It was a surreal evening. We were sitting in a very nice restaurant with friends visiting from the U.S., however, it was hard to pay full attention to the dinner conversation. On the wall across from us was a large screen television. Although the volume was off, it was easy to read the titles and much of the closed captioning on the screen. As we moved from course to course, more and more cities in Israel came under attack – from Ashdod to Be'ersheva, and dozens of places in between. Over the course of our delicious dinner, a total of 70 rockets were fired at Israel. As terrible as that sounds, the only casualties that resulted were three people who tripped while running to a shelter. Why were there no casualties? Because Israel’s Iron Dome system, (the anti-missile system that so many said could never work) successfully shot down every one of the missiles that were on a trajectory to cause physical damage or harm human life. It has become almost routine, and therefore, not properly appreciated, but tonight the Iron Dome successfully intercepted 60 missiles in one hour and successfully defended everyone that was in danger.
It does not stop. The missiles continue to rain down on Israel and the world urges restraint. The government has handled the matter with self-control, and the fact that no one has been hurt allows the government to continue to show the restraint, but this can't go on forever ever. Hamas, despite earlier assessments that it did not want a major confrontation, now seems intent on escalating the conflict. Their reasoning? Hamas' current situation is so bad they feel that if they are able to get Israel to attack they will regain the sympathy of the Arab world. I think they are wrong. Things have changed. Too many Arabs have been killed by other Arabs in the last two years, and I am not sure if anyone is going to care. I hope they pull back from the brink, since at some point we may have to do what we do not want to do. But I am not optimistic.
