Category Archives: Israel

Barry Silverberg, an Israeli English teacher, brings a new look at living under the incoming and outgoing. He clearly likes the latter better.

"The explosion tears through the walls of the house and tears through your body with a deafening crack, rattling the windows and shoving the doors. You jump, but you’re not worried. It’s one of ours. Then there’s another one: A bursting report followed by an echoing sound, as if superman were flying off to save Metropolis. KAPOW! Wungawungawunga wunga wunga…. .The howitzer batteries deployed not far from our town are firing their 70 kilo shells. They fly way over our heads and into Lebanese territory, where they are providing cover for Israeli military action, or destroying the rocket launchers that have turned our summer into chaos. God guide their flight and give us something in return for this constant noise."

UPDATE  Strained eloquence from an IDF ground unit leader who fears the worst. "We have lost the war and the army has the ability to beat Hizballah, Syria and the Palestinians all at the same time, but the cowards will not let us."

The IDF sits, waiting for orders to advance that may never come, and, meanwhile, is a sitting target.

"Over the past 30 days of fighting Hizbullah, the army has lost 83 soldiers, 35 of them this week. ‘That is what happens when you sit still and don’t move,’ the officer said. ‘The enemy fortifies its positions and gains the upper hand.’"

Israeli blogger Shiloh Musings says the troops’ loved ones are bitter: "Terrible stories are coming off the front-lines from wounded soldiers. This isn’t the legendary IDF, which once could do no wrong."

And the N man and the hez see their victory. "In the latest video aired on Al-Manar TV the terror group says it ‘defeated the invincible army’ and ‘July-August 2006: Legend shattered.’"

UPDATE Then PM Olmert ordered his sitting army to move north to the Litani River. "Orders to widen the ground offensive doesn’t mean it is impossible to stop if there is a decisive diplomatic move, which is accepted by Israel," an Israeli source said.

German journalists show how Hez orchestrated the display of a dead child for the cameras, with the able assistance of the man the blogosphere is calling "Green Helmet" for his distinctive chapeau and multiple appearances in "news" photographs.

Via NRO’s Media Blog. And comment here.

Allison, at the Unsealed Room, an Israeli blogger, has a poignant post that’s worth a read:

"I just got back from my daughter’s karate class. I brought my toddler along this time, and hung out in the lobby waiting for the class to finish. Next to me was a guy dressed in a T-shirt and chinos who looked like he was in his early 30’s — he had a son in the same class, who must have been six or seven. He had a toddler girl in tow, too. He also had an M-16."

Imagine the carrying on if you saw something like this almost anywhere in USA. In Israel it’s normal.