The Iran War has reaffirmed Israel’s unique approach to life.
When I came to Israel on a Fulbright post-doctoral fellowship, I really had no plans. The program had funding for 12 months with an option for another 10 months. I did not come with an idea to either stay or go after the fellowship ended. During the ten-month extension, I met my wife and we have lived in Jerusalem since. I miss a lot of my friends back in the US and we treasure each opportunity we get to visit the States. Right now, El Al is running one plane with 50 people out of the country, once every hour. They are having fits and threatening to “reevaluate” their relationship with Ben Gurion Airport, their main base of operations. So, we’re not planning to go anywhere right now, though I do hope that we make it back to the US sometime this summer.
Most people do not go to a store for no reason. If a person gets dressed, jumps in a car and drives for some period of time to get to a store, he probably needs or wants something. This was my approach to citizenship in Israel. There are many who see taking citizenship as a Jewish act, and I think that it is wonderful. I stayed on my various work visas until the Ministry of Interior said—against the law, by the way—that they would simply not issue them any longer. Time to put up or shut up. So I asked what was on the menu and they said that there was citizenship or permanent residency. I asked what the difference was. With the latter, there was no army duty (which at my age at the time was not relevant anyway) and I could not vote in national elections. Sounded good enough to me, so I have been a permanent resident for the past 20+ years. It makes for a bit of a headache on flights back to Israel as I don’t have an Israeli passport and the folks at the various international airports don’t know how to make heads or tails out of the Hebrew-language visa glued into my old passport. On a return from Johannesburg, a flustered airport worker asked that I just show her an Israeli driver’s license and then let me on the plane.
Tuesday morning news brought the typical “only in Israel” headlines. Two brothers were found guilty of pretending to be Israeli soldiers and selling Iran information. Their lawyer argued that everything they gave the IRGC was gibberish generated by ChatGPT and had no intelligence value whatsoever. He said that for the 100,000 shekels they extracted from the Iranian agents, they should be given the highest defense prize in the land! Their AI nonsense could only confuse the enemy and thus help Israel. The judge wasn’t buying it and sent them to jail. They follow a short line of predecessors, including the fellow who took a picture of his electrical closet and told the Iranians that it was a control panel from the Dimona reactor. In the town of Dimona, one fellow emerged from his destroyed home barefoot with a beer and a rifle. It could have been a “Miller Time” commercial.
Recommended
Israelis continue to do their best to make a normal life, even in the bomb shelters. No doubt you have seen some videos of weddings in such structures or even dance raves going full tilt, surrounded by thick cement and rebar. We go to our shelter and come home; those in the Tel Aviv area often simply move into the underground train stations and stay put, with beds and even tents. Going up and down tall buildings and schlepping sleeping bags and the like a couple of times a day isn’t worth the hassle, so little towns have sprung up under the roads in Israel’s largest city. Unlike the lies spread by Jew-Haters-R-Us, everyone is welcome in a “miklat” (bomb shelter) or “merchav mugan” (protected space). Nobody gets turned away, and Arabs also do their bit to protect themselves from the falling Iranian projectiles.
Last Saturday night, two major projectile impacts were reported in the south of the country, in Dimona and Arad. There seem to be indications that an interceptor system failed, some reports claiming American THAAD, others saying it was an Israeli David’s Sling. Two hundred people were wounded to varying degrees, with most lightly injured. Nobody was killed, though the bomb impact areas looked like four tornadoes had arrived at the same moment. As mayors of both cities pointed out, nobody in a protected area was injured. Do such outcomes qualify as miracles? Nobody died? The number of seriously injured was relatively low? Israelis are putting up with the attacks and resulting damage and injuries because there is no alternative. A war of choice would not last long. But everyone knows that when lunatics scream, “Death to Israel!” and “Death to America” for nearly 50 years, they probably mean it. People are watching carefully what comes with President Trump’s suggestion of negotiations. The president is super-popular in Israel and people want an outcome that reduces the threat levels to zero.
Bibi Netanyahu had to make a video to prove that he was really alive; slow-twitch neuron people like Joe Rogan said that even that video was AI. So another video was made with Bibi and the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. The scene at the airport is nuts, as the number of people allowed on outbound flights keeps changing; people show up and then go home. A friend told me of two sisters told to arrive for their flight; one got on and the other sat in the terminal in tears. Getting out of the country is a bit of a challenge, and the US embassy has apparently moved its efforts from Egypt to Jordan. I wonder if the round-trip to New York will ever go back to $700, as it was before the wars and COVID-19.
Israeli humor continues during bombings. The one remaining IRGC general is always treated as a Mossad agent, and the most recent AI movie has him killing off some of his colleagues. A neighbor always brought a plastic chair to the parking lot, as the space was never meant to serve as a bomb shelter. I saw her one day pass by our house and I told her that I did not recognize her without her chair. A few days later, she brought a smaller folding chair. I told her that she needs approval from the Home Front Command for the new equipment. One Israeli pilot took a video as he flew over the Iranian town from which his family originated. While nobody likes running to a bomb shelter or seeing the destruction after a bomb hits, the spirit in the country is very high. Israelis are proud to be undertaking this project with the American military and stand in awe of the amazing resources that the US has committed to the fight.
The Mossad has an open hotline to receive in real time details of Iranian forces and equipment directly from the locals. The Mossad is also calling IRGC officers and warning them that they are dead unless they do exactly as told. Israel sent home its top generals on the Friday night before the Saturday 8:15 PM attack, and those generals came back to the main headquarters in disguise and with their neighbors’ cars. The original attack killed Ayatollah Khamenei and approximately 40 other top regime officials after jamming local phone boxes to prevent anyone from warning the leadership. Local traffic cameras were used for years to determine the Ayatollah's routine. The attack was moved up to Saturday as all of the big fish were together.
Editor's Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
Help us report the truth about the Trump administration’s decisive actions to keep Americans safe and bring peace to the world. Join Townhall VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member