Email from Eilene in Haifa

email from a classmate of my husband and sister in law | 07/18/2006 | Eileen

[Mercat]

This was sent out Friday, July 14.

Dear All,

This is going to everyone I can think of so that I only have to write it out once. I am a writer, but…….

Went to aerobics last night, and that cleared my head very nicely from the frazzles of the day, with my ballet CD safely in my backpack. Was on first base. Just keep going, says I.

Settled in front of the TV with a nice dinner with Merlin curled up on my foot stool, watching my favorite program, BBC’s “Escape to the Country” where one family is selected to work with a realtor and you get to watch them go through several country homes in Britain and see how conversions have been done to 17th century homes as well as newer ones, see the beautiful English countryside, learn a little geography, etc. Very relaxing. Booooooooooooom!!!!!!! Merlin awakes like a bird dog. The emergency vehicle sirens start (not the civil defense sirens). Well, if you want to know what’s happening in your neighborhood in Israel, what do you do? You turn on CNN, of course. You all saw the same coverage I did, probably, since CNN probably didn’t stop to prepare a European version of the coverage. The local channels were quicker with the video footage, of course, but my ten words of Hebrew didn’t get me anyway.

The bomb hit one mile away as the crow flies, so that will tell your how horribly loud they are. It hit on the mountainside next to Stella Maris Road, which is not populated for a stretch because the mountain is so steep. The video footage you saw of a road, a railing, and the Med Sea was the Haifa footage. We figure the rocket was aimed at a key military installation about one-fourth to one-third of a mile away, which borders land that we own but on which nothing has been built. I don’t know why the anti-missile defense system didn’t get that rocket. That military installation is there to protect the port, Israel’s major industrial port. At any time there are ten to twenty ships waiting to unload. I don’t know where the second missile hit. I heard it hit, but it was further away.

The first missile was about half a mile from our major properties and buildings, but as far as I know (and how much do I really know?), we are not a target, at least not a primary military target. We could be a spite target because Bahá’ís are considered heretics by Moslems, and there is no worse epithet in the Arab world than to call some a Bahá’í.

As for safety, my guardian angel has twice recently saved me from being road kill, and then twice arranged for my car to break down steps from work or home. There is a bomb shelter in my apartment building, and there are bomb shelters here at work. If one is on the street when the sirens go off, one heads for the nearest apartment building and is let in without question. During the night, one cannot sleep through the siren. It sounds like it’s right under my window! And my neighbors would immediately pound on my door and let me know through unequivocal body language that I am to get my non-Hebrew-speaking ass down to the bomb shelter.

Yes, it’s tense. It’s scary. But we have known for years that this was coming. Of course, it’s one thing to discuss war from a philosophical, theoretical, theological point of view, and quite another from an immediate experience.

We will probably continue going to work as usual. Nervous families may ask for their young ones to leave, which will leave more short-staffed than ever. But our governing body here, the Universal House of Justice, is kept fully informed by Israeli authorities about what is going on, what to expect, and what measures should be taken. The House is extremely protective of the staff, and no risks will be taken. Undoubtedly by next week we will be grounded again.

What most westerners do not understand is that this is, in major part, a religious war. What most westerners do not understand is that Islam, like Christianity, and the other major religions, is waiting for a “second coming”. The Buddhists are expecting the return of Buddha, the Meitraya. The Jews are waiting for the return of the Messiah. Fundamentalist Christians are waiting for the return of Jesus. Shiite Moslems are waiting for the return of the twenth imam. (Twelve imams led Islam after Mohammed’s death, much like Peter and the early church fathers/popes led Christianity. The twelth, and last, of the imams disappeared mysteriously, I don’t know the whole story. The Shiites believe that he will return, he is called the Quaim.) The leader of Iran, Ahmandejad, is a very fundamentalist Moslem, and he believes that the Quaim will return within two or three years, and the time before that second coming will be marked by chaos and war. Until you understand this factor, you will not understand what is really happening in the Middle East.

There have been 10,000+ missiles in southern Lebanon aimed at Israel for many years. The IDF has over the years choreographed many military scripts to respond when the time came. There are no isolated incidents here, and no “escalations” the way CNN is reporting it. Hamas and Hezbollah are working hand in hand, and Syria and Iran are financing and supplying and feeding and supporting Hamas and Hezbollah. This is not a war against terrorism, although that is a factor. It is a war for Israel’s survival.

Now throw in the nuclear card. When Iran gets nuclear weapons (probably within one to two years, from what I understand), it plans, of course, to arm Hezbollah rockets with nuclear bombs. That’s not a far stretch of the imagination. So Israel is in the position of having to deal with Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah BEFORE the nuclear factor becomes a reality. Yes, it’s sad that people are dying. It would be a lot sadder if nuclear bombs went off in the Middle East.

As for the Bahá’í perspective on all this, I’ll not go into it here. If you would like to know, go to Google and input Bahá’í. The first Web site shown is The Bahá’í Faith, and that is our authoritative source. If you then want to ask specific questions, I’ll be glad to answer them. Suffice it to say that this is God’s world, and God’s plan is unfolding, but not the way the Islamic world thinks it will. Israel will not only survive but it will prosper mightily. In the fullness of time, Islam will be a “footnote in history”, according to Islam’s own Hadith, the collection of Islamic writings that are generally believed to be accurate and inspired, not spoken by Mohammed but perhaps the equivalent of the letters of the apostles in the New Testament.

So, here I am, listening to my ballet CD, and it was almost worth what I went through to get it. It is piano music played specifically for ballet classes, and I’ve never had class music to work with before. I’ve had to laboriously collect various CDs of classical ballet music played by symphony orchestras, and plow through Enya and Yanni for appropriate class music. This will make teaching much easier, and the music we use much more suitable.

Love to all,

Eileen

The following was sent out July 16.

Dear Everybody,

The animal welfare folks are setting up programs to feed abandoned pets. And I must leave plenty of water for Merlin since I could easily end up spending a night here.

I don’t have any inside information, but my perspective from having followed the situation for years is as follows.

CNN’s coverage is fairly accurate. However, it seems to be giving “disproportionate” coverage to the position of some countries that Israel’s response is “disproportionate”. They’re missing the point completely. Hezbollah is an agent of Iran. When Iran gets nuclear weapons, so will Hezbollah. Israel knows that it must eliminate Hezbollah and the nuclear threat from Hezbollah within a certain timeframe. For years Israel played tit for tat while Hamas and Hezbollah got stronger and stronger, and no matter what Israel did or did not do, it always got blamed. Times have changed.

Cease fire? Not until Israel has completed the job it has set out to do. A cease fire means negotiations, and Hezbollah and Hamas refuse to recognize Israel or negotiate in any meaningful way. Their goal is to destroy Israel. No, I don’t see Israel stopping its military operation until its goals are achieved, i.e., wiping out the Hezbollah threat, which has been getting stronger and stronger, and better armed, by the year and month.

I don’t think the USA is being as passive as CNN reports. Almost certainly Israel alerted Bush before it started its military operations. Israel doesn’t need military assistance. Israel needs the verbal support it is receiving from the USA and the UK, and the limited verbal support it is getting from the European Union, which recognized Hezbollah as a terrorist organization some time back. Since fighting terrorism is what good guys now do, western countries are not apt to attack Israel for much for doing so.

Having said that, the west is still far more anti-Semitic than it likes to admit, especially France, and no matter what Israel does or does not do, it will be blamed.

Don’t expect to hear from any journalists embedded in Israeli military units. That’s not how things are done here. This is not a political fight, or a PR maneuver.

Only a minimum of information is being is being given to Israelis by the government. No televised talks by the prime minister or generals since the first day. Bombs and damage are acknowledged, and all sorts of civil defense measures are being announced. But nothing about military intent or accomplishments beyond the obvious. “Loose lips sink ships,” and all of that. Israelis know the score, and they don’t have to be sold the way Bush had to sell the war in Iraq. Whatever happens, the citizenry will back the effort 100%, and there won’t be any inquiry commissions of name blaming until long after it’s all done.

Notice how quiet Jordan and Egypt have been? They signed treaties with Israel and recognized Israel back in the 1970s. Those countries have their own problems with militant Islamists and terrorists. You won’t hear a peep out of Jordan and Egypt.

I doubt very, very much that Israel will attack Syria. That would bring the Syrian military down the Golan Heights, and Syria has an air force, which Hezbollah does not. I doubt very much that Iran and Syria will jump in, although I could be wrong on that.

We are all wondering why the anti-missile systems are not countering the real rockets that hit Haifa. Katyushas are primitive rockets and anti-missile systems can’t handle them. Katyushas are also notoriously weak and do little damage. That first Katyusha that hit Haifa, that got so much coverage on CNN, only left a small hole in the road. They’re mostly nuisances. But the rockets are a different story.

And contrary to popular myth, the IDF and Mossad are not invincible. They are good––they are very, very good––but mistakes will be made.

Worst case, if hordes of soldiers came across the national boundary, most households in Israel is armed with military rifles. Israelis join the military right out of high school and stay in the reserves for many, many years, and retain their uniforms and equipment.

We’ve been released to go home. We’ll take it one day at a time. My computer at home doesn’t work, so I can’t check or send emails if we’re told not to come to work.

Love,

Eileen

[Mercat]

I found this to be very compelling.

I also spent last week in trial with Jewish refuges from Russia. A lot of the testimony turned on how Jews are treated in Russia. The judge, a very nice man and one would assume well educated, said he had no idea that Jews were still hated in the world. I felt like asking him what reality he was living in.

[Texas Eagle]

Amazing. Simply amazing.

God bless and protect our friends in Israel.

[jdm]

Excellent read -- thanks very much for sharing!

[Hildy]

There have been 10,000+ missiles in southern Lebanon aimed at Israel for many years.

Why didn't Israel take these missiles out a long time ago?

[sionnsar]

(Twelve imams led Islam after Mohammed’s death, much like Peter and the early church fathers/popes led Christianity. The twelth, and last, of the imams disappeared mysteriously, I don’t know the whole story. The Shiites believe that he will return, he is called the Quaim.)

The story I have heard is that he fell into a well and was never seen again. I could be wrong...

[Texas Eagle]

Why didn't Israel take these missiles out a long time ago?

I guess they were waiting for provocation. They know that no matter what they do, they are going to blamed for starting trouble even when the trouble has clearly been started by their enemies.

We live in a weird world.

[radiohead]

I represented a Jewish woman in a divorce case. We were in court when opposing counsel complained about the money my client wanted for support. Speaking to the magistrate, she said something along the lines of, "You know how Jewish women are. You know how they like their money."

I was almost speechless. Both opposing counsel and I are black, and I find blacks often think they can make anti-Semitic statements to each other without impunity. What surprised me was that she was saying this trash in court. But unbeknownst to her, I am also a convert to Judaism. I didn't care if I was in court or not, I immediately told her what I thought about her statement and asked for an apology.

Back in law school, a classmate asked me if I was converting in order to make more money.

There's plenty of anti-Semiticism around. Most of the time, you don't even have to look for it; it's staring you in the face.

[synbad600]

It is very compelling.

". . . he believes that the Quaim will return . . . and the time . . .will be marked by chaos and war. Until you understand this factor . . . ."

I will never understand this factor, and frankly, I don't want to. IMO, they are just evil men who live for death, destruction, and power, and "blame" it on their beliefs. Plain and simple.

[Salem]

"Hezbollah is an agent of Iran. When Iran gets nuclear weapons, so will Hezbollah. Israel knows that it must eliminate Hezbollah and the nuclear threat from Hezbollah within a certain timeframe."

Yet the bleeding hearts are giving Israel grief for their "disproportionate" actions in the current campaign. Yet, If Israel suffers even one nuclear strike and many are killed, where will these dumb self-righteous moralizers be as the dead are being buried?

Right. No where to be found.

---

Zec 12:6 In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.





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" ... It's time we recognized the nature of the conflict. It's total war and we are all involved. Nobody on our side is exempted because of age, gender, or handicap. The Islamofacists have stolen childhood from the world."—FReeper Retief
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Right. No where to be found.

[thoughtomator]

Bill Clinton.

[af_vet_1981]

It is fairly well written. I don't share her opinion about Syria completely.

[Salem]

Lookee here. More coming out on Israel's "evil" intentions, a la Pat Buchanan.

*** Rolls Eyes ***

[kenavi]

"In the fullness of time, Islam will be a “footnote in history”, according to Islam’s own Hadith, the collection of Islamic writings that are generally believed to be accurate and inspired, not spoken by Mohammed but perhaps the equivalent of the letters of the apostles in the New Testament."

Fascinating. An admirable post for a difficult time. Thank you.

[Hildy]

Huh?

[Sabramerican]

Israeli evil marches to classical ballet music.

[thoughtomator]

1993 Bill Clinton brokers the Oslo agreement.

[Salem]

Ppphhht!! I guess!

[brazzaville]

Good evening.
"It is a war for Israel’s survival."

Ours, too.

Michael Frazier

[sasha123]

May God keep her safe as well as her family and fellow Israeli's.

[OPS4]

AMEN!