Eyes wide open

[StandWatie]

A key context for understanding the simmering tensions on Israel's northern border is the regular and illegal flights carried out by Israeli fighter planes into Lebanese airspace -- low-flying warplanes that intentionally frighten residents with sonic booms.

This is no state secret. Anyone who lives in the Galilee as I do -- and there are a few hundred thousand Israeli Jews living here too -- can vouch for the sonic booms we hear on an almost weekly basis. They wake us up, usually with a jolt, and rattle our windows. And in Nazareth I am dozens of miles away from where the planes are breaking the sound barrier. What the noise is like over Beirut or Sidon, God only knows.

But the Israeli media almost never mentions these provocative tactics by the Israeli military against a neighbouring country, even though the price would be monstrously high were the region to slip into war. If the Hebrew media refer to the overflights it is always in terms of Hizbullah claims -- as though Israeli ears are deaf to the sound of their own planes' sonic booms.

Where are the letters to the Hebrew newspapers from the concerned citizens of the Galilee? Where is the debate about a provocation apparent to all? Do Israelis really believe their national security depends on their collective muteness on behalf of the government?

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/652/op42.htm

[bemildred]

1. I guess one this does not compute.

[newyorican]

2. I see nothing, NOTHING!!

- Sgt. Schultz, Hogans Heroes