Muses on Missiles and Mortars

by S. Alfassa
4 Elul 5763 / 1 September 2003

I grew up in the United States, and in the past worked as a medic and a U.S. government anti-terrorist medical response team leader. I know exactly how police and fire departments in the U.S. respond to day-to-day emergencies. If a local police department received more than 3 calls reporting they heard an explosion, even just potential fireworks, they would send multiple officers to respond. The police would then investigate and if it was just a firecracker they might look the other way, but if it were anything more, they would take immediate action to stop it.

Today I am living in Israel, attempting to understand how the police and the military here do not respond when a sworn enemy fires at least 14 missiles and more than four dozen mortar shells at us. The news reports have been filled with the term "Kassam" lately, so for those of you who don't know, let me clarifying what they are launching at us-and please know it's not firecrackers.

The latest upgraded Kassam is a 120 mm surface-to-surface missile which an 11 pound explosive warhead. Quietly the missiles are being produced in civilian metal workshops by the Arab terrorists, generally in Gaza. These latest missiles being fired at us are now capable of reaching Israeli national oil installations. Where can they learn how to make such weapons? We'll one place is on a Saudi Arabian website! There it has been reported you can find discussions on how to construct explosives, in addition to surface-to-surface missiles of the Kassam type.

Now lets consider a scenario. Imagine if terrorists in Mexico launched multiple 120mm missiles across the border into the U.S. oil reserves? Do you think the Americans would sit back and relax as missile after missile fell on Laredo, Texas? No, not hardly. In the first few minutes they would call the local police who would set up a perimeter until the National Guard troops could arrive for assistance (they fill a similar role as that of the Israeli border police). Within minutes the U.S. Army would deploy F-16 fighters and follow up with Apache gun ships to root out and destroy the enemy. There is no time for "diplomatic relations" when an enemy is firing missiles at your people and infrastructure. Firing missiles at the United States is a hostile act of war, and the U.S. would not be calling for a summit or cease-fire, they would strike hard, fast and deadly to put an immediate end to the siege. As Colin Powell said in 1991 about Saddam's army, the U.S. would "cut the head off, then kill it."

For terrorists guns used to be the weapon of choice, then human-bombs, but progressively it's aerial attacks. Israeli communities are fired upon in the south by the Israeli Arab terrorist organizations and in the north by the Iranian-backed Lebanese Arab terrorist groups-whose latest attack two weeks ago decapitated a sixteen-year-old Israeli. The Lebanese terrorists are firing anti-aircraft ordinance over Israeli communities so that the shells break up and rain down killing civilians. Both the Lebanese and Israeli Arab terrorists are making (or importing) missiles for one purpose-to kill Israelis.

It is extremely important that the world remember that in January of 2002 Israel's Navy captured an Arab ship carrying 50 tons of weapons intended for the Palestinian Authority, who denied the delivery. These weapons included Katyusha rockets with a 20-kilometer range, anti-aircraft missiles, snipers rifles, mortar launchers and shells, mines and a variety of anti-tank missiles. Israeli Army Intelligence provided evidence before the U.S. Department of Defense officials, demonstrating Mohamed Dahlan, Arafat's Police Chief in Gaza (and now Abu Mazen's security minister) was in Dubai supervising the loading of the Karine-A ship.

The tally for the last two weeks in the holy land, excluding the murderous bus bombing and daily shooting attacks we endure is as follows: We have had an anti-tank rocket fired at Israeli troops, 14 missiles and at least 55 mortar rounds fired at Israeli civilian targets. One mortar shell smashed through the roof of the two-story movie house, ripping through the roof, second story, and exploded on the ground floor. Miraculously no one was hurt, though dozens of people were in the building. The mortar caused tremendous damage, smoke, and shrapnel ripped through the walls. In addition to all of this, an unexploded 176-pound bomb and bomb factory was found in an Arab city, that bomb had one intended purpose-mass murder of Israelis.

All of this begs a serious question. If missiles were launched against movie theatres and kindergartens in America, just how long would the United States government tolerate it?

S. Alfassa lives in the Old City of Jerusalem; he is a vice-president with the Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture. He can be reached at alfassa@ sephardicstudies.org