Israel Under Attack

Tor the second time in two weeks, I am forced by events to put aside a piece already in layout and start again. With the post-Shavuos issue closing early because of Yom Tov, I had planned to reinstate the column put aside two weeks ago in the wake of the Meron disaster. The current state of warfare, however, makes that impossible.

After Meron, at least, I was writing following the crucial events. Now, however, there is absolutely no way to know where or when the current round of rocket attacks from Gaza and rioting by Israeli Arabs will end. The only certainty is that whatever I write today will be long superseded by events when this issue appears on newsstands a week hence.

Yet to publish a column that does not take note of the threat under which Israelis are living would, rightly, strike readers as bizarre. Already well over 1,000 rockets have been launched from the Gaza Strip at Israel (with approximately 40 percent falling in the Gaza Strip itself) and six people have been killed within Israel, including a 16-year-old girl and her father while driving in an Israeli Arab town.

Israel currently teeters on the verge of its first large-scale ground operation in Gaza in nearly seven years. The Israeli population will not tolerate too many more nights of sirens in Tel Aviv without a response.