Why We Feel Relatively Safe [Letters from Israel]

A lot happening in the last few days. Because events take place here at a blazing pace, what happened two days ago almost becomes irrelevant. Last night’s attack by the U.S. is still too fresh for me to try to guess what happens next. Therefore, I’m leaving it aside for the moment.

I was watching Sky News a few nights ago to see how the war was being reported there. It is a British news station for those of you not familiar with it. They were having a panel discussion. One of the people on the panel was a British member of parliament. She said that it is clear that Iran lied about its nuclear program (as reported by the IAEA, the international nuclear watchdog agency) and that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. In the same breath she then said she doesn’t understand why Israel acted now and that it is probably a political stunt by Netanyahu. My jaw dropped.

Let’s go over the facts for a second. Iran has enriched over 400 kgs of uranium to the 60% level. That is a level of enrichment way beyond the needs for civilian nuclear energy use. You only enrich to this level if you are using the uranium to make a bomb. The final enrichment and weaponization to make a bomb can be done quickly in a relatively simple facility. It’s a matter of weeks. Israeli intelligence found that Iran had the know how for the final stages and that the green light was given to make a bomb. American intelligence seems to have disagreed and believed that it would take them another year to make a bomb. But the point is that all the western powers know that Iran is building a bomb and it is only a matter of time until it puts it together. Maybe in a few weeks. Maybe in a year. It’s also clear what they will use the bomb for. Iran’s stated goal is to wipe Israel off the map. They don’t hide their intentions. Diplomacy had failed. Iran stonewalled and maintained that they would never give up their nuclear program. Their strategy was to drag the negotiations on without end in order to avoid military action, while they were racing ahead to build a bomb.

So why in the world would Israel wait until they actually had a bomb? What were we waiting for? Israel has been planning to destroy Iran’s nuclear program for the last 20 years. But the right set of circumstances never came together. So why now?

As part of Iran’s strategy to destroy Israel, they trained and supplied militias on Israel’s borders and even beyond: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, the Assad regime in Syria, and terrorist cells in the West Bank. These militias served two purposes. The first – to deter Israel from ever attacking Iran. Hezbollah had tens of thousands of powerful, accurate missiles that could level our cities. Honestly, that deterrent worked. We were very concerned about doing anything that would unleash those missiles upon us. Over the past few decades, we developed the most sophisticated missile defense system in the world to thwart that threat. But we really didn’t want to test it in practice. We didn’t know what damage Hezbollah could do to us.

But the ring of proxies that we were surrounded with also had a second purpose. Not only to deter Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. The second purpose was to carry out a coordinated invasion of Israel on several fronts – Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, the West Bank, Iran, and even an uprising by Israeli Arab citizens. A plan to attack Israel on seven fronts simultaneously in a coordinated manner. This was Iran’s plan to destroy Israel. In October 2023 it was about to be executed.

On October 7, 2023, for some reason Hamas went ahead with the plan and decided to attack by itself without the others. If, on October 7, the others would have joined in, we would have been in a lot of trouble. Why Hamas attacked prematurely without the others is not known to the public. But Hamas succeeded in surprising us. Six thousand terrorists invaded and captured a swath of our territory. Executing or kidnapping every civilian and soldier they encountered. Their terrorists were on their way to Tel Aviv before they were stopped and repulsed.

What happened next is that we defeated Hamas, then turned our sights to Hezbollah and defeated them. Iran did nothing to protect its proxies. Noticing Iran’s weakness and impotence, rebels in Syria seized the opportunity and overthrew the regime there which Iran had propped up. Now the Iranian proxies that were the deterrent to Israel were gone.

In response to our assassinations of the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran attacked us directly. This was in October 2024. Israel retaliated by destroying Iran's air defense system and their ballistic missile production. In the following months, after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, Israel also destroyed the air defense system in Syria. Israel now had an unchallenged air corridor from Israel to Iran. The Israeli air force had achieved complete control of the skies over Iran.

In the last few months, for the first time in decades, Israel had the opportunity to destroy the Iranian nuclear program. A string of events had to have taken place to get to this point in history. We needed to eliminate Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria as a threat. We needed to get to a point where we could draw enough military resources away from Gaza and Lebanon in order to concentrate our air force on Iran. We had to eliminate Iran’s air defenses. A window of opportunity opened, but we didn’t know how long it would stay open.

I have said several times in my emails that I am not a Bibi supporter. I hate him and find him a corrupt wannabe dictator. His political trickery in order to stay in power is known to everyone and is despicable. I find him a threat to Israeli democracy. This isn’t about that. The Iranians were-are very close to weaponizing their uranium. They clearly were going to nuke us as soon as they could. A window of opportunity opened where our planes could control the skies over Iran. It’s a no brainer. Bibi or no Bibi, this was the moment we had to defend ourselves from annihilation. We don’t know if there would have been another opportunity.

So, if British members of parliament acknowledge that Iran was well on its way to become a nuclear power with the intent of destroying another nation, but thought Israel’s action to defend itself was all about petty politics in Israel, then I am nothing less than appalled. By the way, Iran was also developing long range ballistic missiles in order to eventually threaten Europe. But the petty politics of Europe and the concern about oil prices are preventing Europe from taking a stand against the threat of nuclear Islamic fundamentalism. It very much reminds me of the early 1930’s when the European powers allowed Germany to arm itself and become an existentialist threat to Europe. Britain, France, and the U.S., were scared of precipitating a conflict with Germany and thought that if they would just appease Hitler and not confront him, there would be peace. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. They believed their own wishful thinking. If they would have had a military confrontation in 1935 when Germany was still weak, the destruction that resulted in 1939 from WW2 could have been avoided. Sometimes burying your head in the sand doesn’t solve the problem nor does it bring peace.

The hypocrisy of the UN, Europe, the western media, and the far left is incredulous. Iran is targeting our cities. Trying to kill civilians. They targeted a hospital two days ago. The hospital that serves the area where we live, by the way. Where I was taken to when I had my heart attack. The Israeli army did not have a military command bunker under that hospital nor did it fire missiles from its parking lot, as do the hospitals in Gaza. Where is the outcry? Crickets. Nothing. No condemnation from the world when Iran targets civilians and hospitals. There is a double standard in the UN and the world that should not be accepted.

One last thing to pay attention to. Iran no longer has the ability to enrich uranium. But there is still 400 kgs of uranium already enriched that can be used to make 10 nuclear weapons relatively quickly. We don’t know where that uranium is and it still poses a very great threat. Iran remains a threat as long as they don’t turn over that enriched uranium. Hopefully Iran will give it up as part of a negotiation.

Many of you have asked if you can share my meanderings with your family and friends. Please do. I’m writing this for people to get information they may not usually get.

I’m going to write another update because, from the feedback I’m getting, lots of you are finding my letters helpful to understand what is going on here and how we are dealing with the situation. I promise not to stuff your mailboxes with mails all the time. I also will try to keep my mail relatively short and concise.

First of all, a little about the technology we have about alerts about impending missile attacks. It is incredible and keeps us safe and, more importantly, calm. In general, we get three alerts. The ballistic missiles that Iran launches have to be fueled right before the launch. They don’t come to the “launcher” pre-fueled. So, I don’t know how we do it, but in the majority of cases, we know when they are preparing a launch before the actual launch. Then an alert comes over our smartphones, on television and on radio. It takes 15 -30 minutes from the time they prepare the missiles until they are actually launched. We therefore have plenty of time to prepare ourselves. Eva and I have a bag prepared that we take to the shelter with us. It has our kindles (critical for Eva), a bottle of water, candies, phone charger, etc. Eva very often brings a pillow with her. Especially since the attacks often come in the wee hours of the morning, we have time to get up, get dressed, go to the bathroom, and wait for the next alert.

When the missiles are actually launched, it takes about 10 minutes for them to get to Israel. The launches are detected by us in just about every case. We then get another alert on our phones that missiles have been launched and we have 10 minutes to get to a safe place. In our case, the shelter is right opposite our house. It takes us less than a minute to get there, so when we get the “10-minute alert” we usually start going over and go down to the shelter to find a good place to sit. I understand that Waze now tells people where the nearest shelter is when there is an alert.

After the missiles are actually launched and are in the air, we have the technology to track their trajectory and know where they are going to land. Since they are, in general, intercepted along the way, the debris can fall over a wide area along their flight path. Only the areas in Israel that are targeted and which are in danger of being hit by falling debris get a third alert, according to the GPS location of your phone. When we get the third alert, we have a minute and a half to be in the shelter. Only areas that are on the trajectory path get this warning and it is very geo-specific. Sometimes Eilat, which is only 50 kms from us, will get an alert and we won’t, and vice versa. In cities, sometimes a specific neighborhood will get an alert while another neighborhood in the same city will not.

Buildings built after 1992 are required to have a safe room (a bomb shelter) in every apartment. About 40% of the buildings in Israel have these safe rooms. Many apartment buildings built before 1992 have a common bomb shelter in the basement of the building. In addition to that, there are neighborhood bomb shelters. Cities have them as do we on the kibbutz. With the “30-minute warning”, the vast majority of Israelis can make it to a bomb shelter of one sort or another. There are exceptions to this. There are people who don’t have a neighborhood bomb shelter within a short distance from their home.

How safe are these “safe spaces”? Let’s start by saying our air defenses take down 90-95% of the incoming missiles. Iran has been firing barrages of 30-50 missiles at a time several times a day. In a barrage like that the statistics say 3 to 5 of them will not be intercepted and that is what has been happening. The missiles are about 30 feet long and carry at least half a ton of explosives. When they hit, the damage is extensive. It can destroy an apartment building and do significant damage to buildings blocks away in every direction. Up until now about 20 people have been killed. In just about every case these are people who didn’t make it to their safe rooms or to a shelter in time. In general, it is elderly people who can’t move fast enough to make it to the shelter in time and sometimes it is people who just believe the odds are so low of getting hit that they don’t feel like running to the shelter. There has been only one incident of people who were killed in their safe room. In that case the safe room took a direct hit from the missile. Even a safe room can’t survive a direct hit from a ballistic missile. But the odds of that happening are extremely low, but it happened. There is also the issue of property damage. Thousands of people have had their homes damaged to the extent that they are no longer inhabitable. They are being put up in hotels in the meantime.

As I said, most Israelis do have enough time to get to a safe room or shelter, and unless there is a direct hit, there really is very little to worry about. It obviously is stressful hearing the booms of tens of missiles exploding in the air above you and not knowing if your building is going to be hit. This is especially true in the Tel Aviv and Haifa area, which are usually the targets.

Another major effect of the war is that the country is paralyzed. Schools are closed. (The government is talking about doing school by zoom until the end of the school year). Pre-school is closed. Most stores are closed. People can’t go to work. Everyone has been instructed not to go to work and to stay near their shelters. This is as stressful as the missiles are. Not having any income. It is also difficult for children and their parents to stay home all day.

I am not going to go into how the war is going. That’s a whole letter in and of itself. I will just mention what our conditions are for ending the war. The purpose of the war is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and to take away the threat of their ballistic missiles. It is being reported that we have already set back their nuclear program for about a year. One of their reactors (Fordow) is 40 meters deep within a mountain. Only America has the bombs and planes that can take it out from the air. We’ve destroyed the factories that make the ballistic missiles and we’ve destroyed about 30% of Iran’s missile launchers. Despite that they still have the capabilities to fire tens of missiles at us at a time.

There is a diplomatic settlement where Iran agrees to end their nuclear and ballistic program and a strict, reliable verification program is put in place.

With all this we haven’t forgotten our 53 hostages in Gaza. I just want to make it clear to everyone. The vast majority of Israelis are in favor of a ceasefire in exchange for all the hostages. We want the war to end. But all Israelis - right, left, and center – want all our hostages released and Hamas disarmed and removed from power. We do not support the government’s approach as to how this should be done, but we all agree on the final goal. I also want to make clear that despite the suffering of innocent civilians caught in the war, Israel is not carrying out a genocide nor a policy of starving the Gazans. It is very sad and frustrating that the western media continues to portray us in this light. Israel does not target innocent civilians. Period.

These are a pair of emails I got via my father last night. He's a retired professor, and has a Jewish colleague who has a relative in Israel that occasionally pens thoughtful (not that I agree with all of it!) letters on events there. I thought these were worth sharing for anyone interested.

My parents felt safe when they visited Israel but that was 40yrs ago. The most dangerous part of their vacation was getting to and from JFK

Thanks for posting this. There is a lot of information packed in the letters, and much of it I for one was clueless about.

Wile I do not agree with some of his points, (I am a huge BB fan) but the guy is honest, and regardless of his view in how BB is doing his job, he does support the war and wants an end to the constant threat of antihalation.

3 posted on 07/02/2025 3:36:25 PM PDT by OneVike (I don't remember the name of the mpve, )

Israel must do what’s needed to secure their borders and protect their people. Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli planes if they attacked Iran. That’s essentially declaring war against Israel if they defend themselves from annihilation threats.

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