Goin's On:
7 February 2001
The Two sides of
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud BarakI've finally found the time to sit down and write this newsletter. It has been hard to distance myself from events being fairly close to the center of things. It's hard seeing the forest for the trees, as it were.
Nevertheless there's lots to tell. Since Rosh Hashanah, the 30th of September 2000, things have taken a new direction with the Arabs, led by the PLO to take a path of brazen violence. What sparked this? Well the international media pointed an
accusing finger at Ariel Sharon, head of the slightly right-wing Israeli Likud party. He acceded the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City two days prior to the outbreak of the violence. Two days after the PLO started shooting up the place Ariel Sharon traipsed around up on the Temple Mount. The world media blamed him for touching off the violence. Yet if one listened to the news networks they strongly implied that it was spontaneous and normal way for Arabs to behave. They were downright sympathetic toward the Arabs as they expressed the notion that a Jewish politician's mere presence up there as a heinous desecration and worthy of taking to the streets in violent bloodshed. The media suggested that it was perfectly understandable for Arabs to naturally turn to rioting and murder in response. (After all, wouldn't you?! Wouldn't everybody?!) Ariel Sharon went up to Islam's third-holiest site and actually walked there! (How utterly crass of him! How insensitive!) And he did it out of principal! He did it because Jews have regarded it as Judaism's holiest sites, as Jews built two temples up there, the first one 2,500 years before Islam ever existed. He did it because it's in Israeli sovereign territory. He did it because the Israeli government maintains a policy that holy places should be open to all, (Hey! Just because the Temple Mount is Judaism's number one holy site didn't mean that he actually had the right to go up there!! My gosh, it was as if he thought his people owned the place!!) Even though the Arabs had to take a few days before getting violent meant mean that they were spontaneously expressing their natural anger after Ariel Sharon, that foreigner, that "kefir" ("infidel"), actually graced his presence on a Muslim holy site. Ariel Sharon should have known better!The truth is that it took two days for the PLO and Islamic fundamentalists to organize the "spontaneous" anger that poured forth out of the breast of the Arab-on-the-street. Hey, it took time to for the Arab leadership to whip the locals into a "spontaneous" frenzy. It took time to organize cells of youthful rock throwers ranging in ages from 8 years old to 20 to just pour out of their schools on cue, at the behest of their teachers, in "spontaneous demonstrations" that the media would call 'riots' anywhere else in the world. It took time to allow the foreign media to arrive and look for the best camera angles for photographing the setup "demonstrations" when they really got underway. It took a few days for the word to filter through the Arab populace that for every Arab that would sacrifice him or herself as holy martyrs against the Jews that the PLO would
guarantee the family the princely sum of $2,000 in cash for their loss. And it took a while to get the children to come out and actually be ready to apply what they were taught in the summer camps when they received weapons training. And it took a
few days to organize the pep rally parades in Arab towns where processions of brave pre-teens and adolescents carried assault rifles. Yes, friends, but none of these things detracted from the entirely "spontaneous" nature of the demonstrations against naked
Israeli aggression. The PLO needed time to drill 11-13 year olds in the use slingshots to throw rocks and heave molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers while older boys with AK-47 assault rifles shot at the trouble-making Israelis from behind those younger kids. Yes, the righteous anger of the Arab poured forth and was justified when Ariel Sharon dared walk upon the Temple Mount! It doesn't matter if all he did was look around up there, for Islam's honor was blighted and the Temple Mount ("Haram al-Sharif") was desecrated. After all, Jews should know their place, keep to it, and not make trouble by going into places where they shouldn't, right? Of course!All tongue-in-cheek aside, the truth is that the PLO was waiting for an excuse, nearly any excuse, to start a mini war going. Even Israeli PM Ehud Barak stated this explicitly and publicly and that Ariel Sharon was not to blame for sparking the Arab violence here. But the response by PM Barak to their violence was one of a policy of 'restraint'. At first he cut off all talks with the PLO and claimed he would never negotiate so long as there was any violence. When the Arab violence continued he
caved in and said that he would be very happy to return to the peace talks after it could be demonstrated that there was a significant reduction in Arab violence. There wasn't so he returned to talking to the PLO. When they continued the violence he went on record demanding that Arabs should stop attacking Jerusalem neighborhoods should significantly reduce the violence for peace talks to resume. They continued firing into those Jerusalem neighborhoods and he returned to talking to the PLO despite his word that he wouldn't. Despite this demand the negotiations resumed after a few days with no perceptible change in the situation. Barak's media office announced that he was resuming peace negotiations with the PLO because his demand for a reduction had been met -- funny, though, the local press continued reporting the same amount of
gunfire directed into Gilo. From there Barak demanded that the PLO reduce the violence a bit just to show their good will. A few days passed with no change in the situation, and the Israeli team resumed talking to the PLO even as Jews were being
shot at. When an Israeli armored school bus was bombed and Jewish kids lost limbs and teachers lost their lives in the Gaza strip Barak suspended negotiations for a few days in protest. But the government returned to talks after the funerals of the
teachers. His excuse was that it is so vital for all concerned to make peace that no effort should be spared, no matter what happens in the field.The Arab violence was not limited to Judea, Samaria & Gaza as the Arabs in the Galilee took to the streets and rioted. They destroyed infrastructure like street lighting, road signs and basically everything the Israeli government had provided as part of he normal public services. The Arabs of the Galilee rioted at major intersections and crowds blocked roads and attacked Jewish motorists, destroyed cars and beat up Jewish women & children as well. The Jews in the Galilee have always been much more of a liberal attitude and a majority were very forgiving of past terrorist atrocities at the hands of the PLO. They were very much in favor of giving away Judea, Samaria & Gaza with the belief that doing this would cause the Arabs to like Jews. Well, reality bit and bit hard. The rioting Arabs in the Galilee, previously thought to be loyal Israeli citizens, did not discriminate between those liberal Jews who supported terrorist organizations like the PLO and favored a Palestinian state.
Every Jew who fell into the clutches of those rioting Arabs were treated brutally. We have a friend who lives on a kibbutz in the Galilee and raises chickens. He has many contacts with other chicken growers in the area and he said that, though his fellow chicken farmers in that area were once very willing to give the Arabs land in exchange for peace, after seeing raw anti-Semitism expressed by their Arab "neighbors" many reversed their previously liberal attitudes. From then they called for expulsion or even killing of the local Arabs. Many admitted that they were previously deluded about the Arab's true intentions in the 'peace process.'As far as our own situation goes we're probably the safest in Judea. Since we're on he main highway toward Hebron & Be'ersheva only 12 minutes out of the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem as well as in the center of a cluster of other Jewish
communities. All the communities are situated on hill tops such that when people in those other communities look out they can't help notice anything untoward that could be going on in the fields and vineyards between us and them. So the result is
that other settlements are keeping an eye on us from all sides. The Israeli army is also out watching in some very subtle ways. We were told that there are patrols and ambushes set up all over that that we would be amazed to know how many Jewish eyes
are keeping watch on our surroundings both day and night. Perhaps an example of this happened about 2 months ago when someone on the next community over, Nevey Daniel, saw an figure walk up the dirt road from an Arab village located a
kilometer away. It was at night and the moonlight illuminated the landscape. A shot rang out and the walking figure collapsed to the ground limp. A few seconds later 4 other figures that had apparently been moving with the first, and were keeping cover amidst the grapevines and stone walls, ran over to the inert body, picked it up and trotted it back toward the Arab village. The next day on Nevey Daniel many were concerned that one of the members might have fired that shot, but after determining the range to from the nearest point on their community to where the figure dropped it was clear that the rifles that the membership had access to were no way able to hit a target with that kind of accuracy. It became quite clear that from the sound of the shot the shooter was a bit outside Nevey Daniel. In any case, hitting that target would have taken a sniper with special night surveillance telescopic sights and other equipment that no one possessed in that community. Although the army would not comment on the incident it was clear that this was done by an army sniper that was out on an ambush to defend Nevey Daniel, as that community is perched on the highest hill for a good distance. The Arabs want that hill very badly because holding it would allow them to control a major part of our area, such as the main highway with another strategic intersection to a secondary road and a leg of the electric power grid that supplies various communities. When it seemed that the rioting and fighting would threaten our area the army placed some 90 soldiers and armored personnel carriers with mounted anti-aircraft guns that could easily destroy armored vehicles at several miles range.The main highway liking us to Jerusalem goes from the Gilo neighborhood. Gilo is the southern-most part of Jerusalem and the main highway out to our area passes through a tunnel under the mountain, then over a concrete bridge and through
another tunnel under the hill where Bet Jalla is situated. This route was designed and built as a bypass road by the government in the days when Bethlehem was given to the PLO in the early stages of the Oslo Peace Accords. You see, the Arabs in
Bethlehem made no secret of hating Jews and often and again they expressed their revulsion toward us by attacking our cars with barages of cantalope-size rocks, molotov cocktails and occasional gunfire. In those days of the first intifada the only highway out here went through Bethlehem and past the Deheyshah Refugee Camp. The government spent many millions of dollars building a bypass road to keep Jews away from these centers of PLO territory. They did it by choosing a route for the
bypass road that required cutting two tunnels through the mountains and building a concrete bridge 100 feet above the valley floor to connect them. This bypass road was the most expensive highway construction project in he entire Middle East. Just
before it was opened I was doing army reserve duty and our jeep patrol went though those tunnels and over the bridge for the first time. We stopped to survey Bet Jalla and my everyone in my squad came to the same conclusion at the same time, that
this 'bypass' road would provide the Arabs in the surrounding hills easy firing positions for Jews traveling on that bridge. Our cars would become easy targets, it would be just like taking aim at a carnival shooting gallery from Bet Jalla above, and it
didn't take any smarts to figure this one out. It must be emphasized, though, that the Arabs only occasionally take pot shots at our busses from the surrounding hills. Since our busses are all lined with armor plate and armored glass their pot shots don't
make for much of a risk. But still, no one should have to endure being shot at, and no government has the option to passively allow their citizens to endure this sort of situation. Now the government is showing great sympathy toward us having to take
the risk of driving that route. Due to the hazard that PLO terrorists pose toward us they have recently offered to build us ANOTHER bypass road a bit of a distance away from this one, which would obviously take at least a year to plan and several more years to build. (Thanks a bunch!) Our township mayor has told the government to skip building a new road, he said that they should solve the problem of Arabs taking pot shots at us rather than run away from the problem by building another bypass at enormous expense.Gilo is the Jerusalem neighborhood on the southernmost hill top and the PLO have been using the homes in Bet Jalla as staging points for attacks on Gilo. The PLO chose Bet Jalla for these operations because they hoped that when they attack
Gilo the news media would focus on the Israelis firing back into a Christian town and that Christians the world over would protest and complain at how the Jews attack Christians. For once, this ploy didn't work. Christians in Bethlehem and Bet Jalla have been persecuted and abused by Muslims for decades and the Christian world has been silent. The fact is that the Christian world has been completely insensitive to the suffering of their brethren for a long time and, for once, Christian leaders have
not condemned our defending ourselves. Perhaps because they may have heard what really happens there and decided, for once, not to complain when Jews fire back at attacks by Muslims by using Christian homes as their offensive positions. The PLO simply barges into a Christian home in Bet Jalla and takes over the home at gunpoint, even threaten to kill the children in front of their parent's eyes. They typically set up a machine-gun nest in the house and proceed to rake fire at apartment buildings in Jewish Gilo neighborhood. True, CNN, the BBC and other media giants have photographed the red tracer bullets as they streak like meteors toward their targets in Bet Jalla at night and their reporters bemoan the spiraling violence. But the truth is that when the Israeli army returned fire it was basically a weak and token display of less-than-minimal force. In the beginning the Israeli government had refused to allow our forces to fire back except with small arms fire, unless the target was identified absolutely. These conditions, set by Barak, prevented our forces from firing simply because the PLO would obviously not stand out in the open and let themselves become a target, which was Barak's conditions for opening fire. After a while the utter futility of this policy became obvious as the people who live in Gilo were getting their widows shot through and some got hit. The vitriol that was expressed by the residents of Gilo became so bitter that the government took decisive action and moved two tanks on the bluff overlooking Bet Jalla. This made an impression with the Arabs for about a day or two. The Arabs tested the Israeli government and slowly resumed the shooting into Gilo but the tanks remained completely inactive. The government here forbade the army from using them and, from a functional standpoint, they were about as useful as a decorative hood ornament on a car. Finally, after a week or more of the residents of Gilo had to avoid rooms in their apartments for fear of being shot, the government finally allowed one of the two tanks to fire a single projectile into Bet Jalla when barrages Arab bullets were falling like hail into Gilo. The tank fired and the projectile landed. It turned out that the government chose the target for that single cannon shot and the projectile hit with surgical precision. Did the tank target the buildings that Arabs were firing from? Did the cannon hit vital services like electrical transformers or the electrical substation that would leave Bet Jalla, if nothing else, in uncomfortable darkness? Was the target an administrative or command center from which the PLO used to direct operations? The answer to all those questions was a resounding NO! We weren't the least surprised to learn that with the immense firepower and precision capabilities of Israeli artillery the government decided that the one projectile should hit smack-dab in an open field at least 100 feet from anything of any relevance! The government wanted only to fire the smallest shell and only leave a small hole in the ground as a demonstration of the trifling annoyance that PM Barak regarded the nightly attacks on Gilo. The government only let fly one projectile because it would make PM Barak appear to be doing something to protect the residents of Gilo, when he only allowed that tank crew to fire the mildest projectiles in our arsenal. The Arabs were undeterred by that demonstration of weakness and continued firing barrages of bullets into Gilo -- Barak allowed the tank to fire a few more projectiles over the course of a few more nights, and not surprisingly, the cannon's target was identical every time, the very same field that guaranteed to do no damage whatsoever. This this only reinforced the conviction by the Arabs that no harm would come to those who attacked Gilo. Then a government official under Barak made a statement over the media, a statement that insulted the intelligence of everyone who had an I.Q. of 80 or above, and said: 'See, we can't stop their shooting by using force, the Arabs simply ignore when we return fire with cannons, so the only answer is by negotiating and coming to a peace agreement.' About that time the army commander of those tanks publicly admitted the futility of them being positioned there because the government refused to let him hit something of significance and pulled them out. Finally, the army was allowed position armored personnel carriers, like a tank but without the big cannon, but these had anti-aircraft guns that when directed at buildings could pound a house made of solid concrete construction into gravel within minutes. The army has set up a camouflaged bunker on a hill top near the Gilo neighborhood which has those anti-aircraft guns as well as machine-grenade launchers capable of lobbing grenades a mile away with utter precision at a rate of 100/minute. So occasionally after dark the Arabs take over a house and start shooting at Gilo or the highway and our army responds. I have walked our dog at night and heard the small arms fire that is punctuated by the thud of either a grenade launchers or anti-aircraft fire directed at the attackers. During my walks with the dog I've seen red tracer bullets that arch into the sky from the area of the action and since we're about 3 miles from Gilo the sounds and flashes are easily seen and heard from our locale. Despite the firepower our army's response is was still a very gentle one. This was obvious to us for the main highway out here passes from Gilo right under the area of the fire fight and the morning after an engagement one can look up into the hills above and see the Arab houses that were used to launch the attacks. The houses there are all of stone & concrete construction and certain houses are missing windows and frames and corners and balconies of the houses appear to have been gnawed away by a giant rat. Some portions of the buildings are blackened & scorched as fires broke out in the houses during the exchanges of fire. All in all, our army could have leveled those buildings with ease, but Barak restrains our response. Sadly enough, his policy allows the Arabs to get practical training and battlefield experience without serious risk to themselves. The Arabs simply leave when our return fire gets too serious, which rarely happens. So they fight and and live to fight another day and get better at it with each session. It's amazing how Barak's policy of restraint provided desperately needed practical experience to aspiring PLO terrorists who would otherwise have no conception of what urban warfare is like. Such training sessions only made them better terrorists and murderers. We can thank the late Israeli Prime Minister & Nobel Peace Prize Laurate Yitzhak Rabin for giving enormous quantites of weapons to the PLO under the guise of a peace deal. Andwe can thank the present Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak, for giving the PLO more weapons and more territory under the Oslo Accords. And we can thank him even more for giving them training in urban battle situations, just what we all want and need!I have acquaintances in the Jewish enclave in he middle of Hebron and there are 5 Jewish neighborhoods there comprising about 50 families in the middle of a sea of 100,00 Arab residents. The Jews there number about 450, each family having 6
kids on the average. The government here has given away all the land in the city of Hebron, except for 5 tiny Jewish enclaves, to the Arabs and it's clear that the Jews there are being deliberately squeezed. Almost nightly, for the last several, months
their community has been under siege and both our soldiers and the residents of those enclaves take cover on rooftops and fire back when the Arabs fire at them. Not long ago, when Benjamin Netanyahu was Prime Minister the Arabs shot into one of
the bedroom windows in the Jewish enclave and Netanyahu said explicitly that if the Arabs shoot into their homes even once more that he would personally send our tanks into Hebron. Well, he lied. More shots penetrated their bedrooms and Netanyahu refused to send in the tanks. The Barak government has done no better. True, Barak has permitted our air force's Cobra attack helicopters to shoot missiles when their community has been fired upon, but like in Bet Jalla above, the missiles fired were into fields where no damage was done. Our soldiers that have been assigned to defend the Jewish residents of Hebron have said that their orders only permit them to launch missiles and heavy weapons that hit no closer than 60 feet from any building or person. It only demonstrated to the Arabs again that Barak's $75,000 attack helicopters where as dangerous as a chained and muzzled guard dog. After 5 or 6 missiles fired into empty fields the Arabs continued shooting at the Jews with
impunity.Such heavy hi-tec weapons that have the capability of doing massive damage but were used only as tools for political posturing in another case. A while ago a roadside bomb went off in the Gaza strip that did severe damage to a school bus taking Jewish children and teachers to school. The terrorists who set that bomb murdered 2 school teachers and maimed several children, two sisters who required amputations of their legs. Barak informed the PLO that he would be sending helicopters to bomb their buildings in the Gaza strip. Barak also gave them hours of advance warning and told them exactly which buildings of theirs would be hit in a very gentle "retaliation raid". The bus bomb that murdered the teachers and maimed the children happened in the morning and after dark the following evening the attack helicopters were filmed shooting missiles into the buildings. When CNN & the BBC showed the events live it all looked very dramatic with a chopper hanging in the air with Gaza City all lit up in the background, suddenly a flame erupted from the helicopter and the missile was photographed as it was launched into the building. A bright white flash erupted from behind trees hiding the building. CNN immediately repeated this very same film time after time and it gave the impression erroneous that several missiles were launched in to the site when there was actually only one. When I saw those films I couldn't help wondering why the explosion didn't take down the tree right in front of the building and that suggested that the missile seemed to be very low powered. The next day CNN ran shots of the building after it was attacked by the missile and from those pictures. The building itself was still standing and quite intact -- another indication that the missile was merely for show. The news cameras scanned the inside of the building it was obvious that the missile wasn't meant to do more than cause minimal damage to it. The news films showed that the building had one hole punched into the ceiling with a bit of rubble on the floor. No furniture nor objects of human habitation were in the building, as it had obviously been cleared out beforehand. One of my contacts who's in the Israeli Air Force said that he had trained with helicopter & missiles and that from the pictures on TV there was obviously no warhead on the thing. He said that a dummy practice warhead was put on the missile and the explosion that was shown on the TV news was merely the remaining portion of unburned fuel in the missile's engine that went up in a flash when it hit. This posturing was intended to make Israelis believe that Barak had gotten tough against the PLO in retaliation for murdering school teachers and maiming Jewish children, when in reality he was only being a paper tiger.
In our area the same kind of stunts have been pulled. A while back the Arabs attacked the main road between our Etzion Bloc of communities and Jerusalem at the el-Khadur intersection. The Arabs started shooting at our cars & busses and a force of several tens of their terrorists started toward the hilltop community of Nevey-Daniel. The army called out several units of our soldiers that were stationed on our community of Elazar and they engaged the PLO forces. Word went out that there was a pitched battle going on and two of our soldiers were killed by Arab sniper fire and a few more were wounded, one seriously, and waiting to for transport out of there. Unfortunately, our soldiers were pinned down on a hill side by snipers positioned from 4 different angles. In these engagements the Barak government has basically tied the army's hands in that they require that every action taken by our forces be approved of by Barak himself or one of Barak's closest associates. Apparently, the approval was not given to add additional troops nor to actually use any of the hi-tec weapons at the army's disposal, instead, as two of our soldiers were dying on the battlefield as they were pinned down by sniper fire, the government decided to posture for the sake of our communities. What happened was that one Cobra attack helicopter was called out but rather than get into direct line of sight it to do its job effectively, it hovered over our community and the adjacent community of Efrat, some 2 miles from the action, and fired a number of missiles. I was at work when I heard that there was serious action taking place in
our area and called home to ask what they were hearing, as I didn't expect them to actually see anything. Sharon, my wife, said she was standing outside with the cordless phone and was, at that moment, watching the helicopter launch a number of missiles.
Minutes later a rumble of heavy equipment was heard passing our village on the main highway. Our kids ran out to see and it was a tank, and in full view of Elazar & Efrat it fired a projectile. It turned out that the missiles & the tank projectile completely missed everything of military significance, they struck about 100 yards far from the snipers and merely churned up the ground in an empty field. Tanks and missiles today can easily hit anything within their range with pinpoint accuracy, yet on these occasions they were used merely as political tools rather than to actually defend our soldier's lives on the battlefield. Our forces finally took out the snipers with more conventional weapons after more than an hour of needless struggle by ground troops. The toll left two of our soldiers dead, one critically wounded that died later, but he would have been saved had medevac helicopters been able to get in, rather than having to wait that period of time. Shocking.The news had been full of the story of Barak's resignation as prime minister of Israel but from what I've read on the BBC & CNN they ignored vital details. Here's the scoop in a nutshell: Barak had reigned as PM to such a degree of incompetence
that has rarely, if ever, been seen in the west. He handed in his resignation and it was accepted yet he refused to step down from power. He continued to occupy the office of PM and continue to function despite his resignation that was "effective immediately". On the home front all his policies were badly thought out that he was criticized severely by his own party. One example: he decided by himself that his popularity was seriously waning in the polls and decided to do something about it.
His solution was to cut a special tax on small electrical items. He said that the revenue from this tax was no longer needed and that the public could enjoy items like TVs and VCRs at a significantly cheaper price. So Barak cut out this tax that he said
brought in "unnecessary" revenue in early August and the public was a bit impressed so his popularity rose a tad. Well, September came and the schools were getting their budgets it happened that this tax supplied a significant amount of money to the country's educational system, major cuts in teaching staff and special education was severely curtailed. Since 40% of the teachers would not be rehired (yes, FORTY PERCENT!) due to budgetary constraints classes jumped from an average of 22
students per class to 45! Parents throughout the country were livid when school started and Barak's popularity dropped even more, but for some reason Barak didn't consider this when he decided to cut that tax. It came to pass that his own party
wanted him out because he pulled a few other stunts like this. Barak often announced policies and when even his own party objected when they were so ill-conceived that they were destructive. Barak had often told the public exactly what he thought
we wanted to hear, even if it blatantly contradicted what he had said even a day before. It always seemed like he didn't remember what he told the public was contradictory, and furthermore it appeared like he didn't care. He told his close associates that he was just being "super sophisticated" in his public relations moves but most everyone else sees this as blatant lying or as political "spin". It had become clear to us all that he used is position to inflate his ego and that he believed the world revolved around him. There has been a lot of absurd statements by Barak regarding how he regards the lives of our soldiers compared to the lives of civilians. He thinks that civilians & soldiers should equally share the risks of war and that soldiers should be shielded from the horrors of war just as much as civilians, now if that isn't warped thinking! "The way Barak presents it, there is no difference between a soldier killed in battle and a civilian struck down by a terrorist. This is a dangerous proposition. It is a proposition that undermines the very basis of society. Societies have security forces so that the rest of
society may enjoy the freedom that comes with security. The ultimate extension of Barak's mindset is that no part of society may be free because there is no justification for security forces to subject themselves to any greater risk than the civilian
population." (IMRA Commentary, 18 Jan 2001 http://www.imra.org.il). So with the extent of Barak's fool incompetence it's no wonder that he had become alienated by even his own party and was politically incapacitated. As it happened, a few
months ago, Israeli parliamentarians passed a law saying that if a prime minister becomes incapacitated he may resign and call for new elections The intent of those who passed it intended it for a time when the PM is PHYSICALLY incapacitated due
to illness or stress and was unable to govern. Unfortunately, the lawmakers didn't expect any PM to abuse this and so didn't specify that it would be limited to physical or emotional incapacity to govern. So Barak seized this law and called for new
elections because he was "POLITICALLY incapacitated" and could no longer govern, but after resigning, he then immediately announced himself as a candidate in the elections!! He suffered from the delusion that since he made a total mess of things and
that by standing for reelection the public will vote him back enthusiastically and that his detractors in his own party will be shamed by the election results. Boy, that's the height of delusion! And Barak continued to run for reelection despite the polls
saying that he'll get maybe 25% of the vote while his opponent, Ariel Sharon, will get an overleaping landslide on election day!!Finally, it must be said that one thing has been accomplished, the level of violence that the Arabs have been committing against Jewish civilians since the start of this phase of the present mini-war has been reduced by some 70% out here in Judea & Samaria and 50% in the Gaza Strip. This reduction has taken place a week before the election, but it was easily predicted because both Barak and his side-kick, Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres, declared publicly that in order for Barak to have any chance of winning the upcoming election the violence would have to be significantly reduced. Peres stressed publicly that this would be a key factor in winning the elections! He also quickly added that the reduction of violence is essential in any case but especially before the elections. Barak has claimed that he has been doing everything possible to reduce the violence but hadn't succeeded, well not until a mere week before the elections. It seems suspicious that when Barak's political future is on the line he can reduce the violence. Sounds fishy. Sounds like he never really tried to get the Arabs to reduce shooting, terrorist bombings and barrages of stone throwing.
I was asked how my kids are taking the events surrounding us. Well, the truth is that Israeli kids mature a lot faster than American kids, and those who grow up out here take life a lot more seriously those growing up in Tel-Aviv. Life can be rather
serious here and it's clear to all our kids here that there's a lot more to life than gratification of their whims and fantasies and watching MTV. A few weeks ago my 13 year old son Gavriel was riding home from school and his minibus was hit by a
barrage of rocks from a crowd of Arabs. It was also hit by a molotov cocktail which exploded on the outside of the minibus and burned for a number of seconds before blowing out. It seemed that our army was close by when this happened and they
dealt with the crowd with tear gas & rubber bullets. Gavriel was a bit shaken up by the event and was most concerned about a future molotov cocktail might do more damage to a vehicle and him while riding inside. Now the fact is that all in these parts
all private cars had their glass replaced with lexan plastic windows which repel rocks thrown at them. These windows will not shatter nor break even if a rock hit them at the velocity of a speeding car. Also, all our busses both school busses and public
transport busses have armor plate and armored glass in all windows which will stop an assault riffle bullet at point-blank range. As far as molotov cocktails go, the rare times that they've actually exploded on the exterior of a traveling vehicle has never been
of any consequence. That's because the gasoline that fuels them evaporates at such a fast rate that it actually cools the surface that the gas sits on. It also burns out within seconds so if there is damage to the vehicle it's only a tiny dent where the thrown
bottle of gasoline impacts the exterior. The effect of seing one of these burst into flames on the skin of a car can be a bit disturbing because it can seem dramatic but that's about all. So long as all windows are closed so the fire bomb can't enter the
passenger compartment there's nothing to be concerned about. I personally have been in 3 busses that have been hit with molotov cocktails that exploded in flames and they burned themselves out quite harmlessly within 5 seconds.Devorah, our 15 year old daughter came home one day from school after waiting for a ride home at the bus stop in Jerusalem's southern neighborhood of Gilo. This is where a the Arabs like to shoot at some of the exposed apartment buildings. It must
be noted that this bus stop is well out of the line of fire, but while standing there one can hear virtually everything. While she stood there waiting for her ride home the sound of cannon fire from one of our tanks on the bluff overlooking Bet Jalla was
fired. The road home was closed for a couple hours due to the excange of fire. She came home and excitedly told us that something was fired that sounded like BOOOOOOOOMwhhhhoooooooosssssshhhhBOOM!!" She then asked me if that was a cannon going off. I answered that it was definitely the sound of artillery fire and probably came from the tank and her reaction was: "Ooooh, neat! It's about time they actually fired that thing. we've seen it sitting there for a week or more just doing nothing while they (i.e.: the Arabs) shoot into Gilo almost every night!" She now can identify the sound of 120 mm artillery fire. Devorah has had to spend a few nights at a friend's house in Gilo rather than come home after school, as the road out here had been closed and opened repeatedly due to the Arabs from the town of el-Khadur opening fire at cars on the road. She takes it in stride. We'll see what changes the upcoming elections will bring.The only other thing worth mentioning is that we are quite safe but we have also been taught how to take precautions. Every Jewish community out here has a group of men who have been given special anti terrorist training along with suitable equipment. This is an immediate reaction force that has been trained to react instantly in the event of a terrorist incursion into a community in order to defend the place until the army arrives. They're trained to search & destroy terrorists, and in the unlikely possibility that terrorists might take a house and hold hostages this group goes into search & contain sneer and waits until the professionals arrive to take over. I happen to be in this group for our community. Lately, we've been trained for another scenario. The army thinks that there is a possiblity that from scores to thousands of Arabs may mass near a Jewish community in order to overrun it. This nearly happened in the Gaza strip where 10,000 Arabs assembled and threatened to charge a community en masse. It also nearly happened in Hebron. Although it couldn't be more unlikely to happen out here since it would take a serious logistics effort to transport so many Arabs and not tip off the many eyes that watch over our area. Anyway, we've been issued equipment for such an eventuality. One serious piece of that equipment is body armor that will stop an armor-piercing round from an assault rifle at point-blank range. It's a commonly (but erroneously) known as a "bullet proof vest" of special steel that has been formed to fit the wearer's torso. The rear of this is also armored but with kevlar fabric rather than steel & ceramic. A layer of ceramic was applied on top of the steel so that a bullet that strikes it will not ricochet somewhere else and do damage. I understand that this bit of steel armor costs about $1000 apiece. Along with that bit of body armor, we carry a number of rifle magazines, a pistol, extra pistol magazines and a few other goodies -- all up front. This darn thing weighs a ton, and most of the weight is forward. In the rear we pack ariel night illumination flares, communications equipment -- and more goodies. I weighed this rig and it came to 14 kg (30 lb.) but it was so heavy up front that it casued a back ache while I wore it. The solution came when I decided to balance things a bit more by adding another 7 lb. of rifle ammunition in the rear backpack and that made it much more comfortable to wear. So with the vest fully loaded, the rifle & the helmet it all comes to 40 lb.-plus. Thank God I still have the ability to run around wearing a rig like this. Occasionally, we are called out on late night exercises. After midnight the phone has rung and I've been informed that we had an exercise and were required to assemble, pronto. After that we trotted some 350 meters and took up defensive positions a few times to exercise a number of different scenarios. After a short meeting about the latest in security matters in the area we plodded back home, to sleep, to dream.
Just to show you how the media deliberately distorts things when events don't happen according to the reporter's mindset get a load of this article from ABC News. ABC, like all the other media giants reported that "Tens Of Thousands" attended the
rally to keep J'lem United:http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/MIDEAST.html
"Tens Of Thousands"??? No way! I was there! There was a surging and solidly compacted crowd from Solomon's Pools Valley all the way around to Damascus Gate. We're talking a distance of 500 yards in length and a thickness of 2 lanes wide on the highway plus the wide frontage around the perimeter of the Old City walls. The Israeli media put the number between 300,000 and 400,000 yet the foreign news media is content to give lots of little details about what went on there but ignored the big picture that 300,00 to 400,000 that is, 6.6% of the total population of the State of Israel turned out for that rally. Try to get that kind of attendance at any demonstration in the US, either in raw numbers or proportional to the overall population! Consider also that 17% of Israel is composed of Arabs, and that they had no interest in being there, that makes the attendance of the Jewish part of the
population even more significant. We have about 5 million Jews here so those who attended composed 8% of the Jewish population of Israel. Not bad -- though not enough. I personally attend every demonstration but due the Bolshevik mentality
of Barak's leftist government here I've come to the conclusion that it's little more than a useless gesture. If nothing else those in attendance strengthen each other psychologically so maybe these things have a positive underlying secondary effect. Here thegovenment ignores demonstrations, unlike in the States. Ya know, in the '60s when Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King had that big civil rights demonstration in Washington, it drew a measly 150,000 people AND it was the watershed event that sparked a lot of serious legislation in that area of civil rights. Here we could get 10% of the population of the State of Israel out but such events are largely ignored by the powers that be -- and even if all 300,000 in attendance at our rally would have stamped our feet, chanted our demands in unison and even had a mass tantrum on the spot the government would have ignored it completely.Some media reports reported the mood of the crowd to have been 'festive' an 'almost carnival atmosphere.' I disagree. Although there were small parties dancing there was no one in costume, no performers circulating among the crowd, no hawkers selling wares like the Carnival in Brazil or Venice. The mood was upbeat but still serious. A live children's choir sung, instead of a rock band that would have used the event to promote themselves.
In contrast, all left-wing demonstrations are only held on Saturday nights and they always have the most popular rock bands for entertainment and they're always in the middle of Tel Aviv. They have to, because they depend heavily on secular teenagers
to show up, teenagers who can't vote because they're underage, and teenagers who don't give a fig about the political issue that the demonstration promotes but are there just for the entertainment or to socialize on a Saturday night. But the media can say
that there were "tens of thousands" in attendance when the actual numbers are usually closer to 10,000, and a tiny minority of those who actually care about the issue at hand. But these details are never revealed on the news. Friggin' media is loaded with
anti-Semites, particularly the Israel media -- self haters most are.What's interesting in this article is that Clinton claimed that he was heartbroken that he got Barak & Arafat 'so close' to an agreement. Heartbroken he no doubt was. He didn't get his Noble Peace Prize (a crying shame!), no gathering for a photo-op
on the White House lawn, nothing for him to be remembered by except that ol' cloud of impeachment and having been a womanizer who did nasties to "that woman" with, among other appurtenances, a cigar! (OOOHHhhhh! Kinky!).......Whoa! What's this comment about how he led Israel & the PLO so close to the ultimate peace deal? Closed the gap? Hey, not a chance! The truth is that as the Israeli side gave more and more concessions Arafat only upped his demands and ran
farther away. After this last round where Barak offered gifts of breathtaking value to Arafat: all of Gaza, 95% of Judea & Samaria, he said offered all of the homes of the Jewish "settlers" in these areas as part compensation to Arabs who ran away
from this area's wars. Barak offered a big hunk of the Negev Desert to Arafat to make up for the 5% of Judea & Samaria that he wanted to retain. He offered all of the Old City of Jerusalem, offered to redivide Jerusalem like it was under the Jordanian
occupation -- except that Jews would have control over the Western Wall ("Wailing Wall" according to some) and retain sovereignty on paper of the Temple Mount. One thing he offered was to allow 250,000 Arabs into Israel-proper under a "family reunification program" (those living in Tel-Aviv were howling mightily when they heard that one because the Arabs would be pounding on Jew's doors in Tel-Aviv claiming that the land under their feet was stolen from them). Well, Arafat
upped the ante and demanded the following: the Western Wall under PA control with Jewish access [apparently in accordance with the 1931 Mandate Era Wailing Wall Order] subject to the prohibition on the placement of benches or partitions at the
Western Wall. This also forbids Jews from "interfering" with herds of animals should their shepherd should choose to drive them through the Western Wall area. b) No Jewish control of any area within eastern Jerusalem, including the Old City. c) No
recognition of any Jewish connection to any holy site. d) Jewish immigration to Israel tied to Palestinian "right of return." e) Arafat now demands monetary compensation. He demands an initial down payment of 550 BILLION dollars, and has said
repeatedly that his final monetary demand for compensation to the Palestinian people would end up in the TRILLIONS of dollars and the final figure will then will take into account the infinite suffering and psychological damage that had supposedly been foisted on a Arab population for decades. What rot! Arafat has plainly not wanted a settlement as he kept demanding more and more.The only thing remaining is that the Hizbollah, the Islamic fundamentalist army has been massing in southern Lebanon and they control that area to the degree that the Lebanese army has to ask permission from the Hizbollah to enter their turf. The
Hisbollah as been heavily armed with weapons from Iran & Iraq by way of Syria. They hold artillery as well as the newest Ketusha rockets that have a much longer range and can hit targets in Haifa. Barak feels that whatever the Arabs do, no matter what, just
inches over the border into Lebanon is just fine.Well, that about covers it. Elections for PM were today and Barak is out, Sharon has wone by a crushing 63-37% margin. Thank God! Ariel Sharon will replace him and it remains to be seen how he'll handle things with the Arabs. We all hope he'll take a much tougher stand rather than reward the Arabs with "good will gestures" for attacking us and capitulate to the enemy. Time will tell. I'll keep you posted.
Until then, please check out the following compelling websites:
My very best to all,
Dale