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Everything you wanted to know about missile strikes but were afraid to ask
By Doron Rosenblum
Tags: IDF, Home Front Command 

The text

Protect yourself - right on time!

The Israel Defense Forces Home Front Command has improved its alarm systems so that during an emergency, every area in the country will be given a different alarm period ...
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How to choose a protected space? The protected space should be chosen according to the time it takes to reach it from the moment the alarm is heard, in accordance with the following prioritization:

1. Apartmental protected spaces or floor protected spaces are most preferable.

2. Shelter - if it can be reached within the given time after the alarm is heard.

3. If there is no available apartmental protected space, floor protected space or shelter, choose the innermost room with a minimum of external walls, windows and openings ...

4. The kitchen, toilet room or bathroom should not be chosen as the protected space.

Recommended equipment for the protected space: Enough water for three days; food - in closed packages, such as preserves or snacks; emergency lighting or flashlights; first aid kit; games, newspapers, books, things that will make passing the time pleasant ...

The protected space should be chosen according to the time you have to reach it, in accordance with the following map: Ma'alot-Nahariya-Golan Heights - immediate; Acre-Safed-Carmiel - 30 seconds; Haifa-Hadera - 60 seconds; Netanya-Tel Aviv-Rishon Letzion - 2 minutes; Jerusalem-Eilat - 3 minutes; settlements surrounding Gaza - 15-60 seconds.

Post this map on your refrigerator just to be on the safe side!

- English-language text from www.oref.org.il

The interpretation

This text appeared on a magnetized card with a round hole at one end, of the kind used for "Please do not disturb" announcements in hotels, and so on. And, in fact, one recent day some unknown hand hung the card on the door handle of every home in the country - apparently as part of the huge and well-publicized Home Front exercise scheduled for next week. On the card is a map of Greater Israel showing alarm zones and adorned with all manner of cute pictures: a dolphin cavorting in the water, a camel in the Negev, a child diving in Eilat and a skier on Mount Hermon - all of them with ear-to-ear smiles. As it was said (in one of the dozen last wars): To the life of this nation, and how good it is, too!

What is the purpose of the exercise? According to Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai (who clung so tenaciously to his goal that he succeeded in navigating from the Olmert government to the same post in the Netanyahu government, with the same exercise in his knapsack): "The goal is to introduce people to the culture of emergency." Meaning? "The whole State of Israel is within range of enemy missiles. Including the Negev. Everyone has to know that the probability exists that in the next war a missile will land in his backyard."

The upcoming exercise is called "Turning Point 3." But what were the two previous turning points, if we are now more threatened than ever? It seems we have come a long way, after 60 years of mega-security, repeated deterrence innovation, development of brilliant munitions and military genius financed by trillions: The missile - in contrast to the chambermaid - may not stop at the door. But, thanks to inculcation of the "culture of emergency" in every home, at least it will not arrive as a complete surprise.

"The Home Front Command has improved its alarm systems": But by the same token HFC did not improve protection itself, did not build shelters, did not provide any kind of defense, only "improved its alarm systems." What it did is reshuffle the alarm zones, devise a jingle and print "information" materials. (Compare this to "the Broadcasting Authority is improving client service" - meaning, it is not improving the technical aspects or the program content, but is streamlining the form of payment and collection of the television fee.)

"How to choose a protected space?" The text implies that the citizen - like a connoisseur perusing the tasting menu of L'atelier de Joel Robuchon in Las Vegas - has available a vast abundance of dizzying options to choose from. Will I choose the recommended apartmental protected space (APS) as the specialty of the day? Or perhaps the aromatic protected floor space (PFS)? Or will it be the folksy stir-fried shelter? How about the not-recommended (but why?) kitchen? In reality, apart from former frontier towns that now play second fiddle to Metropolitan Tel Aviv as a target, no one in the big cities has the slightest clue what an APS or a PFS is - certainly not in those buildings that rest on spindly columns, in which the hammering of a nail on the top floor may topple a plaster wall on the ground floor. Imagine what an 800-kilogram warhead would do to whole parking areas and consider the name archaeologists might give the resulting crater. But compartmentalization into three-four categories creates an illusion of order, of things being under control. Hey, why does the Home Front have a command if not to divide the chaos into three parts?

"Minimum of external walls ... The kitchen, toilet room or bathroom should not be chosen": Is this war or not? Do you want to go on stuffing yourself from the refrigerator and washing your hair, do you want both to hold on to the territories and to eliminate the Iranian threat? Decide: It's either-or.

"Water ... first aid kit": The whole art of Israeli mega-security can be summed up in one sentence: "The bigger the projected catastrophe and the hysteria inherent in the threat, the smaller and weaker the proposed defense." We are scared by the talk of an Iranian atomic bomb or Iraqi chemical weapons, but once again we are being told to protect ourselves by drinking water, putting tape on the windows and keeping the children busy. In short, if the apocalypse arrives, a Jew should have handy a clean bandage and a nice pill against headaches.

"Games, newspapers, books, things that will make passing the time pleasant": In the spirit of the recommendations of those vacuous advice columns in the newspapers: Drink when you're thirsty, eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired and get healthy when you're sick. But as Samuel Johnson noted, people don't so much want information as they want reminders.

"According to the time you have ... in accordance with the following map": The great innovation of this exercise - the division into alarm zones, to which a certain amount of seconds or minutes of escape time is allotted - seems a bit puzzling, as it is apparently relevant in the case of a strike on Upper Galilee or the area around the Gaza Strip, rather than during a ballistic missile attack on the center of the country. But that is only natural in a country that prepares for the findings of the last commission of inquiry better than for the next war.

"Post this on your refrigerator ...": MAD magazine once distributed to its readers a series of absurd stickers, one of which warned: "Do not remove this sticker - it's holding up the building!" With us the sticker holds up the whole of state security. So, good burghers, simply "post" it on the 'fridge "just to be on the safe side." That's the same safety we achieved with the adhesive tape and with the gas masks and by reciting Psalms and with the map of the zones and with Matan Vilnai as deputy defense minister: another good fellow who rolled up his sleeves and entered the government of national refusal with his party - not to prevent the next war but to try to extract us from its ruins.
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  1.   Doron you say it best. Missile defense is Peace. 00:30  |  Lou Medel 30/05/09
  2.   It looks as if a war with Iran is imminent 00:47  |  Witness 30/05/09
  3.   The Sky is Falling, the Sky is Falling, BWAAAK! 02:06  |  Mark Lincoln 30/05/09
  4.   witness 2 02:09  |  potobac 30/05/09
  5.   No mention of gas masks? 02:31  |  Chris Linthwaite 30/05/09
  6.   Unbelievable 04:36  |  Iain 30/05/09
  7.   this is all well and good,but it will not work if a nuke hits,not 04:57  |  glenna 30/05/09
  8.   Medel actually the best dence is offence 06:35  |  Dan 30/05/09
  9.   every israeli is a hero!! KOL HAKABOD 07:06  |  sg 30/05/09
  10.   Another Ignorant "Tel Avivi" haaretz article. 09:59  |  Daniel 30/05/09
  11.   #8 the best offense 10:12  |  omega 30/05/09
  12.   no defense from missles 10:16  |  john 30/05/09
  13.   John you`re wrong 10:34  |  Paul 30/05/09
  14.   Nr 6, Lain & Nr 12, John 13:02  |  Serge 30/05/09
  15.   Johnboy 13:43  |  Sean 30/05/09
  16.   For: Chris Linthwaite 14:02  |  Avi 30/05/09
  17.   #16 Avi 15:42  |  Chris Linthwaite 30/05/09
  18.   No Paul I` not wrong 15:54  |  john 30/05/09
  19.   # 6 Iain 16:07  |  Charles Ronen 30/05/09
  20.   We expect no less 16:15  |  Arie 30/05/09
  21.   c`mon Avi 16:18  |  john 30/05/09
  22.   #5 Chris the british nutter, does not come to terms.. 17:31  |  PJ 30/05/09
  23.   #20 arie 17:33  |  Chris Linthwaite 30/05/09
  24.   Palestinians have the right to have their stolen land 18:08  |  Antonio da Silva 30/05/09
  25.   To Lain (#6). And I always thought New Zealand was on Earth. 18:31  |  flyingdoc57 30/05/09
  26.   Forgot the fresh white bedsheets and walk towards 18:39  |  Witness 30/05/09
  27.   #3 Lincoln - You forgot, the sky did fall here 18:54  |  *BEN JABO 30/05/09
  28.   #16 Linthwaite - Ever hear of Mustard Gas? 19:04  |  *BEN JABO 30/05/09
  29.   #26 Ben Jabo 19:52  |  Chris Linthwaite 30/05/09
  30.   Flying Doc 20:13  |  Iain 30/05/09
  31.   Israel Map without the Green Line 22:05  |  Judith Adler 30/05/09
  32.   New Zealanders are down to Earth 07:56  |  Iain 31/05/09
  33.   #29 Linthwaite - you know so very little 19:07  |  *BEN JABO 31/05/09
  34.   #32 lain 19:13  |  *BEN JABO 31/05/09
  35.   Move quickly seeking harden cover 02:17  |  Moshe 04/06/09
  36.   RE: Palestinians have their right to have their stolen land. 10:51  |  Aron 01/07/09
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