This is what 1948 was like in Israel. Mothers and their daughters and sons had to hold their breath, while Daddy (“Abba”) took his turn up in this sentry watchtower. They had to try to not imagine Lebanese or Syrian or even Egyptian regular army brazenly advancing on Daddy’s post, and letting loose a barrage that would leave its metal frame looking like . . . swiss cheese. Or recoilless shoulder mounted missiles obliterating it instantaneously. The same held true if it was a young woman’s boyfriend, with the path to the marriage canopy an active dream.

Have you focused on the horizon here? Just over it is Lebanon. That meant zero  troops there at any given time, and 500 Arab soldiers and fedayeen massing there a few hours later.

Yeah, this is a butterfly blog, but at the base of this relic guard tower is a SPNI Meron trail, and that’s how I first came to see this. It transfixed me. How secure did those Daddys, husbands, brothers, cousins and young men feel up in that glorified sardine can?

The Arab regular armies invaded the nascent tiny little Israel in 1948. The Jews repulsed them, and held.

I just read yesterday that Israel took delivery of its first US F-35 jet fighter. I read on, and I  thought, Thank You G-d. A dragon killer, it’s said to be. What a long way from this sardine can perched on those spindly steel supports!

Think you know the deal in this “Palestine.” Better first read From Time Immemorial – The Origins Of The Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine by Joan Peters and its hundreds of footnotes, before you once again speak authoritatively about today’s Middle East.

This guard tower, it must have been sheer  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  when they came, sheer  . . . . . . . . . . . .

Oh, sure, there were lots of butterflies flying there those several days.

Jeff