I was delighted to find your message in my in-box today and to know that we're in your thoughts and prayers. It has indeed been an extremely unpleasant eight days, even in Jerusalem, where life has continued as usual (with the exception of two rocket attacks that had everyone cursing and improvising protected spaces - my husband and I dove into our laundry room,
which has no windows).
As you may remember, both of our daughters are medics in a search and rescue unit in the Home Front Command. Since they have been training for over two years to rescue people from collapsed buildings, naturally their units were moved into the areas targeted by rockets and put on alert. Happily, they had very little to do. Stav's team was rushed to an apartment building in Ashdod that took a direct hit, which as it turned out was in the parking lot adjacent to the building. She had to race up nine floors, knock on the door of each apartment and make sure everyone was OK. Luckily, no one was hurt,
but a few people were hysterical. "What did you do?" I asked her. "We sit with them, give them a drink of water, calm them down and make sure someone stays with them."
Shaked had no action at all. For the past few days her unit was stationed in an elementary school in Ofakim. At night they slept on the kids' desks. During the day they tried to nap but kept being wakened by the school bell, which no one could figure out how to turn off. She came home Tuesday night to get some clean underwear but not in the least big hungry. The good citizens of Ofakim had been bringing over generous quantities of food to the school for the soldiers (she took a picture of the tables where it was all piled up - it truly was enough for an army!)
The reason why our girls and their units had so little to do was the phenomenal success of the Iron Dome missile interception system, employed for the first time during this operation (we like to call it 'steel yarmulke'). With an 85% success rate, very few rockets fired by Hamas were able to reach their targets in Israeli residential areas. It has, in this short time, become a game changer. Although the lives of the residents of Israel's south were severely disrupted, the fact that the casualties and
damage were so limited meant that the army didn't have to rush the ground forces in Gaza to stop the firing and that Hamas' power was fabulously emasculated. This also means that the Israeli home front will no longer be vulnerable in the same measure to rockets fired by Hizbollah, Iran or any other hostile entity.
What's important for you to know is that the development of Iron Dome was accomplished, in part, thanks to a generous allocation of funds from President Barack Obama in the name of the American people. As I see it, through this assistance each and every one of you has contributed to the strength of Israel and the Jewish people.
What else can you do? Get President Obama to remain intensively engaged in the region. The moderate Palestinians are backstage somewhere and they need to be brought forward, encouraged and strengthened. In all probability, Prime Minister Netanyahu will be reelected this January. The Americans must wield not only carrots, but sticks too, in order to jump start the peace process. Some stones have been left unturned and Netanyahu's government has intentionally stalled any possible progress for four years. Hopefully, he will now realize how important it is to present the Palestinians with an alternative to Hamas but he will need serious prodding. Tell Obama not to let up on him.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. May we go from strength to strength!
Julie
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