The Missiles That Follow You
The Missiles That Follow You
Like magnets, those modern spears aimed at Jews
When Saddam Hussein launched his Scud missiles at Israel during the Gulf War, many landed in the suburbs east of Tel Aviv. It was obvious that they were being aimed at strategic targets but did not have the range. One of those suburbs, Ramat Gan, is home to the highest concentration of Iraqi Jews in Israel. In essence, Saddam’s major strategic weapon spent itself exploding amongst Jews who until 1949, were members of an ancient Iraqi community that could trace its roots back to the Babylonian exile. There they sang:
By the rivers of Bavel, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Żiyyon. (Psalms 137:1)
Before their expulsion, some estimates say that the population of Baghdad was 40% Jewish. Imagine that.
The Gulf War took place during the first Intifada, during which weapons provided by the Israeli Defense Forces to the PLO as part of the Oslo “Peace Accords” were turned against the Jews. At the time we lived in Gush Katif, a series of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. When things would heat up, Jews living in what they called “Israel proper,” i.e. Israel before the Six-Day War, (Haifa, Tel-Aviv and Beer-Sheva essentially), would commonly call us settlers out for endangering our children. It was not enough that we had to contend with a ruthless enemy trying to make us all (not just settlers) what supporters of Oslo called “casualties of peace,” we had to contend with self-righteous finger waggers from our own side.
Enter the Scuds. Within days thousands of Israelis within “Israel proper” were fleeing to the periphery. Among those were my in-laws from Petach Tikva, proud Iraqi Jews originally from Baghdad. They came to stay with us for the duration of the attacks. What struck me most about my father-in-law while he was with us was the deep sadness in his eyes. These scuds were a personal affront to him. Wasn’t it enough that he lost his entire future and belongings when he was forced to leave Iraq? From a beautiful home in Baghdad, he found himself with wife and child in a tent-city without employment in a young and poor Israel. Now, forty years later, Iraqi missiles were chasing him. Even before that he was carrying a suitcase full of trauma. His father had been forcibly conscripted into the Iraqi army during World War I and was killed in an aerial bombing. In the family they used to say that it was probably the first time he ever saw an airplane. My father-in-law was still in the womb when his father was killed, so he was born an orphan. He received his father’s name: Zion.
Those missiles were the prologue. By the time of the second Intifada, the Arabs of Gaza began lobbing home-made mortar shells into our towns. Home-made or not, a mortar shell is lethal, and comes suddenly, without warning. The Israeli government’s answer to this threat was to remove the target. The Jews of Gaza were expelled by their own government in 2005. The military reasoning was that it would be possible to deal with the threat now that Israeli citizens were out of the way. What happened was that the militant Hamas took over and began a program of upgrading their missiles and increasing production, unhindered by the Israeli military, who were under orders to hold back, hold back, as peace was just around the corner.
And that is how we found ourselves chased by Arab missiles, just like my father-in-law. When we were kicked out of Gaza, we were resettled in “temporary” housing villages, thrown up in a couple of months. I admit, they were better than the tent cities of old, but still, we became refugees in our own country. Soon enough the missiles found us—it is hard to hide in a double-wide—and it was immediately apparent that we were totally exposed. The brilliant minds who were overseeing our re-settlement looked around the country and found the perfect solution: sewage pipes. At least they were unused. So we were told.
After hastily constructing makeshift concrete shelters all along the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, the government was confronted with another problem. Hundreds of bed-wetting children who would definitely be suing the National Insurance when they grew up ridden with PTSD, as their parents would, and which is happening now. Having ten seconds to run to a shelter in the middle of a game of hopscotch is not conducive to a child’s mental health. Instead of admitting the mistake of leaving Gaza to the terrorists that they themselves imported and armed, the government invested in a technological solution. The Iron Dome. It is a remarkable achievement. It is no small thing to destroy a missile in flight. The Iron Dome missiles go for one hundred thousand dollars each, while a missile for the purpose of causing death and destruction will throw you back a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars at most, depending on their range. This in itself would have defeated the purpose of the program if it were not for an even more impressive development. The Iron Dome is wired into a sophisticated alarm system that includes physical sirens, SMS push notifications an app and television and radio notifications, all instantaneous. Incredibly, the system identifies rockets from Gaza that pose no threat (meaning they are headed to an uninhabited area) and does not waste an iron dome missile on them. In addition, the alarms are specific down to the level of a few adjacent neighborhoods, so that if Northern Ashkelon is being targeted, only their sirens sound. Meaning that the entire population of Israel is not running to the shelters for every rocket launched from Gaza.
So the Jews now have a missile that follows the missiles that follow us. It is almost poetic.
The immediate problem with this is that rockets exploding in nearby “uninhabited” zones are still exploding, as are the iron dome missiles that find their target high overhead, so that the National Insurance is still in danger of being inundated with claims. Imagine trying to calm a child with these endless booms. What do we even tell ourselves? The truth? That at any moment we can be blown to smithereens? The Iron Dome is not infallible. It is hardware and software and there are glitches. Rockets can get through and do get through.
The real problem is much more overarching. Israel’s entire approach to the problem is pitiful. The bad guy in the Western is shooting at our feet, and we are dancing a jig to the amusement of all and sundry Jew-haters. Sure, we have early warning where the bullets are going, but we’re still dancing. And here and there a bullet reaches home and kills an Israeli. Israelis should be mourning the creation of the Iron Dome, this fabulous game of upside-down whack-a-mole. It only delays the inevitable, which is a total demilitarization of Gaza.