Kiryat Shimona Under Rocket Attack-1980-1985

Nadene Goldfoot

My favorite town north of Safed received rocket fire from Lebanon again. I remember living in Safed from 1980 to 1985 and this situation happened all the time. Kiryat Shimona was populated by a lot of American Jews and they were in dire need of a psychologist to soothe their anxiety. We were attending a 10 month ulpan at the time, and at Spring Break one of our friends went there to visit and wound up living in the bomb shelter for about two weeks. She was out of communication and we had no idea what had happened to her. The town held my favorite department store, the Hamishbeer, so similar to Meier and Franks here in Portland. I loved that store. When they were under a lot of fire I prayed that the department store would be spared. It was.

Now it's happened again, and I can feel the angst of the people living there. Though it missed its target and caused no damage or injury, it surely causes a lot of hearts to beat faster and mothers to feel a lot of concern for their children. The rocket came from the village of Houla.

Israel answered with artillery fire at Lebanon. The Lebanese reported that we fired at least eight shells toward that area in response. The border may now be quiet but it is tense.

Both sides accuse each other of violating a UN brokered ceasefire from 2006 that ended a month-long war between Israel and the Hezbollah terrorists. Lebanon is accusing Israel of planting listening devices and to overflight of an unmanned drone surveillance aircraft over southern Lebanon. Israel accuses Lebanon of two recent blasts involving weapons storage depots in southern Lebanon, and two rockets fired from Lebanon at northern Israel last month. A militant group connected to al Qaeda took responsibility for the rocket attack then.

It looks to me like Lebanon is involved with hiding weapons (to use against Israel, of course) and of taking pot-shots at Israel when they so want to, and Israel is trying to use surveilance to find out what they're planning to do to Israel. Of course Lebanon doesn't want Israel to find out, so again with the complaints and shootings.

We used to drive to Kiriat Shimona in order to get to the Good-Neighbor Fence between the two countries. I wonder what has happened to it.

Comment 10/27/09 from Victor Sharpe: The "good neighbor fence" died because Ehud Barak let our Lebanese allies, under General Hadad, down by withdrawing Israeli troops suddenly from the 10 mile wide security zone. He did this dreadful act in response to the campaign of the "Women in Black" who agitated for Israel to leave the security zone in Lebanon, which had protected Israel's northern border. Predictably, the vacuum was immediately filled with Hezbolah, and the Lebanese Christian allies who had supported us were left to twist in the wind. Barak did this and should be covered in shame. Israel cannot afford to lose such good friends. That was the ending of the "good neighbor fence" because we betrayed those neighbors and succumbed to the Israeli leftist "Mothers in Black." Now we have sixty thousand missiles pointing at Israel from Lebanon. Meshugas!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091027/wl_nm/us_lebanon_israel_2/print Rocket from Lebanon hits Israel; Israel fires back