Conversations this week at my cousin’s surprise birthday party were sobering. Did you know that there’s a betting site that says there’s an 82 percent likelihood that the US will strike Iran today or tomorrow? Perhaps it’s greater by now as another day passed and nothing happened. Maybe it’s less because Trump announced that the Islamic Republic has halted executions and killings. How nice. How naïve. How dangerous to give a moment of credence to anything coming out of the Islamic regime or their agents and apologists overseas! How silly to think that with an entire country of 90 million people cut off from the internet, what the Islamists are saying is nothing more than the tried and tested Islamic practice of taqiyya – lying to infidels. But I digress.
Did you know that, due to the odds of a US strike and other rumors, the entire Lufthansa group, consisting of five airlines, has cancelled flights TO ISRAEL? How abnormal is that?! The US may hit the Islamic Republic of Iran, and airlines cancel flights to Israel because the subtext is that the Islamic Republic will fire everything it has AT ISRAEL.
This is obscene. This is our norm.
Someone I know well has begun carrying extra sets of contact lenses in case she ends up in a bomb shelter. We are looking over our shoulders when out now, just to know where the nearest bomb shelter is, just in case.
Incoming missiles behind my head (Photo courtesy)
Last night (and perhaps for the foreseeable future again), we slept with the lights on above our stairs in case we had to run to the bomb shelter in the middle of the night. And we need to keep the public bomb shelters open and cleaned out now, again, and the spare bedrooms and other spaces that serve as our private bomb shelters decluttered and stocked with food, water, and activities for kids. Just in case. As a friend from the US observed recently in my podcast, it’s just not normal that most Israeli homes have bomb shelters built in, standard construction.
People are guessing how long a strike from (and presumptive response to) Iran will go on. Of course, that means disruption of all aspects of life. Schools canceled, parents not able to work, the army called up on high(er) alert, and of course, the very real threat to life and property.
If the rumors and threats become a reality, will this interfere with my webinar on the Moslem Brotherhood, another evil incarnation of radical Islam that needs to be eliminated? (You can register here, January 15 at 8:00 pm Israel time, and join me, assuming I am not in my bomb shelter then. https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7WfoMIVtRCCkff9uNieTMQ)
For those of us who commute to work in the US, there’s the additional calculus as to whether the international carriers (United, Delta, and others) will suspend flights. If the operation is quick enough and the Islamic regime hits us with everything they have (someone said 1000 remaining ballistic missiles), how many rounds will they get off before the remaining missiles and launchers are destroyed, and how long a disruption in flights will there be?
If this all goes down today, tomorrow, or next week, will flights be restored in time for my scheduled speaking tour to the US in early February?
If direct flights are suspended, where would be the most reliable place to get flights out of Israel to (Dubai, Greece, Ethiopia) to make a connection, if you’re not flying El Al? And under what conditions might El Al stop flying?
Another person at the party said she’s looking forward to seeing how the new Iron Beam laser defense system performs. I suggested selling tickets for a watch party in the Roman-era amphitheater in Beit She’an. (How much would you pay for the front row sound and light show?)
Visitors from overseas were coached on what to expect when a siren sounds and what the alert we all get on our phones sounds like (similar to an Amber Alert in the US, but for when we are all in danger).
Another friend visiting from overseas was texting me in the morning, and I tried to coach her to be aware but not too nervous. “The truth is, it’s stressful, so that’s normal, and don’t be alarmed if something happens. But as we saw in June, and October and April of 2024, our success has been remarkable, and generally things are quite safe, and God is great (not the way the Moslems chant it though).”
It’s hard to imagine Israel being attacked and not using this as an opportunity to finish unfinished business from June’s 12-day war. It’s hard to imagine anyone in Israel not wanting to see the final nails in the coffin of the Islamic Republic. Yes, of course, we want the Iranian people to be free, and for Iranians to stop being massacred by the regime. We want to see the restoration of ties between Israel and Iran as they had been before 1979. We want to see the head of the Islamic octopus cut off, and the threats to us from Iran itself and its terror proxies around the world wither and die. None of this can happen fast enough.
We also know that even if Israel has nothing to do with a short-term attack on Iran, we know that there will be a price to pay here. We’ve been through this before. It’s not the first time, but if it can be the last time, the final breath of the Islamic Republic, we will pull through and show our resilience once again. But it must be the last time this time. For us, for the world, and for the brave Iranian people.
Sending a note to friends who asked what was going on, I found myself not wanting to go to sleep. Not fearful, but anxious. Feeling the inevitability of some Islamic attack on Israel – and additional reports that the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah (which is supposed to have been disarmed) in Lebanon will join the attack and open multiple fronts, I just didn’t want my sleep disrupted. So better not to go to sleep, right? That makes sense!
January 16 is the anniversary of the day in 1979 on which the previous Shah and his family were forced to flee Iran. Maybe this year, January 16 will become a day of celebration. Pray for the peace of Iran and, when that happens, the world. A good night’s sleep won’t hurt either.
