Is Raf OK? -- Installment #102
2024-04-16 -- Tel Aviv
Tags: 10 Min Read; Jumbo Relief; Videos
Berries
Last week I said it is "peak strawberry" season. I was wrong. Maybe it's this week. Prices dropped, and supply is up. I bought a three pound basket for US$2.40/pound. For lunch I started with a strawberry salad, and am having strawberries with goat yogurt for dessert.
I had zero plans to buy food today. A danger of walking by the shuk is seeing a sight like this:
(Yes, it is also peak loquat season, but I already munched on those, and they don't call quite as loudly....)
Tel Aviv is full of sights. Walk just a few blocks and you see crazy things. A fave: The "cell phone-helmet wedgie:"
And
References to the hostages in Gaza are ubiquitous:
Chocolate to hostages. It clashes. I know.
Mail
Iron Dome
Not sure Iron Dome was involved with the Iran situation. I think it was Arrows and fighters. Iron Dome is for more short term things. Arrow is for ballistic missiles. But your overall point is well-taken
The interception videos over the Dome of the Rock and Nablus appear to document the Iron Dome in action. I'm not sure it matters which system(s) were used. There are many systems in use here, a high percentage of them Israeli developed and produced.
Speaking of Direct Flights (in #101)
I remember as a much younger person (before the Iranian Revolution) that there were really good relations between Israel and Iran, including direct El Al flights...
Yes. I knew a guy in synagogue (in Seattle) who had backpacked all over Iran in the 1970's. In the 1970's, folks used to travel across the whole middle east: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, the Arabian Peninsula. There was no security wall around the West Bank.
Sounds nice!
Kibbutz Volunteering
As for Kibbutz Gadot, I was never there, but I have a friend who was a volunteer there back in the 70s. Frankly, I think that one of Israel's mistakes over the years was that they stopped having volunteers on kibbutzim. I understand that was not a governmental decision, but rather an economic evolution as kibbutzim privatized, but it was a opportunity for foreigners to come to Israel, live and work there, establish ties with people there, and spread the word about what kind of place Israel really is. I spent 4 summers on kibbutzim (3 on the same kibbutz, Shefayim, where I have an adoptive family to this day), and it was an invaluable experience. I think they should try to bring it back.
First 100 Entries....
"The first hundred entries were for the Gaza war. The next 100 for the war with Iran?"
Gawd I hope not.
Perspective and Feelings
For some hours after Iran launched weapons, people in Israel were inundated with text messages from friends around the world. An Airbnb host in Greece texted me. World news had announced the launch. Everyone was waiting for the rockets to arrive. I observed some amount of hysteria among people abroad.
Some considered it, at least for some hours or days, to be another October 7, when everything stood still and then the world changed.
For whatever reason, it did not effect me this way.
First, the October 7 attack itself, and everything Hamas and Islamic Jihad has done in Gaza these past 17 years, has been with Iranian money and support (read: weapons, training, etc.).
Second: Hezbollah in Lebanon: Ditto.
Third: Islamic Jihad and Hamas in the West Bank: Ditto.
Fourth: Houthis in Yemen and their blockade of the Red Sea (and the Suez Canal). This is full on piracy at sea. A casus belli in every respect. Ditto.
So this was already an understatement:
Then Iran directly, without a proxy, hijacks a container ship in the Straight of Hormuz:
Commandos from Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard rappelled down from a helicopter onto an Israeli-affiliated container ship near the Strait of Hormuz and seized the vessel Saturday....
People like to draw lines and set limits. Yes: April 14 was the first direct attack, state to state, by Iran on Israel. But to my eyes, Iran had long ago decided to do whatever it feels like. While it was a "new line crossed" to Raf it was “just another Iranian rocket attack.” Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have launched 12,000+ rockets at Israel since October 7. This is another.
I don't want to say "ho hum" but the defense systems are either going to work or they aren't. It's out of my hands.
I also, for what it's worth, don't consider Italy or Oregon to be materially different than Tel Aviv, in this regard. Last "year" (1989) it was Salman Rushdie who was targeted by Iran. Two translators of Rushdie's work were attacked, one fatally. Salman himself was nearly killed in the U.S. in 2022. This year, Tel Aviv is targeted. That is only because Iran's rockets don't yet reach Europe or the U.S. Iran is unabashedly taking on everyone. Chants of “Death to America” aren’t empty. They are a core philosophy of the Iranian leadership.
Bringing Us To... Palestinians
A recent ponder: What are the Palestinians in this equation? Hamas and Islamic Jihad are happy to kill them and have them killed. Hezbollah doesn't care about them. Iran uses Palestinian-focused-empathy to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Israel (c.f. the Cease Fire Now movement in the U.S.).
Iran has no reason to care about the Palestinians. Iranians are Persians (not Arabs), and speak Farsi (not Arabic). Iranians are (~85%) Shiites and Palestinians are Sunni. Iran is using Palestinians, and the "Pro Palestinian" movement in the West, as a tool to weaken its proximate enemy: Israel.
Arriving at: Peace Movements...
In a multilateral world, what can a peace movement ask for? I can advocate, in my own country, that my country use methods other than war to achieve its goals. That is reasonable. War and peace both have costs and neither war nor peace will achieve all goals.
For some decades, through the 1990's I think, the American Far Left was influenced by the Soviet KGB. Today on the American Right:
Rep. Mike Turner agreed Sunday that some of his fellow members of Congress were parroting Russian propaganda ... on the House floor. (Politico, 2024-04-07 - PDF here)
On the American Left it is outright infiltration of positions that leave Palestinians under the iron fist of Hamas (in Gaza) and the corrupt P.A. (in the West Bank). I haven't seen a single slogan or position taken by those calling for a Cease Fire (including calling for the dissolution of Israel) that grants Palestinians individual rights (for example).
Seventeen years of Palestinian self rule in Gaza is instructive: Israel pulled out in 2005. The Palestinians could have done anything in that time. They had (we now know) unlimited money. The blockade of Gaza was (we now see) a joke: Whatever they wanted--motorbikes or bombs--they had. With that time and those resources, they created a "death state" that murdered all opposition, taxed everything, lived in luxury and sacrificed as many Palestinian civilians as possible (exaggerating every death count). I haven't seen U.S. protests against any of that. (Have you?)
In this context, honest peace advocacy means insisting that anyone who is pro Palestinian demand that Palestinians themselves not use other Palestinians as human shields. It means any Palestinian "leadership" that does not take responsibility for protecting Palestinians is itself an enemy of the Palestinian cause.
(Note Raf's assumption: The above assumes that Palestinian life is valued by the Pro Palestinian movement. I see that I project my value of this kind into this thread. However if life is not the value, the question becomes: Is there a basis to make a stink when death occurs? Making the stink implies that life is the value. If, in fact, the "leaders" [say in Gaza] and Palestinian activists do not have this value themselves, and publish fatality numbers to manipulate the "life is the value" ethos of the West, what should my reaction be?)
War Mongering...
A challenge of militaries is that they embody a bias toward action. A military wakes up every day and trains and prepares to do things. (Mostly things that constitute war— horrible from a humanitarian perspective.)
Leaving aside the value we want to assign, that is what a military does. It prepares to act.
A challenge of asking a military "Can you do X" or "Can you do Y" is that the military prepares, every day, to say Yes. They have a bias toward Yes.
A benefit of the Cold War is that so many of the Yes's had a clearly negative "day after." As a result, the range of things discussed was a fraction of the military's ability. (And the concomitant incentive to reduce superpower conflict was strong.)
In the current Gaza war, Israel (and the world, but mostly Israel) is paying a price for rushing to war and not thinking through a "day after Hamas" plan much less a "How to manage Gaza during the many months of war." (The IDF was public from the outset that the war would take many months.)
Resisting this natural bias for action is a challenge for politicians. It takes strength and vision to look past the bias toward a larger goal. (E.g. To resist the “easy” path of saying “Yes, army, do X,” and rather: Think through the big picture, then line up the steps to get there.")
Tactical success is ephemeral. Modern, liberal political systems may be relatively ill equipped to incentivize strategic thinking. This is something the Ayatollahs and Putin bank on.
IDF Chief of Staff from the Nevatim base (the one "hit" achieved in the attack):
We are considering our steps, and this launch of so many missiles, cruise missiles, and UAVs into the territory of the State of Israel will be met with a response.
Peace Mongering...
I read about the demonstrations on freeways in the U.S. A number of important roads (including the Golden Gate Bridge) were blocked by activists calling for a cease fire in Gaza.
From here, they might as well be demonstrating for Iranian Ayatollahs to launch every rocket they have at Israel and Europe. I don't see them demanding that Hamas release hostages and hand over leadership. A ceasefire leaves Hamas in place. The U.S. protests indicate this is what American protesters want.
Not pretty.
Postmark: West Bank
Palestinians report that IDF soldiers scattered leaflets tonight in Qalqilya that read:
We know that you are infiltrating the territory of Israel to work even though it is forbidden.
What you don't know is that we know the one who is smuggling you, and you too. Think twice. Before we get to your house.The 49th Tiger Battalion.
Subtext: After October 7, Israel cancelled work permits of essentially all West Bank Palestinians. This has caused a huge crisis, both in the West Bank economy and in Israel (which is dependent on this labor). So, via a complex system of human trafficking, some West Bank Palestinians are working (for a fraction of their normal earnings) because they are desperate to feed their families.
Yet another example (sorry) of the short sighted, destructive attitudes Bibi has embodied for years: Take a great bridge-building opportunity (“the war is with Hamas, not Palestinians construction workers”) and set it on fire, creating new problems for everyone (poverty, unemployment and shame).
Postmark: Iran
Iranian Opposition
A cartoon of the Iranian opposition following the great night of interceptions...
Opponents of the Iranian regime in a message to the Israeli cabinet from inside Iran:
"Israel, attack them [Iran]! They [Iranian leaders] have nothing. They just pretending as if they have it."
And "Israel, attack them! You will start and we will continue in the streets."
Cartoon of the Iranian opposition mocking the Iranian government claim that “Iran reacted in a calculated way that would prevent an escalation that would lead to war.”
On the torn packaging it says: “98% effective at preventing war...”
Iranian Official Sources
Leading Iranian media publishes an "artwork" posted by an Iranian on Instagram of the missiles over Al-Aqsa inspired by the artwork "Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh.
Critics of Iran
Above: The fact that almost no damage was caused as a result of the extensive Iranian attack that was promoted in advance by aggressive Iranian "marketing efforts", serves as fertile ground for conspiracy theories on social networks according to which everything was a planned show coordinated in advance between the US, Iran and Israel... This seems to have touched a bone, because:
The Iranian Foreign Ministry, countering criticism that it coordinated its attack with the U.S. and Israel:
“There was no agreement between us and a third party as to the nature of our attack on the Zionist entity. We don't need to ask permission from anyone.”
Above: Sky News in Arabic: The Iranian official media published a recording of fires from last month in Texas (USA) to show the "damages of the Iranian missiles in Israel".
(Remember how the Syrian army lied to its own leadership and the Russians during the 1973 war? This seems to be Iran doing the same thing.)
Above: Faisal Al-Kasim, the famous Syrian journalist (6.5M followers on Twitter, 600K followers on Facebook), publishes his angle on Iran's "coordinated attack" on Israel...
Postmark: U.S. Defense Officials
The Wall Street Journal from senior American officials: About 50% of the ballistic missiles launched by Iran (according to their estimate, about 115-130 such missiles were launched) failed and fell on the way - there was no need to intercept them.
An Israeli observer remarks: Reminds me of the statistics of the Islamic Jihad rockets in Gaza...
Relief Area
Alef: This is Israel: An Ethiopian in Be’er Sheva singing in Russian
Bet: Far Left Hope for WW3 So They Can Blame Israel
Gimmel
I too survived the Iranian Attack. April, 2024
Dalet
Hey
Vav... Pesach...
Because of the current war, the load of horseradish for seders is stranded at Madrid airport. So …unfortunately ,
the chrain in Spain... stays mainly on the plane.
Foiled again...
Well, since I started this entry, the "headline" price of strawberries dropped %10, and is now US$2.20/lb. Show up in the last hour or two of the day and I bet they are %50 less than that... Yes, I just bought another basket (having chowed most of what I had with a friend last night for dessert).
Let ‘em eat strawberries.
Stay well,
Raf
(Thank you A.K., M.T., S.D.)