupied long term by evacuees from further North in Israel. The kibbutz is an amazing place to raise kids. Quiet. Lots to do. Even a petting zoo…
Above Gadot, part way up into the Golan, I highly recommend a swim in the Hexagonal Pools:
(It was a wet winter and the Jordan is really flowing!)
Stay well,
Raf
(Thank you A.K.)