From the Front Line - Haifa

 ( Written by Jeanine Hirschhorn)

At 09:35, I was walking down the stairs through a patch of Carmel forest next to my building pursuant to a doctor's visit.  When the siren sounded. Yet again.  I looked around and realized there was no place to run, no place to hide.  So I stood facing the wall of an apartment bloc that borders the forest patch.  And then I heard an explosion above my head.  Not high in the sky. But perhaps 30 meters above my head.  I looked up and saw the smoke from an exploded rocket/interceptor.  Then I watched as three more rockets/interceptors exploded above me.  I braced myself, waiting for the pain of shrapnel or the blow from falling pieces of metal.  But none of that  happened.  

I waited a few more minutes facing the building, looked up . . . and then continued on my way.  I'm alive.  I won. They lost.   

I'm alive, I won, they lost is very much the mentality of the region vis-a-vis conflict.  As long as you remain alive, you are considered to be a formidable leader, a successful warrior on the battlefield.  It doesn't matter that all around you is on fire and destroyed. It doesn't matter that your populace has fled, that your society is in chaos.  It doesn't matter, as in Bashar al Assad's case, that much of your country is destroyed, ungovernable and bankrupt. Bashar is alive, therefore a formidable leader, a winner.  And the more Syria is destroyed while he remains alive, the more he is considered a respected and honored winner.  

Therefore, it doesn't matter to Iran that there proxies in Lebanon and Gaza have been decimated, reduced to rubble and ruin. It doesn't matter that many of their senior proxy terrorists and terror combatants are dead.  It doesn't matter that their ability to arm and finance is, at the moment, extremely difficult to non-existent.  The only thing that matters is that they are alive and can still strike Israel at will. They are still formidable warriors.  They are winning this jihad against the Jews. The Muslim world and much of the West cheers their continued success, and lavishes them with great praise, respect, honor. And fear.  This fear is exhibited by the West in its incessant calls for "ceasefires" and "proportional responses", displaying an obeisance to the victorious mullahs and their terrorist allies.  Further confirmation that Iran's pursuit of jihad for power, control and concomitant submission against not only the West but the entire Near/Middle East is a crowning success beyond all expectations and dreams. The victors dictate rules of engagement both to the Gulf despots ("severe repercussions for any assistance to the Infidels") and the West ("We've taught you a lesson. Any escalation at your own peril"). The mullahs are well aware that no one in the world will deter them, let alone stop them, from achieving their goal of total domination.  As long as they remain alive. 

And Israel?  Israel is not only fighting Islam's latest Salah-al-Din, but also a West terrified of Iran and its axis partners Russia and China and indifferent to dead Jews.  Israel will soldier on because victory means severely weakening or destroying Iran.  Even if it has to climb over a West prostrate before Iran in protection and fear to accomplish it. 

(Editor comments - An amazing analysis from a regular citizen with the motivation to survive)