No Support for Israel

London 1940, Israel 2011
Israelis facing similar onslaught to London blitz, but without world’s support

by Giulio Meotti - Ynet News

Sderot, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheba....All major southern Israel cities are now under a heavy rocket offensive from Gaza. There are Jewish dead, babies wounded, schools and synagogues destroyed, entire cities and towns terrorized.

There is only one historical precedent of a modern democracy besieged under rocket attacks. During the afternoon of Sept. 7, 1940, 348 Nazi bombers appeared over London’s skies. For the next 57 days, London was bombed day and night. Fires consumed many portions of the city. Residents sought shelter wherever they could find it - many fleeing to the underground that sheltered as many as 177,000 people during the night.

However, there is a big difference between the two situations: While the West backed the British resistance against the Nazi monster, Israel is alone in fighting a battle for all of us. And Sderot’s fate has become the fate of the whole of Israel.

Israeli intelligence reports indicate that estimated warning time for a rocket attack on the greater Tel Aviv area has declined from two minutes to just 90 seconds. From Gaza, a couple of years ago, the terrorists were able to strike at most of Sderot, which is just three kilometres from the Gaza Strip. Then they reached Ashkelon (20 km), Beersheba (40 km) and Ashdod (31 km), also hitting the outskirts of Rehovot (42) and Rishon Lezion (58 km).

Missiles did not hit so close to Israel's main population centre since 1991, when Saddam Hussein launched his missiles from Baghdad. The next target will be Tel Aviv (68 km). In the north, Hezbollah is even more deadly. The Greater Tel Aviv area, where a quarter of the entire Israeli population lives, is the target of the next war. Nobody knows if and when it will begin.

Continue reading at: Ynet

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Israel faces growing hostility   

As Israel and Gaza continued to exchange rocket and missile fire, the diplomatic fallout between Israel and its regional allies worsened, with both Turkey and Egypt hardening their stance against Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

Thousands of Egyptians rallied outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo for a second day of protests over the deaths of five Egyptian soldiers, killed during Israel's furious response to Thursday's multiple attacks in which eight people died near the country's border with the Egyptian-controlled Sinai.

''Israel should know that the era in which our sons are killed without a harsh response on our part is over for good,'' Amr Moussa, a former secretary-general of the Arab League who is now a presidential candidate in Egypt, wrote on Twitter after the incident.

Continue reading at: Sydney Morning Herald