Tuesday, December 31, 2002

Welcome to those who arrived from this Belgian portal. Please leave me a message or email me to let me know what you think of my weblog.

I haven't been writing as much as I used to, so you might want to look at some archive postings.

Sunday, December 29, 2002

This article follows an IDF unit as it destroys the Tul Karm apartment belonging to the family of Sirhan Sirhan. Sirhan entered Kibbutz Metzer on Nov 10 and went on a killing spree; he murdered 5 civilians, including two toddlers who were killed in their beds.

IDF demolitions are currently conducted with a kind of bureaucratic coldness (soldiers are now prohibited from vengeful or emotional flourishes).

In the print edition there are photos of Sirhan's father and mother, who look like they are just then being told of the operation; and of the apartment - which looks modern and roomy. Sirhan's father says that he opposes all terrorism, but hung pictures of "martyrs" in his living room.

The uncertain threat of missiles from Iraq during an American offensive is less serious to Israel than the almost certain threat of attacks by Hezbullah from across the Lebanese border. The IDF is likely to respond or launch a pre-emptive operation against Hezbullah, and is also likely to move against the largely untouched Hamas infrastructure in Gaza. This is according to Amir Oren, who also records that an Arrow missile interceptor (successor to Patriot) is launched by pressing the F2 key on a PC keyboard.