Israel on High Alert

All you who have been keeping up with the news are aware of what's going on in Syria and the instability there.  When I lived in Colorado and was a member of the Multi-Lingual International Club, I knew a woman named Strasia from Syria.  She was a blond overweight woman who was more interested in her friends from France than me.  She tended to act like nobility and wore really great designer clothes.  You could tell she was moneyed.

One time I asked her about Israel.  I can't remember what she replied, I only remember her normally sweet demeanor changed into sheer hatred.  The last I heard she was back living in Syria.  Now I wonder if she is dead.

Since the bombing in Bulgaria and Syria seems to be falling apart, little things are happening.  Yesterday the Israeli government tested the air raid system.  The alarm went off for a minute, and the siren sounds different than the Shabbat and Memorial Day sirens which are long wails Yrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-for a whole minute-rrrrrrmmm.  The air raid siren is more like a wave or echo YRrrrYRrrrYRrrrYRrrr.  That's good to know.

Maybe they test sirens once a year no matter what.  According to David, for many years in Chicago they tested the air raid sirens every Tuesday at noon.  No on paid attention.  The USSR needed to be sure and attack Chicago on a Tuesday at noon.  In Atlanta they test tornado sirens on a weekly basis.  Since we've been here, the first test of the air raid siren was yesterday.

Other little things are happening.  Like there was no furlough for Israeli soldiers this weekend.  Usually, they get to go home for Shabbat.  El Al the Israeli national airline has tightened their already tight security.  The guard at the grocery store is now has a holstered gun.  Little differences.
Our view of the Mediterranean allows us to see northward toward Syria and Lebanon.  A lot of times we hear fighter pilots overhead but can rarely see the planes.  We figured out most of the planes we hear are patrolling the gas reserves under the sea belonging to Israel and Cyprus.  Today I saw a low flying plane heading north, as in north toward Syria.  Probably just doing reconnaissance...right?

Thursday in Israel is equivalent to Friday in the US.  Thursday is go out and party night, kids walk around the street at midnight laughing and talking loud.  They can do that in Israel because they don't need curfew laws here, because the kids aren't causing a lot of problems and it is safe for kids to be out at night as there is relatively little crime here.  You do have to lock your doors, but only for theft.  Rape and murder are very rare.  So anyway, Thursday nights and Friday mornings are generally quite loud.  Last night and this morning, Haifa was subdued.  Even our Russian girl upstairs who likes to blast American Heavy Metal or as David calls it devil music has been unusually quiet.

We can't listen to Hebrew news, but there has been nothing in the English edition of the Jerusalem Post and other English news outlets about a potential attack:  at least nothing different than the norm.  It's just a sense.

At any rate David told me to be aware, Israel is officially in a heightened state of alert. What he did was make me really scared.  Obviously, I knew something like this could happen even before moving to Israel.  It's one thing to understand something in the abstract and another to experience it first hand.  David said whatever Syria/Lebanon -- possibly spurred on by Hezbollah -- does to Israel, they're going to get it worse.  Small comfort.