Friday Updates

Shabbot Shalom, Stroock's Books Kibbutzim. Yes, we're feeling a lot more Jewy of late.

We begin this blog cold, without having first done our news whip around. Hamas promised a day of rage today. Let's go see if there's been any rage...Nothing major so far today. Day ain't over yet. 

Last night we attended a rally at a local synagogue sponsored by the Jewish Federation of West Central New Jersey. Here's the story. We are actually sitting behind the Israeli flag in the photo. We'd say 300-400 people attended, including several politicians and the Lt. Governor (our boy Congressman Tom Kean sent a recorded message from DC). There were lots of speeches, sermons, prayers, and resolve. We heard nothing with which to disagree. We counted half a dozen cops and one bomb sniffing dog. This is the world in which we live. 

The Israelis are giving updates and posting footage about their aerial onslaught. Last night the IAF carried out 750 strikes. The Israelis have killed leadership, destroyed infrastructure and bounced rubble in previous engagements. There will always be more leaders to kill and infrastructure to destroy. This isn't a campaign. It's a war. As of this writing it appears a ground assault is imminent. 

The IDF is calling for the evacuation of more than a million people from northern Gaza within 24 hours. Are the Israelis going to conquer the strip in halves? Horror lies ahead. Rubble makes an excellent defensive position. We will see many burned out tanks and APCs, many dead and wounded Gazans, many dead and wounded Israelis. Exit question: is Hamas holding back a weapon to unleash upon Israel during the ground offensive? Massive mines....drone swarms and the like.

The backlash against pro-Hamas elements in the west, especially the United States, continues. Good. France is breaking up pro-Hamas demonstrations. Good. In Samaria, a West Bank Person owned pizza shop ran an advertisement mocking kidnapped Israelis. The IDF bulldozed the pizza shop. Good. Fight the information war. Fight. Win.

The things.

Yes, it occurred to us that we could drop Israel Strikes or Israel at War into Twitter hashtags. No, we never considered doing so. This war ends, permanently, any possibility of a third Israel Strikes novel. 

It's been a tough week for us, personally, professionally, and we had a lot of trouble concentrating. But this week was not a total loss. We outlined World War 1990: Norway, so that we can get a sense of exactly what we have. We began the concluding chapter, which is coming along fine. There's probably not much left to do with what we've written. Now we need to figure out what, if anything we want to add. For example, who do readers want to see in the final chapter? Next week we'll do the dreaded readthrough. 65,000 words.