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War is coming. The government is making preparations to defend itself, building a sophisticated shelter near Mey Naftoach, just outside of Jerusalem. It is a good thing for the government to have a shelter; although, it would have been nice if the government had built shelters for the citizens, too, but this won't happen. Unfortunately, the government
The government doesn't seem like it wants to give the citizens the basic courtesy of telling them what they are in for.
What can we expect? Well, I'm not an expert but I'm a bit of an expert on the experts, and over decades of living in the nuthouse we affectionately call the State of Israel, I have learned what kind of information to discredit, what to believe, and how to read between the lines. From what the media has been kind enough to print, here and there, it appears we are in for a particularly unpleasant war this coming year.
If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is, as Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs calls him, a "mini-Hitler," it stands to reason that we are in for a mini-Holocaust. Not a full blown one, G-d forbid, but something earth-shaking and soul-wrenching nonetheless.
It looks like we are about to experience a war that will last more than a couple of weeks, during which, every single day, thousands of missiles will slam into Israel's population centers. For some reason, people tend to think the north will bear the brunt of the attack. No, folks, there is no reason to think this. The missiles will be coming from Iran and they will be hitting Gush Dan. Gush Dan is the most choice slab of Jewish flesh in the world and that is what the Iranian wants. He wants Jewish blood.
He wants hourly reports on Al-Jazeera showing Jews burnt and mutilated, panicked and screaming. He wants little Jewish girls and boys dying in the streets. He wants Jewish TV reporters fainting on live TV and Jewish policemen and soldiers and politicians crying. He wants the conquerors of 1948 and 1967 down on their knees, sprawled on the pavement. If he gets enough of this kind of footage screened consecutively for a long enough time, he believes that he will succeed in whipping up the Arab world into a frenzy - a frenzy that will bring about rebellions in places like Egypt and Jordan, and a full scale pan-Arab assault on Israel, a la 1948, a la Nasser's dreams. He will become the great hero of the Arab world, and the leader of the glorious recapture of Jerusalem and slaughter of the infidels.
We can and should expect thousands of dead, tens of thousands of wounded. We can and should expect daily, hourly scenes on television that show people suffering from the effects of mustard gas or whatever else the Iranian satans will manage to throw at us. We cannot and should not expect the IDF or the US military to stop most of the missiles from hitting their targets. We couldn't do it in 2006 and we won't be able to do it in 2008. So forget about it. Most Iranian missiles will hit their marks.
We can and should expect the local Islamic leadership in Israel to exhort the Arab villagers to take to the streets and seize the opportunity to avenge the Nakba of 1948 once and for all. We can and should expect Arabs from at least some of the villages within Israel's 1949 armistice lines to try to attack adjoining Jewish villages. This can happen all over Israel: in the Galilee, in Wadi Ara, in the Negev. We can expect some scenes of slaughter, because the Arabs will take advantage of the momentary
Expect the local Islamic leadership in Israel to exhort the Arab villagers to take to the streets.
paralysis that is bound to strike Israelis as their own media bombards them with unfiltered images of charred Jewish babies and mutilated corpses.
This is why it is important for Israelis to prepare psychologically and for Jewish villages and towns to train their local kitot konenoot - emergency squads - for this panicked reality. We need to keep our powder dry, and people who don't have firearms at home should think of getting them.
The war will only be over when the Americans start using some major ordinance against the Iranians. How long will this take, though? A month? Two? As long as it takes, we need to be able to weather the storm. After that, with G-d's help, we will start to see a change in the way this country sees itself - and people here will start taking the idea of a New Middle East seriously. Except it won't be Shimon Peres' version of the New Middle East, but something radically different.