Ballistics experts

We've all suddenly become military experts. The Israeli Air Force supposedly attacked a Hezbollah command centre in Tyre a couple of days ago which controls the despatch of rockets towards Haifa and indeed it has been quieter with rocket attacks in Haifa since then. The rocket attacks continue on the Israeli towns and communities closer to the Lebanese border - Naharia, Kiryat Shmona and others. For years Israelis such as Irit and I heard about Katyusha attacks on Israeli towns near the border and in the last 6 months we have been hearing about daily Kassam attacks from Gaza on the southern town of Sderot. But the truth is that either we are egoistic or lack imagination to understand what it feels like to be under daily rocket attack. Now we understand real good and it's not going to make us any more pacifist. I am a great believer in understanding the pain and problems on the other side by talking to ordinary people and that's why I've been involved in the last 4 years in the very unconventional activity (for Jewish Israelis) of meeting Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and it has opened my eyes. Now my eyes are being opened by the real threats from and aspirations of the Hezbollah in Lebanon.

There weren't any sirens in Haifa this morning (thank you Nasrallah for giving us quiet Saturday morning) and at lunchtime Irit and I drove to Tel Aviv a few days vacation. We heard that there were 3 false alarms in Haifa this afternoon.

Yesterday Hezbollah fired (for the first time) a more powerful rocket against the Israeli town of Afula - not far from the biblical site of Megiddo (Armageddon). Fortunately there were no injuries but Hezbollah leaders threaten to fire rockets at the big cities in central Israel.

At least people like Irit and I will know what to do if we hear an air raid siren while we're in Tel Aviv but I don't wish the experience on those who have been saved it so far. As it is, we are all ears for the possible sound of a siren. At the time of the first Guld War in 1991 it took us months after the war ended not to tense up when we thought we heard a siren. And in that war there was only about one air raid siren alarm per day.