An Exchange with Israel
By Larry Johnson on January 9, 2009 at 11:15 AM in Current Affairs
Methinks what we are doing at NoQuarter is getting some attention in Israel. Why? I want you to look at the message I received late last night from a gentleman who claims to be a freelance journalist in Jerusalem. I’m posting our full exchange and will update it if there are additional emails (folks, if you disagree with the points that Mr. Shindman is making please strive to be civil):
Sir – regarding your article
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/12/30/israel-from-mensch-to-bully/
you said “Whatever the weapon system Hamas is firing it is not very accurate and not very lethal.”
I believe you owe it to your readers to correct this seriously misleading and inaccurate statement.
Based on the existing statistics for fatalities and injuries from Palestinian rockets and mortars, coupled with the vast number
(approaching 10,000 rounds) fired over the past 8 years primarily at civilians, it’s hard to understand how and why you make this claim.My question to you is why did you say it in the first place?
Is a known expert in counter-terrorism trying to pull the wool over his readers’ eyes and mislead his readers? Did an amateurish and rather unprofessional assessment result because you were under some kind of pressure and didn’t proof-read your own notes? I don’t think so.
My guess is that you were simply unaware of the actual situation on the ground and the casualty statistics, while relying on slanted news reports for your intel. I think you wrote your editorial quickly in reaction to the sensationalist news reports at the time.
I’m cc’ing my colleague Noam Bedein of the Sderot Media Center located on the Gaza-Israel border. He is a resource you can consult for
statistics on the dead and injured from the Palestinian attacks that explicitly target civilians. Noam will provide you with accurate and
verifiable numbers, and can also arrange interviews for you with bereaved families and survivors of attacks that leave not doubt that these are lethal weapons.But you yourself know that nothing can substitute for field experience. You owe it to your readers to share the experience of hearing the alarm go off, then having from 3-15 seconds to run for cover before the kassam rocket detonates. The rockets do not have to be accurate when you have a city of 24,000 people to aim at.
For your followup story, you might want to interview 8-year-old Osher Twitto, whose leg was amputated last year after a kassam rocket
blew up while he and his friend were playing outdoors in Sderot. Osher can no doubt provide you the innocent perspective on the results of having this type of ordnance explode in proximity to civilians.Come personally to see for yourself. I can arrange for you to meet with Israeli security and military officials who will give you expert briefings. We can also arrange for you to meet with Palestinian security officials in the West Bank, and talk with Palestinian security experts in Gaza, even while the fighting is going on.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Paul Shindman
Freelance Journalist
Jerusalem
It was late and I was heading to bed. So I sent him this brief note:
Paul,
It is very simple. 10,000 rounds. How many casualties? 10,000 dead? 30,000 plus wounded? Please explain why so many round fired have caused so little damage. Let’s start with the statistics.
LJ
On Jan 9, 2009, at 4:18 AM, Paul Shindman wrote:
Sure Larry, I’m happy to start with the statistics:
32 dead, over 1000 wounded.
The explanation for this comes from actually doing the research and going out into the field to find out why, and I’m simply surprised that a man of your caliber hasn’t done either.
The civil defense measures in response to the attacks are the primary reason the fatalities are low. The communities bordering Gaza have been equipped over the past years with hundreds of reinforced concrete pillboxes on every block, often several per block. Schools and medical clinics have been retrofitted with reinforced concrete shells (I can send you pictures if you’d like).
The “color red” warning system detects the rocket launch and with a couple of seconds triggers the network of alerts. The communities have a loudspeaker system (literally hundreds of speakers in each town) that announces the alert, or air raid sirens are triggered. The alerts are also broadcast on all regional radio stations. Depending on the type of rocket used, you have from 3-15 seconds to make it to shelter in areas bordering the strip. You have up to 45 seconds if larger grad missiles are used with a range of 40 km.
When the alarm goes off, only idiots wait around to see if the rockets are lethal or accurate. Everybody runs like hell for shelter, and the explosion is loud and happens before you can finish counting to 15.
Most houses have been retrofitted with reinforcing on one room, so that residents take shelter in that room. Generally, it’s a room with two walls between the people and the missile, when general expends its blast in destroying the first wall. Newer houses are built with a specific room as a blast-resistant room to take shelter in.
The system works to save lives. One row of houses I visited yesterday in Sderot was hit 5 days ago. These houses are built attached to each other (row houses) in a line of about 10 homes, that back on to a similar row on the adjoining block, which abut from behind. The kassam pierced the roof of a middle house on the block and blew out the back walls of an anteroom to the kitchen, including the shared back wall of the kitchen. The resident was in her bedroom at the time, the only room not severely damaged. The neighbors all similarly took shelter and escaped with minor injuries. The house that took the direct hit is not structurally sound and will have to be rebuilt. The adjoining neighbors suffered blast damage (solar water heaters destroyed, walls holed and/or cracked, all windows and any closed doors blown out with the frames, and related shrapnel damage, etc).
Without the alarm, there would have probably been one fatality and 2 to 5 serious injuries requiring hospitalization. Preventive measures reduced this to several minor injuries that required treatment, but not hospitalization. Repeat that for the hundreds of kassams that have scored direct hits on homes and businesses, and the fatalities would be in the high hundreds.
With thousands of alerts of experience and the deaths of their neighbors as factual encouragement, the residents are very adept at hearing the click when the speakers are turned on and are already running by the time the warble comes on accompanied by the loud voice saying “tseva adom…..tseva adom…” (literally color red… color red…).
Also, either God or luck is a big factor. One kassam yesterday landed in soft earth in between two kindergardens (closed due to the war) that are about 30 meters apart, and about 15 meters from two cooking gas tanks for one of the kindergarden kitchens. With an extra bit of west wind the missile would have struck closer and shrapnel pierced the tanks – the explosion would have taken down the entire building. Two middle aged women about 30 meters away who were running for shelter were blown off their feet by the compression wave. I left the scene before they were evacuated, but they would be classified as “lightly injured”.
So it’s not very simple, and I’m astounded that you jump to your “simple” conclusion without checking the facts. It’s as “simple” as equating the kassam scenario to a firefight between two enemy platoons. The two sides might exchange thousands of rounds of ammunition, yet there may be only a few injuries and no fatalities. The simple conclusion would be that the bullets are not very accurate and not very lethal, but nobody would ever jump to that conclusion.
The invitation to show you around first hand still stands. Airlines have dropped their prices, why not come over and see for yourself?
Respectfully,
Paul
And my last response:
Paul,
Thanks for the invite. I understand weapon systems and lethality and have spent some time in a bunker waiting out a mortar strike in Iraq. So I do not need you silly, condescending nonsense about how everything is so much more dangerous or different in Israel. And I have been to Israel and I am very familiar with the threat and the systems in question.Your statistics tell the story. These statistics are “worse” than I thought. People in Israel are more likely to be killed or injured in an automobile accident than they are from a Hamas rocket/missile.
Do you seriously not see the imbalance between 10,000 rocket strikes and only 32 dead vice the 200 plus Palestinian civilians you folks have killed in the last two weeks? Hell, we had one crazed gunman at Virginia Tech University in 2007 who came close to achieving that body count and he did it with three guns. Most of the Hamas rockets are inaccurate and carry a minimal explosive charge. The homemade rockets, which constitute the bulk of what Hamas is firing into Israel, are a nuisance but, as the stats clearly show, have caused few casualties. You discredit yourself and your country with this kind of justification.
I can only conclude one of two things–Hamas is incompetent or it is not trying to inflict mass casualties on Israel.
I understand that the families who have lost loved ones are devastated and I am not suggesting that the death of their loved one is unimportant. But the Hamas rocket strikes do not excuse Israel waging war against the people of Gaza. Your soldiers are killing Palestinian civilians and have an unfortunate track record in that regard.
I will repeat for you what I have written on my blog. Hamas has no right to fire anything, including rocks, into Israel. Just because Israel treats Palestinian civilians in a very despicable, inhuman way does not justify Hamas lobbing rockets and mortars into Israel. I believe that no child should be terrorized by the threat of rockets or tank fire.
If Israeli military force could stop the rocketing without killing civilians and further alienating the Palestinian population I would be fully onboard. But I have been to Israel and I have seen how Israeli security personnel treat Palestinians in general. It is ugly and insulting. You guys are your own worst enemy. I realize there are some Islamic radicals who will never recognize Israel’s right to exist. But I would remind you that there are Jews living in Israel who share the same belief. The fact that both groups are religious extremists tells us something about the problem.
And one final point about Israel’s tendency to use force rather than the velvet glove in dealing with the Palestinians. When these folks are locked up with little to do because of the economic embargo is it any surprise that procreation becomes a favorite activity? You guys are creating a numbers game that is going to overwhelm Israel. I think your soldiers would be better off staying home creating new Israeli citizens, but that’s just my opinion.
Face it, you guys have painted yourselves into a corner. Despite your military operation underway in Gaza Hamas somehow is still finding the wherewithal to fire off rockets. Fortunately, Hamas has not improved on its accuracy or lethality. Putting Israeli forces deeper into densely populated areas is only going to create more public relations nightmares for your country.
Believe it or not I do consider myself a friend of Israel. As a friend I think you folks are hurting yourselves.
I will post our exchange on my blog. I think it is important to get your point of view out there.
Best
Larry Johnson
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