In the center

It struck me while writing my previous blog, that three generations of my family have now hidden in Shelters. I did, from German bombs during WWII in the East End of London. I still remember hiding under a table when the siren went off warning of an attack, and running like mad down the stairs to get to the concrete shelter out in the yard of our apartment block (flats). My daughter and grandchildren in Beersheva are sheltering from Hamas rockets from Gaza. There is a shelter about 45 secs run from their home (about the length of the alarm), but my daughter twisted her foot running into it. I told her that she is a casualty of war. Two Grad missiles hit Beersheva yesterday, out of 31 fired into Israel, but noone was badly injured. Today one hit Ben Gurion University.
Today 3 rockets hit northern Israel form Lebanon. One hit an old people's home in Nahariya, although miraculously noone was injured. Israel responded with mortars into Lebanon. For those of us who live in central Israel, beyond the range of the Grad rockets from Gaza and from Lebanon, life continues more or less as normal. Last night we went out to a performance of Gilbert & Sullivan's "Yeoman of the Guard" in Ra'anana put on by the Jerusalem English Speaking Theatre (JEST). The show was excellent and the singing superb. It does help to take one's mind off the situation for a while. At the outset the performers dedicated the perfomance to our soldiers serving at the front, and at the end we all sang a rousing version of the national anthem Hatikvah (The Hope).
We tend, of course, to focus on Gaza, but there is a wider perspective. There is little doubt that the war in Gaza, that arose from Hamas' deliberate ratcheting up of the rocket war after the ceasefire (hudniyah) expired, was planned by Iran, and is a side-show. Certainly Pres. Mubarak of Egypt was angry about this Hamas action, and attributed it to the influence of Iran in the region. Some have suggested that this war was intended to take the world's mind off the Iranian nuclear program. There is always the possibility that Hizbollah, another proxy of Iran, will be unleashed on Israel too, as it was in 2006. But, having experienced the might of the IAF then, they are less likely to do so, maybe preferring to keep them in reserve in case Israel attacks Iran directly because of its nuclear weapons development. Hizbollah denies having fired the three rocketsw last night. Nevertheless Israel has called up thousands of reserves, who are sitting in readiness in the north in case Hizbollah tries to open a second front, as they did in 2006.
Meahwhile, we in the center continue our lives and hope that there will be a permanent ceasefire soon, and that this time Israel will not accept anything less than what is in it's interests, namely a stoppage of rockets and of their smuggling. The outlines of a ceasefire agreement are being negotiated by Mubarak and Sarkozy. The Israeli Goivernment is considering the options, but Mashaal, the Hamas leader in Syria, has already rejected the terms, although a Hamas spokesman in Gaza was more amenable.