Sunday, July 23, 2006
More Haifans Head South,
including myself. Some friends of mine drove back up from Tel Aviv to Haifa to check on their apartment and pack more things and offered to take me back to Tel Aviv with them. After a lot of internal and external debate, I accepted the offer. It was a very difficult decision to make but I received a lot of encouragement from my boyfriend and my roommate. There were many reasons why, despite the daily and constant rocket attacks, it was difficult for me to leave. I packed with a heavy heart. My boyfriend remains in the north and I'm not sure when we will see each other again. I don't know when I will be back at home. Paranoid thoughts also run across my mind, like worrying about my roommate and wondering if my apartment will still be standing when I come back. I just got into Tel Aviv and it's quite late.
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17 comments:
i wish i had some words that would give you what you need and deserve.i took my two youngest to the zoo today. it was hot, but worth it. maya is three and very curious.very set in her ways. avi is my baby(2 in september)he sticks close to mama although when at home he is such a little man.the animals were very lazy today.(dont blame them) carmia, be safe, write often. i have this silly need to know you and your friends are ok.
Just a question about the sirens - how do they know when to turn the sirens on? Is there some sort of raidar several miles out of Haifa or something?
Isn't there some way of intercepting the missiles before they hit?
Good luck Carmia & stay safe. Don't feel guilty, You are not the only one leaving, was told today that some of my relatives are leaving for a while too!
Stay in touch!
Take care
Just out of curiosity...what happened to all the patriot missiles Israel bought during the Gulf war?
Most of what is coming in are unguided rockets, not guided missiles, which the Patriot was designed to defend against. These rockets have small warheads (although not in the eyes of the recipient) and are dirt cheap to produce. Using Patriots against them, even if occassionally possible, would be like trying to kill a wasp with a surface to air missile.
Israeli defense minds will have to go back to the drawing board to come up with a way to negate these weapons. In the meantime, ground troops are going to have to interdict the launchers and push Hezbollah far enough back from the border to no longer be a threat.
and where was the Mossad and the intelligence community when all these missiles were being bought and transported?
Interesting how concerned we are for the people we consider "human" and so easy to genocide the people we consider "not human". This distinction is tribal, from the days when mankind was a roving tribal genocide engine. I believe myself that a new stage of evolution is here, in which we will discard this thinking. Perhaps these last horrible tribal battles will help to heal mankind. I wonder if I will live to see it. It is like giving birth; I strain to see mankind born into his new era with extended compassion, empathy, to all human, all life. We can feel it, imagine it, our greatest ones achieve it, but when for all of us? In this matter, the Israelis are no longer leading, as they once led mankind, now they are clinging to the tribal past, the comfortable warm place, where you love your own until it aches, and hate the other until you feel you are soaring on wings of righteousness. Yet, there is a better way, something more desirable for God to see, something we are being led to - to have universal brotherhood where every heart in the kingdom of life beats together. I believe it is the next stage of our evolution, though I don't know if I will live to see it. Like all births, the new birth of a better unified life comes with much difficult effort and some setbacks.
You made the right choice. Stay well.
The sirens are sounded when rockets are spotted by radar installations operated by the Air Force. At least that is my understanding of things.
Hi John,
The answer is yes, and no: Automatic radars turn on the Sirens, but they're not in Haifa, they are scattered around the borders and regional centers can also activate them.
There are means of intercepting missiles but not these rockets. I heard someone say it's better not to shoot them, because then they spread thinner in a wider range, best to let them hit in the few meters they do damage at.
Makes sense? NO! But that's how it is at wartime. And it sucks.
I don't think the problem with using Patriots is high altitude dispersal, unless the katyushot rocket had some Nuke-Bio-Chem payload -- and even then that might be ok. The real problem is that the Patriots cost, I believe something on the order of a million dollars a shot. I think the katyushots cost less than a thousand dollars each. So, unfortunately, Israel can't afford to fire the Patriots when faced with thousands of katyushots. My guess would be that they might use them if missiles are fired at one of the larger cities.
dear anonymous, #2(6:04) i would like to see this.
Katyusha just aren't the type of missile patriots are designed to stop. Patriots seemed already to do a fairly poor job at stopping the much larger and much greater air time scuds that are closer to what the patriot was built for. Katyusha are small, short range, and come in large numbers (hell they are smaller than the patriots). It sounds like more katyusha's are hitting haifa in a day than scuds were fired in the entire first gulf war. Even if they would work, you'd deplete the patriot supply so quickly trying to stop katyushas with them. Stopping missiles in the air is a very hard problem to which we do not currently have a solution. In the end the only way to stop them is to stop them being launched. The only really effective thing at stopping the scuds in the first gulf war was sending the SAS in to blow up the launchers. A similar strategy is likely the only way to stop the katyusha this time.
I agree with Anonymous. Tribal warfare and I am glad to hear a spade being called a spade.
I wonder, from here in America and having given up religion myself, how it is that otherwise educated, intelligent, modern people can still suscribe to the notions of a Bronze Age desert tribe. How can it be that people actually base their belief system and politics upon an ancient hearsay account of some desert "prophet". Today if someone said "I heard a voice and it told me x, y, z and the voice was God and he said we own this piece of Real Estate on Earth" would anyone believe that person and make public policy based on that statement? Would we not refer the person to a mental health clinic if they persisted or acted upon their "invisible friend's" words?
Does it ever occur to anyone that the invisible friends of all tribes which whose supposed utterances thousands of years ago, is what is keeping human beings from being at peace with one another? Because the "invisible friend" apparently tells different things to different people?
When will Humanity grow up and dispense with the supersittions that cause them to be divided from one another, fighting over piece of dirt some invisible voice said was "holy". Yet what can be more holy than a human life?
To me, it is all insanity, childish superstition yes, but insantiy because modern day educated people believe in such ridiculous notions.
azyuwish said...
"having given up religion myself"
No, you haven't given up religion. You've substituted mainstream religion for what is essentially, self-worship. You position yourself as an "englightened" one, a god, who pontificates and demagogues anything and anyone who doesn't agree you with. Anyone not a member of your tribe is, by your condemnation, member of another (lower) tribe. You have a conscience. G-d gave you one. You just choose to reject mainstream religion and cultural values and meet its needs with what pleases yourself. Not that you are a rare species these days. Your tribe will grow till the greater Prophet comes to set things right. You recoil in horror at such "superstition" but then you only prove that you are what you hate. Go figure.
anonymous, i have also noticed these self-serving tribes.
i'm glad you got out of haifa. i'm an american who was staying in haifa, and i got out also. the sirens, katyushots, and shelters get to be overwhelming. i can't even begin to describe it to my american friends. it's too sad.
my prayers are with you, girl, and all of our friends and family in haifa and the north... especially the boys fighting. .. be strong, guys, we love you!!
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