Egozi’s Fury

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The Israeli commando operation, taking control of the long-range rocket shipment, was impressive. Cabinet ministers and top military officers, however, ruined it, turning a smooth, professional operation into a cheesy 80s flick.

There’s no middle ground in Israel, only extremes. You either have no propaganda at all or you have an extremely overdone ridiculous show. Even for propaganda purposes you have to employ a skilled director, while this one is clearly more suited for spaghetti westerns. The only result is an embarassingly bad drama.

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Our cabinet ministers have one, major flaw in common – there’s no connection between what they’re saying and the actual situation on the ground. On Friday the Welfare Minister was shown in a meeting with holocaust survivors several years ago, promising to improve their situation. A follow-up piece presented the not-very-suprising outcome: Nothing has changed.

The Internal Security and Home Front Defense ministers are also detached from reality. Making promises is easy, actually fulfilling them is impossible in Israel. The country is as unprepared to deal with home front emergency readiness as it is unable to deal with the recent waves of criminal terror attacks. Plenty of TV interviews, of course, plently of nice words or infighting. Actually doing something: Of course not. We all suffer, holocaust survivors, young couples, all of us are unprotected. There are plently of meetings and accustations, nothing concrete.

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Everything is connected. If anyone still believed that the result of a next round of exchange with Gaza or Hezbollah will be different, their hopes were dashed when the Iranian rocket shipment to Gaza was discovered.

The heavy warheads mounted on the rockets have only one purpose – killing as many civilians as possible. All of Israel’s air defense systems couldn’t stand up to them, so Israel has to make it clear that launching such a rocket will result in a severe, unprecedented response. That, however, won’t happen as long as our government flinches every time a U.S. or EU official says anything.

If things were different the Prime Minister should have come out openly and said “if you launch one more rocket your life would immediately become impossible,” preferrably also ordering a relativly small strike to explain his intentions.

iHLS – Israel Homeland Security

But that will never happen. Our government is good with words, particularly words spoken to friendly audiences such as the AIPAC conference or Hollywood actors. When it comes to acting things look different. We have to prepare ourselves for periods of prolonged bombardment.

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In a recent military clash with Hezobollah a certain item of ammunition was running out. A civilian company director woke up in the middle of the night to a panicked phone call from IDF staff, asking for more ammunition. The director was stunned – he hasn’t been manufacturing said ammunition for years, while the IDF got it from the U.S. using defense aid budgets. Apparently no one in the IDF knew what was going on.

Eventually the U.S. transferred an emergency shipment of the ammunition. This is a good example of the way decision makers have no clue as to what’s really happening.

The Defense Ministry has many impressive sounding positions to fill. I’m not sure all these top officials know exactly what their job is, a fact that leads to tragic-comic situations like the one mentioned above. None of this is about to change anytime soon.

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The bad joke known as “the new Iran” looked worse than ever, as we watched EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton visiting the Islamic republic wearing a head scarf. This is a double embarassment: She shouldn’t even be there, and even is she is why exactly is she covering her head?

The European caving-in before the concentrated friendship attack from Tehran is breaking new record. The Europeans, just like the Americans, can’t read the map. They’re looking but they can’t understand it. Iran is a country on the verge of gaining nuclear capabilities, a terror-supporting country sending long-range rockets to every Islamic terrorist element in the region. They fail to realize that it’s a murderous, fanatic country with no human rights, a country that fools everybody but Israel. Iran will eventually turn even on its friends, especially those who right now believe its lies out of ignorance or naivety.